Study: Big Data and its strategies defined

IBM and the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School conducted a survey of 1,144 business people from 95 countries across 26 industries to learn about their strategies and opinions about the potential for Big Data in their businesses.

As with all major strategies on the ascendancy, the concept of Big Data may have as many definitions as there are those who attempt to define it. The survey makers narrowed down the descriptions to determine general definitions of Big Data and found that respondents, who were asked to choose two descriptors that best defined the concept, said Big Data was “a greater scope of information” (18 percent), “new kinds of data and analysis” (16 percent), “real-time information” (15 percent), and “data influx from new technologies” (13 percent) and “non-traditional forms of media” (13 percent).

The study corroborates other Big Data studies, showing that the majority of companies surveyed are still in the beginning stages of Big Data development, focused on understanding basic concepts or defining a roadmap for the future. Across the industries studied, the business case is strongly focused on addressing customer-centric objectives, and beginning pilot programmes for Big Data project implementation. The state of Big Data activity among respondents can be broken down into three areas, led by planning Big Data activities, 47 percent; pilot and implementation of Big Data activities, 28 percent; and those that have not begun Big Data activities, 24 percent, according to the survey.