e ar
at r
Big Data: Implications for Financial
Managers
Kurt Fanning and Rita Grant
“B
ig data” is
a term that
is appear-
ing more frequently in
both use and the news.
The recently concluded
U.S. presidential elec-
tion of November 2012
showcased the impor-
tance of using big data
effectively. Some pun-
dits are attributing the
winning party’s ability
to analyze and work
with big data as their
key to success.1 The
ability of Nate Silver to
predict all of the U.S.
Senate elections, along
with calling President
Obama’s reelection
at a 90% assurance
level, has made his star
grow even brighter.2
Another November
2012 event, Superstorm Sandy,
is an additional example of the
value of big data. The weather
forecaster’s ability to predict the
direction of Sandy, an unusual
turn back to land, would not
have been possible without the
advances in big data.3 Finally,
those with the money and
© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).
DOI 10.1002/jcaf.21872
ticl
u
e
fe
like InfoWorld and
“Big data” goes beyond the critical data that InformationWeek
companies traditionally used to make business have added big
decisions. It includes a huge and growing amount data as channels,
of less-structured data from enterprise resource thus giving big data
planning (ERP) systems, customer relationship equal importance
management (CRM) programs, social media, and to topics such as
other sources. Some pundits attributed Barack cloud computing.
Obama’s 2012 election win to his party’s ability to The big informa-
analyze and work with big data. Those who accu- tion firms such as
IBM, Oracle, and
rately predicted the wayward path of Superstorm
SAP are staking out
Sandy used big data to do it. And in 2011, the lat- their position in this
est year that we have statistics for, savvy venture market while cham-
capital investors poured $24.7 billion into big data pioning the future
firms. So it’s a safe bet that financial managers for big data. Other
who can derive actionable information from big companies such as
data will be able to achieve more corporate growth Splunk, GoodData,
by making better decisions. How can you use big and Tibco are grow-
data to benefit your company? The authors of this ing while positioning
article take a close look at what big data means themselves to pro-
for financial managers. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
vide the necessary
services to allow
their users to profit
from big data.
perhaps good insight are big Thus, it can be stated that
believers in big data. Venture users with the ability to derive
capital invested 2.47 billion in actionable information from
2011 in big data firms (a 60% big data will be able to achieve
increase over 2010), with esti- growth by making better deci-
mates of their investments in sions. These future corporate
2015 equaling 16.9 billion.4 winners will leverage their data-
Well-known computer driven strategies to innovate,
information resource sources compete, and capture value
23
24
from their deep and real-time
big data information. These two
claims and the above-mentioned
current events surrounding big
data make a strong case for why
becoming informed about big
data is a necessity for financial
managers.
SO WHAT IS BIG DATA?
The first part of big data
refers to the enormous amounts
of data generated by the current
environment. For decades com-
panies have been making busi-
ness decisions based on transac-
tional data stored in relational
databases. Beyond a firm’s criti-
cal data is an enormous amount
of less structured data from
corporate enterprise resource
planning (ERP) systems, cus-
tom relationship management
(CRM) programs, general ledger
packages, weblogs, social media,
e-mail, sensors, photographs,
and other internal systems that
can be made available for data
mining. In addition, there is
the data that is available in the
public space such as forums and
social networks. All this data
has grown exponentially in the
last few years. One measure
of the growth is expressed this
way: “Consider this. It took
humankind roughly 24,000 years
to produce 5 Exabyte’s of data
(250,000 years of DVD quality
video). We now globally gener-
ate that much content every 2
days.”5 Global digital informa-
tion is expected to grow 45
percent every year to 7.9 trillion
gigabytes in 2015, according to
the International Data Corpora-
tion.6 The information flood has
become a deluge of data; thus, it
was named big data.
The second part of big
data is the ability to find useful
information within the big data.
Firms are deploying serious
DOI 10.1002/jcaf
The Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance / July/August 2013
computing power to make
sense of the huge amounts of
data. Hardware and software
advances have made manipula-
tion of this data a reality. New
approaches such as Hadoop,
a software that takes a differ-
ent approach to data manage-
ment, and HANA, a hardware
approach that handles data
manipulation all in raw memory,
are making real-time analytics
of the big data a reality.
While there are other
aspects to why big data is in
its prime, the main reasons are
these: (1) the cost reduction
and volume capacity increase
of digital storage mediums and
(2) new ways of doing data
manipulation. One can observe
that current thoughts on analyz-
ing big data are similar to what
has been done in the sciences
of chemistry and physics for
a long time. These techniques
have finally caught up to the
microscopes and telescopes of
the sciences; we can visualize
the patterns flowing through
business data. Now that we are
capturing the vast quantity of
information from CRMs, ERP,
social networks, and other sys-
tems, we have the quantity and
technology available to harness
big data. The authors cannot
help but think of Isaac Asimov’s
Foundation Series (written in
the late 40s!) wherein the Foun-
dation uses what Asimov called
psycho-history (big data) to
predict what actions the Foun-
dation’s competitor, the Empire,
would do.
The laws of history are
as absolute as the laws
of physics, and if the
probabilities of error
are greater, it is only
because history does
not deal with as many
humans as physics does
atoms, so that indi-
vidual variations count
for more.7
We are now seeing this all
come true. While big data will
impact all areas of commerce,
there are some areas where the
impact of big data is already
occurring in the marketplace.
We will look at two of these as
examples of what big data is and
