More bad news: just 13% of decision-makers told Hewlett Packard Enterprise they treat data strategy is a key part of corporate strategy. Even within IT, nearly half said the budget never (28%) or occasionally (20%) includes data initiatives. But their hearts are in the right place: top goals for data initiatives are sales growth (30%), innovation (28%) and customer experience (24%).
Back to good news: Privatar found that 49% of data leaders ranked targeting for marketing as the most important data driven project, beating perpetual favorites like operational efficiency and cost optimization (both at 43%). Less good: 48% said their data investments have not delivered desired results and 71% have limited data access due to government regulations.
Lagos-headquartered venture capital firm Future Africa is teaming up with TLG Capital, a London-based open-ended credit fund, to launch a $25 million venture debt fund earmarked for portfolio companies.
Salesforce’s Dreamforce mega-conference is next week and the company’s publicity elves are already working overtime. In the first of what are sure to be daily announcements this week, the company announced 100+ industry-specific prompts, data models, and AI capabilities across its fifteen industry clouds. It also launched an AI Use Case Library to house its industry-specific AI offerings.