Putting Big Data to Work
There’s been a lot of hype about big data over the last few years, but companies are now putting big data to work in their operations, finding new ways to solve complex business problems.
Putting big data to work is the focus of a new session planned for the Big Data Congress being held in Saint John from October 17 to 19. It will feature talks from companies like Mariner Partners, Innovatia, Adobe, EY, T4G and Rogers on the practical uses of big data.
Dave Grebenc, co-CEO of Saint John-based technology company Innovatia, will be one of the speakers. In all the talk about big data, he says it is vital to define the problem you need to solve and understand how big data can help you solve it.
“Think of big data as one of the tools in your toolbox. The tools are really only useful if you have something to work on,” Grebenc says. “We’ll use big data solutions with other things to create a total solution.”
Paul Mansz agrees. He heads up EY’s Centre for Advanced Analytics in Halifax. While big data tools are powerful and easily accessed, “it’s really important you understand the ‘why’ before you get to the ‘how,’” he says.
He advises companies to begin by considering why they will use big data in their operations, arguing that it is really about the meaning derived from the data.
That’s analytics.
“Data is data. Data that is unprocessed is useless. Analytics is the process of creating context, looking for insight around the data and closing the loop with some form of visualization,” he says.
Charlie Cook, a data and business intelligence expert at Saint John’s T4G, is also speaking at the Big Data Congress. He’s helping lead the company’s new training program using Hadoop, an open-source software framework for distributed storage and processing of large data sets.
Cook says many businesses develop enormous streams of data. It’s “coming in too fast and at such a volume that it is difficult to analyze it meaningfully.”
But that’s changing.
He says the open source nature of Hadoop makes advancements in capturing and analyzing big data faster.
“There are massive rates of change of the tools and capabilities,” he notes. “The more data you can feed into machine learning the better results you get.”
At Innovatia, Grebenc says the company uses text analytics to manage massive amounts of difficult content. The company developed a tool known as Content Miner to make it easier for companies to manage information.
“A company might have six feet of stacked documentation for just one product – user manuals, installation guides, maintenance guides and all of the potential technical support materials,” he says.
“With Content Miner, we’re able to find areas of duplication or where content can be reused. It cuts the amount of information to be managed by half. That’s a huge cost savings for our clients. It keeps everything current and makes customers more satisfied with the user experience of the product. That means the downstream costs are less.”
That’s an example of applying big data solutions to real world problems and part of the technological advances that are radically changing business.
“Analytics is disruption as part of the digital transformation of society and big data is part of that,” says Paul Mansz.
“What big data and analytics offers is a competitive differentiator and a competitive advantage. Retail, manufacturing and natural resource extraction must be thinking analytics and big data,” he says. “If you’re not already doing it, you’re behind and you better think about how you catch up.”
Some businesses on the East Coast might be among those who need to catch up. T4G’s Cook says that most of his firm’s clients using big data are located in Central and Western Canada. “There is less adoption in the Maritimes that I’m seeing.”