We’ve recently seen a flurry of activity on our LinkedIn Group. We went from 55 to 800 people in just a couple of weeks. I’m always astonished by how quickly we connect with people these days. I’m not sure how to measure it, but I’m guessing that those 800 new group members represent a network of somewhere around 100,000 people.
In the midst of the flurry, I asked the following questions: what is your interest in big data analytics? how do you think big data analytics will change the way we do business by 2015?
Here are a few of the answers that caught my eye:
Kelly Moertle: We live in a time where companies are trying to have a more personal experience with their customers. The only way they can do this is if they treat their data as the valuable asset that it is. I think it’s fascinating what companies can learn about their customers by making proper use of their data and the opportunities this presents for more targeted marketing, better customer service, lower customer attrition, etc. It’s a fun place to be right now.
Greg Petraetis: What I am hearing from companies is that the amount of data in their world is set to explode or has been exploding, and analyzing large data sets—so-called big data—will become a key basis of how they compete, underpinning new waves of productivity growth, innovation, and consumer surplus. Leaders in every sector will have to grapple with the implications of big data, not just a few data-oriented managers. The increasing volume and detail of information captured by enterprises, the rise of multimedia, social media, device proliferation, the importance of customer experience management et al will fuel exponential growth in data for the foreseeable future in terms of variety, volume and the speed at which organizations need to analyze information. Old technology standards aren’t the answer to meet this new demand in a price performing fashion so that companies can see economies of scale in their returns. I joined ParAccel because we have the technology and subject matter expertise that can address this need today so that companies will see 2015.
Ed Bernier: Never before have companies had access to so much data about their customers. Companies that figure out how to harvest this detail data can gain a tremendous amount of insight into the lifetime value and lifestyle of their customers. Combine a high performance analytical database platform like ParAccel’s PADB with in-database analytical functions and it’s amazing how accurately things like “propensity to buy”, “high churn risk” or “cross selling opportunities” can be predicted. As Kelly said it’s an exciting time to be delivering business intelligence and analytics solutions.
And of course, my take: My interest in big data analytics has to do with the amazing things that people and companies can do when they realize the potential of big data and the capabilities of new analytic platforms. As the guy responsible for solutions at ParAccel, my favorite thing to do is work with customers dreaming of what could be done on our platform, then watching customer’s amazement when they realize they can actually do them. By 2015, I believe big data anlytics will be mainstream and will be processed so quickly that even complex analytics on big data will be embedded in business processes. We will also be at the forefront of mathematically-driven, automated decisioning.
If you haven’t yet, come join the discussion!
