Solving Data Dilemmas to

Derive Business Growth

Big Data

Debate Topic: What is the future of the Big Data management

technique?

Course: Management Idea Factory

May, 2015
Authors: Adriana Petre, Dimitra Skoulaki and Anastasia Zenetzidaki
Course Coordinator: Dr. Stefan Heusinkveld

Content Table
1.Introduction
2. Theory
2.1 Big Data Terminology
2.2 Emergence, Dissemination and Adoption of Big Data
2.3 Risks and Implications

3. Methodology
3.1 PMI analysis of the evolution of the management idea
3.2 Textual analysis of a core text promoting the idea (Big Data a revolution that will transform
how we live work and think- Mayer Schonberger and Cukier, 2013)
3.2.1 Summary of the Book
3.2.2 Record Analysis
3.2.3 Content Analysis

4. Methodology II
4.1 Interview Analysis
4.2 Limitations
4.3 Results of the qualitative research- Interviews

5. Conclusion
-ReferencesAppendix 1: Critiques towards the BIG DATA management ideaAppendix 2 : Interview Transcripts

1.Introduction
Big Data have been declared a new class of economic asset, like currency or gold (World
Economic Forum, 2012). A new world of information is emerging, due to the simple fact that
people are using computers and cell phones. However, big data, generated by everyday actions,
has led to a cultural, technological and scholarly phenomenon (Boyd & Crawford, 2012).Big
Data Analytics intend to change the world as we know it, and therefore it undeniably constitutes
a new management idea that attracts our attention.
Big Data refers to the managing of knowledge within organizations world- wide by quantifying
qualitative data. It does so by extracting, transforming, analyzing, synthesizing and distributing
this tacit knowledge into an explicit form by discovering patterns in large amounts of
unstructured information (TATA Consulting, 2013). Although many of today's business journals
and publications intensively refer to the use of Big Data Analytics as a tool created for
companies to have a better understanding of customers, markets, services and operations, few of
the practitioners actually know the exact meaning of the term, its provenience, use and
implications.
It has been argued that Big Data is around ever since the beginning of technology, when
scientists used supercomputers to analyze large amounts of data. However, in today's business
environment, the term Big Data is used as a new management idea, that in contrast to previous
years when technology was not accessible to everyone, it is now available to all business
intelligence user companies (Mayer- Schonberger and Cukier, 2013).
This paper examines Big data as a management idea and aims at facilitating the understanding of
knowledge production and Big Data in the Service Industry. We chose to focus on services due to
the need to demonstrate value through synthesis of high amounts of qualitative data in todays
abundance of information available on and off-line. Therefore, in this analysis we will provide
information about managing valuable knowledge in their organizations which will allow
employees to efficiently and effectively implement Big Data.

As a management idea, based on a quick market research, Big Data will have a substantial
impact on the functioning of organizations. Therefore, the evolution, creation, dissemination and
adoption of this idea will be examined in this paper in order to assess its future impact on the
business environment. Since managers have an emergent collective preference for new
techniques (Clark and Greatbatch, 2004: 400), introducing this new management idea seems
to produce interest from the client/company side.Therefore the topic we intend to address
through this paper is:
What is the future of Big Data Analytics as a management technique

2. Theory
2.1 Big Data Terminology
Big Data is a novel research area and is still a vague and abstract concept in the scholarly world.
Big data has been variously identified by scholars (Mayer-Schonberger & Cukier, 2013;
Chaudhuri, 2012), while the name of Big Data itself has caused doubt and confusion.
Throughout this paper, we generally define Big Data as datasets produced by multiple sources, at
such a scale that cannot be stored and processed by usual dataset software (Chen, Mao & Liu,
2014), while Big Data are officially identified by IDC (International Data Corporation) in 2011
as a new generation of technologies and architectures, designed to economically extract value
from very large volumes of a wide variety of data, by enabling the high-velocity capture,
discovery, and/or analysis. Both definitions underline the three characteristics of Big Data,
usually referred to as the 3Vs model.
The abbreviation of 3Vs stand for the main three characteristics of Big Data: volume, velocity
and variety. As analyzed in the Harvard Business Review (2012), volume obviously describes the
inconceivable mass of data produced every day, and more precisely, as of 2012, about 2.5
exabytes of data are created each day(p.62). Velocity refers to the need for timely and rapid data
collection in order to efficiently utilize the value of Big Data, while variety represents the
multiplicity of produced data, both structured and unstructured (Chen, Mao & Liu, 2014). Apart
from the 3Vs model, McKinsey & Company primarily highlighted through their report(2011) the

value that through potentially efficient exploitation of Big Data, could be created for
organizations. In brief, companies that use Big Data Analytics have noted higher profitability,
improved productivity, increased market value and positive impact on customers. (McKinsey
Quarterly, 2011).

2.2 Emergence, Dissemination and Adoption of Big Data

Big Data Analytics is an innovative and vague management idea while its proponents are still
trying to consolidate its management value, so the examination of how big data, as management
technique, emerged appears to be necessary in order to assess its future.
Big Data is clearly a management trend that evolves in tandem with the underlying technology
(McKinsey Quarterly, 2011), and its emergence should be discussed in relation to technological
achievements. Data existed since 1970s, when the first database machines appeared, and their
organizational use has been intensified in late 1990s, when the benefits of a parallel database
system became officially recognized. (Chen, Mao & Liu, 2014). The key point is the evolving
moment of Data into Big Data, and it took place after the development of a new generation of
computing tools that could gather, manage and process massive data, leading to the growth of
new inferential data techniques that created new context for the organizations. (Bollier, 2010).
What remains to be examined is the reason behind the establishment of Big Data Analytics as a
fashion trend.
According to the market model suggested by Abrahamson (1996, 1991), which consists of the
circles of demand and supply, in the creation stage of management ideas the fashion setters sense
incipient

preferences

guiding

fashion

demand

and

create

many

management

techniques(p.264), and guide the supply. A possible application of Abrahamsons Market model
on The Big Data case would possibly lead to the conclusion that the development Big Data
Analytics represents the response to the constantly growing industry of dataset tools and
technology products. In other words, the incentives of the explosive growth of Big data Analytics
are possibly financial (IDC, 2011), converging with new technologies and business tools.
Exploring the rationality of choosing to promote Big Data Analytics, Lang & Ohana (2012)
suggested that multiple management concepts only emerge from the need of organizations to find

