Popular among scholars, entrepreneurs, and business circles, Big data is a new term relatively vague. The internet, mobile devices, and cloud computing together moved a great deal of our personal and professional lives into the data system. each of us is generating a huge, valuable and varied flow of information. We are in an era in which each device is online and the data is continuously growing. While a lot of data may have always been big, the way it is used is what matters the most and it has been proved how complex and long process it is. On one hand, knowledge is power, but little knowledge if added to poor judgment, a lot of damage can be the result. On the other hand, Being able to effectively manipulate data and extract the right information is considered a competitive advantage. Professional agreed on the fact that it is much easier to target and offer based on the data generated. The big data is expected to impact all the sectors from energy to education, for this purpose, techniques, and technologies have been developed to analyze this flow of information.
Years ago, the information systems have been commonly used as support devices, at that moment the paper processes have been replaced by the electronic format. Today, the information system became a business interface. Besides, with the appearance of the digital products and services, the information system undertook the delivery role as well and the digital system encompasses nowadays the entire organization's operations. finally, it became possible to record the user's activities and behavior and many organizations updated their strategies to center their core business on the collection, analysis, and manipulation of data. This latter is then analyzed in depth to make sense of it, guide the decisions and drive innovation and competitiveness.
How important is the Big Data:
Big Data become an essential factor of production just like hard and human capital. being equipped with the necessary technological basis to take much advantage of big data become a requirement, not a privilege or a luxury. A report made by Bloomberg a couple of years ago showed that 97 % of the companies with revenues superior to $100 million were found to be using business analytics. Moreover, McKinsey forecasts that by 2018, the US will need around 190 000 professional with profound analytical skills in addition to 1.5 million managers who have a higher data-knowledge.
Years ago, the information systems have been commonly used as support devices, at that moment the paper processes have been replaced by the electronic format. Today, the information system became a business interface. Besides, with the appearance of the digital products and services, the information system undertook the delivery role as well and the digital system encompasses nowadays the entire organization's operations. finally, it became possible to record the user's activities and behavior and many organizations updated their strategies to center their core business on the collection, analysis, and manipulation of data. This latter is then analyzed in depth to make sense of it, guide the decisions and drive innovation and competitiveness.
How important is the Big Data:
Big Data become an essential factor of production just like hard and human capital. being equipped with the necessary technological basis to take much advantage of big data become a requirement, not a privilege or a luxury. A report made by Bloomberg a couple of years ago showed that 97 % of the companies with revenues superior to $100 million were found to be using business analytics. Moreover, McKinsey forecasts that by 2018, the US will need around 190 000 professional with profound analytical skills in addition to 1.5 million managers who have a higher data-knowledge.
Since the mobile devices have granted freedom to the computer and the internet from the desktop and the cable, It became easier to interact with people everywhere and anytime. Similarly, businesses inadvertently transformed into software vendors and data collectors through their ways to engage on the web and the smart devices. Overall, not only web businesses are able to monitor and affect the total of their activities digitally. Today, artificial intelligence might be used in almost every field. Dr. Brynjlfsson said during an interview that decision making will no longer be based on intuition and experience. rather, it will be based on data and analysis.
Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google stressed the importance of being data-literate. he said that the Data nowadays is omnipresent, cheap and people need to be armed with the necessary skills, knowledge and the ability to analyze it.
Managers Vs Big Data.
Even if the companies are warning about the possible negative outcomes of not gathering the data, most of them managed to store an unprecedented amount without really knowing how to effectively use it.
Issue N1: Integration
Companies nowadays hold a large amount of data from different sources such as mobile devices, tablets, and desktops. the fact that the data does not come always unified makes it difficult for the companies to take advantage of it. For instance, a person might hear about a product from a friend. The person might learn more about it online using a mobile device then go to the shop to get more sense, feeling and examining the product and finally purchase it online using a desktop comfortably. The person might, later on, leave feedback using another device or via a phone call. This became a very common behavior rather than an exception. Customers expectations for outstanding customer experience oblige the companies to reshape their strategies as it is not possible anymore to deal with each source individually. As a result, managers who face difficulties implementing omnichannel strategies online struggle with meeting the customer's desires.
The unstructured data is an enormous challenge that the companies still face. While advances have been reached regarding the text-based data to gain insights from it just like the structured data other sources like the videos still problematic.
Unless the managers got the necessary expertise to deal with this type of data, it won't be possible to come even close to the right answers.
Issue N3: Correlation
This might be the biggest issue, the ability to make causal relationships within an enormous amount of overlapping data. For instance, a retailer might advertise his products to customers who have visited his website in the past. Having a look at the raw data might suggest that there are more chances that the person who had seen these ads might proceed with a purchase but this information might be misleading because this person might have concluded his intention to purchase the product even before seeing these ads. Thus, the information extracted from the raw data might lead to wrong decisions.
Drawing the right conclusion might need more than just data observation. It definitely needs to be associated with experiences designing, implementation, and evaluation. In other words, being able to test and learn and having the skills to take the appropriate actions turn the big data to a valuable treasure.
Mastering the potential of big data technologies and having a clear vision of how big is their potential to enhance the industrial sectors will transform the competitiveness of the companies and will result in exponential economic growth. The future belongs to those able to adopt big data technologies.
Follow @IElmhadder
Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google stressed the importance of being data-literate. he said that the Data nowadays is omnipresent, cheap and people need to be armed with the necessary skills, knowledge and the ability to analyze it.
Managers Vs Big Data.
Even if the companies are warning about the possible negative outcomes of not gathering the data, most of them managed to store an unprecedented amount without really knowing how to effectively use it.
Issue N1: Integration
Companies nowadays hold a large amount of data from different sources such as mobile devices, tablets, and desktops. the fact that the data does not come always unified makes it difficult for the companies to take advantage of it. For instance, a person might hear about a product from a friend. The person might learn more about it online using a mobile device then go to the shop to get more sense, feeling and examining the product and finally purchase it online using a desktop comfortably. The person might, later on, leave feedback using another device or via a phone call. This became a very common behavior rather than an exception. Customers expectations for outstanding customer experience oblige the companies to reshape their strategies as it is not possible anymore to deal with each source individually. As a result, managers who face difficulties implementing omnichannel strategies online struggle with meeting the customer's desires.
Issue N2: Unstructured data
The unstructured data is an enormous challenge that the companies still face. While advances have been reached regarding the text-based data to gain insights from it just like the structured data other sources like the videos still problematic.
Unless the managers got the necessary expertise to deal with this type of data, it won't be possible to come even close to the right answers.
Issue N3: Correlation
This might be the biggest issue, the ability to make causal relationships within an enormous amount of overlapping data. For instance, a retailer might advertise his products to customers who have visited his website in the past. Having a look at the raw data might suggest that there are more chances that the person who had seen these ads might proceed with a purchase but this information might be misleading because this person might have concluded his intention to purchase the product even before seeing these ads. Thus, the information extracted from the raw data might lead to wrong decisions.
Drawing the right conclusion might need more than just data observation. It definitely needs to be associated with experiences designing, implementation, and evaluation. In other words, being able to test and learn and having the skills to take the appropriate actions turn the big data to a valuable treasure.
Mastering the potential of big data technologies and having a clear vision of how big is their potential to enhance the industrial sectors will transform the competitiveness of the companies and will result in exponential economic growth. The future belongs to those able to adopt big data technologies.
Follow @IElmhadder
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