Big DATA, What Is Behind it?

Big Data – What's behind it?  An analysis of Big Data. Companies like Amazon, Otto or Zalando are masters and experts in dealing with Big Data.

Big Data-what is behind it and what can you as a company use this data for or for at all? This refers to mountains of data that differ from previous databases in terms of volume, the speed at which the data volume is generated and the diversity ...

Companies that understand how to deal with Big Data have competitive advantages over those that have not mastered this tool. They give away many valuable insights about their business. To illustrate this with an example from retail ...  the leading online retailers have an invaluable advantage over brick-and-mortar retailers by collecting movement profiles of shoppers and visitors to online shops; they know the preferences of shoppers and can use this data to suggest sales, for example: -

the maximum of the stationary trade is the information which product the customer has bought and when. Whether he can then still link it to the information of the buyer's address is questionable. Therefore, the experts are not surprised if stationary trade is being displaced.

What is Meant By Big Data?

Big Data comes in different forms. The variety of information is overwhelming. It exists as normal messages, as images, as information in social networks, as GPS location information from smartphones and so on. Much of the information that is now important for businesses is relatively new. The huge and constantly growing amounts of information come from social networks and are still relatively young. People tend to forget that Facebook only started in 2004 and Twitter only saw the light of day in 2006. Today's databases that are used to store information are much older in their architecture and structure and can usually only handle the recording, processing and, above all, the evaluation of this data with great difficulty.

What Volumes of Data Are Actually Generated?

Based on 2012, around 2.5 exabytes of new data are created per day and the amount of data doubles every 40 months. Today, more data is moved on the internet per second than was stored there 20 years ago. The American retailer Wal Mart says it produces about 2.5 petabytes of data per hour from its customer transactions. A petabyte corresponds to one quadrillion bytes or 1 the content of about 20 million filing cabinets full of text documents. An extabyte comprises another thousand times as much, namely one billion gigabytes.

What is Important?

Big Data is not just a new term. Nor is big data a variant of data analytics. It is the change in the unimaginable amount of data, the speed with which the data is generated and the diversity of how it is created.

What Changes Will Big Data Bring & What is Behind it?

There will be serious changes for the role of decision-makers. Decisions will have to be made much more on the basis of data, data models and analytics than they are today. The decision-making templates for management will be more underpinned by analytics. It is important for managers who want to engage with Big Data to engage with the technology. Two questions are important in this context: what does the data say? and what is the source of the data. What analyses have been done and how much do we trust the results?

Is Big Data Already Being Used?

Big data concepts are already being used in many areas. In the automotive industry, where a supply chain was analysed to find out why the error rate increased. In customer service to measure the quality of service and take action if necessary. Other examples are, of course, online retailers or hotel and travel managers and many more. The research director at Google, Peter Norvig put it as follows: "we don't have better algorithms, we just have more data".

What is to Be Done?

• Think about the possibilities of using your data assets to make better management decisions.
• The successes are measurable today, and the ability to analyse data will determine your future.
• Create an IT strategy with a clear roadmap.
• Test what fits for you and what your customers expect from you. Therefore, use all possibilities to optimise your innovation management and make it effective.

Sources: This article refers to publications of the MIT Center of Digial Business and to its director Andrew McAfee. Dreher Consulting Own research Harvard Business School Press