Top 14 business intelligence and data articles, 16 - 23 March

Posted March 16, 2015 Many companies have implemented big data applications. These applications consist of a very large data store, hybrid hardware and software to store and access the data, and a sophisticated software interface that accepts the queries of business analysts, accesses the data store, and provides answers that can be used to understand customer needs, simplify business transactions, and increase profitability.

With the rise of cloud based business systems (accounting, CRM, customer support) smaller organizations now have immediate, easy, low-cost access to the same range of transactional systems that larger organizations have enjoyed for years. Unfortunately when it comes to getting a deeper understanding of the data these systems capture, the story can be rather different.

Print this page Email article Once hailed as an energy source 'too cheap to meter', the cost of cleaning up the UK's civil nuclear liabilities continues to escalate. In 2013, the Guardian reported that the total cost of the clean-up programme could exceed £100 billion.

In our daily lives we use data all of the time, and with data increasingly stored in the Cloud we as individuals are fast becoming used to having constant access to data wherever we are. Why can't it be this easy to access our business data too?

In your daily routine, you're extremely comfortable using a map on your phone, in your car, or computer.

Data analysis and chocolate cake? Cookies and data visualization?They don't seem to have much in common - except that they might both show up at a board room table - but being an effective data scientist and a consummate pastry chef have more in common than you might think.In fact, in order to be successful, they have to follow the same essential steps.

"I'm out there Jerry, and I'm lovin' every minute of it!" Kramer, Jerry Seinfeld's wacky neighbor, would roar as he walked into a scene. Kramer was also the television show's happiest character, according to a mathematical analysis of the sitcom's scripts conducted by Chris Danforth and Peter Dodds, University of Vermont mathematicians.

When you hear words like report, dashboard, or executive summary what comes to mind? Based on my experience over the last decade, these words have become almost cliché and are used interchangeably to describe any sort of data related request.How many of us have received a "report" that is little more than a table dumped egregiously onto an Excel spreadsheet.

Data is all around us. It's in the computers we use. It's in the machines we operate. It's in a huge pile after a single hospital visit. Consider: 30 MB of data are required to store an X-ray 150 MB are required to store a single MRI 3 GB are required to store the human genome 660 terabytes are necessary to power a single hospital Data is exploding at an unprecedented pace.

When we emphasize "things" in the Internet of Things, we obscure its real value-the ability to make connected decisions based on analysis. (Click image for larger view and slideshow.) The world can be remarkably obtuse about some of the simplest aspects of technology.

The healthcare industry generates zettabytes of data every day in terms of patient care records, prescriptions, lab tests, pharmacy sales, electronic patient records, insurance claims data, machine-generated sensor data from monitoring vital signs etc. Big Data solutions can help the industry acquire organise & analyse this data to optimise resource allocation, plug inefficiencies, reduce cost of treatment, improve access to healthcare & advance medicinal research.

To achieve Big Data results, data must first be accepted as a strategic asset of the organization and infused into the company's DNA in an operational way.

From time to time, you still come across someone with the opinion that Big Data is nothing more than a fad, which will be forgotten about soon enough. You might not expect to hear this from me, but they're actually right. Well - half right, at least!

Small business is in the biggest decline since the industrial revolution. They're losing ground to bigger businesses, who, in addition to economies of scale, enjoy a data advantage. In today's environment, companies with the ability to collect, analyze and decide based on data win. Technological breakthroughs will soon make big data universally accessible.