Data & its significance in the digital world
Today, we are living in the digital world and one of the most important aspects of this is data. Over the past few decades, the fruits of the evolution of technologies and innovations have been embedded in our lives, to improve quality and efficiency. With advancements in digital technologies and the internet, the ecosystem has become more and more digital, connected, and smarter with the capabilities to generate huge amounts of data and exchange them across the systems autonomously.
Smart devices like mobile, tablet and laptops have incredible computing power that allows us to use various applications, the ability to perform and process many tasks in parallel and provide a means to connect to the digital world. As per Statista, as of January 2021, more than half of the world population, around 59.5%, is now connected to the internet and that includes not only the likes of Generation-Z, Generation-Y or Millennials but also the Generation-X and baby boomers whose adoption of technologies, the internet and online services is growing day by day.
The growth of internet users is also driving the increase in online activities through numerous digital platforms, that have become part of our personal lives, like eCommerce for online purchases, social media to connect people, online learning, media and other online services, which have been further accelerated due to Covid-19 pandemic, since 2020. Due to this, enormous amounts of data is being generated, exchanged and consumed from these digital platforms supported by smart devices that may include personal and sensitive data collected while accomplishing activities through digital platforms.
With the increase in use of digital platforms, more and more information will be exposed to the digital world, which creates opportunities for businesses to gather these data, analyze them and find possibilities to engage with customers better, aligned with Digital Transformation Strategies. Data has been coined as the new oil but recently there is another analogy that has been considered as best fitted and defines data more as an Asset and not Oil, whose value will be maximized constantly.
It was predicted that in 2020, 1.7MB of data will be created every second for every person on earth and may reach up to 44 zettabytes. By 2025 it is expected that 463 exabytes of data will be created each day globally.
Additionally, some key statistics from the above infographics are:
· 500 million tweets are sent every day
· 306 billion emails are sent each day
· 65 billion messages are sent on WhatsApp
· 95 million photos and videos are shared on Instagram
· 4PB of data created by Facebook
· 5 billion searches are made each day
As the adoption of digital technologies and online activities continue to increase, the volume of data that will be generated will also keep on growing year on year. Thus, there will be more challenges and opportunities in future in terms of storing, processing, and analyzing Big Data through Cloud Computing and deriving business values.
How safe is all this data?
With the support of digital technologies, data generated by users or customers are collected by businesses for further use. These data are analyzed to dig deeper, to have insights on customer behavior, to know them at a personal level and understand their pain points. As an outcome, it will help businesses to improve engagement with their customers, to provide better product and services, personalized marketing activities and bring them closer. The metadata collected may contain personal data or personally identifiable information or sensitive data which will require to be treated with high importance since it will influence the level of trust and confidence and may provide a competitive advantage for business. So, companies will be required to respect privacy and ensure a high level of protection for these data.
Research shows that around 90% of online users have at least one concern related to privacy or protection of the data. Cybercrime is the biggest threat of data theft where cybercriminals hack the systems, steal personal and sensitive data and then either resell them or exchange them with ransom. Over the past decade, huge amounts of personal data has been stolen where systems were not sufficiently protected and exposed to vulnerability. For example, in 2013–14, around 3 billion user accounts of Yahoo were hacked and compromised, in 2014 around 145 million user account details of eBay were compromised, and many more.
A strong cybersecurity strategy is required to be put in place and shall be mandatory to protect the data from potential cybercrimes. Along with this, it will also be important to comply with the personal data privacy regulations. The two most well-known regulations are General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the state of California, US. Other regulations are also following similar footsteps.
Having strong cybersecurity practices along with compliance with these privacy regulations will send a positive signal and boost the confidence of customers regarding handling of the data. In addition to that, transparency on the data policy from the businesses will also play an important role in gaining the confidence of the customers and build trust towards the company.
Technology will be evolving constantly and so would cybercrimes and the means to commit them. From the customer perspective, concerns on the security of personal information will remain the priority while using digital services. While there will be opportunities for delivering new or improved business values, there lies a big responsibility for companies to ensure that customer data is always protected throughout the digital transformation journey by constantly upgrading their cybersecurity policies and practices.
About this article
This article has been written by a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Strategy Management. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminate the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DSM.
