Big Data by Lyonsdown

Harnessing the power

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Business at full throttle / Page 5

Recruitment drive

Lotus is stepping it up a gear and using big data to analyse race performance

Has Britain got talent in the IT industry?

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It’s not about size – it’s about how you use it

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The power behind decisions

NOVEMBER 2012

Brave new world How big data is changing the digital universe forever. Exclusive infographic, page 8

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Business Technology

Big data

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Best of the blogs

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an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

November 2012

Who? Big on Data – ZDNet What? ZDNet’s Andrew J. Brust, author of the Big on Data blog, has worked in the software industry for 25 years as a developer, consultant, entrepreneur and CTO, specialising in application development, databases and business intelligence technology. Taking a more technical approach to big data, Brust looks at companies using data handling techniques and technologies such as SQL, BI and predictive analytics. It says: “For big data to amount to a serious asset that business and operations can exploit, data centres will have to take a long, hard look at infrastructure and architecture…” Where? www.zdnet.com/blog/ big-data/

Who? Big Data Blog – Pervasive What? Pervasive, the analytics and processing specialist company, maintains this informative blog which covers all aspects of big data, from industry developments on Apache’s Hadoop data processing suite to in-house thought leadership on the wider aspects of the big data suite.

It says: “Historically, standing between operations and analytics was the hulking amalgamation of extracted, transformed, and loaded data that anxiously awaited the queries of business users. It was called the data warehouse (or sometimes the data outhouse).” Where? bigdata.pervasive. com/Blog/Big-Data-Blog. aspx Who? Beautiful Data – Benedikt Koehler and Joerg Blumtritt What? This visually appealing blog takes datasets from trending topics (for example, at the time of writing it is the US presidential election) and interprets them through a selection of visualisation techniques. But, as well as presenting pretty pictures, Koehler and Blumtritt explain what they’re doing and why they’re doing it as they go. Combining practical insights with interesting discussion, this blog is a great start for those interested in big data. It says: “Just a few hours before the ballots open for the 57th presidential election, the key question for us data scientists is: which data set could really show some special information that would not be easily available through a classic poll. We have already seen some interesting correlations of Wikipedia usage with the ongoing campaign…” Where? http://beautifuldata.net/ Who? What is Big Data? – IBM What? Paul Zikopoulos of IBM

discusses the nature of big data and offers a unified definition of an often misunderstood term, as well as outlining its importance to today’s businesses. Where? www.youtube.com/ watch?v=B27SpLOOhWw Who? Big Data’s Big Issue: Where are all the data scientists coming from? – The Register What? While not strictly a blog, this article from Mark Whitehorn, chair of analytics at Dundee University, breaks down the role of a data scientist into layman’s terms and gives useful background information into the training which he believes data scientists should receive. Useful for both CXOs and HR executives alike. It says: “Plug ‘data scientist’ into Google and it is clear the job title has finally come of age and, suddenly there is a huge skills shortage. An often quoted source about this shortage is a McKinsey Global Institute study. This predicts a talent gap of 140,000 to 190,000 people by 2018 in the US alone.” Where? www.theregister.co.uk/ 2012/11/02/data_science_goes_to_ university/

The world creates 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data every day.* We will show you how to harness it. 23-25 april 2013 • earls court london

@thebigdatashow

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*Source: IBM

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Hadoop... in 6 seconds

What’s inside?

Ha-what? Hadoop. It’s the opensource software project from Apache that’s revolutionising the way large data sets are processed, by enabling the processing to be distributed across clusters of servers. It can scale up from a single machine to thousands, and has a very high degree of fault tolerance.

How big data is driving business performance Page 5

It’s the data manager’s time to shine Page 6

Who’s it for?

According to IBM, 80 per cent of the world’s data is unstructured. Hadoop enables businesses to keep and analyse all the data they generate, empowering them to make evidencebased decisions.

What do the experts say?

Hadoop has generated a big buzz. It won last year’s top prize at the Media Guardian Innovation Awards. The judges, who described it as “the Swiss

army knife of the 21st century”, said it had the potential to be a greater catalyst for innovation than other shortlisted contenders, including WikiLeaks and the iPad.

What does Hadoop say?

“Apache Hadoop is a framework for running applications on large clusters built of commodity

hardware. The Hadoop framework transparently provides applications for reliability and data motion. Hadoop implements a computational paradigm named Map/Reduce, where the application is divided into many small fragments of work, each of which may be executed or reexecuted on any node in the cluster. In addition, it provides a distributed file

system (HDFS) that stores data on the compute nodes, providing very high aggregate bandwidth across the cluster. Both Map/Reduce and the HDFS are designed so that node failures are automatically handled by the framework.”

Where can I find out more? wiki.apache.org/hadoop

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Sound bytes “Data is the new oil!” – Clive Humby, ANA Senior marketer’s summit, 2006 “Data is the new oil? No: Data is the new soil” – David McCandless, TEDGlobal, 2010 “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data” – Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlett (Arthur Conan Doyle) “You can have data without information, but you cannot have information without data” – Daniel Keys Moran “The most valuable commodity I know of is information” – Gordon Gekko, Wall Street (1987) “Torture the data, and it will confess to anything” – Ronald Coase, Economics, Nobel Prize Laureate “Data that is loved tends to survive” – Kurt Bollacker, data scientist, Freebase/Infochimps From www.Dataversity.net

Back in the office: reading list

“Data are becoming the new raw material of business” – Craig Mundie, head of research and strategy, Microsoft

Cetas Big Data Analytics Instant intelligence for online businesses, with real time analytics for online streaming application data, Hadoop and variety of other big data sources.

Taming The Big Data Tidal Wave: Finding Opportunities in Huge Data Streams with Advanced Analytics (Wiley and SAS Business Series) by Bill Franks £22, Amazon Statistical and Machine-Learning Data Mining: Techniques for Better Predictive Modeling and Analysis of Big Data, second edition by Bruce Ratner, £43, Amazon Head First Data Analysis: A learner’s guide to big numbers, statistics, and good decisions by Michael Milton £33, Amazon

Remember the rules Page 10

Big data and energy generation Page 12

With thanks to the following organisations:

Business Technology

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November 2012

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Make space, not clutter

ll are a , we ost of e g a – m en ital iv e dig rders In th ing hoa e we’re g c m a o p c s be ll the us fi

Is big data costing you big bucks? Many organisations are paying the price for storing too much information INDUSTRY VIEW

ow many of us have a loft full of boxes, unopened since our last house move? Probably most of us because people tend to fill the space they are given. As they are given more, they store more. Data storage is no different. In the digital domain, we are all becoming hoarders; nowadays it’s far easier to keep than discard. In fact, most companies are doubling their data output every nine to 18 months. “Many of our staff use tablets and smartphones,” says William Hughes of Devitt Insurance Services. “I had no idea that by default they create a backup to a user’s home directory, effectively placing their music, games and photos onto our servers. Each device was covertly adding significantly to our infrastructure costs.” While the actual cost of storage itself is reducing, most IT budgets are not sufficient to deal with the growth in the amount of data being stored. Not having a clear view of how much is being stored will have repercussions.

