I feel extremely lucky and privileged to work in the field of Big Data, where I am able to help companies and government organizations across all sectors and industries find new and better ways to use data and analytics to deliver real value. My work allows me to learn about new and innovative ways companies apply Big Data.

With this book I wanted to provide a compressive overview of the current state of play in Big Data. However, in such a fast-moving environment, that is difficult. This last week I have worked with a credit card provider who is doing amazing things with big data, analysing millions of transactions in near real time. This would have made another great chapter for this book. Today, I have been in touch with two of the companies featured in this book that have implemented new initiatives and applied new technology to derive even better value from their big data. Next week, I am going to Spain to meet the analytics team at FC Barcelona to explore how Big Data and analytics are used in professional football.

This field is developing so fast that it is impossible to capture everything that is happening. I hope this book has given you a good overview of the things happening right now. It hopefully shows that Big Data is very real and companies are using it every day to improve what they do and how they do it.

The next few years will see companies who ignore Big Data be overtaken by those who don’t. I very much believe that any organization without a Big Data strategy and without plans in place to start using Big Data to improve performance will be left behind.

It is impossible to predict the future of Big Data, but I can see the term disappearing (because it will no longer be needed to emphasize a new phenomenon); in fact, I have never liked the term, because it overemphasizes the size of data rather than the variety and what we do with it. I much prefer to talk about SMART Data, as outlined in my previous book Big Data: Using SMART Big Data, Analytics and Metrics To Make Better Decisions and Improve Performance.

SMART applications of Big Data start with your strategy in order to identify the areas in which data can make the biggest difference to your performance and decision making. Only once you are clear about the strategic questions Big Data could help you to answer should you start to collect and analyse the data to help you answer those questions and transform your organization. I believe the case studies in this book show how these principles are applied well. However, in practice I see a lot of companies that get lost in the Big Data opportunities and end up hoarding data in the mistaken believe it will, some day, become useful.

My biggest piece of advice would be to start with your strategy and identify the big challenges and areas in which data will make the biggest difference. Only then collect and analyse the data that will help you meet those challenges. Don’t fall into the trap of collecting and analysing everything you can and nothing that matters.

In terms of other future developments, I also see huge innovations in related fields, such as the Internet of Things, machine learning and artificial intelligence. These will affect the developments of Big Data and make the phenomenon become even more important.

If I were to look into the crystal ball then I would see an increasing move to real-time analytics where large volumes of data (structured and unstructured) are analysed in almost real time to inform decision making and to feed machine-learning algorithms.

There is no doubt that Big Data will give us many innovations and improvements but it will also challenge us in areas such as data privacy and data protection. The ability to analyse everything we do in the wrong hands can cause unthinkable harm. It will be up to all of us to ensure the right legal frameworks are in place to protect us from the misuse of Big Data.

Overall, Big Data is a fascinating and fast-moving field. I will continue to share my insights and the latest developments. If you would like to keep informed and continue the debate then please connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter, where I regularly share all my writings. You can find me on LinkedIn under Bernard Marr and on Twitter with the handle: @bernardmarr.

For more information and to get in touch with me, please visit my website at www.ap-institute.com, where you can find lots of relevant articles, white papers, case studies, videos and much more.