Guavus Inc, suppliers of Big Data applications, have announced the results of their survey into telco use of Big Data. The results are very upbeat, with 87 percent of respondents having completed or in the process of implementing ‘a Big Data analytics strategy’. The most common drivers for Big Data projects were reported to be revenue maximization (66 percent), customer care and loyalty (61 percent) and opex reduction (61 percent).
However, the list of drivers goes on for so long that it is clear most telcos ticked box after box, claiming many motivations for each Big Data project. For example 48 percent said that revenue assurance was an objective of their project, whilst another 57 percent said they wanted to deliver proactive customer care. This makes me suspicious that the survey was fundamentally biased. If you only survey people whose job involves implementing Big Data, then obviously you will get more responses from telcos that are doing something with Big Data than from telcos which are doing nothing. And the people employed to implement Big Data will tend to list every potential use, rather than worrying about realizing that potential in practice.
