Sherpa Analytics

What significant changes did Big Data segment witness in 2013? What did these changes mean to vendors and customers?

The most significant change in Big Data has been the customer realization that just having access to large amounts of data and analytics is not sufficient to meet their needs. The true need is to understand how to get knowledge, value and decision ready answers from the data and analytics. The ability to gain strategic insights that drive business decisions is a field unto itself that requires a hybrid capability of business field expertise, strategic understanding and the expertise to draw this from the data. A majority of business customers do not have this expertise within their structures, primarily because this requires specific skill sets, senior level executive experience and a Big Data background. It is bigger than just knowing technology. This competency to draw the connection between Big Data and executive level decision making is the missing link that both customers and are now looking for and one that vendors need to provide.

What are some of the changes you had anticipated would happen in 2013 but did not happen?

Adopting Big Data and analytics into business models is an area that we expected customer expertise would grow in as they became more educated and savvy in using the capabilities. What we found is that the needed expertise to bridge the cutting edge technologies and adapting them to drive business decisions is an area where there are very few people with the critical skills and experience to capitalize on this. We felt that educating customers on how Big Data and analytics work and creating user-friendly User Interfaces would be sufficient. The realization that the skill sets needed to get the full value from our system of systems is a very thin field. This is what is driving our focus to grow strategic consulting services driven by our capabilities.

Can you paint us the picture of how the landscape for this industry segment will change in 2014? What are some of the broader trends you are closely watching?

The technology to gain valuable insights from Big Data is a rapidly changing field. We are constantly keeping up with the latest research to fine-tune our system. Analytic speed and volume of data aggregation and processing are critical. The amount of data available is also an area where costs are increasing.  Where many sources of data and meta-data were relatively inexpensive, data "owners" are recognizing that there is value in data of all forms and the demand for data is driving costs up. We are also seeing trends of companies looking to gain exclusivity to data sources and analytics to provide a competitive edge.

How would customer spend change in 2014 for Big Data segment? What makes you think customers will be buying more/ less?

The Big Data segment is a growth field. Customers are realizing that traditional, manual research methods are not only unable to provide reliable insights needed to drive business growth, but are very expensive in personnel costs. The leading growth companies will invest in automated Big Data insights both for cost efficiency and to gain the leading, measurable insights needed to drive business growth.

What's in store for your company in 2014?

Our company is growing it's strategic consulting capabilities to meet customer needs. Customers are more and more becoming interested in what the data and analytics mean to their business strategy rather than just gaining access to Big Data and analytics. We have the "engine" of data and analytic processes required to drive the needed insights. This is the basic building block to find insights to complex problem solving and relevant insights. Building the strategic consulting aspect is necessary to "translate" the data and analytics into actionable insights for the customer. This requires more than just user-friendly interfaces, it requires a special set of skills that allows the connection to be made between what the business needs and how Big Data and analytics work. We are also expanding our customer fields into new areas beyond traditional marketing, branding and audience understanding. Our goal with strategic consulting and insights is to provide predictive insights that drive business strategy in new markets.

Check This Out: Press Releases | Akumina

Check This Out: Press Releases | SIMCA

Check This Out: CIO Review | ESHA Releases