Definition Big Data

When the future was thought of 50 years ago, people were thinking of flying cars, hovercrafts or beaming. Instead, the great technological revolution of the 21st century was the Internet. And although at first glance this may seem less fantastic and exciting, it has turned our lives and our society upside down from the ground up. , cloud computing or even big data firmly anchored in our lives. But this now presents us with new, great opportunities and challenges.

And this is a smart way to tackle this, especially as a company!

In a brief, . This means that things that previously had to take place in “real life” can now be easily executed from the screen. This process has progressed in recent decades. Whether shopping, communication or banking, nowadays all this is possible online. And one of the consequences of this is the mass of data circulating about each of us. Businesses and public institutions generate and store data – 2.5 trillion bytes a day, in fact. This figure continues to rise dramatically, with around 90% of the world’s available data being collected in the last 4 years alone.
Collected.

And this trend is likely to continue. New Internet users are added every day and new apps and software are being developed.

This term refers to the large amounts of data produced by companies and consumers. Consumer data mainly includes information on purchasing and online behaviour, such as production and transport data on the company side.

To describe the term big data in more detail, you also use the 3 Vs – Volume, Velocity and Variety.
Volume describes the large volume of data
Velocity means speed and means the speed at which data is generated
Variety refers to the variety of different data source and shapes.

When these 3 factors come together, it’s called big data.

Data is collected, whether consciously or unconsciously. For companies, the question now is how and whether they use this data for themselves. Ownership alone does not bring any advantages at first. This requires big data analytics. This allows data to be grouped into data sets in a structured way. For this purpose, their sources, formats and sizes must be processed and checked for relevance. Big data software and statistical methods are then used to analyze. In theory, therefore, a lot of information is available to companies. But what does this mean in concrete terms?

Big data opens a lot of doors for your business, but it also brings its pitfalls. I have briefly summarized the opportunities and risks available here.

The main goal is to gain insights into future developments and to be able to assess customer behavior and needs.

In a company, large amounts of data are collected every day. From these, links and influencing factors can be defined with big data. This information facilitates important decisions, whether long-term strategic or short-term. This allows companies to use their resources more effectively and thus increase the success of the company. Real-time analytics make decisions faster, and big data analytics makes them extremely accurate.

The market is often oversaturated these days. Many companies want to survive on the market, while in some cases they differ little. So they have to secure competitive advantages. Big data is a great tool for this. By collecting data in all areas of the company, the information learned can be used to increase efficiency in all areas, for example by optimizing processes or reducing costs.

Not every opportunity that big data brings is also directly targeted at the company. Thanks to big data analytics, customers are also able to gain much deeper insights into what is happening in the company. Companies that don’t deliver what they promise can lose their authenticity. If a sustainable organic company, for example, Selling products from catastrophic crops, and customers are skewering this, could have catastrophic consequences. On the other hand, however, companies can strengthen their reputation by proving their authenticity to the end user.

. New innovations and advances are of fundamental importance in order to survive in the market and to set themselves out of the competition. The data collected about customers is therefore particularly important for this. Preferences, Pain Points, Demand – these are all important factors that can be determined with big data. Through analysis, trends can be identified and strategies or products developed that are tailored to the customer. And even during the test phase, data can be collected that can determinate the success of the product in advance.

The most striking advantage of big data is probably that of individual adaptation. A good example would be Netflix – based on the analysis of your preferred movies, you’ll be offered more titles that you might like. Pretty much every streaming portal works with big data to provide consumers with a personalized, personalized, personalized service.

The customer feels understood and valued as an individual.

As you can imagine, not everyone feels comfortable with all sorts of companies collecting data about one. Many feel big data as a drastic invasion of privacy. In any case, extreme attention must be paid to data protection so that confidential data does not reach the public. Thanks to cookies, we generate data even during a simple visit to the website. Cookies are small text files that track your movements on the Internet, giving websites the ability to recognize you and address you in a personalized way. Due to this mass of data and information that the user leaves behind, there is hardly any anonymity left on the internet. This can quickly act as a deterrent. Transparency and traceability are therefore extremely important from the corporate side.

As mentioned earlier, the protection of the generated data is extremely important. There are different laws around the world. The data protection directives need to be adapted to modern developments in order to protect the security and anonymity of consumers. The data must therefore not be easily accessible to everyone. Until recently, it was still common place in Germany that users did not even have to give consent to collect their data. The new GDPR has introduced more control and security there, at least for the time being. It is important to make customers feel that they are masters of their data themselves and that they retain a certain autonomy in the network.

Data is not only valuable for companies. Many hackers are now also on the move to fish for information. With data redundancy and a wide-area distribution of servers, it is difficult to guarantee security against hacker attacks.

The large amount of data can quickly become confusing. It is hardly possible to achieve perfect results and recognize patterns correctly with an algorithm. Also, not all the data collected is actually relevant. Making the right connections, drawing the right conclusions and making the right decisions is therefore not always easy.

. . However, in order to be able to use the obtained data correctly, it must be analyzed and interpreted correctly. If you can do that, you can create an immense competitive advantage and understand your customers even better. However, the complexity of big data analytics should not be taken lightly.

For the future, it would be advisable to focus more on big data, invest in improved software and use your budget efficiently.

If we still manage the risks, big data will soon be able to develop its full potential in the future. Don’t miss that!