“The value of data has skyrocketed in digital. It has become the lifeblood of ad serving and social networks,” writes Anton Gonsalves, information and technology columnist for Information Week.
Citing a recent International Data Corporation report, he says that by 2020, the annual amount of digital data created, replicated and consumed will total more than 5,200 gigabytes for every man, woman and child on the planet. This is 50 times the amount of per-person data than in 2010.
“Companies on Facebook are foreseen to build their own social networks so that data becomes exclusive to them,” explains Gonsalves. “Data is an enabling tool, much like currency.” Not surprisingly, CNBC and Forbes have all proclaimed that data analyst is the job of the future, “the Sexiest Job of the 21st Century,” writes USA Today.
“It is one of the [most] sought-after positions,” tells Rob Bearden, CEO of Hortonworks, to USA Today.
“The desire on the enterprise side to find truly qualified data scientists has resulted in almost open headcount. It’s probably the biggest imbalance of supply and demand that I’ve ever seen in my career. The talent pool is, at best, probably 20 percent of the demand.”
Data guru Avinash Kaushik cautions that today there are so many data, yet so little insights. “It’s important to know what happened but is even more critical to know why people do the things they do on your site,” reminds Kaushik the author of Web Analytics 2.0 and a digital marketing evangelist for Google.
However, the value of data analytics goes beyond website user behavior.
During recent talk on Digital Marketing for International Institute of Digital Marketer, Carlo Ople, Managing Director and Partner at Di9it, the Digital Agency of DM9 Jayme Syfu, mentions the huge potential of data analytics outside the internet.
He cites the example of the loyalty card of a popular department store chain, which is one of the first establishments in the Philippines to offer such card that can track user buying habits and behaviors.
“Just imagine the amount of data recorded in it,” says Ople. “You can actually tell what particular products a specific consumer buys at a given time and day of the week. That’s power.”
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