Although some say that money makes the world go around, today’s marketers are just as likely to say that data makes their world go around. Data offers businesses new opportunities to better understand their customers through a limitless number of sources, including purchasing behaviors, interactions, demographics, and history. The end objective is to deliver a personalized customer experience that prompts the consumer to take the desired action.

Unfortunately, pulling insights from data to deliver a better customer experience is not always easy. Doing it effectively requires skills and knowledge that some businesses are lacking. According to Gartner, 85% of Fortune 500 companies are ill- prepared to exploit Big Data in their organizations to support these efforts. In July 2015, 1to1 Media published an Infographic highlighting the latest statistics around Big Data and the challenges that marketers face. By 2018, there could be a shortage of between a 140,000 and 190,000 people with the requisite talent to provide essential data analytics and predictive modeling skills as well as a shortage of 1.5 million managers and analysts with the ability to leverage the insight to make effective decisions. Eight in ten executives agree that the ability to harness data would make their businesses much stronger.

Big Data Infographic from 1to1 Media