As companies continue to invest a significant fraction of their revenues in research, more and more cutting-edge technologies have emerged. The emergence of modern technologies aside, the existing ones have also evolved. All these traits in no small measures shape the global business ecosystem. Today, the latest addition in the series of technological advancements is big data.

According the Telsyte Big Data and Analytics study, about 80% of Australian companies with no fewer than 20 staff have a definite big data strategy. In its 2018 report, the emerging technology analytics firm, however, further noted that many of such strategies are in its infancy with a number of such companies still experimenting with the technology. So, in this piece, we will walk you through the role of big data in the industry.

Understanding Big Data

Just so we don’t put the cart before the horse, we will put the meaning of big data into context before dissecting its roles in the industry.

Big data is used to describe the collection of data that is literally huge and continuously increases in size. Basically, the concept of big data stems from the desire to understand data generated in the industry, analyze it and put it into greater good of the company (and its customers). To be crystal clear, the disparity between big data and normal data is how the two is managed. Essentially, the traditional data management tools cannot efficiently process big data, leading to the development of its custom-made big data applications.

Some examples of big data are:

• Some stock exchanges generate up to one terabyte of data every day
• A jet engine generates more than over 10 terabytes of data in half an hour
• Social media platform Facebook receives over 500 terabytes of data daily

On the other hand, some big data apps include Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark, MongoDB, Neo4j, etc. There is no doubt at all that managing huge volumes of data with the traditional data management tool would not be possible. More importantly, big data can be unstructured, semi-structured or structured. With that said, we now go over big data uses in business.

Roles of Big Data in the Industry

Here are the ways big data is reshaping industries around the world.

• Good Grasp of Market Trend: When big data is analyzed, organizations use the result to forecast market trends and predict customer preferences. That’s not all. Big data analytics also helps organizations to better understand and evaluate the effectiveness of their products. From all this information gathered, a firm can ascertain its customer’s purchasing pattern and the product that sells more.
• Growth: Apart from helping organizations to have a good grasp of market trends, big data analytics helps organizations to understand their customers even better. When a company understands who its customers really are in terms of preferences, it will figure out the strategies to put in place in order to satisfy them. The multiplier effect is that the company will be building customer loyalty and trust in the long run. What’s more? When a company does that, it is clearly making concerted effort at growth. More often than not, these steps lead to the growth of such companies.
• Planning: Unarguably, the most critical role of big data analytics is in planning. The thing is, the top management of organizations can use data generated for planning and predicting the future of the company. Basically, this is done when a company carries out comparative analysis of consumer behaviour, preferences, sales and a host of other key performance indicators. In the end, the data will help the organization to plan its future.
• Cost Reduction: Well, this brings us to yet another important role of big data in the industry, it cuts cost. Admitted, deploying big data analytics at the initial stage is capital intensive. However, over time, the returns and gains associated with deploying such cutting-edge technology outweigh the initial cost of deployment. With big data analytics in place, there will be adequate risk management and automated monitoring of processes. Evidently, this means that the IT infrastructure personnel would not have so much to do, thus channeling their expertise and energy into other areas. Cost reduction in companies is so important because even if a firm rakes in lots of money in revenue without monitoring and curtailing its cost, it will always declare huge deficit at the end of every business year.   
• Availability of Data: Beyond a shadow of doubt, a company is in a big trouble when it generates huge amount of data and it cannot analyze such data. In other words, this entails that the organization is not in charge of its business process. In truth, the implication of this morass is that it could potentially lead to the collapse of the company in the long run. But big data analytics enables such a company to structure its data in a manner it could analyze and later use to predict very fundamental patterns in the organization.
• Improved Company’s Reputation: Still, big data analytics plays a pivotal role in promoting the reputation of companies where it is deployed. Make no mistake about it, a company with a battered reputation is dead. Perhaps, it would only take a while before it goes under. But this modern technology offers a glimmer of hope by understanding and analyzing pertinent sentiments. Afterwards, deliberate steps can be taken to correct false rumours about a company. Besides, it improves customer needs and maintains the image of the company through active online presence. It is important to establish here that big data analytics can be used to analyze both positive and negative emotions.   

Final Thoughts

As businesses continue to turn to innovative technologies to improve, big data analytics is at the forefront of it all. In collaboration with machine learning and artificial intelligence, big data analytics has continuously played an important role in the destructive industry. However, one thing is certain: these techniques are making various industries where they are deployed better than they met it. In fact, they are increasingly kicking many hitherto perfect processes into obsolescence. The most common industries that use data analytics tools include Engineering, Medicine, Retail, Banking and Transportation. From the foregoing, this emerging technology has come to stay. More importantly, we have discussed the benefits of big data in the industry. Therefore, a need exists for large Australian organizations that haven’t deployed it to do so now as they cannot continue to dwell in the past.