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Should You Be Prone to Hiring Big Data-Skilled Workers?

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Keyboard With Key LearnShould you be hiring candidates with big data skills?

As big data becomes a big part of many businesses’ operations, there are more candidates out there who have gained big data skills either through their job, or by specializing in big data during their studies.

If you’re considering taking on candidates with big data skills, what can those skills do for your business?

Big Data and Business

Big data has a wide variety of uses for your business. Sometimes the difficulty is deciding what to focus on first.

You can use big data to analyze your customers’ behavior.

This could include anything from purchasing trends to how they interact with your website. You can gain insights into who these individuals are, where they are, what they want and how they interact with you.

You can use big data to track your business processes and finances.

From tracking the way sales ebb and flow throughout the year to analyzing data from different departments, big data can give you insights into the way your business works.

You can use big data to keep your social media game on top form.

From figuring out which posts are getting the most customer engagement, to finding out what customers are  saying about you, big data gives you insights via social media.

Where to Find Your Big Data Candidates

So just where can you find your big data candidates?

There are two main ways:

Hiring a candidate who recently studied big data, or looking for someone with experience. Both have their advantages.

With more schools offering big data courses these days, you can find candidates who have been taught an in depth knowledge of big data.

As the article “Hiring Smart: The 5 Best Schools Cranking Out Big Data Job Candidates” says, big data students will have learned while training on real data sets, giving them the skills your business needs.

You can also hire candidates who already have experience in the field.

With more businesses making use of big data, so more professionals are learning big data skills and applying them in their roles.

Whether you hire a dedicated data scientist, or a skilled multi-tasker with big data smarts, experienced candidates will bring expertise to their role.

Big Data Can Be Applied In Many Roles

With so many uses for big data, there is the potential for you to make use of big data skills across departments.

Candidates with big data skills will bring an in-depth knowledge of how big data works, and how to make the most of it. Those skills can provide a real boost to your business; giving you candidates who can undertake in depth analysis and use the insights they gain to drive your business forward.

From analyzing data about your business processes, to streamlining your marketing efforts, candidates who can handle big data can do a lot for your business.

As well as hiring someone specifically for the role of data specialist, you will also benefit from looking for big data skills in any candidate who will be in a position to use data to gain insights.

There’s no doubt that big data is here to stay.

By hiring candidates who are confident handling big data, you will be providing your business with valuable skills that will benefit you in the long term.

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

About the Author: Tristan Anwyn is an author who writes on a range of topics including social media, SEO that works, and how to make big data work for your business.

Big Data Could Mean Big Savings

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abigdataaaaIs your business looking to save money?

Chances are the answer is a resounding yes. Look no further than big data.

The current darling of the business world offers many advantages to businesses of all shapes and sizes, including yours.

So just how can big data save you money? And what can you do to give your businesses the biggest chance of succeeding with big data?

Big Data and How to Use It

Businesses these days have access to huge amounts of data, from sources such as website metrics, customer histories and social media stats.

These sets of data are too big to handle using everyday office software, and so are known as big data. Analyzing big data can offer insights on many aspects of your business. When it comes to your budget, analyzing big data offers insights that make things easier on the purse strings.

Saving Money by Spotting Leaks

When UPS started using big data to make sure their drivers were following the most efficient routes, they saved an impressive 15 million gallons of fuel during the first year. You too can use big data to see where your business is leaking money.

For example, you might track your sales over the course of a year and notice that during November you are buying in more stock than you need, some of which is going to waste. Now you can adjust how much you buy during that month, and save money.

Or perhaps you’ll compare the amount spent on a specific marketing channel with the revenue that comes back as a result of it to find out if the outlay is worth the return.

By using big data to track in-comings and outgoings or, like UPS, to spot inefficiencies in the way your business is run, you can spot potential leaks and take action.

Save Money by Knowing What Works

One of big data’s strengths is its usefulness in tracking customer behavior, and this can certainly save your business money.

Take for example your social media stats.

By getting an overview of which updates are the most liked and shared, which topics are the most popular, you can see what matters to your customers. That means you can give them more of what they want and tailor your business to match their needs, which is a more efficient use of your resources.

By using big data to analyze what is most liked, what provides the best return on investment and what is most popular with your customers; you can save your business a considerable amount of money in the long term.

