A special report from the McKinsey Global Institute focuses on the next business frontier in two words: big data. McKinsey defines “big data” as “datasets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage, and analyze.”
One thing for certain, the “frontier” will be impacting careers, recruiters and human resource departments profoundly.
To frame the big data problem--and the opportunity--McKinsey summarizes the data torrent in eye-catching statistics.
Here are some of the big data details from their report:
$600 to buy a disk drive that can store all of the world’s music
5 billion mobile phones in use in 2010
30 billion pieces of content shared on Facebook every month
40% projected growth in global data generated per year vs. 5% growth in global IT spending
235 terabytes data collected by the US Library of Congress in April 2011
15 out of 17 sectors in the US have more data stored per company than the US Library of Congress
Figuring out what all the sheer volume of data means and capturing the value of big data (McKinsey’s business) is even more striking in its potential for development in all the sectors and geographies. Here are the McKinsey estimates:
$300 billion: potential annual value to US health care—more than double the total annual health care spending in Spain
€250 billion: potential annual value to Europe’s public sector administration—more than GDP of Greece
$600 billion: potential annual consumer surplus from using personal location data globally
140,000 – 190,000 more deep analytical talent positions, and. . . .
1.5 million more data-savvy managers needed to take full advantage of big data in the US
The opportunities for careers, recruiters and human resource people lie in the talent needed. What’s obvious is that our secondary and post-secondary schools have a lot of educating in math and statistics to be able to successfully take advantage of these opportunities. What many fail to recognize is that deep analytics typically require post-graduate university exposure, a costly, though equally profitable opportunity.
Are our schools ready for the implications of Big Data?