will be in the future.
MARKETING
One cannot escape the
changes that have occurred in
marketing over the last 20 years.
Large-scale mailings of catalogs
and offers to various individu-
als solely based on purchased
mailing list or phone directories
are no more. Firms can now
specifically target their market-
ing to leads with a high prob-
ability of providing a sale. A
large measure of this success is
due to knowledge gained from
examining big data. This knowl-
edge allows firms to directly
market to individuals based
on knowing the preferences
of individuals involved in the
population. Companies such as
Amazon can immediately offer
additional purchase opportuni-
ties to individuals based on what
others have also purchased given
a similar purchase showing up in
the cart. After the fact, e-mails
and offers can be targeted to
those who in the past purchased
the prior product. To those
individuals who are searching a
particular topic, Google offers
marketers the ability to provide
relevant ads to individuals based
on their search habits, or others
ads that relate to similar topics.
As the tools to analyze big data
improve, along with the increase
in data collection, extremely
narrowcast ads will become the
© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance / July/August 2013
norm, thus providing a benefit
to all.
One can see how the game
has changed for marketing by
briefly looking at digital market-
ing. Digital marketing centers on
the Internet, especially e-mails
(old school), or the newer medi-
ums of Twitter and social media.
Marketing on the Internet can
be used both to “push” a mes-
sage to someone like e-mail, IM,
RSS, or voice broadcast, as well
as to “pull” content responding
to a banner ad and pay-per-click
search terms. Digital marketing,
therefore, can be thought of as
a combination of push-and-pull
Internet technologies to execute
marketing campaigns. Software
vendors such as Adobe (driven
by its purchase of Omniture in
2009) allow their customers to
make each digital transaction
layered, thus allowing the orga-
nization see in real time how that
campaign is performing, such
as what is being viewed, how
often, how long, as well as other
actions such as responses rates
and purchases made. This infor-
mation can be added to the data-
base, while making information
available to the firm to make
decisions on what to do while
having the potential lead’s eyes.
Finally, the previous discus-
sion concentrated on what has
been ongoing within what one
could call single-channel market-
ing. The newest point of empha-
sis is on multichannel marketing.
This refers to the proliferation
of mobile phones, tablets, and
other means of accessing the
Internet. Thus, sending just to
one channel response such as a
single e-mail is not efficient. An
example of this would be when
a member of a hotel priority
club, while checking into the
hotel, could be targeted for spa
discounts or information about
pay-for-view movies similar to
© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
purchases in the past on their
mobile device. Restaurants of a
certain variety could be pointed
out based on their Yelp postings.
Connecting all this big data and
providing it in real time is no
longer unthinkable. Companies
like Usablenet are providing just
such an experience now.8 Mul-
tichannel marketing is the wave
of the future and the advance-
ments in big data are making it
happen.
FINANCIAL
Several books could be writ-
ten about big data and financial
investing. Proprietary investment
methods analyzing what could
be called big data have enabled
firms to make themselves and
their clients wealthy. The ability
of the persons steeped in math-
ematical analytical ability, com-
monly known as quants, to be
successful in the markets is the
accepted norm. One can con-
sider this as the first wave of big
data. Rather than go down this
well-traveled road, the authors
would like to look at a Securi-
ties and Exchange Commission
(SEC) project that is a good
example of what’s happening in
the financial markets as it relates
to big data. The SEC contracted
out a system in the summer of
2012 that will allow the SEC to
track creation, modification, and
cancellation of orders in real
time. This system allows the SEC
regulators to collect, store, aggre-
gate, monitor, query, manipulate,
and analyze trades, quotes, and
orders on stocks and options as
disseminated by national securi-
ties exchanges, over-the-counter
markets, and alternative trading
systems. By doing so, the SEC
will be able to look at all suspi-
cious activity on public markets.
There have been fears that the
SEC lacked the tools to exam-
25
ine the current market. With
an increasing amount of trades
coming from what have been
labeled high-frequency traders,
there was a concern that the
SEC was becoming outgunned
in comparison to the individuals
performing these trades. Such a
massive undertaking would not
have been thinkable in the recent
past, but the strides made by big
data vendors such as Tradeworx,
who is developing the system,
will make this a reality.9
Within the SEC, this pro-
gram will allow it to find patterns
of disruptive activity and suspi-
cious trading practices, inten-
tional or accidental. The system
will also be used to watch for
structural patterns between can-
cels and movements in the mar-
ket, for example, cross-cancella-
tions between exchange-traded
funds and the underlying stocks
that are the components. The
“researcher’s platform” will also
allow the SEC to analyze market
microstructures, insider trading,
and such practices as layering
and spoofing. In layering, the
trading firm or firms involved
send out waves of false orders
intended to give the impres-
sion that the market for shares
of a particular security at that
moment is deep. The technique
may also use a large amount of
“wash trades,” which have no
economic effect, to achieve the
appearance of market depth.
The traders then take advantage
of the market’s reaction to the
layering of orders. In spoofing,
the trader or traders involved
will send out an order with a cor-
responding cancellation, often at
the opening or close of the mar-
ket, in order to get a particular
market reaction. The Tradeworx
system will, for instance, let the
SEC scan through millions of
orders for cancellations and ana-
lyze the output automatically.
DOI 10.1002/jcaf
26 The Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance / July/August 2013