techniques and tools to resolve problems they currently face. Therefore, managerial thinking
comes in waves, much in the same way as aesthetic fashions do (p.82), and that could explain
the popularity of Big data Analytics. This examined concept may has emerged due to the
organizational need for new, disruptive business models to cope with the explosive production of
data. (McKinsey Quarterly, 2011), responding to progressive normative expectations, meaning
that old techniques will always be replaced by more innovative ideas.(Clark & Greatbach,
2004).
Big Data Analytics have not solely emerged, selected and promoted, but have also been
successfully diffused in the management world by fashion setters (Abrahamson, 1996).
Practitioners, academics, management gurus and consultants have all contributed through
massive publications that created a Big Data stream in mass-media. Mass-media have been
characterized as the gatekeeper of innovation and means of idea dissemination. (Hirsch,1972).
Regarding Big Data publications have been increasing at an impressive pace since 2011 (see
PMI analysis), while consultants groups have published special issues on this phenomenon and
its value and implications (e.g McKinsey Quarterly, 2011; IDC IVIEW, 2011).
Despite the increasing published literature on the Big Data concept, receptiveness and adoption
of ideas is mostly reflected through managers behavior and reactions (Lang and Ohana, 2012).In
every case two important questions need to be investigated: why and how management ideas are
adopted. Applying the market model suggested by Abrahamson (1996), the reason behind idea
adoption appears to be the demand created mostly by fashion setters.
Another reason of broad acceptance of Big Data could be identified by Abrahamson through a
sociological explanation (originated by Simmel, 1957), which underlines that managers of higher
reputation organizations adopt fashionable management ideas in order to distinguish themselves
from lower reputation organizations. In case of Big Data Analytics, international highlyrecognized companies, such as Google, Amazon and IBM, invested millions of dollars in Big
Data technology at a very early age and subsequently enhanced the adoption of the new
management trend (McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2012).

Finally, in times of organizational change, novel management ideas have a larger corporate
impact (Kieser, 2007), since they may offer valuable solutions that may facilitate the process of
strategic or organizational change (Lang & Ohana, 2012). Big Data Analytics are expected to
create value for all industries, highlighting effective decision-making, better risk management
and improved financial and product performance (McKinsey Quarterly, 2011), and all that in a
constantly

changing,

economically

turbulent

business

environment.

Moreover,

the

aforementioned corporate benefits have been fueled by the decreased cost of data acquisition and
the development of the underlying technology (Chaudhuri, 2012).

2.3 Risks and Implications

The process of creating and disseminating management ideas follows the model of the market
(Abrahamson, 1996) in which demand and supply are usually also affected by external factors
and market logic (Lang & Ohana, 2012). A negative aspect of the markets operation is that
organizations are not active actors, and this may lead to the adoption of management ideas,
which are not appropriate for each companys needs. This organizational danger is also depicted
in the case of Big Data concept, since the misconception of Big Data may lead to a variety of
negative effects for companies.
Initially, the most threatening risk of Big Data is the threat of personal and societal privacy.
Nowadays individuals are identified through a set of data, which are available for use to many
sources (Cavoukian and Jonas, 2012).However, society and the legal system have not yet
adjusted to the Big Data era which means they are not adequately prepared for the impact of Big
data, such as transparency, correlation and aggregation (Davis, 2012). Subsequently, the lack
of transparency in the ways and the purposes of analyzing and aggregating personal data, could
easily be considered as violation of personal information. (Oboler, Welsh & Cruz, 2012)
The generated rewards of Big data for organizations has been highlighted by multiple scholars,
surveys and management consultants, but in many cases they omit to highlight that the adequate
implementation and interpretation is crucial to achieve positive results. Bollier (2010) underlined
that raw data are not self-explanatory, and the results received out of their analysis may also be
biased, while Boyd and Crawford (2012) pinpoint the danger of misleading data errors at a large

scale. Subsequently, the adoption of effective data analysis techniques is a critical factor of
success of the management idea.

3. Methodology
3.1 PMI analysis of the evolution of the management idea
Big Data is not a new or isolated phenomenon, but one that is part of a long evolution of
capturing and using data (Best-Selling Author, Keynote Speaker and Leading Business and
Data Expert: Bernard Marr)

Before diving into the print media analysis of the book, we will take a look at the PMI of Big
Data in publications, presented as an organizational concept for It an IT- oriented public and
then for companies and business- oriented people through time. We will try to assess its
evolution and if the popularity of this idea in print will stick after its intense presentation to the
general public (Heusinkveld et al., 2013). Here, we refer to Big Data rather as a management
technique than a management concept or idea even if there three terms all encapsulate the way
big data was presented (Heusinkveld et al., 2013) since it offers a tool that businesses can use
to reach a desired goal but only after its rigorous interpretation (Quitney and Rainie, 2012).
Interpretative viability is a characteristic of concepts that aim to be successful in catching the
public eye and ultimately grow into mass adoption (Benders & van Veen, 2001). In the case of
Big Data, this characteristic has implications for organizations since, in its idiosyncratic nature,
a business has unique features and can therefore interpret the notion of data in a manner that
better suits its needs. This is aligned with the conceptual ambiguity (Kieser, 1997) of Big Data
that is designed to be attractive and inherently fit the needs of the user without offering clear
steps that must be followed to effectively make use of the data for better decisions and
performance (Kieser, 1997). This is also a critic to the book as we will later demonstrate.
As form of data collection, for more empirical insight, we used the most relevant academic
databases for reference: ABI/Inform- ProQuest, Web of Science and the Online Contents (OLC)
(Benders et al., 2006).

Figure 1 summarizes the findings from these three academic databases from the year 1989 until
present (2015). We decided to choose this time frame to demonstrate that the term and concept of
big data was mentioned in few articles before the technological boom happened, however
these articles are not as relevant as the ones currently published that discuss solely the idea from
a managerial perspective.

OnLine Contents is focused on articles, with 32 publications with the search terms big data
analytics which is used more recently for a more IT- oriented public (1 st article published in
2011) and with 1184 publications with the general term big data which we focus on in our
illustration (1st article published in 1989). Web of Science stores academic journals, crossculturally and inter- disciplinary. We found 1901 publications with the term big data, dating
from 1993 until present while with the terms big data analytics we found 108 publications
starting also in 2011. ABI Inform Global, focused mostly on English language press (Benders
et al., 2007) found 1874 articles dating from 1972 about big data, although the first article with
more relevance, talking about the concept is Xploring the world of parametric analysis,
published in 1990 and presents a program Xplore which makes use of big data.

