Even though B2B companies realize the importance of good data management in driving success, the majority still don’t prioritize addressing the data skill gaps in their marketing departments, according to a recent study from data management provider Openprise.
The report, “2016 State of B2B Marketing Data Management,” took the pulse of 183 U.S.-based B2B marketers. It found just 10 percent of respondents consider data skills a high priority, yet more than a third believe that a lack of data skills present a significant barrier to success.
“This perfectly illustrates the fact that although companies do realize data is important, they rarely give it its fair share of budget or attention,” the report said.
The report indicated that for more than half of B2B marketers (60 percent), the biggest benefit of data is that it enables them to make more accurate, better-informed decisions.
“Without clean data, your mar-tech stack is a house of cards,” said Ed King, CEO of Openprise. “But it goes beyond that. At a high level, bad data hurts your business as a whole, as it makes good decisions nearly impossible.”
For more than half (54 percent), poor data use/accessibility is the most significant barrier to data management success, followed by poor data quality (44 percent), lack of ROI measurability (40 percent), poor database integration (37 percent), data skills gap (34 percent), not a budget priority (26 percent) and lack of data richness (18 percent).
“I agree that the ability to unify and access data is a huge hurdle for organizations today. Everybody wants insights, but before you can connect the dots, you have to collect the dots,” said John Donlon, research director of marketing operations and strategies at SiriusDecisions, who was cited in the report.
