Data comes from a wide variety of sources, and there’s little question that the right data is the absolute lifeline of business in today’s competitive markets. Because this is true across so many different fields, any company that can provide customer data is going to have plenty of different clients to choose from. Big data matters, and there’s no question that the current trends moving into the future suggest that this will only continue. To learn more, check out the infographic below, created by the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Online Master of Science in Computer Science program.
Companies taking the step to have data specialists and other professionals who focus specifically on managing important data before passing it on to each department have seen huge spikes in production. Add into this the ability for each department to be more efficient and it doesn’t take long to see why many corporations are making that solid movement not only to work with big data companies, but also to bring in their own full-time professionals who know how to manage the data to bring successful results for everyone in the company.
Interior & Exterior Source Data
There are many places where this all-important data is gathered. Externally, social media plays a big role, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon. Data of a target demographic on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and other social media websites can help to create a detailed picture of potential customers and what type of programs can reach out and be effective with them. Audio, photos and videos are also important content. From what is viewed to what is actually created, these areas of information can provide some serious insight as to how a target audience thinks or reacts.
While these outside sources of data are worth taking a serious look at, there is also plenty of information internally that can be just as (or even more) important. Transactions are obviously the first place to look, since those all represent actual sales that have taken place. If there is any place where you can find out more about how to bump up your sales, it’s going to be in the data you create by analyzing all the sales transactions you have already processed.
Right behind that should be log data and email data. These are two areas that can provide a lot of information, but it takes a specialist to go through all of those masses of data and pull out what is really useful and important to the company and to put aside all the data that really doesn’t help out.
Can There Be Too Much Data?
The problem for most companies is that they actually have almost too much data to go through, hence the quick adaptation of terms like “Big Data.” More than half of all executives admit they only take advantage of around half of their total data. There’s just too much to go through to fully take advantage of the rest.
One-quarter of companies openly admit to struggling to analyze all the data that comes in, while over one-third of workers talk about not being able to tackle the job of handling the sheer amount of information that is coming in. These numbers are double from five years ago, and it’s likely that they are going to continue to rise in companies that don’t step forward with a plan to deal with the growing concern.
While there’s a lot to like about servers, many companies even report having so much information that one server can’t hold everything they want to analyze. Companies are in need of more specialists who know not only how to sift through an insane amount of data in order to find the information that is most useful, but also how to organize it all.
Don’t Underestimate Data-Driven Analytics
Over half of all businesses recently surveyed have made changes to their overall strategy of gathering and using data based on the information they have received. There’s no question that data-driven analytics using the proper information can help manage risk, create market advantages for the company and enhance the quality job performance of everyone within the company.
Health care and IT companies are ahead of the curve when it comes to analyzing a massive amount of information and using that information and that analysis in order to save hundreds of billions of dollars and make their companies much more efficient.
There’s no question that managing big data is critical in order to make companies run as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Published by Conselium Executive Search, the global leader in compliance search.
