5 Real Stories of Big Data Analytics In Action

IDC predicts that the Big Data technology and services market will grow at a 26.4% compound annual growth rate to $41.5 billion through 2018, or about six times the growth rate of the overall information technology market!

If youre wondering if this hype really amounts to anything on the ground, read on to see how organizations below are using analytics to up their game. Whats really interesting is they are from different geographies, different verticals and are using analytics to achieve different outcomes.

A better life and great music festivals in the City of Barcelona all thanks to a Big Data BI Solution

Source: microsoft.com

When City personnel in Barcelona, Spain, are planning the next city festival or speculating about how to better the public transportation system, they dont merely depend on their gut. They use a BI service that helps make future festivals better by mining the data from the previous years festival. They study attendees movement patterns and opinions about entertainment venues, sanitation, transportation, restaurants, and even banking. Analytics also helps them pinpoint which musical groups people would like to see, based on the social media comments and the number and type of music downloads. How cool is that! Read more here.

Giving the customers what they want: Pier 1 Imports

When retailer Pier 1 Imports was looking for a way to better connect with its customers using insights and data, it decided to pilot a predictive analytics solution based on Microsoft Azure Machine Learning and Microsoft Power BI. With the solution in place, Pier 1 Imports can use data insights to predict the popularity of its products in the future. It can also create a dynamic website using predictive modelling and design more efficient and effective marketing campaigns. To know more click here.

Halo 4 Team keeps the game fabulous using New User Insights

During the Halo 4 Infinity Challenge in late 2012, Halo 4 gamers took to their Xbox 360 consoles en masse for a five-week online battle. It was exciting, no doubt. But what was even more exciting was that, behind the scenes, a powerful new Microsoft technology platform called HDInsight was capturing data from the cloud and feeding daily game statistics to the tournaments operator, Virgin Gaming. The data was used to not only update online leaderboards each day, but also to detect cheaters and remove them from the boards.

Source: wallpapercave.com

But even more significantly, this technology was used even outside of the Infinity Challenge to get insights and update the game almost weekly, using direct player feedback to tweak the game. In the process, the games multiplayer ecosystem continues to evolve with the community as the title matures in the marketplace. Click here to know more.

National University of Singapore studies online student behavior to design more targeted offerings

The University wanted to enhance its learning management system and implemented a Big Data solution based on Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Enterprise to gain better insight into students online behavior. As a result, it can analyse multiple terabytes of information and design more targeted applications and services. Reporting time is down from two weeks to less than a day! Read more here.

Arvato Financial Solutions helps customers save a whopping 27 million with its Fraud Detection Service powered by analytics

Arvato Financial Solutions used Microsoft Big Data solutions and intuitive BI tools to deliver faster fraud analyses to its clients. This can potentially help their clients save a mind boggling 27 million (US$37 million) annually. And it has cut the time to deliver credit scores, freeing resources for new applications and servicesand greater customer satisfaction. You can read more here.