Big Data: The Future Is Now

Big Data is hot, hot, hot! Companies such as Google, IBM, Oracle, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft are only a few that see Big Data not only as a gold mine of information but as a competitive necessity required to create new products; analyze, understand, and better serve the needs of customers; spot trends; look for patterns; and gain insights previously too expensive to examine.

Big Data is transforming competitive opportunities in just about every industry sector including banking, insurance, manufacturing, retail, wholesale, healthcare, communications, transportation, construction, utilities, and education. It also plays important roles in retail operations such as marketing, merchandising, operations, supply chain, and new business models. It is becoming quite clear that companies that fail to use their data effectively are at a significant competitive disadvantage from those that can analyze and act on their data. Savvy companies are jumping onto the Big Data bandwagon and hiring “data scientists” in droves to take advantage of the zettabytes of data and the billions of dollars of revenue generated by Big Data.

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