Perhaps you’ve heard about “Big Data” and how it is changing the world. What is this data? Why is it “big?”
Data is everywhere — the stuff of statistics, records, numbers, documents and information. In financial markets, big data refers to large sets of information. This conversation is often focused on the speed and variety of data, a mind-boggling flow of numbers subject to rapid change impacting a number of industries, including finance, healthcare, manufacturing and even government. The challenge surrounding big data is to understand and organize the data to make better decisions. Securities and investment services as well as banking are among the industries with the fastest growth rates for big data use.
The Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi online MBA with a Concentration in Finance centers on finance, financial institutions and big data. Through this program you can acquire business knowledge to assume administrative or management financial roles in the world of finance.
Big Data in the Financial Services Marketplace: A Competitive Advantage
Information and analytics have taken on a new level of significance in today’s consumer-driven economy. Financial service institutions must leverage information assets to achieve a competitive edge in a crowded market.
Banks and financial firms can use customer and market insights gained from big data to differentiate themselves. Big data also helps banks and online lenders analyze prospective customer risks. According to a recent Capgemini Consulting report, banks that apply analytics to customer data have a lead of 4 percentage points in market share over banks that fail to examine this data. And banks using analytics to understand customer attrition benefit too, taking a 12-percentage-point lead over banks that do not.
Another benefit of collecting data is employee-related. For example, the treadmill desks and nap pods at Google came from data insights on ways to retain employees and keep them healthy. Like customers and consumers, employees are a source of big data. Employers can apply the insights gained to enhancing workplace culture and boosting employee morale.
Volume, Variety and Velocity in Big Data
Referred to as the “3 V’s,” volume, variety and velocity are the fundamental components of big data used to guide business decisions. “Volume” signifies the quantity of market data. “Variety” includes structured data or information already managed by an organization in databases and spreadsheets and unstructured data such as customer information gathered from social media sources. The third “V” is “Velocity.” Velocity relates to the speed at which data is stored.
Big data and automation are trending up in financial services and permanently altering the business landscape.
Big Data, Big Career Opportunities
The Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi online MBA program with a Concentration in Finance can prepare you for administrative or management job opportunities in the world of finance, including roles such as senior financial analyst, financial manager, commercial or investment banker, or chief financial officer.
Accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the TAMU-CC MBA program offers core business knowledge with a finance focus, allowing graduates to work within financial services across a broad spectrum of industries. Finance concentration courses include Multinational Finance, Investment and Portfolio Theory, Financial Markets and Institutions, and Personal Financial Planning.
In the financial services marketplace, which is more competitive today than ever before, big data signals a shift to reshaping business decisions based on the principles of volume, variety and velocity. As the “new” normal in business today, big data offers job opportunities that reflect this new perspective. Professionals with relevant skill sets can anticipate a strong demand for their services in the years to come.
Learn more about the TAMU-CC online MBA with a Concentration in Finance program.
Sources:
Capgemini Consulting: Big Data Alchemy: How Can Banks Maximize the Value of their Customer Data?
Forbes: Big Buzz About Big Data: 5 Ways Big Data Is Changing Finance
IBM: Analytics: The Real-World Use of Big Data in Financial Services
