Designing an Organizational Readiness Framework for Big Data Adoption Mandana Farzaneh Information Technology Institute, Iran Telecommunication Research Center (ITRC) Tehran, Iran m.farzaneh@itrc.ac.ir Mitra Karami Information Technology Institute, Iran Telecommunication Research Center (ITRC) Tehran, Iran m.karami@itrc.ac.ir Fatemeh Mozaffari Information Technology Institute, Iran Telecommunication Research Center (ITRC) Tehran, Iran fa.mozaffari@itrc.ac.ir Ayoub Mohamadian Department of Information Technology Management Tehran University Tehran, Iran mohamadian@ut.ac.ir S.Pouria Ameli Information Technology Institute, Iran Telecommunication Research Center (ITRC) Tehran, Iran sp.ameli@itrc.ac.ir Ehsan Arianyan Information Technology Institute, Iran Telecommunication Research Center (ITRC) Tehran, Iran ehsan_arianyan@itrc.ac.ir Abstract— Organizations recognize the opportunities and business value offered by Big Data technologies. However there are many problems, which are derived from the difficulty of understanding the complex dimensions involved in Big Data adoption. Therefore, companies are in doubt of their readiness to gain the profits of Big Data and could not be capable to know if they are ready for such adoption. In this regard, comprehensively identifying Big Data readiness assessment dimensions can be a very useful step forward to improve Big Data adoption. Accordingly, various dimensions and their related components have been identified through a deep and comprehensive investigation of the broad literature and a deep and comprehensive framework is established which helps organizations with identifying their potential in Big Data adoption. The outcomes of current research show that although companies believe that they are technically adopting big data, but they would not achieve benefits and gain value from it until they align their strategic plan with Big Data applications. The framework is helpful in pointing out components which organizations could improve, form a firm basis for guiding the managers and scholars to plan Big Data adoption. Keywords—Big Data, Organizational readiness, Assessment I. I NTRODUCTION In the current digital world, organizations are transmitting and receiving data in different formats, rates, and technologies constantly. Information is shared on optic fiber and wireless networks at very high speed and the volume of data increase accordingly. In this case, it is expected that 50 billion devices be connected to the internet [1] and there will be 3.4 connected devices per person by 2020[2]. Accordingly, more than 16 zettabytes data generated by 2020, which indicates growth of 236% per year from 2013 to 2020 [3]. Hence, such tremendous amount of distributed data encourages enterprises to invest on Big Data’s potential by which data turns into insights that lead to competitive advantage [4]. Big Data is defined as the formation of enlarge datasets which in hence it is hard to process them by utilizing current database management tools [5]. In other words, it is the amount of data just beyond the ability of existing technology to process, manage, and store efficiently [6]. Although Big Data presents different opportunities to organizations, like any other technological innovations, many organizations have challenges in adopting such technology and realizing the full benefits of Big Data [M]. The fast growth rate of such enormous amount of data, which can be structured or unstructured, internal or external, lead to several challenges [1]. New techniques and technologies required to work with unstructured data which are mainly produced by social medias. So the growth of data, originated from diverse sources inside or outside the firm, could make the absorption and retention of such data to be challenging [X]. According to Capgemini research [9], the top challenges that organizations face consist of handling distributed silos of data, coordination of analytics initiatives, and dependence on legacy systems. Therefore, the organizational readiness for embracing big data technology have to be assessed to discover the organization’s maturity in revealing the potential of this technology. Big Data assessment indicates the company’s current state of progress in terms of Big Data and provides a practical roadmap of future steps need to be taken. While several studies concentrate on technological aspects for readiness assessment without looking at other ones [7] [10] [11], it should be noted that organizations need to be prepared in non-technological aspects such as their structures, people, financial strategies, etc. [6]. Therefore, there are various main areas and Big Data-related subjects that should be considered in Big Data systematic assessment. There is not only insufficient scientific literature about organizational readiness in adopting Big Data; but there is also a lack of a comprehensive framework to assess the reediness of BIG Data adoption. To fill this gap, the main research objective of current research is to clarify the most significant factors influencing BIG Data adoption in organizations. Therefore, this study adopted an exploratory research method by deeply investigating literature. In this regards, to the current research provides a Big Data readiness assessment framework based on investigating different readiness models, which have been considered in various researches, in order to evaluate the readiness of organizations for adopting Big Data technology. The paper is structured as follows: section 2 presents the literature review on the topic; section 3 presents proposed research framework; and Section 4 present research methodology.