Big Data
Companies turn to data in order to gain a competitive advantage and understand more about their current and future customers. Over time data will continue to grow to be one of the most valuable assets a company can posses. Big data is extremely large data sets that can be analyzed to reveal patters, trends, and associations. “Big data is being generated by everything around us at all times. Every digital process and social media exchange produces it. Systems, sensors and mobile devices transmit it. Big data is arriving from multiple sources at an alarming velocity, volume and variety.”(IBM)
Big data goes through different stages, starting with data capture and finishing with data analysis. In our MIS 2502 class we have been discussing the storage of data from data warehouses to data marts and then analyzing the data cubes. More recently we have been using SAS Enterprise Miner in order to break down large amounts of data so it can be more easily understood and interpreted. Using the clustering feature we were able to separate the data into groups that were closely related in order to find specific trends between each group.
Hotels have been using big data in order to deliver mobile ads to stranded travelers making it easy for them to book a hotel. Red Roof Inn realized that bad weather reduces travel and leaves people in need of a place to sleep overnight. They used data to create an algorithm which combined weather severity, travel conditions, time of day, and cancelled flights. Using this algorithm they figured out who their target market would be and used mobile campaigns to promote their hotel and increased the number of people staying at their hotel. With 25,000 to 90,000 stranded passengers each day Red Roof Inn achieved a business increase of 10%. This is just one of many examples of how big data has grown a business.
“Big Data.” IBM – What Is – United States. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.
“Big Data in Retail Examples.” 5 Retail Big Data Examples. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.