Spiralling costs It could be that direct storage costs will continue to spiral beyond available IT budgets, or that backups take longer, requiring more investment into backup devices and leading to longer periods of downtime. In fact, infrastructure in general can get more expensive (larger storage arrays, bigger tape drives, faster network connections). Other problems could be that full disk platters access data more slowly, and as a proportion of the power consumed by servers is spinning disks, more online storage means more disks and consequently more power consumed. The fact that licences for many devices are based on the volumes of data stored may be another shock. Plus, moving to the cloud where storage usage is a monthly cost means every unnecessary file has a compounded monthly cost. The longer this data remains, the more you pay. Uncontrolled data storage makes it difficult to exploit tiered storage solutions too. This is the technology that can provide cheaper (normally slower) storage for low-priority data but faster “highly available” storage for important data or applications. File duplication and unstructured hierarchies often cause confusion within an organisation, with users wasting valuable time trying to find the most appropriate information, or even using the wrong version of files. Another effect of increased data storage which isn’t carefully managed can be that appropriate file access permissions

and groups are difficult to implement and police, thus potentially negating intended security policies. A lack of policy and controls can also result in inappropriate data finding its way on to a company’s infrastructure. Hopefully if it does it is benign, but such a scenario could potentially pose a serious risk. Many companies have a range of storage solutions including disaster recovery (DR), high availability (HA) infrastructure, production, staging and development environments and multiple backup regimes (which could be daily, weekly, monthly or yearly). They often have disk-to-disk copies and virtual machine (VM) snapshots too. It is common for a single file to be copied to many other locations, so should the wrong data be stored it can have huge consequences. What can managers do in such circumstances? “We can’t be prescriptive about what a client does and doesn’t need to keep, but we can provide them with sufficient clarity to help them manage their data consumption and production habits,” says Gavin Russell, CEO of Wavex. “The net effect of this is Russell: We reducing their can help you storage needs manage data by around consumption 50 per cent. and production habits We can also put in place appropriate monitoring regimes, policies and procedures to keep on-going storage usage in check.” But not all the data stored on company infrastructure is necessary. Types of unnecessary data being stored include log files, duplicated

files, old data, non company-related data such as video, music and pictures, and data from ex-employees. Old revisions of documents, online backups of company data and patches (copies of updated applications) are often also unnecessarily stored. The cost of magnetic disk storage space has dropped by about 45 per cent each year since 1989. Despite this, the trend towards storing multimedia files, and the increased resolution and size of these files cancels some of the reductions in cost.

Managing the growth A range of areas need to be considered to manage data growth. First are data structure, document management and versioning, so consider appropriate structures and hierarchies to store your data. Problems often arise when staff don’t know where to store or find information. Other areas to address are search – quicker access to appropriate information across a large file system estate – and permissions and security: ensuring that correct groups have appropriate access to, and rights over, the data necessary for their roles. Regarding policies, ensure everyone is aware of what is appropriate. They should be publicised to, and ideally acknowledged

What do companies store on production servers? email: 30% databases: 20% archive data: 15% documents: 10% applications: 5% all other items: 20%

by, all your staff. Feedback mechanisms are needed to ensure inappropriate use of storage is monitored so guidance can be provided to staff if policies are inadvertently broken. Ensure that applications store data in an appropriate location and that application’s which log activity for debugging, security and troubleshooting purposes are actively managed, archiving old files. Remember to follow the rules – some industries have very specific guidelines about the data they must keep for a specified period of time, in particular the finance and legal sectors. “We scan all customers’ servers and storage arrays, catalogue every file and folder, and then analyse all this data to show duplicates, growth trends, user behaviour analysis and file type categorisation,” says Wavex consultant Victor Peixoto. “We can then collaboratively put in place a range of solutions to help clients manage storage costs.” The mountain of data we all store is growing. Without unlimited IT budgets now is the time to act before it becomes an insurmountable task to address. Companies are sitting on data that, with some scrutiny, can be turned from a cost to deliver considerable business value. www.wavex.co.uk

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Driving performance with data

Racing car manufacturer Lotus collects data from parameters including the track, the tyres and weather, to improve a car’s performance

Big data, if leveraged effectively, can be good for business, says Bonnie Gardiner Imagine you have a regular analogue television, low picture and sound quality and basic network channels. Now imagine you can be upgraded to a large, high definition screen complete with cable network service and additional controls, while paying less than you were originally. This is how a study by information management company EMC describes big data’s effect on your overall business performance. The EMC study, entitled Big Data: Big Opportunities to Create Business Value, explains that business intelligence usually provides a “rear-view mirror” into performance, whereas big data analytics provides a forward-looking view. Much like the new television metaphor, the result for organisations is a higher definition visibility that can yield strong, various and more accurate insight to address customer needs, operational risks and performance opportunities.

Springboard to success Big data is already proving a fruitful source of business advantage, with a newly released study revealing it as a springboard for companies to overtake competitors. The collaborative effort of the IBM Institute of Business Value and the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, was based on a global survey of over 1,000 businesses and IT professionals, two-thirds of which cited how using big data has given them competitive advantage. As a driver for business performance, a 2011 study by management consultant the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) explored how big data can create significant value for the world economy, with some key sectors with the greatest benefits being retail and healthcare, while other sectors such as transport and manufacturing are also particularly fertile.

