Wall Street & Technology is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Data Management

11:30 AM
Tom Crawford, Microgen
Tom Crawford, Microgen
Commentary
50%
50%

Big Data: A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action

While Big Data is a hot topic on Wall Street, most financial firms don't have the right systems in place to manage it and make it actionable, argues Microgen's SVP North America Tom Crawford.

As one industry expert recently observed, on Wall Street, “It’s all about the data.” But for financial companies to win the “faster, smarter, dirtier” game of Big Data, they must make data more actionable. That is, financial firms have to be able to put data to work in a way that informs smarter business decisions that help the business change and grow.

To some, that may sound obvious – it’s hard to imagine a firm that would want its data to inform really bad business decision making. But the reality is that most firms don’t have a clear enough understanding of how their data is managed therefore they can’t paint a clear picture of why that data is so important. More to the point, most companies simply don’t have the right systems in place to provide the kind of transparency into data to make the information truly meaningful.

So there’s a lot of talk about Big Data and how companies need to put it to work, but the reality is that so far, many firms have been at a loss to understand why and how to deal with it.

Managing Big Data: Why It Matters Effective Big Data management will be the defining issue of the financial marketplace in the year to come. This is due to a number of reasons, including:

• Data volume + regulations = big headaches – The challenge to the financial industry is not just how “tough” regulatory requirements are, but how tough it is to answer to them. This is made infinitely more difficult by the massive volumes of trade and transaction data that companies have to manage every day. For example, the Dodd Frank requirement to report derivative trades in near-real time will require superb Big Data efficiencies for financial services companies. The challenge is, how do you measure the risk associated with your trades when each trade is associated with many gigabytes of data?

• Business users + IT users = competing priorities – From the trading desk to the analyst function, business users want fast and easy access to information that they can put to work immediately in risk models and other applications. But IT users need to ensure they have recognizable and replicable logic flows and rules associated with data so that it moves from one part of the organization to another whilst maintaining integrity. Higher volumes of data make this competition more intense.

• Cost of data storage + concerns over data security = a wary market place – Operations and IT infrastructure experts know that the cost of managing data is going up, even when the cost of storage is relatively low, because of the amount of information that has to be managed and cached. Although the cloud offers the potential for a firm to reduce its Big Data footprint, many are still unconvinced about the security of data in the cloud. In addition, some worry that cloud-based data might not be as easily accessed for analysis and manipulation in databases as it needs to be for fast decision making.

Previous
1 of 2
Next
More Commentary
A Wild Ride Comes to an End
Covering the financial services technology space for the past 15 years has been a thrilling ride with many ups as downs.
The End of an Era: Farewell to an Icon
After more than two decades of writing for Wall Street & Technology, I am leaving the media brand. It's time to reflect on our mutual history and the road ahead.
Beyond Bitcoin: Why Counterparty Has Won Support From Overstock's Chairman
The combined excitement over the currency and the Blockchain has kept the market capitalization above $4 billion for more than a year. This has attracted both imitators and innovators.
Asset Managers Set Sights on Defragmenting Back-Office Data
Defragmenting back-office data and technology will be a top focus for asset managers in 2015.
4 Mobile Security Predictions for 2015
As we look ahead, mobility is the perfect breeding ground for attacks in 2015.
Register for Wall Street & Technology Newsletters
Video
5 Things to Look For Before Accepting Terms & Conditions
5 Things to Look For Before Accepting Terms & Conditions
Is your corporate data at risk? Before uploading sensitive information to cloud services be sure to review these terms.