This is a prime example of what
big data is all about.
BENEFITS
Now that we know some-
thing about big data, let’s exam-
ine what it can do for you (see
Exhibit 1). There are five broad
ways in which using big data
can create value. (1) Big data
can unlock significant value by
making information transparent
and usable at a much higher fre-
quency. More people looking at
the data will bring different per-
spectives, and perhaps the key
to a problem will be provided by
someone who previously never
saw the data. (2) As the organi-
zations data proliferates, there
is more accurate and detailed
performance information on
everything from product inven-
tories to sick days. This addi-
tional information will expose
variability and issues that need
attention. Companies are using
data collection and analysis to
conduct controlled experiments
to make better management
decisions; others are using data
for basic low-frequency forecast-
ing to high-frequency nowcast-
ing to adjust their business levers
just in time. (3) Big data allows
ever-narrower segmentation of
customers, therefore, much more
precisely tailored products or
services. (4) Sophisticated ana-
lytics can substantially improve
decision making. (5) Big data
can be used to improve the
development of the next genera-
tion of products and services.
For instance, manufacturers
are using data obtained from
sensors embedded in products
to create innovative after-sales
service offerings such as proac-
tive maintenance (preventive
measures that take place before a
failure occurs or is even noticed).
PROBLEMS AND ISSUES
Several issues will have to
be addressed to capture the full
potential of big data. Policies
related to privacy, security, intel-
lectual property, and even liabil-
ity will need to be addressed in
a big data world. Organizations
need not only to put the right
talent and technology in place
but also structure workflows
and incentives to optimize
the use of big data. Access to
data is critical. Companies will
increasingly need to integrate
information from multiple data
sources, often from third parties,
and the incentives have to be in
place to enable this.
One main problem is the
lack of skilled workers in the
area of big data. According to a
report by McKinsey:
By 2018, the United
States alone could face
a shortage of 140,000
to 190,000 people with
deep analytical skills
as well as 1.5 million
managers and analysts
with the know-how to
use the analysis of big
data to make effective
decisions.10
This could be a serious
problem for the growth of ana-
lyzing big data. Similar to the
situation that occurred with the
implementation of ERP sys-
tems in the early 2000s, firms
involved in big data projects
could face slowdowns due to
the lack of properly trained
personnel. There needs to be
greater emphasis at universities

