Leveraging Analytical Capabilities Of Financial Services

Big Data is an expansive phrase for data sets so called big, large or complex that they are very difficult to process using traditional data processing applications. Challenges include analysis, capture, curation, search, sharing, storage, transfer, visualization, and information privacy. In common usage, the term big data has largely come to refer simply to the use of predictive analytics. Big data is a set of techniques and technologies that need or require new forms of integration to expose large invisible values from large datasets that are diverse, complex, and of a massive scale. When big data is effectively and efficiently captured, processed, and analyzed, companies

Technology companies are using big data to analyze millions of voice samples to deliver more reliable and accurate voice interfaces. Banks are using big data techniques to im- prove fraud detection. Health care providers are leveraging more detailed data to im- prove patient treatment. Big data is being used by manufacturers to improve warranty management and equipment monitoring, as well as to optimize the logistics of getting their products to market. Retailers are harnessing a wide range of customer interactions, both online and offline, in order to provide more tailored recommendations and optimal pricing.96

Business thrive when they have the most accurate, up-to-date, and relevant information at their disposal. This information can be used for a plethora of pertinent markers in small and large businesses, relating to accounting, investments, consumer activity, and much more. Big data is a term used to describe the extremely large amounts of data that floods a business every day. For decades, big data has been a growing field, facing controversy on many levels, but as of late, it has been a major innovator in the challenge of making businesses more sustainable. Big data is often scrutinized for its over-generalization and inability to display meaningful results at times. When applied correctly, data analysis can bring earth-altering information to the table.

Businesses using data is not a new concept; however, the role of data within industries has increased dramatically over the years to the point that it is essential for a business to understand how to handle data in order to continue operations. In today’s bustling digital age, professionals credit a certain type of data called “big data” with helping businesses gain insight on consumers. Big data is created whenever you travel to your favorite restaurant, make a particular move in a video game, swipe your card to purchase your favorite pair of Crocs, or tell your Facebook friends what you had for breakfast. It is data that is too large to be captured and processed by standard business

In economically uncertain times, many businesses and public sector organizations have come to appreciate that the key to better decisions, more effective customer or citizen engagement, sharper competitive edge, hyper efficient operations and compelling product and service development is data — and lots of it (Cameron McNaught,2010). Today the situation they face is not any shortage of that raw material. In a way that the wealth of unstructured online data alone has swollen the already torrential flow from transaction systems and demographic sources but how to turn that amorphous, vast, fast-flowing mass of “Big Data” into highly valuable insights, actions and outcomes.

Firstly, the main problem is deciding which data should be selected. The data, explaining customers’ desires and needs, is important to be collected while most of the enterprises are confusing about what data they should concentrate on. A recent Gartner report (2014) stresses that 64% of firms raced to plan or launch a Big Data project, though they did not have enough professional knowledge yet. To understand what customers need through Big Data possibly turns into the core of companies’ target. The large data volumes and different varieties of data lead to data complexity.

Big Data has taken the business world by storm. By 2020, it is expected that the amount of digital information in existence will have grown from 3.2 zettabytes in 2014 to 40 zettabytes. Companies are doing all they can to capture this digital information and turn it into actionable insights. Currently, the total amount of data being captured and stored by industry is doubling every 1.2 years. Therefore, companies must find increasingly efficient solutions to store and analyze this incredible amount of data.

According to a report from The International Business Machines Corporation, known as IBM, 90% of the data in the world has been generated in the last two years. Frank J. Ohlhorst (2013) explains how the concept of collecting data for use in business is not new, but the scale of data that has been collected recently is so large that it has been termed Big Data (p. 1). Company executives who choose to ignore Big Data are denying their companies an advantage over their competitors. Big Data analysis is fundamental for all fields of work; it provides an insight to large amounts of data that will answer questions and make discoveries to improve efficiency in all areas of the world.

The world is changing with respect to the growth in big data and to the way in which it is used. Growth in big data brings with it many challenges, but it also presents new opportunities. Figure 1, helps understand some of the big data related activities that are taking place in the world with respect to volume of data that is being consumed by these activities over the next 5 years.

The big data techniques allow the provision of the quality and dignified products to the customers. The data and information obtained regarding a given client provide the particular taste and preference of the individual clients. The information obtained enables the banking institution to focus on specific services and the products demanded by their client. The dedicated service to the specific clients attracts the clients and improves the friendship relation between the client and the bank.

Big data is an extensive collection of structured and unstructured data. It is a modern day technology which is applied to store, manage and analyze data that are not possible to manage, store and analyze by using the commonly used software or tools. Since all of our daily tasks are overtaken by the modern technologies and all the businesses and organizations are using internet system to operate, the production of data has increased significantly in past

Presence of big data is a very common phenomenon now days, specially when talking about medium to large size corporation. Manyika et al., in their article (James Manyika, 2011) defined the term big data as “large pools of data that can be captured, communicated, aggregated, stored, and analyzed”. To clarify they suggested that big data refers to data, whose size makes it impossible to be processed by the typical software used for database management. Gartner (Gartner, 2012)defined big data in terms of its characteristics of high volume, high velocity and high variety. By volume, he referred to the size of the data, by velocity he referred to the speed at which the data is created and by variety he referred to the range of types of data.

Big data is not a hype, but it is the future. The big data industry continues to advance, and big data service providers are making it easier for companies to work with big data in driving their businesses. Progressively, greater volumes and varieties of data will be incorporated with more business processes to support better decision making and greater insight. Moreover,

Data is a powerful weapon as well as a resource. Having data does not make you powerful but what you do with it makes all the difference. Companies like Amazon, eBay and Netflix are already using data to predict user behavior and utilizing that to increase their revenue. But processing data in real time is not an easy task. The data today has great volume, is veracious in nature and is increasing at an enormous rate and hence has been given the term Big Data. There is a constant research going on to find a solution to process such huge amount of data in real time.

If the Information Age began in the 1990s with the rise of digital technology, then we’ve now officially entered the Age of Big Data, wherein companies like Google, Facebook, IBM, Teradata, Oracle, and SAS have the capacity to gather a lifetime’s worth of data about customers and their behavior.