Big Data - What is it and why it is important

Big data is described as the large volume of structured and unstructured data. What organizations do with
data is important not the amount of data is important. Further, Big data can be analyzed for insights that
lead to better decisions and strategic business moves.

5 vs of Big Data
Volume: Organizations collect data from a variety of internal and external sources like business
transactions, Social Media, ERP, smart IOT devices, videos, social media and more.

Variety: Data comes in all different types of formats – from structured, numeric data in
traditional databases to unstructured data like text documents, emails, videos, audios and
financial transactions.

Veracity: Veracity refers to the quality of data. Veracity of data is also related with accuracy and
truthfulness of data. Because data comes from so many different sources, it’s difficult to link,
match, cleanse and transform data across systems.

Variability:   It is refer to the inconsistent speed at which big data is loaded into your database.

Velocity:  refers to the speed with which data is generated. An example of a data that is

generated with high velocity would be Twitter messages, Facebook posts, and YouTube videos
and snap chat chats.

Why Big Data Is Important?

For business how much data is not important but what business do with it is most important. Big
data means large volume and massive data. Big data analytics help company for cost reductions,
time reductions, new product development and optimized offerings, and smart decision making.
Applications of big data are as per following.

 Determining root causes of failures, issues and defects in near-real time

 Predict customer buying habits.
 Able to calculate entire risk portfolios in minutes.
 Detecting fraudulent behavior before it affects your organization.

Dr. Preyal Sanghavi

Associate Professor
RBIMS