IDC also says the digital universe "” all the data stored in the world's computers "” will increase by a factor of 300 by 2020. There is, however, a yawning Big Data gap: only about 3% of that universe's potentially useful information has been identified, and even less has been analyzed. Which means 97% of the world's stored information is basically worthless.

Those are all big numbers, both in terms of the dollars it takes to crunch them and in the sense that it's difficult for small- and midsized-company CFOs to figure out how it's possible to apply them to their businesses. Big Data historically has been an expensive proposition. Software giants like Oracle, SAP, and SAS all have Big Data solutions far beyond the means of the vast majority of small-and-midsized businesses, even if such businesses had the resources to buy the computers and hire the data scientists needed to pose questions and interpret results.

But times are changing.

Read Full Article


Keywords: supply chain IT, supply chain management scm, supply chain solutions, analytics, predictive analysis, data crunching