Almost three-quarters of companies admit to collecting data but never using it

Data processing is too time consuming and expensive, say businesses in the UK, France and Germany

Almost three-quarters (72 per cent) of companies in the UK, France and Germany have admitted that they collect data but never use it, a study by flash storage provider Pure Storage has found.

In its European Big Data - Big Failure report, released today, Pure Storage asked businesses whether they have gathered data including financial information, customer insights, HR statistics and other information, but not used it. Half of the respondents said that this happens occasionally, while a further 22 per cent said this often happens. Just over a quarter (26 per cent) ticked the "no, we always use the data we acquire" box, while two per cent said they didn't know.

When the 72 per cent of firms were then questioned as to why they don't fully process the data they have, the top answer - allowing for multiple answers - was that data processing was too time consuming (48 per cent). Forty-six per cent said that they lacked the internal skills to do so, and 30 per cent said they didn't have the proper data processing tools required. Nearly a fifth (19 per cent) said that it was too expensive to process data.

In its study, Pure Storage found that the majority of businesses (78 per cent) believed they could boost their performance by at least 21 per cent if they could access insights from data faster. But over half (51 per cent) of businesses within the UK, France and Germany, said they had lost an opportunity that they'd not seen until it had already gone.

Nearly a third (31 per cent) said this happened more than once a year, and almost a fifth (19 per cent) saw it happen a few times a week.

Pure Storage claimed that the fact companies aren't able to make use of data fast enough equates to up to £2m a year in lost revenue per company for those with sales between £100m and £500m, while it could be costing £20m per company, per year, for those firms who have revenues that exceed £1bn.

Pure Storage interviewed over 300 businesses in the UK, France and Germany between July and August 2015.