Over half of senior executives in the UK are unable to get access to the information they need to run their organisations effectively – a problem exacerbated by the fact that data volumes are increasing by over 70% every year.

According to a survey of 100 decision-makers at telecoms, retail and financial services companies conducted by marketing research group RDMP Communications, "disparity of data" is the primary barrier to their ability to make informed business decisions, followed by the sheer "volume of data". Respondents also cited issues such as the unavailability of key data and the speed of access to data.

"The research underlines the need for organisations to utilise the information residing in the enterprise to make the most informed decisions – whether they be on pricing, marketing or risk analysis," says Diane Kolonko, chief executive of business intelligence software and services company, WhiteCross, which commissioned the survey.

The research also revealed that nearly one-third of respondents do not currently have a strategy to deal with the exploding quantity of unstructured data in their organisations. According to Kolonko, the real challenge facing organisations is that these companies do not have the tools to fully realise the value of the data they are assimilating.