Almost 3 zettabytes of data existed in the world in 2012, and this number will double every year through 2015, predicts International Data Corporation (IDC) in its study “Extracting Value from Chaos.” But massive volume isn’t the entire story. Also at the crux of the issue are the myriad new kinds of data being generated by an increasing number of sources from social media to geo-location equipment to digital sensors embedded in industrial machinery.
More than ever before, a complete and varied cache of data is the most valuable asset an organization can possess. According to a 2012 report from Nucleus Research titled “The Big Returns From Big Data,” enormous value can be uncovered if all the right information is available. For example:
- Higher margins. A major manufacturer analyzed purchasing and cost-related data in all of its vendors’ databases, enabling it to consolidate vendors, reduce the cost of goods sold and achieve a 942% return on investment (ROI).
- Reduced labor costs. A resort integrated shift scheduling processes with data from a national weather service that allowed managers to avoid unnecessary shift assignments and increase staff utilization for an ROI of 1,822%.
- Improved productivity. When a metropolitan police department combined its criminal records database with a national crime database, it was able to use national trends, local crime-related data and predictive analytics to allocate its law enforcement assets more effectively and reduce crime rates. The end result was an 863% ROI.
- Increased revenues. Companies optimizing online campaigns can track clickstreams and continuously monitor data gathered from all customer touch points to improve the bottom line.
What’s the key to achieving such amazing results? It takes having a holistic view across the entire enterprise to integrate data, identify patterns, draw meaningful associations and inferences—and ask important questions. It takes a sophisticated, predictive data analytics platform, one with the ability to leverage existing systems and data stores in new ways, to integrate, manage and analyze all the data regardless of type, size, complexity or its source.
Breakthrough Solution
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A unified data and analytics environment integrates data warehouse, analytics discovery and data staging technologies to leverage all types of information. It enables businesses to pull data from every part of the organization and turn it into actionable intelligence.
With this unified environment, enterprises can monitor emerging trends, make quick course corrections and seize new business opportunities. By analyzing entire datasets from customers, social media, sensors embedded in products and other sources, organizations can make more informed time-sensitive decisions. They can also test hypotheses and analyze results, resulting in smarter decisions—and significant competitive advantage. For example, companies building loyalty programs using reward points can identify previously hidden customer information patterns. Every customer interaction—social media chatter, survey response feedback, website requests—generates data that can be used to drive higher user engagement or promote sales.
Some analytics tools require users to spend weeks loading certain types of data, such as sensor data, before performing meaningful analytics. By contrast, a unified data and analytics environment can parse large pools of detailed data in near-real time to reveal striking patterns and trends almost instantly. This capability can deliver new benefits to businesses, such as using information gained from analyzing huge sets of governmental or publicly available data to help shape business plans.
Big Business Opportunities
In its “Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services 2012-2015 Forecast,” IDC predicts that the market for big data technology and services will skyrocket to $16.9 billion by 2015. Organizations that wait to bring a unified environment into their business will be at a competitive disadvantage. Learning how to harness big data analytics can be daunting, but the payoff—rapid insight into all types of data—can be invaluable. A unified data and analytics environment brings together the services, platforms, applications and tools that make the payoff possible.
Alice LaPlante is an award-winning writer and editor with more than 20 years in the technology industry.
Date: November 25, 2014