Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

Big Community was privileged to meet and interview with Charles Audet, Director for APAC at Booz Allen during his visit to Jakarta for the Big Indonesia event held there recently. He was invited to speak to the 1,200 strong attendees at the event which was organised by Big Community for the Big Data Week Jakarta flagship event, held at the Grand Sahid Jaya Hotel.

We asked Chuck, as he is preferred to be called, with all the intense hype for Big Data adoption, what has he seen as the most valuable contribution BDA has made thus far.

“I agree that there’s been a lot of hype, but there has also been a lot of tangible benefits around BDA. There’s also been a lot of progress in the space in my experience from working within the space over the years and in different countries and regions such as the US and UAE. There we see Big Data being applied to a couple of problems which have been extremely helpful,” he shared.

With many countries, security issues are a priority especially in recent times. In working towards detection and prevention methods which has been a crucial area of focus, BDA has been able to provide solutions.

“Being able to understand the flow of people going in and out of the country, identify threats, and ideally detection ahead of time is crucially important for any country to ensure the safety of its  citizens.”

The abundance of data available today for Big Data in the security space to help law enforcement bring criminals to justice and even in crime prevention, speaks volumes of the BDA contributions to society today.

“That goes for cyber security as well. As we become more digital as nations and as organisations, we increase the attack surface and vulnerability of information. Be it citizen information or intellectual property. Being able to use analytics to detect, deter and ultimately avoid threats has become a critical aspect as well,” says Chuck.

There have been numerous case studies around the world that show the wide array of possibilities from which BDA can be expounded upon.

“From a national healthcare system, to making payments more efficient, or to detect fraudulent activities, revenue collection and save tax payers dollars,” he says explaining the public side of how BDA has been used effectively.

Whereas in the commercial space he shares that there have been 2 major areas to look into.

“There’s 2 major use cases that really illustrates commercial use of BDA. The first is around optimization. For instance how do you look at manufacturing process or any internal process that one would use to create a good service. It will help the management see inefficiencies using analytics and measuring it in a quantitative process and then removing those inefficiencies from the process.

He adds that this will improve profitability to the company, reduce time-to-market and would the company ahead of the competition through innovative products.

“The second piece would be more topline. How do use analytics understanding to really advance customer segmentation, where to target the right goods or the right service to the right people, at the right time and at the right price.”

This, he adds, goes deeper than just looking at demographics but becomes more personalized so when an individual is interacting with the company either through their online portal or phone call, they can pull up the data and information they have on the client and the clients history, to better service that client.

Looking at clients buying habits, location and to smartly position services for when it is needed, will ultimately improve the customer experience, improve brand awareness and stickiness, and further drive long term value. These insights that are derived through BDA could be the elixir that businesses will need in coming years to not only stay ahead of the competition but to stay relevant in a fast evolving and disruptive economy.

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