MIS2502 Big Data
Big Data refers to the rapid growth in data that requires new methods in order to analyze and manipulate it. Information is constantly being created from transactions to social media and these large amounts of raw data are an ongoing source for business analysis. The exponential growth in data has led to innovation in the processing of information that can accurately analyze the high volume and variety of data in order to support decision making. Big Data analysis can help people and organizations to improve decision making and give a new meaning to competitive advantage, revolutionizing the business world. The transformation from Big Data to business knowledge can improve efficiency and reduce costs and risks.
In MIS2502 we have learned data mining and predictive analytics by working with SAS which is an advance analytics software that manipulates large amounts of data for analysis. Data mining extracts information from data to explore and discover patterns. The predictive analytics of SAS helps the user to make better and informed decisions based on the information provided. For example, an exercise about association rules helped us determine which items are usually bought together in a store. This information can be used to decide from the location of the items to discount offers. Data mining turns Big Data into useful information to improve business knowledge. Software like SAS helps understand Big Data, however that rapid change in information requires new methods to analyze the increasing amounts of raw data.
One company that has successfully manage to use Big Data for their benefit is UPS. The company tracks millions of packages and transactions per day for millions of customers with a storage of 16 petabytes of data. UPS has designed an initiative called ORION (On-Road Integration Optimization and Navigation) to monitor performance and the structure of UPS driver’s routes which could be the largest operations research project. Thanks to this project UPS has saved several millions by cutting miles from trucks routes and is looking to save with aircrafts as well. Successful analysis of Big Data has led UPS to save millions of dollars.
Works Cited
“Big Data.” IBM Big Data – What Is Big Data – United States. IBM, n.d. Web.
“Big Data – What It Is and Why It Matters.” SAS. SAS Institute Inc., n.d. Web.
Sicular, Svetlana. “Gartner’s Big Data Definition Consists of Three Parts, Not to Be Confused with Three “V”s.” Forbes. Gartner, Inc., 27 Mar. 2013. Web.