AIIM 2016 CA cover[5632]Just 20% of enterprises are currently using content analytics (CA), despite more than a quarter of business executives seeing it as essential, according to new research by information management analysts, AIIM. 59% of respondents see content analytics as essential within the next five years.

Despite this perception of content analytics, 43% of those surveyed see considerable investment as an implementation challenge. 35% in the AIIM study ‘Using Analytics – automating processes and extracting knowledge’ cite a lack of expertise needed to make it all happen.

“As organisations manage ever-growing volumes of content, they look to gain business advantage from that content by deploying CA to derive meaning and insight,” said Bob Larrivee, AIIM’s Chief Analyst. “Many executives view content analytics as essential but there are undoubted concerns about funding it and having the expertise to see it through.”

For organisations that are already underway with their content analytics programmes, the benefits are clear to see. 61% of respondents feel the intelligence derived from CA is most useful in providing better insight and decision making capabilities, while 37% feel it is improved product or service quality.

The variety of content types being analysed is changing too – 27% say they have a wide variety across multiple repositories, while the Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly contributing to the content mix.

For 43% of respondents, data is being captured from security systems (access readers, cameras, etc.) and from facilities equipment (HVAC, lighting, etc.) by 25%. More than half of respondents are capturing data from peripheral devices like multi-function copiers.

“The volume and breadth of content is enormous and it’s interesting to see the Internet of Things making such a significant contribution to content analytics programmes,” continued Bob Larrivee. “There is value and insight to be found in a variety of content types and to really drive that business advantage it is important to factor this into content analytics.”

Other key findings include:

analytics• 52% believe automated content curation would be very useful.
• 14% of respondents use automated analysis on social streams, communities, news feeds, and inbound communications.
• Content analytics is driving auto-classification for tagging and routing to archive by 22% of respondents.
• 25% of respondents say their processes are flowing faster and more smoothly as a result of using inbound analytics.
• Around one-third of respondents say their organisation has more than one content analytics application in place, while 15% say they are currently planning for it.

The research for ‘Using Analytics – automating processes and extracting knowledge’ was underwritten in part by ASG, ABBYY, Kofax, RecordPoint and OpenText. The survey was taken using a web-based tool by 276 individual members of the AIIM community during September and October, 2016.