From data gathering to competitive strategy: The evolution of big data

Introduction

The potential of big data -- or "the new oil," as some CIOs and industry experts have dubbed it -- seems as endless as it is elusive. Big data campaigns are in their infancy, with enterprises of all stripes figuring out how to use new, old, unstructured and external data to create a competitive strategy.

Even though the ground rules for gathering data and scrutinizing its worth are still taking shape, companies know they need to get in the game. They are collecting and mining data on customers, employees, market dynamics, the weather, you name it, with tools ranging from traditional business intelligence (BI) systems to more experimental ones, such as geospatial and real-time mobile tracking technologies, social media analytics and NoSQL databases.

SearchCIO isn't standing on the sidelines, either. Our Essential Guide on big data includes a primer for getting started with data gathering and analysis, real-world case studies from the CIO and business perspectives, tips on how to overcome obstacles encountered by the big data pioneers, and predictions on the next big data frontier and what it means for competitive strategy.

This guide on the evolution of big data is part of SearchCIO's CIO Briefings series, which is designed to give IT leaders strategic management and decision-making advice on timely topics.

1Initial considerations-

Big data: The promise, and a primer

Before big data got its name, IT executives such as CIO Christopher Perretta of State Street Corp. and Warren Ritchie, former CIO at Volkswagen Group of America Inc., understood that CIOs had to stake a claim in this field. Back in 2011, they spoke about the potential of using large data sets to create business value and entirely new business models.

Whether your company is in a fight for its life or simply fighting to stay on top, its ability to manage and mine large data sets will be critical to its success. CIOs such as Ritchie and Perretta knew this. More to the point, business leaders knew this and took action in their organizations to promote data gathering and analysis as part of a larger competitive strategy.

2Videos-

Watch big data evolve before your eyes

Are you on the front lines of harnessing large data sets? These videos offer advice for crafting a competitive strategy around big data.

Video

Next-generation BI and big data trends

IT once thought there was too much information and not enough data, but that mind-set has shifted: CIOs now have too much data and not enough information.

Video

Generating business value from data tools

Sears Holding Corp. chief technology officer Phil Shelley is working toward making Sears a real-time digital enterprise. That includes the migration of workloads off mainframes, implementing large-scale private open source cloud computing, and using Hadoop.

Video

Data-sharing initiatives drive innovation in health care

Cathy Bruno, vice president and CIO at Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, is improving public health through innovations in data sharing, mobility and analytics.

3Making progress-

Big data in traction: The challenges

Statistician Nate Silver, crowned the big data expert by his political colleagues following the 2012 election, believes that while bigger, richer and more granular data sets offer deeper insights and greater business value, they also come with challenges that make uncovering those insights more difficult than before.

Silver unlocked the potential of large data sets when he accurately predicted nearly all of the results of the 2012 presidential campaign. Following on his success, IT leaders are spending more time focusing on competitive strategies for utilizing big data.

4Glossary-

Big data: Some terms to know

Brush up on some of the basics of a big data strategy with the terminology below.

5Real-world examples-

Big data in action: The case studies

For companies such as Land O'Lakes Inc. and its CIO, Barry Libenson, keeping up with an increase in population, and therefore increase in customers, is all about productivity. Using big data and predictive analytics, agricultural companies can utilize valuable information to keep up with changing business environments.

The new initiative not only involves integrating diverse data from disparate sources but also putting sophisticated and easy-to-consume analytics right into the hands of the company's internal sales and marketing team, as well as into the hands of the cooperatives and farmers it distributes to.

6Quiz-

Big data storage and technologies: A quiz for CIOs

Changes in the way organizations collect, store and analyze information are transforming the way CIOs view big data. With massive amounts of data to account for, CIOs must equip their team with the tools and resources necessary for gathering data and finding value, and develop a plan for properly maintaining all that information.

Are you following the latest big data trends and staying hip to the infosphere? Where are you storing data? Are you analyzing information thoroughly? In this quiz, brush up on some of our recent stories and test your big data knowledge.

7The next steps-

Big data on the horizon

According to our CIO expert Harvey Koeppel, we hear a lot these days about the "Big Data Frontier." By now, we all have a reasonable understanding of what we mean by "big" -- terabytes, petabytes, exabytes and so on. We certainly know what we mean by "data" -- fields, records, files, marts, warehouses, rows, columns, tables, blobs, structured data, unstructured data, etc. But what about the "frontier"?

Koeppel explains that big data will not only help us do a better job of anticipating our future -- it will be a significant enabler in creating our future.