1. Big Data Analytics – Bridging the
Technology and Human Interface
Gap
Mark Laurance
Managing Partner
Aliante Consulting Group
Copyright © 2012 Aliante Consulting Group

2. Data Data Everywhere – What is Big Data?
To understand what Big Data is, it helps to put into context some facts about how
we consume data
• $600 to buy a disk drive that can store all of the world’s music
• 5 Billion mobile phones in use (2010)
• 30 Billion pieces of content shared on Facebook every month
• 40% projected growth in global data per year versus 5% growth in global IT
spending
• 235 terabytes data collected by the US Library of Congress by April 2011
• 15 out of 17 sectors in the United States have more data stored per company
than the US Library of Congress
Trends:
1986: 99.2% Storage Capacity Analog ! 2007: 94% Storage Capacity Digital4
2008: World’s Servers processed 9.57 zettabytes of information (~1022 bytes or
10 million million gigabytes), average of 12 gigabytes/day for the average worker5
2012: Estimate is around 30 gigabytes/day for the average worker
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3. Big Data – The Buzzword of 2012
Big Data is ubiquitous, it is everywhere and has become an integrated part of our
cultural landscape
• Facebook, Digital Media, Smart Phones – Information on Demand
• SD cards, Multi-Terabyte Hard Drives – The Cloud
• DSL, Cable, Wi-Fi, 4G
• It is the new currency and has fully transformed us into the Information Age
Data Entropy
In physics terms (oversimplifying):
Entropy = Uncertainty
• In Data terms, data in it’s raw form has very little information, so there is a
great potential to extract new information from the data. This information could
provide new insights, be very valuable and therefore have high entropy.
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4. Big Data Trends and Implications1
The amount of data in our world has been exploding, and analyzing large data sets—so-called
big data—will become a key basis of competition, underpinning new waves of
productivity growth, innovation, and consumer surplus.
Leaders in every sector will have to grapple with the implications of big data, not just a few
data-oriented managers. The increasing volume and detail of information captured by
enterprises, the rise of multimedia, social media, and the Internet of Things will fuel
exponential growth in data for the foreseeable future.
• Data have swept into every industry and business function and are now an important
factor of production, alongside labor and capital.
• The use of big data will become a key basis of competition and growth for individual
firms
• The use of big data will underpin new waves of productivity growth and consumer
surplus.
• Several issues will have to be addressed to capture the full potential of big data.
Policies related to privacy, security, intellectual property, and even liability will need to
be addressed in a big data world.
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5. The Value Proposition of Big Data1
There are five broad ways in which using big data can create value.
1. First, big data can unlock significant value by making information transparent and
usable at much higher frequency.
2. Second, as organizations create and store more transactional data in digital form,
they can collect more accurate and detailed performance information on everything
from product inventories to sick days, and therefore expose variability and boost
performance. Leading companies are using data collection and analysis to conduct
controlled experiments to make better management decisions; others are using data
for basic low-frequency forecasting to high-frequency nowcasting to adjust their
business levers just in time.
3. Third, big data allows ever-narrower segmentation of customers and therefore much
more precisely tailored products or services.
4. Fourth, sophisticated analytics can substantially improve decision-making.
5. Finally, big data can be used to improve the development of the next generation of
products and services.
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6. How will this Impact You?
There will be a shortage of talent necessary for organizations to take advantage
of big data. By 2018, the United States alone could face a shortage of 140,000 to
190,000 people with deep analytical skills as well as 1.5 million managers and
analysts with the know-how to use the analysis of big data to make effective
decisions.
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7. The Emergence of the Performance-Based Culture
How is Big Data impacting and transforming corporations?
• IT by default is now the steward of Big Data
• This is transforming IT’s role from providing service and support as a cost center into a
business partner that has the ability to provide strategic insight
• The gives the CIO a seat at the Leadership table for setting the corporate strategic direction
and a career path to COO
Using Big Data to make Better Decisions
The Problem:
• Organizational leaders often lack the understanding of the value in big data as well as how
to unlock this value1.
• Most people fear data since they do not understand what it is, how to access it and what it
can do
Four ways to help knowledge workers improve outcomes to make Better Decisions2
1. Build Business Acumen by “Test and Learn”
2. Educate on the Limitations of Data
3. Encourage Stress-Testing of Conventional Wisdom
4. Expect Insight, Not Facts
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8. Turning Data into Information – Information to Insight
Business Intelligence and Analytics
Turning Big Data into Insight and Intelligence for any business endeavor requires a priori
knowledge for what the business wants to achieve, how it’s going to measure and what it
defines as success. Without these baselines, insights gleaned from the data are
meaningless.
One methodology that has been successfully employed is the Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan
and Norton)3. The Balanced Scorecard is most successful when the following steps are
taken:
• Corporate Strategic Planning
• Define S.M.A.R.T. goals
• Align Goals with Objectives
• Transform Goals into Commitments (what will we measure)
• Transform Commitments into Accountabilities (who is responsible)
• Create Execution Plans (How we do it)
• Define Key Performance Indicators or Metrics
• Structure Metrics to fit Business Model
Big Data, modern Data Warehouses, Transactional Databases and Applications that
interact between the users and the data enable Data Architects and Analysts to focus on
developing insights versus data efficacy.
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9. The Balanced Scorecard
In it’s ideal implementation, a Scorecard Platform will measure, monitor and drive
performance of these Metrics to enable:
• Business Transformation
• Change Management
• Performance Improvement
• Achievement of Strategic Objectives
Translating Vision and Strategy, the
Four Perspectives:
• Customer
• Financial
• Business Process
• Employee (Learning and Growth)
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10. Other Sources of Data
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT, CPE) Surveys
Employee Satisfaction (NSAT) Surveys
Web Analytics
Considerations on the use of Big Data in the workplace:
Management By Objective (MBO) – what component does Big Data have in
measuring an employee’s success (right or wrong?)
Employee Satisfaction Surveys, are they designed for Employee Satisfaction or
engineered for management?
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11. Round Table Discussion
• How do we evaluate and make explicit the presumptions we build into our
analytics--for example, assumptions about human nature, motivations and
behavior?
• How does our focus on data avoid reductionism—that is to say, avoid
reducing people to datasets in the way we treat them? How to serve people
without getting manipulative?
• How do you see organizations managing these issues?
• How do they evaluate the quality of their analytics? Do they have some kind of
benchmarks or something?
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12. Bibliography
1. James Manyika, Michael Chui, Brad Brown, Jacques Bughin, Richard Dobbs,
Charles Roxburgh, Angela Hung Byers (2011), “Big data: The next frontier for
innovation, competition, and productivity”, McKinsey Global Institute, 156
pages.
2. Andrew Home (2012), “Turn Big Data into Better Decisions”,
http://tech.exbdblogs.com/2012/08/30/data-to-decisions/, The Corporate
Executive Board Company.
3. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton (1996), “The Balanced Scorecard:
Translating Strategy into Action”, Harvard Business Press, 322 pages.
4. Martin Hilbert and Priscila Lopez (2011), “The World’s Technological Capacity
to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information”, Science 332, 60
5. James E. Short, Roger E. Bohn, Chaitanya Baru, (2011) “How much
Information? 2010 Report on Enterprise Server Information”, UCSD Press, 33
pages
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13. About the Author
Education:
BSc – Physics, University of Washington, 1984
BSc – Astronomy, University of Washington, 1984
MSc – Astronomy, University of Washington, 1992
Professional:
10 years working as a scientist in Astronomy
10 years working in semiconductor and nanotechnology industries
5 years working as Business Intelligence Architect and Consultant
Copyright © 2012 Aliante Consulting Group