As Fig.1 shows, we are now at the peak/ surge of Big Data publications, since the context of
application, even if varying between sectors, is built on the same fundamental idea of data
gathering and interpretation (Heusinkveld and Benders, 2000). Also, as we will show in the next
section, the popularity of big data also coincides with the management fashion discourse
presented by the big data book. We therefore strongly believe that in our case, the context is
changing the content and also,big data now is more about the presentation and selling of the
idea where the content is obviously following the public thirst of constant innovation and
adoption of any technique capable to upsurge potential gains.
After Big Data technologies are adopted and
implemented by companies as core resource
units (like R&D) it is expected that the idea
will fade away since it found its growth as a
consequence of the technological boom and
data storage advancements. In return, we can
notice that the publications and promotion of
Big Data follow the trend of the Global
Information Storage Capacity where mega
computers are now able to store and
transform unimaginable amounts of data into codified information (Hilberst and Lopez, 2011).
We can identify the trend of big data in print media by looking also at the non- academic
articles and publications in newspapers and magazines or at the buzz created by consultancy
firms to spark interest in the clients and create demand for their service (Berglund & Werr, 2000).
McKinsey& Company published 864 articles about various topics related to the importance of
Big Data starting in 2011 with Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and
productivity. In a similar fashion, Bain& Company, The BCG and KPMG are constantly
publishing articles for their current and future clients.
Big Data, in its complexity and abstract definitions, is a clear example of a management
fashion built by companies to create clients and a sense of urgency for change in the market. It
seems like nobody knows exactly how to use this concept, and the only difference it made was to
mobilize people to invest more capital into advanced technologies, expert consultants and new

human resources that might know how to interpret the data. Appendix 1 provides sources that
criticize the Big Data idea.

3.2 Textual analysis of a core text promoting the idea (Big Data a revolution
that will transform how we live work and think - by Mayer-Schonberger and
Cukier, 2013)
Big Data refers to our burgeoning ability to crunch vast collections of information, analyze it
instantly, and draw sometimes profoundly surprising conclusions from it (Mayer Schonberger
and Cukier, 2013, Preface)
In order to take the analysis of the Big Data management
technique even further and understand its recent popularity and
responsiveness from both writers and public, we must turn our
attention towards the important texts that contributed to these
factors. As proposed by Benders, Nijholt and Heusinkveld
(2006), we will perform a record and content analysis on the
most influential book in the dissemination of the big data
concept: Big Data: A revolution that will transform how we live
work and think (Mayer Schonberger and Cukier, 2013). It can
be noticed also from the PMI analysis that after the publishing
of this material, the interest in big data surged in print media,
with a peak in 2014.

3.2.1 Summary of the book

Big Data, A revolution, by Mayer-Schonberger and Cukier, is a New York Times best seller
and constitutes a timely introduction and overall review of the Big Data Analytics phenomenon.
The authors introduce the concept in the beginning of the book, by elaborating on basic
definitions and ideas and shortly report the evolution and change of Big Data until today. In the
following chapters the authors amplify the main characteristics of Big Data to provide the
audience a more complete sense of the topic.

The book starts by underlining the messiness and imprecision of unstructured data and how it is
conducive to a broader picture. Next, Mayer-Schonberger and Cukier clarify the terms of data
Correlations and Causality and pinpoint how Big Data offer insights for what rather than why.
The following chapter seeks to explicate Datafication, which is optimized through everyday
examples and applications. Value of Big Data and Implications for organizations are analyzed in
two extensive chapters, which compose the main idea of the book.
While implications for the future are presented from a positive perspective, the next two chapters
explore the dark side of the concept through an extensive analysis of potential future risks and
how they could be controlled. Finally, a discussion around the future and endless possibilities of
Big Data provokes the audiences thoughts regarding the changes and the impact this fascinating
phenomenon may produces in every facet of everyday life.

3.2.2 Record Analysis

First, in our case, by analyzing the target audience of the book, we can better comprehend
where the organizational concept [of Big Data] may have had significant differences in impact
(Benders et al., 2006: 825). Since the book is highly approachable and easy to read, we can
conclude that the target audience is the general public, more specifically, all business and ITenthusiasts with a thirst for understanding how the future of organizational functioning will look
like. This broadens the scope of the book and allows for the creation of mass- awareness and
responsive behavior therefore impacting the whole business world differently (due to
individualities of each organizations and reader as mentioned previously) (Clark & Greatbatch,
2004.) This mass-appeal can exemplify the reasons for the expansion of publications about Big
Data after the book was presented (see Fig, 1).
Second, we can look at the presence of the editorial board (Benders et al., 2006). Here, the book
is edited by Eamon Dolan and K.N. Cukier, one of the co-authors, with an extensive presentation
on both authors (bibliographical notes) of the book plus the contribution of a large number of
people. For a 200 pages book, we will adopt a critical perspective and say that the content, as we
will explain in the next section, does not match the expectation built by of an accumulation of so
many ideas and support. Also, the book is still poorly edited with many repetitive instances on
the benefits or use of big data with lack of substance, critique and in- depth analysis. It seems

that the book is presented more as a managerial discourse to create hype, broadcast and
validate the idea as a fashion and attract the public but also promote the writers (Heusinkveld
&Benders, 2000: 240). In terms of extensive referencing, we can look at the book as an
academic material (however, the references are not present in- text but only at the end of the
book), even if the feeling of reading the book leads us towards an impression of practitioneroriented journal (Benders et al., 2007: 825)
We find ourselves still in a period of uncritical euphoria where the Big Data fashion seems
as a rationale, progressive cure- all concept able to lead progress in organizations
(Heusinkveld &Benders, 2000: 241). Hence, the presence of a website that endorses the writers
and the book ever since its publication in 2013 until present times and, through the website, gives
the audience (in which a sense of urgency is implanted) the possibility to book the writers for
keynote conferences and to speak at executive retreats across the globe every year (Big Data
Book- Website). We believe that the concept of Big Data was a big opportunity grasped by
the authors in its early stages and packed in an appealing way.

3.2.3 Content Analysis

We will now turn to the print- media analysis of the book content where we measure the
readability of the text, the difficulty in implementation or concept and fear- inducing in the
public (Carson et al., 2000).
Schonberger and Cukier use a simple language throughout the book to describe illustrious cases
of large companies that benefited from the use of Big Data and few start- up companies that
used big data for success in their business (i.e.Clear Forest, p.3; Decide. Com, p.123; Jana, p.
91). For example, they start by explaining the well- known example of Google Flu and
continue to discuss examples such as Zynga, Walmart or Target. They look at how these
companies used correlation and data analysis from either the tracking of regional searches on
different subjects or customer behavior in order to forecast demand or modify and customize
platforms. However, this is not in any circumstance new content for the public since these are
very famous examples largely debated by the media. We believe that, by reducing the number of

