Published on the 15/11/2012 | Written by Newsdesk
Analysts say there are big opportunities for big data on the horizon in APAC, but warn that we may not have the skills to fulfill them…
As global markets improve in 2013 and resume growth spending in Asia Pacific is forecast to reach US$743 billion in 2013, an increase of 7.8 percent over 2012. Asia Pacific remains one of the “bright spots” of the global IT market and Peter Sondergaard, Gartner senior vice president and global head of research said it will allow organisations in this region to “accelerate competitiveness,”.
Sondergaard explained to attendees at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Sydney that, “Organisations in Asia Pacific will be able to innovate and compete using what we call the nexus of forces, or the intersection of cloud, mobile, social and information. New business models will emerge in this region.”
According to Gartner, big data is one of the standout opportunities. By tapping a continual stream of information from internal and external sources, businesses today have an endless array of new opportunities for transforming decision-making; discovering new insights; optimising the business; and innovating their industries.
Big data creates a new layer in the economy which is all about information, turning information, or data, into revenue. This will accelerate growth in the global economy and create jobs.
By 2015, 4.4 million IT jobs globally will be created to support big data. Of these, 960,000 will be in the Asia Pacific region. Every big data-related role in Asia Pacific will create employment for three people outside of IT, so a total of four million jobs will be created in Asia Pacific. However, only one third of the IT roles will be filled due to lack of skills in big data.
“Big data is about looking ahead, beyond what everybody else sees,” Sondergaard says. “You need to understand how to deal with hybrid data, meaning the combination of structured and unstructured data, and how you shine a light on ‘dark data.’ Dark data is the data being collected, but going unused despite its value. Leading organisations of the future will be distinguished by the quality of their predictive algorithms. This is the CIO challenge, and opportunity.”
Finding people with the skills to do this will be pivotal in the success of future organisations. Governments and organisations will need to focus on education and skills development to remain competitive.
