Making Big Data Work for Your Business

Sudhi Ranjan Sinha

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781783000999
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Business Strategy
• Index: Computer Science

If your are interested in the power of Big Data to drive improvement in your business, then this book will help you build and initiate a project for positive change.

Making Big Data Work for Your Business

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Making Big Data Work for Your Business

Copyright © 2014 Impackt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

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First published: October 2014

Production reference: 1221014

Published by Impackt Publishing Ltd.

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Credits

Author

Sudhi Sinha

Reviewers

Vikash Gaur

Richard Heimann

Acquisition Editor

Richard Gall

Content Development Editor

Sweny Sukumaran

Copy Editors

Tanvi Bhatt

Simran Bhogal

Karuna Narayanan

Alfida Paiva

Faisal Siddiqui

Project Coordinator

Venitha Cutinho

Proofreaders

Simran Bhogal

Maria Gould

Ameesha Green

Paul Hindle

Graphics

Ronak Dhruv

Abhinash Sahu

Production Coordinator

Melwyn D'sa

Cover Work

Simon Cardew

Foreword

Big Data is now ubiquitous. At its core, the Big Data phenomenon includes a realization, a vision, and a resulting implementation effort. There is now a widespread realization (indeed, one may even say that an inflection point has been reached) that data can hugely benefit applications in virtually all corners of society. This has given rise to the vision of a data-driven world, one in which organizations, governments, disciplines, communities, and individuals alike try to capture as much data as possible and then use knowledge gleaned from the data to make decisions. The race is therefore on to implement this vision, with needs for ever more tools to capture data, for distributed and parallel platforms to process huge volumes of data, and for analytics software to glean the available insights.

And there is more to come. Looking forward, just over the horizon, the Internet of Things is emerging. On this Internet, ordinary appliances such as refrigerators, thermostats, furnaces, and cars have sensors that allow them to generate torrents of data and to communicate with one another. Companies are eager to build this Internet, as it will allow them to offer high-margin, value-added services, projected to be worth billions of dollars. When this Internet takes hold, it will make the data-driven world even bigger and the data deluge even more ubiquitous.

Thus, it is no wonder that companies are racing to prepare themselves for the Big Data era and the coming Internet of Things. It is difficult, however, to know exactly where to start and what to do. This is where this book comes in. Written by Sudhi Sinha at Johnson Controls, with decades of experience in data management, this is a perfect starter book for any manager who wants to understand and explore Big Data. The book covers important challenges, ranging from building an overall strategy, to creating new opportunities, to managing projects, and to driving Big Data communications effectively throughout the entire organization. The book is peppered with concrete examples and practical tips, in an engaging presentation style. The Big Data field is evolving quickly, and this book serves as a quick and practical introduction to the field. I have found it very informative and interesting, and I believe that you will too.

AnHai Doan

Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Chief Scientist, WalmartLabs, USA

About the Author

Sudhi Sinha is a business leader with over 17 years of global experience in technology and general management. He started his career designing and developing database management systems and business intelligence systems. Currently, he is the Vice President for product development and engineering for Building Technology and Services in Johnson Controls. He is also responsible for several Big Data initiatives. He has worked in technology consulting, engineering, sales, strategy, operations, and P&L roles across US, Asia, and Europe. He has written extensively on various technical and management topics including applying Big Data to different aspects of business. Sudhi holds a degree in Production Engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. He resides in Mumbai with his wife, Sohini who is an entrepreneur and a fashion designer.

Acknowledgments

I have been incredibly lucky to have always worked with exceptional people and be given the right opportunities. First, I want to thank Mr. N. Chandrasekaran, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services, who helped me crystallize my thinking on various aspects of technology and management for the past 7 years. Chandra has always encouraged me to think carefully about any subject at hand and do extensive background research. I tried to follow this advice while developing this book.

