The convergence of intelligent devices, social networking, pervasive broadband communications, and analytics is ushering in a new economic era that is redefining relationships among producers, distributors, and consumers of goods and services.

Digital social interactions; data created by mobile devices; smart technologies embedded in facilities, vehicles, infrastructure, and equipment; and data created by ongoing business transactions all contribute to the data flow that organizations can monitor and analyze.

Organizations launching big data projects often focus only on one capability, which creates an imbalance in the overall enterprise-wide ability to support or automate decision-making processes. Organizations with deep expertise in technology can find themselves unprepared for the efforts needed to change business behavior; those with ample human resources for analytics may find themselves lacking access to relevant, on-time data; and companies unable to articulate or measure the benefits of the solution can find themselves without the budget to deploy it.