When big data can lead to big profit

Real potential

Big data adoption plans by Chinese companies are fast gaining momentum, Forrester says, adding that the adoption rate is 21 percent, compared with 20 percent for Singapore and Indonesia and 19 percent for Malaysia. The same study estimates that big data business in China could touch 5 billion yuan ($806 million) by 2016.

The Internet industry holds most potential for big data companies, sources say.

By the end of 2012, China had 564 million netizens, 420 million of whom used mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Statistics provided by global technology firm Intel Corp shows that Taobao Marketplace, the biggest e-commerce platform in China, generates roughly 50 terabytes of data every day, while Baidu.com, the Chinese search engine, accounts for more than 6 billion searches and 1 exabyte of data daily. An exabyte is 10 to the power of 18 bytes.

CeBIT: big data, social business, mobile, cloud and more

Managing big data in a complex economy

Big data applications are also used in other industries such as finance, telecoms and even hospitals, where patient data can be stored and analyzed to hedge against possible risks and diseases.

China Mobile Ltd, a leading Chinese telecom operator, has already made a strong start in big data applications by using Intel devices and solutions to locate call histories. The telecoms operator says it can now trace any specific call history within 40 seconds and at sharply reduced costs.

Financial institutions bank on big data to expand their business and know more about potential clients.

Josephine Kwan, an asset management expert and partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, a multinational professional services firm, in Hong Kong, says big data can help asset managers to communicate more with their investors.

"Via big data, asset managers can collect accurate and timely data for further information about their investors and make tailored investment plans," Kwan says.

"CEOs will need to maintain or increase investment in technology and data management to maximize distribution opportunities or to benefit from new opportunities offered by social networks," she says.

Prakash Sundaresan, chief technology officer of Microsoft Asia-Pacific Research and Development Group, says the potential for insights from data to affect the decisions companies make can be profound and widespread.

"Some industry observers predict a 20 percent growth in revenue and earnings for companies that use big data compared with those who don't," he says.

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