Data Explosion: Big Data Drives Data Growth

                Data explosion refers to rapid growth of data, mainly due to growing use of the Internet and increasing collection and retention of data.  This data explosion is the large amount of data that is being rapidly generated (by sensors, logs, applications, images, videos, documents, etc.) and stored in computer systems (Zhu et al, 2009).  This explosion comes from the interest in data as extremely valuable for business to have a competitive advantage, thus the phrase “Data is the new oil” (Davenport, 2020).  Data science, data analytics, and data mining are all phrases around ways to use this data.  The idea of big data is relevant to this collection and usage of massive amounts of data in a business.

                Thomas H. Davenport wrote a book called Competing on Analytics:  The New Science of Winning on this concept of data as competitive advantage.  According to an article by the same authors, they say “In Competing on Analytics, Thomas Davenport and Jeanne Harris assert that competitive advantage can come from sophisticated exploitation of business intelligence and predictive analytics.”  Davenport and Harris point to Netflix, Amazon, Harrahs Entertainment, and Capital One as large users of predictive analytics attached to big data.  Insurance companies, as well, collect massive amounts of data to perform actuarial analytics (Davenport & Harris, 2007).

                Companies and investors these day assume that it is possible to “gain an unbeatable competitive edge” by collecting massive amounts of data from large pools of customers and throwing machine learning tools at the data.  This is one of the reasons for the rapid growth of data in this data explosion.  In reality, it can be much harder to analyze and extract useful and valuable information and knowledge from data.  Data can also be proprietary and it can depreciate and become irrelevant quickly.  Considering these limitations, data can create valuable insights and give businesses powerful forecasting abilities.  It can also enable value through suggestions and marketplace positioning such as with Amazon, Alibaba, Apple App Store, and Facebook, which can be a huge competitive advantage (Hagiu & Wright, 2020).

                Other brands like McDonalds use sensors and point of sale data to track customer interactions, ordering, and store traffic which they analyze to use for operational decisions.  Disney uses “MagicBands” to track movement of customers in theme parks and correlating it with purchase data to create more personalized customer experiences.  Walmart uses big data in their Walmart Data Café, their large private cloud, in analytics to manage things like pricing and other insights.  Data is used to create competitive advantage in automation, marketing, decision-making, and developing product quality (I.E. University, n.d.).

References:

Davenport, T. H., & Harris, J. G. (2007, September 17). Competing on Analytics.

Retrieved from

Davenport, T. (2020, October 5). Getting serious about data and science. Retrieved from https://www.tomdavenport.com/getting-serious-about-data-and-data-science/

Hagiu, A. & Wright, J. (2020, January-February). When Data Creates Competitive Advantage. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2020/01/when-data-creates-competitive-advantage

I. E. University. (n.d.). Data is the current and future source of competitive advantage – IE Driving Innovation. IE Driving Innovation. Retrieved from https://drivinginnovation.ie.edu/data-is-the-current-and-future-source-of-competitive-advantage

Zhu Y, Zhong N, Xiong Y. (2009). Data Explosion, Data Nature and Dataology. Brain Informatics. 2009;5819:147–58. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-04954-5_25. PMCID: PMC7121844. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7121844/

Published by Art Ocain

I am a DevOps advocate, not because I am a developer (I’m not), but because of the cultural shift it represents and the agility it gains. I am also a fan of the theory of constraints and applying constraint management to all areas of business: sales, finance, planning, billing, and all areas of operations. My speaking: I have done a lot of public speaking in my various roles over the years, including presentations at SBDC (Small Business Development Center) and Central PA Chamber of Commerce events as well as events that I have organized at MePush. My writing: I write a lot. Blog articles on the MePush site, press-releases for upcoming events to media contracts, posts on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/artocain/), presentations on Slideshare (https://www.slideshare.net/ArtOcain), posts on the Microsoft Tech Community, articles on Medium (https://medium.com/@artocain/), and posts on Quora (https://www.quora.com/profile/Art-Ocain-1). I am always looking for new places to write, as well. My certifications: ISACA Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), Certified Web Application Security Professional (CWASP), Certified Data Privacy Practitioner (CDPP), Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), VMware Certified Professional (VCP-DCV), Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE), Veeam Certified Engineer (VMCE), Microsoft 365 Security Administrator, Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator, Azure Administrator, Azure Security Administrator, Azure Architect, CompTIA Network+, CompTIA Security+, ITIL v4 Foundations, Certified ScrumMaster, Certified Scrum Product Owner, AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner See certification badges on Acclaim here: https://www.youracclaim.com/users/art-ocain/badges My experience: I have a lot of experience from developing a great company with great people and culture to spinning up an impressive DevOps practice and designing impressive solutions. I have been a project manager, a President, a COO, a CTO, and an incident response coordinator. From architecting cloud solutions down to the nitty-gritty of replacing hardware, I have done it all. When it comes to technical leadership, I am the go-to for many companies. I have grown businesses and built brands. I have been a coach and a mentor, developing the skills and careers of those in my company. I have formed and managed teams, and developed strong leaders and replaced myself within the company time and again as I evolved. See my experience on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/artocain/

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: