As customers become more Big Data savvy, conversations around it are becoming less of a “techie” topic and more of a business topic. Customers are beginning to realize that Big Data and deep analytics is not some sort of new toy or concept for their organizations to play around with, but rather it is something that will be absolutely essential to adopt for their business models if they want to remain competitive in today’s tech-heavy business world.

Dave Kloempken, director of Data Center Solutions Sales at Cisco Systems Inc., and Rex Backman, lead senior solution marketing manager, Big Data, at Cisco, sat down with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, at the BigDataNYC 2016 event from the Mercantile Annex in New York, NY. The duo talked about the impact Big Data and deep analytics is having on today’s marketplace, as well as why companies that embrace it will have the competitive edge over those who don’t.

‘Digitize or die’

Many companies and corporations are beginning to realize the importance of adopting Big Data platforms and analytics, and those who have already adopted it, either through Cisco or through another vendor, are seeing the huge impact it is having on their businesses, according to Backman. What is clear to most, however, is that all companies that generate large amounts of data in any form will need to begin utilizing that data if their companies are to compete in their respective marketplaces.

“At the higher level, it’s the ‘digital transformation’ and it’s ‘digitize or die,'” said Backman. “It’s kind of a scary thing, but what we see is customers that are adopting the acquisition of their data streams and then utilizing that, storing that, analyzing that to find business value, business trends, to improve customer service, improve profitability, finding competitive angles that they haven’t seen before.”

The business value of Big Data and deep analytics

The sheer volume of data currently being generated at any given moment is massive, and that volume is increasing at frantic pace. According to Kloempken, the amount of data that has been collected over just the past two years is equivalent to 90 percent of the data that has ever been collected. And of that, only about one percent of that 90 percent has been analyzed.

“There is such a proliferation of data out there,” stated Kloempken. “I mean it’s incredible how much data is being collected now.”

And this proliferation of data availability is only going to increase as Big Data and deep analytics becomes more mainstream. So while it may seem like an issue that most of the data currently being collected is unable to be analyzed, in actuality it also presents an enormous opportunity for companies with the proper platform and tools to mine this data and use it to its full potential.

“The companies that can analyze that data and kind of get some competitive advantage out of it are the ones that are going to be successful,” predicted Kloempken. “They are the ones that aren’t going to become dinosaurs; they are going to be the ones that continue to grow and prosper.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of BigDataNYC 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE