Unstructured Data Analytics

CHAPTER 1The Age of Advanced Business Analytics

In God we trust; all others must bring data.

—Attributed to W. Edwards Deming

INTRODUCTION

If you believe that the data analytics revolution has already happened, think again. After the steam engine, mass production, and Internet technology, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence make up the fourth industrial revolution. However, the motor of this fourth revolution is analytics. The impact of analytics in our societies, our communities, and the business world has just begun. In fact, knowledge gained from analytics in the recent years has already reshaped the marketplace, changing the way we shop, buy, think, vote, hire, play, choose, date, and live. With more than 20 billion connected devices by 2020¹ and more than 5 billion people with IP addresses sharing information and intelligence by 2025, the pace of upcoming changes resulting from analytics is mind boggling. The Internet of Things was the genesis of the Analytics of Things and Analytics of Apps. In the Analytics of Things era, new knowledge, resulting from artificial intelligence, like machine learning, deep learning and cognitive analytics, and blockchain, will be gathered from complex information networks flowing from billions of connected devices and from humans interfacing with their intelligent devices such as machines, apps, and wearables of all kinds.

Today, companies are under extreme pressure to dig deeper into and connect all information and pieces ...