Big data — more than just a buzzword and often a big question mark

What is meant primarily is one thing: an enormous amount of structured and unstructured data. Companies from a wide range of industries — whether from business, healthcare or the energy industry — all generate data on a daily basis.
But where does this data come from and why do we need it?

How the volumes of data are created

The data is produced by us, the population, basically by everyone.
Online shopping, a visit to the gym, every new social media friend, route planning with the navigation system, every phone call, the monthly transfer and so on — everything we do, apart from analog communication, generates new data.

In addition to structured data — this means figures or other information carriers in tabular form — unstructured data in particular represents a major challenge. These are the wealth of digital information that cannot be directly transferred to software and can therefore be used. Texts in natural language, images or human sound recordings must therefore be transformed for processing, arranged into a scheme and sorted.

Considering that half of the world's population, i.e. around 3.8 billion people, use the Internet, it quickly becomes clear that the scale of the available data is enormous.

Big data in figures: 
It is estimated that the data that humanity has collected since its creation up to 2002 is currently produced in around ten minutes.

The mere amount of data is therefore one part of big data.
A basic definition of big data comes from consulting firm McKinsey and focuses on the three Vs: Volume, Variety and Velocity.
The huge amount of data floating around therefore already explains the first aspect of Volumes. If you understand their diversity (Variety), you go much deeper. On the one hand, this means the most diverse sources from which we obtain data - everyday digital actions, so to speak, even away from Siri, Alexa & Co. 
On the other hand, diversity describes the format of the data — whether it is available as video, text, audio files or a numeric maze.
‍Velocity refers to the high speed at which data is created and must be processed.

What do we start with it — and how?

The masses of data that are constantly being created can no longer be managed with conventional software and hardware. And the data continues to grow. For this reason, there are special solutions to meet the requirements efficiently. With the help of business intelligence tools, the information can be organized and visualized.
The data needs to be exploited, i.e. analyzed and used, in order to identify relationships and structures and be able to react.

Big data in everyday life

As users in the sense of customers and service recipients, we often benefit from this data — whether personalized music suggestions, book recommendations, sports offers or recipe tips. What has long since found its way into everyday life is not the remarkable intuition of the Internet, but the result of precise data management. And it is no longer just the well-known online shipping giant that suggests suitable products and shows what other buyers found interesting.
Mechanisms such as these are data-based recommendations for action and are based on the real-time evaluation of millions of purchase data from other customers.

In a sense, most of us live a kind of “data-driven lifestyle.”

The opportunity before companies

This means that large amounts of data are being produced at breakneck speed. 
If you learn how to deal with them in a company, you have the opportunity to react to them and that is worthwhile.
On the one hand, the benefits of data analysis are always particularly great for companies where they come close to their customers. On the other hand, it is also an effective tool for strategic and economic decision-making within the company.

The most important resource is no longer oil, but data. Economist 12/6/17

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