The success of a business depends on understanding all forms of information - both structured and unstructured.
So said Yves de Talhouet, senior VP and MD of HP EMEA, speaking during a press briefing at the HP Discover conference, in Vienna, yesterday.
According to Talhouet, now is the time for organisations to have always- and instant-on solutions. He explained that in an instant-on enterprise, everyone expects immediate gratification and instant results.
“Such enterprises are better at responding to opportunity and competition everywhere, anytime and anywhere,” he said.
However, Talhouet noted that the majority of organisations are struggling to achieve an instant-on environment within their operations.
He noted that a survey conducted by HP of senior business and technology executives revealed that nearly half (48%) do not have an effective information strategy in place.
“Only 2% can deliver the right information to support enterprise outcomes 100% of the time, while 34% said 50% of the information within the organisation is unconnected, undiscovered and unused.”
Some 35% revealed that their organisations are not accessing enterprise information as and when needed for legal, compliance and operational needs, Talhouet added.
He also indicated that information powers the instant-on enterprise, adding that businesses are currently operating in a human information and extreme data era.
“Human information is made up of information and ideas. For example, 12 million texts are sent every minute and 294 billion e-mails are sent every day, worldwide. All of this is exploding and needs to be managed in real-time.
“When we talk about extreme data, we look at volume, velocity, variety and complexity of the data. Only 15% of data lives in databases, while unstructured data accounts for 85%,” Talhouet explained.
Also speaking during the press briefing, Mike Lynch, executive VP of information management at HP, and founder and CEO of Autonomy, an HP subsidiary, said unstructured data has evolved, as it now includes texts, sound, XML, video and audio.
Lynch also indicated that the world will continue moving towards human-friendly information. “This is one of the biggest changes in the IT industry's history, and we are at the beginning of it.”
He urged organisations to automate the processing of such information. “To capture this value, the technology must be able to distill meaning and make decisions based on it.”
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