TechWeekEurope Readers Are Not Smitten With Big Data

TechWeekEurope readers are not yet convinced of the benefit of Big Data. Half of you have yet to dip your toe into the water, and those that have tried it are not 100 percent positive.

Big Data is the application of analytic techniques in a more immediate and far-reaching way to bigger data sets than was previously possible. It’s supposed to be the Next Big Thing in IT, providing valuable new insights and increased responsiveness to user data. But nearly half (49 percent) of TechWeek readers have not tried it yet, according to a poll on our site.

Show us the Big Data benefit

Among those who have tried Big Data within their organisation, around one-third have got pilot projects on the go (16 percent of the total).

Around 40 percent of those who have tried Big Data are positive, saying they are impressed with the results they have got from the techniques (20 percent of the total).

However, amongst those who have tried it,  30 percent were disappointed with the results (15 percent of the total).

The result might seem to be an indictment of the Big Data hype and bandwagon, but probably just illustrates the stage of development of the field.

In fact, experiments with new techniques are quite likely to provide poor results – it is after all a test, at this stage.

Big Data provides useful results in many cases, for instance when an organisation has a lot of data to analyse, which can provide important insights into trends that might not otherwise be visible. However, with comparatively little past experience to go on, it may not be clear if your organisation falls into this category, until you try it.

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