The new trends in the management of large amounts of data were the focus of the lecture "Big data - evolution or revolution" of Bulgarian consulting company Balkan Services, which was presented within the forum "Big Data and Business Analytics". The event, organized by IDC, took place on 19 September in Sofia. It was entirely devoted to the so-called "Big data" - a relatively new technology segment, including different types of solutions for processing and storing large amounts of data.
“There is no precise definition of ‘Big data’, and it depends very much on the perspective," said one of the speakers, Nikolay Milenkov, Manager Sales and Business Development in Balkan Services. According to him, when speaking of "Big data" most people think of the databases of major international chains or the database with over 50 billion photos on the social network Facebook, and so they believe that in Bulgaria there are no examples of the presence of such "big data". During the lecture, however, Milenkov refuted this claim, presenting a project for a Bulgarian retail chain, a customer of Balkan Services, whose data is not comparable in volume to the above examples, but the combination of its different sections adds up to a volume whose size cannot be estimated. According to the manager, in order for a company to work with big data, it must be mature enough to focus on three key priorities: to establish a system for managing corporate performance (corporate performance management), to develop a clearly structured system of knowledge (knowledge system), and to provide employees at all levels with the opportunity to make quick and effective decisions. It was stated that the platforms offered by Balkan Services and the experience of the consulting team, can fully ensure the smooth running of the process of managing growing data.
Boyana Likomanova, Head of Business Intelligence in Balkan Services, presented the company's technical expertise in “Big data” project management. The experience she shared through her live demonstration was related to the possibility of a retail company to use the data for cross-selling, in order to analyze consumer behavior and to create an effective model for managing stock supplies. The presentation received high approval by the attending guests because of its practical use, the results of the analysis and the different perspective it presented.
Balkan Services had a surprise for the guests – it gave away four vouchers for participation in its BI (Business Intelligence) training "Strategic management through effective system for analysis and reporting," which will be held on 24 October. The accumulation of ever larger amounts of data in companies and institutions in recent years represents a significant challenge, leading to the introduction of new models of work, and the team of Balkan Services is among the first in Bulgaria with experience in this new sector. According to other findings from the event, there is an increase in the gap between growing data volumes and the available storage infrastructure, and there is also a tendency for migration of big data to the ‘cloud’ environment.