Big Data, as the name itself suggests is a collection of enormous sets of data which is analysed and then simplified. Before we get into the theory of finding the importance of Big Data, let us understand the basics of Big Data.

Big Data is associated with the study of huge sets of data and the methods implemented to simplify them to get a clear output, It basically includes capturing data, storing them, analysing and then cleansing them . In technical terms, it also helps us understand the hidden pattern, correlation, customer preferences which can help an organisation make firm decisions based on the data available.

Big Data basically comprises of the three ‘V’s

• Volume
• Velocity
• Variety

However, in recent years, 2 more aspects were added which are Veracity (unwanted data) and Value.

With modernization, the term Big Data has a different meaning altogether, analysts now term Big Data as a predictive analysis of extracting value from a data dump using various techniques.

The main question here is why Big Data is so important and what has it to do with real life scenarios?

Big Data has played an important role in cost reduction for data analytics, using Hadoop and cloud based technologies. Big Data has brought significant changes in how data is stored efficiently. It also helps organisations find a method to take better and faster decisions.

This is not it, Big Data has also taken a major role in simplifying real life incidents/situations and the hype given to it will not go wasted, wonder why?

Important reasons why Big Data is used

1. Time Saving: Helps save time by providing instant insights using various resources.
2. Better Analytics: With introduction of real time analytics, Big Data is used in every field.
3. Data Storage: As it uses enormous amount of data, the storage methods are modernized.
4. Insights delivered on time: With help of structured data, better insights are delivered.
5. Decision- Making: Helps in taking better decisions after verifying and eliminating risks using risk analysis.

The above stated methods are implemented in every aspect that uses Big Data analysis, but as we want to know what has it to do with real life scenarios, You should know that Big Data has delivered huge contributions to every field we usually come across, Confused? Let us have a look.

1. HealthCare

Big data has made a lot of contributions to medical facilities around the world, as technology has advanced, the prices of medicines and healthcare facilities have increased parallelly.

Big Data has helped doctors and physicians keep a track of patients history with their name or name of the consultant. They can also store the data of patients with a name and all the facilities provided and can retrieve the information whenever needed. Most of the devices are working on Big data, let us take an example of a watch that reads the patient’s temperature, heartbeat, this is so advanced that a doctor doesn’t have to visit the patient or vice versa. Medicines can be prescribed just by knowing the readings.

Similar is the speciality of Nanobots which help in destroying bacteria and harmful germs, it was also found that these bots are powerful enough to provide chemotherapy with help of sensors.

2. Learning

It is evident that Big data has a great impact on education world today. The reason being every article, courses or book you need are available online, let it be a learning application or applications like Bubble Score which provides an option of multiple choice questions as assignments, everything can be done with a device as small as your mobile phone.

1. Effective Learning: With advancement and financial help from financejar.co.uk, classrooms have undergone digitalization, with most of education systems using tablets and PCs for learning. At the same time, it is also important to know what are the effective steps for a learner to master a specific subject, analytics have helped in sorting a plan to deliver/provide lectures only in a specified field with specific components to make teaching better.
2. Controlling problems: Being a rare case, there are situations where students submit assignments written by others to get appreciated, Big Data in this situation helps in cross checking and verifying handwriting with the handwriting samples available in their database to check the authenticity of the assignment.

3. Transportation

Big data has helped the transport field in a very important and effective way. With everyone having smartphones, Big Data helps in a simple way to find traffic congestions in real time. According to a recent survey in Texas, it is found that an American loses 42 hours a year only in traffic, this can be improved with help of analysis, by finding the best route by checking the congestion in every street.

But it is not that simple, Big Data collects information like GPS location, Traffic cameras, weather conditions and then provides suitable information as requested by a user.

The same applies to public transportation facilities, Big Data helps in gathering information about the number of passengers travelling in a day, per route, per hour which helps them arrange necessary transportation facilities. However, it is for sure that most of the transportation firms have their own set of data for regular passengers to set up their transportation in such a way that they do not face inconvenience. This in return reduces the wait time for passengers.

