Would you believe that, in a survey last year by Econsultancy, eight percent of digital marketers thought big data was a “pointless marketing term”?
However, a survey this year shows that attitudes toward big data and their uses have slightly changed. Seventy-six percent of 446 companies surveyed said that they believed big data revealed optimization opportunities that would not otherwise be possible with traditional approaches. Only six percent said they disagreed with that sentiment.
The survey also proposed other questions to the companies. When asked if big data is an excellent way to bring together online and offline data, 47 percent agreed, 34 percent were neutral, and 18 percent disagreed. It also asked if big data contributed to companies having more data than what their current technology investments could handle – 43 percent said yes, 27 percent were neutral, and 30 percent disagreed. Finally, the survey asked if the companies thought big data was a threat to consumer privacy. Twenty-three percent agreed that it was, 29 percent stayed neutral on the subject, and 48 percent disagreed.
The survey also asked the question of what makes a data scientist different from an analyst. Sixty-four percent of those surveyed agreed that data scientists are the same thing as analysts but with statistical skills. Twenty-four percent were neither agreed nor disagreed with that sentiment, and 12 percent disagreed completely. Conversely, the companies were asked if they believed that data scientists are analysts with programming skills, and the results were nearly even across the board. Thirty percent agreed, 35 percent remained neutral, and 34 percent disagreed.
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