Page 9 - Building Big Data Applications

Chapter 1 Big Data introduction 3

data or information in these nuggets that have to be harvested. Consider the following
data:
Traditional business systemsdERP, SCM, CRM, SFA
Content management platforms
Portals
Websites
Third-party agency data
Data collected from social media
Statistical data
Research and competitive analysis data
Point of sale datadretail or web channel
Legal contracts
Emails
If you observe a pattern here there is data about customers, products, services, sen-
timents, competition, compliance, and much more available. The question is does the
organization leverage all the data that is listed here? And more important is the question,
can you access all this data at relative ease and implement decisions? This is where the
platforms and analytics of Big Data come into the picture within the enterprise. From the
data nuggets that we have described 50% of them or more are internal systems and data
producers that have been used for gathering data but not harnessing analytical value (the
data here is structured, semistructured, and unstructured), the other 50% or less is the new
data that is called Big Data (web data, machine data, and sensor data).
Big Data Applications are the answer to leveraging the analytics from complex events
and getting the articulate insights for the enterprise. Consider the following example:

Call center optimizationdThe worst fear of a customer is to deal with the call cen-
ter. The fundamental frustration for the customer is the need to explain all the de-
tails about their transactions with the company they are calling, the current
situation, and what they are expecting for a resolution, not once but many times
(in most cases) to many people and maybe in more than one conversation. All of
this frustration can be vented on their Facebook page or Twitter or a social media
blog, causing multiple issues
They will have an influence in their personal network that will cause potential
attrition of prospects and customers
Their frustration maybe shared by many others and eventually result in class
action lawsuits
Their frustration will provide an opportunity for the competition to pursue and
sway customers and prospects
All of these actions lead to one factor called as “revenue loss.”If this company
continues to persist with poor quality of service, eventually the losses will be
large and even leading to closure of business and loss of brand reputation. It is