The Big Opportunity of Big Data as a Service

In Big Data by Daniel Newman2 Comments

Over the past few years, we’ve seen the as-a-Service (aaS) model emerging as a popular business practice. With the booming trend of moving on-premise functions to the cloud, almost every imaginable business function is being delivered as-a-service. There’s software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service, data-as-a-service, and the newest members of the clan—marketing-as-a-service, operations-as-a-service, and even desktop-as-a-service have arrived on the scene. Can big data be far behind? No. In fact, many vendors like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have started offering cloud-based big data services.

Several reports have found that growing business investment in the cloud is pushing overall IT spending into massive figures. While it’s hard to put an exact estimate on the global big data market, we do know one thing for sure—big data technology and the service sector is a multi-million dollar market that’s growing at a rapid pace.

Though Big Data-as-a-Service (or BDaaS) isn’t quite a buzzword just yet, there are chances it might soon be one. Why? Because big data, being critical information that can help corporations predict customer behavior, market trends, and other changes that will reshape their future business strategies, is vitally important. Yet, most companies don’t have the right people with the right skills in house to make sense of the massive amounts of data being generated. And those amounts are just going to get bigger: IDC predicts that data volume could increase by 44 times the current amount by the year 2020.

With the data deluge showing no signs of stopping, businesses need to have a better strategies on how to deal with it, as well as the resources needed to manage it. But, let’s be real. In-house big data management can be a costly affair and data professionals are expensive hires. This pretty much builds the case for BDaaS as a necessary service model.

What is Big Data-as-a-Service?

This is how Forbes columnist Bernard Marr describes BDaaS in his article, Big Data-As-A-Service Is Next Big Thing:

“At the moment, BDaaS is a somewhat nebulous term often used to describe a wide variety of outsourcing of various Big Data functions to the cloud. This can range from the supply of data, to the supply of analytical tools with which to interrogate the data (often through a web dashboard or control panel) to carrying out the actual analysis and providing reports. Some BDaaS providers also include consulting and advisory services within their BDaaS packages.”

BDaaS can help organizations glean valuable insights from diverse data sources efficiently and cost-effectively. Plus, companies can leave their big data issues in the hands of specialists—BDaaS providers.

Big Data Opportunity for Managed Service Providers

Companies of all stripes and sizes have long been puzzled by what to do with big data. For small businesses, it seems too big; and for big companies, there are just too many options. The modern workplace demands professionals who have core skills when it comes to understanding and analyzing data. This is one way that data scientists and hard core analysts are finding their way into organizations. But this can’t happen overnight, and even as highly skilled data professionals enter the business world, there is much more work to be done with data than there is time. This is why there is a growing need for managed data services.

For MSPs, offering tools and services that provide big data solutions is going to be a huge opportunity and can create multiple revenue streams for them. According to Cloud Guru Founder and CEO Terry Hedden, “the category with the greatest potential relates to helping clients better leverage their data through business intelligence (BI) applications or though knowledge management consulting.”

With more and more businesses beginning to wake up to everything that big data, BDaaS is finding its rightful place alongside all the other as-a-service models. Big data could spell big opportunity for managed service providers. MSPs should make every effort to be proactive, and capitalize on this growing big data trend.

Additional Resources on this Topic:

Everything You Need to Know About Big Data as a Service (BDaaS)
For Marketers Every Tech Trend Hinges On Big Data and Analytics
How to Generate Big Data Revenue Without the Big Investment in a Team of Data Scientists

This post was brought to you by IBM for MSPs and opinions are my own. To read more on this topic, visit IBM’s PivotPoint. Dedicated to providing valuable insight from industry thought leaders, PivotPoint offers expertise to help you develop, differentiate and scale your business.

Photo Credit: Jim Kaskade via Compfight cc

Daniel Newman is the Principal Analyst of Futurum Research and the CEO of Broadsuite Media Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise. From Big Data to IoT to Cloud Computing, Newman makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology projects, which leads to his ideas regularly being cited in CIO.Com, CIO Review and hundreds of other sites across the world. A 5x Best Selling Author including his most recent “Building Dragons: Digital Transformation in the Experience Economy,” Daniel is also a Forbes, Entrepreneur and Huffington Post Contributor. MBA and Graduate Adjunct Professor, Daniel Newman is a Chicago Native and his speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.

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