Disrupters Make Data Actionable
There’s a correlation between the length of time data is stored and the point it’s made actionable. Old data results in low relevancy in today’s hyper competitive One-Click world. Cloud IoT and the immediate demand for information makes this critical. The cloud enables connected applications to both utilize cloud-based algorithms to make sense of the data in real time, turning data into an actionable resource. Carly Fiorina (Past CEO of HP) had a good quote regarding the importance of data and its impact to the business. In her opinion every business should have; ”A goal of turning data into information, and information into insight".
You’re Either a Disrupter of Being Disrupted
Actionable data determines the future success of any business regardless of industry, from financial, manufacturing, CPG to healthcare. Specifically, companies that are able to quickly extract value from their data will win and be Disrupters and the ones that can't or won't, will be the victims of disruption.
Two contrasting companies that highlight this point are Amazon and Toys “R” Us. I won’t even bother telling you about all the accolades bestowed on Amazons ability to turn data into sales, nor will I delve deep into all the reasons Toys “R” Us has been left on the side on the new data driven revolution. However, though I’m not an expert in toys, I do know one thing for sure, people haven’t stopped purchasing toys, they just aren’t purchasing them from Toys “R” Us, and one of the reason is their inability to turn they’re 60 years of expertise into actionable data.
Why Aspire to be Data Driven Enterprises?
Successful enterprises are able to disrupt their respective industry by affectively leveraging the following:
IoT (Internet of Things)
Big Data and
AI (Artificial Intelligence)
IoT: is the injection layer for data. Combination of edge apps, edge devices, mobile.
Big Data: it’s a ubiquitous term.. though traditionally thought of just large unstructured distributed data sets.. today Big Data comprises all data types, from: structured to unstructured, NoSQL to SQL to dark data. Basically, large repositories and clusters of data either at the edge of your network, in the cloud or in a traditional data centers.
AI: is not just another way of analyzing data that sat around for weeks. AI enables a new breed of Analytics. But what makes AI so powerful is that unlike BI, that only answers your pre-defined questions. AI answers questions you haven’t even thought about and will learn to ask progressively more relevant questions based on the ever-growing availability of data.
This results in deep understanding of customer behavior, Deliver tailored services and Improve Products. Imagine if a financial institution can revise its trading strategy in real time vs once at night or in batch process? Leading to true Digital Transformation.
The reason Big Data and AI are so integral to digital transformation, is because of the explosion of data, led by IoT.
Its estimated that by 2020 there will be over 50 billion connected devices. With the exponential growth of connected "things," the volume of data to be analyzed will increase dramatically.
According to IDC by 2020:
Total data will exceed 44ZB
Data growth just from IoT will exceed 4ZB
According to Virgin Atlantic, just one Boeing 787 creates half a terabyte of data per flight. Ford predicts that from their connected cars, data storage with grow to over 200PB by 2021, growing from today’s 13PB.
The traditional IT approach to data analytics has been to collect and store data, then analyze it. However, in an IoT context this is not practical, a new analytics architecture is required, and that is Big Data and AI.
Time is Money When it Comes to Data
Carbon 14 dating is the amount of time that it takes half of radioactive isotope in a sample to decay. In the case of radiocarbon dating, the half-life of carbon 14 is 5,730 years. Business data has a drastically shorter life span, as far as it’s relevancy at least.
With the evolution of Cloud, Networking, CPU and GPU as well as Storage, enterprises are now able to go beyond the ability of just creating data and storing it, they now have the technology to quickly make data actionable and enable their business to Disrupt. Companies that are able to extract meaningful content and knowledge while turning data into actionable events will win.
There’s correlation between the length of time data is stored and the point it’s made actionable. Old data results in low relevancy. Cloud IoT and the immediate demand for information makes this critical.
I’ve come up with a very simple equation that I feel solidifies this point. I call it the Disruption Equation:
Actionable Time = Time Data is made Actionable – Time Data is Created
ACT = TDA – TDC
The delta between the time data is created (by edge apps or device) and made actionable (by an application, device or analytics).
Enterprises with a low ACT will be the disrupters (Amazon) and enterprises with a high ACT will be disrupted (Toys “R” Us).
In Conclusion
Companies that can quickly make data actionable will win and be disrupters. Toy’s ”R” Us, Sears and Motorola got disrupted, Amazon & Apple are disrupting. One of the main reason is their ability to turn data into insight, and truly become data-driven enterprises.