Next, I want to express my sincerest thanks to Mr. Soren Bjerg, VP and Managing Director, Building Efficiency (Asia), Johnson Controls, and Mr. Swarup Biswas, VP of Asia Lines of Business, Building Efficiency, Johnson Controls for letting me cut my teeth in Big Data initiatives. Without the education and coaching from Mr. Howard Hayes, VP of Data and Analytics and Dr. Youngchoon Park, Director of Data and Analytics, both working for Johnson Controls, all that I know about Big Data would not have been possible. They helped me navigate the complex and evolving world of Big Data and develop many of the frameworks and topics discussed in this book. They introduced me to leading thinkers such as Prof. AnNhai Doan and Prof. Jignesh Patel of University of Wisconsin at Madison who have guided me on many topics that are technical as well as managerial.

I would also like to thank the one whom I consider as my guru in Big Data—Prof. Victor Myer-Scoenberger of University of Oxford; his book on Big Data opened my eyes for the first time and has had the deepest influence on my thinking around Big Data. I thank Joel Makower of GreenBiz for the many interactions we had on the scope of Big Data in energy and sustainability, and for publishing many of my early articles.

Finally, this book would not have been possible without the untiring efforts and patience of my editors Richard Gall and Sweny Sukumaran, project coordinator Venitha Cutinho, and the other people at Packt Publishing who worked through the various stages of this book.

About the Reviewers

Vikash Gaur is Assistant Vice President with Cognizant's Manufacturing & Logistics Practice heading delivery for its North America customers. He drives growth for his unit, ensures flawless delivery of leading-edge technology projects for global customers, while building future-proof solutions that ensure market leadership few years into the future.

Vikash is a management professional with almost 20 years of business and technology experience in leadership positions. He has played a variety of roles in the manufacturing industry and in IT, beginning with the automotive industry and moving on to IT services in the manufacturing industry.

He has experience in business consulting, business process re-engineering, program management, solution architecting, business-IT alignment, and leadership development. With his unerring ability to understand the real challenges that customers face, he helps make customers' businesses stronger, often leveraging emerging technologies.

Richard Heimann is Chief Data Scientist at L-3 National Security Solutions (NSS) (NYSE:LLL) and is an EMC Certified Data Scientist with concentrations in spatial statistics, data mining, Big Data, and pattern discovery and recognition. Richard also leads the Data Science team at the L-3 Data Tactics Business Unit. L-3 NSS and L-3 Data Tactics are both premier Big Data and Analytics service providers based in Washington D.C. and serve customers globally.

Richard is an adjunct professor at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he teaches Spatial Analysis and Statistical Reasoning. Additionally, he is an instructor at George Mason University, teaching Human Terrain Analysis and is also a selection committee member for the 2014-2015 AAAS Big Data and Analytics Fellowship Program and member of the Washington Exec Big Data Council.

Richard has also recently published a book titled Social Media Mining with R, Packt Publishing. He has recently supported DARPA, DHS, the US Army, and the Pentagon with analytical support.

To my parents Mr. Sukumar Ranjan Sinha and Mrs. Keya Sinha who not only brought me into this world and taught me a lot, they also loved me and encouraged me for all the good things that I have been associated with including this book.

And to my lovely wife Sohini, who showered me with her love, encouragement, and patience while I was working on this book.

"Data is the only perpetual entity. Actions and human interventions have definitive outcomes and a definitive life however long. Data lives forever and takes a new evolving meaning."

Preface

In the 2008 historic presidential election in the United States, President Barack Obama captured the imagination of the nation with his "Yes we can" slogan and his different but definitive ideas. He employed social media very well to get his message out to the millions of new voters. Fast forward to 2012; he was facing a very difficult re-election campaign. This time he employed data and analytics to win this election. In his November 16, 2012 article in The Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal captures this transformative experimentation in details. For the first time in history, a political campaign had a Chief Technology Officer in Harper Reed. Mr. Reed assembled an eclectic team from Google, Facebook, Twitter, and many other new age technology companies and initiated the project Narwahl. They mined through huge volumes of data—demographic, past voting patterns, economic data, social media interactions, and others to...

Table of contents

• Making Big Data Work for Your Business