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The concept of big data is not new. We live in a world where each person creates endless data streams, and each digital product and service creates waves of information trailing behind it; the “big”-ness of data is the fact that so much of it is created every day. However, as more and more data points are created every day, the task of making sense of it all becomes a daunting task. This creates an unprecedented opportunity for businesses and entire industries to generate new insights and innovations form exploiting this big data.
The Fox School of Business’s Institute for Business and Information Technology’s Big Data Conference engaged industry and academic experts to discuss two key topics: 1) the potential of big data and the controversies related to its definition and value, and 2) best practices and exemplars for applying big data to transform how we view the world around us. The conference was organized around specific, practical examples, best practices, and state-of-the-art applications that demonstrated business value. Subtopics included fraud detection, customer trends, safety and compliance, media impact, and others.
Big data has the potential to disrupt many established industries from healthcare, to governmental activities. This changing “technological” factor puts extreme pressure on many cross-industry forces. For example: as the barriers to collect data lower (by higher availability of inexpensive data-collection or data-interpretation systems), the rivalry within industries increases. This can be seen in the proliferation of social platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare, etc) which utilize “free” social data to understand buyer behavior. Additionally, big data changes the power suppliers have across various industries. In healthcare, electronic medical records put power in doctors’ hands to understand a patient holistically. By utilizing insights from big data, the healthcare industry becomes much more focused on the input of data in order to make the output (patient care) more efficient. This inevitably reduces unnecessary costs that are incurred throughout the process.
The conference was concluded with seven big takeaways. The first of which was to “view big data as a business opportunity.” The guests and speakers of the conference unanimously understand that big data is a powerful tool, but interpreting the data into meaningful and actionable opportunities is the next greatest step in harnessing the value of big data. The final takeaway was “think big.” Play-on-words aside, big data has big opportunities. Being able to cross-functionally and cross-industry collaborate with data collected at every point of the value chain puts much power in the end-user’s hands (the example presented in the Open Data Philly movement, a part of Data.gov’s initiatives). Businesses will want to position themselves in a way that allows them to think creatively and innovatively about what data to collect that will be meaningful to them in the future. It’s a game that involves looking around the corner and strategically predicting what information the business will need in the future. By arming itself with data, and the tools to capture, analyze, and store data, businesses can harness the endless opportunities of big data.
What do you think about Big Data? How is your company approaching the big opportunity of Big Data?
