The survey also found that on average, respondents expect that drawing on customer details at the point of engagement will boost conversion rates by nearly 45%, which necessitates combining real-time with historical data.

"Becoming a real-time business is both radically valuable and a strategic necessity," said Hazelcast CEO Kelly Herrell. "This study reveals both the challenges and the opportunities related to making that transition. Success requires the ability to combine the explosion in real-time data with the business context stored in databases, in a way that enables instantaneous actions. Insights alone are not enough; engagement and revenue growth now comes from transacting in the moment."

The survey of 629 business and IT decision makers in the US, Europe and Asia Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand, also shows that senior IT executives are investing in different strategies for processing real-time data and unifying it with historical data to increase consumer engagement and drive sales.

Other survey highlights include:

• Two-thirds (66%) of companies globally have seen a significant or very significant increase in data over the last 12 months from customer applications and interactions. This compares to 77% of companies in Australia and New Zealand,

• Seven in ten (70%) organisations globally (74% in Australia and 81% in New Zealand) said they could transform their ability to close sales and special offers if they were equipped with more relevant customer information at the time of engagement.

• Companies are planning on increasing spending on technologies to help capture value from data. Nearly four in five (78%) globally (84% in Australia and 75% in New Zealand) expect to increase investment in in-memory technologies over the next six to 12 months with 76% planning to focus on stream processing (74% in Australia and 77% in New Zealand)

• A majority of survey respondents said social media and viral memes (53% globally versus 69% in Australia and 58% in New Zealand) are now causing the biggest demand spikes for their organisation – ahead of annual retail events like Black Friday (50% globally, 51% in Australia and 54% in New Zealand). This shifting landscape drives volatility in consumer demand, making it even more critical that companies can more readily access all data at any time.

Of the 629 respondents, 105 each were from the UK and Germany, 202 were in the US, and 217 were from the APAC region, including 103 from Australia and New Zealand. The survey was conducted by Sapio Research. Access the full survey report and findings here.

For companies looking for an effective way to unify both their real-time streaming and historical data, Hazelcast recently announced the general availability of the Hazelcast Platform. The Hazelcast Platform combines the capabilities of a real-time stream processing engine with an in-memory data store which enables enterprises to utilie a single platform for transactional, operational and analytical workloads. You can find additional details about the platform here.

About Hazelcast

The Hazelcast Platform is a real-time, intelligent application platform that enables enterprises to capture value at every moment. With Hazelcast, enterprises can increase actionable insights by unifying event streams with contextual insights from traditional data stores at in-memory speeds. From the cloud to the data centre to the edge, Hazelcast is unique in its ability to transform processes to help its customers achieve a competitive advantage via material revenue generation, risk management or cost reduction.

Hazelcast is headquartered in San Mateo, CA, with offices across the globe. To learn more about Hazelcast, visit https://hazelcast.com .