Analyst Debrief – Reports from Forrester and MIT Sloan on Big Data

We’ve been told (ad nauseam) that Big Data is an all powerful tool for companies today, but there is an important distinction between big data and superfluous data. These two reports will expand your understanding on what data is really capable of, and show you how much data you actually need.

Forrester says Big Data can reduce the air pollution in China

The biggest drawback to China’s industrial growth has been the rise in air pollution. A blog post from Gene Cao of Forrester says that analyzing big data could be invaluable in keeping a check on this. According to the report, analyzing data of energy consumption in factories and using data to predict the amount of renewable energy available could be crucial in Beijing’s fight against smog.

MIT Sloan’s Management Review asks if you really need all that Data

Big Data has become fundamental for a company’s R&D, but how much data does a company really need? Data storage costs have plummeted, but that shouldn’t be a reason to collect data that holds no value. In fact, according to a new study by MIT Sloan, if an insight is the proverbial needle in the haystack, adding irrelevant data only makes it that much harder to find.

Laying out laws for optimal data collection, the report helps differentiate between worthwhile and redundant data. Is your company collecting or hoarding data?

In this weekly series, we do a roundup of reports most relevant to today’s digital marketer and modern communicator from analyst groups like Altimeter, Bain, Gartner, McKinsey, Nielsen and others, and showcase the ones most relevant to digitized businesses. If you’d like to read more such reports, you can keep track of our completeAnalyst Debrief series. We’d also love to chat, leave a comment below or drop us a line on Twitter@unmetric.