Big Data: Analysis Paralysis

If a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, what’s the next step you’re taking to get a handle on your data? With Big Data, taking that first step will lead many of us into “analysis paralysis”.  You probably know people who love data. These are the folks who analyze it for months and develop a national data warehouse project before handing over their “perfect” analysis. By that time, the data is old and useless.

The faster way to get to your goal and to realize immediate value is to capitalize on just a piece of the pie. Take a baby step. One of the analogies we use at Cliintel is that making good use of your data is like getting oil out of the ground. When extracting oil from the ground, you don’t put a 50-mile-wide pipe into the earth. A small pipe is driven into the earth in order to verify the presence of oil. The next step is to get the oil up to the surface, and send it off to the refinery where you can turn it into a usable product. The same is true with Big Data. The key is to establish the data that’s going to be valuable (i.e. translates to sales or cost savings), and get that data refined so that it’s usable across the company – from the C-suite to the front line employees. 

Getting the data monetized is the goal. Moving beyond analysis paralysis is about choosing one or two pieces of information that has the ability to grow revenues or save costs. The investment you make in extracting the right data pays for itself. It then turns into dollars saved or revenue earned that can be used to extract the next layer of data that’s critical to your next business problem. It’s a step-by-step process that can turn your organization from one that’s paralyzed by Big Data, into one that’s empowered by it.