Analytics as a Service: A Growing Field for Jobs, Investments, and Society in General

As cloud computing capabilities expand, the number of companies able to offer software, platform, infrastructure, and analytics as a service (AaaS) continues to grow.

Business intelligence or business analytics is a rapidly growing field now largely based on two factors: the first is that with a global business ecomony, corporations want to be able to react quickly to change and in some cases even predict what might happen. The second factor is that the current technology now really allows them to collect, process, and analyze the massive amounts of big data that are generated that can really affect their business or organization. After a few years of marketing hype around the possibilities of cloud computing, here is a service in the field that has widespread uses.

Why is Business Big Data Analytics as a Service Important?

Businesses, governments, and other organizations can learn a lot from the data that they collect. Whether it's structured big data that can be dropped into a spreadsheet and analyzed, or social media, GPS, or other unstructured big data that needs to be represented on a map, heat map, or other format, it's useful for decision makers. But because of the incredible amounts of this big data being created and collected daily, expect organizations to outsource the real-time and predictive analytics of that information over the web to cloud computing companies who specialize in analytics as a service.

There are three main reasons why these developments should matter to our culture.

Jobs - Big Data, business intelligence, analytics, and cloud computing in general are growth areas for jobs, careers, and long-term employment trends. The architecture, design, and implementation of the collection, analysis, and security of this data means that training and certification is trying to keep up with the demand. And in a post-recessionary economy, and area with great jobs prospects, beyond regular IT is great news for new graduates, those in school, and seasoned veterans with a real idea of what's changing. And with analytics popping up in health care, education, military/government, and other disciplines, it's not just business that needs workers with this expertise.
Investments - Retail investors and wall street institutions are always looking for that long-term trend that will add real growth to their portfolios. Some have compared the possibilities for wide-spread cloud computing adoption to be as important as the green energy, the cell phone, or the internet itself. As these companies grow and consolidate by merging and acquiring others, there seem to be many cloud computing companies whose position in the field seems critical to the success.
Efficiency - With real-time and predictive analytics, IBM is already showing urban areas around the globe that their traffic, emergency response, and other infrastructure resources can be more effectively managed by analysis of structured and unstructured big data. These technology developments can reduce highway congestion, medical errors, and even the response time in natural disasters, making cities, countries, and societies better across the globe.

Software as a service might have an impact on desktop computing software publishers the same way smart-phones and tablets might forever change the way laptops are used. Now if companies can analyze all of the largely anonymous data they have been collecting, the applications will probably surprise everyone. This is a growth field that should be of interest to everyone, but especially to job seekers, investors, and data science-based decision makers.