In July 1995, a former hedge fund executive launched a website that aimed to upend the traditional way of selling consumer goods, starting with books but soon expanding into a diverse array of products. Dubbed Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos's business went on to disrupt not only the way people typically shop, but also the book publishing industry itself, en route to becoming the world's largest online retailer. It now serves as a prime example of how technology can enable innovative companies to fundamentally rethink the way business is done, as opposed to merely optimising existing processes.

In much the same way that the internet was the fundamental disruptive technology driving corporate strategic change in the 1990s, today the myriad forms of data emerging from our internet-enabled digital world promise a similar transformation. Very few executives need convincing that having more data about their products, people and processes can be empowering-and profitable. But how far has the data-driven revolution gone? How many companies have followed pioneers like Amazon into transforming their strategy—and potentially their industry-through data-driven insights?

This study seeks to examine the progress that executives have made in using information to transform their business. It highlights some of the striking gains that are being achieved so far, as companies rush to capture all kinds of new insights. From beer companies like Anheuser-Busch using data to understand where, how and when to place its products to optimise sales, through to businesses like Universal Music using data to better identify up-and-coming artists. But the research also uncovers how much work remains to be done, in terms of genuinely making use of the transformational potential of data within business. Right now, however, most businesses are focused on using this to optimise their existing approaches and processes; far fewer have found wholly new ways of operating, or breakthrough opportunities.

The report's key findings include:

• A strong relationship between earnings growth and strategic use of data. Although relationship does not suggest causality, this study finds sharp differences between "high growth" firms, based on their EBITDA performance over the past three years, as compared to their "no growth" peers. For example, even though both sets of firms collect lots of data, high-growth firms make far better use of it, while no-growth firms are more likely to find themselves swamped by the data they hold. Similarly, twice as many high-growth firms consider themselves highly effective at extracting insights from data, as compared to no-growth companies. High-growth firms have also done more to reform their structures and leadership around data, suggesting greater internal maturity on this issue. In particular, they are more than twice as likely to have a well-defined data management strategy in place.
• All C-suite functions are finding uses for data, but so far data has proved most valuable for marketing leaders. From better ways to segment the customer base, to rethinking the ideal product mix in a retail store, marketing leaders are finding wide-ranging uses for their data to help improve how they market their company's wares. Already, 50% of chief marketing officers say they have tried and found a clear, positive difference in using data to improve their understanding of customers, as just one of a range of successful applications. This is a markedly higher proportion than their C-suite peers.
• The financial services sector, technology companies, and professional services firms are most prepared for the data age. One of the key indicators identified within the survey is the degree to which a company has established a well-defined data management strategy. Considering this core metric, three sectors stand out as being most prepared for the data age: the financial services sector (where 22% have this in place); the technology industry (30%); and the professional services sector (40%). By contrast, data management strategies are least often found amongst manufacturers (16%) or retailers (13%).
• Many companies are unsure about the extent of data-fuelled strategic transformation within their business. Companies of all kinds are finding impressive ways to use data to optimise their sales, marketing and other functions. Moreover, 68% of respondents think their strategy has improved in the past two years as a result of having more data. But only 18% see a significant improvement in strategy, and few have found ways to use data to make a genuinely transformational shift in the business. Some 35% of executives agree that data has been more useful with operational choices and actions, rather than strategic ones. Just 22% disagree, while 41% are unsure. Moreover, while 72% of companies regard themselves as effective at extracting strategic insights from data, only 12% of executives polled for this study consider their companies to be "highly effective" in this regard. Similarly, for what is usually a confident executive audience, unusually high proportions of survey respondents regard themselves as below average on this issue, including 20% of COOs and 17% of CFOs.
• Businesses are stockpiling an ever-growing range of data and expect data gathering to continue to expand rapidly. Whether social media sentiment, machine-generated data via sensors, staff emails, market data or otherwise, firms of all shapes and sizes are now collecting more information than ever before. At least seven in ten companies collect syndicated third-party data, such as weather information (72%), or government data (70%), while many gather anything from internal staff data (66%) to some kind of location-based information (41%), among many other types. Two-thirds of business leaders say the range and types of data have expanded in the past two years, while about three-quarters expect this data stockpiling to expand yet further in the coming two years.
• Working out which data matters most is the top challenge for firms, but there are wide ranging issues to overcome. For companies seeking to gain more strategic insights from their data, many hurdles await. Whether organisational silos, a lack of skills, the usual disconnects between IT and the business, or worries over data quality, few consider the challenges and gaps easy to bridge. But clarity on which data matters most, amidst the data stockpiling now under way, is what tops the list of barriers, according to 40% of respondents. Furthermore, 34% of executives worry that the quality of their decisions are actually being impaired by data overload.
• Those companies that claim to be best at extracting insights from data are not necessarily looking to their CIOs to lead on this initiative. While the CIO is the default leader of choice across the vast majority of firms surveyed, there is a spike to preference towards the CEO and other C-suite leaders among those companies best at extracting strategic insights from data. This group is also nearly eight times as likely to have a data management strategy; and four times as likely to have changed the way they make strategic decisions. As with the high-growth firms sub-set, they are typically far more likely to see scope for radical transformation of the business through better use of data.