Big Data Friend or Foe

When we hear the word Big Data the first thought that comes into our mind is of some complex, humongous data. Big Data is often perceived as a problem. But is it a problem we should get rid of, or it is an opportunity?
The question remains, Big data a friend or Foe?

Well, Big Data is essentially a problem statement. The term Big Data refers to the massive amount of data generated today, that is in the range of Petabytes and Zeta bytes. Big Data is vast as well as complex. The unstructured data which comprises 70 % of big data adds to its complexity. Due to size and unstructured nature of data, it becomes nearly impossible for traditional databases to store and process Big Data. Then why Big Data is considered of huge importance. Why corporate giants seem to be embracing Big data.

The answer to this question lies in the fact that Big data can have immense potential. It has the potential for optimizing various sectors. Big data is analyzed well can provide valuable insights that are crucial for the organization’s growth and process optimization. Companies gather Big Data from multiple sources such as social media, cloud, sensor-based smart devices, internet and many more.

The insights that big data provides is impossible to gather just by looking or summarising vast sets of data manually. Therefore Big Data is of utter importance and companies are investing a lot of time, money and workforce in analyzing Big Data to churn out actionable insights.

Following are the examples of how Big Data analytics has aided in the success of organizations operating in various sectors.

Big Data in health care – Big data is proving to be a boon for the healthcare sector. Big data analysis has to lead to patients footfall predictions for improved staffing, resulting in better care for patients. Big data enables real-time alerting in case of emergencies. For example, if a patients blood sugar goes above a certain level, the doctor can be informed in real time.
Big data helps hospitals to leverage health data for informed strategic Planning. Big data aids in the predictive analysis in health care. The healthcare business intelligence intends to help doctors make data-driven decisions in real time and improve patients’ treatment.

Big Data in Finance– Big Data helps in fraud detection. By leveraging Big Data analytics and machine learning, the firms define normal activity based on a customer’s history and distinguish it from unusual behavior. Big Data helps in customer segmentation. It helps the banks to understand their customers better, which is the key to serving them better according to their needs and capacity.
Big data helps banks to devise personalized marketing plans. As banks can support the customers better by analyzing their needs and buying patterns they can present them with the personalized marketing plan which suits them.

Big data in Advertising – Advertising firms are using Big Data analytics to acquire new customers while retaining the old ones. Big data allows to identify customer behavior patterns, and customer behavior is essential to trigger loyalty. Big data analytics help in Risk management. Big data analytics has contributed significantly to the development of risk management solutions. The tools available allow the businesses to quantify and model risks that they face every day.

At the end we can safely conclude that big data is a friend, after all, .there is surely challenges accompanied by big data but the benefits that big data provides surpasses any problems. Big data is revolutionalizing our present, and it will continue it in the future.