Big Data, the next big Career in IT Industry?
Data is valuable. Data is in multiple formats. Data is plentiful. Data is complex. Data is in a flux. Data is fast moving and changing. Data is being created and multiplied every second. Capturing and managing data (Cloud, On-Premise, Hybrid IT) is challenging. It’s the biggest paradox of the current information age. The glut of information that bombards us daily frequently obscures true insight.Take for instance, Facebook builds a custom Web page every time you visit. It pores over all the actions your friends have taken—their postings, photos, likes, the songs they listen to, the products they like—and determines in milliseconds which items you might wish to see, and in what order. Is this the future for every firm?
The massive growth in the scale of data has been observed in recent years being a key factor of the Big Data scenario. Big Data can be defined as high volume, velocity and variety of data that require a new high-performance processing. Addressing big data is a challenging and time-demanding task that requires a large computational infrastructure to ensure successful data processing and analysis.
Why is big data analytics important?
Big data analytics helps organizations harness their data and use it to identify new developing opportunities. That, in turn, leads to smarter business decisions, effective, timely and efficient operations, higher profits and most importantly happier customers.
- 1. Wastage and Cost reduction. Big data technologies and cloud-based analytics bring significant cost advantages when it comes to storing large amounts of data – plus they can identify more efficient ways of doing business.
- 2. Better and Quicker decision making. With the speed and in-memory analytics, combined with the ability to analyze new sources of data, businesses are able to analyze information immediately – and make decisions based on what they’ve learned.
- 3. Development of New products and customized services. With the ability to gauge customer needs and satisfaction through analytics comes the power to give customers what they want. Davenport points out that with big data analytics, more companies are creating new products to meet customers’ needs.
A McKinsey Global Institute study states that the US will face a shortage of about 190,000 data scientists and 1.5 million managers and analysts who can understand and make decisions using Big Data by 2018.A survey by Deloitte, Technology in the Mid-Market; Perspectives and Priorities, reports that executives clearly see the value of analytics. Based on the survey, 65.2% of respondents are using some form of analytics that is helping their business needs.
Companies have recognized the immense business value which can be delivered using data. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Baidu are just some of the companies which have made investments in data products such as self-driving cars, voice / image recognition, wearable devices etc.
These trends have caused a huge demand of skilled professional in data related jobs around the world. Job profiles such as Data Scientist, Data Analyst, Big Data Engineer, Statistician are being largely hunted by companies around the world. Not only they are being paid handsomely, but a career in analytics has much more to promise as it is pivot for companies in decision making critical for business success.After the U.S., India has the largest demand of analytics / big data / data science professionals.