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In many ways, big data is the future of business. The ability to sort, process and analyze the increasing amounts of information that companies now have at their disposal is an important asset. Really profiting from this opportunity, however, takes the right corporate environment. 

The whole company has to be on the same page. If management is unwilling to trust any information that doesn't confirm its "gut feeling", there is little value in compiling a database. Trusting in the collection process is a crucial part of using data well, and an unwilling executive could undermine the the entire process. Before a business agrees that it will adhere to Big Data principles, it has to make sure there is a wholesale commitment to it. 

Another important takeaway from database management is "actionability." What do you want to do with the information you've gathered? Setting concrete goals before looking at the numbers can help guide the discussion and suggest practical solutions. 

Say, for example, you're managing a clothing retailer, and you use FileMaker to determine that your most heavily trafficked hours are between 9 a.m. and noon. Are you able to devote the extra personnel and marketing hours to taking advantage of these findings? If not, the value of this knowledge is sharply curtailed. But if you are adaptable, you could reorganize your sales goals to take advantage of the increased traffic and add extra salespeople to increase conversions. 

If you're a company looking to make big profits with big data, it might take more than just talented FileMaker developers: a cultural change might be needed.

A wide variety of industries have benefited from using custom database software to help organize the massive amount of information they process. As this blog has mentioned before, healthcare could be next in line. 

There's certainly a demand. Most of the information doctors collect exists in free-form notes in Electronic Health Record systems or as handwritten papers stuffed into folders. These relatively ad hoc file storage systems make wholesale analysis prohibitively difficult, which blocks doctors from using past data as effectively as they might. Big data in healthcare could help change that and yield some important benefits. By using custom database software to quickly aggregate and analyze patient histories and symptoms, physicians could better treat patients, address the effects of chronic diseases and reduce readmissions. Doctors could also study demographic information to track the incidence and spread of disease across larger samples of the population. 

There is one major wrinkle. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects patients from having their sensitive personal information accessed, blocks usage of patient health information for purposes other than treatments, operations or billing. The solution to this may be simple: A patient-consent-driven information system. To this end, the federal government has introduced an incentive program with the stated goal of having patient health information shared more easily and with full consent. 

Medicine is a constantly evolving field with a long tradition. The combination of the massive amount of information constantly being gathered and the uniquely high incentive for innovation makes it ripe for a systemic update in data management. Between the new methods for database management and the government incentives for greater patient involvement, this might be the time. 

While it may be lost in the hoopla that is big data, there is one very important element to the strategy that cannot be ignored: big data is going to change the way you do business. 

What do we mean by this? On the surface, it probably sounds like we're overstating the obvious. Of course big data is going to change the way business is done. It's going to allow decision makers to view and analyze information that was previously unavailable, providing companies with the ability to do things never thought possible. But there's far more to it than that. In short, big data is going to change everything about standard business operations.

That's the sentiment of a recent Forbes article titled "Why Big Data Matters." The article talks about the Bayesian inference, the act of making educated guesses and updating them after collecting new data that theoretically enhances the accuracy of these guesses. This was popular during World War II as it allowed soldiers to project the location of German subs, but it never caught on in the business world because there was simply not enough information for it to be practical. 

Instead, businesses mostly adopted the approach created by Ronald Fisher, which involves controlling every aspect of the prediction process. Essentially, it's a less effective method, but it was the best individuals could do with the limited information they have. However, given the growth of data volumes, that is changing dramatically. Because users have access to so much information, they can now trust that new data will consistently flow into their systems, allowing them to constantly update their projections. 

Greg Satell, the article's author, explained this in further detail.

"What you really need to know about big data is this:  [big data] represents a fundamental shift in how we do things," he wrote. "In effect, big data opens the door to a Bayesian approach to strategy where we no longer try to be 'right' based on controlled research and small samples, but rather become less wrong over time as real world information floods in."

The big data revolution is underway, but the only way your company can take advantage of it is if you have the right tools. A custom database software system made by FileMaker developers will allow you to embrace big data and change the way you do business for the better. 

No company wants to be behind the times or its competition when it comes to the latest technology. If other businesses hop on the bandwagon of innovative tools that customers flock to, those organizations are going to progress at a different rate than companies that sit back and wait. However, with so many "must have" devices and services hitting the market, which ones should business owners invest in?

A recent article from ZDNet attempted to answer this by looking at the top 2014 enterprise IT trends. While certain items, like the cloud and smart machines dominate the list, also near the top is software solutions. Whether it is mobile applications or HTML5, this is an area that cannot be ignored.