How to Succeed With Big Data

To make big data work with your business, start small.

As pointed out in “Big Data Meets the Little Drone“, it’s often best to integrate big data with your existing systems at first, rather than going all-out on new technologies.

By starting small and honing in on one specific area, you can reap the rewards of big data without emptying the coffers.

When planning your big data adoption, don’t forget person power.

Big data needs someone to harvest it and analyze it. By having a good idea of who will do that and making sure they have the skills, time and support necessary to carry out the task, you’ll be giving yourself a better chance of getting what you need from big data.

Plan carefully, figure out where it’s best for you to begin, and work in enough time and support for you and your employees to get the job done, and you will soon be using big data to make big savings in your business over the long term.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: Tristan Anwyn writes on a wide variety of topics, including social media, SEO, big data and saving money in your business.

Overcoming Big Data Skills Concerns

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Big data analytics has been proven to be highly beneficial for businesses, allowing them to extract optimal value from their data and make better-informed decisions.

As more and more businesses are adopting big data analytics, it is becoming increasingly necessary to make big data a part of your business strategy.

However, it is not easy to implement a big data solution, because there is a significant shortage of big data skills.

Then again, if you use the right hiring strategies, you may be able to recruit some of the best big data experts available in the market.

How to Hire the Right Big Data Talent

Define Responsibilities

Before you start the hiring process, it is essential that you clearly define the role and responsibilities that you want the big data expert to assume.

This will help you determine what kind of big data talent you should look for, so that you can attract the most suitable candidates. It also gives the candidates a clearer idea of your expectations.

Set Job Requirements

First of all, you need to set the minimum academic and experience qualifications to ensure that the candidate has the necessary knowledge, skills and training to handle the tasks that come with the job. Then, list down the specific skills and qualities that he or she must possess.

For instance, the candidate should be familiar with the specific type of big data solution that you are planning to implement.

According to a blog post entitled “Combating Big Data Skills Concerns“, business organizations are not only trying to recruit and retain experts to handle long-existing data management technologies, but also new big data technologies such as Hadoop.

It is important that you hire a big data expert who makes an effort to stay up-to-date with the latest big data technologies.

Attract the Best Candidates

Big data experts are highly sought after these days, and they can afford to be selective.

As such, you need to make a very competitive offer in order to attract the best big data talent. Big data experts enjoy solving challenging problems, and they thrive in an environment that allows them to exercise their creativity.

You can bait them by giving them interesting data to manage and fascinating problems to solve, so that they can satisfy their intellectual curiosity endlessly.

While money may not be the main factor affecting a big data expert’s choice of job, it is still an important consideration. Therefore, you have to make sure that you offer your big data expert a highly competitive salary.

Evaluate the Candidates

There are many tools from reliable sources that can help you perform a thorough and accurate evaluation of candidates.

You can use these tools to do resume screening and reference checks, conduct competency-based and background interviews, and create real-life scenarios to assess the responses of the candidates.

It is also a good idea to use psychometric assessments such as cognitive testing, emotional intelligence testing and motivational assessment.

A competent big data expert can do wonders for your business by helping you get the most out of your data.

By following the tips above, you can significantly increase your chances of landing the best big data talent.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: John McMalcolm is a freelance writer who writes on a wide range of subjects, from social media marketing to Cloud computing.

Quality over Quantity with Big Data

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dataBack when computers were still a new technology for businesses, there was a simple acronym going around: GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out.

Basically, if someone fed a computer system flawed or mixed up data, they probably wouldn’t like the result very much. That wisdom still holds true in the newer and fast-moving field of big data.

Big data is exciting.

Used well, it grants the ability to analyze customer trends and wants, customer interactions, lead generation, sales patterns and so much more.

The result? Better understanding of customers’ behavior and desires, a better overview of what is working well in a business, and an opportunity to hone everything from content to products for greater success.

But big data can also be overwhelming and in the rush to adopt it, businesses might find they have a lot data but not a lot of quality. Flawed, irrelevant or inaccurate big data won’t serve them as well as they hoped.

When it comes to big data quality: GIGO lives on.

