BUS308 Assignments Week 1 - Discussion 1

I have frequently come across “big data” and I wasn’t entirely sure what it was all about. For starters, what is big data? Initially, I thought it was a matter of scale whereby big data refers to those organizations that have heavy records due to the scale of operations. However, having gone through the lecture and the video provided, then I am of a different opinion. Big data is to what extent an organization makes use of available data for decision making. This would mean that even small-scale organizations could be big data if they consciously choose to intensively use the data available to them and around them.

However, raw data in itself offers no useful insights unless it is passed through a series of analyses so that the information sifted out should meet the needs of the organization.

Also, the simplicity in which statistics could be used in day-to-day decisions came as a shock. I used to think that only the heavy subject matter could make use of statistics but from what I gathered in the first lecture, this couldn’t be any further from the truth. I am optimistic that the course will come in handy for my degree area in Business Administration.

Insights, F. (2015, April 9). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxroi4beKhE&feature=youtu.be