Dive Brief:

• A new report from Gartner says the number of Big Data projects enterprises are investing in have increased slightly from 2014 to 2015, CIO reports.
• However, Big Data initiatives are more often originating from business unit leaders in other areas of the company, rather than the CIO. CIOs were responsible for 32% of the big data projects initiated in 2015, while other business units headed up 31%.
• Those other business units are also pressuring CIOs to collaborate with them to make sure the technology they implement aligns with the company's strategy, according to the report.

Dive Insight:

This year, 76% of companies surveyed said they would implement Big Data projects, up from 73% in 2014. But such projects are more often being initiated by CFOs, CMOs, and COOs.

"People are becoming aware of the value of data, not just in IT but overall," said Gartner analyst and report co-author Nick Heudecker. "They're creating data and using it as a competitive advantage."

2014 research found that CIOs initiated 37% of big data projects, so the numbers appear to be shifting away from CIOs. But the report also said initiating projects doesn't necessarily mean that the business leaders are purchasing and installing the analytics solutions themselves. More often, they're asking the IT department for a solution to gain insight about customers or other company data.

The report also found that leaders are often challenged to determine the ROI of such projects. Of the organizations investing in Big Data, 24% of them said they aren’t currently measuring ROI and 11% said they don't plan to measure ROI at all.