Exhibit 1

List of Benefits of a Successful Big Data Implementation

Value Proposition Benefit

Provide data to more people New perspective; additional input

Additional data stored
Customer segmenting
Improved decisions
Better products or service
Patterns will be more apparent
Ability to place customers with groupings; delete undesirable potential customer
who only waste resources. Better narrow casting of advertising and promotions
Precision; increased probability of being right
Ability to analyze customer comments; respond to complaints faster and better;
imbedded sensors sending information back to firm about product functionality

DOI 10.1002/jcaf © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

 The Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance / July/August 2013 27

in training students to develop their source of information, SAP

data analytics skills. In addition,
efforts should be made to retrain
those in other fields to increase
their data analytic skills.
Another issue will be that
the collection of data may
run into a legal roadblock as
people restrict access to their
data. During discussions in the
media relating to use of data
analytics throughout the 2012
Presidential election, those
questioned about their data
collection methods were sure
to emphasis that individuals’
privacy was protected at all
times. While this may be true or
not true, it would be difficult to
suggest that, given the increase
in examining personal data
going forward, the issue of peo-
ple’s privacy will not become
increasingly important. While
laws such as Family Educa-
tional Rights and Privacy Act
(FERPA) and Health Insur-
ance Portability and Account-
ability Act (HIPPA) protect the
rights on students and medical
records, customer protec-
tion is not as well protected.
While firms understand it is
in their best interest to protect
it is probably just a matter of
time before laws are passed to
restrict access to personal data.
Other issues will need to be
addressed in a big data world.
Organizations will need to
structure workflows and incen-
tives to optimize the use of
big data. The ability to access
multichannel data and then
integrate this information from
multiple data sources will be a
challenge. See Exhibit 2 for a
list of problems and possible
solutions arising from the use
of big data.
FIRMS: WHO ARE THE
PLAYERS IN BIG DATA?
Most of the major ERP
and analytic players and several
of the newer firms are listed
in Exhibit 3. All of them offer
valuable services that help users
cope with using big data effec-
tively. One large firm, SAP, and
one smaller firm, Splunk, will
be discussed in detail to give
representative information on
what these firms have to offer
users. These firms are intended
as examples only.
Given SAP’s position as the
leading ERP install, it is no acci-
dent that it is one of the leaders
of the movement toward big
data. Its past purchase of Busi-
ness Objects and Sybase and its
development of HANA have
positioned SAP to be a major
force in the big data market.
With one of its major contribu-
tion being HANA, it would be
prudent for financial executives
to be aware of HANA.
HANA is SAP’s implemen-
tation of in-memory database
technology. Basically, instead
of wasting time and resources
swapping databases between
the storage medium and the
memory, HANA tries to oper-
ate within memory with only
limited accessing of alterna-
tive storage mediums. There
are four major components
within the software group:
(1) SAP HANA DB, which is
the database technology; (2)
SAP HANA Studio refers to
the suite of tools provided for
modeling; (3) SAP HANA
Appliance is HANA as an
appliance. It also includes the

Exhibit 2

Big Data Problems and Potential Solutions

Problem Potential Solution
Shortage of trained personal Emphasis on analytics in universities
Privacy New laws and adjusted old ones
Privacy and security of data New encryption methods
Growing amounts of data Programs that run on memory such as HANA, from SAP
E-discovery issues Better search techniques; enlightened legal system
Ownership of data and intellectual property rights A revision of international laws
Organization structure More integration; less silos
Incentives A more enlightened commissions structure

© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI 10.1002/jcaf

28 The Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance / July/August 2013

Exhibit 3

Who Are the Players in Big Data?

