The Commercialization of Big Data*
Vasant Dhar
Professor and Co-Director, Center for Business Analytics
Stern School of Business
Editor-in-Chief, Big Data Journal
Faculty, Center for Data Science, NYU
@vasantdhar
*From “Data Science and Prediction,” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 56 No. 12, December 2013
http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2013/12/169933-data-science-and-prediction/fulltext
Agenda
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What’s the size of the market?
What’s unique about big data?
What gives big data real value?
Where’s the opportunity?
What’s Unique about Big Data?*
• It’s a whole new way of observing and
learning things (minimal pre-programming)
– Diverse sources, types, and structuredness
– Granular
– Analytics: the ability to ask the “right questions”
of the data as quickly as possible
• The right questions are one whose answers
have predictive power, not just explaining the
past
Asking the Wrong Question
Examples of the Right Questions
• Healthcare
– Who is likely to get sick?
• Prevention
• Planning
– What is the best treatment?
• Sports
– What types of players to hire?
– Strategy for next opponent?
– How much risk to take during a game?
• Targeting/advertising/enhancing
– Who to target products or services?
– How much should I bid to advertise?
– How can I improve the customer experience?
Healthcare: What is the Right Question Here?
Clean Period
Diagnosis
Outcome period
T I M E
Are complications associated with the yellow meds?
Or with the gray meds?
Or the yellows in the absence of the blues?
Or is it more than three yellows or three blues?
Or does it have to do with “lifestyle choices?!”
7
The Opportunity
Source: Leadership Excellence in Analytical Practice study, 2014
Top 5 Analytical Tools MBAs
Want
Desired Skill Sets
Data
manipulation/analysis
Data management
Python
SQL
Data visualization
R
Tableau
Hadoop
Top Industries of Interest
Technology
Consulting
Entertainment
Finance
Entrepreneurship
Retail/Luxury
Social Enterprise
Sports
Source: Center for Business Analytics, NYU Stern
Conceptual
understanding of tool
use
Purpose
My job function of
interest uses the
tool.
General interest
My industry of
interest in uses the
tool.
Company I am
interested in uses
the tool
Want to
differentiate myself
My Research
• Prediction in financial markets
– Numerical data
– Unstructured and tagged data
Realized Performance
My Research
• Prediction in financial markets
– Numerical data
– Unstructured and tagged data
• Prediction in networks, media, social, health
• Data governance and “Analytics-Savvy” firms
– What data to keep and why
– Risk and return from data
– What capabilities to develop in-house versus
outsource to the market
Closing Remarks
• Big data is a fertile area for research and practice
– Stern’s Center for Business Analytics brings together
researchers, students, and industry
– Several research projects are around unstructured and
tagged data interpretation, crowds, the intersection of
physical and digitals worlds, and more
• Acquisitions like that of DeepMind by Google are
– a harbinger for impending disruptions
– An indicator of future determinants of competitive
advantage
• We are (finally) entering the age of smart machines
driven by big data and machine learning