The worldwide Big Data professional services market will grow at a 15 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2020, writes Consultant and Wikibon Analyst Ralph Finos, Ph.D. The market reached $6.4 billion in 2014, with 72 percent of Big Data adopters leveraging professional services, according to the 2014 Wikibon Big Data Analytical Adoption Survey. By 2020 Finos projects the market will top $61 billion.

The services market today is focused on the Global 1000, particularly in the banking and financial services, retail and telecom verticals, although these three make up less than half of the total market. The largest category – banking – is growing at a CAGR of 16 percent from a 2014 base of $1.9 billion. These companies understand the value of becoming data-driven, and they have the money to invest. However, because of their size and long histories, they present complex technical and organizational challenges to realizing Big Data’s value, starting with the difficulty of acquiring the technical skill sets and defining initial projects that provide real business value.

The next layer down in size – the Global 3000 – are beginning to move toward the data-driven goal. Their problems are typically less complex but more diverse. They tend to have have less money to invest.

On the supply side, the market is dominated by the usual suspects, including big consultancies such as Deloitte LLP, Accenture LLP, Cap Gemini S. A. and IBM Global Business Services. Competing against them are several Big Data pure-play consultancies including Clarity Solutions, Inc., Cloudwick Inc., Silicon Valley Data Science LLC, Think Big Analytics Inc. (part of Teradata Corp.) and Zaloni Inc., all of which are profiled in the report. Dr. Finos also includes case studies of several early Big Data adapters in the full report, which is available to Wikibon subscribers.