Big Data Applications in Different Sectors
In this era where every aspect of our day-to-day life is gadget-oriented, there is a huge volume of data that has been emanating from various digital sources.
Needless to say, we have faced a lot of challenges in the analysis and study of such a huge volume of data with traditional data processing tools. To overcome these challenges, some big data solutions were introduced such as Hadoop. These big data tools helped realize the applications of big data.
Watch this video on ‘Big Data & Hadoop Full Course – Learn Hadoop In 12 Hours:
More and more organizations, both big and small, are leveraging the benefits provided by big data applications. Businesses find that these benefits can help them grow fast. There are lots of opportunities coming in this area, want to become a master in Big Data check out this Big Data Training.
In this blog, we are going to look at some of the famous applications of big data in detail. So, let’s begin.
Big Data Application in Education Industry
The education industry is flooded with huge amounts of data related to students, faculty, courses, results, and whatnot. Now, we have realized that proper study and analysis of this data can provide insights that can be used to improve the operational effectiveness and working of educational institutes.
Following are some of the fields in the education industry that has been transformed by big data-motivated changes:
- Customized and Dynamic Learning Programs
Customized programs and schemes to benefit individual students can be created using the data collected based on each student’s learning history. This improves the overall student results.
- Reframing Course Material
Reframing the course material according to the data that is collected based on what a student learns and to what extent by real-time monitoring of the components of a course is beneficial for the students.
New advancements in grading systems have been introduced as a result of a proper analysis of student data.
Appropriate analysis and study of every student’s records will help understand each student’s progress, strengths, weaknesses, interests, and more. It would also help in determining which career would be the most suitable for the student in the future.
The applications of big data have provided a solution to one of the biggest pitfalls in the education system, that is, the one-size-fits-all fashion of academic set-up, by contributing to e-learning solutions.
Example of big data application in the Education Industry
The University of Alabama has more than 38,000 students and an ocean of data. In the past when there were no real solutions to analyze that much data, some of them seemed useless. Now, administrators can use analytics and data visualizations for this data to draw out patterns of students revolutionizing the university’s operations, recruitment, and retention efforts.
Big Data Application in Healthcare Industry
Healthcare is yet another industry that is bound to generate a huge amount of data. Following are some of how big data has contributed to healthcare:
- Big data reduces the costs of a treatment since there are fewer chances of having to perform unnecessary diagnoses.
- It helps in predicting outbreaks of epidemics and also in deciding what preventive measures could be taken to minimize the effects of the same.
- It helps avoid preventable diseases by detecting them in the early stages. It prevents them from getting any worse which in turn makes their treatment easy and effective.
- Patients can be provided with evidence-based medicine identified and prescribed after researching past medical results.
Example of Big Data Application In Healthcare
Wearable devices and sensors have been introduced in the healthcare industry which can provide real-time feed to the electronic health record of a patient. One such technology is Apple.
Apple has come up with Apple HealthKit, CareKit, and ResearchKit. The main goal is to empower iPhone users to store and access their real-time health records on their phones.
Prepare yourself for the industry by going through this top Hyperion Interview Questions and Answers!
Get 100% Hike!
Master Most in Demand Skills Now!
Application of Big Data in Government Sector
Governments, be it of any country, come face to face with a huge amount of data almost daily. The reason for this is, they have to keep track of various records and databases regarding their citizens, their growth, energy resources, geographical surveys, and many more. All this data contributes to big data. The proper study and analysis of this data, hence, helps governments in endless ways. A few of them are as follows:
Welfare Schemes
- In making faster and more informed decisions regarding various political programs
- To identify areas that are in immediate need of attention
- To stay up to date in the field of agriculture by keeping track of all existing land and livestock.
- To overcome national challenges such as unemployment, terrorism, energy resources exploration, and much more.
Cyber Security
Example of Big Data Application in Government Sector
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which runs under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government of the USA leverages the analysis of big data to discover patterns and associations to identify and examine the expected or unexpected occurrences of food-based infections.
With people having access to various digital gadgets, the generation of a large amount of data is inevitable and this is the main cause of the rise in big data in the media and entertainment industry.
Other than this, social media platforms are another way in which a huge amount of data is generated. Although businesses in the media and entertainment industry have realized the importance of this data, they have been able to benefit from it for their growth.
Some of the benefits extracted from big data in the media and entertainment industry are given below:
- Predicting the interests of audiences
- Optimized or on-demand scheduling of media streams in digital media distribution platforms
- Getting insights from customer reviews
- Effective targeting of the advertisements
Spotify, on-demand music-providing platform, uses Big Data Analytics, collects data from all its users around the globe, and then uses the analyzed data to give informed music recommendations and suggestions to every individual user.
