RetailNext listed among real-world applications for Big Data
Leading venture capitalist David Hornik explains the actionable benefits of Big Data.
Splunk board member and August Capital General Partner David Hornik recently wrote a piece articulating his viewpoint that Big Data is not an end in itself but rather an enabler of new opportunities that were previously impossible. He writes,
Big Data is not a thing in and of itself. Big Data is an enabler. Big Data is the realization that our world is now full of lots of data that can not be ignored.
David then lists a series of examples of how this principle works, including offline shopping behavior and RetailNext. He continues,
Understanding and utilizing the underlying data of your business is no longer a strategy, it is a requirement. I wrote years ago that social was not a business in and of itself—it was an enabler of all online business. In the same way, Big Data is not a business in and of itself—it is an enabler of all business, online and offline. The current data explosion will only accelerate as technology does an increasingly good job of capturing a larger number of data points with greater and greater granularity. The result will be massive opportunities for technology to solve real problems using this plethora of data.