This particular article explains the importance of big data directly to businesses and how it aids them in measuring different aspects of their business leading to improved decision making and performance. The article clarifies the link between big data and analytics but states three key differences as volume, velocity and variety. 
They questioned whether the evidence that using big data intelligently will improve business performance and assessed it by leading a team at the MIT Center for Digital Business, working in partnership with McKinsey’s business technology office and testing the hypothesis which was that it is expected that data-driven companies perform better. Interviews were held with executives at 330 public North American companies about their organisational and technology management practices which allowed them to gain information indicating how important the data is. The findings revealed that the more companies characterised themselves as data-driven, the better they performed on objective measures of financial and operational results.

To be continued…

McAfee, A., & Brynjolfsson, E. (2012). Big data: the management revolution. Harvard business review, 90(10), 60-66.