Discover who is making the most of big data. Surprisingly, everyone from farmhands to drive-thru workers to investment bankers is playing their part.
Big data has opened up all sorts of opportunities to identify patterns and direct crucial decisions thanks to the insights gained — and corporations are increasingly taking notice of its applications.
The most astounding thing about all this progress is that it is being applied uniformly across fields and industries. We have already discussed the roles it plays in retail and the auto industry. Data clearly holds a power that can be wielded by nearly any enterprise that wishes to no longer stumble blindly through decisions. From Big Macs to Big Banks, here are some of the ways that big data is transforming the business world from the ground up:
Data from the Dirt
Agriculture is currently at the frontier of its own data revolution. Part of a new line of thought called “precision agriculture,” strategies like monitoring satellite imagery and tracking each individual field can generate tremendous insights into which practices yield the best crops and where.
Field data (no pun intended) is gathered from the soil analyses quality and chemical composition. Coupled with historic yields and weather patterns, farmers learn the best timing of planting seeds and how much fertilizer to add. Farmers are eagerly sharing data to accomplish these goals, making their laptops just as important as their tractors when it comes to working the land.
The processors of agricultural goods are getting in on the game, too, by attaching RFID tags to products like cotton bales. They can then report to farmers which yields had the most desirable quality and even what fields they were grown in, in order to generate a consistent end product.
Would You Like Files With That, Sir?
McDonald’s fast food empire has long been relying on ones and zeros to guide their decisions and prevent costly mistakes. One such form of analysis comes from their observations of thousands of drive-thrus in the U.S. Factors like design, information displayed on the menu and the average order time per car are all analyzed and compared with typical orders. McDonald’s uses this information to help them design drive-thrus in new or renovated locations that give customers the optimum experience and shortest waits.
Big Money in Big Data
A recent job listing posted by Capital One is attempting to lure in the type of data scientist that would get excited by looking for unusual correlations, stating, “NOAA Weather Data + Credit Card Transactions = Fascinating!” Many financial services providers are looking to improve services and cut costs based on something as unexpected as how weather affects purchases.
Other banks are using big data analysis on themselves. Goldman Sachs, for example, is on high alert for employees who may be engaged in market manipulation or insider trading.
A surveillance team currently monitors employee behavior and computer use to spot bad actors. Goldman Sachs now wants to supplement this surveillance with data analysis that can “identify potential risk behaviors that may not be accounted for within our current surveillance framework.”
As more and more industries and brands move to adopt big data into their organization, expect jobs in analysis and data management to rise. Thanks to their new data-dabbling employees, companies can only get smarter and smarter by proxy.