An Overview of Big Data - Research Paper Example

?BIG DATA Big Data Affiliation Introduction Without a doubt, in the past years, the majority of business organizations have started heavily relaying on data and information not only to survive in this competitive environment but also to compete with other business organizations. In fact, these data and information are believed to be the most important asset for business organizations for the reason that they make use of these data to drive useful patterns on the basis of which they take effective decisions. In addition, because of latest tools and technologies such as the Internet this world has turned into the information based age. There is a huge amount of data available on the Internet. This paper presents an analysis of big data. The basic purpose of this research is to present an overview of big data and how it can be used by the organizations for the betterment of their organizational tasks. This report will start with an introduction of big data. After that a general discussion will provided on big data and its associated aspects. An Overview of Big Data Basically, “the term big data is normally used as a marketing concept refers to data sets whose size is further than the potential of normally used enterprise tools to gather, manage and organize, and process within an acceptable elapsed time.” (Josyula, Orr, & Page, 2011, p. 89). In fact, the size of these huge data sets is believed to be a continually growing target. Additionally, the size of big data is presently ranging from a few dozen terabytes to a number of petabytes of data in a single data set (Josyula, Orr, & Page, 2011, p. 89). In view of the fact this era is known as the age of information and communication technology in which everything appears in digital format, and as a result everything comes under the domain of data. For instance in the medical sector, an electrocardiogram is now used in digital format which can be collected and stored as a dataset and information (attained after the processing of these data). In the same way, MRIs, CT scans and a variety of medical images are at the present digital, and these unique digital records and files are being stored and processed in the form of datasets. Hence, thousands and thousands of distinct datasets are adding up to the big data (Ackerman, 2012). Opportunities offered by the Big Data At the present, with the big data the majority of business organizations and retailers make use of data more efficiently to make planned decisions that commence with the customer and help to develop a more thorough design process. In addition, “this analytics-driven design can intensify major touch points all the way through the customer experience at the same time as improving sales beneficially” (Trank, 2013). The research has shown that the organizations that use big data for their business can be familiar with their customers and the way they communicate with the business and shop online much better than many of those customers can be familiar with themselves. In fact, these datasets are not only the huge volumes of data but also they provide the organizations with excellent ways to determine and keep records of their transactions as well as other communications with suppliers, retailers, banks, utilities and service providers. In addition, at the present there have emerged a number of algorithms which can be applied on these data sets to determine their customers’ behaviors, shopping patterns, usage of sales coupons and how the business organization performs transactions and certain tasks are recorded and analyzed with the purpose of getting a broad and effective depiction of who your customers are and what products you should take the chance to offer them (Ackerman, 2012; Josyula, Orr, & Page, 2011). In their research article, (Arthur, 2013) discusses an example in which Portland Oregon Savory Spice Shop owners Jim Brown and Anne have decided to put into practice social media based marketing and advertising with the intention of getting “the best of big data's” support and capabilities for launching their new boutique store. In this scenario, by making use of their Facebook ads they have been capable of routing to catch the attention of those potential customers and groups of purchasers who almost certainly wish to purchase their high-end specialty products. It is an admitted fact that in the past few years the majority of business organizations have started utilizing social networking based sites such as facebook to advertise their products and services for the reason that these social networks provide huge amounts of data (Arthur, 2013; Costonis, 2012; Schultz, Schwepker, & Good, 2012). Considering these innovative aspects of social networks, they just had to invest in the ad and then Facebook algorithms and performing analysis by utilizing ton of consumer data available on Facebook in order to identify those people who most directly match their customer profile. “Those potential customers then get targeted ads and special announcements from the store.” Though, big data provides a large number of advantages and if it is used effectively then it can bring a number of opportunities and benefits to organizations. On the other hand, big data can also be turned into a potential source of annoyance (and even bad) when it encourages unnecessary and unwanted advertising and marketing movements, emails, phone calls; or get the wrong impression about the main theme, causing refutation of credit, wrong charges, or in serious cases, the harmful certainty of identity theft (Arthur, 2013; Costonis, 2012; Schultz, Schwepker, & Good, 2012). Conclusion In the past few years, the use of data is growing for carrying out a variety of tasks. Almost all the organizations heavily rely on data they collect through different ways. In this scenario, big data is huge volume of data that is collected from a variety of source to perform a variety of tasks on it in order to derive some useful facts. This paper has presented a detailed analysis of different aspects associated with big data. This paper has discussed various advantages of these technologies by supporting them through existing literature. It is clear from the discussion that big data analytics are already being extensively utilized in a number of industries and particularly in healthcare industry. The research has shown that their role will further grow in the coming years. References Ackerman, M. J. (2012). Big Data. The Journal of Medical Practice Management: MPM, Volume 28 Issue 2, 152-153. Arthur, E. (2013). Big Data. Alaska Business Monthly, Volume 29 Issue 1, 72. Costonis, M. (2012). Big Data. Best's Review, Volume 113 Issue 1, 1-80. Josyula, V., Orr, M., & Page, G. (2011). Cloud Computing: Automating the Virtualized Data Center (1st ed.). New York: Cisco Press. Schultz, R. J., Schwepker, C. H., & Good, D. J. (2012). Social media usage: an investigation of B2B salespeople. American Journal of Business, Volume 27 Issue 2, 174-194. Trank, M. (2013). Big Data. Proquest: Display & Design Ideas: DDI, Volume 25 Issue 3, 100. Read More