MSC MALAYSIA

Big Data: Size Does Matter

We are living in a datadriven world where many

key decisions are made
based on data analytics.

ig data is a term used to

describe the exponential
growth and availability of
data, both structured and
unstructured. And big data
may be as important to business and society as the
world wide web has become over the decades.
Big data analytics (BDA), meanwhile, is
the process of examining large amounts of
data to uncover hidden patterns, unknown
correlations and other useful information.
Such information can provide competitive
advantages over rival organisations and result
in business benefits, such as more effective
marketing and increased revenue.
It can also provide large-scale social impact
if harnessed wisely.
Big data consists of structured data,
which are from conventional databases,
and unstructured ones that are from social
media, geospatial, images, audio and video,
says Ir. Dr. Karl Ng, Director of Innovation
Capital, Malaysias Multimedia Development
Corporation (MDeC).
The difference between Big data and
BDA is that Big data is pure information
whereas BDA is about performing analytics
and visualisation using the information. The
power of BDA lies in being able to perform
predictive analytics (what will happen) and
prescription analytics (what do we do about
it). Thats the major difference between BDA
and your usual Business Intelligence.
Is BDA just a technology proposition?
Obviously no, says Karl Ng.
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It is not about technology. It is an investment by businesses where data is used to

solve a variety of issues as well as to be able
to forecast and predict outcomes, all of which
can increase the organisations profits and
reduce its costs.
New business models can even be derived
since BDA has the potential to give you novel
insights that you may have never thought of
previously. On the other hand, the government can use BDA to reduce administrative
cost by being more efficient and improve
service delivery. It can use BDA to perform
socially-impactful initiatives towards crime
and disease prevention and reduction.
The reasons are very compelling for Malaysian tech industry to focus on this segment.
He says: Imagine this about 90% of the
worlds data today was generated in the last
two years! We are living in a data-driven world
where many key decisions are made based on
data analytics. The United States and Europe
has seen tremendous benefits in BDA, both on
the government and industry fronts. Clearly,
Malaysia needs BDA to remain competitive.

INFANCY ERA
The last couple of years were somewhat a
wait and see era, where the focus had been
on creating an awareness on the potential
and value of Big Data to ones business, says
Fusionex International CEO Ivan Teh.
Listed on the London Stock Exchange,
Fusionex helps its customers manage, make
sense of and derive useful insights and information from the vast amounts of structured

By: Simon Vella

and unstructured data at their disposal.

Fusionexs Big Data Analytics software,
GIANT, is the first Big Data software of its
level of comprehensiveness ever developed
by a software company in Asia. Fusionex
GIANT has received very positive reviews to
date from clients adopting it and was featured
in a White Paper published by IDC in June.
Fusionex is heavily involved in big data
initiatives across the region and is also an
invited member of the Malaysian Government
Big Data Analytics Advisory Panel, where
the panels responsibilities include that of
assisting the Malaysian Government in the
development of its National Big Data Analytics
Framework & blueprint.
Ivan says: Right now we are at a stage
where forward thinking organisations have
achieved a degree of maturity and where
many are at an incubation stage. We see
may companies beginning to embark on big
data initiatives and pilot programmes, albeit
some at a smaller scale, to test and navigate
the waters and to define a roadmap centred
around big data where business value can
be reaped.
BDA is definitely an area of immense
potential where we see companies thriving
and leveraging on Big Data Analytics to drive
their companies to greater heights.
In other words, it is not a matter of if big
data will live up to its potential but rather a
matter of when Big Data Analytics becomes
mainstream, he stresses.

BENEFITS TO ALL
The need to collect, store, process and analyse
data to derive insights and actionable items
really applies to any industry verticals.
Ivan says: For FusionEx, there is no particular industry or business segment that we
would single out. That said, our observation
is that some of industries appear to be more
receptive at this point in time, while others
seem to be slightly slower in embracing it.
Certain industries include, but are not
limited to, financial services, retail, FMCG,
travel and hospitality, logistics, utilities and
natural resources seem to have a slightly faster
adoption rate for Big Data technology.
A recent case study with a FusionEx client
from the retail sector revealed interesting
findings pertaining to the correlation of its
sales data, campaign programmes, marketing

Karl Ng The Government has

given MDeC the mandate to lead the
Digital Transformation Programme.

