Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity
May 2011 | byJames Manyika, Michael Chui, Brad Brown, Jacques Bughin, Richard Dobbs, Charles Roxburgh, Angela Hung Byers

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/big_data_the_next_frontier_for_innovation?cid=other-eml-ttn-mip-mck-oth-1312

This phenomenon is huge and essential to understand how this could impact your business.!!!

The research offers seven key insights:
1. Data have swept into every industry and business function and are now an important factor of production, alongside labor and capital. We estimate that, by 2009, nearly all sectors in the US economy had at least an average of 200 terabytes of stored data (twice the size of US retailer Wal-Mart's data warehouse in 1999) per company with more than 1,000 employees.
2. There are five broad ways in which using big data can create value.
        a. First, big data can unlock significant value by making information transparent and usable at much higher frequency
        b Leading companies are using data collection and analysis to conduct controlled experiments to make better management decisions; others are using data for basic low-frequency forecasting to high-frequency nowcasting to adjust their business levers just in time
       c.big data allows ever-narrower segmentation of customers and therefore much more precisely tailored products or services
      d. sophisticated analytics can substantially improve decision-making.
      e.  big data can be used to improve the development of the next generation of products and services. For instance, manufacturers are using data obtained from sensors embedded in products to create innovative after-sales service offerings such as proactive maintenance (preventive measures that take place before a failure occurs or is even noticed)
3. The use of big data will become a key basis of competition and growth for individual firms.
4. The use of big data will underpin new waves of productivity growth and consumer surplus
5. While the use of big data will matter across sectors, some sectors are set for greater gains
6. There will be a shortage of talent necessary for organizations to take advantage of big data
7. Several issues will have to be addressed to capture the full potential of big data. Policies related to privacy, security, intellectual property, and even liability will need to be addressed in a big data world