Back in 2016, we entered a new industrial era: the digital revolution. Two years later, the buzz was all around the next technological trend - the big data revolution. Now, it’s all about smart data, machine learning, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things: the seamless communication between systems and the execution of data insight.
This is the dawn of a new age, where vast data pools are mined with far-reaching consequences for people, planet, and the global economy. Earlier this year, Inger Anderson, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said: "Big data and new tech can support real-time monitoring of the environment, help consumers adopt more sustainable behaviour, and create sustainable value chains. We have oceans of data but drops of information.”
At BigChange, we believe we are at the forefront of a new wave of data-first organisations. Our platform was designed to be a data-led solution, helping customers to not only harness vital information but to use those numbers to affect outcomes and hone performance. Big data is great but if you don’t have the tools to turn it into actionable insight, it’s worthless.
We are now working closely with Microsoft to develop our platform to be ready, not just for what our customers need today, but what they will need the day after tomorrow. This partnership with Microsoft is a true meeting of minds: we are both passionate about giving small businesses access to the technological firepower once only available to huge corporations. This is why you’ll find behemoths like Starbucks using Microsoft Azure tools, but also tiny businesses with a handful of employees and big dreams plugging into the same IoT infrastructure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6khy0mnj9vk.
BigChange is currently on this bold journey, bringing our mobile workforce management solutions to businesses of all sizes, from multinational companies to small businesses. This is an exciting and challenging mandate for the team, but one that is only possible because of the combined muscle of automation, AI, machine learning and fast-growing world of IoT.
A cornerstone of Microsoft’s strategy is Digital Twins simulations, which allow whole buildings, even cities, to be mapped digitally using real-world data. We want to be part of this new digital infrastructure.
What does that look like? Well, today, when a customer creates a new job on our platform, we can already find the closest engineer with the right skills and the right parts in their van to complete the work with the ultimate efficiency. In future, we hope that the building itself will be able to tell the system when a light needs changing or a system needs an upgrade. And when the right engineer is found, we’ll know there is enough charge in their electric vehicle to get them to the site. The opportunity to create further efficiency and savings – both in cost and time – is endless.
I believe that it’s this innovation that will help us to become the most effective partner for our customers over the long-term. Not only that, but as we get better and better at using data to give smarter answers, faster, we will all be able to work less. I’m hopeful that it won’t be long until BigChange makes the move from a 4.5-day working week to just four. Change can be scary. It can feel overwhelming. But right now the potential for all we can achieve through modern technologies, like IoT, just leave me full of hope and optimism for the future of this world.
If you want to learn more about data’s new frontier, I’ll be speaking on a panel about innovation, security and data in a digital world next week, as part of the Leeds Digital Festival 2021.
