What are The Advantages of Big data?

by Aarushi Sharma Human Resource Executive

As Gartner defines it — “Big Data are high volume, high velocity, and/or high-variety information assets that require new forms of processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight discovery, and process optimization.”Let’s dig deeper and understand this in simpler terms.

The term ‘big data’ is self-explanatory − a collection of extremely big data sets that normal computing techniques cannot process. The term not only refers to the data, but also to the various frameworks, tools, and techniques involved. Technological advancement and the advent of new channels of communication (like social networking) and new, stronger devices have presented a challenge to industry players in the sense that they have to find other ways to handle the data.

All this data is useful when processed, but it had been in gross neglect before the concept of big data came along.

Pro-Tip: To learn more about Big Data and get your foot in the Data Science industry door, consider professional certification training in Big Data or in allied technologies, such as Impala, Cassandra, Spark, and Scala.

The Major Sources of Big Data

Black Box Data: This is the data generated by airplanes, including jets and helicopters. Black box data includes flight crew voices, microphone recordings, and aircraft performance information.
Social Media Data: This is data developed by such social media sites as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google+.
Stock Exchange Data: This is data from stock exchanges about the share selling and buying decisions made by customers.
Power Grid Data: This is data from power grids. It holds information on particular nodes such as usage information.
Transport Data: This includes possible capacity, vehicle model, availability, and distance covered by a vehicle.
Search Engine Data: This is one of the biggest sources of big data. Search engines have vast databases where they get their data.

Additionally, Bernard Marr, a Big Data and Analytics expert, has come up with his brilliant list of 20 Big Data sources that are freely available to everybody on the web. Some of them are briefed about here.

Google Trends, Google Finance, Amazon Web Services public datasets, are all similar examples.

Big Data Merits

Today’s consumer is very demanding. He talks to pass customers on social media and looks at different options before buying. A customer wants to be treated as an individual and to be thanked after buying a product. With big data, you will get actionable data that you can use to engage with your customers one-on-one in real-time. One way big data allows you to do this is that you will be able to check a complaining customer’s profile in real-time and get info on the product/s he/she is complaining about. You will then be able to perform reputation management.
Big data allows you to re-develop the products/services you are selling. Information on what others think about your products -such as through unstructured social networking site text- helps you in product development.
Big data allows you to test different variations of CAD (computer-aided design) images to determine how minor changes affect your process or product. This makes big data invaluable in the manufacturing process.
Predictive analysis will keep you ahead of your competitors. Big data can facilitate this by, as an example, scanning and analyzing social media feeds and newspaper reports. Big data also helps you do health-tests on your customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders to help you reduce risks such as default.
Big data is helpful in keeping data safe. Big data tools help you map the data landscape of your company, which helps in the analysis of internal threats. As an example, you will know if your sensitive information has protection or not. A more specific example is that you will be able to flag the emailing or storage of 16 digit numbers (which could, potentially, be credit card numbers).
Big data allows you to diversify your revenue streams. Analyzing big data can give you trend-data that could help you come up with a completely new revenue stream.
Your website needs to be dynamic if it is to compete favorably in the crowded online space. Analysis of big data helps you personalize the look/content and feel of your site to suit every visitor based on, as an example, nationality and sex. An example of this is Amazon’s IBCF (item-based collaborative filtering) that drives its “People you may know” and “Frequently bought together” features.
If you are running a factory, big data is important because you will not have to replace pieces of technology based on the number of months or years they have been in use. This is costly and impractical since different parts wear at different rates. Big data allows you to spot failing devices and will predict when you should replace them.
Big data is important in the healthcare industry, which is one of the last few industries still stuck with a generalized, conventional approach. As an example, if you have cancer, you will go through one therapy and if it does not work, your doctor will recommend another therapy. Big data allows a cancer patient to get medication that is developed based on his/her individual genes.