Using big data effectively

Effectively using big data is not about sifting through a wealth of historical data, it is about focusing on the ‘now’ within the data, says Ayanda Dlamini, business development manager of LGR Telecommunications.  Amid the daunting volumes of digitised data now in...

Lean and mean a prerequisite for BI

Many IT markets work in cycles. For example, the centralised infrastructure of the mainframe was replaced with the broad de-centralising effect of the PC, and the pendulum has swung back to centralised again as cloud services on central hosts take over. In the...

Leveraging knowledge for a competitive edge

Lacklustre retail statistics are coming under further pressure from ever-rising petrol prices, job cuts and diminishing consumer confidence. Smart retailers are looking for ways to get more out of each hard won customer. Ian Steyn, products and services executive at...

Bad data causes businesses to fail

Gartner says that poor data quality is a primary reason for 40% of business initiatives failing to achieve their targeted benefits. Data quality also affects the overall labour productivity by as much as 20%. Information management and data integration are expected to...

Beer, diapers and the big data bug

Individuals who have studied marketing will know about the connection between beer and diapers. It’s all about pattern recognition: how raw information can become useful when it’s interpreted and applied in the right way. According to Dimension Data, that’s where big...

Making real-world use of big data

What is so new about big data, the tech buzzword that is attracting so much attention these days? After all, plenty of organisations, from global telecommunications companies to stock exchanges, have been handling and sifting through massive amounts of data for years....