Shopping for benefits Though data gathering already plays quite a large role for retailers, the McKinsey study found that a company using big data to the full has the potential to increase its operating margin by a further 60 per cent. Multiple sales channels, catalogues, stores, and online interactions all provide a more sophisticated platform for retailers across the industry to exploit big data to drive their business performance. Detailed customer tracking devices, such as the Tesco Clubcard, enable retailers to mine petabytes of data on customer buying behaviour so they’re better able to target individual customers with specific offers, or even sell that information onto other organisations. The insight generated makes it possible to provide a more emotionally satisfying experience for shoppers, Tesco Clubcard scheme operates in the UK, Poland, Ireland and Hungary. In 2010 there were over 15 million members

while at the same time optimising operations. Aside from internal data gathering, Alex Cooke, UK Head of Information Strategy & Analytics with Capgemini, details how external data sets can affect retailers. “There’s a whole range of tellers. Take weather – if it was a really hot day, your sales will go through the roof for things like ice cream or soft drink. Or perhaps there’s a series of events taking place that drive sales in a particular category,” explains Cooke. “All of these are examples of different data sets that, in isolation, have an impact… but only when you bring them all together to get the real insight.”

Healthy prognosis The use of big data has made a splash in Canadian healthcare as IBM, in a research project with the University Of Ontario’s Institute of Technology, helped doctors to detect subtle changes in the condition of critically ill premature babies. Lauren Walker, IBM’s big data solutions leader, explains: “If we can use real-time analytics to analyse all the different physiological data that’s coming out of every machine monitoring neo-natal babies, we might be able to combine that with the knowledge from experts and case studies to understand how to predict when a child might be getting an infection that could lead to their death.” Closer to home, the Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust has deployed a new business intelligence and analytics system known as MedeAnalytics to gain improved insight via big data. The system analyses quality, activity and financial performance metrics to identify areas of interest or concern much faster. The McKinsey study, which focused on US healthcare in particular, deduced that if the health sector could harness big data effectively, the potential value could be

more than $300 billion (£185bn) every year.

Transportation Big data is beginning to play a large role in public transport, with Dublin City Council implementing an Intelligent Transportation System designed to provide updated speed, traffic flow and congestion measurements in real-time for greater visibility into the arrival times of all buses on their respective routes. The project aims to increase the number of people who ride the bus because they will see it as a dependable transportation source. The automotive industry is also using big

Top business objectives for using big data

data to improve manufacturing and client servicing. Intel, in their study, Distributed Data Mining and Big Data, have described how the convergence of IT and the consumer experience in automotive sectors is growing rapidly in the form of intelligent in-vehicle systems that enable connection between vehicles and devices. This data can be used to help drivers avoid congestion, observe driver alertness, connect drivers with friends and monitor vehicle operating conditions. Laurence James, product alliances and solutions marketing manager with NetApp, describes how racing car manufacturer Lotus employs big data to improve their operations: “When they’re off racing, they’re collecting data track side, from all sorts of parameters, the cars, the tracks, the weather, the tyres, and it takes things in different forms and structures and processes it in order to influence the design of the car, and discover how they’re going to change the car to get competitive advantage on the track.” The ability to monitor various data sources in regard to design, performance and customer experience also shows a vast opportunity for the manufacturing industry to take advantage of big data to improve new research, their supply chains, development of products and aftersales services.

Big data picture

Customer-centric outcomes: 49% Operational optimisation: 18% Risk/financial management: 15% New business model: 14% Employee collaboration: 4% Source: IBM

Big data is already playing a key role in the business world, with three-quarters of respondents of the IBM and Saïd Business School study already engaged in big data development efforts, with almost half still in the early planning stages, developing pilot projects or having already implemented two or more big data solutions. The remaining businesses that have not initiated big data activities are still studying how it will benefit their organisations. With these figures in mind, it’s only a matter of time before big data will become the norm.

Big data

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November 2012

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i g b t t h x i e n n g e h t r o f g n i k Loo

More talent is needed in the data industry. Do you have what it takes? By Dave Baxter

Slumped at his desk is a man who was once a successful data analyst. He spends his time staring blankly at a screen as countless interactions pass by, resigning himself to the fact there is more in front of him than he could ever physically deal with. Welcome to the era of big data, where the volume of unstructured data across the globe – from tweets to phone signals and sensor readings – takes too much time and money to analyse using conventional methods, and around 2.5 quintillion bytes are created worldwide in a single day, according to IBM. Harnessing big data could get the most out of your business – but there is a huge shortage of the talent needed to do this. A recent McKinsey report predicts retailers using big data will improve their operating margins by up to 60 per cent, and sees Europe’s public sector potentially saving as much as €250 billion (£201bn) a year by doing the same – and argues all economic sectors could make gains. The computer, electronic products and information sectors, as well as finance, insurance and government, are set to make particularly big wins, but the report argues no firm or industry can afford to ignore the potential, and sees big data becoming indispensable to business strategy as more

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50% Doing more with data

and more companies get to grips with it. But the research comes with some ominous news, because the talent needed to properly exploit big data is sorely lacking – with of senior managers between 140,000 and 190,000 extra deep are lacking analytical analytical positions and 1.5 million more skill and processes data-savvy managers needed in America alone to harness big data. This problem goes beyond the USA – data problems, says: “You need scientists a 2011 survey of around 5,000 workers and mathematicians, but you also need across the globe by advisory company to work more with creative people like Corporate Executive Group found more website designers. It’s also about the user than 60 per cent of employees lacked experience, and a question of information the skills to make sound business architecture.” decisions based on data. So headhunting people with The US needs The same research showed this talent is important, but another more than 50 per cent of senior whether you are thinking of 1.5m managers lacked analytical graduates, existing staff or data-davvy skills and processes. even poaching talent from your managers to There are cultural issues on rivals, it’s unlikely they will all harness big data top of this: a recent Economist come from a set background. Intelligence Unit survey of 752 Another important skill to global executives found that 65 per look for – and one not all businesses cent of data management strategies will be aware of – is the ability to further still sit with IT rather than being seen as develop technologies to process the big a business issue. data itself. Josh Rogers, vice president for And the race to get ahead is speeding up – worldwide sales at consultancy Syncsort, in 2009 total big data industry revenues were argues that while some existing developers less than $100 million ($62m) worldwide, but lack the skill to use some existing big data Deloitte expects this to have risen to between analytics software, such as Hadoop, more $1 billion (£620m) and $1.5 billion (£930m) could be done to lower the bar. If this can be done, you can put big data in the hands of a larger part of your workforce “Analysts need to take without the need for extensive training or talent hunting. data and solve a business

problem, and not just produce something that’s intellectually satisfying” – Jouzdani

