MIT Sloan Management Review

Does large amounts of data equal large amounts of new knowledge? Sometimes it does. Applying analytics techniques to social network data reveals new things about how people make decisions, say two Facebook researchers. There are also advantages that come from the ability to more quickly find patterns in data than was previously possible, says a scientist at Microsoft Research. But the CEO of Personal.com predicts that many companies will find that data analysis is not a core skill.

Remember geography lessons in school, painstakingly memorizing the longest rivers, cultures of various regions, the state capitals? For most of us, those lessons are in the past. But in the world of big data analytics, geography is making a comeback.

The relatively new market of location analytics is expanding the uses of more traditional geographic information system (GIS) technology to include social, geographic, physical and emotional indicators that help organizations better predict trends

How can executives make sense of — and, as critically, gain competitive advantage from — the data deluge? Thoughts from Andrew McAfee, a principal research scientist and associate director at the MIT Center for Digital Business, in a video interview with MIT SMR.

“The kind of people we hire want to know that their work is not gathering dust on some shelf, but has a real impact on the company,” says Veronika Belokhvostova, head of Global Business Analytics at PayPal. And indeed, business analysts there are collaborating with business leaders to answer the “what should we do next?” question.

Most companies seem to be better at collecting data than using what they collect to create value. As companies increase the amount and variety of data they collect, the gap between data collection and insight generation may increase. This blogpost highlights several hurdles that need to be overcome to bridge this gap.

A data and analytics survey conducted by MIT Sloan Management Review in partnership with SAS Institute Inc. found a strong correlation between the value companies say they generate using analytics and the amount of data they use. The creators of the survey identified five levels of analytics sophistication, with those at Level 5 being most sophisticated and innovative. These analytical innovators in Level 5 had several defining traits. This article explores those traits.

Some companies have a counting problem when it comes to data. Revenues, customers and leads can be counted the same way by all managers…or not. Director of MIT’s Center for Information System Research discusses the growing interest in data analytics and how one company that was in the red dealt with business unit heads all of whom were reporting profits.

These days, lots of people in business are talking about “big data.” But how do the potential insights from big data differ from what managers generate from traditional analytics?

Today’s companies process more than 60 terabytes of information annually, about 1,000 times more than a decade ago. But how well are companies managing the data and capitalizing on the opportunities it presents?

To answer these questions, seven IT research centers studied data-related activities at 26 corporations and large nonprofit organizations. The research shows that while the IT unit is competent at storing and protecting data, it cannot make decisions that turn data into business value.

Do you know how much data is being collected about you at any given time by any given organization? Concerns about privacy in the new era of big data are making the rounds at many companies and being discussed by universities, governments and global institutions. This blogpost discusses some of the major privacy concerns about big data, how to address them and has a special focus on Equifax, the credit company that has 800 billion records with details on 500 million consumers and 81 million businesses in 17 countries.

A lot of the talk about analytics focuses on its potential to provide huge insights to company managers. But analyst Simon Robinson of 451 Research says that on the more basic level, the global conversation is about big data’s more pedestrian aspects: how do you store it, and how do you transmit it?

David Kiron, executive editor of MIT SMR‘s Innovation Hubs, attended “Big Data: Making Complex Things Simpler,” a two-day seminar taught by MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Sandy Pentland. Kiron shares insights from the course, including how cheap flows of data enable faster experimentation and the privacy implications of Big Data.

The increasing ability for companies to get transaction-level, detail-level data — clickstream data versus summary data — presents huge opportunity, says Boston College’s Sam Ransbotham.

One of the stars at the annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference was Kirk Goldsberry, who has applied his knowledge of geography to the ecosystem, or “court space,” of the basketball court. The event drew 2,200 people to Boston earlier this month.

The state of Massachusetts is a major U.S. center of big data, says Stephen O’Leary, an M&A advisor with Aeris Partners and executive committee member of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. It’s only poised to get hotter.

Big Data is now a $64 billion business, says McKinsey Global Institute. Among the start-ups in the fray: Bluefin Labs, which analyzes what we say in social media about TV.

The capabilities of computers are now improving so quickly that concepts can move from the realm of science fiction into everyday life in just a few years, rather than a lifetime. Rapid advances in information technology — computer hardware, software and networks — are yielding applications that can do anything from answering game show questions to driving cars. But to gain true leverage from these ever-improving technologies, companies need new processes and business models.

In this second joint MIT Sloan Management Review and IBM Institute for Business Value study, we see a growing divide between those companies that, on one side, see the value of business analytics and are transforming themselves to take advantage of these newfound opportunities, and those, on the other, that have yet to embrace them.

“The biggest predictor of success…has been when there’s a strong business sponsor involved,” says Randy Bean, co-founder of NewVantage Partners. Broad-based organizational support usually follows when the business sees how analytics will improve the top and bottom line.

Our new survey suggests that companies experienced in analytics use are increasingly gaining competitive advantage — but their approaches vary.