repetitions about companies and benefits of big data, the book could be easily summarized in a
few chapters.
Second, the authors use strange and very broad statements or metaphors and definitions which
confuse the reader. For a book that promotes a business and IT concept, we expected more
technical terms and practical information on the way Big Data can be effectively analyzed and
used in the future. We do not believe that for scientists and data experts, information simply
speaks for itself without any strong theoretical or practical background. For example, the
following statements seem broad and trivial for the purpose of the book:
The data can reveal secrets to those with the humility, willingness, and the tools to listen" (p. 5)
"One way to think about the issue today - and the way we do in the book - is this: big data
refers to things -one can do at a large scale that cannot be done at a smaller one, to extract new
insights or create new forms of value, in ways that change markets, organizations, the
relationship between citizens and governments [...] (p. 7)
One of the most basic pieces of information in the world is, well, the world. [] We need a
method to measure every square inch of area on Earth (p.86)
Facts come in one end of the digital assembly line and processed information comes out at the
other end-data this is starting to look like a new resource or factor of production" (p.101)
Third, the manner in which way the concept is presented in the book appears easy to grasp and
implement in organizations (Clark & Greatbatch, 2004). By simply gathering all the possible
data, a business can adopt an n= all approach and move from causation (deductive, tested
hypothesis based approach), which is s more costly and slower process, to computer- generated
correlations (inductive approach) that determines meaningful patterns in data (Schonberger and
Cukier, 2013: 18). However, the book had to elaborate on the implications of the concept since
this process has also costly implications for companies as they need to implement new business
units with IT experts and also specialists in different subject areas (customer behavior;
marketing; logistics etc.) that can interpret the findings. Without interpretation what is data good
for?

To conclude, Big Data became a new management technique as it was packed and sold by
consultants or business advisors through the use of print media or other means of promotion by
management gurus (conference or direct advisory) as in our case (Clark & Greatbatch, 2004).
We expect a decline in the popularity of this management technique following its current
attention as after it will be adopted in organizations, the term big data will most likely be
repacked under a different terminology related more to the analysis part of the data and not so
much its big volume.

4. Methodology II
4.1 Interview Analysis
In the second part of our analysis we want to examine how Big Data Analytics are actually
implemented, diffused and operated within organizations. We therefore selected critically to
make an assessment in two different firms.Yin (2003) and Stake (1995, 2000) emphasize the
importance of establishing a specific theoretical framework that structures data collection. Our
framework, since our qualitative research was limited in 3 interviews was our literature and book
analysis that helped us a lot to build a semi-structured interview and try to dig in depth in the
way that Big Data Analytics are implemented within the companies. In addition, we based our
structure of the interviews on our Research Question that was mentioned above in our effort to
acquire quality responses that could afterwards be reviewed and lead to a conclusion. Moreover,
we used as context the cycle of knowledge creation (Abrahamson, 1996); we wanted to examine
how Big Data Analytics were introduced and by whom in these two companies and then to assess
the processes of codification,dissemination and implementation within the two firms.
We chose in purpose two totally dissimilar firms in order to conduct our research; we tried to
understand by examining two different organizations that use Big Data Analytics for different
purpose and in different ways to acquire a more complete and broad view of the implementation
of this new management idea and all the implications that may follow in each case. More
concretely, we interviewed the manager and owner of an innovative consulting firm and then we
interviewed a Business Analyst and a user/ employee of Leasing company. In the first case, we

saw that Big Data is the ultimate tool of delivering value to the customers and the primary
business intelligence tool through which the company targets at competitive advantage. In the
second case, we saw that Big Data Analytics is a solution that the company used in order to
improve its performance and in order to reveal new insights and opportunities of development.
So, in one case we have Big Data Analytics as an end and in second case as the means to an end.
In order to be able to get inside and make sense of the processes described we created semistructured interviews which helped us develop understanding of the way that managers make
sense of, and create meanings about this new management idea and its implementation in their
job environment. In that way we tried to interpret their business world and be critical towards
their statements (Schwartzmann,1993). Through the methodology that we adopted for our
qualitative research, we tried to be flexible, accessible, intelligible and more importantly capable
of disclosing significant and commonly hidden aspects of human and organizational behavior.
(Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009)
We follow a combination of approach based on Ryen (2002:157) who states that :After one has
inductively identified a theme, one goes on to try verifying or confirming the finding (deductive),
which again gives an inductive loop.It is legitimate and useful to both start with conceptual
analytical categories, that is deductive, and to gradually develop them, that is inductive
After having conducted the interviews, we followed a second round of assessment based on
hidden aspects of the wording and expression used. We did not use the data collected as raw
material but we tried to re-interpret it based on the general attitude of the interviewees and the
complexities that emerged related to the implementation of the idea.(Nicolai, A., and Dautwiz, J.,
2010) Furthermore an additional aim was to comprehend the reasons of adoption and the fitting

with the company. In the second case, we took two interviews in order to obtain a holistic view
and capture the different perspectives of the manager and the employee/user towards the idea.
Finally, we also emphasized on the attitude of managers as clients (Wilhem and Bort, 2013); and
we tried to understand which stance they take and how vulnerable or critical can be towards the
ideas (Keleman, 2000)

4.2 Limitations

Through our research we experienced a couple of limitations that we consider significant to

mention before the analysis of our data..Ii the first case that we interviewed the manager of the
consulting company our data collected is one-sided comparing with the second case that we had
the opportunity to capture a more complete and objective attitude towards the idea. Therefore,
we tried at a degree to be more critical and interpret the data in order to encounter all the possible
aspects that may be skipped such as implications and constraints of the idea. Moreover as we are
the only persons tried to make sense of the material collected we lack of a broader interpretation
and therefore of diverse perspectives.

4.3 Results of the qualitative research- Interviews

Moving forward to the outcomes of our qualitative research, we came across several noticeable
aspects, findings and implications that we want to present in this paper. Firstly, we are going to
display the findings, case by case, giving sufficient abstracts to make the paper more
comprehensive and then we are going to compare what we found and try to draw some
conclusions.
In the first case, whereby Big Data analytics are used as the primary tool for the consulting firm
to deliver its services we experience from our interviewee a totally engaged attitude. He was
really passionate and enthusiastic about the idea and that was expressed by almost every single
response in our discussion.
It is firstly the technology that we have develop to manage knowledge, there is no other
platform like the one that we have. We combine very smart algorithms with a Big Data in a
context that serves every field of consultancy. This combination makes us competitive.
-manager of Consulting firm.
As it gets clear by this example, the adaptor of the idea is extremely devoted to it and he
considers it to be the core of their competitive advantage. When we attempted to examine in
more depth, we asked about the way that their team decided to implement in this way and build
their whole value proposition based on this idea:

 How have you decided to adapt and implement Big Data Analysis and innovate through this
concept? Did someone or something impact you on this decision/step?