In addition to it, having customer data like their email address or phone number helps in keeping the passenger informed about the journey. For example

• Change in routes for a particular journey
• Delay due to weather conditions
• Advertising /Promoting services with discount coupons.

This helps in improving the facility and in turn, improves customer satisfaction leading to more customers.

4. Banking & Fraud Detection

Big Data is the most and heavily used tool in this field, implementation of Big Data in banking helps you keep a track of customers and their transactions. It is similar to how Big Data is used in healthcare, all the details of a customer are stored under his name or account number, whenever any information is to be retrieved, you can find the details by just entering the name or the account number, However this is just a basic use.

Big Data also helps in fraud detection to find misuse of credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts by keeping a track of customer statistics, hence triggering a warning when any unusual activity is noticed.

In every country, paying tax means huge numbers and a lot of data. Government tax agency stores information such as name, age, account number and so on. However, citizens still have to fill new forms with information which most organisations already have. This increases the inconvenience as citizens have to fill the same information over and over again. Pre-filled forms reduce errors, in turn, the process time as well. A Tax Agency in Sweden offers services with pre-filled forms with personal data in a manner that reduces processing times. The Dutch government also pre-fills the annual tax forms with information from people including their bank account information.

With Big Data tools, governments can minimize tax and social security fraud by citizens. Algorithms such as pattern detection can be used to find suspicious transactions in real-time. Combining different data sets, local and national data sets, will provide insights into the taxpaying behaviour of citizens.

Unusual behaviour patterns can be spotted which indicate fraudulent actions. Patterns can be used to define a profile and statistical aspect to identify suspicious transactions, which can then be monitored easily. Subsequently, governments can use these data to see whether or not those cases really perform fraudulent actions or to find out if any social security provided to a citizen is misused or wrongly asked for.

5. Big Businesses and E-commerce

While banks use Big Data to keep customer data and detect fraudulent activities, SEC( Security and Exchange Commission) in the US is working on it on a higher level by implementing network analytics and speech processors to detect any illegal business activity in the economic marketplaces.

E-commerce businesses use Big Data to find shopping pattern of customers, the most visited page on their sites, types of products purchased in order to provide a personalised suggestion in upcoming searches, discounts on favorite products, thus helping in improving process and increasing sales.

Big Data also helps e-commerce businesses in knowing CRM techniques of the competitors which in turn can be applied to their businesses to improve customer experience.

6. National Security

For any country, it is important to understand what is happening and where? This refers to many activities such as conferences, national developments and also crimes. This can be done with help of historical data sets and range of other data sets as well, there are a lot of police departments around the world who use Big Data to find and figure out any crime that has happened or going to happen.

Big Data tools easily enable the government to monitor the happenings in their country, whether it be cyber threats or physical terror attacks. The best way they can do it is through government networks as the details collected from citizens will be shared with the government which in turn is used to help the nation secure its citizen from any attacks that are most likely to happen.

When all the data is stored in a central location, it is easy for government officials to access all the information from a centralized location. This method helps in reducing errors and inefficiencies within the government and ensuring that the correct information is used. This will enable government officials to have access to the most up-to-date information on their citizens.

However, as governments collect huge amount of data from citizens, it is the responsibility of the government to ensure safety or privacy of the data, Appropriate storage measures should be deployed to ensure that the data is safe on a long run.

Advantages of Big Data analytics

• Identifying the root causes of failures in real time.
• Understanding the potential of data-driven marketing strategies.
• Providing offers based on their buying habits i.e personalizing the customer experience.
• Evaluating risks quickly.
• Importance to online and offline customer interactions.

Commonly used Real-time Big Data analysis tools

• Storm
• SpaceCurve
• GridGain
• Cloudera

Conclusion

Big Data analysis has hit the market by storm. You are now certainly sure about how Big data is useful and how it can be implemented in normal day scenarios. However, to know Big data analysis you should know the easiest way to perform analysis on raw data.

Ever come across any scenarios using Big data analytics apart from the ones mentioned above? Let us know in the comment section.

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