Government initiatives a major growth driver for big data, analytics in Australia: IDC

Big data and analytics solutions spending in Australia and New Zealand hit US$5.5 billion in 2022, according to research from IDC, with government initiatives found as one of the primary growth drivers in Australia.

“The augment of Digital Economy Strategy 2030 highlights data analysis as one of the key technologies which will help Australia to engage in initiatives such as the Digital Atlas, Modern Manufacturing Strategy, and Consumer Data Right, amongst many others," the research firm said in its ‘Worldwide Big Data and Analytics Spending Guide’ released on Monday.

IDC said spending on big data and analytics was expected to register a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.3 percent between 2021-2026.

The sectors which spent the most in ANZ  were banking, 17.8 percent, federal government, 12.3 percent, and telecommunication: 8.6 percent.

IDC found that services captured the highest revenue share in 2022 at $2.7 billion, followed by software and hardware.

"This can be attributed to increasing penetration of IT services in the region," the report read.

Crucially, IDC predicted software and hardware would soon overtake services.

The report found that revenue generated by software and hardware for big data and analytics solutions was growing at CAGR of 12.1 percent (2021-2026) and was forecasted to capture nearly 70 percent spending by 2026."

Sustainability data analytics

With governments setting tougher decarbonisation targets and shareholders increasingly judging executives by their ESG results, sustainability data analytics platforms presents an opportunity for channel partners support to their customers in achieving their goals.

Research from global management consulting firm Kearney and the University of Melbourne’s Business School found demand for sustainability data analytics platforms in Australia is nascent.

In their jointly-produced 2021 Analytics Impact Index released in January, analytics’ contributions to the ESG components of the triple bottom line are nascent and that most companies are unclear on the link between environmental sustainability and analytics.

“In Australia, 37 percent of CEOs in the past five years (up from 10 percent in the previous five years) have moved on due to non-financial performance reasons,” the report read.

However, the results of organisations that have harnessed the technology to measure and control emissions, suggest the solutions are likely to become more popular.

“Those that have implemented analytics to optimise processes have reduced waste or emissions by 39 percent.”

Vendors poised to ride the demand  

Both independent and large vendors have sought to ride this demand by launching new solutions for company’s to measure and control their carbon emissions. 

IBM acquired Sydney-based Envizi, formerly CarbonSystems, in January because of its success in the sustainability and compliance market. 

Envizi’s data analytics software platform automates the collection and consolidation of more than 500 data types and supports major sustainability reporting frameworks. It counts Microsoft, Qantas, CBRE, Uber, abrdn and Celestica, and Monash and La Trobe University amongst its customers.

In March, AWS announced that it was working with a group of Australian mining and mining services companies to develop a mining data platform that uses machine learning to capture real-time information on mine decarbonisation from sites globally. 

In June, Accenture-owned, Microsoft partner Avanade developed two solutions based on Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability: Avanade Sustainability Technology Accelerator and Avanade Sustainability Quick-Start.

Avanade Sustainability Technology Accelerator integrates existing data sources to report on emissions and carbon impacts, and  Avanade Sustainability Quick-Start enables organisations to prioritise practical actions and to test and scale new innovations based on insights generated from Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability.

In late 2021 Microsoft, Accenture, Thoughtworks, NTT Data and other companies founded The Green Software Foundation. The not-for-profit supports the Software Carbon Intensity Specification, which rates software systems based on their carbon emissions.