Businesses can clean up their big data act and access better quality data by paying attention to five key areas:

1. Planning
When it comes to keeping garbage out of the big data stream, prevention is definitely better than cure. Businesses would do well to shun rushing at big data in favor of good solid planning. Before harvesting anything, it’s vital to know what the aim of it is. What business area is being looked at? Sales? Engagement on social media? The behavior of a certain demographic? Knowing exactly what data is needed and why will make it easier to plan out a big data strategy that is focused on collecting exactly what is needed.

2. Collection
Data can come from many different sources. The more sources, the more chance of unhelpful or irrelevant data getting in. Businesses can prevent problems at this stage by figuring out how their big data is to be collected. What are the sources? Who will collect the data from them and what will they do with it? Before including a data source in your overall plan, check out the quality of the data that you’re going to get from that source.

3. Checks
Rigorous and regular checks of data quality are vital in building up a defense against bad data. When it comes to analyzing big data, the lower the quality of data fed into any analytic tool, the less helpful the results will be. To that end, businesses need to set in place a system of checks and balances to make sure the data that goes into the system is of good quality. To make the most of big data, quality control of the incoming data needs to be standard.

4. Training
Sources and stats are important, but to really make the most of big data businesses need to remember the human touch. At some point in the data collection process, employees are going to be responsible for collecting, sending, or analyzing data. Human error can and will happen, and it can lower data quality. Businesses can reduce the risk with training and education and by fostering team work when it comes to their big data plan.

5. Collaboration
From the IT department to the person analyzing the data, to a customer service agent taking details to fill out a form, getting employees working together is good for big data. The more everyone understands about why it matters and what their part is, the better. The same is also true of technology and data channels – the more a business can match up their sources and standardize their data collection procedures, the better.

Big data is big news, no matter the business size. Good quality big data is where the really useful information lies.

For businesses looking to big data, quality really must come before quantity.

Photo credit: Forbes.com

About the Author: Tristan Anwyn is an author who writes on subjects as diverse as health, marketing, business, and SEO.

Is Your Business Focused on Big Data?

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abigdata

The amount of data that is created and owned by businesses has increased dramatically over the past few years, and this has made data management a more challenging task for many companies.

However, there are new technologies available to enable businesses to get the most out of their data, one of which is big data.

Here is a look at how adopting a big data solution can be beneficial to your business:

Overview of Big Data Management

Big data management refers to the act of organizing, administrating and governing large quantities of data, both structured and unstructured.

It aims to improve the quality and accessibility of data, so that it can be used for big data analytics and business intelligence.

With an effective big data management strategy, businesses can locate valuable data in large pools of semi-structured and unstructured data from a wide range of sources, including system logs, call detail records and social media websites.

Benefits of Implementing a Big Data System

Better Customer Service

To get the most out of your big data system, you need to stay focused on the big data bottom line.

A big data solution can help drive up sales by facilitating better customer service. With such a system in place, your employees will be able to perform real-time checks on your customers and provide helpful advice on products and services.

Additionally, big data can unite the physical and digital shopping spheres by allowing you and your employees to provide useful information about your physical stores through the Internet.

Enhance Product Development and Marketing

Another benefit of big data is that it enables you to gain a better understanding of your target consumers’ behavior and perception of your brand and products, and segment them according to demographic groups and geographical locations.

With such information, you will be able to develop products and services that can meet their needs more effectively, as well as fine-tune your marketing campaign to achieve better results.

Improve Decision Making

By implementing a big data solution, you will have easy access to accurate information on almost every area of your business, ranging from operations to product inventory. This enables you to identify problems and make well-informed decisions to improve various aspects of your business.

Big data also makes information more easily available to your employees, which can help them perform their duties more competently.

Big Data Trends in 2014

New solutions are constantly being developed to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and security of big data systems. As such, you can expect to see significant changes in big data trends in 2014.

According to expert predictions, these changes may include the transitioning of big data from hype to actionable intelligence, increasing use of data by traditional companies to generate revenue, growing importance of visualization tools as an IT expenditure and greater implementation of predictive analytics and machine learning.

In order to get maximum value from your big data solution, you need to make sure that you have the right combination of big data analytics tools, processes and people.

Photo credit: Forbes.com

About the Author: John McMalcolm is a freelance writer who writes on a wide range of subjects, from Cloud computing to social media marketing.