Prague – According to the latest Worldwide Semiannual Big Data and Analytics Spending Guide from International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide revenues for big data and business analytics (BDA) will grow from $130.10 billion in 2016 to more than $203 billion in 2020. IDC's Spending Guides offer greater insight into key technology markets by providing expanded revenue detail by technology, industry, and geography. In the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region, BDA revenues are expected to reach $2.73 billion by the end of 2016, representing an increase of 8.9% over the previous year.

In terms of technologies used in BDA deployments, a large portion of spending is focused on IT and business services and hardware (servers and storage), which collectively account for more than 70% of spending. The remainder is distributed among the various applications and software technologies that enable data analysis. “This figure indicates that the region is still ‘finding its legs’ with respect to setting the groundwork for a larger big data initiative,” says Tom Vavra, associate vice-president for Software and Customer Insights and Analysis with IDC. “Such a large portion of spending on hardware and services means that most customers are still in the early stages of deployment. As the use cases become more mature, spending will turn to the software that actually delivers the insights promised by big data, but we are only now seeing the beginning of that in CEE.”

Among software technologies, the largest share of total spending is for end user query, reporting, and analysis tools (7.8%), followed by data warehouse management tools (6.2%). The remainder of BDA spending was spread thinly among a number of other analytic applications.

In terms of industries, banking is the largest spender on BDA technologies in CEE, accounting for 14.7% of spending followed by telco (12.5%) and central government (12.0%). Other industries with longer term potential include manufacturing (both process and discrete), utilities, and local government. Industries that have shown very little BDA spending to date include construction, education, and healthcare. Industry adoption and uptake patterns in the CEE region are very much in line with those in other regions and with worldwide totals. The noticeable differences are found in retail and professional services, where the worldwide share of spending is considerably larger than in the CEE region.

Currently, more than 50% of big data and analytics spending worldwide is generated in the Unites States. The CEE region accounts for a mere 2.1% of global revenues. Among CEE countries, Russia is the clear leader in terms of spending, accounting for more than 36% of the regional total, followed by Poland with more than 26%. The Czech Republic is the third-largest investor in the region and accounts for nearly 13% of the total market. All other countries account for marginal shares of total spending.

“As noted, BDA adoption is still in the early stages in CEE, but that’s not a bad thing,” observes Vavra. “Taking things slowly and carefully mapping out what you want to accomplish with big data, assigning responsibilities for its rollout and development, and taking an inventory of what data to target and prepare for analysis are the keys to success for any BDA initiative, and they are far more important than the technologies selected to deploy it.”

The Worldwide Semiannual Big Data and Analytics Spending Guide is designed to address the needs of organizations assessing the big data and business analytics opportunity by geography, industry, and company size. The Spending Guide provides subscribers with revenue projections for 15 technology and service categories across 19 industries, five company size bands, and 53 countries. Unlike any other research in the industry, the comprehensive Spending Guide was designed to help IT decision makers to clearly understand the industry-specific scope and direction of big data and business analytics opportunity today and over the next five years.