A Long Way to Go

The Indian big data industry is predicted to grow five-fold from the current level of $200 mn to $1 bn by 2015 which is 4% of the expected global share. India is close to its US counterpart and is also well ahead of other data outsourcing destinations in terms of service provider's initiative to build such talent for the big data opportunity. Despite North America and EU accounting for a substantial portion of the global demand potential for big data analytics, India is well-placed for a competitive position in the global market and has started to leverage this opportunity due to proven strengths in IT and analytics. Having talked about the growth prospects and global positioning of India, the basic question still remains unanswered; what is big data and how is it different from any other data?

The Digital Era

We are living in an era of information surplus where information and data is omnipresent and omniscient; better called a ‘Digital Era'. Every day we are generating and managing volumes of data of different varieties-streaming data, mobile data, social media content, day-to-day communications, banking transactions, weather blogs and the list just goes on. The data thus generated and then quantified is of an enormous volume, has variety in its nature and has variable speed of accumulation; in short this is big data. To quote Gartner ‘big data is a high volume, velocity and variety information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing for enhanced insight and decision making' thereby implying the methods and use of the data. Now, to answer the second big question we need to narrow down to the most critical value additions that this provides to any business. First, it makes data more apparent and workable for business; second, it enables better decision making; third, helps in narrower segmentation of customer for targeted market campaigns and sales pitch. All needed for any business to grow and expand. Hence it's not surprising to read the recent report of Nasscom & CRISIL GR&A which says that 90% of India's Fortune 500 companies will probably have big data initiatives underway by 2013. This very fact states that big data is something the enterprise segment is considering seriously. Already, new big data companies are attracting funding in excess of $50 mn.

ISSUES IN THE BIG DATA INDUSTRY

The next round of trends that would showcase itself in the coming year would mostly be around the impending challenges and issues in the big data industry and the ways to resolve it. Since big data is entirely different from traditional relational database systems and entails more advance mechanism to understand, process, store, and analyze-developing and managing this would need highly skilled big data architectures and data scientists. They would in turn define the next route for of big data technologies for the industry and leave no scope for ‘missed benefits'. Technologies like NoSQL, Map Reduce, Hadoop, frameworks would be at the core of the business solutions and the best career for individuals who want to enter the big data industry. Nevertheless, to provide a brief picture of one market segment-the global Hadoop market revenue is expected to grow from $1.56 bn in 2012 to $13.95 bn by 2017, at an estimated CAGR of 54.9% from 2012 to 2017. North America holds the largest share of the Hadoop market revenue in 2012 at $0.84 bn; and is expected to reach $6.92 bn by 2017, at a CAGR of 52.4% from 2012 to 2017.

The range of insights that businesses can gain from big data could be numerous including business intelligence and data analytics, learning customers' purchase paths, buying behavior, extreme weather prediction, traffic optimization, genetic profile, location awareness information for ad placement, etc. Hence, there would be multiple investments in tools and services that enable big data analytics which have already increased from $3 bn in 2010 to $7 bn in 2012 and will further rise to $17 bn in 2017.

Due to the additional information being created over various platforms, the coming year will see big data growing even at a faster rate. Furthermore, companies will be considering streamlining their process, technology and investments with their manpower to yield significant business value from big data Investments. In-house robust storage hardware and software that allows for quick access to relevant information will be the focus.

MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) will see a majority of adopters and as it will have large scale global participation and open access via the internet.

THE HUNT FOR EXPERTS

Nevertheless, new database architectures and innovative analytics tools and techniques to facilitate big data implementations will give rise to niche startups not only in these core industry areas but will also develop a row of startups who would design cutting edge courses and program to introduce skill upgradation and accelerate career growth among the mid and senior corporate fraternity in the big data industry nationally and globally.