(by Sandro Zilli, Head of Aidr Innovation and Digital Growth Observatory) There is a wave of objective and concrete change, not simply declared and unstoppable, which is driven by the transformation of the customer, who tends to have such digital behaviors in his life normal that it is no longer conceivable that he can have completely different ones in his everyday life.

In an era in which information is widespread and accessible at zero cost, consumers now live in a digital reality with immediate expectations. In a world based on exponential technologies, everything from information research, to business transactions, to marketing feedback, generates data at blazing speed. Being able to transform this data into usable information in real time increasingly often makes the difference between gaining market share or losing customers to the advantage of competitors.

It is now evident that data is not marginal within organizations but tends to become a determining factor for making decisions, discovering critical insights, differentiating and creating the ideal conditions to obtain a competitive advantage in an increasingly turbulent and highly competitive. Information is therefore crucial for orienting oneself and understanding the future that is manifesting itself before others, in its increasingly divergent forms and trajectories.

The downside is the problem that data alone is not effective information. In order to transform raw data into advantageous insights, increasingly powerful and performing analysis platforms and algorithms are needed, managed and oriented by competent personnel: understanding, relativizing and applying critical thinking today are still human prerogatives. Without the human ability to read data, understand new correlations, and pick up weak clues and signals, the information produced can be useless or even misleading. In this regard, in the current market, among the skills most requested by managers is the ability to analyze and use data. Being able to develop a successful strategy starting from a predictive data analysis, identify signals that can lead to the identification of existing processes, understand market phenomena (even the most inexplicable ones), represents an added value and a strong discriminant to obtain a role at the top of organizations.

The data, therefore, measure phenomena and for a long time the potential information that derives from them has been neglected. Understanding the full potential of data can accelerate processes and performance while driving innovation. The challenge, therefore, is not knowing many answers, but knowing how to ask the right questions. Statistics are in the machines, in the algorithms, in the models, but if we ask the wrong questions, the machines offer us the wrong answers.

Therefore, becoming familiar with technologies and techniques allows you to establish the right criteria to select effective solutions for your organization, providing a significant competitive advantage: understanding and processing data gives access to inestimable wealth, both for companies and for society. .

Understanding data is for all companies, even small ones, a support in understanding customer needs and is the main way to optimize their offer and respond with more speed and precision to market needs, also obtaining greater stability in financial terms. and strategic as the risk of making mistakes is significantly reduced.

On the customer side, Big Data are automatically generated by the users themselves and therefore there is no need for effort or strategy, but you can simply “enjoy” the results of analyzing the information produced; in this way companies collect data that allow them to interpret customer wishes more accurately, configuring a "customer centric" approach to activities to listen to their target and understand their needs and behaviors.

BIG DATA AND IOT

When we talk about Big Data we cannot overlook the data coming from the Internet of Things, that is the data generated by connected devices, which represent one of the most important opportunities for various sectors. From retail to mobility, passing through logistics and manufacturing, companies, through the multiplication of connected devices, increasingly sophisticated also thanks to the contribution of Artificial Intelligence, can now collect a lot of information on the functioning of the devices and on the people who use.

An example above all is represented by predictive maintenance! Through sensors, generators of enormous amounts of data, the platforms can check the health of the machinery and devices, in order to detect any anomalies, predict any malfunctions and then solve them before they give rise to failures and blocks in the production of the good or service. All this is possible thanks to the monitoring and processing of data from the measurement of abnormal vibrations, thermography, the use of ultrasound techniques to detect electrical dispersions, etc ...

THE DATA DRIVEN MODEL

It is therefore evident that the collection and analysis of data are becoming increasingly important today in defining a company's strategy. Gaining a high-level understanding of business information helps build partnerships with customers and suppliers making them solid, generates stability in turnover, allows you to cut costs, invest in internal talent and gain a business advantage.

An information-driven company is an organization that cultivates a culture of continuously using data to make all business decisions. All departments and people in the company have access to the data and are encouraged to consider and review it in their daily activities and decision making.

It is therefore the acquisition of a data driven mindest that places data as a strategic pillar of the business and not as a technical factor to be managed. Having a data driven approach means being supported by data, to make informed decisions, based on objective facts and not on personal perceptions. In practice, a method that allows you to use an accurate analysis of data and information (carried out both from a monitoring and survey and predictive point of view), to make crucial choices for the organization and to help management understand the signals weak of how the future begins to unfold.

The transformation into a data-driven company cannot therefore take place with technology alone, but with a path of cultural change that introduces new mindsets capable of bringing the culture of data to all company levels. In the era of knowledge, the various company departments such as sales, marketing, human resources, operations, etc., must work in synergy with the team dedicated to analytics, favoring the realization of innovative business models with the data and information center.

Big Data: asking the right questions to understand the future that unfolds

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