The current nature of big data – there are too many challenges on the surface and problems are deep. A hidden gap unarguably exists between the idealized views and issues that data scientists face on regular basis. While potential use cases and benefits of big data have been glorified in the past years, let’s talk about issues that really matter.
BIG DATA ISSUES > BIG DATA BENEFITS?We should probably be talking about the three V’s of big data right now and not about the most serious challenges that it poses including curation, cleaning, indexing, searching, mining, transfer, analysis - and we’ve merely begun to scratch the surface.
TRUST US - If there are some things better left unsaid, big data is last. Let’s face it, we all knew about another V from the beginning – Vulnerability. At that point, we were just intrigued by the promise of big data. Time passed and problems kept arising. Presenting the top 6 big data issues that every small to mid-sized business is confronting today –
- 1) Are those investments worth your money? – To make a big data platform function, it takes a lot of time and resources in the initial stage itself. By the end, enterprises forget why they invested in the first place.
- 2) Data Security – Do you remember clicking and agreeing to every term and condition about your private data being used simply because you thought the company would keep you safe based on your data? The answer is, it just keeps getting difficult every moment, every day. As data deluge increases, it makes your data vulnerable to potential security breaches.
- 3) Imperfect Correlations – It’s a no-brainer that big data is good at finding correlations. The only problem is – it can’t decide what is meaningful and what is not.
- 4) Data Privacy – Does that even exist in the big data era? Some will doubt it does until you wear a new mask every day to work and do transactions only through cash. Well, face-recognition technology and connected ‘everything’ are on rise which is making personal data vulnerable. ‘Reasonable expectation of Privacy’ (4th amendment given in 1791 to the US Citizens)seems a far-fetched dream now.
- 5) Tech is Uncertain, like everything else – When you buy the best phone this year, it’ll be old next year when another series come. Likewise, it’s difficult to predict whether big data would be able to solve future challenges or not.
- 6) Do we have enough talent in the pipeline? – One of the problems (that has probably become ancient now) is the need of qualified workforce. The US will have 2.7mn jobs postings by 2020. There are only two ways – Either hire/train your employees or bear the loss due to advanced platforms in the blink of an eye!
Is this an era of digital Darwinism? Would businesses be able to keep up? Or is Big data at fault? Well, both. While big data is busy revaluating its purpose, enterprises need to equip their staff to stay ahead in the race.
