Big Data (2): the new fuel of the digital age

No moving cars or light up cities. But collected and analyzed with a technology recently unimaginable massive sets of information quickly will help transform the world. Their motto is simple: more and more business benefits public savings. They promise to be, therefore, the new fuel of the digital age .

In the coming years the Big Data will generate estimated revenue of more than 1,200 million euros , about fourteen times as declared in 2009 - and will be installed between the main activities of nine out of ten companies in the select circle of the magazine Fortune .

Probably no more than 50 pilot projects around the world. However, by 2014 it is expected that in countries like Spain more than 19 percent of companies already working megadatos, triple the now involved. The pioneers: those in the field of electronics, computer and information .

Business Benefits

The great attraction of massive data is their apparent potential to predict behavior and phenomena. Mathematics work better , no doubt, if instead of six factors have up to 300 calculations. What is more, exceeding all expectations when it combines the study of sets of information like traditional customer orders or inventory flow, other less conventional . For example, those extracted from an official website, Twitter or email.

Knowing profusely to a particular user, a consumer or a citizen helps to anticipate their behavior, expectations and needs. It allows, in short, save time, make certain services more effective and safer decisions.

In general, these benefits are recognized for Big Data:

1. It offers an increasingly accurate description and detailed fluctuations and yields all kinds of resources. Procter & Gamble , for example, is able to integrate into a single tool, designed from a dozen different vendors technologies-how in which consumers from 80 different countries use every day about 4,000 million doses of its products.
2. Allows adjustments "experimental" at any level of a process and understand its impact on near real time on a particular good or service. Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola are two companies that combine and their databases and analysis platforms for examine the real-time information obtaining mass of their respective clients (eg, through vending machines).
3. Helps us understand the demand and make a more accurate segmentation of the offer. The Financial Times uses the analysis of massive data rates to optimize your ads as the immediate demand for his readers what they read, what time, what section, from which city ... Their sales are greater today due not only to a better product knowledge, but above all, a higher capacity of its professionals to detect niche publication under-exploited.
4. Accelerates the development of services and products increasingly innovative and efficient. The 1004 service customer Telefónica uses predictive models to determine the number of calls you receive on very specific dates. Thus, according to Soraya Paniagua , the largest call center in Europe (14 million calls in one month) has improved by 50 percent efficiency.

Big dates in the public sector

Public Administration, along with the insurance industry, promises to become one of the four major pillars of Big Data.

IBM and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , funded by the Department of Energy of the United States, have described some of the key benefits of the capture and organization of large data sets in this area:

• decisions more quickly and efficiently;
• predictive analysis and continuous optimization of work systems;
• efficiency improvement, especially on security, civil protection and health care.

Specifically, for the public sector, almost all studies point to three main areas where massive data can lead to considerable cost savings:

• Efficiency through more intelligent decisions about the organization of the different departments, prioritizing tasks and reducing internal operating costs operating. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that the exploitation of massive data sets has a potential annual of 240,000 million for the American Health (more than double the Spanish investment in this sector ) and a value of 200,000 million for the administration European public (almost equivalent to the GDP of Greece ).
• Fight against fraud and errors detected. Thanks to the management of massive data sets, the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States, better known by its acronym, FBI, culminating in 2011 the largest operation in its history against fraud in the health care system of government . Specifically, uncovered a network of companies and individuals who illegally billed to the account of Medicare public assistance program, aimed at people over 65, some 4,100 million euros. This represents almost 1 percent of the funding for this program in 2010 .
• Improvements in tax collection. It is considered that the large-scale processing of information that holds the Exchequer (80 times higher than that contained in the British Library ) could save the taxpayers of this country between 20,000 and 41,000 million euros , ie a average of 470 euros per head. 6.25 percent of that amount would be obtained thanks to a significant reduction in fraud, 12.5 percent to the improvement of tax collection system, and a 81.25 percent increase operational efficiency.

Megadatos + Technology + City = Smart Cities

The most important opportunity, if possible, for the Big Data governance is in our cities, through the so-called Smart Cities : places like Boulder, Columbus (USA) and Masdar (Dubai), or as Malaga , Barcelona, Santander, Madrid and San Sebastian.

These are cities where the Internet of Things and the science of large volumes of data mutually conspire to generate information with which to solve modern problems of habitability, safety and energy efficiency. They do this in the hands of millions of sensors placed at traffic lights, rubbish bins or under the sidewalks ... Also through our mobile phones, turned into stations that measure pollution flyers, business or the state of our streets and homes .

A real-time monitoring information associated with these urban elements can help save up to fifteen and seven percent in water consumption for irrigation and drinking water, respectively, and 25 percent in the transportation of garbage, a 17 percent in electricity use and the same percentage of CO _2, according to a study of Telefónica .

It is estimated that in 2010, road congestion , caused by poor circulation organization and poor management of parking (45 per cent of traffic in Manhattan , New York), United States resulted in losses of more than 63,500 million, 11,000 million liters of fuel and 4,200 million hours of activity is not performed. In the same period, there were 1.4 million accidents and 40,000 deaths over the asphalt of the European Union.

Cities concentrate early seven out of ten humans , while occupying only 2 percent of the planetary surface. However, they produce as much of the global consumption of resources and energy, and generate up to 80 percent of greenhouse gases.

In this context, there is no doubt that the science of massive data sets is presented as one of the most interesting of those we have. Maybe it's just a matter of business. Perhaps it is the opportunity they expect our government and our municipalities. But in any case, the numbers, large numbers, are already on the table.

In f ormes and links of interest - Big Data: the galaxy data . # TcBlog. July 9, 2012. - Billions and billions: big data Becomes a big deal . Deloitte. 2012. - Big Data in Spain: lack of knowledge, budget and quality . Silicon News. June 27, 2012. - Big Data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and increased economic productivity . McKinsey Global Institute. May 2011. - What is big data? An introduction to the big data landscape . Radar O'Reilly. January 11, 2012. - 5 Big Data questions for CEOs . Forbes. June 26, 2012. - Social CRM and Big Data: forced to be understood . # TcBlog. May 14, 2012. - Big data and predictive analysis of Telefónica in 1004 . Soraya Paniagua. March 26, 2012. - The Big Data Opportunity: Making Government faster, smarter and more personal. Policy Exchange. July 3, 2012. - Internet of Things: connecting the real world . # TcBlog. May 9, 2012.

- Smart Cities: a first step towards the internet of things (pdf). Telefónica Foundation. 2011.