Big data is the new driver of the world’s economic and societal changes. The world’s data collection is reaching a tipping point for significant technological shifts that can bring new ways in decision making, managing our health, cities, finance and education.
Though data complexities are increasing, including data volume, variety, velocity and veracity, the real impact hinges on our ability to uncover the `value’ in the data through Big Data Analytics technologies. With Big Data analytics, organisations can process the data and discover large hidden values from datasets that are diverse, complex, and of a massive scale efficiently and effectively.
In recent times, there have been a lot of conversations around big data. Many organisations, both large and small, are using big data and related analysis approaches as a way to gain more information to better support their company and serve their customers.
What is Big Data
In simple terms, big data is information that is huge, large or voluminous.
A more technical definition of big data is a collection of data sets which include structured, semi-structured and unstructured data. They are large, complex and are difficult to store and process using traditional data storage & processing applications.
Breaking down the definition of Big Data, three (3) things explain it :
- Big data is a collection of large data sets
- Data sets come in different formats – structured, semi-structured and unstructured
- Not only are these data sets large, but they are complex, which make them difficult to be stored and processed by traditional data storage & processing applications.
5 Benefits of Big Data
1. Customer Acquisition and Retention: To stand out, organisations must have unique ways to market their products, to attract new customers and keep them coming back. By using big data, companies can pinpoint what customers are looking for and thus give them what they want quickly and conveniently.
2. Focused and Targeted Campaigns: Business can use big data to deliver customised products to their target market. Big data analytics can help organisations identify consumer trends and patterns, allowing organisations to create successful, focused and targeted campaigns.
3. Identification of Potential Risks: In today’s high-risk environment, big data has been instrumental in developing new and more effective risk management solutions. This gives organisations real-time insight on potential risks and how best to mitigate them.
4. Better Decision-making: Big data analytics gives business decision-makers the data-driven insights they need to help their companies compete and grow.
5. Increased Revenue and Growth: When organisations use big data to improve decision-making, their products and customer service, accelerated growth and increased revenue is a natural result.
The use of Big Data is becoming common these days by organisations to outperform their peers. The biggest businesses are continuing to grow, thanks to Big Data analytics.
By how competitive the business world is today, organisations should not underestimate big Data analytics and its numerous benefits. We at pcl. assist companies design and create value from their enterprise data.
Written by:
Ikenna Ndukwe
Assistant Consultant
