The Commercialization of Big Data* Vasant Dhar Professor and Co-Director, Center for Business Analytics Stern School of Business Editor-in-Chief, Big Data Journal Faculty, Center for Data Science, *From “Data Science and Prediction,” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 56 No. 12, December

Agenda What’s the size of the market? What’s unique about big data? What gives big data real value? Where’s the opportunity?

What’s Unique about Big Data?* It’s a whole new way of observing and learning things (minimal pre-programming) – Diverse sources, types, and structuredness – Granular – Analytics: the ability to ask the “right questions” of the data as quickly as possible The right questions are one whose answers have predictive power, not just explaining the past

Asking the Wrong Question 5

Examples of the Right Questions Healthcare – Who is likely to get sick? Prevention Planning – What is the best treatment? Sports – What types of players to hire? – Strategy for next opponent? – How much risk to take during a game? Targeting/advertising/enhancing – Who to target products or services? – How much should I bid to advertise? – How can I improve the customer experience?

Healthcare: What is the Right Question Here? 7 Are complications associated with the yellow meds? Or with the gray meds? Or the yellows in the absence of the blues? Or is it more than three yellows or three blues? Or does it have to do with “lifestyle choices?!”

The Opportunity Source: Leadership Excellence in Analytical Practice study, 2014

Source: Center for Business Analytics, NYU Stern

Prediction in financial markets – Numerical data – Unstructured and tagged data My Research

Realized Performance

Prediction in financial markets – Numerical data – Unstructured and tagged data Prediction in networks, media, social, health Data governance and “Analytics-Savvy” firms – What data to keep and why – Risk and return from data – What capabilities to develop in-house versus outsource to the market My Research

Big data is a fertile area for research and practice – Stern’s Center for Business Analytics brings together researchers, students, and industry – Several research projects are around unstructured and tagged data interpretation, crowds, the intersection of physical and digitals worlds, and more Acquisitions like that of DeepMind by Google are – a harbinger for impending disruptions – An indicator of future determinants of competitive advantage We are (finally) entering the age of smart machines driven by big data and machine learning Closing Remarks