Big Data Presents Big Opportunities, Challenges
Davis
We're all practically swimming in data.
With every purchase at a register, every click of the mouse, we're creating a trail of little bread crumbs that can tell savvy marketers what we might be likely to buy next.
And if you've picked up any business magazine or browsed any business blog, you've likely read about the coming age of "Big Data" (spoken with a booming voice like that of Moses parting the Red Sea).
Big data is so big, in fact, that it has its own Twitter hashtag. That, my friends, is big. Like Beyonce halftime show big.
So what's all this Big Data business?
Number Crunching
Big Data refers to the fact that, thanks to technology, all businesses are collecting tons of information on not only their customers, but on their operations and even their employees. And as technology has expanded, one database has been added to another and to another.
Now, some companies — not all — are trying to look at all these warehouses of information to see if they can pull out vital information to improve their bottom lines.
This isn't a new concept. As long as there has been a business of more than two people, there's been someone keeping records, trying to figure out how to do things better. And it's fairly obvious that most businesses could and should do more with their data.
A recent survey by Robert Half Technology, a staffing firm that focuses on IT professionals, found that many CIOs are missing opportunities. More than three-quarters of those surveyed are not gathering customer data such as demographics or buying habits.
And a majority (53 percent) of those firms that do collect demographic information admit that they "lack sufficient staff to access customer data, and generate reports and other business insights from it."
The question then becomes: If you collect data, but no one's there to do anything with it, does that data really exist?
Lou Sostilio, director of permanent placement for Robert Half Technology, works out of the company's Westborough and Boston officed. He says he has seen a sharp rise in interest from his clients looking to beef up their Big Data and analytics teams.
"Just recently within the last year there's been an emphasis on [Big Data]," he said.
And that emphasis means it's difficult to find the right people to help companies wrangle their data.
"In information technology as a whole, the unemployment rate is relatively low for qualified candidates," he said. Within the narrow cast of technology professionals with Big Data experience, unemployment is virtually non-existent.
The hot demand is doing what you'd expect to salaries. According to Robert Half Technology, the starting salaries for business intelligence analysts range from $94,250 to $132,500. Other jobs in the industry — data architects and data warehouse analysts — can earn similar six-figure salaries out of the gate.
While Sostilio points out that Big Data is just the latest in buzzwords in the IT world — remember how hot "cloud computing" was a few years back? — it's projected to continue to grow.
A forecast from Framingham-based IDC projects that "the worldwide Big Data technology market will grow at a 31.7-percent annual growth rate … with revenues reaching $23.8 billion in 2016." That's about seven times the rate of growth for the overall IT market.
That robust growth curve helps explain why all the IT firms — including giants like Oracle, Microsoft and Hopkinton-based EMC Corp. — are rushing to promote how they can help firms with Big Data.
And big companies are certainly jumping on board. But what's a small or mid-sized firm to do? It can be challenging for small companies to devote resources to it, especially with salaries in the Big Data field escalating as they are. The average-sized business in Central Massachusetts can't invest thousands of dollars in trained staff and sophisticated database management programs. But a business owner can take stock of his or her data and make sure they're collecting the most basic demographic information. There are also plenty of IT firms that are more than willing to work with small businesses on getting smart around their data.
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Got news for Digital Diva? Email Christina H. Davis at cdavis@wbjournal.com.
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