How real-time, big data analytics can be a competitive advantage

Real-time, big data analytics, based on cloud. What’s that?

It’s certainly not a mishmash of the most trending hashtags on Twitter! There’s more to it.
Picture this. You’ve added a shiny new feature to your product and want to see if the shower the same amount of love that they did to Snapchat, for example. You know, for sure, that the results of this ‘trial phase’ would dictate your go-to-market strategies and the growth hacks thereafter. The good news is, that you will have plenty of data at your disposal. The not-so-good news is that users’ behaviors are fickler than ever and that the novelty factor would die down quickly as well. So, you’ll hardly have any time to waste! All that historical data you’ve carefully stored over the years aren’t of much use either – we’re talking about Millenials here you see, a fairly recent phenomenon, to say the least. So, here’s the problem: you have big data and you have the power of cloud (or, maybe, not yet) – but the critical part is – how close to real-time is your big data analytics capabilities? Do you have a way to slice and dice that data into meaningful chunks, form a hypothesis, test, validate and take decisions on a real-time basis, ensuring runaway success of your product? That’s where BluePi comes in. We help companies build real-time big data capabilities on the cloud, enabling them to stay ahead of the curve. Organizations realize that Big Data has the power to fundamentally change the way businesses compete and operate. Analyzing real-time data is not just limited to few IT companies anymore, its influence now spans across multiple domains like finance, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, scientific research and a whole lot more. Companies generate enormous volumes of structured and unstructured data from web logs, sensors, call records, social network posts and many more new touch points across multiple channels. With vastly improved internet connectivity and infrastructure, this is bound to multiply 10 times. And now, the challenge is no longer about finding cost-effective and scalable ways to capture, store and analyze this data. It is about doing so on a real-time basis as well.  **

Advantages of Real-Time Big Data Analytics:

From optimizing your marketing campaigns to reducing operational inefficiency or monitoring the customer sentiment, the practical benefits of real-time big data analytics are far-reaching and can influence multiple levels of decision-making within an organization. It enables organizations to make better decisions faster, based on more accurate data, compared to representative samples of stale data that they had to deal with so far.
Using Real-Time Big Data Analytics for Competitive Advantage</a>, but for starters, here are the 4 ways you can gain a competitive advantage by employing real-time, big data analytics based on the cloud:

1. Remove operational inefficiency: Operational Decisions are mostly structured based on the data stored within the organization. With the legacy systems, it takes days just to sort and analyze that data, let alone concluding and deciding in any way. The point of real-time analytics is to respond to conditions as they occur and take decisions then and there, saving time and effort in having to run a post-facto analysis on hidden data silos.
2. Get multiple perspectives without missing out on the larger goal Since data is real-time you can have horses-for-courses, or multiple people manning multiple parts of your business while letting each of them keep an eye on the bigger picture as well – leading to better collaboration and faster decision making. Each person involved in the situation may have a different solution but when the solution is backed by real-time data, decision making becomes simpler and decisions become more actionable.
3. Bet big on test and measurement As Avinash Kaushik puts it, companies that succeed in today’s age, are those that fail faster. And the basic tenets of that philosophy are – test and measurement. By implementing real-time analytics on top of your marketing campaigns, you can reinforce the ones performing better and pull back the ones which aren’t. You can also make changes on the go and optimize them – without having to worry about what effect that would have on your datasets or samples. What’s more, you even let the system automatically chose the winner and bet bigger on it.
4. Make dynamic changes based on user preferences With real-time analytics, you are in a better position to not just analyze the data but also predict (with reasonable confidence) what exactly your users want and segment them better. This enables you to match their expectations and extend personalized experiences across channels on a real-time basis. It not only improves the quality of service offered but also lets you manage customer lifecycles better.

But, Why Cloud?

Big Data and Cloud computing are complementary technologies majorly focusing on scalability(One of the predominant advantages of Cloud Migration!), elasticity, agility and on-demand availability - all of which are building blocks of real-time big data analytics. Big Data largely relies on approaches that include massively parallel processing, in-database execution, storage optimization and data visualization. Cloud computing compliments Big Data by enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network that can be shared with a common pool of computing resources and can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal effort. Big Data and Cloud computing are complementary technologies majorly focusing on scalability(One of the predominant advantages of Cloud Migration!), elasticity, agility and on-demand availability - all of which are building blocks of real-time big data analytics. Big Data largely relies on approaches that include massively parallel processing, in-database execution, storage optimization and data visualization. Cloud computing compliments Big Data by enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network that can be shared with a common pool of computing resources and can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal effort. The advantages of having a cloud based, real-time, big data strategy may seem fairly-obvious but in building the business case for it, organizations first need to take stock of

1. Which of their Big Data applications should have a cloud approach vs. an on premise one?
2. What are the use cases that require real time analytics vis-a-vis analysis of historical data?
3. What are the optimum data structures, processes and organizational decision centers that help gain maximum leverage out of real-time big data analytics? The answers to these questions aren’t that simple and requires closer introspection. Join us for a webinar on Using Real Time Big Data Analytics for Competitive Advantage  as we get together with our clients and partners to discuss the best practices of devising and implementing real-time big data strategy based on cloud. We’ll also be discussing some case studies and examples of each of the benefits mentioned earlier.