Gone are the days in which a firm would look at its assets only in terms of machinery and equipment, buildings, and other tangible things. Data is nowadays one of the most valuable assets for an organization, as it is a great game changer in helping to face competitors, meet customer needs, and even design marketing campaigns, among other things. The firms may need to have their own internal data experts, or they can engage the services of reputable firms to engineer data and derive meaning from it, as well as enable the business to turn it into a valuable asset.
Each year, the big data landscape is becoming more mature, as evidenced by the following:
Big data products are getting consolidated
After so much growth and trial and error to come up with products centered on the big data, the production environment is starting to get narrower, or consolidate into a number of small key technologies, such as Kafka, Parquet, and Spark, among others. There could be new players who may have more superb ideas but who are facing challenges to raise funds or to develop traction with clients.
There are many big data applications
It is easy to identify various ways in which big data has been applied to the benefits of the users, in most cases giving a significant return on investment (ROI), as it may be observed from those who adopted big data quite early. Some good examples of big data in use are in the financial sector, where Know Your Customer, a common regulatory requirement, makes use of data gathered from various business departments and harmonizes them to get a clear idea of a particular customer’s characteristics. In retail, big data is used for customization or personalization of the sales efforts, like modifying a landing page of a website so that a customer sees commodities that match his or her needs or interests. Also, the data could be used to come up with tailored coupons and email campaigns.
Increase in big data experts
Although the experts in big data are still few and do not match the demand, the supply of the vital expertise is being boosted by a new generation of college graduates who have been through a system that takes big data as a constituent of key software education.
New developments and trends that could impact your big data plans
There have been developments and trends that may have an impact on your big data plans, which include:
Internet of things (IoT)
This trend is growing rapidly in areas like smart cars, and cities will contribute to the growth of tons of data that will require analysis.
Innovation on big data products
Amazon and Microsoft, among other Cloud providers, will continue to creatively come up with new products to retain their customers. There will be an increase in reasons to use proprietary products instead of Open Source options.
Flourishing of self-service data analytics tools
These are domain-specific tools that enable people who are not data experts to analyze or explore their data and get insights through easy-to-understand data representation formats (in pictorial and other comprehendible formats).
Data security concern
The security of data is still a big issue due to hackers, who have perfected a way of overcoming all set barriers.
Big data products are getting consolidated
After so much growth and trial and error to come up with products centered on the big data, the production environment is starting to get narrower or consolidate into a number of small key technologies, such as Stackify, Kafka, Parquet, and Spark, among others. There could be new players who may have more superb ideas but who are facing challenges to raise funds or to develop traction with clients.
Conclusion
No matter whether you are starting a big data initiative or if you are in it and have not realized the benefits your rivals are enjoying, you have to make the most of the experience of others. Seeking help to reap benefits from big data is the best approach, for example engaging experts who have already set up a system. You could also make a network of friends or acquaintances who have tried such initiatives and who have made mistakes, as they can share their insights with you.