User friendly

Some argue big data has already been made user friendly in at least one case – social media giant Facebook. In February this year, the website’s data intake was up to 845 million monthly users and 2.7 billion ‘likes’ a day. And despite this swathe of data, the site is by the end of 2012 as more companies cram open to its large number of users. in, making for stiff competition. Doshi says: “If we take Facebook, that’s And research firm Gartner expects 4.4 all about data and the information you see million IT jobs to be created worldwide to – the stuff you see doesn’t require analytics support big data – a workforce your company because it’s laid out in a certain way.” will be forced to compete with in a rush to But getting on top of big data is not just capitalise on the latest developments. about getting in the talent. Businesses also What’s needed? need to focus on cultural issues, because The most obvious skill businesses hiring experts is pointless if no one will need is a capacity for deep sees how their talent can drive the analysis, which tends to require business. An expected a background in maths, science Matin Jouzdani, the big data or economics. Every company leader for IBM’s UK consultancy 4.4m needs so-called data scientists, practice, says: “Analysts need IT jobs will be who can trawl through swamps to take data and solve a business created worldwide of data to pick out meaning, as problem, and not just produce to support big data well as carrying out experiments something that’s intellectually to test out statistical theories. satisfying.” But he also argues This could involve looking at billions businesses need to rethink their of annual gas meter readings to predict strategy – by putting things like big data power consumption or trawling through at the forefront of their operations. millions of daily call detail records to look at He says: “There needs to be a cultural customer churn and ways to improve it. change and a more tuned-in process.” As well as data scientists, businesses So big data buffs need to be incorporated need people with visual flair who can as a key tool for a business and its strategy, bring that data to life for others in their rather than part of an uninspiring organisation. If a designer or artist has backroom function. the creativity to bring a data Big data will only get bigger – in scientist’s analysis of big data size and potential. McKinsey to life in a visualisation, others expects the amount of global Facebook in the business can better data generated to grow by gets understand what it means. 40 per cent a year, and the 2.7 billion Alpesh Doshi, principal opportunities for companies ‘likes’ and co-founder of will likewise multiply. That’s a day Fintricity, a consultancy enough to pick any data analyst which deals with big up from a slump.

A fresh approach to data, and how it flows around an organisation, requires creativity, flexibility and technology INDUSTRY VIEW

ig data is the topic of the moment that can not and should not be ignored. But let’s get one thing straight – big data isn’t just about volume. It’s about the selective use of multiple, modern sources of data to deliver new insight, innovations and efficiencies. The key is giving all parts of the organisation the opportunity to identify, analyse and apply datadriven insight. Zettabytes of data being processed on an infinite number of servers is not big data. It’s about people having the right information and being empowered to use that knowledge to improve operations, from profitability to customer service. I have seen people do amazing things with their data and what sets these businesses apart is that they have applied flexible, new technology in combination with a keen understanding of their own business. It could be said that we need to get IT in the traditional sense out of the way. Let more people in your business have a lot more access to data using the most appropriate tools. A good example of this is Seachem, a leading pet care brand, that has used FileMaker Go on iPhones to create an effective mobile workforce. The field sales team are constantly receiving up-to-date information on their clients, then feeding back barcode scanned data that drives its reseller loyalty program. Everyone wins; the employees are more effective and the resellers get immediate rewards from the programme.

Big data doesn’t come in a standard fit. The whole point is it’s a dynamic collage of your most pertinent information. People in various functions across the organisation must contribute, choosing areas to explore and identifying

The underlying technology must be as easy to use as an iPad information sources as they evolve. The same applies to the interpretation of the results, putting information into the hands of those that are best placed to use it. TOT Shirts, a north London manufacturer, puts relevant information in the right hands by ensuring data flows through the business. There are desktop computers in the sales office and art department, wall mounted systems in production, iPads in the warehouse and there is browser-based access for customers. With so many people outside of the traditional IT

department heavily involved in a big data initiative, the underlying technology must be as easy to use as an iPad. It also has to be flexible enough to support continual evolution and future innovation. These success stories illustrate the creativity of people and the flexibility of the organisations. That same creativity and agility – combined with powerful, accessible technology – will drive a cycle of datadriven innovation that will benefit those fastest to adapt. The winners will be those that embrace the spirit of big data, while recognising that it’s simply the smart use of increasingly available information. Explore the possibilities and empower everyone in the organisation to use technology to create a genuine competitive edge. Tony Speakman is director of Northern Europe at FileMaker filemaker@chameleonpr. com www.filemaker.co.uk/ afreshapproach

Big data

Business Technology

November 2012

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

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an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

Business Technology

Big data

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How much information? Some landmark research has helped us to quantify just how big is big As the amount of data in the world grows exponentially, it becomes ever harder to quantify. However, there have been several landmark studies assessing the amount of data now produced and stored. One of the first studies was conducted at Berkeley by Hal Varian and Peter Lyman between 2000 and 2003. The How Much Information study estimated that five exabytes of new data were stored globally in 2002, and that more than three times that – 18 exabytes – were transmitted. They also estimated that the amount of new data stored doubled from 1999 to 2002.

Market growth

Vesset: “The big data market is expanding rapidly as large IT companies and startups vie for customers and market share.”

Another study, by Martin Hilbert and Priscila López published in the Science journal, showed that global storage capacity grew at an annual rate of 23 per cent from 1986 to 2007. The study also showed the rise in digital storage of information, at the expense of analogue.

1986 to rom 20 tf 0 en

ty grew at an aci a ap

A second study started in 2007. Sponsored by EMC, research firm IDC began a series of annual reports on the digital universe. The Significant economic role most recent, released earlier this year, forecast growth in McKinsey, the consultancy the market from $3.2 billion firm, has published a landmark (£1.9bn) in 2010 to $16.9 billion study pulling together all the (£19.4bn) in 2015. previous research. “The big data market is Its foreword states: expanding rapidly as “Big data can play a a Glob l storag ec large IT companies significant economic 7 and startups vie role to the benefit for customers and not only of private market share,” commerce but says Dan Vesset, also of national program vice economies president, and their Business citizens. Our Analytics research finds Solutions at IDC. that data can “For technology create significant buyers, opportunities value for the exist to use world economy, big data technology enhancing the to improve operational productivity and efficiency and to drive competitiveness of innovation. Cases are already companies and the public present across industries and sector and creating substantial geographic regions.” surplus for consumers.” o l rate f 23 pe rc ua nn