Well, at a point we had foreseen the upcoming transformation in consulting industry and falling
hourly rates, so we were seeking for a way that would change the traditional business model.
This immediacy in the business would only obtained by the limitless power that Big Data
Analytics can offer you. As consultants already he found ourselves a lot of times before in cycles
that this management idea was discussed and presented and we believed in it and here we are
now- manager of consulting firm
The interviewee explicitly said that the decision came through the consulting environment and
from their passion to innovate somehow in their field. The manager also mentioned that there
was no special need for dissemination of the management idea, as the company is basically a
startup with 10 employees. In the process of implementation though, he mentioned that
significant support from IT specialist was crucial to build and develop the solution that it will
eventually make them competitive.
We believed in this idea because we had and we still have as main purpose of what we do, to be
different and to innovate in what we do and how we do it. To develop our Big Data we needed a
lot of time because we refer now to platform of around 45.000 inputs. So, the support of the IT
and data scientist was undoubted if we wished to create something special
In that part of the discussion we felt that the effort and the time that they consumed in order to
build the business intelligence tool was considerably high. The interviewee mentioned that the
idea was perfect and fitted the requirements exactly. However based on the general comments we
concluded that the idea was in need of a lot of moulding and formation in order to fit the
objectives of a consulting company and not to mention the sunk cost that was relatively high.
Therefore even if the statements of the manager are different we argue that in this case the
approach was rather strategizing (Zbaracki, M, 1998) as the highlighted at first the
opportunities that they could have from the implementation of this idea in that context and then
they did recognizable effort to fit it for their own interest.

In the second case, we managed to acquire a more complete overview of the implementation of
Big Data and the whole process and engagement within the company. In the first interview that
we had with the manager/Business Analyst who is particularly administrative of the Big Data
Analysis tool; we had a comprehensive understanding about the capabilities and the
functionalities of the idea due to the enthusiastic description that we got. The manager is engaged
with the idea and he absolutely could be called a supporter of it.
Big data aids at management decisions because it increases analytics and you get a better and
bigger picture of what is going on in your business. Also, what customers are doing is coming
from big data, more analytics is happening in all companies and the benefits are numerous. We
even try to import new KPIs with the amount of available data.
In our effort to comprehend the actual reasons for adopting this management idea, we saw that
the Admin of the Big Data Analysis tool was clearly influenced by the consultants who
introduced the tool to the company as he stated too actually. They came at the organization and
before we made any decisions on the program that we will use, they were here and they showed
us everything. At that point our interviewee mentioned also how these consultants created
doubtful feelings about the system that until then the company were using. They sell the idea
with the most brilliant way; by presenting the insufficiency of the current tool that they were
using which ,as we discovered later, has more or less the same functionalities. (Sturdy 2004) But
the sense of creating insecurity and vagueness to the managers of the company made it much
more easier for them then to sell the idea to vulnerable managers (Keleman, 2000; Kieser. 2002)
Another argument that supports the reasons behind the adoption of the idea as the manager
declared was the use of successful case studies and implementation of the system, which were
not missing from the portfolio of the consultants. That cases had determinant impact in the final
decision.
Since others they can do this successfully, we thought that we could this too, but in the end was
not that simple- Business Analyst
Our interviewee slightly referred to some kind of lack of significant resources, more from IT side
and some miscommunication that caused a lot of issues that had to be solved then.

More clear statements about the complexities of the implementation of Big Data Analytics we
got though for the finance employee and current user of the system. She mentioned that she was
enthusiastic about the functionalities of the system that the technical issues constantly emerging
and the lack of knowledge of the rest of the company had created an unengaged attitude towards
the system which was close to be disapproved by the other departments.
Everyone who is part of the implementation like the FP&A team , they all know that is a great
tool but the rest of the regions that they are not involved they cannot see that because they have
a lot of issues like the system is crushing or they are not getting the right numbers , so with the
lack of knowledge that they have in this specific tool they cannot trust it and understand its
capabilities. -employee/user of Big data Analytics
A notable point of this interview is that even though the employee stated clearly that there was
lack of adequate knowledge and that the rest of the regions could not understand because they
were not involved in the implementation process; when we ask her if she would consider import
to engage them with a more active way, she seemed to hesitate and be unsure about it. She did
mentioned that she would change anything because of the resistance to change that it is
predominant within the employees and of the incapability to preview the benefits..
Most of the times if you ask your people, your employees if they want to change something most
of the times the will be resistant to change, they do not like change even if they have gains from
it. So I think is better to begin with a project team not of course only managers
That was really unexpected as an answer, so when we try to understand what she would do if she
had to be in charge of the implementation, she talked about training sessions and sharing of
knowledge. She considered coaching as the primary key

of a successful adoption and

implementation of the idea.

Last point that we would like to heighten, is the emphasis that was given in the leadership team;
how crucial and decisive for efficient and successful stories is to be driven by a natural leader
and a team of passionate innovators that can inspire the rest of the team and engage the whole
company to reach a collaborative outcome.

5. Conclusion
We examined the management idea of Big data through a lot of perspectives and always with a
critical eye in order to address the research question. The correlation with theory, and the
examination of Big data emergence and dissemination enhanced our theoretical understanding of
the concept. The PMI analysis assisted the comprehension of the reasons for the ideas
popularity, while the interview analysis contributed in the understanding of practical
implementation. However, building on this aggregated knowledge for this innovative
management idea, we feel optimistic for the future of Big Data and its value.
The theoretical framework of Big data Analytics is still new and there is space for extensive
future research on almost every aspect of it: from the emergence of the idea and the cause of its
popularity to the development of specific tools and techniques and its expected value for
organizations. Further research, and especially on the prerequisites of efficient application of
this concept, will promote the knowledge around the positive impact of Big Data on companies
and will hopefully establish it as an official and valuable management tool. Moreover, its
validation would increase if more scholars engage in related research, rather than consultant
firms and management gurus.
On the other hand, the dark side of Big Data, and the possible risks stemming from its
implication should be taken into consideration. Protective mechanisms should be created either
by official bodies, such as governments, or by the companies themselves in order to achieve
organizational, individual and societal data privacy. In that way, concerns around the new
concept will diminish and the possibilities of recognizing Big data Analytics officially as a tool
with countless applications and significant generated value for organizations will increase.

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Appendix 1- Critiques towards the BIG DATA management ideaErnest Davis, Department of Computer Science, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences

Web sites
Data Justice
Data & Society Institute
Mathbabe Blog Cathy O'Neil.

