Is your business prepared for big data management challenges?
How to prepare for big data changes and challenges.
Big data continues to change the landscape of how companies do business. Morea and more it continues to drive business decisions and businesses continue to adapt to incorporate better analysis into their practices. Still, as useful as big data is and for as many opportunities as it offers, it can pose certain challenges that CIOs and IT departments everywhere should be prepared for. Here are some common big data management challenges facing businesses today.
Changing Culture
Most people understand the value of data and how data-based decisions can be drivers for success. There are still some companies though where leadership is used to doing things a certain way. One of the challenges of big data analytics is creating change in an organization and create policies and processes around the idea that data and analysis are crucial for business and operations. Creating a data-based business culture can be a challenge for certain organizations. It can also be challenging to get buy-in about change from other levels, including middle management. Holding seminars, trainings, and offering education resources including studies and statistics about the benefits of big data can help some people overcome their resistance to change and embrace big data as vital to their business.
Big Data Staffing
Another big data management challenge is finding talent to staff a team that can manage and analyze big data. There are several ways for businesses to handle this challenge. The first is to make sure that your positions are matching or beating current big data technician salaries. If your business understands that data is an asset, they will be willing to appropriately fund the positions to effectively manage it. Another solution is to hire a consultant to educate, train, and prepare your current staff.
Technology
Some businesses understand the importance of big data, but don’t have the technology to take full advantage of it. Some companies struggle to understand where to store all this information, while others find it challenging to meaningfully or quickly analyze all the information collected and available. Additionally, technology changes exceptionally quickly, and some businesses are concerned with adopting a certain technology to help them with their challenges, only to find that another, better solution appears down the line. This is why appointing a data officer or having consultant services is key – they help to offer direction, insight, and understanding into which technologies to invest time and money into and which technologies business should make sure they acquire and employ first.
Organizing Data
One of the biggest benefits of big data – the collecting of data from various sources to analyze and produce better insights and therefore solutions – is also one of the biggest challenges. Combining data from disparate sources, like from different departments or across different software platforms, can be very challenging to businesses starting out in big data management.
When thinking about big data challenges and opportunities, it’s important to not lose sight of the benefits of big data and data analysis. Big data management challenges can be broken down and looked at individually and over time so that companies can solve things and move forward with big data management.
