Big Data vs. Business Intuition

Data is data, it may make one smarter, but not wiser. 

Digitalization drives the massive cultural shift that is taking place at an increasing velocity, variety of data. Does it mean Big Data will make gut-feeling intuition irrelevant?

Data is always management tool, and not leadership tool. Intuition still plays crucial role in decision making. The former drives efficiency (doing things right), the latter drives the effectiveness and vision (doing right things and lead toward the right direction). Business intuition falls in the later category

Big Data is the ability to store, process, and analyze increasingly large amounts of structured and unstructured data, it complements, not competes with the notion of intuition; Big Data provides opportunities to see relationships and correlations that offer access to new perspectives and new insights, which develop and certainly do not hinder intuition. The more ways in which the infinite points in the universe can be connected, the greater intuitive capacity we have. Our intuition is let out of a box constrained by poorly constructed boundaries defined by a radically limited information flow. 

Big Data can broaden intuition. In the end, Big Data provides a platform from which new and big ideas can spring ideas previously unthinkable. Like the printing press offered greater access to knowledge and ideas once limited to very few, the digital revolution manifest, in part, in the big data "movement" offers opportunity to broaden creativity, think unconventionally, and exercise human gift of intuition while being more aware that such a gift is not separate and distinct from data but ultimately buttressed by greater insight.

Big data and intuition do not exist exclusively to one another. If used exclusively, it will lead to decisions that are not best and could be a huge pitfall. Big data gives us an opportunity to link intuition with the insights provided by big data. There will be people who have previously used insight along, and it may take some getting used to using another form of sight in big data. But it is, in the end, just another tool that can aid business intuition by providing supporting evidence (or counter evidence) to the theories and assumptions adopted by the business. Big data and business intuition are not the same thing, nor are they exchangeable, they are different way of providing additional leverage in making decisions

Big data is not the end, it is a tool for end game, which is to make effective decisions, Data is, after all, just data. It has no inherent meaning. It creates smaller and connected world and makes us smarter not wiser. It is a way of dealing with massive amount of data. To even expect it to be "social" or make us "wiser" is like expecting a programming language or calculus to bring about social change. Intuition will always play a part. It is a key part of being human. Context in and with the human experience provides data with meaning, which leads to information and ultimately supports enhanced insight.And it is the ultimate purpose of digitalization, to build intelligent businesses and society. 

Posted in: Big Data,Connecting Dots,Decision Making,Innovation