Get the competitive advantage with big data

Photo: Roskilde, Lars Just/Polfoto
Front page photo: Shutterstock

What has rock 'n’ roll got to do with big data analytics? The rhythm of the huge Danish music festival Roskilde Festival that is shared publicly by party people on social media gives an opportunity for insight into its guests and brand values. And the harvesting of these insights is a job for the team behind Business Data Analytics, the name of a new CBS centre and a research focus area. The centre aims to help especially Danish companies create business value from big data sets and increase their competitiveness, says Professor Ravi Vatrapu, newly appointed Director of the centre.

- We want to create business value by turning big data sets in to business assets. We want help Danish companies compete on both in-house and open big data in the global marketplace. Having big data is not necessarily a competitive advantage, but big data analytics attract business value for all stakeholders. We are very excited about the new centre, says Ravi.

This week, the new centre is at the largest music festival in Scandinavia. 15 researchers equipped with laptops, dash boards, big screens, 10 servers and using custom-built software as well as the IBM Watson Analytics are analysing big data streams at the Roskilde Festival to the beats from stages. When party moods turn into hangovers and into party moods again, analyses of the experiences shared publicly on social media, anonymous use of the stylish Roskilde Festival app and business data from Roskilde Festival gives strategic insights.

- We are trying to understand the role of social media in the context of the festival.  One of the key parameters for Roskilde Festival is for its guests to understand that they are a non-profit organisation. We try to understand how this brand value is communicated and how it matches with their business ecosystem, says Ravi Vatrapu.

For Peter Møllgaard, Dean of Research at CBS, the new centre is another element in a strategy that provides leverage in an important field for a strong, but small economy like the Danish economy, based on know-how and knowledge networks.

- The creation of the Centre for Business Data Analytics is a signal of CBS' continuous venture into research in big data. Denmark is a small society, but we are very visible internationally because we have great databases and statistics and researchers with knowledge on how to utilise them, says Peter and continues:

- The big data field in Denmark attracts researchers from the international top shelf like Ravi Vatrapu. We are proud that he will continue his engagement at CBS as the Director of the Centre for Business Data Analytics, says the Dean of Research.

About the centre:
The Roskilde Festival research project is one of 4 projects already deeply underway at the new centre with competences in the computational social science, theoretical computer science, data mining, machine learning, text analytics, information systems, econometrics, psychology, marketing, and public health. The other externally funded research projects at the centre include:

•    Big Data Analytics for Social Business from the Danish Industry Foundation,
•    Big Social Data Analytics for Public Health from the Copenhagen Health Innovation with University of
     Copenhagen,
•    Networked Business Initiative co-financed by Danish companies,
•    and a collaborative research project on Knowledge Ecosystems with the Tampere University of
     Technology funded by the Academy of Finland.

Visit the project's website. For more information about the Roskilde project, contact external lecturer Per Østergaard Jacobsen.  

Visit the centre online.

Read about IBM's involvement.

For more information about the centre please contact Director and Professor Ravi Vatrapu. 

or the Dean of Research through Press Manager Mikael Koldby.