As many as 84 per cent of Indian analytics and IT  leaders are investing more in data training in the next year to strengthen internal data culture, a recent Salesforce report suggests.

The American technology major came up with the State of Data and Analytics report with key trends from over 10,000 analytics, IT, and business leaders across 18 countries, including 300 from India.

Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have made Data security and reliability all the more important for entreprises, as per the December report.

Moreover, as many as 77 per cent of business leaders are worried their company is missing out on generative AI as generative technologies rise across domains.

Arun Kumar Parameswaran, MD for Sales at Salesforce India said: “Generative AI is intensifying the need for real-time personalisation and increased business efficiencies, and analytics. IT leaders are racing to fortify their data foundations which include data quality, stronger security and AI-readiness to harness the full power of AI.”

As many as 92 per cent of analytics and IT leaders say the need for trusted data is higher than ever. Only 57 per cent of data and analytics leaders are completely confident in their data. Line-of-business departments, like marketing, sales, and service, are even more skeptical, with an average of 43 per cent completely trusting their data.  

As two-thirds of analytics and IT teams (68 per cent) anticipate data volumes to increase over the next 12 months, Salesforce anticipates Generative AI bringing the added risk of proprietary company data leaking into public large language models.

65 per cent of IT leaders experienced a security breach between June 2021 and June 2022. Among those who experienced a breach, 35 per cent were not able to recover any impacted data, Salesforce revealed.

The vast majority of analytics and IT leaders surveyed use data governance as a tool to ensure and certify baseline data quality at 85 per cent, followed closely by a framework to inspire trust in data at 84 per cent, and an effective way to democratise data access (81 per cent).

In the face of increased data volumes and complexity, data harmonisation will be a key priority for business leaders in order to better extract value from their data sources and effectively leverage AI, Parameswaran added.

Over 7 in 10 companies are increasing budgets for data analysis tools and training, the Salesforce report pointed.