Sometimes it's only '1 thing out of 10' but that '1 thing' is absolutley essential.
But honestly, I suggest the entire 'big data' movement is a bit outlandish, there really isn't a need for most of it. The 'saving grace' frankly is AI, because maybe-maybe-maybe we can make use of that data in some future alg because god knows we're really not making that much of use of it.
But it's hard.
Once the target is hit, most of the work to hit that target is worthless, but we’ve gotten smarter at taking the journey and creating repeatable steps, setting up data structures, etc.
... and were the goddam strategy team!
I really depends so much on leadership as well.
I suggest most companies either have 'Zero IT' leadership knowledge, in which case you get the 'buy whatever Microsoft tells us to buy' - or they are tech companies where they understand it but are probably a bit overzealous.
But the same thing applies to everything.
'Legal' can be a useless waste of money, until all of a sudden they're the most important team in the company ...
I think the problem is really one of scale - it's way harder to pin down your value add when you're part of a very large collective. Being responsible for 10% of a 10-man output is much more tangible than being responsible for 0.001% of a 10,000-man output, and the difference between 10% and 0% is similarly much easier to discern from a management and accountability perspective.
So many people underestimate the value of experience. Seeing patterns comes with seeing many different things over an extended period of time.