How Big Data is Helping Businesses to Play Smart

Converting knowledge into action is always easier said than done. Businesses these days are playing smart and look interested in having a culture that is much more objective, agile and data driven. They are taking every step to convert knowledge into action, and for that they don’t shy away from embracing the power of data and technology. One such power is Big Data.

Big Data is a term that refers to large, continuously increasing, varied and often unstructured sets of digitized data that is difficult to maintain using traditional databases — available within or outside the organization.

Society has been storing and transmitting information since the existence of humanity! After 4000 years, it has come a long way from data being stored on clay discs to large encrypted data being stored on a nail size memory device. Big Data helps businesses to grow beyond the traditional norms of data consolidation by offering a quicker and smarter access to more and more information.

-Why is it a premium buzz today?

Big Data allows organizations to use analytics and find out who their most valuable customers are. It is helping them to create new experiences, services as well as products. Also industries are trying to make the most out of the Big Data and are using it to understand consumer behaviors and business patterns along with the actionable insights. It goes a step further and eliminates data silos, thereby creating a thriving business model with less financial risk.

Business strategies are also being carved using the Big Data. International Data Group (IDG) suggests that over 80% of enterprises and 63% of small businesses across the globe, had either already implemented or are about to implement Big Data initiatives. According to McKinsey Global Institute, annual GDP in industries like manufacturing and retail industries will jump up to $325 billion by 2020, using Big Data analytics.

Online giants like Google and Facebook have already positioned themselves as data-first operations, while e-commerce biggies like Amazon vouch for the use of Big Data for increasing efficiency of their operations.

Kenneth Cukier, Data Editor of The Economist, shares his views on how Big Data has helped businesses to grow further, at an official TED conference. Not just the businesses, professionals and individuals can also leverage Big Data and fundamentally do things which are important for knowledge advancement. He highlights some of the most crucial points that together make for an answer to what is the big deal about Big Data! Let’s have a look.

·        Helps data to go from static to fluidic & figure out data discrepancies.

·        Boosts information liquidity & indexes unique data.

·        Datafies locations.

·        Facilitates machine learning

·        Increases accuracy of prediction.

“Data is useless without the skill to analyze it.”

Learning Big Data can be an important career move as there is a soaring demand for Big Data analytics professionals such as Data Scientists to perform analytics, and Analytics Consultants to understand and use data. Talent supply for such jobs is scarce and demand is huge.               

Major sectors on the lookout for Big Data skills are e-commerce, social media, food manufacture, retail, consulting companies, gaming, consumer finance, online travel, insurance, and telecommunications.          

To fill in the gaps and fight with scarcity of Big Data professionals in businesses, there are numerous Big Data courses to help. Online courses are the best bet for freshers as well as professionals to learn Big Data, get certified and enter the whole new world of analytics. Needless to say, it will pave the way forward for building a successful career too.

In a nutshell

Value of Big Data is immense! It allows to save more information, while exploring areas to work efficiently. It plays on algorithms and facilitates machine learning, adding more to artificial intelligence of machines and helps in increasing accuracy of prediction. For e.g. Medical science is leveraging Big Data in spotting more and more traits of diseases than before. Isn’t this an achievement?

Big Data will surely transform the ways we live, work and think, and is definitely going to help in career management, while assuring a healthy and satisfactory living.