Big data creating big opportunities

By 2020, it's estimated that there will be 44 zettabytes of data in the world. In 2003, there were just 130 exabytes. All the data in the world in 2003 will account for .0029 percent of the data by the end of this decade. Those 44 zettabytes are on pace to quadruple again by 2025.

Big Data means big money

How are companies and organizations preparing to handle all that information? According to International Data Corp. (IDC), the Big Data market will continue double-digit growth at least through 2020, as organizations worldwide increase their investments into data science and analytics. Revenues are ballooning from $130.1 billion in 2016 to an estimated $203 billion four years later.

Opportunities abound

In NewVantage Partners' Big Data Executive Summary 2017, more than 85 percent of companies have begun creating data-driven cultures, but barely a third have found sustained success. Translation: Companies are investing in talent as much as they are investing in data, but there are still growing pains. This is to be expected whenever a new economic sector arises, particularly one growing as large and as fast as analytics. But organizations clearly see the need to manage data more effectively, and they won't stop committing efforts toward that goal.

Going forward, we’ll continue to see this need for more data scientists accelerate...[w]e’re talking about millions of people here that we’ll need in these types of roles.

In a recent podcast discussing the McKinsey Global Institute's groundbreaking 2011 research on Big Data jobs, MGI's Michael Chui said the initial findings understated the need for data scientists. "We did look in 2011 and hypothesized and analyzed a potential gap in terms of the number of people with deep analytical skills — the people we now call data scientists," Chui says. "We’re seeing more and more academic programs, more training programs to produce more data scientists. Yet we have seen data scientists’ wages increase, which is an indicator of the supply-and-demand dynamic."

Chui adds that the need will continue to accelerate, but that there will also be growth due to a "much larger number of people that are able to take the domain knowledge of an industry, of a function, and know enough data science in order to help translate that, to make it consumable by the rest of the organization. We’re talking about millions of people here that we’ll need in these types of roles."

This is the time

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Delivered by the highly ranked Departments of Supply Chain Management and Information Systems, the MS-BA will prepare you for where the industry — and the world — is going.