One of the biggest debates on panel of discussion about the big data is: What is the big deal about big data? And the answers from various organizations bring some interesting talking points into the light such as importance of reviewing the tools for analytics and privacy concern of the public.
Table of Contents
The point made was: Data, if tapped properly and in an orderly fashion can provide tremendous benefits to the business and the population by helping them in providing the deeper insights for better decision making.
Though many companies today have deployed a lot of automation to capture information, the key concern remains that they may not be getting the key value from the data they have gathered. Not to mention such large volumes of data have the ability to open new unseen gates of the opportunities for the organizations around the world.
Most of the financial service providers and banks are already collecting the information and are one of the biggest users of the big data technology which helped them in understanding the customers need in a better sense. But, all of these datasets are structured. Data like customer credit card bills, shopping habits can be collected very easily on the basis of pre-determined set of parameters which certainly is not the case today as earlier banks and other organizations does not have to deal with large amount of data which is alone generated by social networks, smart phones and various other devices.
The data being generated every minute is so huge that 90 percent of the today’s total data is actually generated in the last two decades. It’s true that tools collect this information that has existed from a long time in the IT sector but it’s the three Vs – Velocity, Variety And Volume which has made big data a powerful tool for the organizations and as well as a great challenge also.
However, with so much data already present and a lot being generated every second, the real challenge is how to make sense of it as you analyze the collected data while collecting more data in the real time.
The information and knowledge is there and it is ours to grasp but if the actions taken in analyzing the data are not taken properly then one could end up drawing the wrong conclusions.
With all the advancements, IT vendors are already coming up with more analytical tools to extract the more sensitive intelligence from the large volumes of the data and another big boost in this direction is the changing attitude of people towards the privacy and security. People have become more open. It’s very normal for people to check in when they visit the new place which was hardly the case even 4-5 years ago. People are changing and companies are providing them with the more user friendly ways by which they can share the data.
The risk rides in misusing the information which people are sharing happily with the companies. If misused it will only be a matter of time that people will stop sharing the information.
The challenge is not only in analyzing the data for benefits but also, in protecting the very same data that is helping the organizations in making more balanced decisions in their businesses every day. One wrong move, a single slip and companies might lose the customer they have spent decades in understanding.
