Computational Business Intelligence, Big Data, and Their Role in Business Decisions in the Age of the Internet of Things

Background

Regardless of the fascination that arise the incredible figures of data that are constantly produced, big does not mean the same thing in a large organization, which can manage multiple petabytes, or in a small, where some terabytes can represent a problem of management.

Obviously the complexity and the needs change for the different sizes, but the opportunities for improvement are real in all companies. One of the most common examples to explain the advantages that the medium-sized companies can obtain from big data is a sales company online that is dedicated to a particular product (Barney, 1991). The navigation study that follows consumers and the activity carried out in social networks can give very useful information about the consumption habits of customers (actual and potential) and the brand image that has built between them, and layout, product range and marketing strategy which will be more successful.

But the information obtained through the analysis of big data is not only useful to understand customers; the internal functioning of organizations can also be optimized. Continuing the example of the small e-commerce company, the study of the data obtained from supplier relationships, from internal processes, etc. can highlight the problems of communication between departments, reduce the cost of purchasing department and optimize the distribution process (Purcell, 2013).

Actually the secret behind the Big data and computational business intelligence is not new. To find the causes of the weak and strong aspects of any business has always been an objective for companies and institutions, and organization of information has been one of the most accurate tools for that. The importance of big data lies in the enormous amount of information that we face nowadays. Although there is a higher difficulty of the analysis, there are also more opportunities to do so.

Internet and new technologies have created a technological revolution that is affecting our private and professional life, and big data and computational business intelligence is the trigger for the next stage, as far as industry and consumption refers (Mayer-Schönberger & Cukier, 2014). The recent rise of the IoT is accelerrating the creation of big data and the use of computational business intelligence.