Spend less on big data collection and more on effective interpretation, says Autonomy

Stop 'pouring money into buying hardware' says Brierton

Businesses need to stop "pouring money" into big data storage hardware and software acquisitions, and spend resources on insight and interpretation, Autonomy has warned at today's Computing Big Data Summit.

In a reimagining of ROI that Autonomy calls "returns on information", senior lead in EMEA marketing Richard Brierton explained that business finds itself "increasingly in this 24/7, 365 environment where we need to make decisions right now, so time as value is becoming more important."

The solution, said Brierton, is that companies need to change the balance of their big data spend.

"The more insight we get, quicker, at lower cost, the gretaer the value in return of information," said Brierton. "It's interesting to know that companies still focus on pouring money in buying more and more hardware, more and more software, to simply store the information; to try and keep it all, saying ‘You know what? We might need it at some time in the future'."

"What they don't realise is that simply by investing in all this stuff, they're reducing their return."

Brierton said that the "insight" required to gain returns from information rests on several factors. For a start, vital data sources and the ability to access them are dependent on how many such sources a system can handle, as well as the depth of the analytics possible with the solution the business has chosen.

Most importantly, said Brierton, value is dependent on "how relevant you can make that information to higher level decision makers within your organisation".

There's no point sending just a bunch of information to your boss on a spreadsheet that explains the current situation," said Brierton. "He's going to want to know what the trends are. That's insight."