The Corvus | August 2018
Data is the New
Black Gold
Festus Okubor
At the dawn of the 20 th century, a new
economic power bloc was emerging.
One founded on a natural resource –
crude oil. By the end of the 20 th century,
that bloc was firmly established.
Leveraging its primary asset, Crude
Oil – or black gold as it was called – it
impacted on activities from household
and industrial heating, transportation,
industrial
power
generation,
manufacturing and pharmaceuticals;
there was no facet of modern life that
was not, one way or another, impacted
by the exploration and refining of oil.
The scions at the forefront of this new
bloc — the Rockefellers at Standard
Oil, the British Royals at BP, the Dutch
Royals and the Rothschilds at Royal
Dutch Shell — did not merely achieve
financial dominance, they acquired
economic power that enabled them
impact on the world economy.
Oil. The 19 th century was transformed
by it, the 20 th century was shaped by it,
but the 21 st century is gradually moving
beyond it, powered by changing
attitudes and an increasingly more
valuable and widely sought commodity,
one with the power to transform the
way we connect and interact with the
world around us. Whilst oil’s value is
primarily derived from its scarcity, this
New Black Gold is as powerful as it
is ubiquitous, providing competitive
value to the companies who are able to
17
Data is the New Black Gold
harness and exploit it for and from their
customers. In this time of seamless
integration of softwares, lifestyle and
social networking, the 21 st century is
increasingly likely to be known as the
Age of Big Data.
In the data-driven world of today, the
ability to fully harness information
from all available data to achieve
improvements in product development,
understanding behavioral trends and
enhancing process efficiencies, and
applying same to private and public
sector challenges, represents the single
most transformative opportunity in
the world today. It is believed that
the value to be derived from the
ability to leverage information gained
from big data analytics to achieve
innovation in fields of healthcare,
scientific research, agriculture, logistics,
urban design, energy, retailing, crime
reduction, business operations, etc is
immeasurable.
What makes Data Big?
Prior to the advent of the internet,
traditional datasets were structured
-neatly organized into databases.
It consisted of only standard data
recorded by the originating entity – say
a bank keeping details such as date,
amount, payee, check number, etc.
Today, with the explosion of the digital
economy, data consists of much more
than that; banks now seek to capture
information on channels used, where
funds were spent and on what it was
spent on. Banks seek more information
to help serve the customer better and/
or enhance decision making. Same can
be said of almost all other industries
– be it social media, retailing, news
streaming, etc.
Big data refers to the capturing,
processing,
analyzing
and
interpretation of large datasets using
advanced analytical technologies to
aid understanding, facilitate decision
making and enhance projection. What
makes big data includes the sheer
volume of data that can be captured,
the robustness – consists of various
types – texts, videos, audios, tweets,
shopping
preferences,
pictures,
browsing preferences, etc.; the ability
to capture them on a real-time basis
and relative reliability of the data.
Leveraging significant advancement
in digital technologies, data can be
captured from a variety of devices –
including home appliances, mobile
phones, smart devices, cars, and other
electronics. The sheer volume of data
that can be captured and analyzed is
truly tremendous.
Put together, these data sets can
become extremely large and complex,
requiring new tools and approaches
to make the most of them. Due to the