Firm Products Website
SAP HANA; Applied Analytics http://www.sap.com/solutions/technology/in-memory-computing-
platform/hana/overview/index.epx; http://www54.sap.com/solutions/
analytics/applications/software/overview.html
Oracle Big Data Appliance; http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/big-data/index.html
Exadata; Exalytics
SAS High-Performance http://www.sas.com/software/high-performance-analytics/index.html
Analytics
IBM PureData System http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/puredata/
Google Big Query https://cloud.google.com/products/big-query
Tibco Spotfire http://spotfire.tibco.com/
Splunk Splunk Hadoop Connect, http://www.splunk.com/
Splunk Enterprise
Metamarkets Data pipes; Druid http://metamarkets.com/platform/
Tableau Tableau http://www.tableausoftware.com/
Cloudera Hbase http://www.cloudera.com/content/cloudera/en/products/cloudera-
enterprise-core.html
Qliktech QlikView http://www.qlikview.com/
GoodData GoodData bashes http://www.gooddata.com/what-is-gooddata/

modeling tools from HANA Splunk system behavior, application

Studio. (4) SAP HANA Appli-
cation Cloud refers to a cloud-
based infrastructure for the
delivery of applications. While
this seems complicated, most
of the details are handled by
SAP. HANA takes advantage
of the low cost of main mem-
ory (RAM), the data-process-
ing abilities of multicore pro-
cessors, and the fast data access
of solid-state drives to deliver
a higher form of performance
for analytical and transactional
applications. Most important
for users, it offers a query sys-
tem that supports relational
data, as well as graph and
text processing for semi- and
unstructured data.11
Splunk’s name is derived
from “spelunking,” with the
analogy of looking within the
caves of data for nuggets of
valuable information at the heart
of the founder’s thinking. The
focus had been on the unstruc-
tured data, most of it generated
by machines. For example, IT
systems or infrastructure, sen-
sors in a manufacturing facility,
RFID tags on sensitive assets,
or events from mechanical or
security systems are all examples
of machine-produced data.
The founders recognized that
this type of machine-generated
data would contain a definitive
record of transaction activity,
performance, user actions,
security threats, and fraudu-
lent activity. The sheer size and
complexity of this data could
not be handled by traditional
technologies built on relational
or multidimensional databases.
More important, the databases
did not have the flexibility to get
questions answered in real time.
Seeing this as an opportunity,
the founders created Splunk.
Since shipping its first software
in 2006, Splunk has continued
to grow. The following is an
indication of the value provided
by Splunk.
Splunk now has over
4,400 customers in

