Gartner’s Nick Heudecker has always been a bit of a party-pooper. The man who has done more to ridicule data lakes (a “fallacy”) and chastise the vendor-infested Open Data Platform (“for vendors, by vendors”) now has his sights set on Big Data, generally.
In retiring Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Big Data, Heudecker blithely reasons that “Big Data is no longer a topic unto itself” and need not be treated as such. This is similar to what happened with open source: For years it was a big topic, then it became standard operating procedure for any business serious about software.
But if Big Data has reached a point where it has simply become essential to everything else, why are so many companies still struggling to put their data to good use?
Big Data furniture
Big Data used to drive big page views and consulting fees, but now, argues Heudecker, “the various topics formerly encompassing Big Data evolved into other areas,” including the following:
- Advanced analytics and data science
- Business intelligence and analytics
- Enterprise information management
- In-memory computing technology
- Information infrastructure
If these sound like substitutes for the more malleable Big Data, in some ways they are. But I think Heudecker’s point goes broader.
Really, he is arguing that Big Data is not something distinct that a company should, or can, do. Big Data is not a strategy. It is not a business objective.
Rather, Big Data is simply a way of describing data that is high volume or highly variable, or it moves at high velocity (or some combination of the three). Guess what? Most companies now have this, whether they are a Google or a Kroger.
Such data, says Heudecker, is “no longer exotic,” but “common”.
As such, talking about big data as a meaningful category is far less interesting than talking about specific ways to put data to use within an organisation. Those more interested in chasing buzzwords can turn their attention to the Internet of Things, he mocks.
Everyone doing it
Whether because enterprises persist in misunderstanding Big Data or for other reasons, meaningful impact from Big Data initiatives remains elusive for most organisations.
This seems surprising, given rampant interest in data, as a Teradata-funded Forbes report shows.
This is partly a matter of skills shortage. As Heudecker highlights, “Thru 2018, 70% of Hadoop deployments will not meet cost savings and revenue generation objectives due to skills and integration challenges.”
In other words, companies would do more with their data if they had the people requisite to manage the data infrastructure. The real problem goes deeper, though it is tied to the skills shortage.
CEO is the problem
The core issue is that it’s easier to say ‘Big Data’ than it is to embrace big data. The former fits neatly into a PowerPoint presentation. The latter requires cultural change. As the Forbes report explains:
“Part of the problem is that data-driven business models represent a break from the past that can call for a huge cultural upheaval. Almost overnight, employees must make data a priority, be willing to share data sets across departments and assume shared responsibility for data collection, quality and analysis.”
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