Big data is something we have never experienced before. Ninety percent of all the data we now have in this world was created in the past five years. There are already about 40 zettabytes of data in the world, and this figure will only keep increasing. This is because all of our actions online constantly add up to this amount of data. All of these actions leave a trace of data that can be used by companies for various purposes. Also, most of the things we do increasingly have a digital component. Some people’s entire lifeline can be found on social media. All of this gives us huge volumes of data which gives rise to huge business opportunities.
Now, businesses are still learning to understand these opportunities and make full use of big data by implementing strategies that allow them to maximize all the new datasets available. They need to understand the type of data they need and where to get them. This does not mean that companies were not using data before the definition of the term “big data”. Of course, there was lots of data. However, in a business setting, it was mostly limited to structured data such as financial records and emails. Most of them could not make use of unstructured data such as social media posts, satellite imagery, doctor’s notes, etc. however, in this era of big data, all that has changed. Businesses now have the ability to process, manage, and analyze structured and unstructured data.
Even though lots of people are concerned about security and privacy, the importance of big data in innovation and digital transformation can no longer be questioned. Big data has come with lots of different analytical tools, techniques, and approaches that can be used to analyze huge amounts of different types of data. The results from this analysis help large and small companies design and update products and services while making informed decisions. According to IBM, we create over two quintillion bytes of data daily, which can be used to make better financial decisions in all the different market sectors. To know more about natural resource management provided by data-based tools, check eos.com.
Why is big data important?
The value of big data is its ability to help stakeholders make informed business decisions that will benefit the company. Now, let’s take a look at how it is important for different sectors:
Advanced Agribusiness
Using big data, farmers can now carry out sustainable and precision farming operations such as smart spraying, harvesting, seeding, and farm monitoring. It helps farmers know precisely which activities to be carried out on their farmers and when they should be done. The result of this is a decrease in environmental damage caused by farming and an increase in crop yields. However, data alone is not enough. Farmers will also need to be able to interpret and analyze the data to extract meaningful information. For this, they will need to have detailed metrics from a central hub or software to bring together all the different variables.
Updated Energy Sector
In the energy sector, big data tools help in optimizing power generation and planning. It does this by letting decision-makers know when, where, and how power is distributed. This will significantly decrease energy consumption and waste. Matching power demand with supply is one of the most efficient ways that energy is used. It will decrease the cost of transportation, especially to areas where it is not needed. So, historical and real-time data on energy consumption can be fed to big data analytics tools to predict and determine the energy needs of a household or community.
Banking and Securities Industry
Big data provides the Securities Exchange Commission with the ability to keep an eye on the financial sector. With the help of NLP and deep learning networks, they are able to spot and stop illegal trading.
Almost all the big corporations in the financial sector use big data for trading analytics. It helps them make big decisions in trading and investments. Also, this sector also depends so much on big data analytics for anti-money laundering and risk management.
In this digitally advanced world, big data has endless applications that cut across all the various market sectors. Businesses can use this tool to better understand their customers and provide the right products and services.