Richard Allen

The world of business intelligence software shifted acutely over the past couple of decades. While the overall goal to achieve smarter, optimized business has not changed, the methods of doing so are like baseball players in the Steroid Era: they’ve grown immensely. Two areas of business intelligence, big data and business analytics, are the very definition of this new world of business data.

So, you want to add big data tools to your business. And why wouldn’t you? Big data analytics gives you a competitive edge, helps you optimize your operations and gives you a broader overview of your company. However, it’s not as simple as snapping your fingers and telling your staff to implement BDA. Big data integration is a complex process with high rewards.

Big data ecosystems are like ogres.

Big data components pile up in layers, building a stack. It’s not as simple as taking data and turning it into insights. Big data analytics tools instate a process that raw data must go through to finally produce information-driven action in a company.

As the Internet age surges on, we create an unfathomable amount of data every second. So much so that we’ve denoted it simply as big data. Naturally, businesses and analysts want to crack open all the different types of big data for the juicy information inside. But it’s not so simple. The different types leverage varying big data tools and have different complications that accompany working with each individual data point plucked out of the vast ether.

In an era where data is king, and big data analytics and related tools are the king of kings, enterprise big data analytics is no longer a differentiator, but a password at the door for some industries.

Enterprises in industries like banking, energy, transportation and others rely on big data to not just keep a competitive edge in their markets, but even tread water. Up to 60% of businesses have incorporated big data recently, a number that is sure to have only increased recently.