IDC Insight Report Presents Utility Case Studies on Big Data Analytics

International Data Corporation (IDC) Energy Insights announced today the availability of a new report, “The Maturity of Analytics Strategies in the Utility Industry,” that presents mini case studies to highlight how different typical utilities are approaching their big data analytics initiatives.

Based on the research findings, this new report provides a cross-sectional view from the industry of why and how these typical utilities are looking at analytics, what has driven their efforts, how they are structuring their efforts, what aspects of big data they are looking at, and what technologies, if any, they are using.

This report provides a qualitative look at the same BDA (Big Data Analytics) issues that were presented from a quantitative perspective in the recent report, "Business Strategy: IDC MaturityScape Benchmark — Big Data and Analytics in Utilities in North America", (March 2014).

Big data and analytics (BDA) initiative are on the rise in the utility industry.

With a multitude of potential use cases, and a growing volume of data to drive the point home, utilities have been reporting a growing number of exploratory efforts, initiatives, and pilots.

However, conversations with utilities continue to indicate a significant amount of uncertainty about the drivers for big data analytics, key success factors, and how to leverage internal expertise, and how to direct an initiative.

While a rapidly growing volume of incoming data is certainly a strong motivator for some utilities, other utilities are simply reacting to market hype, and jumping on what they perceive as a bandwagon.

To support utilities in their BDA initiatives, IDC has provided in prior research an analytics maturity profile of the utility industry, as well as data addressing the correlation between dimensions of big data analytics and the resulting high or low achievement of big data analytics success.