Big Focus on Small Data

Buzzwords almost as abundant as data these days.

One of the buzzwords that’s been enduring for years is big data, by big data we understand that most organizations are drowning in existing and potential data that can be leveraged strategically to drive business growth.

Is it?

As I have been discussing, investments in analytical solutions, big data, AI, etc., is increasing, and the quality of the insights and their role their decision-making processes is decreasing.

In line with this, C-level decisions are frequently made either simply ignoring the data or based on gut feelings.

How many organizations, in every industry are suffering from poor implementations of the most basic management reporting?

How many are confronted with a situation where they simply accepting to live with mediocre, under-performing solutions?

Big data into small data

This might sound counter-intuitive, considering the increasing capabilities in big data, cloud computing, data processing and analytical tools, when most organizations are trying to generate and store all possible data.

Whether they need it or not – and this is the point we should reflect on.

Any data strategy starts with a business strategy, so before boarding a big data rush, it is essential to know what business questions or challenges the data will address.

To maximize their resources and the return from their analytical investments, organizations need to focus on the data they need. By implementing data strategies closely aligned with the business objectives, collecting, and working on the data that is effectively necessary.

Assuring that all the data being collected and processed in the organization within a specific context, either operational, regulatory, etc. and that is collected and analyzed with an end in mind, sustained by a business case and aligned with the business objectives.

This discussion is not on big data vs. small data. These two realities have its own space within an organization’s needs.

Depending on your organization’s type and goals, big data means massive social media statistics, machine data and IoT, or customer transactions, and this is information that be used to generate business insights, or support services – and a source for small data.

Small data can be obtained by converting big data into manageable sets of understandable, applicable data, isolating the data that is useful for business.

Small data into big insights

A focus on small data allows organizations to be more agile, taking segments of business-critical data elements and gather instant insights that deliver the real-time insights needed to make informed business decisions.

Positioning the data strategy in close alignment with the organization’s strategic priorities and key business objectives, identifying how and what data will deliver those priorities and objectives.

Start with small, targeted initiatives, grounded on solid use cases, with clear, achievable objectives and business stakeholders that are aware of the importance and impact of data.

Reducing the amount of data that is effectively useful for business purposes, can have direct impacts on the quality of the insights that are derived from data and quality of the decision processes, allowing more manageable data sets, with increased quality, easier to govern and to secure.

And most of all trustable.