Maa703 Accounting | Big Data Assessment Answers

Main Body (Discussion):

Big Data in Business:

Big data in business has been growing at a very fast pace. It has turned its attention towards big data. As it is at a nascent stage and is comparatively new, the actual help which it provides to the businesses is still very unclear. Its active involvement in the business has not been at a very mature stage, because of being a comparatively newer concept, it has not been actively involved, in the business. The integration of big data in businesses have been done at a slower pace. Big data integration has been about thinking in a bigger way, holistically and inclusively into the business structure.  In this report, the researchers have enabled its readers in understanding the environment of big data. It generally consists of seamlessly utilizing data sets, lower costs and flexibility, stability in the data volumes etc. However, with the growth in the business operations and expansion in the operations across the international businesses, have led the businesses into adopting big data in its day to day usage. This has enabled the businesses to take an analytical view into its operations, which has given them an important edge over their competitors.

Big data analytics and firm performance:

In the research conducted by (Wamba et al., 2017), this study proposed the Business data analytics capability model (BDAC). Here the primary focus has been on the impact of the business data analytics on the performance of the firms (FPER). Here the mediating effects of the process-oriented dynamic capabilities (PODC) on the connection between BDAC and FPER has also been tested and explained. Here the data of 297 Chinese IT managers and business analysts had been done (Ask, Magnusson and Bredmar 2016). Business development analytics has now become a game changing part of the present business environment. It enables improving in the efficiency and effectiveness of the strategic potential of the businesses. The present literature investigated by the authors of the research have presented various interesting observations which helps in indicating a positive relationship between the two. It has been seen that big data analytics helps in providing a better competitive advantage over the others. Many prominent example shave been indicated by the article’s literature where the case of Amazon has been mentioned, where it is stated that Amazon provides personalised purchasing to its customers because of the usage of the big data analytical tools (Amazon.com 2018). It also helps in measuring the performance each of its sectors and departments.The findings have supported the significant relationship and influence on the measurement of performance of various businesses. The data derived from the analysis of various data related to the performance of various employees of a firm, helps in making important decisions. This research also confirmed the tough interceding role of the PODC in working towards the improvement of the insights about the business and in improving the performance of the firm. The findings also suggested that BDAC has a strong impact on both PODC and the FPER, where PODC was identified as a sturdy intermediary.

Big data use in performance measurement and management:

Big data analysis has always been at the forefront due to its immense contribution in enhancing the overall development of any business organisation. It has a pivotal role to play in terms of cost reduction, faster and effective decisions making along with providing the necessary knowledge and the tools required for producing new products and services. The massive volumes of data which are being generated through the various components of the technological world has compelled the need for investigating these data. Interpretation of these data in a proper manner is another challenge which needs to be addressed, as there is a lack of understanding and interpretation of big data analytics. As for the decision makers, it is very important for extracting information from the large volumes of data, and using the same for various important business purposes. In todays’ world, IT is claimed to have a very important role to play in designing the performance measurement systems. The advancement in the IT has led to the improvement in the collection, measurement, analysis sand the communication of data within organisations, for effective performance measurement procedures through the use of IT and big data analysis. As per the findings of this report, it has been seen that there exists a wide variety of challenges in introducing and implementing big data analytics in the case of performance management. The three Vs of big data analytics are volume, velocity and variety. Each of these Vs have been experiencing trouble in their implementation in the field of performance measurement. The technical complexities have increased the problems of implementation. The introduction of big data in the field of measurement of performancesbrings with it the risk of increased complexities. It will take some time in its proper implementation in the case of performance measurement in a very large scale.

The next big thing in performance measurement: Big Data:

Here through this report, a close relationship between the big data and the performance management system has been provided. Generally big data usually consists of data which are produced in huge variety, volumes and velocities. In association with this, it must be said that big data requires equally bigger tools in analysing their information, their relevance in this age has brought the attention of various reputed business organisations into adopting it in their business systems.  It specifically requires statistical techniques, visualisation techniques, and computational resources for its effective usage (Mello, Leite and Martins 2014). The capability of gathering high quality of data and using them for the purpose of gaining a competitive advantage over its rivals. The advent of big data has ushered in a new revolution in the sector of informational technology. This could also have an effect on the performance measurement. These systems of measuring the performances consists of planning, controlling and improvement in the businesses. Thus, the importance of big data analytics in the performance measurement systems is very important. This report by Carlos and Paulo prepared in the year 2014 has made some important contributions in the section of big data analytics towards performance measurement.