"Software defined everything," the article reads. "You've heard of software defined networking. And software defined data centers. Now get ready for software-defined everything. Vendors will beat this term to death because they are all trying to defend their turf while growing via adjacent markets. Here's the catch: Vendors aren't likely to support standards that in practice will take their core businesses away."

With more physical IT hardware options like servers going virtual, software appears to be on the verge of taking over. However, it is a system that can be complicated, especially for businesses that lack strong internal tech knowledge. By partnering with a software development firm, organizations receive a hand with custom application creation and ensure they have a solid foot in the future of business operations.

Incorporating big data into the human resources department has become increasingly beneficial in the technology and information age, but a number of organizations are struggling with formulating an effective strategy.

Monitoring the behaviors and actions of employees and developing reports are all crucial elements in the human resources department, and if it can effectively capture that information and utilize it to better overall operations, the business as a whole can benefit. Like all areas impacted by big data, however, these processes have to be efficient. This requires the development of systems and the implementation of strategies designed to streamline the employee analysis process. 

According to research detailed in Forbes, only 14 percent of organizations have effectively used data to monitor and process employee behaviors and actions.

"What are the rest doing?  Dealing with reporting," wrote Josh Bersin, the article's author. He added that the challenges faced by these organizations need to be mitigated, particularly when considering the benefits of valuable employee data management.  "In addition, these HR teams are four times more likely to be respected by their business counterparts for their data-driven decision-making, giving them true potential to help change the business," he continued.

Much like other business big data projects, companies can benefit from a FileMaker development project. The scalability of these solutions can be very beneficial because the amount of data in the HR space is likely only going to increase as time goes on. Building a custom database software system will give businesses the ability to capitalize on their information and develop stronger HR departments.

As you begin to plan your strategies and budgets for 2014, it's important to stay on top of the latest trends, particularly in the realm of technology. Application development is growing in the business sector, as more companies are working with developers to build solutions for processing data, communication and boosting overall productivity. The question is, how are these apps being developed now?

A study conducted by Forrester found three trends regarding application development. They are:

• Cloud deployment models are changing the economics of applications
• User experience is improving
• Componentization supporting smart functionality.

All three are essentially geared toward improving the application's performance in an environment that's most convenient for users. In the business realm, this is crucial for those tasked with processing and reporting on data. Because we are more connected than ever before, hosting these solutions in the cloud has become essential. Moreover, the cloud has offered new advantages by allowing organizations to upgrade and manage their solutions more frequently.

Traditional on-premises applications are tapped out," the study says. "Software upgrades have become so costly and difficult that most customers defer them for years, sometimes even for a decade."

The future of application development will allow users to customize and manipulate their solutions with greater ease. They will be able to scale and flex their software in a way that accommodates any business change, such as new users brought on by a hiring spike or a massive growth of data. 

Partnering with a FileMaker developer will allow companies to obtain the solutions they need to keep up with trends and maintain their economic viability as software applications continue to evolve.

With every major trend in business comes a myriad of questions, concerns and misconceptions about it. Big data is no different. Because it's an evolving concept and some of the ideas behind it are very new, there are those who aren't entirely sure how it works. At the very least, their ideas about how to make it work aren't always correct.

This sentiment was expressed in a recent Wired article that listed and debunked three myths pertaining to big data management. According to Juergen Urbanski, the article's author, the three lies businesses are telling themselves are: "We don't have a big data problem, we don't have the budget required for big data and we don't have the data scientists needed to process and analyze big data."

The first issue is relatively simple to address. Organizations simply have to come to the realization that their data processing has to be better for them to maintain their viability in an increasingly data-controlled future. Even if a company doesn't feel like it has enough data to consider its situation a "big data problem" its digital information will undoubtedly continue to increase. Urbanski said this could result in problems when infrastructures are maxed out.

"First, I have yet to meet a large organization that does not have a data management problem, even at terabyte scale," he wrote. "The problem might be that existing enterprise data warehouses are reaching capacity limits, that older data which has been archived sits "in the dark," meaning it cannot be queried for insights, or that a lot of potentially valuable data is simply not collected or discarded too soon."

The main theme behind the other two myths is that businesses believe they cannot properly run a successful big data campaign because they lack adequate resources. This is not true, because having the right software system in place can assist a number of big data efforts. 

Developing a FileMaker solution can allow companies to effectively manage their information deficiencies and manage them without having to spend a lot of money or utilize a tremendous amount of personnel. A FileMaker-based custom database software system provides the ability for businesses to collect, track, store and analyze all data, which will help mitigate any potential dangers related to excessive volumes of information. 

