Yesterday, I was sitting with a client, and suddenly a question popped up from their side. "Isn't Big data and Data analytics the same thing?". I liked the question. Though trivial, but its an important difference to clarify. Short answer is NO. Let me explain.
Jargon and technical names can be downright intimidating and confusing to the uninformed, isn't it?
Those involved in the field of computers, data and technologies, have to deal with redundant sounding terminology that is often puzzling. Take the fields of Big Data and Data Analytics for instance. Both have something to do with data, but are seemingly different!
Big Data refers to the massive volumes of unstructured and raw data from various sources. Data Analytics means analyzing of data, providing operational insights into the business.
What is Big Data
Big Data refers to the massive volumes of unstructured and raw data from various sources. Big Data comes with high veracity and is in high volume, and this requires high computing power to collect and process. All these data are collected through various means such as social media, internet, mobile, computer and many more. These data are later processed and analyzed to take strategic decisions in businesses. Bsically, Big data is data that will not fit onto the disk drive of a single machine.
Read my another blog for more details in Big Data.
What is Data Analytics
Data analytics seeks to provide operational insights into the business. It considers historical data and then draws out inferences from them to find better solutions to complex business problems. Data analysis is conducted at a more basic level, wherein data related to the problem is specifically scanned through and parsed out with a specific goal in mind.
Operations Research is an old word that means to apply mathematics to industrial and other processes to fine tune them. Mathematicians and statisticians prior to, say, the mid 1990s did this using the tools available to them at that time.
Many people also uses the term, Big Data Analytics for Data Analytics. This is perfectly alright and thus arrises the basis for confusion for somebody not having the same technical background in the industry.
Example
Think of Big Data like a library that you visit when the information to answer your question is not readily available. Whilst, data analytics is like the book that you pick up and sift through to find answers to your question.
In a banking scenario, Big Data will help the banking industry with:
- To provide personalized banking solutions to their customers.
- Boosting performance.
- Performing effective customer feedback analysis.
- And with effective risk management.
Data Analysts will analyze work systems, information, procedures, and documents of the bank. Bank Data Analysts will assess the financial and management aspects of the bank and hence the cost & time can be determined for each function. This role also has the responsibility of reviewing a monthly audit of cost savings.
