Friday, June 21, 2013

In China, Big Data Is Becoming Big Business

With 1.3 billion people, a quickly expanding urban economy, and rising rates of Internet and smartphone penetration, China generates an immense amount of data annually. If streams of that data can be appropriately sifted, analyzed, and stored, companies seeking to understand China’s often-fickle consumers could have access to valuable real-time insights—and perhaps early warning to the next big consumer trends.

 对于一个有着至少13亿人口的国家,一个有着世界无与伦比的城市建设速度的国家,一个网络以及智能手机正在快速普及的国家,中国每年所产生的数据量在全世界来说是相当巨大的。而如何对这些庞大的数据量进行有效的分析,处理以及保存,是放在每一个试图去了解和预测中国消费者和消费市场走向公司的难题,通过大数据平台,公司就可以获得有价值的实时洞察力――这也许能帮助公司提前掌握下一个大的消费趋势,抢夺先机。海量数据时代早已不知不觉悄悄来临并成为一种趋势。

 At a presentation last week at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, China’s premier business school, associate professor of marketing Meng Su predicted: “China will soon become world’s most important data market.” He advised job seekers in China and elsewhere to consider training for a new career path as “data scientists,” which he described as “one of the most valuable jobs in the next 10 years.” Interpreting big data seems poised to become big business.

 2013年5月,在中国最好的商学院之一的北大光华管理学院,来自市场营销部门的苏萌教授在演讲中说到,“很快,中国将会称为世界上最重要的数据市场之一”,苏萌教授还在演讲中对中国IT界的就业情况做了预测,他预言,一门新兴的职业,“Data Scientists”(数据科学家),将会成为职场的新宠,并成为未来10年内最有价值的工作。数据科学家是大数据(Big Data)时代的魔术师。他们处理数据,利用数学模型分析数据并用文字或图表加以解释,然后建议如何利用这些信息做出决策。数据科学家是“计算机科学家、软件工程师和统计学家的混合体。”进一步说:“最优秀的数据科学家通常是充满好奇心的、善于提出问题的思想家,他们能够应对非结构化的情况,并试图从中找出它们的结构。”

 China’s government has signaled its intention to help domestic enterprises develop the infrastructure necessary to store and analyze “big data”—that is, data sets too large to be handled by traditional database-management tools and software. The current Five Year Plan, which aims to stimulate “higher-quality growth,” names seven strategic “emerging industries,” including next-generation information technology.

 而大数据同样也受到了政府的大力扶持,对于新兴的大数据公司,不仅仅相对应有各种优惠政策,并且政府还制定了一系列的大数据5年计划。并且中国政府已表示有意帮助其国内企业发展必要的基础设施来进行存储和分析“大数据”,主要针对即那些通过传统数据库管理工具和软件无法处理的大数据集。目前的中国政府的五年计划旨在刺激大数据领域的“更高质量的增长”,并且在政府所列举出的了七大战略“新兴产业”里,其中就有新一代信息技术。

 Meanwhile, leading Chinese firms, especially Internet companies, have already begun to incorporate big data into their strategies. Jack Ma, founder and then-chief executive officer of China’s e-tail giant Alibaba, declared last fall that the company should focus on three pillars of future business: e-commerce, finance (providing loans to small and medium enterprises in China), and data mining. In January, Alibaba underwent a restructuring that, among other changes, created a data-platform division with about 800 employees, as reported in the Chinese financial magazine, Caixin. The Alibaba Group has just begun to scratch the surface of analyzing the reams of user data generated through its business-to-business e-commerce site and its massive consumer-to-consumer platform, Taobao.com.

 与此同时,国内的IT龙头企业,尤其是互联网,网络公司,更是早早就开始了制定符合公司战略发展的大数据项目和计划。阿里巴巴集团主要创始人之一马云早在2012年就曾表示,阿里巴巴的主要战略重心应放在三个方向:电子商务,金融(中国中小企业提供贷款),和数据挖掘。并且在2013年1月,阿里巴巴进行了重组,发生了许多变化,其中就包括成立了一个拥有约800名员工的数据平台部门。阿里巴巴集团刚刚开始对通过其电子商务站点及其巨大的c2c平台,淘宝网生成的大量用户数据进行初步分析。

 Professor Su warned, however, that the hype around big data in China may be a case of too much, too soon: “If everyone is talking about something, there is probably already a bubble,” at least of expectations, he said. “Most Chinese companies don’t own enough data, let alone know how to utilize, analyze, or monetize their data.” In other words, a select number of companies in China that do own large quantities of user-generated data—such as Alibaba and Baidu (BIDU)—hold the cards and may profitably sell that valuable information to other vendors.

 然而,苏萌教授也对大家提出了善意的警告,因为大数据处于尚未成熟的阶段,在中国有可能会出现炒作大数据过多过急的情况。苏萌教授还表示:“如果大家都在谈论什么某件事,那就表示在这件事情里已经存在泡沫成分,目前,对于大多数中国公司来说,企业并没有足够的数据,更不用说知道如何利用、分析数据或将其货币化”。换句话说,在中国,只有部分拥有大量用户生成数据的公司――例如阿里巴巴和百度――掌握着主导权并有可能将那种有价值的信息卖给其他供应商才能从中获取利润。

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