The impact of Big Data on companies and a lack of skills as the origin of the challenges they are facing : An investigation aimed to understand the origin of the challenges companies are facing with Big Data

Sammanfattning: The 21st century saw the rise of internet and with it, the digitalization of our world. Today, many companies rely on technology to run their businesses and Big Data is one of the latest phenomenon that arose from technological evolution. As the amount of data is constantly increasing, ranging from business intelligence to personal information, Big Data has become a major source of competitive advantage for companies who are able to implement it efficiently. However, as with every new technology, challenges and issues arise. What’s more, the learning curve is steep, and companies need to adapt quickly, so as to follow the pace of innovation and develop the skill-set of their employees to remain competitive in their respective industries. This paper investigates how Big Data is impacting companies, the main challenges they are facing within its implementation and looks to determine if these challenges originate from a lack of skills from the current workforce. A qualitative study has been conducted, interviewing nine respondents over eight interviews of 54 minutes on average. Three main ideas have been outlined through the interviews conducted by the authors. The first is the impact of Big Data in companies with mainly the benefits, challenges, regulations as well as the cohabitation of human beings and technology. The second and third are the optimal profile of a decision-maker and the ideal profile of the employee in companies working with Big Data. The profiles of the decision-maker and employee are composed of characteristics, skills and experience. The decision-maker, in this paper, was defined as a key actor in the success or failure of a company and of great influence on the profile of the employee. His skills, such as strategic, basic, analytical, communication and decision-making were developed, and their correlation was demonstrated. Ultimately, the lack of skills in companies today, often regarded as a challenge by numerous scholars, was shown to be the origin for many of the challenges companies are facing, mainly through bad decision-making and lack of communication. The authors finally outlined steps for a successful implementation of Big Data in companies and future trends such as regulations and increased technological evolution to carefully and actively pursue for people and businesses alike.