Is big data the right data?

With its vast volume of structured and unstructured data, big data is utilized in various fields to gain insights and inform decision-making. The following section provides an overview of how different industries take advantage of the benefits of big data.

In healthcare, big data improves patient care, reduces costs, and drives research forward. The finance industry leverages big data to detect fraudulent activity, evaluate risks, and make informed investment decisions. Marketers use big data to gain a deeper understanding of consumer behavior and preferences, deliver more targeted advertising, and provide personalized customer experiences.
Education also benefits from big data, as it helps to improve student outcomes and personalize the learning experience.

Big data is in high demand for several key reasons.

Increased data volume

With more and more data being generated every day due to the rise of technologies such as IoT, social media, and mobile devices, there is a growing need for tools and techniques to analyze and make sense of all this data.

Improved decision-making

By analyzing large amounts of data, organizations can gain valuable insights and make more informed decisions, leading to several benefits, such as improved efficiency, better customer satisfaction, and increased competitiveness.

Innovation and progress

Organizations can drive innovation and progress in their industries by uncovering new patterns and trends through data analysis.

Regulatory requirements

Some organizations must collect and analyze large amounts of data for regulatory purposes. Monitoring transactions for signs of fraud or money laundering is a crucial task that can be significantly facilitated by leveraging Big Data.

Ultimately, the need to extract value from large and complex data sets primarily drives the demand for big data. The extracted information is used to inform decision-making, drive innovation, and accelerate progress.

Big data is not without its challenges. The biggest issue relates to how companies decide to tackle large data sets. Companies create massive, complex solutions using all data at once. Unfortunately, this often includes unreliable data and manipulating data that is useless for the task. As a result, these organizations end up frustrated because they cannot produce the expected results and sometimes wrong results. Ultimately this means little to no impact on business operations and no return on investment.

Due to high investment, companies feel obligated to use all their data without questioning it. As a result, they are not connecting the purpose and correct data while not performing efficient prioritization. According to Gartner, the most significant challenges around Data for Analytics Leaders are Data Literacy, Measuring the Business Value that we Deliver, and Data Strategy.

How can a company correctly prioritize the work to be done if it has difficulty understanding its data? Making effective decisions about data involves stepping back and mapping out the current situation. This requires discipline and planning before jumping into action. Having the proper product mindset will help you answer three simple questions crucial to creating a good strategy that will lead to success. First, why are we doing this? Second, what value does it provide? And third, whom are we trying to help? Once you can answer these questions, you will understand what brings value to your data operation and how you should prioritize.

With a strategy in place, it's easier to determine which datasets and data sizing you will need. What matters, in this case, is that regardless of the size, you know that you are choosing the correct data. Moreover, when the strategy is clear, it is easy to identify where to focus your energy.

Large data sets can be helpful because they provide more accurate and comprehensive insights than smaller data sets. With more data, it is possible to identify trends, patterns, and relationships that may not be evident in a smaller data set. In addition, large data sets can help make more accurate predictions, such as future demand for a product or the likelihood of a customer making a purchase. Further, large data sets can support process optimization, such as supply chain management and resource allocation. Generally, large data sets can help industries make better-informed decisions, improve efficiency, and gain a competitive advantage.

Sometimes, the answer to getting the right data is downsizing your dataset or even choosing a different source. To illustrate, we can reference an internal competition during the world cup. Participants had to predict a match's score. People who advanced further in the competition decided not to use the entire dataset provided by previous match results. When asked why the answer was data literacy. These competitors explained that soccer team players often change between matches, and we cannot rely on historical data as a reference if the team is not the same. The most efficient way to determine a match outcome is to utilize a dataset of individual results for each player. Based on that, competitors could more reliably speculate about the team's performance. This shows us two key things: First, understanding the topic can help you decide which data is relevant for your analysis. The second point concerns critical thinking. A different dataset would be better if the provided dataset isn't enough to arrive at the most accurate results. The key is not to use all the data but to choose the 'right' data. To determine if we have the correct data, we must also consider whether the data is bias-free, diverse, and analyzed for any possible outliers.

In summary, companies need to be aware of the challenges of managing big data, such as data literacy, measuring business value, and having a clear data strategy. Successfully using big data relies on organizations clearly understanding the purpose, selecting the correct data, and prioritizing efficiently. In addition, a clear strategy can help determine the size of the data set needed. This will help focus energy in the right areas to extract valuable insights and drive business impact.

Ultimately, it's not about how much data you need but the insights you can uncover using the right data. If you have questions about how to proceed, CI&T is here to assist you and has the expertise to support you from start to finish. We can conduct an assessment to determine your level of maturity using data and assist you in developing a viable strategy. With a strategy in place, our skilled professionals will help you achieve your goals.

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