Business intelligence in the era of big data

Most 21st century corporate, entities struggle quite significantly with collecting, managing and deploying organisational data. Maintaining a strong grip on the overall business strategy while wading through massive hoards of information can be a tricky balance. Most companies therefore end up suffering from information overload and their insatiable thirst for groundbreaking insights impedes proper organization and communication of the collected data.

Big Data technology can be explained by the large amounts of data derived from the analysis of a single unit of data allowing for correlations which are useful for predicting insights into, among other things, consumer engagements, product pricing, security and risk management, quality assurance and IT controls.

It is paramount that every manager makes use of big data as a basis of providing more evidence and facts in their decision-making. Corporates must evaluate their traditional data infrastructures to accommodate the trends in big data technologies and see how they can make their product range more customer-focused, while revamping their business model to tap into unchartered markets to remain competitive.

For the financial services industry, emerging trends in IT infrastructure necessitate changes in internal processes. For instance, there will be need to re-evaluate business models, rethink human resource capacity as well as technology requirements.

With Big Data, it is easier for corporates to better predict the specific customer needs – which product and at what point. It also enables companies to minimize risks and tap into opportunities to stay ahead of competition.

With increased insecurity, fraud uncertainties, local and global market pressures and fragmented customer needs Kenyan companies must invest in big data intelligence that will sort, organize, compute and present their information in such a form that will accord them maximum value when it comes to communicating fact and evidence based business insights.

Companies must utilse best practice in designing a strategy, collecting better data and packaging it to engage an executive audience. To be able to get clear and structured big data results, companies must identify project specific and relevant performance indicators that can be tied back to its strategic information needs.

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Finally, companies must create an internal culture where intelligent big data and evidence is used to turn information into actionable knowledge and real decisions.