General Critiques
AAPOR (American Association for Public Opinion Research)
AAPOR Report on Big Data, Feb. 12, 2015. Summary of
recommendations by Cathy O'Neil, mathbabe blog, Feb. 18, 2015
Matt Asay Gartner on Big Data: Everyone's Doing It, No One
Knows Why readwrite.com September 18, 2013.

 danah boyd and Kate Crawford, Critical Questions for Big Data:
Provocations for a Cultural, Technological, and Scholarly Phenomenon,
Information, Communication, and Society 15:5, 2012, 662-679.
Kate Crawford, The Hidden Biases in Big Data, Harvard Business
Review Blog, April 1, 2013.
Kaiser Fung, Toward a more useful definition of Big Data,
undated.
Tim Harford, Big data: Are We Making a Big Mistake? Financial
Times, March 28, 2014.
John Horgan, So Far, Big Data is Small Potatoes , Scientific
American blog, June 9, 2014.
Matthew Jones, Data & Hubris, guest blog, Columbia Data
Science Class, November 26, 2012.
Gary Langer Growing Doubts about Big Data, ABC News, blog.
April 8, 2014.
Gary Marcus, Steamrolled by Big Data The New Yorker (online),
April 3, 2013.
Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis, Eight (No, Nine!) Problems with
Big Data Op-Ed, New York Times, April 7, 2014.
Cathy O'Neil, The Bursting of the Big Data Bubble, mathbabe
blog, September 20, 2013.
Cathy O'Neil Big Data is the New Phrenology mathbabe blog,
February 26, 2015.
Cathy O'Neil Four political camps in the big data world,
mathbabe blog, April 22, 2015
S.P., Separating tweet from chaff, The Economist April 1, 2014.
Megan Scudellari, Scientists Question the Big Price Tags of Big
Data, Newsweek, July 24, 2014.

Social and legal critiques

David Auerbach, You are what you click: On microtargeting, The
Nation March 4, 2013.
Solon Barocas and Andrew Selbst, Big Data's Disparate Impact
Social Science Research Network, October 19. 2014.
T. Blanke, G. Greenway, J. Pybus and M. Cot, Mining Mobile
Youth Cultures, 2nd IEEE International Conference on Big Data,
Washington,2014.
Data and Society Research Institute, Data & Civil Rights: Why
"Big Data" is a Civil Rights Issue, Conference, October 30, 2014.
Rose Hackman, Is online surveillance of black teenagers the new
stop-and-frisk?

 Yian Q. Mui, Little-known firms tracking data used in credit scores

Washington Post, July 16, 2011.
Nathan Newman, Google, Ebay, Amazon, and Yahoo! Team Up to
Gut Consumer and Privacy Laws, Data Justice block, April 27, 2015.
Fokke Obbema et al. China Rates its own Citizens, Including
Online Behavior die Volkskraant, April 25, 2015.
Cathy O'Neil, The Dark Matter of Big Data, "mathbabe" blog, June
25, 2014.
Cathy O'Neil, The Police State is already here, mathbabe blog,
April 27, 2015,
Frank Pasquale, The Dark Market for Personal Data New York
Times, October 17, 2014.
Don Peck, They're Watching You At Work. Atlantic Monthly
November 20, 2013.
Matt Petronzio, How One Woman Hid Her Pregnancy from Big
Data, Includes a video of the "Theorizing Big Data" panel at Theorizing
the Web, 2014.
David Robinson, Harlan Yu, and Aaron Rieke, Robinson & Yu Civil
Rights, Big Data, and our Algorithmic Future. Report, September, 2014.
Room for Debate, Is Big Data Spreading Inequality? NY Times,
August 6, 2014.
Natasha Singer, Never Forgetting a Face, New York Times, May
17, 2004.
Latanya Sweeney Discrimination in Online Ad Delivery, ACM
Queue, 11:3 10-28, 2013.
Matt Stroud, The minority report: Chicago's new police computer
predicts crimes, but is it racist? The Verge Feb. 19, 2014.
Nicholas Terry, Big Data Proxies and Health Privacy
Exceptionalism .
Zeynep Tufekci, Engineering the public: Big data, surveillance,
and computational politics First Monday Vol. 19 No. 7, July 7, 2014.
Zeynep Tufekci and Brayden King, We can't trust Uber, New York
Times, December 8, 2014.
Janet Vertesi, My experiment opting out of Big Data made me
look like a criminal, Time Magazine, May 1, 2014.

Social Media
Raviv Cohen and Derek Ruths, Classifying Political Orientation on
Twitter: It's not Easy! Seventh International AAAI Conference on
Weblogs and Social Media, 2013.

 Daniel Gayo-Avello, "I Wanted to Predict Elections with Twitter

and all I got was this Lousy Paper": A Balanced Survey on Election
Prediction using Twitter Data Unpublished arXiv paper.
Daniel Gayo-Avello, No, You Cannot Predict Elections with Twitter,
Internet Computing, IEEE vol 16 no. 6 (2012): 91-94.
Langer Associates, Social Media and Public Opinion Briefing
paper.
Derek Ruths and Jrgen Pfeffer, Social media for large studies of
behavior, Science, Vol. 346 No. 6213, pp. 1063-1064, November 2014.
Grant Schoenebeck, Potential Networks, Contagious
Communities, and Understanding Social Network Structure, 2013.
Zeynep Tufekci, Big Questions for Social Media Big Data:
Representativeness, Validity, and Other Methodological Pitfalls,
Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and
Social Media 2014, to appear.

Breaking Privacy
L. Sweeney, A. Abu, J. Winn, Identifying Participants in the
Personal Genome Project by Name SSRN 2013.
A. Narayanan and V. Shmatikov. Robust De-anonymization of
Large Sparse Datasets Security and Privacy, 2008.
M. Kosinski, D. Stillwell, and T. Graepel, Private traits and
attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior. PNAS
2013.

Education
Carol Burris, Principal uncovers flawed data in her state's official
education reports Washington Post, Nov. 22, 2014
Cathy O'Neil, Value-added model doesn't find bad teachers,
causes administrators to cheat "mathbabe" blog, March 31, 2013.

Hiring
Cathy O'Neil, Workplace Personality Tests: a Cynical View ,
mathbabe blog, April 16, 2015.
Alex Rosenblat, Tamara Kleese, and danah boyd, Networked
Employment Discrimination Data & Society Working paper, October
2014.

Science and Big Data

 James Faghmous and Vipin Kumar, A Big Data Guide to

Understanding Climate Change: The Case for Theory-Guided Data
Science Big Data, September 2014.

Google Flu Trends

David Auerbach, The Mystery of the Exploding Tongue: How
Reliable is Google Flu Trends? March 19, 2014.
Declan Butler, When Google got flu wrong: US outbreak foxes a
leading web-based method for tracking seasonal flu., Nature,
494:7436, February 13, 2013.
Kaiser Fung, Google Flu Trends Failure Shows Good Data > Big
Data, Harvard Business Review Blog, March 25, 2014.
Chris Gonsalves, Google flu trends and the future of Big Data
CRN, March 31, 2014.
David Lazer, Ryan Kennedy, Gary King, Alessandro Vespignani,
The Parable of Google Flu: Traps in Big Data Analysis, Science, 343,
March 14, 2014.
John Naughton Google and the Flu: How Big Data Will Help Us
Make Gigantic Mistakes The Guardian April 5, 2014.

