Big Data Analytics — Market Trends

Big data-a market that IDC has forecast to surge at a 40% compound annual growth rate, from $3.2 bn in 2010 to $17 bn in 2015-presents a formidable new frontier in which data sets can grow so large that they become awkward to work with using traditional database management tools. The need for new tools, frameworks, hardware, software and services to handle this emerging issue represents a huge market opportunity. Good big data toolsets provide scalable, high-performance analytics at the lowest cost and in near-real time as business users increasingly demand continuous access to data. By analyzing this data, companies gain greater intelligence as well as a competitive advantage. Businesses next year will sharpen their focus and place a greater emphasis on analytics projects, data-related security and privacy, and a new generation of cognitive-intelligence applications.

Some trends that the Big Data market will see in 2014 include:

More analytics, fewer gut feelings - Companies will grow increasingly data driven and willing to apply analytics-derived insights to key business operations. Intuitive decision-making will diminish somewhat as companies infuse analytics into everything

Businesses get serious about big data privacy and security - Organizations in 2014 will make a greater effort to build security, privacy, and governance policies into their big data processes. This might involve a careful balancing act, as business devises innovative, data-driven projects that deliver usable insights while addressing security threats that might arise.

More investment in Big Data Analytics - New applications in 2014 will enable a wider range of analytics, including reporting, dashboards and planning, predictive analytics, recommendations, and new cognitive capabilities for transactional, social, mobile, and other data types.

Concept of Chief Data Officer -More organizations in 2014 will bring a chief data officer (CDO) on board. As the title implies, this new member of the C-suite will be the enterprise's "champion of data" and find ways to extract those all-important insights from new forms of digital information.

Smarter Big Data Applications -Plenty of software firms are working on big data applications designed to bring the power of analytics to the masses, ideally reducing an organization's reliance on highly trained, highly paid data scientists. Next year will bring a new ecosystem where new class of cognitive computing applications will be implemented by corporates. These programs will learn and improve with experience, thereby helping organizations solve complex questions.

Outside data is as important as inside data - As every big data watcher knows, the explosive growth of social media, mobile devices, and machine sensors is generating a wealth of bits that either didn't exist or weren't accessible a few years ago. Some of this data is generated within an organization, but a larger percentage comes from the outside such as Twitter, Facebook and Hangouts.

In 2014, businesses will find more ways to harness this mix of structured and unstructured data, ideally helping them better address the needs of their employees and customers. All in all - Data Analytics is here to stay.

(The author is Anil Chawla, Managing Director, Verint Systems)