As a mathematics undergraduate student, I arrived at BiG Consultancy with relatively little knowledge or experience of working with big data or real-life data problems. However, during my time interning there over the summer, I was able to learn a great deal about the issues commonly faced everyday by businesses and institutions in the real world.
Big Data is definitely a buzz word these days, and refers to particularly large volumes of data that simply cannot be processed in the same ways that smaller datasets historically have been. Organisations from almost every industry can encounter problems if they get inundated with data: in health care, patient records, treatments and response information needs to be organised efficiently so that it can be accessed quickly and accurately; in banking, a huge amount of data can stream in concerning risk, investments and regulations, as well as customer details; and in retail and manufacturing, businesses need to be able to access intelligence regarding the market and analyse their own company strategies effectively. On top of the large volume of the data, it can also be the sheer speed at which it can flow in at, as well as the variety, complexity and security of it, that causes issues.
To tackle these difficulties, new software, technologies and methods are being developed all the time, and companies are turning to specialists for help managing their data. At BiG Consultancy, I experienced first-hand some up-to-date challenges faced by real companies, as well as their route to a solution. In particular, I especially enjoyed learning about complex data visualisation, including how graph databases can be used to navigate multifaceted stores of information much more quickly, and easily, than conventional databases can be. Graph databases also allow for the exploration of data relationships to be investigated more thoroughly, and this visualisation of connections can really help to see how improvements in one area of a company, for example, can benefit another. As part of my work at BiG, I helped to classify entities for a dataset presented to us in preparation for input into a particular graph database, and was also involved with the early stages of learning how to query it. This was a brand-new area of analysis for me, but I felt I was able to really throw myself into it and utilise my mathematical skills already acquired through my university studies.
My name is Conor and I’m a 4th year Mathematics student at the University of Exeter. In June I spent one month as an Intern for BiG Consultancy. Before my internship, I had limited experience with programming and knew very little about big data. Once I had arrived, met the team and had a tour of the office, I was given my first task. I was to spend my first two weeks learning how to use and program in Java. I had no prior experience with Java, so it was a steep learning curve, but Gerry helped me to overcome any obstacles that I faced. I was challenged to create a text-based game by the end of the two weeks where the hero, Conor, had to go through different rooms, encountering and defeating monsters along the way. I was proud to have created this game from scratch after such a short space of time. It really opened up my eyes to the many applications of Java.
After successfully playing Frankenstein and creating an army of monsters, I moved from learning about the software development aspect of BiG Consultancy to data visualisation. In the next two weeks, I learnt how to use SQL to extract data. I found this to be significantly easier to work with than Java! With the help of Chris, once I had created data tables, I was able to manipulate them to create visual representations using programs such as Tableau and KNIME. This made the data easier for a client to analyse.
I really appreciated the time that I spent working at BiG Consultancy. With the help and guidance of the team I was able to develop my skills in programming in Java, as well learning about data analysis and visualisation. In addition, this was the first time that I have worked in an office environment, so this was also a very good experience. I especially enjoyed the coffee machine! Throughout the month internship, I learnt a lot about the rapidly developing world of big data and am excited to use the skills that I acquired here at BiG in my future endeavours.
Improve every aspect of your business by transforming it into a Data-Driven Enterprise. We start with your key strategic goals, then map out a roadmap and build measurement points to work with every team ensuring they have the analytics and mindset to deliver continued process improvement. Until your goals are reached.
We guide your business through our Data Maturity Model to clearly define what you need to do to keep ahead of your competitors. We believe that data quality initiatives must run in parallel to business activities. That means there’s a need for an ongoing investment in data governance, within the parameters of your budget. You don’t have to aim for zero mistakes in your data, because that could be too expensive. Instead, we will help you achieve a state where your data is truly fit for purpose.
Look, computers are better at understanding data than humans. But doing this is fraught with problems and challenges. We are experienced at doing this and won’t just throw things around until it sticks.
Data is powerful. Go beyond human; react faster, more reliably and over much larger and complex datasets than your competitors. We develop solutions that leverage the latest in Machine Learning, Predictive Models and real-time processing that can solve real business problems and make your company breakaway from the pack.
Achieve single version of the truth by developing the processes for aggregating, quality-assuring and distributing data throughout the organisation to ensure consistency and control in the ongoing maintenance and applications of this information. The goal of any business intelligence is easy, self-service access to data.