Storing data in the cloud has proven to be a successful strategy across a wide range of industries and it can benefit many companies of different sizes. That’s its primary advantage over on-premise data management. But there are other benefits that allow data managers to control their information more effectively in the cloud rather than on-site.

Perhaps one of the most important elements to consider is the ability to remove the complexity of data management in an on-premise environment. The infrastructure typically found on-site doesn’t provide the flexibility businesses need. In a cloud environment, and the help of a custom database software system, businesses can successfully sort and organize their data in a way so it can be found quickly when needed without wasting a tremendous amount of resources.

An article in Tech Republic recently talked about the cloud’s ability to remove complexity from big data. Nick Hardiman, the article’s author, talked about the use of a relational database management system on site and how it can be improved with the help of the cloud.

“If the infrastructure is on-premise, there are traditional problems to overcome,” he said. “Managing on-premise RDBMS is expensive and time consuming.”

FileMaker developers can create a system for you to properly manage all of your information in a controlled environment. These solutions are flexible and scalable, so when your data volume grows (and trust us, it will) you will be properly prepared. Hosting the solution in the cloud removes some of the challenges pertaining to having to process data in an on-site infrastructure and improve the overall effectiveness of your data processing.

The concept of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) has been a major topic of discussion in the business realm for the better part of this decade. The advancement of mobile technology has brought us to a point where employees often own gadgets that perform better than the traditional computers deployed to them at their jobs. Add that to the fact that individuals who bring mobile devices to work can start their tasks early during their commute to work or continue to work on them when they go home for the day and BYOD has simply too many benefits to be ignored.

But, despite the advantages, many have been reluctant to adopt BYOD. The main reason why? Their increasing volume of sensitive data.

Today, there is so much digitized information that flows in and out of business infrastructures that keeping on track of it all can be a hefty challenge. Keeping it protected can be even more difficult, which is why companies have been so adamant about ensuring information never leaves the confines of the office. When employees access sensitive company data on their personal devices, they may take that information with them when they go home for the evening and bring their devices. This is a troubling proposition for many people.

An article in the online publication Pando Daily suggests data is the one factor limiting the effectiveness of BYOD. Jaspreet Singh, the article's author, says that putting data in the hands of an employee off the clock is too risky.

"Without encryption and remote data deletion capabilities, regulated information such as patient data, customer lists, bids, business presentations, product designs, company financials and a whole litany of other sensitive information either stored on mobile devices or sent as email attachments is readily available to data thieves as well as departing employees who can share it with their next employer," he writes.

That doesn't mean companies should be afraid of BYOD. After all, it does offer numerous advantages if businesses can find a proper way to control the protection of their data. This starts from formulating a system that provides organizations with a clear and accurate view of all their information, which can alleviate the risk of any being lost or compromised in any other fashion if it is displayed on a personal device outside of work. A custom database software system can provide this benefit.

The big data era can only go so far.

Businesses are using this concept to track more information as a means to benefit their organization, but, as is always the case in our society, we start to grow tired of an idea or trend after a while. Or, we try to generate innovative approaches at a particular concept. This is happening with big data, and the next leap in its usefulness may be "big little data."

What is that, you ask?

It's the idea of applying big data principles to smaller sets of information. There is a tremendous amount of small data sets across the business infrastructure and they have to be properly managed. If data is collected in volumes where it's manageable but the same big data principles are applied to its management, companies can control their information more effectively.

Robert Morton, a senior software engineer, wrote a piece concerning the next step in big data. His belief is that there will be two components of information management. One is big little data and the other is data integration, which refers to the combination of disparate data parts. 

"These two components come together in an interesting way," Morton wrote. "As with databases, data integration has been around for some time but has not evolved at the same pace as data management systems. Data integration is currently not suited to blending massive data sets with numerous small data sets, since a big bottleneck in data integration is in requiring human involvement to help identify the common facets between two otherwise unrelated data sets."

Integrating data will require the breakdown of information so it can be easily manageable. This is a challenge, but will ultimately lead to more successful information management efforts.

Remember, regardless of how you manage your information, you will need appropriate tools in place to improve the way it's handled. A custom database software system will go a long way toward allowing you to break your information down and make smart decisions based on its contents and organization. Managing information integration requires an understanding of what data needs to be processed and where it needs to go. A FileMaker-based system can provide users with the tools needed to accomplish this, among any other data management goals. This will be important as we move into the future of big data management.