#three v

Amongst the three Vs of Big Data, Volume, Velocity and Variety, many companies focus on deriving value by addressing the first two, and relatively less from the third. However one could argue that the most transformative solutions could come from tapping into the third V – the Variety of data.

  Often companies solve Big Data problems within the confines of a specific organization function, with the variety of data available with that function. For example, the online sales functions tend to address how they can give real-time and granular recommendations to the customers by improving the characterization of the products and the customers through online browsing and purchase patterns. This taps the volume and velocity of data well, and leverages the few varieties of data that are accessible to the function. Solving such problem is certainly critical, but it is also worth noting that most competitors are likely working on the same very problem, and the customers have already started to expect personalized recommendations i.e. this is already becoming table stakes!

  Today, not only has there been significant proliferation in the variety, but also the technological ability to use this variety is unprecedented. There are machine logs that come from manufacturing shop floors, data coming in variety of formats from suppliers, social data from customers, demand forecasts from resellers, weather projections, competitive information…. The list goes on. 

  Effectively tapping this variety is where the big opportunities could be. Could for example, the online sales team improve the recommendations further by looking at the data coming from shop floors that predicts a likely shortfall due to supplier quality issues. The company could steer the customer towards a different product or variant by giving a price discount.  Similarly, could the manufacturing operations function improve the yield on the shop floor by more closely monitoring the data coming from the field service engineers and customer complaints showing up on social media?