Is Too Much Expected Of Big Data?

Some people find Big Data to be a boon to their expansion strategy while others are trashing it. Who is right?

Sunil Jose, Managing Director, Teradata India

The Indian market and local enterprises are convinced about the benefit that Big Data can provide to an IT organization.

But they haven't, as a market, yet been convinced on what benefits Big Data can provide to their business functions. There are at least a couple of companies in each vertical that are pushing the envelope and adopting Big Data by integrating it to their existing data and analytic ecosystem, therefore adding value to the business regularly.

Big Data needs to be converted into insights to give relevant information that is useful. Don't hesitate to experiment and assess the resources and skills needed to solve the business problems you are targeting.

LK Gupta, CMO, GirnarSoft (cardekho.com)

At CarDekho.com a team of talented statisticians and analysts use advanced computational techniques to make analytical inferences relating to the consumer's car buying preferences. It helps us understand prevailing demand and also provide deeper insights into the most popular colours, engine types and features in a particular car.

Such technological advancement clubbed with the fact that all this data is real time, enables us to help out the car sellers too, which eventually contributes to the growth of the automobile sector. Such data also gives us interesting futuristic insights into the ever evolving buyer behavior based on their tastes and preferences.

Biswapriya Bhattacharjee, Group Business Director, IMRB

Currently, Big Data is largely in the realm of technology firms with advanced algorithms and tools to mine such data, providing an automated system to extract data and draw meaningful insights. The real benefit will be realised as analytics companies start using it to draw contextual and competitive market insights, marrying these with traditional data sources and taking the analysis beyond addressing pre-defined objectives.

However, management of legal and ethical issues around accessing and using Big Data will be important to determine the extent to which big data gets utilised by businesses.

Sarang Panchal, CEO, MRSS INDIA

Having a set of technical 'soldiers' who unearth and unravel consumer behaviour is quite fascinating. Particularly since they are not from the domain, and here they are, tearing apart data and contributing in a very creative way to tough marketing or business problems, some of which may not even have been defined.

And with newer data sources like mobile and subsequently sensors contributing volumes of data, Big Data will truly move to a zone where astute users will markedly benefit. Mobile will not only be a source of Big Data but will also serve as a delivery mechanism to users. It is most relevant to Big Data because the mobile produces contextual data about human behaviour that is immensely useful to marketers.

Tejinder Singh, COO, Arvind Internet (Creyate.com)

Big data is to analytics, what analytics was to MIS in the '90s. It is about moving from reaction to prediction.

In Creyate, a consumer doesn't buy a garment, but just leaves instructions about choice of fabric, components, collar style, fit amongst other things and instructions around manufacturing operations - cut and sew designs, laser patterns, monogramming of initials and much more.

One year before the launch, we started gathering loads of information around fits and size charts and silhouettes of what people usually wear. It helped us come up with 100-odd basic blocks, which serve as start points that can be tweaked.

Sangeetha Phalgunan, Country Manager – Sales, Informatica India

Most companies today use data from an analytical standpoint for decision making and process improvement. In the next few years, data will be used in a predictive fashion by using past behavior and mathematical modeling to predict behavioral outcomes and decisions. In the future, data will be used to anticipate our needs.

As exciting as all this makes it, it can also be daunting for those organizations who are not sure which big data project to start with and how to avoid the multitude of pitfalls that often gets in the way of successful big data implementations.

Organizations can realize the promise of big data to power a faster and smarter business when they adopt a ’data-centric’ approach to how they operate, and start to place data at the heart of their business.

For instance, big data can change the way consumers comprehend brands, through interactions initiated across multiple channels and at multiple touch points. Data can also define a buyer in real time by providing minute details of his or her purchase preferences.