What does the digital future of business look like? The answer lies in Big Data
The speed of change in some companies is faster than many companies can cope with. Due to technology, change is becoming more and more frequent. However, humans have an incredible capacity to adapt, even if it this requieres an effort in learning.
We need help.
And here data plays a key role, those intangible digital assets that are increasingly necessary and relevant for business and society. It is important to bear in mind that data is nowadays what shapes the structure of the world and that a large part of political, economic and social decisions are determined by it; indeed, we could go so far as to say that sometimes it decides for us.
Efficient data management, a necessity for today’s business
Many businesses lack the capacity to manage data efficiently and are missing out on some of the value that could help them make decisions.
A recent report shows that the application of data and data analytics is becoming a key driver of success, yet the same data confirms that less than 40% of organisations were using data-driven insights to drive business value and innovation as of last year.
However, around 50% of the companies, are aware that data is the key to decision making. They are therefore looking for the most correct and appropriate way to collect this data and analyse it in a way that helps to optimise business processes and anticipate future events, in order to be able to adopt preventive measures and strategic actions for the company.
Cloud technology, an indispensable tool
It is also important to have a mechanism to assess whether the decisions made are fair or not, and even whether they are ethical. And this is where the Big Data and Artificial Intelligence ecosystem comes in, which will determine the most appropriate technology for this. It is worth highlighting, within these aspects, the cloud, whose flexibility makes it an essential travelling companion in large projects involving the management of large amounts of data.
Data: a valuable asset in corporations.
However, despite the importance of these technologies, managers are still the key players in the interpretation of data when it comes to guiding companies along the right path in its use. But they are not the only ones. There are variables that also influence companies that do not act: from operations to sales, customer engagement, revenue and profitability. Only those companies that are able to monetise data and turn it into assets will do well, while those that do not will be left behind. Data governance, approached from the most modern perspective imaginable, is capable of generating great interest in the market, especially in sectors such as insurance and banking, to bring order to their data infrastructures.
The sectors able to take advantage of the fields of application of data today are becoming increasingly numerous: on the one hand, marketing, which allows analysis and knowledge of user behaviour in real time; production, where it is used to carry out predictive analyses and correct the factors that affect the quality of one of the components; in logistics, as a tool to plan and optimise traffic problems or adapt to the needs of users; and even in the field of research, to facilitate analysis and comparison of possible solutions that human beings would not be able to resolve in a short time.
Big Data opens the door to Artificial Intelligence.
Moreover, the perfect ally for Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, emerges to help manage all this information. This serves as a support for companies to understand and partially or fully automate the analysis of the enormous amount of data handled by Big Data, allowing humans to free themselves from many of these tasks. However, the problem comes when assessing the “danger” involved. This could cross some limits between what is right and what is ethical if we delegate some decision-making or problem-solving to technology. How far are we willing to go?