A lot has been said and written about ‘big data’. Every business seems to be grappling with this concept as if it were a lost key to a hidden treasure. Well, maybe it is! ‘Big data’ can be the key to unlock the doors of innovation, productivity and success for organizations.

 

‘Big data’ can be described as this powerful tool that can assist in predicting the future by: 

 

Big data can do all this and much more. How? The secret potion is called ‘data’ and every organization has it, albeit typically in unstructured forms. The digitization of everything we do is leading to the generation of a gigantic variety of data flowing into businesses at light speed. Think about all the tweets, posts, likes, shares and audio-visual data brought on by the exponential rise in multimedia, social media and ‘Internet of Things’. To this, add the traditional data derived from product transaction information, financial records and interaction channels such as call centers and points-of-sale.

 

But this data does not foretell or speak by itself. Businesses need to process and analyze this data and turn them into insights. These insights can then be used to take intelligent decisions and make strategic moves.  

 

Big data can have different implications for different sectors. Organizations will have to define what big data means to them, what it does for them, and unlock its big potential accordingly. Once companies start tackling big data, they will learn what they don’t know. 

 

Now you know why everyone is after ‘big data’… because everyone wants to know the future.