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November 2012

Big data

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Make data your business Turn big data into real results in this ever-changing world by following five simple steps to maximising your information opportunities departments need a strategic yet practical plan to separate the signal from the noise to drive revenues. The starting point isn’t always any companies are facing the clear, but this five-step process will same problem; how to generate quick and sustainable wins. handle, manage and get First, successful brands have the best possible results out of a compelling offer delivered ‘big data’. Savvy organisations to consumers via the right are rethinking, rebuilding and media at the right time. Ensure reorganising their businesses you’re aligning your big data and strategies. Understanding initiatives to business objectives customers’ needs and actions by – for marketing teams this means analysing increasing volumes of creating consumer benefits. ‘live’, unpredictable data is changing Christian Peck Second comes conducting a marketing like never before. consumer-centric data audit to Within the massed complexity produce a comprehensive list of raw of big data, created by consumers using materials you have available for big an ever-growing range of media devices, data initiatives. IT, data analysts and hides real, actionable insight. Marketing

INDUSTRY VIEW

the legal team should be involved. Building a ‘Plan A’ to make big data actionable is the third step. The strategy should reflect how quickly data becomes stale, how rapidly it can be used and how you’ll filter the noise of ‘junk data’. Demonstrating ROI to secure wider sponsorship from the business is the crucial fourth step. Executing big data use cases without building a new, full-blown environment should be possible; big data shouldn’t automatically mean big IT bill. Finally, create a roadmap outlining how ongoing proof-of-concept tests can be put into operation. Brands need to take on the ‘new-world’ challenge of big data to engage, serve and delight consumers. Those which

Connectivity is key In the world of ever-increasing reliance on IT, the need for reliable and secure data centres has never been more important

INDUSTRY VIEW

onnectivity is a businesscritical resource. It is therefore essential that data centres, as well as their interconnecting networks, are well sited, reliable, and secure and that an organisation’s data centre is situated with due consideration of its base of operations. The issue of connectivity is central to the overall performance of the data centre – no matter how much a company may invest in the supporting infrastructure technology, without good connectivity such investments will be in vain. Digital Realty’s newly opened data centre, Digital Chessington, offers the very best in data centre connectivity. The site demonstrates the latest and most sophisticated example of what Digital Realty, a leading global provider of data centre solutions, offers to its customers. Digital Chessington is located 17 miles to the south west of London, making it close enough to the city centre (with the associated potential for synchronous mirroring), yet far enough away to avoid being bogged down by London’s hectic transport environment. London is one of

find a way to make big data mean a big difference to their customers will win. It’s time for marketers to take on and lead this challenge. Christian Peck is managing director of Acxiom UK www.acxiom. co.uk

Dig ital Che ssington offers the best in data centre con nectiv it y

the world’s economic command centres, and the London Internet Exchange (LINX) is one of Europe’s foremost internet clusters. As a result, customers at Chessington will have connection opportunities onto a fast, reliable, and secure network in close proximity to the UK’s primary economic and networking location.

Accessible network The Chessington data centre site is connected to Digital Realty’s other Greater London data centre facilities as part of a highly scalable and high availability network. This is central to Digital Realty’s business ethos that customers have access to a diverse range of connectivity options. A high availability, lowlatency connection allows regulated industry organisations to easily manage backup of its primary data – a service which Digital Realty can offer through the ongoing development of, and investment in, direct high-speed fibre links between its three London sites. Connectivity is quickly rising up the corporate agenda. This is of particular importance in regulated sectors such as finance, in which performance is key. Internet traffic is increasing in volume, IT performance is

becoming more critical and organisations are increasing their investments in disaster recovery. Digital Chessington offers the level of connectivity that forwardlooking businesses need in order to maintain profitability within Europe’s increasingly competitive economic environment.

Need for quality In the future, the rise in outsourcing IT processes to external, thirdparty services will place even more emphasis on the availability of quality networking bandwidth

to the data centres where these services operate from. Data protection regulations that require organisations to keep customer data locally are likely to sustain demand within established markets such as London. We are also likely to see a further boost to locations that offer strong communications channels, such as Amsterdam. The impact of connectivity on data centre planning is only set to grow. channelteam@digitalrealty.com www.digitalrealty.com

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

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November 2012

Business Technology

Big data

Find us online: biztechreport.co.uk

Reform the norm Legislation on use of data is being rewritten

consent of data subjects without providing a clear definition of what “consent” means. This issue, along with its overall complexity, means the act is not easily interpreted. “I don’t think there are many people who The US retail giant Target sparked can give you chapter and verse over what controversy recently by using data collected you should be doing,” says Alex Cooke, head from a young woman’s shopping habits to of information strategy and analytics with successfully predict she was pregnant before Capgemini. “I would hazard a guess that there her family had noticed. While such are firms out there doing things with data data analysis is groundbreaking, that they really shouldn’t be because Cooke: companies have to draw the line they’re not aware of the legislation would your between efficiency and ethics. that should restrain them.” customers be Meanwhile, nations upset by your Complex laws such as the US prefer actions? Thanks to the constant development a ‘self-regulation’ and widespread use of technology, it’s approach for difficult to set any regulations in stone. companies and From the EU 1995 Data Protection Directive, industries, with the UK developed its Data Protection Act, specific laws with great emphasis placed on gaining the only being

adopted off the cuff when particular scandals arise. The remaining EU member states have also implemented country-specific data protection legislation; however, the harmonisation of EU data regulations is in the works.

Preparing for change In January, the European Commission unveiled a draft Data Protection Regulation that will supersede the 1995 directive. Though awaiting approval, the draft involves stricter rules, harsher penalties and greater data subject rights, extending the scope of the legislation to all member states, as well as any foreign companies processing data of EU residents. To avoid future legal proceedings, branding issues and costly shake-ups, businesses harnessing big data would be wise to adopt

Target hit the headlines over its use of data

their own ethics and security policy from the get-go. Cooke says a good test for appropriate and effective big data usage is to ask yourself if your customers or shareholders would be upset by your actions. After all, he says, big data “starts with organisations trying to improve their brand, not diminishing it”.

Making sense from nonsense With the right marketing tools, companies can turn intangible data into actionable insights that can deliver results

campaign. Who is responding to your marketing campaigns? Which messages are working? Which audience segments are the most valuable? Our clients use the Turn Audience Suite to track their audience’s changing behaviours and attributes in real time, which allows them to continually refine their messaging.

