BigData, Big CIO Opportunity?

There's enough hype, marketing, and certainly media attention on BigData to catch a CIO's attention. But beyond the hype, there is something very real and very important for CIOs about BigData - a potential opportunity and a possible threat.

I really like O'Reilly's simplified definition of BigData and Introduction to the BigData Landscape. BigData is volume (how much data), velocity (how much new data, and how much does the data change), and variety (both structured and unstructured data). BigData is "hot" because the technologies to solve BigData challenges are more accessible - cloud, in memory databases, easy to use visualization tools, new database options (nosql, xml, ...), and choice between open source and commercial tools. BigData is also Big Business, and is sized to $50 billion by 2017 with both big and small vendors competing. Also, new data and analytical capabilities has the potential to transform entire industries.

BigData also presents both talent and organizational challenges, but more on that in another post.

In talking about BigData with a colleague, I realized what should be important to the CIO today  is that BigData is relative. How much volume, velocity, or variety that "defines" BigData is relative to the CIO's capabilities (both technical and organizational) versus the competition in the industry. So an organization that is lagging in BigData and analytical capabilities is going to find that their competition is smarter, faster, and possibly more profitable. A CIO that can drive the organization's BigData capabilities has the potential to create a strategic advantage versus competition.

BigData is about scale - can the CIO outpace the organization's vision on what it wants to do with data using a combination of talent, technology and process? If the organization doesn't have a "data vision", then the CIO needs to paint the canvas of possibilities by demonstrating new analytical capabilities.

So yes, there's plenty of media and hype, but the CIO has to pay attention.