Canadian companies slow to adopt big data: Google, IDC

OTTAWA—Canadian companies are slow to adopt “big data” technologies that can help them extract large amounts of consumer and business information to better improve their corporate strategies and operations, industry experts said. Colin McKay, global public policy manager at Google Inc.’s Canadian division, said at conference in Ottawa Wednesday called The Data Effect Forum that Canadian companies are not ambitious enough to make big data a “landmark business” factor in Canada’s economic growth. He said big data technologies, which allow companies to extract and analyze large amounts of data about their products, services and consumers, have been “very successful” in their commercialization in other countries during the past three years. “Canadian companies still don’t have the expertise or the impulse to educate, then to put in place those analysts who are essential to identify the opportunities that can help us move forward as a company, as a consumer and as an economy,” McKay said. Alison Brooks, research director of the public sector at IDC Government Insights, said at the conference that companies spent $6.8 billion on big data technologies globally in 2012, at a compound annual growth rate of 39.4 per cent during the year. In Canada, Brooks said, big data technology expenses will reach $300 million by 2015, representing a “slightly smaller” opportunity for big data than the global average. According to IDC, data, Brooks said, companies using big data are five per cent more productive and six per cent more profitable than those that do not. She pointed to Minneapolis, Minn.-based Target Corp. as an example of a company that has used big data to track the stages of its customers’ lives and inform targeted advertising campaigns and individualized products. Only 14 per cent of Canadian companies have a strategy for big data, she said. “ is here to stay and I do believe it’s going to have extra success and extra value just by virtue of bringing business and together,” she said. —With reporting by Danika Grenier at dgrenier@thewirereport.ca and editing by Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca

Canadian companies slow to adopt big data: Google, IDC

Broadcast | April 17, 2013

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