Today, companies that haven’t embraced digital technologies, in this technology-powered world, are bound to lose their relevance in the competitive market. Realizing this fact, we see almost every organization embarking upon their digital transformation journey. The element that decides the success of organizations in this initiative is data. Therefore, they strive to gather a voluminous amount of data from multiple sources. Sadly, the data that they accumulate isn’t always in the structured form. The collected data can be in a structured, semi-structured, or unstructured form. Even though organizations understand the importance of data, they fail to make the most out of the data they collect. The sad truth is, out of the total data that is gathered, companies only use of 10 percent of data. The remaining 90 percent of the collected data is unused, unanalyzed, and unutilized. And that’s what dark data all about. Gartner defines dark data as the “information assets organizations collect, process and store during regular business activities, but generally, fail to use for other purposes.”
Now the question arises, what data does the dark data hold? Well, dark data might include vital information like email, log files, ZIP files, videos, images, and other such items. It is undeniable that these items have the potential to unlock relevant and valuable information, only if analyzed and processed appropriately. Here’s where the concept of dark analytics comes in. Before we dig deeper into the concepts of dark analytics, let’s first understand the causes of dark data.
Why data goes dark?
The first and foremost reason for data being appropriately used is lack of visibility. As there are disparate systems from where companies collect the data, what if the concerned employees fail to have a comprehension of data sources? This transparency issue can be a major barrier to companies who struggle to use data to the fullest.
Another reason for data going dark may be organizations not knowing how to utilize unstructured data. Companies may not have proper access to data integration and analytics tools, which can undermine their digital transformation initiatives.
What are the benefits of utilizing dark data?
Analyzing dark data can help organizations to uncover deeper business trends, understand customer expectations, and make strategic decisions. One potential example is customer feedback call records. The call details may comprise of vital information, ranging from reviews on products, geolocation, or customer preferences. All of this data may be useful for companies to observe customer engagement patterns and accordingly improve their services. Granular data analysis will enable companies to gain more ROI, indeed. Let’s have a quick look at the key benefits that organizations will witness if they utilize their dark data to the fullest.
Storage space
Organizations, even today, make use of both the traditional data warehouses and the cloud-based data storage systems. This move is taken by organizations is because the cloud isn’t the best option when it comes to hacker issue. If the bad actors get access to the centralized data system, they find every critical information at one place. Hence, to ensure 100 percent security of the sensitive information that they gather, organizations make use of both storage methods. Though this is perhaps the greatest option to ensure data security, organizations have to spend a lot on making space to store the unceasing data that comes in. In addition to this, organizations only use 10 percent of the data indicates that the remaining data is simply eating a lot of space in the on-premise data centers.
By making the most of the data that gets accumulated, organizations can not only fix the storage space issue but also foster financial savings.
Hacker issue
The more data organizations collect and store, the more they will have to take care of its security. As dark data is considered as useless data by a majority of organizations, there are great chances that organizations fail to enforce strict security controls. The data that may seem unimportant to organizations may be interesting to hackers. And there might be chances that criminals execute their malicious activities, stealing the dark data and placing organizations at risk.
On the other hand, if the collected data is put rightly into use, organizations will automatically strengthen security procedures. Such a step will allow organizations to safeguard their digital assets against data theft.
Now that we are aware of the benefits of using dark data, the next question that arises is how will organizations make use of it? Well, the answer is simple – by using dark analytics. And what is dark analytics? It is a platform that can be used by companies to analyze and make sense of the dark data.
How can organizations use dark analytics?
By leveraging dark analytics, organizations can tap the potential of the dark data, which will help them to take prompt business-related decisions. Let’s check the ways organizations can use dark analytics for revealing correlations to gain powerful insights.
Traditional unstructured data
Did you know, 80 percent of the organization’s data will be unstructured in five years, which will be untapped and unused? Analyzing this traditional unstructured data is a major challenge for organizations. But, with the help of dark analytics, the traditional unstructured data that has flooded the data centers will be interpreted easily. The tool can sense and understand the items like emails, video files, still images, customer call records, etc.
Real-time unstructured data
The winning recipe to achieve digital transformation success for organizations is to analyze real-time data, unlock its patterns and correlations, and generate meaningful insights. Insights drawn can then be used by companies to take quick decisions, thereby driving business expansion.
Data from the deep web
The content in the deep web, one of three subsets of the Internet, isn’t accessible to everyone as the data isn’t indexed by search engines like Google. Dark analytics can easily access the hidden information from the deep web. Often, criminal activities are carried out in this portion of the World Wide Web. The government can use dark analytics to spot criminal’s malicious endeavors.
In a nutshell, in this data-driven world, dark data is the treasure and dark analytics is the way to utilize the treasure. But, before venturing into the world of dark data and dark analytics, organizations should plan an effective strategy that helps them to transform their goals or ideas into reality, along with best big data practices. The strategy should comprise all the factors necessary to meet the digitization goals. One of the most important aspects is to demonstrate compelling business use cases that will utilize the dark data. Comprehending how the unstructured data can be used for business purposes will enable organizations to get a handle on most of the collected data. Companies can also consider choosing third-party vendors for expert advice if they are a newbie in this journey.
