Big Data Revolution - Big Data and the Nature of Business Decisions - Mark Madsen

Big data isn’t hype, but it is being hyped. There is substance to the shift happening in the technology market of which both business intelligence and big data are a part. The important questions to ask are “What’s different now?”and "Is there enough value to make investment worthwhile?"

Big data is not a good description: you don't need enormous volumes of data to take advantage of the technology shifts in the IT market. Big data adds information delivery capabilities we didn't have in the past. Data technologies are allowing us to move beyond simple access via reports and dashboards. We can use them to address problems of uncertainty and ambiguity, as well as providing more detailed insight into business operations and customer interactions.

The key to getting value from investments in big data is understanding the capabilities that can be delivered. The systems we put in place to support the information needs of business have limitations. Big data technologies tend to be strong where the existing technologies are weak, making them suitable for  new types of decision making scenarios and tasks.

This presentation will outline the difference between the old world of information delivery by IT and how it is changing, hopefully removing the hype and injecting reality into discussions of where and how to use big data and data science in support of business.