Half of organisations say data accounts for up to 75 per cent of their value

Half of all businesses believe the data they process represents as much as three quarters of the value of their organisation. That's according to Microsoft UK's data platform product marketing manager, Anthony Saxby, who was discussing new architectures for greater scalability and compatibility at the Computing Big Data Summit 2013.

Citing Microsoft's research, he said half of all organisations perceive the data they process as 50-75 per cent of their organisation's total value and argued the challenge is exploiting that value.

Part of that challenge is represented by bringing data silos from both inside and outside the organisation together for greater insights into the data they contain. Saxby added that it's important when looking at big data for relationships within it to be examined and paired up in order to monetise it effectively.

According to Saxby, one organisation that is already benefiting from adopting big data solutions is record label EMI. Microsoft's solution has given hundreds of EMI staff across 25 countries access to big data, which is then being used to research how a particular musical artist should be presented in a particular country.

Cloud also adds an extra dimension to how organisations think about big data, especially when it comes to publishing, argued Saxby, adding that it can be a great vehicle for scaling a publishing engine and when dealing with peaks and troughs in data traffic.

Repeating a key theme of the Computing Big Data Summit, Saxby told the audience that Microsoft's customers are interested in bringing structured and unstructured data together in order to harness powerful new insights, something which he said Microsoft can provide with its PolyBase solution.

Ultimately, Saxby concluded, the goal of harnessing big data is to reduce the time it takes to gain insights, thus reducing the time it takes for organisations to make decisions, enabling them to move forward at a faster speed.