A REPORT BY HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW ANALYTIC SERVICES

Big Data: The Future of Information and Business

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Big Data: The Future of
Information and Business
Executive Summary
BIG DATA HAS become a catchall phrase, but at its heart, it offers three challenges for organizations. First, business leaders must deploy new technologies and then prepare for a potential revolution in the collection and measurement of information. More important, the entire organization must adapt a new philosophy about how decisions are made, if the real value of big data is to be realized.
The amount of data pouring into organizations through ever-expanding channels is staggering. According to one source, more data have been produced in the past two years than in all of prior history. Not only has the volume of data changed, but so has the variety: information is now collected from multiple channels, ranging from Web clicks to the unstructured data from social media. And the velocity at which organizations can now collect, analyze, and respond to data has added a new dimension. Amazon, for instance, uses a dynamic pricing system that crawls over the Web, checks competitors’ prices and product availabilities, and changes the prices on Amazon, in some cases every fifteen seconds. Amazon can collect data from every visitor, every click, and every interaction, which collectively are known as structured data, and it can also collect reviews or evaluations from consumers or their social media posts.
A second important aspect of big data is the potential in new forms of measurement. For instance, technology is already widely available that can automatically report vital health statistics to your doctors while you exercise. Likewise, GE embeds micro-transmitters such as sensors and networking technology to help customers with predictive maintenance of power