Toledo, Spain, Thursday September 20, 2012:  At the EASDP Congress a BIIA panel of experts discussed the important aspects of how to redefine Business Information, how to get new value out of ‘Old Databases’, and how to extract value from semi / unstructured data.  The discussion centered on the new phenomena of BIG DATA, which is being heralded as the next frontier for innovation, competition and productivity and has become a critical factor in strategic thinking.

Panel members were: Gehan Talwatte, Investor & Former CEO of Ascend Aerospace Information.  Phil Cotter, Consultant, Member of the board of directors of BISNODE and BIIA – Former Managing Director of Experian UK & Ireland.  Jim Stock, Director Central Europe of MarkLogic Corporation. The panel discussion was moderated by Joachim C Bartels, Managing Director of BIIA.

Customers no longer want reports or data; they want to be able to make decisions in real time with decision elements flowing seamlessly into their respective workflows.  Within this context the panel discussed a number of critical aspects:

Will BIG DATA be a game changer or potential disruptor for the business information industry?  The panel concurred that it will be because BIG DATA techniques and technologies can make capturing value from data at an extreme rate economical.  BIG DATA will most likely lead to further industry consolidation amongst traditional business information players, because smaller firms may not have the resources to develop and deploy extreme analytics.  There is already a shortage of skills in statistics, modeling or ‘data scientists’.

Will it lead to an oligopoly of large players?  Not necessarily because resourceful companies, which heretofore existed on the fringes of business information, will be able to enter the fray.  For example IBM has recently acquired a number of analytical software services.  Competition will also come from emerging trading systems, which will generate their own internal performance data.  Trading partners will therefore rely less on external information.

BIG DATA should be viewed as an opportunity for the business information industry to create significantly enhanced value added services.  Nevertheless it will be an entirely new ball game!