Some of the important observations towards this study have been discussed over here. As per the results of this research it can be said that there exists no clear connection or relationship between big data analytics and performance of any business firms. Based on the results of study it could be stated that there exists no correlation between the two. However, some of the literature review on this topic suggests that there does exists a relationship between the two. The main explanation behind this is that the emergence of big data into the mainstream world is a comparatively new issue. It can be seen that the relationship between the two deserves much more attention and consideration for the purpose of integrating and developing new tools in analytics, data visualisation and a new type of performance measurement systems.  It must be brought to the attention of the experts that the influence and significance of big data for business purposes have not decreased any bit and the convergence in the use of big data analytics in the process of performance measurement is very important. Their convergence would therefore go a long way in adding more value to the process of businesses and improve the performance of its departments as well as employees.  

Big Data: The Management Revolution:

According to experts it has been said that the first evidence in between the relationship between the two was first seen in the report of McAfee and Brynjolfsson, where it had been said that big data allows managers of business organisations to know their business and the processes of their businesses in a better way (McAfee and Brynjolfsson 2013). Such knowledge about their businesses helps in effectively carrying out the performances and in taking better decisions about the business. This would subsequently lead towards a better performance. Certainly in many cases it would provide a high level of competitive advantage, which provides the competition an opportunity to grow.

According to the experts, it has been said that there are various reasons for the close association of business performances and big data analysis.  This is because it helps in taking effective decision making and better action taking. However, as per the experts not many articles were found with regards to the big data and performance measurement (Forbes.com 2018). A great potential remains to be unearthed and it vehemently deserves the attention and observation of scholars and practitioners and scholars with the intention to create more value to the organisations. However, the systematic literature review which was conducted have shown that there have been very big and important applications in planning, controlling and improvement in business performance. However some important challenges have been seen in the way of the implementation of the usage of the big data in the everyday business were leadership, technology, decision making and talent management. Strategic implementation of planning, controlling and improvement in the business processes have also been seen because of the involvement of big data analytical tools(Walker 2014). It has been proved through this report that data driven decisions are much better than those, which are taken sans any kind of big data involvement. Here it can be concluded that all the businesses would not be fully accepting big data as one of their effective tools for taking decisions but the primary idea behind this is that data, is the biggest and the surest bet, in achieving effective performance measurements and future success in business (Provost and Fawcett 2013).  Thus, it can be said that the integration between the big data analysis and the involvement of performance measurement is very essential.

Big data and the measurement of public organisation’s performance:

In this report prepared by (Rogge et al 2017), a review of the academic literature and research associated with the utility of big data analytics in the public sector’s efficiency and performance have been discussed.

Big data can be used in transforming the management procedures of the various entities of the public sector. Effectual usage of big data can help in boosting the competence by dropping the amount of inputs which are required for creating the authentic amount of productivity level or by escalating the level of service for present input use. Big data has helped and is helping the public sector in a variety of ways. It helps the human resource departments in attracting the best talents by going helping in analysing large volumes of data in a short period of time, thereby inviting quality candidates for the job (Rogge, Agasisti and De Witte 2017). Managers of Government and the leaders in-charge of the public sectors can utilize performance dashboards including big amounts of operational and monetary data for evaluating and comparing the effectiveness of the different sections across these public sector enterprises.

However, there are a variety of limitations of the usage of big data analytical tools for the purpose of measuring performance management. According to Desouza and Jacob (2014), these limitations have been divided broadly into two categories which are the privacy associated problems and technical problems. In the case of the privacy related problems, there is a danger that increase in the usage of the big data could lead to increasing cases of privacy intrusions. Similarly in the case of technical difficulties it was seen that there was a problem of efficiently handling large chunks of big data, as enough machinery or technology for the same was not present, moreover (Chen, Chiang and Storey 2013). Thus the main challenge is the digitization of the big data. Thus, thorough research on the usage of big data analytics in terms of the business is still a burning issues, where research has not been completed yet. It needs the consideration and attention of a large number of academicians, scholars, government agencies and the private as well as public sectors, only then its usage in the mainstream business would gather momentum.

