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EXECUTIVE SERIES: BIG DATA OPPORTUNITIES

DECEMBER 9, 2015 Executive Series, Big Data

The Peaxy Executive Summary Series is designed to explain quickly and simply what business leaders need to know about big data and data access systems.

The world is being “datafied” and the result is Big Data—too large, complex, and dynamic for conventional data tools to capture, store, manage, and analyze. For background on the proliferation of data, how companies are using it, and the challenges it presents, see our previous posts, What is Big Data?,Big Data Examples, and Big Data Challenges.

DOES MY COMPANY NEED A BIG DATA PROGRAM?

Of course, it depends on your business. Think about the data you already have—not just your order and CRM databases, but all the documents used in product development, marketing, sales, and operations. What key business questions could that data help you answer, that would help you improve your products, processes, or customer relationships?

Review examples of other companies in your industry. Are they pursuing Big Data opportunities? If so, they could use it to gain a competitive advantage. However, you could also learn from what they’re doing.

HOW DO I START TAKING ADVANTAGE OF BIG DATA?

The first step is to harness the data you are already collecting. Start storing unstructured data—requirements and design documents, engineering change orders, technical manuals, emails, customer communications, service records, website analytics, tweets, and other social media posts—in a distributed data access system like Peaxy Hyperfiler® 3.0. A good system will allow you and your colleagues to rapidly retrieve and correlate many different kinds of data.

Correlation across previously disparate data sets is important. For example, Wal-Mart can correlate your past buying patterns, your mobile phone location data, their store inventories, social media, and external weather information. In seconds, they can send a voucher for a barbecue cleaner to your phone—if you own a barbecue, the weather is nice, and you are currently within 3 miles of a Wal-Mart store that has the BBQ cleaner in stock.

Don’t forget your supply chain. If your suppliers are collecting data, they may make it available to you.

WHERE ELSE CAN I FIND DATA?

The next step is to figure out where else you can readily collect usable data. What information can you gather on web searches or social media posts? Every click, every “like,” every share can tell you how customers respond to your products and your competitors’ products.

Where might you place sensors and gather telemetry information? GE places sensors in its jet engines and correlates the data with design schematics, simulation results, manufacturing records, and service records. By analyzing data patterns, it can predict when an engine needs preventive maintenance before it actually fails. “If you went to bed last night as an industrial company, you’re going to wake up this morning as a software and analytics company,” predicted GE CEO Jeff Immelt.

HOW DO I FIND PATTERNS IN THE DATA THAT WILL HELP MY COMPANY?

The trick is to turn the data into insight by applying it to key business questions. You’ll want to mine the data for actionable trends. Big Data software platforms like Hadoop can analyze large, messy, and fast-moving volumes of structured and unstructured data, dividing the analysis among many different computers to maximize speed and reliability. Companies can now bring together these different and previously inaccessible data sources to improve their operations.

WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE ABOUT BIG DATA?

We recommend these resources for a deeper dive into Big Data:

WHO IS PEAXY? WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS?

Peaxy software empowers universal data access for enterprise – so you can save, find, analyze, manage and reuse your data – whenever it was created, wherever it is located. Our Executive Series is designed to help to get you up to speed quickly on the key topics related to big data and data access. Because the more you know, the more you’ll prefer Peaxy.