All banks, large and small, are swelling with data. The growth in data is not only coming from the traditional relational data stored in product and customer-servicing systems, but in voice call logs, emails, website click streams, and in social media sites. Data today is produced faster than most banks are able to assimilate it, understand it, and act upon it.
Many bankers, though, force a disheartened laugh at the mention of Big Data, as most banks struggle just to deal with “little data,” the traditional data found in their product-servicing and customer-management systems. Many believe that Big Data successes are the sole province of the big banks which have the scale to undertake such challenges.
The reality is that all banks, large and small, have it within their capacity to wrest from Big Data the key insights that will improve their profitability. But achieving the greatest return from that endeavor takes both the right new technologies and the ability to leverage the technologists committed to a focused, agile approach — all while learning to embrace decision-making with calculated uncertainty.