Amazon Prime which offers, videos, music, and Kindle books in a one-stop shop is also big on using big data.
Big Data Application in Weather Patterns
There are weather sensors and satellites deployed all around the globe. A huge amount of data is collected from them, and then this data is used to monitor the weather and environmental conditions.
All of the data collected from these sensors and satellites contribute to big data and can be used in different ways such as:
- In weather forecasting
- To study global warming
- In understanding the patterns of natural disasters
- To make necessary preparations in the case of crises
- To predict the availability of usable water around the world
Big Data Application Example in Weather Patterns
IBM Deep Thunder, which is a research project by IBM, provides weather forecasting through high-performance computing of big data. IBM is also assisting Tokyo with improved weather forecasting for natural disasters or predicting the probability of damaged power lines.
Big Data in Transportation Industry
Since the rise of big data, it has been used in various ways to make transportation more efficient and easy. Following are some of the areas where big data contributes to transportation.
- Route planning: Big data can be used to understand and estimate users’ needs on different routes and multiple modes of transportation and then utilize route planning to reduce their wait time.
- Congestion management and traffic control: Using big data, real-time estimation of congestion and traffic patterns is now possible. For example, people are using Google Maps to locate the least traffic-prone routes.
- The level of traffic: Using the real-time processing of big data and predictive analysis to identify accident-prone areas can help reduce accidents and increase the safety level of traffic.
Example
Let’s take Uber as an example here. Uber generates and uses a huge amount of data regarding drivers, their vehicles, locations, every trip from every vehicle, etc. All this data is analyzed and then used to predict supply, demand, location of drivers, and fares that will be set for every trip.
And guess what? We too make use of this application when we choose a route to save fuel and time, based on our knowledge of having taken that particular route sometime in the past. In this case, we analyzed and made use of the data that we had previously acquired on account of our experience, and then we used it to make a smart decision. It’s pretty cool that big data has played parts not only in big fields but also in our smallest day-to-day life decisions too.
Big Data Application in Banking Sector
The amount of data in the banking sector is skyrocketing every second. According to the GDC prognosis, this data is estimated to grow 700 percent by the end of the next year. Proper study and analysis of this data can help detect any illegal activities that are being carried out such as:
- Misuse of credit/debit cards
- Venture credit hazard treatment
- Business clarity
- Customer statistics alteration
- Money laundering
- Risk mitigation
Big Data Application Example in Banking Sector
Various anti-money laundering software such as SAS AML uses Data Analytics in Banking to detect suspicious transactions and analyze customer data. Bank of America has been a SAS AML customer for more than 25 years.
Big Data in Marketing
Traditional marketing techniques were based on the survey and one-on-one interactions with the customers. Companies would run advertisements on radios, TV channels, and newspapers, and put huge banners on the roadside. Little did they know about the impact of their ads on the customer.
With the evolution of the internet and technologies like big data, this field of marketing also went digital, known as Digital Marketing. Today, with big data, you can collect huge amounts of data and get to know the choices of millions of customers in a few seconds. Business Analysts analyze the data to help marketers run campaigns, increase click-through rates, put relevant advertisements, improve the product, and cover the nuances to reach the desired target.
For example, Amazon collected data about the purchase done by millions of people around the world. They analyzed the purchase patterns and payment methods used by the customers and used the results to design new offers and advertisements.
Big Data in Business Insights
One of the best Big Data applications we can see in modern industries is generating business insights. Around 60 percent of the total data collected by various enterprises and social media websites is either unstructured or didn’t get analyzed by them. This data if used correctly, can solve a lot of problems related to profits, customer satisfaction, and product development. Luckily, companies are now getting aware of the importance of using the latest technologies to manage and analyze this data more effectively.
One of the companies named Netflix is using Big Data to understand the user behavior, the type of content they like, popular movies on the website, similar content that can suggest to the user, and which series or movies should they invest in.
Big Data in Space Sector
Space agencies of different countries collect huge amounts of data every day by observing outer space and information received from satellites orbiting the earth, probes studying outer space, and rovers on other planets. They analyze petabytes of data and use them to simulate the flight path before launching the actual payload in space. Before launching any rocket, it is necessary to run complex simulations and consider various factors like weather, payload, orbit location, trajectory, etc.
For example, NASA is collecting data from different satellites and rovers about the geography, atmospheric conditions, and other factors of mars for their upcoming mission. It uses big data to manage all that data and analyzes that to run simulations.
Conclusion
In this blog, we have seen some of the applications of big data in the real world.
No wonder, there is so much hype for big data, given all of its applications. The importance of big data lies in how an organization is using the collected data and not in how much data they have been able to collect. There are Big Data solutions that analyze big data easily and efficiently. These Big Data solutions are used to gain benefits from the heaping amounts of data in almost all industry verticals.