INDUSTRY VIEW

oday’s consumers interact with brands in profoundly different ways to how they did five years ago. They share content, show their likes and dislikes and relish the opportunity to browse, research and interact with multiple brands before deciding what to buy. To compete, brands need to understand their consumers’ behaviours and expectations. This means they must not only ask: “what is our digital marketing strategy?”, but they should also ask: “what’s our strategy for a world that is digital?” In my opinion, building an effective strategy for a digital world begins with data. Data helps you understand more about your customer. For example, what of all data is content do they look at from online and inunstructured before they buy? What store transactions, to are the key influencers catalogues, call centres before they arrive at your or email promotions, website? How many times do today’s consumers are generating they interact with your brand massive amounts of data. (for example, via your website, Currently 75 per cent of all of Facebook/Twitter profile, app or that data is unstructured, and as advertising campaign) before such is under-used, however it is purchasing and what information exactly the type of information do they need in order to buy? you need to make efficient and effective marketing decisions. Given the volumes of data in More data than ever question (currently 2.5 exobytes According to an IBM report last of new data daily), managing year, in the next four years we different data segments to create will create more data than has insight can be tricky. But instead been created since the start of the of investing in an army of analysts internet. On PCs, smartphones, to laboriously sift through this and tablets and through everything

2.5 exobytes of new data is produced every day

Optimal mix

75%

data soup, brands can now turn to technology and data management systems to find patterns in the data, generate actionable insights and deliver tangible results in real time.

Steps to success

will also help find more high-value customers and reach an extended audience that is still in line with your existing customer base. The second step is getting actionable insights from this data. In parallel with the technology, it takes people who understand Naggar: the value of data and have effective data the ability to management harness it to gives you develop a insight and successful strength marketing

The first step for brands on a journey to maximise the potential of big data is to aggregate all their company’s data into a single repository or data management platform, such as the Turn Audience Suite, anonymising it at an individual level to ensure strict data security. Enhancing this with data from trusted external sources

These insights can also help to determine how your customers are interacting with your campaign across media and devices, and drive the optimal mix for your marketing budgets across channels and providers. Effective data management enables you to strengthen your loyalty programmes with new insights about your customers, or identify the rewards and incentives that resonate best with your existing customer base. The democratisation of the web and popularity of social media has led consumers to expect highly relevant, real-time experiences from brands. By putting data at the heart of marketing strategies, forward-thinking brands are able to maximise the value of each interaction between consumer and brand, driving benefits for both parties, and ultimately impacting a brand’s bottom line. Pierre Naggar is EU managing director of Turn www.turn.com sales@turn.com

Business Technology

Big data

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

November 2012

Find us online: biztechreport.co.uk

Big data is a big deal If harnessed effectively, big data can boost business value instead of being a technology liability INDUSTRY VIEW Information overload is a problem that plagues most companies today, so much so that many companies have begun to refer to the problem as ‘big data’. As much of this M&A report details, big data has the potential to impact most areas of the business for good or for bad. Directing, storing and making the most of the data deluge is a real challenge for organisations, which begins with the bewildering volume, velocity and variety of data entering our networks. Building a thriving business from big data is something that many companies have already done. Tesco’s Clubcard scheme, for example, analyses every single transaction which shoppers make and offers vouchers and promotions accordingly. The potential for companies to develop intelligence and market insight by analysing buying patterns and real-time data is unparalleled. In addition to providing insight, there is an opportunity for IT to use big data in its daily operations. Every day we use applications and software from a range of devices, from PCs and laptops to tablet devices. Meta-information is

generated about how we are using these services, from which devices and – more importantly – when we have problems. Like a surveyor planning a new station and understanding how people will flow around it as they move, IT departments can take advantage of this data to understand how people are using applications and services. Ultimately, this can lead to an ongoing cycle of improvement for enterprise applications. Imagine if, for example, your IT learned that you’d need extra server capacity for Exchange between 8.30am and 9.30am so that email loaded faster when people arrived in the office. This kind of infrastructure, capable of making contextual-based decisions means that users get a more robust and personally tailored experience, which can directly impact productivity and consequently the bottom line. Similarly, organisations can implement performance and security features that can be activated automatically based on characteristics mined from big data services. Enhanced security processes can be triggered when visitors suddenly access applications from new devices or locations. Even more business-focused variables might trigger

additional infrastructure action. For example, employees using 7-inch tablets to view data would have a different experience to those using 15-inch laptops, as the display would render differently and the interface change from click-focused to touch-focused. There is no doubt that big data is becoming a big deal and cloud is a major enabling factor in its sudden success. Not only can harnessing big data improve the speed of everyday operations but it also means that IT teams can stop worrying about the flow of big data across their networks. Big data can support the business teams in driving value from it so that it performs as a business asset rather than a technological liability.

Andy Travers, left, is vice president of sales, UKISA, at F5 Networks Learn more about big data by downloading our whitepaper

WHAT WILL YOU

QlikView’s Business Discovery approach delivers on the promise of business intelligence by putting business users in control. Unlike traditional BI which provides pre-packaged, hardwired analytics for power users, Business Discovery enables everyone to generate unique insights. QlikView is about workgroups, departments, qlikview.com/UK

DISCOVER?

and entire business units having access to the data they need to make better decisions. It’s true self-service BI that empowers business users and drives innovative decision-making.

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

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November 2012

Business Technology

Big data

Find us online: biztechreport.co.uk

Getting creative with your data Information may look meaningless when it’s trickling across a computer screen. But, as Dave Baxter finds, data can become a useful tool for business

Lars Christian Christensen, vice president, Plant Siting and Forecasting, Vestas Turbines R&D We do the layout of wind power plants and wind farms. Wind provides the power that will generate revenue, but you also have to consider the wear and tear of turbines. If you go to a place where the wind is weaker, that could cause a loss of production – but this could be a smaller cost than repairs. Sometimes customers go to third party consultants and ask them to do similar analysis, and there is a disparity. Usually the consultants estimate lower output than us because they have to be conservative. How do you respond to that? You can argue or you can use data. We choose to go by data because you can’t argue with it – there are no feelings in a spreadsheet. We keep a track of our own forecasts and the actual outcome. We put up 47,000 turbines and we have a lot of those putting in data. And data such as wind direction, solar radiation, temperature and cloud cover across the world can be simulated by supercomputers, hour by hour, going back to the year 2000. It’s operational data versus forecasting data, and the development of super computers has enabled us to bridge those two data sets and to get more out of them, quicker. We have questions that in the past took three weeks of manual work and now we can do it in less than 15 minutes. It’s a combination of hardware – a very big super-computer, in operation since June last year – p We put u and software. 47,000 I can ask the system to turbines tell me where all the sites in the world are with certain conditions. If, for example, I want to go to Spain on holiday, it can tell me all the sites close to the beach where the temperature is above 30C.

