How valuable is BigData?
The amount of data in our world has been exploding and analyzing large data sets which are a part of Big data has become key basis for competition, innovation forming the foundation of productivity and growth. This increasing volume and detail of information captured by enterprises, the rise of multimedia, social media and Internet of Things is fuelling the exponential growth of data. Big Data is not only valuable to the IT industry but to other industries like finance, retail, healthcare, manufacturing, public sector as well. There are various ways in which using Big Data can create value- it can unlock significant value by making information transparent and usable at much higher frequency, as organizations create and store more transactional data in digital form, they can collect more accurate and detailed performance information and therefore expose variability and boost performance. It can also be used by companies to tailor the products and services more precisely for their customers. Moreover, it can be used to improve the development of next generation of products and services. For example: Manufacturers are using data obtained from sensors embedded in products to create innovative after-sales service offerings like proactive maintainence. Some instances where Big Data is currently being used to add value are: Using big data, Telecom companies can now better predict customer churn; Wal-Mart can predict what products will sell, and car insurance companies understand how well their customers actually drive. Even government election campaigns can be optimized using big data analytics. Some believe, Obama’s win after the 2012 presidential election campaign was due to his team’s superior ability to use big data analytics. Big data is also increasingly used to optimize business processes. Retailers are able to optimize their stock based on predictions generated from social media data, web search trends and weather forecasts. One particular business process that is seeing a lot of big data analytics is supply chain or delivery route optimization. Here, geographic positioning and radio frequency identification sensors are used to track goods or delivery vehicles and optimize routes by integrating live traffic data, etc. Big data is not just for companies and governments but also for all of us individually. We can now benefit from the data generated from wearable devices such as smart watches or smart bracelets. Take the Up band from Jawbone as an example: the armband collects data on our calorie consumption, activity levels, and our sleep patterns. While it gives individuals rich insights, the real value is in analyzing the collective data. In Jawbone’s case, the company now collects 60 years worth of sleep data every night. Analyzing such volumes of data will bring entirely new insights that it can feed back to individual users. Big data analytics help machines and devices become smarter and more autonomous. For example, big data tools are used to operate Google’s self-driving car. The Toyota Prius is fitted with cameras, GPS as well as powerful computers and sensors to safely drive on the road without the intervention of human beings. Big data tools are also used to optimize energy grids using data from smart meters. We can even use big data tools to optimize the performance of computers and data warehouses.