Since big data first entered the tech scene, the concept, strategy, and use cases for it has evolved significantly across different industries.
Particularly with innovations like the cloud, edge computing, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and streaming, big data has become more prevalent for organizations that want to better understand their customers and operational potential.
Real time big data analytics – data that streams moment by moment – is becoming more popular within businesses to help with large and diverse big data sets. This includes structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data from different sizes of data sets.
With real time big data analytics, a company can have faster decision-making, modeling, and predicting of future outcomes and business intelligence (BI). There are many benefits when it comes to real time analytics in businesses:
Big data analytics can help any company grow and change the way they do business for customers and employees.
For more on structured and unstructured data: Structured vs. Unstructured Data: Key Differences Explained
Big data comes into organizations from many different directions, and with the growth of tech, such as streaming data, observational data, or data unrelated to transactions, big data storage capacity is an issue.
In most businesses, traditional on-premises data storage no longer suffices for the terabytes and petabytes of data flowing into the organization. Cloud and hybrid cloud solutions are increasingly being chosen for their simplified storage infrastructure and scalability.
Popular big data cloud storage tools:
With an increased reliance on cloud storage, companies have also started to implement other cloud-based solutions, such as cloud-hosted data warehouses and data lakes.
For more on data warehousing: 15 Best Data Warehouse Software & Tools
Much of the increase in big data over the years has come in the form of consumer data or data that is constantly connected to consumers while they use tech such as streaming devices, IoT devices, and social media.
Data regulations like GDPR require organizations to handle this personal data with care and compliance, but compliance becomes incredibly complicated when companies don’t know where their data is coming from or what sensitive data is stored in their systems.
That’s why more companies are relying on software and best practices that emphasize ethical customer data collection.
It’s also important to note that many larger organizations that have historically collected and sold personal data are changing their approach, making consumer data less accessible and more expensive to purchase.
Many smaller companies are now opting into first-party data sourcing, or collecting their own data, not only to ensure compliance with data laws and maintain data quality but also for cost savings.
One of the most significant big data trends is using big data analytics to power AI/ML automation, both for consumer-facing needs and internal operations.
Without the depth and breadth of big data, these automated tools would not have the training data necessary to replace human actions at an enterprise.
AI and ML solutions are exciting on their own, but the automation and workflow shortcuts that they enable are business game-changers.
With the continued growth of big data input for AI/ML solutions, expect to see more predictive and real-time analytics possibilities in everything from workflow automation to customer service chatbots.
Different industries are picking up on big data and seeing many changes in how big data can help their businesses grow and change. From banking to healthcare, big data can help companies grow, change their technology, and provide for their data.
Banks must use big data for business and customer accounts to identify any cybersecurity risk that may happen. Big data also can help banks have location intelligence to manage and set goals for branch locations.
As big data develops, big data may become a basis for banks to use money more efficiently.
Agriculture is a large industry, and big data is vital within the industry. However, using the growing big data tools such as big data analytics can predict the weather and when it is best to plant or other agricultural situations for farmers.
Because agriculture is one of the most crucial industries, it’s important that big data support it, and it’s vital to help farmers in their processes.
Understanding current property markets is necessary for anyone looking, selling, or renting a place to live. With big data, real estate firms can have better property analysis, better trends, and an understanding of customers and markets.
Property management companies are also utilizing their big data collected from their buildings to increase performance, find areas of concern, and help with maintenance processes.
Big data is one of the most important technologies within healthcare. Data needs to be collected from all patients to ensure they are receiving the care they need. This includes data on which medicine a patient should take, their vitals are and how they could change, and what a patient should consume.
Going forward, data collection through devices will be able to help doctors understand their patients at an even deeper level, which can also help doctors save money and deliver better care.
With every helpful tool, there will be challenges for companies. While big data grows and changes, there are still challenges to solve.
Here are four challenges and how they can be solved:
Companies and employees need to know how big data works. This includes storage, processing, key issues, and how a company plans to use the big data tools. Without clarity, properly using big data may not be possible.
Solutions: Big data training and workshops can help companies let their employees learn the ins and outs of how the company is using big data and how it benefits the company.
Storing data properly can be difficult, given how constantly data storehouses grow. This can include unstructured data that cannot be found in all databases. As data grows, it is important to know how to handle the data so the challenge can be fixed as soon as possible.
Solutions: Modern techniques, such as compression, tiering, and deduplication can help a company with large data sets. Using these techniques may help a company with growth and remove duplicate data and unwanted data.
Data integration is necessary for analysis, reporting, and BI. These sources may contain social media pages, ERP applications, customer logs, financial reports, e-mails, presentations, and reports created by employees. This can be difficult to integrate, but it is possible.
Solutions: Integration is based on what tools are used for integration. Companies need to research and find the correct tools.
Data tools are growing and changing and often need a professional to handle them, including professionals with titles like data scientists, data analysts, and data engineers. However, some of these workers cannot keep up with the changes happening in the market.
Solutions: Investing money into a worker faced with difficulties in tech changes can fix this problem. Despite the expense, this can solve many problems with companies using big data.
Most challenges with big data can be solved with a company’s care and effort. The trends are growing to be more helpful for companies in need, and challenges will decrease as the technology grows.
For more big data tools: Top 23 Big Data Companies: Which Are The Best?
Big data is changing continuously to help companies across all industries. Even with the challenges, big data trends will help companies as it grows.
Real time analytics, cloud storage, customer data collection, AI/ML automation, and big data across industries can dramatically help companies improve their big data tools.
Datamation is the leading industry resource for B2B data professionals and technology buyers. Datamation's focus is on providing insight into the latest trends and innovation in AI, data security, big data, and more, along with in-depth product recommendations and comparisons. More than 1.7M users gain insight and guidance from Datamation every year.
Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on Datamation and our other data and technology-focused platforms.
Advertise with Us
Property of TechnologyAdvice.
© 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this
site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives
compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products
appear on this site including, for example, the order in which
they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies
or all types of products available in the marketplace.
