Data driven businesses are more competitive
Over the last few years I have seen close-up what executives and analysts have struggled with and the challenges they face to become increasingly competitive. I noticed that the market has been more and more data-oriented. It has also already been diagnosed that in the same way the profile of those investing in technology is changing, so is the profile of the most competitive companies in the world: they are young, dynamic and highly technological. They are companies that have known how to deal with data and have transformed it into valuable information in order to direct their business.
A lot of what we are seeing was not guided by high investments in technological platforms; what we are seeing is a bimodal path, with the usage of more accessible solutions that give fast results.
Even large companies have no longer seen complex technologies with a high investment and dependency on a team of extremely specialized analysts as the ideal solution. One can see that the majority of technologies on the theme of Big Data are free and open source, following the example of their major reference, Hadoop. Organizations that have sought after operational efficiency and that do not have the time for implantation projects that take months or even years are emerging as those who truly become data oriented. What businesses want is speed, to solve their problems quickly and at a low cost. Furthermore, they want engagement between all fields, not just the fields of Analytics or IT.
It is with this motivation that new ideas come about, solutions that come to compete with the big ones and that are accessible to all, whether small, medium-sized or large. I am increasingly convinced that the different areas of business are getting prepared to depend less and less on IT, becoming data-driven organizations, and that Brazil, which is amongst the world’s largest ICT markets, taking 7th place, still has a lot to offer and is yet to surprise the world.
Businesses will not become data driven as long as they continue to delegate the responsibility for transforming data into information to the IT department. Thousands of businesses are gaining space on the market because they are already created to be digital and data-oriented. More traditional companies, however, need to change in order to recuperate and reposition themselves in the market. Data driven companies are more competitive because they understand their clients’ buying behaviour, which makes it possible to create more inteligente strategies and directed offers, as well as being more inteligente with the use of data in buying, finances and all other departments.
*Eder Balbino is a data scientist and co-founder of Gaio, a Brazilian IT startup which works with Big Data and Analytics solutions with operations in Brazil and free access worldwide.