The IT/ITES industry terms the exponential amounts of data generated in today’s interconnected world as ‘big data’. In this article, we explore how this technology is bringing about a major transformation in this sector.
There are several evolving trends in the IT/ITES industry that are contributing to growth opportunities in this sector, including a continuous need for working professionals to learn new skills and most importantly, the emergence of technologies such as Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. For an industry that has witnessed many changes especially in the last decade, Big Data is definitely the game changer.
THE BASICS OF BIG DATA
Big Data begins with the fact that there is more information going around these days than ever before, and it is being put to extraordinarily new uses. But it is distinct from the Internet, even though the Web makes it easier to collect and share data. Big Data is more than just communication: the idea is that we can learn things—that we could not comprehend when we used only smaller amounts of information— from a large body of information.
Big Data is also characterised by the capacity to render into data several aspects of the world that have never been quantified before. For instance, location has been treated as data, first with the invention of latitude and longitude, and more recently, with GPS satellite systems. Words are rendered into data when computers mine several centuries’ worth of books.
PRESENCE ON A MASSIVE SCALE
These days, enormous amounts of data is being generated every single minute, thanks to various social networking platforms, Web searches and most importantly, increased e-commerce activities. According to a news report by HT Mint, nearly 90 per cent of the world’s data today was generated in the last two years, with 2.5 quintillion bytes of data added every day. The report goes to say that approximately 90 per cent of it is unstructured. This is not bad news; despite most of it being unstructured, the overwhelming amount of Big Data from the Web and the cloud still offers new opportunities for discovery, value creation and rich business intelligence for decision support to any IT/ITES organisation.
OFFERS NEW OPPORTUNITIES
The collected data can be processed and disseminated in various forms—in fact, in today’s times, this kind of data is being put to new uses with the help of inexpensive computer memory, powerful processors, smart software, clever algorithms and maths that borrow from basic statistics. Here are some of the ways in which the analysis of Big Data is transforming the future of businesses in the IT/ ITES industry:
1. Enhances business operations
With the help of an IT/ITES organisation’s historical data, analytics can bring about a considerable improvement in business operations. One of the most significant cases of analytics lies in monitoring and improving a company’s KPIs (key performance indicators).
2. Improves customer relations
Analytics allows IT/ITES companies to see which campaigns, marketing strategies and offers are a hit with their client base. It can also track customer interactions and offer insightful advice on how they can improve their client acquisition and retention strategies.
3. Boosts sales and revenue
Analytics can help boost sales by allowing IT/ITES companies to understand the needs of their clients, stay updated with current market trends, and see what kinds of content, advertisement and campaign are being used by competitors to attract clients. These insights will help the company improve its product and re-adjust its sales strategies, thereby increasing the revenue.
4. Creates new jobs
Big Data and Analytics is emerging as a big focus area for IT/ITES companies in India as they strive to increase their digital revenue faster. But according to a report by LinkedIn, this country has less than 10 per cent of data scientists that are available on a global level. Moreover, a news report by The Hindu Business Line says that 2018 is seeing a big increase in demand for professionals with capabilities in Big Data and Analytics.
Big Data definitely implies a revolution in the IT/ITES sector, reaching from technology to applications and practices, enabling the analysis of vast pools of ‘digital traces’ to discover customer intentions with unmatched precision. In fact, data manipulation from smartphones and connected objects are opening up new service opportunities and leading to significant cost reductions of information systems.