Big Data My Asterisk

It’s become a catch phrase, and thrown around a lot, and entering the Automotive Aftermarket. 

But does it affect Catalog Management at all?

Short answer: no. Here’s why.

The term Big Data refers to the sheer size of data in today’s world. If Data is King, Big Data is King Kong.

Big Data is simply massive. And it’s getting bigger. More data will be created this year than in all previous years of humankind combined. That was true in 2015, and it’s true again in 2017. In 2015 there was (vaguely guesstimated (using Big Data itself)) 5 trillion gigabytes of data in the world; a year later it was 50 trillion; today, it is close to 500 trillion.

And everybody wants in. Big banks love Big Data; today’s marketing exists on Big Data; sales rely on Big Data; Google was founded on Big Data before Big Data was big; and we, the wee Catalog Mangers of the Automotive Aftermarket, should be laughing at them and their primitive notions of “data”, for one simple reason: King Kong is sloppy.

All the data collected by all those mentioned above has NEVER been looked at with human eyes. Leading companies in Big Data are just now identifying ways to analyze all that data, how to use all that data, how to secure all that data, and how to sell all that data. But not a single one of them is overly concerned with it’s accuracy. And they likely never will be.

It’s simply not important. It’s not required. The huge amount of data, plus the Theories of Statistics and Law of Averages, allow Big Data to be sloppy. The enormous task required to ensure all that data is 100% accurate, insists it be sloppy - the task would be impossible, in the truest sense of the word. We will put a person on Mars – along with her self-flying car – long before Big Data is tame.

Yet, we, on the other hand, have been doing just that for many years.  We have all grueled, and learned, and failed, and learned, and eventually, we’ve all tamed that beast. (For now.)

And it’s not just because we are dealing with data sets much smaller. It’s because our industry does quiet the opposite by insisting our data be 100% accurate. Nobody is going to make a business model out of “best guessing at the proper part” or relying on 80% of their parts fitting the customers car. (Our bosses cringe.)

Simply put, our goal is precision. Quiet the opposite of Big Sloppy Data.

The point is not to discredit the term, nor belittle Big Data with a little comparison.  The point is the two cannot be compared. And a reminder, that when everyone is focused on the big beast, and in awe of the spot light’s shine: King Kong ain’t got nothin’ on us!

(Search Google for references.)