who'd have thought?

It's a finding that's not likely to rock anyone's world, but a recent report from Accenture shows that nine out of 10 executives from the largest U.S. companies say that in order to grow their business, they need stronger business intelligence capabilities that provide better analysis of, and insight into, their operations. The survey, drawn from interviews with 150 senior executives at Fortune 1,000 companies, was conducted to assess industry's preparedness to handle the challenges that U.S. companies see as their greatest impediments to growth.

Uncertainty and change dominated the list of impediments. When asked to select their organizations' biggest challenges, more than half (54 percent) of the respondents selected either "uncertainty in the financial markets and in the economy overall" or "political and regulatory uncertainty in key countries/markets." Other impediments cited were changes in the customer base (17 percent), changes in the skills/capabilities of the talent pool (16 percent), and constant technological innovation and introduction of disruptive technologies (13 percent).