Making Big Data Talk

There is excitement around analytics because data, and the insights hidden in it, is the next frontier for competitive advantage. Big Data technology and services market is expected to grow at a 31.7% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) - about seven times the rate of the overall information and communication technology (ICT) market - with revenues reaching $23.8bn in 2016 according to International Data Corporation's (IDC) most recent worldwide Big Data technology and services market forecast

WHAT IS DATA ANALYTICS?
Data analytics is the ability to store, process and access all the data that may be required by an enterprise to operate effectively, take business decisions, reduce risks and serve customers in a better way. To take a more technical point of view, data analytics can be defined in three stages. The first stage involves capturing and storing massive amounts of data of different types that is being generated at a very high velocity followed by processing it, which involves cleansing, analyzing and enriching the data. The third and the last step is spent on accessing it, which involves retrieval, visualization and integration of data with the existing systems. "The Big Data market is expanding rapidly as large IT companies and startups vie for customers and market share, providing technology buyers with more opportunities to use Big Data technology to improve operational efficiency and to drive innovation," as per IDC's survey report.

FROM INFORMATION TO INSIGHT
TEG Analytics envisions a world where businesses can respond real-time to the needs of their business. Such responses require insights that are generated as fast as (or faster) the rate of change in business environment. It is anticipated that businesses will do away with archaic methods of collecting, transforming and analyzing data - because these take time - time is something that they do not have. These will be replaced with sophisticated and automated data harmonizers, efficient big data systems (Big Data platforms), advanced statistical knowledge and intensive business domain experience to create Insights at the Speed of Business. "We especially focus on the Consumer Packaged Goods and Retail industry because the data existing with the companies in this space is huge and of a high quality. Also these companies have a high need for insights since they are in a B2C business," says Arvind Nagpal, founder, TEG Analytics. As per research by McKinsey Global Institute and McKinsey's Business Technology Office on retail in the United States, a retailer using big data to the full has the potential to increase its operating margin by more than 60%.

The developed markets in Europe and US are already at the most mature stage in data analytics space. Most organizations in India today operate in analytics at either an information or intelligence stage. The key is to move to the insights stage. Working in this space is Formcept, started by IIT Madras alumni Suresh Srinivasan. FORMCEPT is an effort to make data analysis accessible to everyone, be it an enterprise, an individual or a device. "We are on a mission to be ‘Your Analysis Platform'. We have built a Big Data Middleware, called MECBOT, that can empower the existing data analysts and data scientists of an organization to extract insights out of data faster, thereby, significantly reducing the time taken to convert data into decisions," comments Srinivasan. The platform provides batch processing, interactive analysis and stream processing capabilities out of the box. The start-up has received funding from Centre for Innovation, Incubation & entrepreneurship (CIIE) along with government grants. Currently Srinivasan is targeting US market and also validating his product with few Indian system integrators. Without commenting on his client's portfolio, he said that he is "in talks with large multi-nationals and Indian companies. We have also partnered with few successful start-ups who have a good customer base and we are going to the market jointly on the big data space."

IMPEDIMENTS TO OVERCOME
Going back to the importance of insight in analyzing data, Nagpal commented that the process of using data analytics as a competitive advantage is as much of an art as a science. The biggest challenge faced is the traditional mindset that putting large volumes of data can automatically create insights and big positive changes in business, simply by putting more computing power or science behind it. A clear business brief and well-structured hypotheses based on business experience are the essential starting points for effective analytics.

To get the right minds in place is a challenge for such firms. Analytics profession requires talents working in the space to create insights from data and then craft a story based on those insights - a story that brings clients' data to life. "We recruit people who love numbers, have a flair for telling great insights, people who can simplify complex ideas to a language their grandmother can understand. We look for talent in people to capture information around them and put it in the right context, a filtering mind that can scan, store and prioritize all the information captured around their five senses," adds Nagpal.

TEG Analytics is a 50+ person strong company today and prides itself of names like Nike, Clorox, ConAgra Foods, Nissan Motors, Lifestyle, Amway, Avon and Mogo as its clientele.

By 2018, the United States alone could face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills as well as 1.5mn managers and analysts with the know-how to use the analysis of big data to make effective decisions, according to the research report of McKinsey Global Institute and McKinsey's Business Technology Office.

There are more challenges in this space than one. As per State of the Indian CIO Survey, "potential business outcomes that can be realized though big data analytics e.g. real time personalized customer engagement, better operational efficiencies in telecom and utility networks, mitigating fraud/risks, smarter city management, intelligent healthcare delivery, etc. are accompanied by pitfalls that can trip up organizations on big data analytics initiatives including lack of internal analytics skills, high cost of hiring experienced analytics professionals, challenges in integrating Hadoop systems/data warehouses and capturing, curation, storage, sharing, transfer, analysis, visualization and security and privacy issues of data."

WHAT TO EXPLORE?
The more digital our lives are becoming, the more data are we churning out every moment. If these data is given a closer look, one can derive insights to overcome critical business issues. With the rather slow economy, India can use data analytics to make businesses more data driven or rather evidence based. This will help in ways unimaginable in the past. From understanding customers' behavior, solve tension among business partners, handle costs better and empower human capital, this process is the next step to innovate and transform a business environment. One can say that Data Analytics help in Decision Making process. One firm who has made a name in this field is Mu Sigma. Mu Sigma works with leading firms to solve business problems across various verticals such as risk and supply chain, marketing etc. A brainchild of Dhiraj C Rajaram, CEO and chairman has impacted businesses and has expanded overseas to continue their growth curve.

It is rather an incorrect assumption that Data Analytics go hand in hand with information technology (IT) alone. "Analytics is moving away from IT to business and that's the biggest transformation. Until now, the IT talents used to deal with data. Now, separate expenditure is made and when such a move happens, the concept of data is looked upon very differently. This has helped in solving strategic problems of an organization and in turn been an enhancing factor for business creation. This is where the opportunity lies because at the end of the day, data analytics is meant to solve business problems and not IT problems," says Siddharth Goel, CEO, Iken Solutions. Iken has doubled its staff over the last fourteen months and plans to another 50 percent in the next months. It has clocked revenues of around 15 lakhs in the last financial quarter and expects an increment of two and half times in the coming quarter. .

SLOW BUT STEADY ADOPTION
In India, big data adoption is still early. Enterprises are in "wait and watch mode" and not much organizations are adopting big data solution. However the trend will change here and soon the market will open. "Our guesstimate is that in next 3-4 years the big data market size in India will grow to 1 billion USD," adds Srinivasan. Even investors shy away from actively putting their money in this space as being a nascent area of operation, there is no positive track record.

According to State of the Indian CIO Survey, 40% of Indian IT leaders plan to implement big data analytics over the course of this year while 16% say they are already in the process of implementing it. NASSCOM expects the country's big data industry to grow from US$200mn in 2012 to US$1bn in 2015.