The world’s middle class is growing rapidly, both in size and influence. By 2030, it is expected to reach 5 billion people—2 billion more than today. As a consequence, the needs and expectations of the middle class are an essential part of global conversation everywhere. This is especially true in developing countries, where access to the internet is spreading rapidly.
What standard of living awaits those who will join the middle class between now and 2030? The United States has a big part to play. How America encourages and leverages innovation in the coming years will shape the world’s future in profoundly important ways.
Like the middle class, Big Data is also growing at unprecedented rates. Last year humanity created the data equivalent of a stack of books stretching from the Earth to Pluto—30 times. To be more precise, an IDC study estimated that 1.8 zettabytes of data was created in 2011. This is the equivalent of 200 billion two-hour HD movies. All of this data is amassing from email and social media, audio and video downloads, online shopping, business server logs, industrial, environmental, and surveillance sensors, and more.
Members of the middle class are some of the largest contributors, with data produced by and around them doubling every 18 months. What can we do with this data?
Imagine a world where sick people receive better healthcare outcomes at lower costs; where there is reduced congestion on the roads; or greater accuracy in the prediction of severe weather. These things are now possible like never before. The challenge lies in capturing, managing and analyzing enormous data streams to extract these relevant insights.
Effectively managed data empowers organizations to better serve consumers and citizens. It organizes information, unleashes it, and derives powerful value from it. All in just a moment.
Life-changing improvements in health are now within reach. For example, one of the world’s leading medical-research hospitals has reduced the amount of time needed to analyze the DNA in cancer tumors from 3 days to 2 minutes. Patients and their families now receive diagnoses much faster, and therapies are better tailored to each patient’s particular condition.
Big Data makes markets more efficient, creating new opportunities for economic success. For example, thanks to mobile phones and Big Data, shea nut farmers in Ghana and rice farmers in Bangladesh can access more information about prices, weather, and shipping. These farmers have better real time market intelligence than the head of a global corporation had only a few years ago. This allows them to get better prices for their products, the most fundamental of outcomes.
How do businesses benefit? The growth-fostering opportunities are clear. Global business is now being transacted at an incredible rate. In the age of the digital enterprise, businesses need to react faster—even instantly—to the events affecting their operations. They must be able to identify problematic trends, improve their planning, reduce their response time to customers, and provide their mobile sales teams with information to close deals on the spot. Businesses must be able to assess these situations in real time, without waiting days or weeks to extract data from disks. New breakthroughs like in-memory technology are already providing powerful answers, but the potential has only scratched the surface.
President Obama’s second inauguration offers a useful moment to appreciate what Big Data can do for government. It will fundamentally refocus shrinking budgets on better outcomes. Policy makers face heightened pressure to distinguish the programs that work from those that don’t. By combining data from disparate sources and analyzing it in real time, elected officials and citizens together will see a much clearer picture. Big Data analytics can also accelerate and automate the process of identifying improper government payments, reducing fraud and waste. For national security, identification of troubling trends or hidden risks can happen faster and with greater precision. Big Data is literally the main ingredient for any government to do more with less.
The United States should bet big on Big Data. It offers stunning potential to improve people’s lives as businesses, governments, and communities see bold new opportunities to run like never before.
Bill McDermott is co-CEO of business software maker SAP AG.
a global affairs media network
Big Bet on Big Data
January 19, 2013
The world’s middle class is growing rapidly, both in size and influence. By 2030, it is expected to reach 5 billion people—2 billion more than today. As a consequence, the needs and expectations of the middle class are an essential part of global conversation everywhere. This is especially true in developing countries, where access to the internet is spreading rapidly.
What standard of living awaits those who will join the middle class between now and 2030? The United States has a big part to play. How America encourages and leverages innovation in the coming years will shape the world’s future in profoundly important ways.
Like the middle class, Big Data is also growing at unprecedented rates. Last year humanity created the data equivalent of a stack of books stretching from the Earth to Pluto—30 times. To be more precise, an IDC study estimated that 1.8 zettabytes of data was created in 2011. This is the equivalent of 200 billion two-hour HD movies. All of this data is amassing from email and social media, audio and video downloads, online shopping, business server logs, industrial, environmental, and surveillance sensors, and more.
Members of the middle class are some of the largest contributors, with data produced by and around them doubling every 18 months. What can we do with this data?
Imagine a world where sick people receive better healthcare outcomes at lower costs; where there is reduced congestion on the roads; or greater accuracy in the prediction of severe weather. These things are now possible like never before. The challenge lies in capturing, managing and analyzing enormous data streams to extract these relevant insights.
Effectively managed data empowers organizations to better serve consumers and citizens. It organizes information, unleashes it, and derives powerful value from it. All in just a moment.
Life-changing improvements in health are now within reach. For example, one of the world’s leading medical-research hospitals has reduced the amount of time needed to analyze the DNA in cancer tumors from 3 days to 2 minutes. Patients and their families now receive diagnoses much faster, and therapies are better tailored to each patient’s particular condition.
Big Data makes markets more efficient, creating new opportunities for economic success. For example, thanks to mobile phones and Big Data, shea nut farmers in Ghana and rice farmers in Bangladesh can access more information about prices, weather, and shipping. These farmers have better real time market intelligence than the head of a global corporation had only a few years ago. This allows them to get better prices for their products, the most fundamental of outcomes.
How do businesses benefit? The growth-fostering opportunities are clear. Global business is now being transacted at an incredible rate. In the age of the digital enterprise, businesses need to react faster—even instantly—to the events affecting their operations. They must be able to identify problematic trends, improve their planning, reduce their response time to customers, and provide their mobile sales teams with information to close deals on the spot. Businesses must be able to assess these situations in real time, without waiting days or weeks to extract data from disks. New breakthroughs like in-memory technology are already providing powerful answers, but the potential has only scratched the surface.
President Obama’s second inauguration offers a useful moment to appreciate what Big Data can do for government. It will fundamentally refocus shrinking budgets on better outcomes. Policy makers face heightened pressure to distinguish the programs that work from those that don’t. By combining data from disparate sources and analyzing it in real time, elected officials and citizens together will see a much clearer picture. Big Data analytics can also accelerate and automate the process of identifying improper government payments, reducing fraud and waste. For national security, identification of troubling trends or hidden risks can happen faster and with greater precision. Big Data is literally the main ingredient for any government to do more with less.
The United States should bet big on Big Data. It offers stunning potential to improve people’s lives as businesses, governments, and communities see bold new opportunities to run like never before.
Bill McDermott is co-CEO of business software maker SAP AG.
