Data Woes Draining Value From Business Application Investments

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sept. 20, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- News Facts:

• Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA), the world’s number one independent provider of data integration software, today announced the availability of a new study by independent researcher Ovum. This research reveals why many enterprises are experiencing declining value from their business application portfolios and how they can reverse this negative trend.
• Entitled Optimizing Enterprise Applications: The Data Connection, the Informatica-sponsored study pinpoints data sprawl and poor quality data as prime culprits of poor application management and performance, accusing poor data of "defeating the purpose" of implementing or running the applications.
• According to Ovum, "All efforts to improve application management and delivery will be in vain if the underlying data and its management strategy are flawed -- no matter how well architected the application platform, or how effective the development team."

Leading data-related problems

• Ovum surveyed top IT executives at 146 large enterprises in North America, Australia and the UK. The survey results highlight significant issues affecting the sustaining of applications that result from issues with data. Specifically:
  • Application delivery - Providing clean, trusted data, compliance and timely access were ranked as the foremost challenges.
  • Application performance - Performance problems plague approximately 85% of companies surveyed, with the leading culprits being lack of standardized data, inefficient (or lack of) archiving policies, followed by reliance on too many point interfaces.
  • Application data management - Data reliability was prevalent across applications with a mean of 20 to 30 percent of data being duplicated. This results in increased application maintenance costs. In addition, issues relating to data migration, synchronization and retention ranked highly.

Big Opportunity - Over 50 percent of Enterprises Don’t Have a Data Focus

• Respondents highlighted specific data management solutions being considered as ways of solving their issues:
  • Implementing a consistent Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) strategy to manage the growing volumes of data.
  • Implementing data services to reduce the proliferation of application interfaces.
  • Improving data quality and consistency to improve the overall quality of data.
  • Implementing master data management to reduce the duplicity of data.
• While fewer than half of respondents currently have these tools, more than half plan to adopt many of the tools within the next 12 months.

Recommendations

• According to Ovum, specific recommendations for enterprises include:
  • Start by looking at the quality of the data, which will guide next moves into related data management disciplines.
  • Take a lifecycle approach to the management of data across applications.
  • Ensure a strong data foundation when migrating off of legacy systems by looking at the information processed there and how it relates to other data sources.

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Supporting Quotes:

• "Simply put, without sound data, and an even sounder data management strategy, your investment in business applications will diminish over time as your portfolio grows and expands across the enterprise," said Tony Baer, Principal Analyst, Ovum. "There is no silver bullet as every enterprise and problem are different. But the common thread remains: effective rationalization and management of data are at the heart of any challenge to optimize the application portfolio."
• "As enterprise data continues to grow in volume, velocity, variety and variability, implementing a platform for big data integration is imperative for companies looking to leverage transaction and social media data across the extended enterprise," said Girish Pancha, general manager, Data Integration, Informatica. "This means that organizations must effectively manage every phase of the data lifecycle, using Information Lifecycle Management, data quality, data services, master data management and other disciplines and techniques, in order to optimize the performance and increase the return on investment from their business application portfolio."

Additional Links

• Informatica Application Information Lifecycle Management
• Informatica Data Quality
• Informatica Data Services
• Informatica Master Data Management
• Informatica Platform

About Informatica

Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA) is the world’s number one independent provider of data integration software. Organizations around the world rely on Informatica to gain a competitive advantage with timely, relevant and trustworthy data for their top business imperatives. Worldwide, over 4,440 enterprises depend on Informatica for data integration, data quality and big data solutions to access, integrate and trust their information assets residing on-premise and in the Cloud. For more information, call +1 650-385-5000 (1-800-653-3871 in the U.S.), or visit www.informatica.com. Connect with Informatica at http://www.facebook.com/InformaticaCorporation, http://www.linkedin.com/company/informatica and http://twitter.com/InformaticaCorp.

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Note: Informatica, Informatica Application Information Lifecycle Management, Informatica Data Quality, Informatica Data Services, Informatica Master Data Management and Informatica Platform are trademarks or registered trademarks of Informatica Corporation in the United States and in jurisdictions throughout the world. All other company and product names may be trade names or trademarks of their respective owners.