Predicting or anticipating future events is a constant exercise for individuals and organizations aiming to make the best present decisions that will benefit them in a time yet to come. In various fields of knowledge, science has evolved significantly in recent decades to provide society with instruments that can anticipate, with a reasonable level of precision, events including natural phenomena in general that influence the daily decisions of thousands of people.
Advances in methods for defining statistical models and machine learning provide new ways to predict the future based on knowledge of past facts and how certain variables influenced the outcome of an event or a specific action. The proliferation and rapid, easy access to data characterizing these facts have made these methods even more precise and their application increasingly frequent in various aspects of modern life.
The speed with which new data science solutions are implemented and all their implications for modern society are directly related to the benefit this technology can provide to those willing to innovate in their data analysis processes. Several studies have been conducted to evaluate the potential of technologies and methods associated with big data in corporate performance. The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), for example, states in one of its well-known publications on the subject that the potential for gain in the retail sector is particularly significant, estimating that the operational margin of companies in this sector can be increased by more than 60%.
While analytical applications in the corporate world have shown extraordinary results, the public sector across all levels of government also offers enormous opportunities to improve the management processes of its various institutions. In the US public health sector alone, the same MGI report estimates the potential gain for the government from the effective use of data analytics solutions at over US$ 300 million annually.
Company and government initiatives like those reported above are happening with increasing frequency worldwide. In Brazil, it will be no different. The gold rush (data) to analyze the past, predict the future, and make the best decisions, whether to improve business process performance or increase the return on public investments, is just beginning. The results obtained so far leave no doubt about the value of big data for society.