Below is a guest editorial from our friend Mike Martz
As a supply chain professional, you’re probably scratching your head about the whole Big Data thing, that is unless you’re an early adopter and have already reaped its benefits or suffered through start-up issues. I bet you’re questioning how and when you should stick your toe into the water.
In a previous article (read it HERE), I referenced ideas GXS’s Mark Morley expressed about leveraging Big Data for visibility, auto-replenishment, and preventive maintenance, but those are high level objectives that could require lots of planning and investment. What you should be asking at this point is whether Big Data is even needed to reach your goals.
With its massive datasets and the need to utilize special tools for analytic purposes, Big Data may well be overkill for much or all of your needs. But one real outcome of all the Big Data hype is the increasing expectation that solid information is the foundation of the best business decisions. The fact that Big Data is being so heavily discussed is in itself focusing attention on what’s required to turn data into usable information. You should think about your business needs and how to identify and obtain the data that can provide them.
Read more about what Mike has to say on Big Data:
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