Do you find dealing with data like drinking from a fire hydrant? Even as existing data silos continue to grow, an increasing range of external information sources offer new opportunities to understand customers better, to make better decisions or improve service delivery.

No organisation is working in a vacuum, however. Time and again we see new information management solutions become part of the problem as they hit limitations of scale and reach, relative to the needs of the business.

So, what to do?

In this latest Register white paper written in collaboration with Microsoft we look at:

• How a step-wise approach can enable organisations to first get on top of existing assets and extend their use
• Using this as a foundation to bring in other data types from a wider pool of sources
• How to use mechanisms and techniques from appliances to Hadoop and cloud-based analytics

Alongside the theory we look at the practice, drawing on examples from a variety of industry sectors to illustrate the challenges and ask:

• How can your organisation respond to the opportunities without coming unstuck?
• If the ultimate goal is real-time insight, what can be done to solve the problems of today, without creating new ones for the future?

When faced with such complexity, growth and speed of change, it can be difficult to know where to start. Our recommendation? Start with this paper here. You won’t regret it. ®