Chapter 7: Data Management¹

This is the era of data-driven economy and many companies have already understood the importance of an effective data management to reach greater process efficiency, increase productivity, identify strengths and weaknesses of a structure, but also assess the risks of a business model. Therefore, nowadays data represents a key asset, a more and more critical resource for business management, a vital factor for competitiveness. Today we are surrounded by a variety of connected objects, which constantly generate data, the Big Data.

For years, the term Big Data has been one of the biggest buzzword. Data is everywhere in the IoT era and for years, both practitioners and academics have been exploring the implications of Big Data for business and other applicable fields (Sheng, Amankwah-Amoahb, & Wang, 2017). IDC gives the following definition: