In his article in Big Data, Bob Eve offers this quote from Professors Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson of MIT:

“Companies that inject Big Data and analytics into their operations show productivity rates and profitability that are 5% to 6% higher than those of their peers.”

Data is the critical success factor. Because without data, there can be no analysis. Data virtualization can accelerate development of a new analytic or refinement an existing one. With data virtualization you can easily:

• Discover available data sources across and beyond the enterprise
• Simplify access to required data sources, while complying with security and governance policies
• Combine all the data required, physically, virtually or in a hybrid combination
• Deliver the data to any number of analytic tools
• Complete all these activities quickly and easily

Read more about this in my free white paper on Analytic Data Hub design entitled Analytics Best Practices: The Analytical Hub.