Nigerian businesses are exploring bigger data

Experts define big data as collection and analysis of huge unrelated data sources with the plan of deriving meaningful business insights. From my knowledge, there's no agreement on exactly what it represents but that hasn’t stopped Nigerian companies to spend tens of millions of dollars on big data and some have gone ahead to claim good returns. Big data is not only massive volume but also has the capability to produce real-time updates and complex sources, types and categories. In short, big data presents a broader and more complex depiction of reality, which is difficult to reach through conventional surveys. Like tech companies have discovered in Abuja and Lagos, there will be no people who will rely on surveys as primary data sources going forward. We all know how surveys are expensive, time consuming and inaccurate as was the case with Brexit and US elections. This is where big data comes in and Nigerian companies are leading the way in Africa.I do know how a number of major Nigerian organisations understand the potential of big data and are already making effective use of the technology.For example, two banks one based in Lagos and another in Abuja are using big data analytic solutions to extract more accurate and clearer data of their customers to deliver better products and services to the right customers. Also, a courier company in Nigeria is also using the technology to deliver better value to businesses and better customer services, support through improved data analytics that is helping map out the customer journey and optimise marketing strategies and practices.Not left behind are two tele operators in Nigeria that are hoping to be able to achieve to real-time data analytics and improve one to one marketing strategies to enhance the value chain to their customers.
Big data in Nigeria is not only accommodating static data but is also providing dynamic data, which changes rapidly. In simple language, dynamic data comes from online portals such as social media platforms like Instagram, twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. Overall, dynamic data is useful for urgent and short term purposes. Through dynamic data, Nigerian tech firms can quickly identify and respond to critical events, such as fires, diseases or violence. They can even identify the symptoms of radicalism like the case with Boko Haram or predict political preferences like recently concluded Gambian elections.Even English Premier League is using it. Big data machinery will continue to help Nigerian firms know the number of occurrences in a certain period of time, the spread of the country’s states, the cause category, and even the relationship between the group and the actors involved. In other words, big data provides information that is not available from traditional research institution and conventional methods in Nigeria.There’s no doubt big data is a new technique for presenting certain truths and proliferation of information technology is playing a vital role in constructing society’s knowledge. Big data definitely need availability of information technology to process millions and even billions of data, whether structured or not structured, fragmented or intact. It is well known that large volumes of data cannot be processed and analysed by conventional analytical computational techniques. With a big data analytical engine, the original raw unstructured data unveils information through patterns, relationships and coherences.As of now, only Nigerian tech companies, researchers and academicians are interested in big data. Surely, the big data has opened a door to enrich the variety of data, to strengthen the analysis, which further develops opportunities for more elaborate and wide ranging research.The challenge for Nigerian tech firms investing in big data need to ensure there’s validity and reliability since big data is absorbed from open sources like social media and news sites, which is largely a fragmented data. By examining and reconstructing big data to make it reliable will undoubtedly deliver massive return on investments in coming years.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To secure Africa’s future, there’s need to reduce deforestation’s emissions

African countries are home to some of the world’s top forests cover and in DR Congo, we all know the history of Belgian Congo as the country was known before independence from Belgium and how its vast forests and mineral wealth led to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. Despite the decreasing forest cover in African countries there is need for continuous fight to better manage the continent environment. Africa is home to some of the most important forests in the world when it comes to ecosystem conservation and biodiversity and countless species found especially in Madagascar, Tanzania, Uganda and Mozambique. The continent and its population have every reason to be proud of their incredible natural forests and species. Therefore, one would expect that the current political and technocratic class would be serious in engineering comprehensive efforts needed to ensure that this centuries old forests can be sustained and enjoyed by future generations as envisaged by th
Read more

SMEs funding problem in Uganda

Ugandan  economy is driven by SMEs and among them are manufacturers who are a priority economic sector  for Uganda to promote inclusive growth. According to data available, there are more than 10,000 manufacturing units in Uganda that can be categorised as micro and small enterprises.These small businesses are an important  source of employment and contribute significantly to the national output .However, small enterprises often find it difficult to access finance from banks and other formal financial institutions.Many of them are unable to provide collateral to secure loans, procedures are too complex for them, or the administrative cost of serving them is too high for banks to consider them as a profitable market.Even Uganda’s most successful companies have their share of cash flow troubles, especially during growth phases.As we all know, profits and cash flow are not the same thing. You can have a profitable business on paper and not have a dollar in the bank.In some seasonal indus
Read more

Social media helping East Africans stay appraised

Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have emerged as the new meeting points for criminals in East Africa a trend that has baffled security agencies in the region. While some might think of crime activities as happening in secret locations, social media platforms are helping make such wars more public than ever before. Study conducted recently revealed that youthful criminal members have been making threats and violent statements on Twitter or Facebook and even worse threatening their victims without any fear although most of them use fake identities. I came across this piece that basically describes how even underage trolls do not like the crime occurring over anything meaningful. “A couple of young girls that need to be raped, plus a resistance, plus sex equals tomb material,” Kabena K****** says bluntly. “This is a f***ing 18-year-old a**hole statement.” More of these criminal acts are happening online and much so the authorities in the region have failed to
Read more