DOI 10.1002/jcaf © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance / July/August 2013
80+ countries. These
organizations are using
Splunk to improve ser-
vice levels, reduce oper-
ations costs, mitigate
security risks, enable
compliance, enhance
DevOps collaboration
and create new product
and service offerings.
With Splunk, they
break down traditional
data silos and attain
operational intelligence
that benefits both IT
and the business.11
The company went public in
April 2012 in a successful offer-
ing. Firms interested in captur-
ing their machine-generated data
into a system that would pro-
vide operational real-time data
should investigate Splunk.
Hadoop
An article about big data
would not be complete without
a discussion of Hadoop. It is
one of the major technology
developments that has enabled
the growth of big data. Hadoop
is open source data-management
software. Its origins were a
form of search software, but
Hadoop will have its greatest
impact as data management
software. One of the problems
with big data is that enterprises
struggled to store and manage
big data since big data exceeded
the capacity of the legacy sys-
tems. But the development of
Hadoop changes the econom-
ics of data completely. For the
first time, the technology exists
to efficiently store, manage,
and analyze virtually unlimited
amounts of data since it handles
data differently than relational
databases. Hadoop is based on
a node system that interlinks
the information nodes within a
© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
cluster. This clustering system
has the ability to scale up to any
amount of data. It also handles
any type of data, no matter
how it is encoded or formatted
or whether it’s structured or
unstructured, since it does not
have to worry about relation-
ships or pointers that standard
databases must deal with in
their operations. This underly-
ing nodal structure also provides
a nature-fault tolerance since
a path using a lost node can
be redirected to another node.
These attributes have made
Hadoop a popular choice for
being the backbone of big data
projects.
Hadoop consists of two
main parts: (1) MapReduce is
the framework that handles the
underlying nodes that allows
data to be clustered. (2) HDFS
is the file system that spans all
the nodes in a Hadoop cluster
for data storage. It links together
the file systems on many local
nodes to make them into one big
file system. HDFS assumes that
nodes will fail, so it achieves reli-
ability by replicating data across
multiple nodes. This node struc-
ture is a different approach than
standard relational databases.
It is proving to be successful in
handling big data, something
that relational databases have
not been able to do successfully.
Since Hadoop is open source
and engineered to run on indus-
try standard hardware, it has
become the go-to big data plat-
form of choice for many firms.
An appreciation of the benefits
of Hadoop would benefit any-
one exploring big data.
CONCLUSION
One of the fascinating
things about the current big-
data analytics trend is that the
tools used to analyze and visual-
29
ize data are getting better and
better. Like pivot tables in Excel,
current programs either already
have everyone possessing the
ability to query and manipulate
big data, or are working toward
this.
Perhaps that is where the
great business opportunity lies.
While the big marketing, finan-
cial, health care, science, and
technical users may be the early
adopters, the broader and per-
haps more lucrative market does
not lie with the power users.
Instead, it is the managers and
operations folks who are making
dozens of decisions each day.
The challenge and opportunity
is identifying these individuals
and then helping them discover
how to use analytics to address
those issues. The big data trend
is just in its infancy; and the
exciting thing is that, the more
analytical power that gets
put into more people’s hands,
the better and more accurate
decision-making will become
in the future. We may wonder
how people ever got things done
before big data.
NOTES
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cringely/the-winner-of-years-presidential
-election-big-data-206595
2. Mirkinson, J. Nate Silver takes a
victory lap after Obama re-election.
(2012, November 7). Huffington
Post. Retrieved from http://www
.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/
nate-silver-obama-reelection_n
_2086556.html
3. Wakeman, N. Sandy makes a case for
big data. (2012, November 8). Wash-
ington Technology. Retrieved from
http://washingtontechnology.com/
blogs/editors-notebook/2012/11/
sandy-big-data-opportunity.aspx
4. Khan, I. Big startups lure invest-
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ITWorld. http://www.itworld.com/
it-managementstrategy/289534/
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big-data-startups-lure-investment nytimes.com/2012/04/19/splunk-soars 10. Manyika, J. et al. Big data: The next

-dollars Accessed November 10, 2012.
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features/weekend-life/big-battle-for
-big-data/article4095308.ece?
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6. Rusli, E. Splunk soars in its debut.
(2012, April 19). The New York Times.
Retrieved from http://dealbook.
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7. Asimov, I. (1952). Foundation and
empire. New York, NY: Bantam Books.
8. http://www.usablenet.com/
9. Steinert-Threlkeld, T. SEC implement-
ing big data audit trail. (2012, July 17).
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Kurt Fanning, PhD, CPA, CMA, CIA, CISA, is an associate professor at Grand Valley State University. Kurt
has written articles for publication in scholarly journals such as International Journal of Intelligent Systems
in Accounting, Finance and Management, Accounting, Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance, New
Review of Applied Expert Systems and Emerging Technologies and Financial Studies Journal. His primary
teaching and research interests are in management fraud and accounting information systems. Rita Grant,
MBA, is an associate professor in the School of Accounting at Grand Valley State. She teaches in the area
of financial accounting. Her research is in the area of family business financial statement analysis.

DOI 10.1002/jcaf © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.