The future of big data and how it can benefit your business

By 2016 there will be more than 16,000 acres of data centres in the world.

To put this into perspective, this is bigger than the Republic of San Marino or the equivalent of a two lane highway stretching from Tokyo to San Francisco.

Whatever way you look at it, that’s a lot of data. The Information Age has seen an exponential growth of data and it’s estimated that by 2020 the total amount of data stored will be 50 times larger than today.

So what does all this mean? What can we do with this data and how does it benefit us?

It’s simple; when it comes to business we can use data to make better decisions. We can use it to reduce costs, save time and increase productivity.

The exponential growth of global data is known as ‘Big Data’ and it is changing cultures and the way organisations work. It’s not just being able to collect the data that matters, it’s about being able to manage it, process it and analyse it.

Take a retail store. Each store knows that each year in the run up to Christmas they are going to have more customers through their doors, they are going to have more staff working and they are going to make more sales. It happens this way every year.

If the store is using integrated software solutions they will know how many staff they have on the shop floor at any given point, how many customers are in the store and how many sales they are making.

With this information and data the store can then identify trends of when their optimal selling times are. They can also identify what the optimal ratio is between staff and customers. In essence, they can optimise their store so it hits peak performance.

So by measuring, analysing and then implementing, businesses can optimise their performance, in just the same way Formula 1 race engineers analyse the telemetry from their cars in order to make adjustments and improve speed.

The best workforce management systems connect all your relevant data together and help you make the best decisions for your business – both in the immediate short term and in the long term. Because all of this is automated it greatly reduces the time it takes you to respond to an unforeseen event – like an unplanned absence.

Quinyx’s web-based system uses different modules for scheduling, time reporting, task management, budgeting and forecasting. By having all these modules spinning together in one wheel, and having instant access to all the data stored within in them, we’re helping businesses make better decisions…and it all can be done at the click of a button.

It’s these kind of decisions that understanding big data lets you make. By being in a position to make these decisions you are allowing yourself to do two things: reduce costs and increase revenue.