Data Usage: Identifying Opportunities and Building Trust.Companies must create a culture that encourages experimentation and supports a data-driven ideation process. They need to focus on trust, too—not just building it with consumers but wielding it as a competitive weapon. Businesses that use data in transparent and responsible ways will ultimately have more access to more information than businesses that don’t.
The Data Engine: Laying the Technical Foundation and Shaping the Organization.Technical platforms that are fast, scalable, and flexible enough to handle different types of applications are critical. So, too, are the skill sets required to build and manage them. In general, these new platforms will prove remarkably cost-effective, using commodity hardware and leveraging cloud-based and open-source technologies. But their all-purpose nature means that they will often be located outside individual business units. It’s crucial, therefore, to link them back to those businesses and their goals, priorities, and expertise. Companies will also need to put the insights they gain from big data to use—embedding them in operational processes, in or near real time.
The Data Ecosystem: Participating in a Big-Data Ecosystem and Making Relationships Work.Big data is creating opportunities that are often outside a company’s traditional business or markets. Partnerships will be increasingly necessary to obtain required data, expertise, capabilities, or customers. Businesses must be able to identify the right relationships—and successfully maintain them.