Citation counts and Impact Factors

Bruce Alberts, Impact Factor Distortions , Science, 340 p. 787,
May 17, 2013.
Lior Pachter, To some a citation is worth $3 per year "Bits of
DNA" blog, October 31, 2014.
San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessent
Per O Seglen, Why the impact factor of journals should not be
used for evaluating research. , BMJ: British Medical Journal 314, no.
7079 (1997): 498.
Per O Seglen, Citations and journal impact factor: Questionable
indicators of research quality, Allergy 52:11, 1050-1056, 1997.
Christiano Varin, Manuela Cattelan, and David Firth Statistical
Modelling of Citation Exchange among Statistics Journals, arXiv
preprint arXiv:1312.1794 (2013).

Evidence-Based Sentencing
Massimo Calabresi, Attorney General Eric Holder to Oppose DataDriven Sentencing, Time Magazine, July 31, 2014
Luis Daniel, The dangers of evidence-based sentencing
mathbabe blog guest post, October 21, 2014.

 Sonja Starr, Sentencing by the Numbers New York Times Op-Ed,

August 10, 2014.
Eileen Sullivan and Ronnie Greene, States predict inmates' future
crimes with secretive surveys, AP, February 24, 2015.

White House Report

Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values, Executive
Office of the President, May 2014.
Jessica McKenzie, Where the White House 'Big Data' Report Falls
Short techpresident.com, May 6, 2014.
Cathy O'Neil, Inside the Podesta Report: Civil Rights Principles of
Big Data mathbabe blog, May 7, 2014.

The Facebook Mood Manipulation Experiment

This has generated an immense literature of responses in a very short time.
A very extensive bibliography is here:
James Grimmelman, The Facebook Emotional Manipulation Study:
Sources The Laboratorium.
I list below only a comparative few that I read and thought interesting.
Adam Chandler, The Many Reasons to Dislike Facebook's Mood
Manipulation Experiment. The Wire, June 28, 2014
Kate Crawford, The Test We Can --- and Should --- Run on
Facebook, The Atlantic July 2, 2014.
John Grohol, Comments on Emotional Contagion on Facebook?
More Like Bad Research Methods, psychcentral.com blog, June 28(?),
2014.
Adam D.I. Kramer, Jamie E. Guillory. and Jeffrey T. Hancock,
Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through
social networks, PNAS, vol. 111 no. 24, 2014, 8788-8790.
Adrienne LaFrance, Even the Editor of Facebook's Mood Study
Thought It Was Creepy The Atlantic Magazine June 28, 2014.
Robinson Meyer, Everything We Know About Facebook's Secret
Mood Manipulation Experiment , The Atlantic Magazine, June 28, 2014.
Janet D. Stemwedel, Some thoughts about human subject
research in the wake of Facebook's massive experiment, Scientific
American blog, June 30, 2014.
Zeynep Tufekci, Facebook and Engineering the Public,
medium.com, June 29, 2014.

 Katy Waldman, Facebook's Unethical Experiment, , Slate, June

28, 2014

Social Media Manipulating Elections

Micah Sifry, Why Facebook's "Voter Megaphone" is the Real
Manipulation to Worry About, Personal Democracy Plus, July 3, 2014.
Micah Sifry, Facebook Wants You to Vote on Tuesday. Here's How
It Messed With Your Feed in 2012. Mother Jones, October 31, 2014.

Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook

Eszter Hargittai, Why doesn't Science publish important methods
info prominently? crookedtimber.org, May 7, 2015.
Nathan Jurgenson, Facebook: Fair and Balanced Cyborgology May
7, 2015.
Christian Sandvig, The Facebook "It's not our Fault" Study, Social
Media Collective, May 7, 2015.
Zeynep Tufekci, How Facebook's Algorithm Suppresses Content
Diversity (Modestely) and How the Newsfeed Rules Your Clicks,
medium.com, May 7, 2015.

Health Surveillance
Joseph Walker, Can a Smartphone Tell if You're Depressed? Apps,
Other Tools Help Doctors, Insurers Measure Psychological Well-Being,
Wall Street Journal, Jan. 5, 2015. Comment by Cathy O'Neil, mathbabe
blog, Jan. 6, 2015.

Book Reviews
The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems --- And Create More by Luke
Dormehl

Luke Dormehl, Algorithms are great and all, but they can also
ruin lives. (excerpt from book). Slate November 19, 2014.
Dataclysm by Christian Rudder

Cathy O'Neil Christian Rudder's Dataclysm mathbabe blog,

September 16, 2014.
The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms that Control Money and Information
by Frank Pasquale

An extremely fine book. Also, there is a wealth of further references in the

footnotes.

 David Auerbach, The Code We Can't Control Slate, Jan. 14, 2015.
Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread --- The Lessons from a New Science by
Sandy Pentland

William Butz, Stressing Patterns of Exchange, Science, 344:1097,

June 6, 2014.
Nicholas Carr, The Limits of Social Engineering April 16, 2014.
Cathy O'Neil, No, Sandy Pentland, let's not optimize the status
quo "mathbabe" blog, May 2, 2014.
The Signal and The Noise by Nate Silver

Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis, What Nate Silver Gets Wrong,
New Yorker online, Jan. 25, 2013,
Cathy O'Neil, Nate Silver confuses cause and effect, ends up
defending corruption, mathbabe blog, December 20, 2012.
Who's Bigger? by Steven Skiena and Charlew Ward

Ernest Davis, Review of Who's Bigger? Where Historical Figures

Really Rank by S. Skiena and C. Ward. SIAM News March 2014.
Olivier Lecarme, Review of Who's Bigger? in Computing Reviews,
#142146, April 8, 2014.
Cass Sunstein, Statistically, Who's the Greatest Person in
History? Why quants can't measure historic significance, The New
Republic December 3, 2013

Random
Nick Bilton, Friends and Influence for Sale Online, New York
Times, April 20, 2014.
Mike Boehm, Google's wrong information about MOCA misleads
museum-goers. Los Angeles Times, July 11, 2014.

Satire
Google Nest
Ordering Pizza in the Future, ACLU, 2006.

Appendix 2- Interview transcripts

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT (Manager)
-Do you consider Big Data a management idea?

