Big data helps managers improve productivity and profits by converting large quantities of data into useful information and knowledge. While traditionally only large companies could analyze big data, new tools like Hadoop now make it possible for all companies. However, fully utilizing big data requires acquiring new technical skills and changing management practices and company culture to adapt to rapidly changing technologies.

1. BIG DATA: The Management Revolution
Summary
Big Data helps managers to improve productivity and increase
profits. Big Data is nothing but an improved version of analytics
done earlier. Mostly used to handle large data quantities and
convert data into information and from that information to
knowledge, that helps business to gain the upper hand. More and
more data is been generated now a day, at present more than 3
exa-bytes (1 exa-byte = 1 Billion Gigabytes) of data is created each
data. Almost everybody is creating data as we shop, search and
communicate. Unlike analytics, Big Data is used to manage this
kind of large data. To compete with other rivalry companies, big
companies have to have the information rapidly. Big Data should
not be confused with just text data, it could be anything like a
video, photos, GPS locations, communication, etc. A team at MIT
Center for Digital Business conducted interview with senior officials
of 330 companies. It shows that the companies that are data
driven are 5% more productive and 6% more profitable than their
competitors.
Big Data is a game changer for sure, it can provide an edge to a
company, the companies that were born digital like Amazon and
Google already knows its importance but now even the traditional
companies are looking forward to get the best results by using this
trending analytic approach. It also helped Airline industry to have
exact time of arrival of airplane, which saves millions of dollars

2. every year. Companies like Wal-Mart have put a lot of effort in
managing petabytes of data every hour, which provided them
significant profit. That been said, it is equally difficult to manage
big data, as we have more data but no proper tools and technical
expertise to handle this huge data. Sear Holdings developed a
framework called Hadoop that helps them in storing data from all
its brands and existing data warehouses, with this they save the
time for pulling data from various sources and combining them.
Apart from Big data power, the insight of the person who is
managing the company also matters. The highest paid person
opinion about what will be the result of action has its own
importance. There are few challenges that management has to
overcome in order to have full benefits of Big Data. The most
important challenge is to have the right talent in an organization,
the data scientist should be able to understand business and
skillful in organizing large data sets. Latest IT skills need to be
taught to handle the latest tools for handling big data. Company
has to adapt its culture in accordance to latest technology.
Research question:
The motivation behind this paper is to let people know that Big
Data is essential in today’s world but at the same time there is a
need to have new skills and change of management practices that
are already there. It explains how big data is different than
traditional analytics. It explains what kind of technology and talent
is required in order to implement Big Data analytics.

3. Contribution:
This paper clearly explains that in order to reap the benefit of Big
Data, what are some management challenges that a company
needs to overcome and how can one go about it. It explains how
an insight of a person will always be important no matter how big
the technology is. Because of the practical example cited in the
paper about 330 North American companies, it proves how data
driven companies perform well.
Course Concepts:
The course is about management of resources related to
information processing in a similar way this article talks about
helping managers to measure and manage their business.
Critique:
The paper initially refers to uses of Big Data and how it can
improve decision-making and performance in a company. It also
talks about companies those are already using this analytical
approach and are very successful. But there is less stress on the
management challenges and constant changes in technology and
policies that company does in order to win the neck-to-neck
competition.
Lessons:

4. The most important thing I think is Big Data if implemented
properly can definitely boost up the performance of a company. It
can make it possible to analyze the factors affecting business if
there are proper algorithms to manage big data, otherwise
colleting data is of very less use.
Discussion:
As a full time student in NJIT I believe the new analytical approach
of handling big data should be quite useful not only because it
would be easy to access and manage the information about
students and staff but also because it will make it more diverse
and knowledgeable system with access to much more information
than it could be possible with the traditional approach of analytics.
Reference:
1. “Big Data: The Management Revolution” by Andrew McAfee
and Erik Brynjolfsson, Harvard Business Review October
2012.
2. en.wikipedia.org:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Hadoop