Organisational rather than technological challenges are preventing companies from implementing business-wide analytics, according to new research from IBM and the MIT Sloan Management Review.

44% of organisations cited cultural barriers, such as the need for new leadership skills and resistance to new ideas, as the primary obstacle to enterprise-wide analytics. Only 24% named technological challenges as the main concern.

Since the 2010 version of the report, the number of respondents citing a competitive advantage from the use of data analytics jumped 66% for what the report calls ‘experienced’ organisations, with an extra 23% of the more advanced businesses seeing an advantage from their use of analytics.

The report found that the use of analytics was creating a competitive advantage for those businesses that made it a priority. "The early and aggressive adopters of analytics make significant gains in both performance and overall competitiveness,” said Fred Balboni of IBM’s business analytics division. “These indicators point to an urgent need for organizations to foster a data-oriented culture and drive an analytics strategy that embeds fact-based insights into decisions and processes at every level of the business.”

While the majority of organisations are using analytics to manage their financial and operational activities, most tend not to rely on analytics-based insights for decisions in other key areas, the report said. Even among the organisations with the most advanced data analytics program, less than half said they rely on data and analytics to make decisions involving customers, business strategy and human resources.