Business intelligence

Data is Meaningless Without Analysis

Jan O'Mahoney / July 17, 2014

There’s value in organisations being able to analyse social media information and compile profiles to better target their customers. But creating, documenting, and retrieving vast amounts of data is one thing. Understanding it is an entirely different matter.

Context is Key

Measuring ‘likes’ or searching for keywords and phrases is pretty straightforward – a “sentiment analysis”. You might be tempted to develop a marketing strategy directly derived from this.

But there’ll always be examples of impulse buys, or snap decisions in the heat of the moment. And data samples may include information that’s not so easy to quantify – like pictures or videos.

In fact, the majority of actions will be based on the context surrounding them. Brand A might cost less, but B offers greater satisfaction. The sports car looks great, but what about the kids? And so on.

If a data analysis tool can’t provide further context around the solutions it offers, it’s at best, an expensive waste of time.

Business

Obituary: Big Data

Jan O'Mahoney / May 27, 2014

Donald Feinberg, VP and analyst at Gartner’s Intelligence and Information Group, recently said that Big Data will die within the next couple of years, thanks largely to the confusion which surrounds the term.

Once upon a time, databases were relatively small; tiny by today’s standards. Businesses had records of their customers’ accounts, built up manually over time, originally with pen and paper and later with microprocessors. Bigger companies started to have whole floors dedicated to data processing departments, ensuring that purchase orders and invoices we all matched and accurate, and accountants knew who had paid and who owed money, what had been bought and what had been cancelled.

With cloud computing and processing technology getting so small that you could practically map out the life cycle of a grain of rice, data started to get recorded and collected at increasingly faster rates and much more of it. Processors in cars and other equipment meant that a whole boatload of parameters could be constantly measured.

More and more measurables

Social media sites, ecommerce sites and other communal online gatherings meant that individuals could be adding to the pile of data already stored about them as they filled in forms and registered for things online. Photos, likes, friends, birthdays, political leanings, sexual orientation, marriage status, hobbies and interests…the list of measurables became endless.

Business

What’s your Data Governance Plan?

Jan O'Mahoney / April 28, 2014

Big data is something that businesses are embracing in increased numbers, but not every business is prepared for the changes that accompany big data adoption. Information from a recent survey suggests that as many as 44% of businesses aren’t ready to implement data governance plans. 22% of these firms that don’t have a data policy have suggested that they have no plans to implement one.

These findings were released in a data governance survey from Rand Secure Data, which is a division of Rand Worldwide. The findings suggest that businesses simply aren’t prepared for the legacy of big data and it’s becoming apparent that many businesses are happy with the benefits of big data gathering, but are equally happy to ignore the dangers.

Businesses are aware of what needs to be done to safeguard its data but many seem loath to act or even address the problem. It seems that until there are consequences, many businesses simply won’t acknowledge or do the things that need to be done.

Here’s a quick list of things that businesses should be doing:

Quadratek People

[INFOGRAPHIC] IT Skills Gaps

Simon Randall / February 21, 2014

Technology is advancing at an incredibly fast rate to the point that many of those in business feel that they can’t keep up. This poses a big challenge to enterprises, both large and small, as they work to stay up-to-date with rapidly evolving technology that helps to make business processes easier and more automated.

Where this challenge is most pronounced is in the work force. As the infographic shows, a group of three hundred IT leaders in the U.S. were polled and 63% of them projected that the impending IT skills gap would have a negative impact on their business.