Big data is a rather confusing and amorphous term that can mean so many different things to different people. A recent survey by Computing illustrates this perfectly. In order to get to the crux of the issue and find out precisely what the term meant to its readership, Computing issued a 10 word challenge: explain what big data means to you in 10 words or less. The results proved to be interesting to say the least. 28 percent described big data as vendor hype, 37 percent viewed it as nothing other than a big problem, because they associated the term with increased data volumes, whilst only 27 percent claimed it represented a big opportunity that sadly too few organisations were prepared to grasp.

However, whilst they might not be able to agree on the definition, there is a general consensus that if business and enterprise can find a way of getting information economically out of very large data sets, then there could be exciting new opportunities created and lots of money to be made in the process. How much money precisely has never really been quantified until now, but last month a report by The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) and SAS, a major player in business analytics software services, concluded that harnessing big data could ultimately contribute 216 billion to the UK economy and create up to 58,000 jobs between 2012 and 2017. Whatever your views on the definition of big data, or the value of big data analytics, youll have to agree theyre pretty impressive figures.

The report, called Data Equity: Unlocking the value of big data, is in fact the first comprehensive study in the UK that looks at the potential impact big data mining will have on the UK economy, and gives credence to the claim that has long been made by the industry that big data is set to herald the next phase of technology-led business innovation, productivity and competition. The vast growth of information available to enterprise opens up tremendous opportunities for business, but it also poses rather large challenges too. How is this wealth of information best utilised? How can business and enterprise use the ever-increasing amount of data effectively and efficiently?