A new survey sponsored by British business intelligence software and services firm Kognitio Ltd shows that the overwhelming majority of UK financial services firms deem data migration projects to be too risk and costly.
Nearly 75% of the 100 senior decision makers interviewed at financial services, manufacturing, retail and transport firms said they were fearful of data migration projects going awry
Around 55% of survey respondents admitted a tendency in the past to shy away from large data migration projects despite gathering large volumes of data. This applied particularly to large companies, 64% of which said they had been discouraged from undertaking data migration projects that were seen as not worthwhile.
But the survey found that it was financial services firms that were most reticent when responding to the need for data migration.
Roger Llewellyn, CEO of Marlow, UK-based Kognitio, said the hesitancy among financial services firms to embark on costly and risky data migration projects was due to the critical importance these companies place on effectively managing their data assets.
Financial organisations are a law onto themselves when it comes to data migration projects; compared to most other industries they have different needs and face different challenges, Llewellyn said
He added that most financial organizations live and die by their data: Since there are no physical products they manufacture or distribute, data is their business and they cannot take any risks with it.
Of course every vendor-sponsored survey has a commercial point to make, this one is no different.
Data migration is a core part of Kognitio’s service offerings. The company boasts one of the largest independent data migration services teams in the UK and claims it can manage data migration projects in half the time and cost as in-house initiatives that are still prevalent among financial services firms. Financial services firms like Prudential and Norwich Union use Kognitio’s services.
Additionally, Kognitio also develops a highly-scalable analytic database called WX2 which it acquired from WhiteCross Systems Ltd a couple of years ago.