Big Data refers to Forr's ability to data capture a large amount of information, analyze it and allow your company to draw conclusions from it.  There is an explosion of data and information.  The benefits of all this information in our society allows us to all have cellphones and computers in nearby reach.  Your company  may have a large set of data and information, but now you need to qualify that information.

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Martin Hilbert of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism developed one of the most comprehensive studies on calculating the amount of data accumulated.  This study would include (analog and digital) books, paintings, emails, photos, music, video, tv, radio, phone calls, gps, letters, etc.  Hilbert's conclusion was that by 2007 there were more than 300 exabytes of stored data in existence.  An exabyte is 1 billion gigabytes.  In 2007 only about 7% of the data was analog, the rest digital.  This digital transformation is only a recent one.  As recent as the year 2000, only 25% of information was digital.

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Managing and Analyzing data can come as a challenge to organizations.  Businesses need to capture information about their customers, their products and services, and their day to day business activities.  Data can be structured in relational databases and data can be unstructured in documents, videos, pictures, service records, etc.  In order to make this information and data useful, data sources should be independently managed.  Your data needs is the opportunity and the challenge for Forr's Data Services and how we can best capture, manage and analyze the data to fit your organization's needs.

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Building a successful data structure begins with capture, organization, integration and analysis.  If your organization has the collected the right data, and has the technology put into place, you can use the information to assist in solving business problems, react to situations, analyze patterns and change your response such as improving customer satisfaction, manage traffic, prevent failures, and enhance the quality of your services.

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Forr's can Assist your Organization in Defining Structured Data

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Structured data  refers to data that has a defined length and a defined format.  Examples include dates, numbers, groups of text and groups of numbers called strings.  An example of strings would include a contact record of a customer name, address, phone number and email.  It is typically stored in a database.  You can run queries against structured data.  Your company may already have a structured database integrated such as a customer relationship management (CRM) system, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system or a financial database system.  Forr's can assist your organization in setting up these structured database or assist in data capturing more information to collect and import into your current infrastructure. 

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Forr's can Assist your Organization in Defining Unstructured Data

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Unstructured data does not follow any specific format and accounts for 80% of all data.  Unstructured data can include photographs and videos, text on your computer that is contained within word processing documents, survey results, emails.  Data that is generated via social media such as Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube are classified as unstructured data.  Website content and text messages and location information on a mobile device are also unstructured data.

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Returning high volume at high velocity with high veracity are essential to providing big data.  It is critical to your organization to ensure the validity of your data.  The data must be correct and accurate for it's intended use.  The veracity of the final product is essential in that the results are meaningful for the problem.   The validity of the data is critical for subsequent analysis results.  If your organization is going to use the results for decision making or any other purpose, you want the best captured data.  Forr's Data Services provides the best data capture and data processing to yield accurate results in your data analysis.  Data can make the difference for many individuals and organizations and can open the door of opportunity to improve our day-to-day living.  As a consumer, data will create a customer profile for how and when you purchase goods and services and improve your overall customer experience.  As a patient, data can define a customized treatment plan and manage your health.  As a clinician, you can define treatments for a patient's symptoms.  As a professional, data can help you provide better customer service, define your products and services and improve your relationships with your clients. 

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Finding the Data Talent in Forr's Data Services

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Finding the right data provider is as important as the data processed.  Your organization's goal is to find a provider that can provide the optimal results for your data, provide it in the correct format, provide high quality data and provide your organization with the highest level of trustworthiness.

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