how big data works
big data can be categorized as unstructured or structured structured data consists of information already managed by the organization in databases and spreadsheets it is frequently numeric in nature unstructured data is information that is unorganized and does not fall into a predetermined model or format it includes data gathered from social media sources which help institutions gather information on customer needs big data can be collected from publicly shared comments on social networks and websites voluntarily gathered from personal electronics and apps through questionnaires product purchases and electronic check ins the presence of sensors and other inputs in smart devices allows for data to be gathered across a broad spectrum of situations and circumstances big data is most often stored in computer databases and is analyzed using software specifically designed to handle large complex data sets many software as a service saas companies specialize in managing this type of complex data 1the uses of big datadata analysts look at the relationship between different types of data such as demographic data and purchase history to determine whether a correlation exists such assessments may be done in house or externally by a third party that focuses on processing big data into digestible formats businesses often use the assessment of big data by such experts to turn it into actionable information many companies such as alphabet and meta formerly facebook use big data to generate ad revenue by placing targeted ads to users on social media and those surfing the web nearly every department in a company can utilize findings from data analysis from human resources and technology to marketing and sales the goal of big data is to increase the speed at which products get to market to reduce the amount of time and resources required to gain market adoption target audiences and to ensure customers remain satisfied advantages and disadvantages of big datathe increase in the amount of data available presents both opportunities and problems in general having more data on customers and potential customers should allow companies to better tailor products and marketing efforts in order to create the highest level of satisfaction and repeat business companies that collect a large amount of data are provided with the opportunity to conduct deeper and richer analysis for the benefit of all stakeholders with the amount of personal data available on individuals today it is crucial that companies take steps to protect this data a topic which has become a hot debate in today s online world particularly with the many data breaches companies have experienced in the last few years while better analysis is a positive big data can also create overload and noise reducing its usefulness companies must handle larger volumes of data and determine which data represents signals compared to noise deciding what makes the data relevant becomes a key factor 1furthermore the nature and format of the data can require special handling before it is acted upon structured data consisting of numeric values can be easily stored and sorted unstructured data such as emails videos and text documents may require more sophisticated techniques to be applied before it becomes useful 21