A new SAS survey uncovered a big data disconnect, with only 12 percent of organizations on board. Why weren’t more of the organizations surveyed taking steps towards a big data pay off?

Without a doubt those that are implementing big data strategies will see a competitive advantage. And the longer they build that lead, the harder it will be for others to catch up. However, for those that are waiting, all is not lost. Improved technology and processes can help them make quick progress on the path to big data mastery.

If you're still in that 88 percent waiting to get started, here are some tips.

Start with the business side when planning big data initiatives – Most CEOs and VPs know their teams are missing opportunities by not using big data. Line-of-business managers then investigate opportunities (sometimes lost or wasted) in their business decisions to understand where big data can help the most. Is it in cost reduction through identifying fraud? Or is it more important to increase profits through knowing your customers better? Those answers should guide the effort.

Share your project and data – Business management should involve IT early in this process to assess how big data technologies can augment existing technology investments and see where additional investment is needed. Then, business and IT will do well to define data ownership, data standards and project-success metrics—all critical components of data governance- to set the stage for big data project execution.

How SAS can help – SAS continues to address customers pain points when it comes to big data. Processing power and data storage are no longer prohibitively expensive. SAS provides access to big data sources such as Hadoop so organizations can easily bring big data into existing environments for management and analysis. SAS also delivers big data processing products that leverage in-memory and parallelization to increase performance – an increasingly popular capability. Interestingly, with these advances, data sampling is becoming obsolete because organizations are no longer limited by ability to handle massive data volume.

I especially like how Hong Kong Efficiency Unit uses SAS to decode citizen messages. The government can better understand the voice of the people and help government departments improve service delivery, make informed decisions and develop smart strategies. I have never been to Hong Kong, but I have heard great stories about the city’s efficiency. No wonder.

To the many of you who might just be getting started all I can say is: don’t wait. Choosing the right big data management vendor makes this an interesting and rewarding investment for your company.

Click here for the full big data report I mentioned earlier.  And tell me about one of your own big data challenges or successes. What's working for your rganization?