How Data Viz Drives Tech Industry Success

With the sheer quantity of data growing all the time, tech businesses need a way to understand and put it to use

The tech industry relies on data visualization to make key decisions and analyze the success of their efforts across a broad range of metrics. Illustration: Killer Visual Strategies

With the advent of big data, businesses — especially those in the tech industry — have access to more data than ever before about their customers, how their ads are performing, how their product is reaching people, and pretty much every other business metric you can think of.

It’s estimated that, by 2020, companies will have access to 44 trillion gigabytes of data, more than 4x the amount in 2015.

But the practice of simply collecting tons and tons of data isn’t enough to help businesses succeed. “You can’t win that battle. Data keeps growing and growing, and you’ll sink in that lake. You can’t swim in it,” said Satyendra Rana, chief technology officer of cognitive decision-making platform diwo, in an interview with CIO.

When you have that data, you need to assess it in a meaningful way — and that’s where data visualization comes in. The use of charts and graphs helps us identify trends, weaknesses, and unexpected opportunities. This holds especially true for the tech industry, which is unique in the sheer quantity of data it can access.

So how are tech companies using this data to transform and grow their businesses? Let’s take a look.

Gaining customer insights

It’s estimated that, by 2020, companies will have access to 44 trillion gigabytes of data, more than quadruple the amount in 2015.

In the tech industry, whole businesses have sprung up to analyze the huge sets of data around how people think and interact online. Targeted digital ads operate based on algorithms that analyze and predict human behavior and interests.

Amazon is one company that has built predictive models around a wealth of customer data. But it’s not the only one. For an example of how this can be done, just take a look at Google Analytics. This tool wouldn’t be nearly as powerful if it simply dropped all the information about your site traffic into a giant spreadsheet. The usefulness of Google…