A band called The Fugees performed a version of a song named “Ready or not, here I come”, originally done by The Delfonics, and within this name lies a truth about big data for businesses and consumers. The sooner businesses board the big data “train” – an inevitability in any event – the sooner they can begin to mitigate the cost of gleaning long term knowledge. Organisations and consumers have no choice but to concede to using the often imposing resources that fall under the big data banner. As more discussions take place it is becoming clear that there are very few remaining compelling reasons why they should not use the cloud and the big data it contains.

 

Regardless if organisations or information consumers are ready to receive, be blasted by, or consume information, big data was always out there and, thanks now to ICT, has become increasingly pervasive in all spheres of business or household life.

 

It is a fact highlighted by some maturity models that the value of information will increase as people become more familiar with applying and using it. It is only natural that poor or raw patterns and requirements will prevail initially; search patterns for information and discoveries become more economical and direct as users and consumers become more familiar with the uses of big data and learn what they want from it.

 

Some may argue that there is an exorbitant cost associated with employing big data. The huge cost of infrastructure to manage and disseminate data, information, and content, however, is a moot point. The capital outlay and overheads for data collection, management and consumption have been justified since the advent of computing. How else would data and information be managed, processed, transported, presented and used in so many ways? The only difference now is that the same processes and principles are being applied to big data. Yet, even if some continue to argue that cost is an issue, the Internet, cloud and the latest technologies have made it, through information exchange, provisioning, accessing and many more technologies and processes, more affordable than at any previous time, to the point of being free, and even practical for the small user or consumer.

 

So it really does not matter whether or not organisations and consumers:

• have unique business challenges;
• have what they are looking for;
• have the right scope;
• will derive value from big data;
• spend on big data; or
• are ready, educated or trained, to use big data.

Big data is here to stay and permeates, or can add value to, every business process.

 

The scalability of information use and value gleaned by employing big data far outweighs the costs as organisation and consumer use of big data matures. So the sooner organisations board the big data train, the more value they will derive, sooner too, and the less costs they will incur to gain knowledge in the long term.