Getting the business of Big Data right
It’s hard to follow the tech industry press and not see stories of companies reporting trouble obtaining value from their Big Data investments. McKinsey notably reported just this in December of last year in an update to their well-regarded 2011 Big Data report.
Since 2011, the pool of skilled people has grown, many companies have developed data science departments, and vendors have created ways for less skilled analysts to interrogate Big Data. Despite all of this, as we all have read and perhaps seen in person, companies struggle.
On the technical side, it’s been widely reported that complexity is getting in the way of business value. So vendors in both the open source and commercial worlds are working hard to streamline the analytics process and maximize the productivity of human resources that drive Big Data projects.
On the business side, vendors are working equally hard to paint visions of high value business outcomes enabled with Big Data technologies. They focus on business challenges which could be addressed if analytics were done differently than they are today. Also in spite of these efforts, struggles continue.
Resolving these dual problems requires business people, IT and analytics pros come together and recognize the peculiarities of the Big Data market.
Line of business leader involvement in Big Data projects is considered today to be the best practice to achieving meaningful business value. If this describes you, then you may immediately be confused about what Big Data represents. You probably don’t care about the “how.”
For you, first recognize that Big Data Analytics is about doing something better than you do today. Such as allocating your marketing budget, deciding how to personalize or orchestrate your marketing, or planning the demand for your products or services. These are activities you do today, so you have an existing frame of reference when being approached with a Big Data use case.
If you work in IT or data science, it’s important to appreciate this perspective. The work streams that businesspeople have developed around the way they measure and drive their processes tend to be familiar and comfortable.
