Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business

Chapter 4

Organizational Impact of Big Data

One of the more significant impacts of big data is the organizational change or transformation necessary to support and exploit the big data opportunity. Old roles will need to be redefined and new roles introduced, creating both opportunities and anxiety for individuals and organizations alike. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the likely extent of these organizational changes and to prepare existing data warehouse and business intelligence professionals for the new career opportunities before them.

Business intelligence (BI) and data science (involving advanced statistics, predictive analytics, data engineering, programming, and data visualization) have very different roles and require different skills and approaches. One does not replace the other. In fact, the two very much complement each other, one playing off the strengths and focus of the other. BI traditionally has focused on understanding key business processes at a detailed enough level so that metrics, reports, dashboards, alerts, and some basic analytics (trending, comparisons) can be built that support those key business processes. To support these key business processes, the BI analyst has gone through the process of capturing the roles, responsibilities, and expectations of the business users, identifying key performance indicators against which the performance of those business processes will be measured, and capturing, aggregating, aligning, cleansing, and ...