02 April 2024

Syniti has announced the results of a UK and Ireland-wide survey of SAP users, delving into data challenges ahead of a crucial time for many organisations as they prepare to migrate to SAP S/4HANA.

The key findings reveal untapped data strategy potential that, left unchecked, could impact the success of major data migrations and technology adoption. Although 79% of respondents reported that their use of data analytics has increased over the last 12 months, only 12% have a comprehensive data strategy covering their entire organisation. Just 7% of those questioned are very confident when it comes to the quality and accessibility of their organisation’s data. 73% say compliance is their main data management concern, while 77% think data management presents a challenge when moving to SAP S/4HANA. 82% say data management challenges will slow their organisation’s adoption of AI technologies.

Although the growing importance of data management and its impact on business outcomes is well documented, data strategy still tends to sit with the IT team (62%) with low C-suite ownership (3%). This lack of buy-in from senior leaders could explain the low numbers reporting comprehensive data strategies, the high levels of data challenge and compliance concerns. The knock-on effect of not putting data first is that there are increased challenges especially during data migration. Overall, the organisations questioned say that the quality and accessibility of their data remains an issue. The challenges are wide-ranging and with real-life implications not only for migration and adoption of new technologies. Data silos stifle real-time decision-making according to 89% of respondents, and data duplication is also listed as a top challenge (80%).