Logistics and Supply Chain Management, 6th Edition

Big data and analytics

What is ‘big data’? The exponential growth of data since the turn of the century – and indeed before then – has led to a massive data overload that makes timely interpretation more or less impossible using traditional methods. Every day billions of customers – both companies and individuals – generate billions of transactions, Internet searches, social media posts, mobile phone calls and other activities, all of which create streams of data. Connected devices such as sensors, RFID tags and QR codes continuously add to this tsunami of information. This is big data and the challenge is how to make sense of it all.

Data growth drives companies towards chaos

Data proliferation has escalated over the years with each disruptive ...