Mike Brown, chief technical officer, Comscore

Mandhir Gidda, UK technical director, Razorfish

We look at online activity to help companies such as advertisers and publishers plan campaigns and target audiences more efficiently. Since we founded the company in 1999 it’s been about building up large data assets and meeting the needs of our clients. We built a panel of two million users very quickly and continued these efforts to capitalise the data to the point right now where we are collecting more than 1.2 trillion events of data a month. It’s always relative in terms of what it is but it meets a lot of characteristics of big data. Basically big data is the basis of what we run our analysis on and we use that for our digital analysis. There’s lots of differences in terms of what people regard as big data and there is the very popular definition of the three Vs: volume, velocity and variety. I like to look at it a bit differently, which is that there is so much data that we need more than one computer to solve the problem. The second idea is you gain intelligence or information, or the ability to do something, for another purpose which it wasn’t intended for. It’s the ability to take the data you collect through other things and create brands and products or insight through that data. For example, we built a network for media metrics. We were able to create a brand and product called life essentials which helped mobile carriers understand what devices were being used. It also showed whether they were We collect using Wi-Fi or 3G, 1.2 which is trillion important data events for a month competitors. This results in increased revenues, and enables to produce new and useful products for our clients.

Razorfish has been around for about 20 years. Quite early on we developed an ad-serving technology called Atlas. The ad server collects large amounts of click stream data. It knows what sort of website you are visiting. Let’s say you go to a sports site and then you go to another site selling electronics. We know nothing about you but we know you visited a sports site and an electronics site. Or let’s say someone is always on sports sites and then happens to go on games sites and goes to buy a video game. Then we know that we have a sports enthusiast and a gamer. From that we can assume you have a games console – there are certain inferences we can draw. What you can do with that data is to refine and segment it, and target things like advertising accordingly. You can build up patterns – for example, if you have somebody who has been on the sports sites and is then on the Mothercare site, you can guess it could be a man who may now have a child. It’s around about 200 gigabytes a day and we have collected about half a trillion records. We need to be able to do the analysis it in a timely fashion – these things used to take days on end and we are doing it for many clients. Without big data you could do simple patterns but nothing in a timely fashion. You could tell, for example, that someone is a sports enthusiast from sports site visits, but not much more than that. With big data you could join up sites they have visited, the things they bought, friends that they have, and their likes and dislikes. We build If they don’t pat terns like something – about then it’s quite 200GB valuable to know per day that and draw that into the general body of knowledge.

Business Technology

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

November 2012

Big data

Find us online: biztechreport.co.uk

What’s most important to a C-level data strategy? INDUSTRY VIEW

Paul Marshall is COO at Eseye At Eseye, it is our belief that a successful data strategy delivers cost savings and improves a company’s operational efficiencies, while allowing for low cost solutions procurement and lifetime ownership. Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication can achieve this, provided the solutions architecture and ongoing management have been designed correctly. Enabling secure collection of timely and relevant data, M2M communications has proved to deliver returns for our customers operating remote processes such as smart meters, security systems, healthcare applications and environmental monitors. Over 400 companies use Eseye’s M2M design, integration and managed AnyNet connectivity services to achieve their data strategy. Customers can connect their remote assets to the cloud and convert collected data into intelligent business information, ultimately saving costs and realising great value for their business. www.eseye.com

Matin Jouzdani is a big data leader at IBM Global Business Services, UK and Ireland A recent IBM and Saïd Business School study found that around 70 per cent of organisations are in the early stages of exploring big data. These organisations are engaging in early data initiatives and there is widespread acknowledgement of the size of the opportunity. One of the key criteria for success is the extent to which these initiatives are driven both from the top of organisations and across a range of functions. Data strategy can no longer be driven purely by the CIO or CFO – it must be on the agenda of the CMO and even the CEO. Even better is if the data strategy can be co-ordinated across the C-suite to enable the technology and data infrastructure to represent a complete view across the organisation. Twitter: @matjouz

Do you agree or disagree with our experts? Tweet us your views @biztechreport

Sam Zindel is a senior data modelling analyst at iCrossing There aren’t many businesses that would claim they are short of data. Quite the opposite – most companies are drowning in it, particularly in the B2C sector. Social networks and website interactions have fuelled a rapid growth in rich, unstructured data. The cloud and big data technologies have enabled us to process large volumes of complex data to uncover new insights into consumer behaviour and effective management of your audience’s data is vital. But it’s equally important to recognise the immediate data requirements of your business which may not necessitate big data solutions quite yet. The fundamentals of a successful data strategy haven’t changed. You should utilise the appropriate technology for your business, managed by the right people, at the right cost to deliver the insight that you need to succeed.

Kate Craig-Wood is managing director of Memset Large-scale data gathering and analytics are quickly becoming a new frontier of competitive differentiation. But you don’t need to spend lots of money to fully exploit data and analytics. Most competent developerdatabase administrators are more than capable of manipulating very large data sets, and getting existing staff to tackle such challenges is a great opportunity to expand their skill set. If you really do have a requirement for big data techniques then there are plenty of free, open source tools out there for you. Hadoop is, of course, the most famous example. Again, I would encourage you to let existing tech staff play with this technology rather than spending big money on something elaborate. www.memset.com

www.icrossing.co.uk

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

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November 2012

Business Technology

Big data

Find us online: biztechreport.co.uk

A matter of security You could benefit from tougher security and more effective backup systems if you move into the cloud INDUSTRY VIEW

ata security goes beyond policies. It is no longer purely about the data and how you use it; there are many additional considerations that need to be made. Physical building location, where is your data? Who else knows where your data is and who can access this location? How close can you get a vehicle? If you store your data within an office environment consider the number of people who enter this space every day – employees, visitors, suppliers and technicians, to name a few. Now consider a bespoke data centre environment. Accessed only with secure ID given to essential personnel, and with

continuous monitoring of systems and environment to ensure maximum security. There would be no signage to indicate what the building is, limiting the number of people who know where your data is, and there would be perimeter fencing, dual gates, no windows and external and internal tracking applications.

