On November 9 I facilitated a Big Data Analytics Roundtable as part of a series that EMC Consulting is holding over the next few months. The goal is to help our clients better understand both the opportunities and challenges with respect to big data and advanced analytics.

We had about 20 EMC customers participate in our first roundtable, and below is a summary of what I heard.

• When folks here the word “big data,” their initial response is concern and trepidation (e.g., confidentiality, accuracy, validation, governance).  There was little immediate thought regarding the business value aspect of big data that is being trumpeted so hard by the industry analysts.  I believe that this group provided more of a practitioners’ view of “big data”.
• When the participants were asked what business functions would likely be the biggest beneficiaries of big data analytics, the response was split between the revenue-generating, “follow the money” parts of the business (sales, marketing) and driving out inefficiencies in operations.
• All participants were struggling with identifying where and how to start.  One attendee discussed  using a “governance council” to identify those business initiatives that have significant value to the business AND have the necessary data and IT skills to implement.
• Most attendees were also concerned about the effort and business support required to build out the data infrastructure and how to determine exactly what data the company already has.  How do you fund the data discovery processes and build out the data foundation when no one in the business is willing to pay for it?  We discussed using business initiatives to fund the development of the data foundation, one business initiative at a time.  Quote: “How do I find value in the data that I already know I have available?”
• There was concern that the big data analytics area has so many moving parts and different components, that the possibility of “analysis paralysis” was a real concern.  Organizations want to find a way to start, but understanding where and how to start again is a challenge.  Quote:  “We’re getting caught up in the terminology discussion and not focusing on the business results.”
• One participant talked about their organization’s transition to a “decision governance” culture where management is trying to reinforce or mandate data-based decision making.
• There was also lots of interest in using Hadoop and NoSQL to extract value out of both structured and unstructured data.  While still in the early days of exploration, there was value seen in being able to leave the data in its original, raw form and not having to pre-structure the data to be useful.  Quote: “Structuring the data for use in one application hinders the use of that data in another application.”

I’ll continue to update my blog with customer observations and comments about the world of big data analytics, and am eager to share a summary of the series in Q1.

BTW, I wanted to call your attention to a couple of events that you might find interesting.

• Sean Lee of EMC Proven Solutions and Prashanth Nandavanam of EMC Consulting were invited to speak at a A-Team Group event this Thursday in NYC (http://www.a-teamgroup.com/insightevents/2011/nyc-wsll/ ) called “Low-Latency Summit 2011”.  The event is around Big Data in Financial Services
• I will be facilitating a Roundtable in Palo Alto on December 14^th from 11:00 – 1:00 on the topic of Big Data and Analytics.  The purpose of the session is get folks together to share their experiences, challenges and opportunities with respect to Big Data and Analytics.  Here’s the link to register for the event: (https://emcinformation.com/36303/REG/.ashx?reg_src=SA )

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