- I am not sure what you mean by management idea, but I can tell you why I find big data useful
for management decisions. I think big data aids at management decisions because they increase
analytics and you get a better picture of what is going on in your business. Also, what customers
are doing is also coming from big data, more analytics is happening in all companies. And now
you see with INFOR BI tool we find new ways to import, and the new KPIs is because we are
collecting more data. We are getting more information, such as how many customers are
choosing a particular useful asset at a time. And then from that you can get and talk to your
customers in a different way. You see, lets say, that all these customers from this industry are
buying track trailers. When see this we go to management and show them what we found, and go
to the marketing department and they say ok lets concentrate on the marketing for these
customers in this specific asset types
-Therefore, what factors/criteria did guide you to the decision to implement these systems of Big
Data analytics, especially compared to other programs?
- The main reason for us to switch over from our previous systems, the insufficiency of the
previous program and new systems been created; that is the change of companies, this is the
cause of everything and that is the cause of the system switch-over. And then from then they
analyze whether they wanted to buy the updated version from the system we were using before
for the company itself, or they wanted to switch to a different system. And that meant the
management team looked all the different products, and they had sales pictures from all the
different companies and [pitched?] pretty much for all the different functionality that the
programs used, the prices. And they came to the decision of INFOR and I can know that 2-3
main big things of INFOR were better over SAFARI and SAP were the building of reporting and
consolidation system, is one of the biggest things in productivity savings.
-Do you think the decision was affected by any consultants?
- Definitely
- How have you heard about INFOR? Any consultants or management gurus?
- What we had was INFOR consultants coming in, and we before we made any decisions on the
program, they came in and showed us everything. So it is pretty much INFOR salespeople. They

came in, and like it was with SAFARI and SAP, they showed us the program and what people
can do, and they show us what other companies can do. And this is how the management team
decided on the program
-Now, during the implementation phase, which means do you find important for effectively
implementing a new idea, a new system?
-The biggest thing I can think of, from my experience, is getting all the feedback and information
from different sources from all around the world. Because, what we have seen in the past with all
the other systems is that the core group, in charge of implementing it, has not done enough
research for the use of it, or how they use it, or what they have problems with. And yes they
solved the previous eras, but there is new ones happened, because they have not gathered all
information. So I think this one thing we need to be careful of, is collecting all the information so
this enables the info team to build something that is actually useful for the company. So it is all
about the information, and data collecting, researching the old processes. We should sit in these
departments, and watch them do everything and take notes of all the processes. And from there
we know exactly what they can do, instead of having a vague picture, and implement a better
system.
-How do you introduce such an idea?
-Definitely it is useful to create vagueness for the previous program and point out all the
negatives, in order to create a more positive attitude towards the new program. The most
important thing is to involve the users of such a program, because they are going to use the next
system as well. Especially in some regions in other countries, people in the branches feel like
their voice doesnt get heard. They see a lot of things and changes happening, and they said this
doesnt help us. This is something we are trying to change with INFOR; getting them involved in
the process and getting their opinion you make sure you capture all their requirements and needs
from such a program. You make every department to feel important in a way.
And just on the other question; yeah, we have to involve them, but I think in training as well.
And that is one thing we may have missed a little bit.
How did you manage to diffuse and communicate the idea within the company?

-Yeah, you refer to the dissemination process.

-Because with the finance reporting, it got rolled out very quickly. We had to replace the old
system and we did not have time for training. None of the other people in other regions really got
any training. So they see that they are given a new product and they have to use it, but they think
that no one told what to do with this, no one told me how to use it.
-Did the salespeople that came to present the idea use any case studies for already implemented
cases?
-Yeah! And what they do, the consultants offered to help us with things we didnt know in the
INFOR. The salesmen go to a new company and they present the program and a lot of times they
refer to other companies. They said they also use it in PWC and they used in such a way, so we
know it is possible.
And referring to your other question, when we chose the system, we had consultants coming in
and sell it to us. And I think we need to do the same thing to the regions. We have to go there and
sell it to them, because it would be pointless implementing this if they just carry on doing what
they already do.
-So you first have to implement it here and then sell it to the other regions?
- I think yeah, we just need to sell it better. We forget that the decisions already have been made
to use this, but in the regions it has been made yet. And because of the change they do not really
know what to do, and instead of INFOR they may use the Excel.
-So are you thinking to use these consultants again, in order to create a positive attitude towards
INFOR?
- No, pretty much it will be me and Ian, going to the regions. But again I think we forget that we
are going to sell it to the other users as well. This will improve everything and people will use it
correctly. We need a portfolio of good stories and case studies.

Interview transcript (Big Data employee)

1.

What is your impression of this mgt idea a new Big Data Analysis, a new business

intelligence tool?
My first impression is that it has rather remarkable functionality as a system but during the phase
of implementation that we are now they have emerged a lot of issues having to do with more
technical stuff like the server and the IT resources. So generally I think that this management
idea, INFOR , is a great tool by itself to make analysis of Big Data but we should have more
resources in order to do it effectively; Everyone who is part of the implementation like the FP&A
team , they all know that is a great problem but the rest of the region that they are not involved
they cannot see that because they have a lot of issues like the system is crushing or they are not
getting they right numbers , so with the lack of knowledge that they have in this specific tool
they cannot trust it and understand its capabilities. They do not so use it now because they have
always problems that are related mostly with their lack of knowledge.
2.

Alright so , if you are like a manager for this projects what would you change in the way

that this management tool was introduced, disseminated and implemented?

I think the main problem came from the IT resources and another important factor was that in the
beginning of the implementation of this business intelligent tool, INFOR, we had another project
manager like we have now Hugo , that he left the company and he took a lot of knowledge with
him , ha was in charge of a lot of things relating to the project implementation and requiring a lot
of knowledge; Some people set different functional specs for INfOR but nothing was
documented so we had to reteach ourselves and redo a lot of things , so this cause a lot of
dissatisfaction and frustration.
3.

You think that INFOR as intelligent tool fits in the context of the company or that they try

to take it as tool and fit it for more strategic reasons?

I think it fits for the FP&A department that I represent but I am not quite sure how is going to fit
for the rest of the departments and how is going all of our warehouse be inputted into INFOR. It
will require quite a lot of work and critical thinking. For finance do I think is very good but for
the other departments , I am not sure.

4.

Do you think that the managers should have something like a survey or another way to

ask, involve and engage people in this project or you are in agreement with the way that was
introduced?
I think the way they did it was correct , because most of the times if you ask your people, your
employees if they want to change something most of the times the will be resistant to change,
they do not like change even if they have gains from it. So I think is better to begin with a project
team not of course only managers but different positions within the company, like on senior, one
junior, some employees, some IT etc. and then these people be used like agents to diffuse this
knowledge within the different departments, but no not to engage everyone in this.
5.

What do you think would be a way of effective dissemination in order to implement the

project then with a more engaged environment of people? Do yourself feel engaged in the
project?
Well, I am not quite sure, yes myself I feel involved because I am part of this project from the
finance department; but I think if they have more training from experts like INFOR consultants
who will know in deep all the functionalities of the program it would be very important and
decisive I think, because now we have the team of the project but we have no experts so we
investigate issues and the rest of the company cannot develop an adequate trust to this BI tool
because they do not have somebody to answer all of their issues. If we have like I said some
consultants for six months at least to transfer us their knowledge and then we keep going on our
own it would be very effective.
6.

Do you think that the use of other success stories of other companies would help in the

engagement of the people? Do you use such stories?

Yeah, I think it is very important; when we were informed for example that Heineken is using the
same BI tool , we appreciate it a lot and we think that we can do it too and it can actual work and
you start to feel more confident about it.