38 SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | JANUARY 2014

CIO BRIEFING

Big Data, or just big problems?See how companies are preparing for the technology phenomenon in the local market.

Big Data is set to impose both challenges and opportunities for growth in the Asian market, testing the adaptation of local companies to

this new technology. The technology phenomenon will impose both challenges and opportunities for companies, but what does that really mean for the local market?

Miao Song, Group Chief Information Officer at Golden-Agri Resources sees key opportunities with this growth. “It becomes a core competitiveness advantage for enterprise to differentiate from other others,” Song says. But she stresses that to achieve this, the concept must “start from small”, and be a step-by-approach to achieve goals.

Key opportunitiesOfir Shalev, CIO Employee Health & Benefits APAC at Mercer sees the market from a big industry growth perspective. “Combined with the rate and penetration of mobile phones, the growing flow in social media and the growing connectivity of the consumers, it is a great opportunity for companies to leverage Big Data and Analytics to gain new market insights, developing a 360-degree view of the customer, developing new products and services based on data and addressing threat, fraud and security issues.”

“We are also currently implementing an analytics project, pulling medical benefits data, claims data and financial data from various sources and systems, making information easily accessible and transforming the raw data into meaningful and useful information.” There are just as many challenges surrounding the adoption of this technology. Craig Stires, Research Director of Big Data and Analytics at IDC Asia/Pacific, says

research shows that 39% of organizations in AsiaPac are not analysing whole sets of data they are collecting, and there is a need to mitigate future risk driving a boom in storage of data. But actually driving profits has proved a challenge.

“Lacking a business case with expected returns, the costs of doing more with that data is too much for many organizations to bear,” he says. “Compounding this issue there are precious few data scientists in the market, who also have the specific industry expertise and business acumen. Without these people to lead the process, many organizations don’t know where to look for the low-hanging fruit.”

Key challengesBut Paul Toohey, Global Portfolio Director, Advanced Analytics, Hewlett-Packard Company thinks that the Big Data phenomenon could cause more problems than solutions unless CIOs are well prepared and move from the suppliers of technology to the provider of business solutions. “The explosion in both internal and external data sources creates many headaches around storage, processing power and the ability to integrate and conduct analytics across multiple data types,” Toohey says.

“Combined with the heightened expectations of business users to have a single view in near to real time, CIOs are facing many challenges which can quickly overwhelm a traditional organized IT department.” Ruoyu Bao, Director, Global Analytics Hub, Lenovo echoes Toohey’s concerns, raising the issue that when companies launch projects aimed at gaining a competitive advantage, they fail to implement the execution capability for the outcome.

Song agrees that complexity, volatility and volume can be problematic, but perhaps the hardest issue to control is with regards to maintaining professional skill sets. Whilst Bao also acknowledges the company is the process of setting up a Global Analytics Hub, most of the candidates interviewed at Lenovo are overseas and are students. “Leveraging big data is going to be increasingly important for us to widen our lead,” he says. Shalev also believes that the major challenge with the adoption of this technology is related to a potential gap in skill sets. “A good Data Scientist is problem solver with a business acumen, strong analytical skills with a solid background in statistics, machine learning and computer science.”

Big Data may only work well for those prepared to up skill in order to mitigate future risk.

CIOs are facing many challenges which can quickly overwhelm a traditional organized IT department.

39% of organizations in AsiaPac are not analysing whole sets of data they are collecting.