In a recent TechTarget article, Nicole Laskowski discussed the need for a "data-driven culture" to propel a company's effective use of big data forward. As she explained, companies need to create an environment where data plays an important role in making business-level decisions that affect the entire operation. From the CIO's perspective, this can include informing employees about how data will improve decisions and making it easier for companies to access data in the first place.
"Data can influence the path of companies by shaping 'disruptive innovation'."
One of the experts Laskowski cited, Bloomberg LP CTO head of science Gideon Mann, said that companies can start by identifying a single, low-level problem for big data to be an "exemplar." After that, the company can rapidly become more adjusted to big data and the things it can do for their business through a "very applied solution."
Another way data can influence the path of companies is by shaping "disruptive innovation," as the Harvard Business Review contributor Maxwell Wessel recently argued. He identifies these kinds of innovations as inexpensive, accessible and structurally advantageous to the organization. He gives the examples of companies like Netflix and Uber, which used data-driven insights to improve what it could offer.
"Data-enabled disruption may represent an anomaly to the existing theory, but it's here — and it's here to stay," he wrote. "The waste laid to the taxi industry by Uber is example that the new solution had extraordinary cost advantages and that they couldn't respond."
Along with the possibilities for better performance and expansion, big data can allow companies to keep important functions centralized. A web-based mainframe terminal emulator will allow companies to access data in a dynamic and constructive way.