Why will Big Data become an indispensable future of business?
Not so long ago, on a GetIndata blog, I wrote a post about the e-commerce sector and the growing need to use Big Data tools and solutions in it. But is it only e-commerce? While doing reaserch, I realized that the problem is not only in one industry. For years, we have witnessed many aspects of our lives being transferred to the virtual world, and this trend not only persists but accelerates from year to year. Of course, the recent events relating to the outbreak of the pandemic accelerated the matter even more — after 2020 no one has any doubts that the restrictions relating to the emergence of Covid-19 accelerated the digital transformation of many sectors of the economy. However, the digitization of businesses started before the outbreak of pandemics and will continue. With this trend, there will be a growing need to use Big Data solutions, a need so great that it will turn into a necessity — and no one can deny it.
There are too many of them!
It seems obvious, but we often don’t realize how huge amounts of data are produced and processed. By 2010, humanity had produced 1.2 trillion gigabytes of data, and ten years later, in 2020, the total amount of data is already 59 trillion gigabytes. In ten years, 57.8 trillion gigabytes were generated. But it is not everything. It is assumed that we will generate more data in the next three years than in the last thirty years. It’s hard to imagine these numbers properly — and yet they will only grow. There is no longer any doubt that our world is becoming driven by the myriad of data that largely begins to determine our lives. Day by day it is becoming more and more data-driven.
Therefore, it is hard to imagine that organizations that will function (even partially) in the virtual space after the digital transformation would not use this data. And this is the first issue that speaks in favor of the fact that Big Data is the future of business — because sooner or later almost all organizations will be digitized. They will be forced to process huge amounts of data, so huge that without the right tools it will not be possible not only to analyze and interpret them but even to store them. It won’t be possible to avoid the implementation of Big Data solutions that will help in data management. For example, cloud solutions will become even more popular, because thanks to them, organizations will be able to outsource more and more problematic activities related to data storage.
They are everywhere!
It is not only the amount of data that will determine the need for solutions offered by Big Data. As I mentioned before, our life will become more data-driven, as more and more of its everyday elements generate this data. Yes, the Internet of Things is already here, and it is generating data that surrounds us on all sides. And we’re not just talking about telephones, work equipment or cameras. Data from vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, even ovens — household appliances that accompany us in everyday life. They may all already be part of the IoT, they are all involved in generating the data world that surrounds us. And there will be more, many more — Smart homes, self-driving cars, smart cities, data are generated all around us. Will any company trying to compete on the market be able to afford the lack of Big data solutions if the competition uses them? Can any company survive without the data management it generates? I think we all know the answer. The world of data that surrounds us will force business to play according to its rules — to generate and process data that will become the fuel of the new times.
They are so complicated!
The amount of data is not only increasing but they are also more complex and precise. Today, we can check not only when the customer bought our product and service. No, we also know when he logged on to the network, who he is, what searching habits he has been looking for, what products he has been looking for before, and what path he got to us. This is just behavior, but thanks to the new data, we can predict much more — shopping hours, the impact of individual holidays, days of the week, and even the weather. We know the exact location, we know the client’s mood. But it’s just e-commerce. Advanced data management systems will help predict an epidemic, predict economic changes both at the level of one company and the whole world. Sounds interesting and scary at the same time, right? So many possibilities, but also so many threats. Privacy is already predicted to be one of the main concerns with data. And data management, collection, and analysis — the tools necessary for these activities will become more and more common. Machine learning and real-time analytics are words that are already loud on the Internet as trends of the future. But looking at how fast technology develops … the future is now.
Once more, to the data-driven approach!
So what will the future of business and society look like? There is only one answer — it will be based on data. All predictions indicate that the amount of data generated will only increase. Machine Learning will help to analyze the amount of data that otherwise could not be processed by any human being. The systems that respond in real-time to disturbing changes or anomalies are the future. Personalization of services and goods, predicting consumer behavior, all of this is already in place. For several years now, there has been discussions about the need to introduce extensive management and data analysis systems. Still many do not believe in the success of such activities, because some of them associate complicated Big Data projects with mysterious alchemy and dark magic. And yet the question that sooner or later all larger businesses will have to ask themselves is not “Do I need Big Data solutions?”, but instead “When will I need Big Data solutions?”.
We should prepare now for the introduction of such solutions — focus on analytics and understanding what data we need, what our company generates, and which of them are the most important. It is already necessary to build the foundations of the infrastructure that will enable us to become a data-driven company in the future.
If we turn to the data-oriented approach too late, and company processes do not become data-driven, it may turn out that there will be no place for us in the new world of data.
