Big data is the fuel of the new economy. It is to this century “what oil was to the last one: a driver of growth and change,” The Economist wrote in 2017. The point of big data – and its close relative, data analytics is to spot trends, find new correlations, and derive powerful insights from the information generated by everyday activities. International finance may benefit more than most from big data.
When deployed correctly, the insights gained from big data analytics have the potential to improve financial decisions, manage risk, and prevent fraud. Big data can unlock billions of dollars of savings across the financial industry.
Capabilities to Tap into Big Data
Yet even in the era of big data, companies often lack the institutional capabilities to achieve large-scale results. Sometimes this is due to the huge disparity in the time it takes companies to respond to the insights generated by their decision-making tools. Other times the insights are difficult to interpret or understand. To deal with these problems, some companies are introducing new technologies to greatly simplify the implementation of big data analytics. For example, visualisation tools put users in control of the analytics and make it easier to view data at a more granular level. The growing availability of cloud-based solutions makes it easier to test and scale up ideas as well.
Creating a Data-Driven Culture
From an organisational standpoint, companies should focus on the areas or departments that would benefit most from the implementation of analytics capabilities, according to a 2015 report from McKinsey Quarterly. Those departments should focus on deploying new tools, new training systems and new management to create a data-driven culture. For example, one leading financial services firm developed a training boot camp, a communications program and a competition to reward teams based on the quality of their data analysis. An insurance company reassigned claim managers to handle the most exceptional cases, while the analytical tools take care of the easier cases. Big data technologies need not be disruptive to existing systems either. In fact, the organisation’s data scientists should have deep knowledge of both existing ERP systems and big data technologies.
Strategic Approach to Incorporating Insights into Your Workflow
Overall, companies will need to think carefully about the best way to incorporate insights into their workflow based on cost, challenges, strategic important and potential.
For more information about our Business Intelligence tools, contact us today.
