Data matters a lot in businesses and organizations more than we realize. It can influence a company’s plan of action and be utilized to project growth and success.
What is Big Data?
Big data is the collection of information from various sources and the analysis of it. It has two types namely structured and unstructured. Structured data includes SQL databases while unstructured data are document files and raw streaming data from sensors.
The industry describes big data in three major Vs:
- Volume – A business can have multiple sources for its data. Technologies today have allowed business to store thousands of data which is not possible before.
- Velocity – In reality, data is coming in at breakneck speed. It’s real time or the closest to that. Velocity also describes how fast data is processed and analyzed.
- Variety – At the amount and speed of data that goes into your system, it also comes in different formats. From records of business sales up to database information, it’s all for big data.
Companies find big data as an integral part of their strategy because it can reduce cost and time, develop new products, optimize offerings, and help you make sound decisions. It gives businesses that power to pinpoint the cause of their problems and other behaviors such as customer’s buying habit and risk portfolios.
Who Uses Big Data?
Big data is so influential that by 2020, it is predicted that 1.7 megabytes per second of data will be created for every human being—that’s about 44 zettabytes or 44 trillion gigabytes.
At this moment, only 0.5% of the available data are being processed and analyzed. The amount of technology present today that can generate and provide data is at an all-time high such that the technology needed to process and interpret them is not yet available.
You’ll be surprised how big data is very beneficial to many sectors. Below are some of them and how it changed their respective systems since.
1. Education
Big data can help education have a more efficient way of imparting information and doing student evaluations.
By setting up the right metrics, big data can assist instructors in monitoring the learning curve of each of their students. Curriculums and school systems can also be tweaked according to the data provided.
2. Health
The health industry relies on accuracy, and the timing and efficiency of treatment and medication are crucial.
Early detection of diseases based on its patterns can help prevent it from happening. Patient records and prescription information analyzed in big data tools can improve health care in general.
3. Banking
This is the industry that has high chances of fraud and security issues. Big data gives banking the insights that will allow them to achieve customer satisfaction.
Aside from that, they can also quickly detect unusual behavior from their customer’s account and act on it immediately.
4. Science and Environment
Discovering other signs of human life in the outer space is a continuous quest. The information coming from a machine in the moon is considered big data, which NASA and other exploratory institutions use to calculate future actions.
Natural disasters on Earth can be predicted using big data as well. Certain preparations can be done through this to prevent enormous casualties and danger to the people.
5. Retail and Manufacturing
With the high competition in the market, manufacturers are using big data to maximize their resources to produce adequately. At the same time, they aim to minimize wastage on time and finances. It’s a business move that they’ll benefit from in the long run.
In line with that, retailers need big data to market their output smartly and strategically. They can analyze shopping behavior of their target market and build a customer relationship.
How Can Big Data Benefit Businesses?
Big data is changing the current norm in business models. It influences decisions and drives changes in organizations. Companies are now adjusting their strategies to be data and performance-driven. Instead of making decisions on a whim, they back it up with numbers and figures.
Big data also gives a new perspective when dealing with various industries. It provides in-depth information that is useful in many ways. It’s already so much capable now, and will only become more in the future. Eventually, businesses will invest bigger in data cloud storage, faster processors, data platforms, parallel processing, and cloud computing.
Take our Big Data Foundation course and find out how to maximize the benefits of big data in your business.
