Data Visionaries Help Companies Thrive by Disrupting and Reshaping Industries Through Digital Transformation

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Nov. 13, 2017 -- NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP), the data authority in a hybrid cloud world, today announced the findings of a global research program focused on helping companies embrace digital transformation. In partnership with IDC, the research program provides immediate and impactful steps any company can use to transform. The study results announced today show what separates Data Thrivers, who are aggressively disruptive in the use of digital technologies to affect new markets, from those who are merely Data Survivors or even Data Resisters.

With only eleven percent of companies fitting the profile of a Data Thriver, traditional industries are now at serious risk of losing a significant percentage of their revenue to more data-driven organizations by 2018. Top industries at risk include utilities (29%), retail (>25%), industrial equipment (20%), financial services (18%), and government (18%).  Companies that use data to drive business and satisfy customers in new and innovative ways, have only just begun to disrupt the market.

“Data visionaries inspire their organizations to be Data Thrivers. They recognize that data is no longer locked away on devices hidden behind firewalls. It is now distributed, dynamic, and diverse,” said Jean English, SVP and CMO, NetApp. “Our mission is to support companies throughout the digital transformation process, delivering hybrid cloud data services that radically improve organizational efficiency and create new business opportunities.”

“As Europe’s leading stock exchange for private investors, we must find new and innovative ways to leverage the data generated from over 1.5 million tradable products to drive business and satisfy our customers,” said Michael Jaeggi, head of IT, Boerse Stuttgart GmbH. “To thrive in today’s data-driven economy, we looked to NetApp Technology to ‘bridge-the-cloud’ so we could focus on our core business, providing retail investors with next-generation financial services. We are looking forward in an open market of compute capacity, whether it comes from the cloud or other areas.”

Data Thrivers are taking steps to increase revenue, improve business outcomes, and transform data into dollars. Many Fortune 100 companies are building out innovation labs, as well as creating new roles for innovation executives and data management officers. Of the organizations that participated in the study, almost half already have a Chief Data Officer. 

Data Survivors are losing revenue opportunities, lagging in employing data to enhance customer satisfaction, and being overwhelmed by their data. They use disparate tools to manage data that is in different formats and different locations, which adds extra complexity to managing security, risk, privacy, and compliance.

“If companies don’t transform to become Data Thrivers, they will find themselves the victims of digital Darwinism, which is impacting businesses across industries and sizes,” said Laura DuBois, IDC group vice president, Enterprise Storage, Server and Infrastructure Software. “Organizations are moving away from business as usual and embracing digital transformation. Companies are discovering they must modernize their systems, models, processes, and architectures to compete.”

Organizations that exhibit Data Thriver behaviors are adopting a diverse set of technologies, including data services for hybrid cloud.  These services include various protection, security, integration, and optimization functions on data for the purposes of agile and economic data management and faster time to insights. 

Top three things that Data Survivors can learn from Data Thrivers:

• Use data as an organizational asset
• Enable IT and business to work in unison
• Create data maps for data visibility and control

Organizations seeking to move from Data Survivor to Data Thriver must perform a holistic transformation of people, process and technology and create a digital transformation roadmap, which should include:

• The creation of new roles
• Setting up new staffing models
• Instituting new processes
• Making new investments
• Exploiting data services for the hybrid cloud

Resources

• Data Thriver Research
  • Blog post
  • Whitepaper

About the Study
This study is based on a global survey of 800 line of business executives, IT leaders, and technology-savvy workers from large and medium-sized companies (those with 1,000+ employees in United States and 500+ employees in other countries) conducted in September 2017. Respondents were from seven countries (Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, and United States), with data weighted according to regional GDP. Respondents were decision makers with budget control or ability to influence budget spend for DX projects, were involved in DX projects for the company, and were responsible for evaluating or architecting at least two data services for hybrid cloud. Their personas included chief data officers, analytics professionals, and DevOps/cloud architects.

About NetApp 
NetApp is the data authority for hybrid cloud. We provide a full range of hybrid cloud data services that simplify management of applications and data across cloud and on-premises environments to accelerate digital transformation. Together with our partners, we empower global organizations to unleash the full potential of their data to expand customer touchpoints, foster greater innovation, and optimize their operations. For more information, visit www.netapp.com. #DataDriven

Press Contact: 
Madge Miller
NetApp 
1 408 419 5263
[email protected]

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