Influence of Big Data Analytics on Decision Making and Performance:

Big data has become a major topic of interest for both academicians as well as business organisations. It is how they make the use of this big data, which makes it useful. It helps in taking and making important business decisions. The present study delves into the impact which big data has on the performance and how it leads to better performance. Through the findings it has been seen that big data helps in creating additional incentives and the management to base their decisions on analytics, and more analytical based performance leads to better and superior performances (Alfouzan 2015). The results provided through this research helps in understanding the real impact which is created by big data analytics. They are not just hypes but are very realistic by creating incentives and inducements for managers to bank on on analytics when making strategic or operational decisions are to be taken. Through the results some important observations have also been made with regards to the managers in smaller firms are more likely to take their decisions by basing them on analytics than larger firms, which helps in coming to the conclusion that they use analytics to contest against larger firms.

Conclusion:

Thus it can be concluded that the impact of the changing times, growth in the business across the world with the rapid advancement of technology has enabled the business in adopting the process of big data in the business practices across the globe. Big data has been increasing at a rapid pace, thereby assisting the business in more than one ways. Big data analysis helps businesses in a myriad of ways, right from taking managerial decisions, providing important outputs and input information by taking into account different needs and requirements criteria’s of the businesses, would go a long way, in helping businesses across the globe. Most importantly, its involvement in helping the business organisations in measuring the performance of its employees is very important and this would continue to grow, as the growth of big data analytics increases in the business world.

References:

Alfouzan, H.I., 2015. Big Data In Business. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 6(5), p.1351.

Amazon.com 2018 Amazon Web Services, Inc. .What is Big Data? – Amazon Web Services (AWS). [online] Available at: https://aws.amazon.com/big-data/what-is-big-data/ [Accessed 4 Sep. 2018].

Ask, U., Magnusson, J. and Bredmar, K., 2016. Big Data Use in Performance Measurement and Management: A Call for Action. Journal of Business and Economics, 7(3), pp.402-417.

Brown, B., Chui, M. and Manyika, J., 2011. Are you ready for the era of ‘big data’. McKinsey Quarterly, 4(1), pp.24-35.

Chen, H., Chiang, R.H. and Storey, V.C., 2013. Business intelligence and analytics: from big data to big impact. MIS quarterly, pp.1165-1188.

Forbes.com. 2018. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alastairdryburgh/2017/10/18/big-data-insights-or-illusions/#d8c7f46695d5 [Accessed 4 Sep. 2018].

John Walker, S., 2014. Big data: A revolution that will transform how we live, work, and think.

Liebowitz, J. ed., 2013. Big data and business analytics. CRC press..

McAfee, A., Brynjolfsson, E., Davenport, T.H., Patil, D.J. and Barton, D., 2012. Big data: the management revolution. Harvard business review, 90(10), pp.60-68.

Mckinsey.com 2018.  McKinsey & Company..Big data: Getting a better read on performance. [online] Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/big-data-getting-a-better-read-on-performance [Accessed 4 Sep. 2018].

Mello, R., Leite, L.R. and Martins, R.A., 2014. Is big data the next big thing in performance measurement systems?. In IIE Annual Conference. Proceedings (p. 1837). Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE).

Provost, F. and Fawcett, T., 2013. Data science and its relationship to big data and data-driven decision making. Big data, 1(1), pp.51-59.

Rogge, N., Agasisti, T. and De Witte, K., 2017. Big data and the measurement of public organizations’ performance and efficiency: The state-of-the-art. Public Policy and Administration, 32(4), pp.263-281.

Thirathon, U., Wieder, B. and Ossimitz, M.L., 2017, November. Impact of Big Data Analytics on Decision Making and Performance. In International Conference on Enterprise Systems, Accounting and Logistics.

Vera-Baquero, A., Colomo-Palacios, R. and Molloy, O., 2013. Business process analytics using a big data approach. IT Professional, 15(6), pp.29-35.

Wamba, S.F., Gunasekaran, A., Akter, S., Ren, S.J.F., Dubey, R. and Childe, S.J., 2017. Big data analytics and firm performance: Effects of dynamic capabilities. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.356-365.