Mugilan Founder of Golden

Gorillas an online advertising
solutions startup based in Malaysia.

spend with regional weather and social media

feedback. The client leverages on BDA to build
a strong competitive advantage by making
marketing decisions tied to the findings of
the system that it deployed.
The client also utilises its predictive analytics system to forecast potential sales and
revenue, which is a very powerful mechanism.
Another example where a client derived
significant value was where FusionEx used
its BDA system for a business that offers
automated systems designed to optimise
building management.
Ivan explains further: By analysing data
captured from various types of machinery
(machine-to-machine data), the client was
able to help its customers reduce waste and
cost and was able to cut energy consumption
by more than 20%.
Another interesting case study was where
a financial institution client of ours was able to
monitor and make sense of social sentiments
and relate this to customer satisfaction as well
as key areas of improvements. They used our
system to understand trends and patterns so
that they could better market their products,
increase sales with focus groups and targeted
marketing. In the process of doing so they
were able to attract and better retain their
customers. They used our system to execute
this in an automated manner, resulting in
superior customer insights and analytics.

says: Social media platform involves millions

of data being produces and consumed on daily
basis and having BDA will help businesses
to understand and evaluate the available
data to improve their commercial decision
making especially for marketing budget and
effort needed to attain better performance.
A recent product developed by his company is Facebook Intelligent Audience Targeting
(FIAT) that provides a platform for advertisers
to run analysis in Facebook to find their target
market based on their daily activities.
FIAT is being provided mainly as platformas-a-service cloud solution for Facebook
advertisers. Mugilan says: Understanding
the volume of data in Facebook is essential
for businesses mainly relying on Facebook
marketing for their advertising campaigns.
For example, randomly targeting teenagers
from Malaysia to sell smart phones can be
extremely huge time & money consuming
task if it were to be done without having solid
research, but what if the BDA can help us to
analyse and provide a pattern of a Facebook
user who have been consistently talking about
getting a smart over the past few days?
Thats where FIAT comes in to do the BDA
and help advertisers target better audience for
their ads inside Facebook.
He adds that FIAT was born out of a real
business need. We realised that more and
more companies were moving away from
Facebook ads due to lack of ROI. It was a
personal experience for me as well when
advert optimisation still fails to maximise
the ROI.
Therefore we decided to find the root
cause and started to use the BDA to help us
in our mission. We built our own advertising
pattern and algorithm that helped to understand that the ads are not reaching the right
audience through the traditional mechanism.
With the analysis, the whole audience size
was refined based on their recent activities
and it started to deliver proven results with
some of them achieved as much as 300% ad
improvement.
Capturing and storing data alone will not

STARTUPS JOIN THE RACE

The time is also ripe for many startups
companies to join in this BDA revolution.
One good example of such startup is Golden
Gorillas an online advertising solutions
provider based in Malaysia.
The startup aspires to improve advertising
performance and is developing advertising
solution (for Facebook, Twitter, Google Ads
and other social media ad platforms) that
can help advertisers to double up their leads,
conversions and sales which essentially
improve their Return on Investment (ROI)
from online advertising.
Its founder and CEO Mugilan Chitambram

Ivan Teh CEO of Fusionex, a multi-award

winning IT company with a global presence.
Its GIANT big data software was featured in a
White Paper published by IDC in June.

help a business to move ahead in the industry.

The big data need to become smart data,
which not only will empower us to find out
what is happening but also to find the cause
for the occurrence.

PUTTING MALAYSIA ON MAP

These clear potentials have compelled MDeC
to set its sights in this growing segment and
put Malaysia on the forefront in this region,
says Karl Ng.
The Government has given MDeC the
mandate to lead the Digital Transformation
Programme, which is called Digital Malaysia.
We aspire to have ICT contribute 17% to the
GDP by 2020.
As mentioned earlier, we have seen the
tremendous benefits BDA has offered to
countries with a head start in it. With the
right enablers in place such as policy, talent,
funding and technology, we are confident
that BDA will contribute significantly to the
national digital economy.
A successful national BDA initiative will
affect each and every Malaysian, he adds.
The economic benefits are crystal
clear as it paves way for more competitive
organisations, increased profits, cost reduction and job creation. We will surely need
data scientists, data stewards, information
managers, visualisation designers in many
sectors, namely healthcare, manufacturing,
telcos, banking & finance and retail.
Socially too, it will have a very big impact
as, for example, it may be able to reduce
spread of diseases by being able to predict
future hotspots. Same applies for crime
prevention as authorities will be able to
know where crime will most likely happen in
future and deploy resources there accordingly.
It helps in price watch too by keep
inflation in check by predicting future price
of essential items and taking proactive action,
such as like stockpiling.
Clearly, BDA is a journey, and organisations who do this well will be able make a
great difference and achieve a huge competitive edge.
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