Last night, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty gave a speech to the Council On Foreign Relations breaking down how much the world has changed as computing gets smarter and more integrated into our businesses and lives. "I’d like you to think of big data as the next natural resource," she said, "that can be to our era what steam, electricity and oil was for the Industrial Age."
But just having oil or electricity didn’t make you a powerhouse, because everyone had access. That’s doubly true for data. It’s about what you do with it. For data to be a source of advantage, management and organizations have to completely change. Rometty offers three key lessons on how they need to do so. "Many, many more decisions at your company or entity will be based on predictive analytics, and not your gut instinct or experience." When we make decisions by gut instinct, we often make the wrong ones, Rometty argues.