How organisations leverage Big Data: a maturity model

Abstract

Purpose. While it is commonly recognised that Big Data have an immense potential to generate value for business organisations, appropriating value from Big Data and, in particular, Big Data-enabled analytics is still an open issue for many organisations. This paper develops a maturity model to support organisations in the realisation of the value created by Big Data. Design/Methodology/Approach. The maturity model is developed following a qualitative approach based on literature analysis and semi-structured interviews with domain experts. The completeness and usefulness of the model are evaluated qualitatively by practitioners, whereas the applicability of the model is evaluated by Big Data maturity assessments in three real world organisations. Findings. The proposed maturity model is considered exhaustive by domain experts and has helped the three assessed organisations to develop a more critical understanding of the next steps to take. Originality/Value. The maturity model integrates existing industry-developed maturity models into one single coherent Big Data maturity model. The proposed model answers the call for research on Big Data to abstract from technical issues to focus on the business implications of Big Data initiatives.

Big data for policymaking: fad or fasttrack?

“…Data culture within public organizations refers to understanding big data not only as an IT issue, but as something that requires support from organization-wide structures and capabilities (Helfat et al 2007;Comuzzi and Patel 2016). Specifically, it emphasizes the importance of civil servants and policymakers understanding how to find, analyze and utilize big data and the institutional structure to support this through, for example, training or sharing of data among government departments.…”

Maturity Models for Systems Thinking

“…This assumption is evident throughout scholarly papers in many disciplines that address maturity, for example: In agile software development: e.g., that practices evolve from ad hoc to continuous improvement [50].…”

“…Unfortunately, "the central term of maturity is seldom defined explicitly", despite the number of entrants into the field of maturity models [54] (p. 338). It is unsurprising then, that questions have been raised about how accurately maturity is being codified [47], how effectively it can be measured [50], and whether the claims of its existence in hierarchical structures are a representation of reality that is accurate [20]. Maturity is a complex phenomenon involving many intricately related factors.…”

“…• "pillar factors", "dimensions", and "axes" [17]; • "structural components", "phases", "key agents", and "externalities" [54]; • "drivers" [50]; • "input competencies" [6]; and • "tools" [53].…”

“…Some models focus on within-stage characteristics, clarifying in sometimes great detail each level; they facilitate progress only indirectly, by merely naming the subsequent stage to be achieved ("benchmarking models" are examples of this [53]). Developmentally oriented models take a more active and direct role in facilitating users' progress, describing constraining forces that account for limited functioning (i.e., explaining why one is at a current level of maturity and not a higher one), and by naming drivers or enabling factors that would facilitate movement toward each next stage [50].…”