Information is a necessity for all businesses, regardless of size and sector. Whether it's data on customer spending trends or how employees are using their time in the office, data offers businesses a chance to gain valuable insights.

With the rise of Big Data, the term used to describe large sets of information, it's going to be increasingly important for companies to start putting the right management strategies in place and overcoming obstacles relating to cost and adoption.

Doing so will mean businesses have access to the information they need without running into problems.

Big Data on the rise

It can often be easy to write off new trends as simply passing buzzwords or fads that will quickly fade in favour of more traditional approaches, but this isn't the case with Big Data.

The sheer amount of information involved in the trend supplies companies with the foundation from which to draw detailed insights around a number of areas.

What's more, once the appropriate strategies are in place a business can continue to gather and assess data.

Big data is so useful that Telsyte predicts 65 per cent of Australian enterprises will have implemented it by 2018.

So what are the key barriers preventing Big Data uptake?

Facing cost and integration issues

The recently published Telsyte report delved into exactly what was holding back Big Data initiatives and noted that Chief Information Officers identified cost and integration. These were identified as the primary barriers to adoption.

"CIOs have stated the perceived cost of big data software and solutions is the biggest barrier to adoption so the market is primed for low up-front cost options such as those offered by cloud providers and pay-per use options," said Telsyte Senior Analyst Rodney Gedda.

"This can help identify a return on big data investments." 

Telsyte noted that the majority of Big Data analysis is currently carried out onsite, but 30 per cent of organisations are looking to move these operations to the cloud within the next 12 months.

The cloud could make Big Data adoption a substantially easier prospect, especially when the cloud services are managed by a provider and not the company.

What's more, these providers can scale the storage allocation nearly instantly in most cases, allowing businesses to increase or decrease their Big Data initiatives. This is compared to a traditional onsite analysis method, where the business would need to procure all of the necessary hardware to store the information.

Cloud technologies rectify both cost and integration issues and could go some way towards making big data more attractive for organisations.

How can businesses manage Big Data?

A Big Data initiative cannot rely solely on infrastructure to succeed, however, as there also needs to be strong and capable control over the strategy itself.

This helps to ensure that the business continually extracts value from the information and the strategy does not go off course. But how can organisations manage such large initiatives?

The answer is an IT framework like ITIL, which is designed to ensure a business derives value from an IT project. Once it's in place, and personnel have all of the appropriate training, organisations can use ITIL to effectively take advantage of Big Data.

It's important to realise that ITIL also has applications beyond Big Data and can be used across various other IT projects. For example, if the business is implementing another new technology it could be a good idea to use ITIL as an effective guiding tool.

Get in touch with the team at ALC Training today if you're interested in using ITIL to guide the next big technology project in your business.