Hendrik, please tell us a bit about yourself and your background!
Hendrik van den Berg, Founder & Managing Director of Neos IT Services, a leading IT service provider and data management company. We focus on the travel, finance and logistics industry. Our goal is to help customers improving their end user experience. We align technology with business demand to deliver business benefits.
Big Data Management is changing the world today. How does Neos help companies to excel in this area?
We enable customers to derive greater value from their data and create growth opportunities and competitive advantages. Whilst the functional use-case is developed by our customer and his business, our focus is to implement the technology stack that supports stable, secure and performant mass data analytics.
We expect that the data-driven revenue share will tenfold over the next five years while the core revenue streams will grow at market pace. There are massive opportunities to generate additional revenue streams from an effective use of big data management. If you take for example the travel industry it is expected that in five years, 20% of revenue will be generated from big data revenue streams.
“ In a time when the amount of data doubles every two years, we have to change the paradigm of data. Data is no longer static in your data warehouse. Decisions are made in real-time through streaming data, a continous flow through your IT systems.”
— Hendrik van den Berg, Neos IT Services
From your perspective what are the biggest challenges organisations face when it comes to data driven innovation?
The three main pillars of big data are: The business need, the data science and technology. We see projects fail if either one of the three is not in place or not properly thought through. In the context of big data, technology is just one aspect of the solution and probably the easier one. Define the business value, translate the business value into mathematical algorithm and last but not least the technological implementation.
Most of our customers do not yet consider technologies that are at the core of big data but try to fix the problem with legacy technologies such as BI reporting tools. Additional challenges in the implementation of big data include industry and governmental regulations, e.g. data protection. Every solution has to respect data privacy and protect personal data from abuse. Not considering these issues will have an impact on the success of any big data implementation.
For those organisations that just started their journey, what would be your recommendation for speeding up the process of turning data into insight and action?
Based on our experience in big data projects, the approach that proves the most successful is the following:
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Everything has to start with a big data value proposition. Something that delivers value to your customers and your business.
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Define the mathematic algorithm for your idea and use data-scientists or make use of best-practice methods.
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When the business value is clear and the data science set-up is defined, find the right technology platform to compute your idea.
Focus on your core competencies and give the special tasks to specialists.
What role does technology play?
In the digital world we live in the technology is all around us and an imperative to all future business. Emerging concepts such as artificial intelligence and machine learning will of course have a significant impact in the future. However, this does not release us from creativity and collaboration between people. Ultimately, technology is a tool to human beings improving their lives.
Considering the amount of data, the technology available, where do you see the biggest impact of data-driven innovation?
In a time when the amount of data doubles every two years, we have to change the paradigm of data. Data is no longer static in your data warehouse. Decisions are made in real-time through streaming data, a continous flow through your IT systems.
Big data management allows you to make smarter decisions based on better intelligence impacting every aspect of your life. Waste can be reduced through more effective use of resources, risks can be reduced through better decisions and the overall customer satisfaction can be increased, e.g. higher utilisation through intelligent pricing and product placement every day, every hour and every minute.
Looking at big data, what can we expect in the next 12 months?
With more and more concrete business benefits the adoption rate of big data across all industries will experience a significant growth in the next 12 months. The foundations will be laid for new revenue streams and building a competitive advantage through a data strategy is crucial for any mid-term business strategy.
