Data rules modern industry. Big data refers to a lot of data including bulk data which can be used for a myriad of purposes, all resulting in increased customer/consumer satisfaction and higher profit margins for companies who employ big data to conduct their business. Using data to help your business is not a new idea, it’s a fundamental idea: when you decide to open a sandal shop in ancient Rome, you’ve analyzed the fact that sandals are popular amongst the citizens of Rome and that’s what is guiding you to get into business. This is simplistic but it essentially summarizes what is happening when data is used for business.
The more data you have, however, the more nuanced its applications get. And, although you’re ultimately pushing for the same end result, there are a lot of interesting ways it can be used. Plus these applications are evolving and advancing constantly. So without further ado, here are some big data trends to be aware of moving forward.
Speed Is King
Accuracy of data predictions, minimizing the costs associated with management and analysis of big data, and translating market trends into creative consumer solutions are all very important aspects of big data. And they are very likely to stay that way as big data continues to be so dominant. But the real winner, in terms of bettering your organization, is speed. “The holy grail of big data analysis is the concept of ‘Streaming Analytics’. If the data can be processed and analyzed as it flows in there can be an extremely fast turnaround, which is great for companies,” says Emilio Gamble, big data expert at Academized and EliteAssignmentHelp. The faster you can complete the data analysis, the quicker you can latch on to the trends and economic advice inherent to the data. It is a taxing and expensive process and requires enormously powerful computers, but it’s set to be the future.
Cloudy Future
Data storage in the cloud is set to be an ubiquitous phenomenon for companies in need of storage solutions. The major cloud storage companies are constantly investing massive amounts of money to improve the durability, security and capacity of their services which is resulting in an enormous amount of interest from others involved in big data. Cloud companies are also identifying their own usefulness to businesses reliant on big data, with in-house machine learning and automation software so that storage and analytics become one in the same. There are certain risks attached to the cloud, but those risks are worked on and dealt with at an increasingly fast rate, so valuable is the service offered. If cloud providers can keep up with the demand, this could be a huge year for big data storage.
IoT Transitioning
The IoT (Internet of Things) is evolving out of being something that makes Amazon shopping easy for impatient teens and makes people feel like they live in their very own high-tech spy movie. It’s always been cool, but having a smart toaster, hooked up to a smart house, might be set to transition out of its current role as a handy, if somewhat unnecessary, gadget. The more omni-present these physicalized smart objects are, the more companies will be interested in harnessing them for data purposes. These objects can actually learn from humans in a much more intimate and specific way, with not only the purchase, but the specific usage becoming recordable. There are the usual privacy concerns, of course, but it looks like that could be somewhere we are headed.
Data Mandate Enforcement is Here
Potentially profitable but also as potentially invasive and dangerous, it isn’t surprising big data supply and demand has been called ‘the new oil’. There are huge rewards for data use for all kinds of businesses, but governing bodies have taken notice of the potential that data mismanagement can have for serious harm. “2018 saw the arrival of the enactment of the EU’s GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] and, to my mind, marked the formal arrival of a new data driven age. There is no equivalent in the States quite yet, but there are already reams of mandates that people have to follow, and the more over-excited people get about the prospects of data, the more of that kind of regulation we’ll see,” explains Oliver Holt, tech writer at State Of Writing and OXEssays. Like anything, big data can be misused, and massively so. Breaching privacy is the central concern and there is a universal sense that governing bodies will have to work harder and harder to regulate the flow of data. Just like how it might be some time before your smart toaster can tell Pepperidge Farm that you prefer raisin to whole wheat, it also might never happen as companies begin to see that the amount of data they are actually allowed to garner isn’t worth the investment in the automation and AI it takes to analyze it all. It’s a fine line and if companies are cautious and play by the book, there should be room for some allowances, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Conclusion
Whether you are logging into Netflix, opening up Amazon, using some facial recognition software, or even running a business yourself, data is big and big data is even bigger. It’s everywhere, and the people using it now are profiting massively from how powerful of a resource a whole bank of data on client and consumer preferences and behaviors can be. It’s a growing field, which might be partly why it is so exciting at the present time. But with that sense of growth comes a myriad of opportunities for people who take a few risks on predicting where it is all going. Hopefully this list will help you see a few of the ways in which big data is set to affect everyone in the next few years.