Failure not an option How do you currently cope with a mains outage? What fire protection is in place? What happens when local road works sever through your communication lines? How quickly can you recover from a failure? If you have your data or infrastructure in one of Blue Chip’s data centres, then the answer to any of these questions is that you

M&A: playing IT by the book Ensuring IT is managed in a systematic and efficient way should be every business’s priority in order to achieve its M&A objectives INDUSTRY VIEW

“Reduce Risks”

“Reap Benefits”

“Create future vision” “Execute Plans”

rg y ne Sy

Realisat ion

rger Planning Me

ergers and acquisitions are an important part of corporate growth strategy, and in the present economic climate, investors are looking for faster returns on investment. Efficient and rapid integration of IT is key to achieving that.“ IT integration can be a deal breaker in M&As,” says Charles Hughes, partner and head of the strategic IT practice at management consultancy A.T. Kearney. “It can scupper the deal completely if incompatibilities between the two companies’ IT environments cannot be overcome quickly.” Even where acquisitions go ahead, rushing IT integration can cause major post-deal issues (for example, employees not able to connect to systems, products not delivered on time, customers not being served) as well as adding complexity to the IT landscape. “A standardised end-to-end approach driven by a playbook is needed, especially by companies that are involved in repeated M&As,” says A. T. Kearney senior manager Shubradeep Ghosh. “This approach accelerates the integration process, reduces risk of failure and enables the delivery of synergies.” A. T. Kearney’s IT M&A playbook is currently being used by multiple companies across the world. “The playbook is an interactive set of web-enabled tools, templates and accelerators that is adapted to the client’s needs,” says Ghosh. “It helps in acquisition planning, executing IT integration and tracking benefits – it’s an end-to-end process that

Diligence Due

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-mer

on ger Integrati

Playbook lifecycle supports various types of transactions.” A. T. Kearney backs this up with roadshows, training and demonstrations within the acquiring company. “The aim is to ensure that IT is integrated from day one, to avoid the costs of getting it wrong,” says Hughes. “In the long term, integrating the companies’ IT can achieve savings of 20-30 per cent, as well as delivering an IT landscape fit for the future.” Company commitment is vital to the adoption of the playbook. Hughes says: “Senior stakeholder engagement is critical to success, along with easy access to the playbook and the continuous improvement of the process based on experience from multiple deals.” Shubradeep.Ghosh@atkearney.com Charles.Hughes@atkearney.com

will not know – and you don’t need to care. At Blue Chip, multiple backup generators, power and communication lines protect your business processes from any disruption, and hands-on help is available 24/7. In your office, if a system fails right now how much data will you lose and how quickly can you restore to backup? More importantly, how soon can you return to normal productivity? If your backup solution is on the same site, what happens in the event of a disaster? Rest assured, unlike office environments, purpose-built data centres are designed first and foremost around security and the protection of systems and data. When considering moving to managed services, co-location or private cloud, Blue Chip’s tier-four-designed data centre deals with all security concerns. www.bluechip.co.uk

Personal apps go into business Following the rise of BYOD, BYOA is the new technology trend. But how can you ensure your corporate data is secure? INDUSTRY VIEW

ccording to a survey by Good Technology, nearly half of us (42 per cent) now use the same phone for work and personal activities in a surge in popularity of bring your own device (BYOD). But just as employers get to grips with the challenges of BYOD, they now have to get used to the fact that employees want to bring their own applications as well. Known as BYOA, individuals are downloading their own mobile apps to find quicker and more productive ways of working.

Inherently unsafe Although admirable, the problem is that many mobile business applications are inherently unsafe, and pose real security concerns for organisations where preventing data loss is critical.

Employees want real challenge when it comes access to the business to corporate governance, applications they use every risk and compliance. day, which allow them Some companies are to be more productive taking a traditional approach while on the move. and banning all non-official Take Dropbox, the mobile apps, which helps put cloud-based storage service, their IT department’s minds popular for accessing and at rest and reassures synching documents. them they have The concern is that done all they can mobile workers to keep data safe. use same phone for work are now using it However, the and home to share work files right approach is and documents not to restrict the via different devices, apps people use, but without any thought to focus on securing the for the security of the data that resides within the sensitive data being shared applications and transfers or legal consequences between app-to-app through of their actions. the right mobile security Any cloud-based tools, as well as educating storage of this nature is staff about downloading going to be problematic for unsafe software and apps. organisations, especially The result? A productive highly regulated ones. and happy workforce, Concerned with data leakage, secure corporate data the loss of corporate IP, and and an IT team able to putting highly sensitive data sleep soundly at night. at risk, the use of these cloudbased services presents a www.good.com

42%

Business Technology

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

November 2012

Big data

Find us online: biztechreport.co.uk

NICK PICKLES, director of BIG BROTHER WATCH

Big shop of horrors Should a computer be allowed to decide what consumer information is stored and used?

Intellectual property in a digital age has been traditionally focused on issues such as copyright infringement and patents. Several companies have recently signalled their intention to harness this data, utilising the opportunities of modern computer processing power in a field that has become known as ‘big data’, however accurate a tag that may be. This is where the question of ownership arises. Was data collected as a by-product of a business process, with no consumer awareness of such collection? Is it right for businesses to claim exclusive ownership of this data? Previously companies would pay mystery shoppers or members of the public in some way for information about people’s retail habits, but now they are able to access data generated by customers using their cards and process it into marketing data. More recently, loyalty cards offer consumers benefits for sharing their data with organisations – a transactional relationship with both parties benefiting. I offer a simple principle. If data has value, then it should be up to those organisations seeking to benefit to ask customers for

permission to use their information and offer consumers something in return. Whether health records, shopping habits or geolocation data, the consumer should be in control. It is a retrograde step for privacy when companies decide that it is they, not the people who are actually generating the data, should decide what happens to it.

issue of the big data debate. Behaviour that leads consumers to question whether companies are more interested in their own profit than respecting people’s privacy is behaviour that will not benefit businesses but undermine them in

Something for nothing Instead, some businesses now see big data as an opportunity to overcome this imbalance. The wealth of data they have access to is now seen as an opportunity to get something for nothing. You don’t need to pay a consumer to collect their data if you already have it. Treating details of our personal behaviour in this way, like their own property, to be bundled up and sold on without any regard to what customers might want is an affront to consumer rights and a very dangerous path to tread. Do you want to be seen as serving your customers, or serving up your customers to advertisers? How businesses seek customers’ consent for processing data about them, for any purpose, is a critical

Data is now often eaten up and stored by companies without any consumer awareness and consent

the court of public opinion. It should not be left to the power of computers to decide our norms around privacy. Businesses cannot absolve themselves of responsibility in the face of less scrupulous competitors and I hope that in Britian we can lead the way for harnessing the power of big data while empowering consumers to manage their own data and protect their privacy. Read more from Nick at www. bigbrotherwatch. org.uk