The term 'big data' is gaining currency as organisations increasingly grapple with ever-larger volumes of information that, potentially, could tell them useful things they don't currently know about their customers, processes and business.
Gartner puts it thus: "Success with big data requires new and innovative forms of information processing, including unconventional data management technologies, architectures and analytic capabilities. IT and business leaders must develop an information asset management strategy for the new economics of information.
Clinton Jacobs, analyst at local research firm BMI-T, has found there's a great deal of confusion about business intelligence (BI), analytics and big data. He asks vendors how they differentiate between the three terms and how best they should be contextualised.
First to leap into the fray is Dave Ives, a director of Karabina Solutions, who explains that big data is essentially a superset of BI. And then, possibly just to confuse the issue still more, he raises the term 'dark data', which he defines as unused or dormant data. To put it all into context, he uses the example of a customer - one of the big mines in this case - where his team is working to incorporate weather data, telemetry data and global positioning data into the company's systems.
He describes the benefit as an extension of traditional time and attendance, because it allows the business to understand the exact state and position of all its mining equipment at all times, which Ives says can offer huge opportunity to customers. "Big data is providing new context for BI, and for us that's the opportunity," he adds.
Extracting value
Itayi Mandonga, senior sales consulting manager at Oracle, says the ICT industry has been talking for years about getting value out of data. "We're not about to drop that, we still need to get value out of data. Just more data, different types of data, better ways and means of analysing that data," he comments.
On the subject of big data versus BI, he says the two are not mutually exclusive. "Big data is the acquisition, the management, the analytics of it, and BI is the driver giving that [data] to the end-user to turn into knowledge," he notes.
However, Nicholas Bell, CEO of Business Intelligent, sees problems with the abilities of (or lack thereof) customers to consume this data. He asks: "So now you've given me all this data, do I know what kind of meaning I need to get from it?"
We still need to get value out of data. Just more data, different types of data, better ways and means of analysing that data.
Itayi Mandonga, senior sales consulting manager, Oracle
In answering his own question, he says large dollops of customer education are required for the customer to fully appreciate what it all means and how it can assist the business. Bell says the key is for users to understand how to use the data in an appropriate manner to get real business value from it in a way that justifies the expense of it.
Twanette Jurd, technical director for InfoBuild, suggests the whole approach to providing BI solutions needs revision. Many customers haven't even reached the basic 'I get reporting' level, she says. They can't even get the data from their systems, never mind think about what questions can be asked of it.
"It's not just a technology challenge, it's where the business analyst, the solutions architect and the like actually provide extra value to these technologies," explains Jurd.
New territory
Adrienne McDougall, a BI specialist at IBM, expresses it even more simply: in big data, we're thinking about getting into sources of data that, for some reason, we haven't been able to tap into before. "It's really about how we tap into information that we now realise is useful to us, but...we haven't been able to see [that] before," she adds.
"BI is about how we get it to our users in a way that they understand it, and in a way they can use it easily and conveniently to make decisions," says McDougall.
Jurd adds: "You have to put a face on big data and [that] face is business intelligence."
Cedric Labuschagne, a director of Avanade SA, believes there's a maturity model where customers are going from no data at all to too much data, to a point where it's difficult to comprehend.
Bruce Bond-Myatt, business advisory manager for the MEA region at SAS, says vendors must be able to deliver value using analytics and reporting on data for a wide spectrum of users. "If you can value your whole portfolio in a day rather than over a week, that gives you a certain amount of competitive advantage," he notes.
Take a chance
Keith Matthew, GM for sub-Saharan Africa at BT, uses the analogy of a control system where information comes in, is analysed and used to adapt the system to be more efficient, effective or productive. It's the same for business, he says. We analyse big data to measure what's happening in the business and use that to improve the processes.
Philip Mostert, BI development manager for 3fifteen, points out that BI and big data are not once-off projects, but a process of continuous improvement. "One of the key things is knowing your processes, knowing your business and that's probably where BI can add the best value," he says.
You have to put a face on big data and [that] face is business intelligence.
Twanette Jurd, technical director, InfoBuild
Woudr'e van Zyl, senior sales engineer at MicroStrategy, says vendors and customers shouldn't be afraid anymore. "Yes, you should still do cost of ownership and ROI calculations, but you must be willing to take a little bit of a risk to see what the possibilities are," she says.
First published in the October 2013 issue of ITWeb Brainstorm magazine.
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