Sharing Economy and Big Data Analytics

6The Art of Analytics

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.

Mark Twain

6.1. Introduction

Through the previous chapter, you have understood that Big Data has marked a major turning point in the use of data and is a powerful vector for growth and profitability. A complete understanding of a company’s data and potential is, without a doubt, a new vector of performance.

For a company to successfully use Big Data, it is essential to obtain the right information and sources of knowledge, so as to ultimately help the company make more informed decisions and achieve better results.

But to achieve this, a company needs to go beyond simply answering the question about amounts of data, because Big Data isn’t just about collecting data, but also about using it effectively.

Data is therefore a form of wealth that we cannot achieve without understanding and mastering the process that leads us to this wealth.

This process, which gives the company the power to gain a competitive advantage, is called analysis. This is why when you run into the term “Big Data”, you often hear the term “Analytics” in the same sentence.

In the Big Data universe, data and analysis are totally interdependent: one without the other is practically useless. In other words, there is no data without analysis and no analysis without data. The process we apply to data is the means ...