Big Data is a relative topic for most industries Research Paper

Big Data is a relative topic for most industries - Research Paper Example Such is the importance of getting valuable and timely insight nowadays that the exploitation of big data is considered a crucial component in the chances of success of a firm (Lynch, 2008). Investment in big data however does come with significant risks which participants must account for. A recent report published by Transparency Market Research indicates that the global big data market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 40.5% from the years 2012 to 2018 (PR Newswire, 2014a; 2014b). Seemingly great news on the outset, it does have some important connotations. Given the affordable rates of internet subscriptions, service providers do not necessarily have the cash to invest in their network bandwidth. This creates the possibility of speed deficiencies, network overload and collapse as the upsurge in the availability of big data will not be matched by requisite bandwidth to support it. Without the necessary ancillary services present, revenues of the big data industry could be affected. Moreover, the big data industry is warm towards new entrants. Hadoop, the open source software utilized by major market players such as IBM and Oracle, is available for free for use by other parties as well (Sonderegger, 2014). This proposes a great competitive risk to current players in the market, especially with corporations such as Yahoo, Facebook, LinkedIn and eBay all applying this technology nowadays as well (Sonderegger, 2014). This could also give impetus to the industry giants to acquire patents to secure their place in the market by squeezing out competition. Halting technological innovations and breakthroughs will be an important repercussion of this type of action. The emergence of cyber crime poses a great threat to the progress of the big data industry. Customers should have complete faith in the ability of companies dealing in big