Early birds

Although big data is still in its infancy in China, there are several early birds that have reaped the advantages. These include State-owned companies and some international firms, says Miao.

Nuclear power operator China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group (CNG) is one of the Chinese companies that has gained from the application of big data.

Li Chenglian, deputy director of CGN says that the clean energy maker had a problem on its hands when it found that it was facing a serious data overhang issue. "There were more than 20 subsidiaries of the group using various software and generating immense volumes of business data every year," he says.

CeBIT: big data, social business, mobile, cloud and more

Managing big data in a complex economy

"Most of these data were loose and unconnected and could not offer a unified view of the business to the top brass during the decision-making process."

Li says the whole process was nerve-wracking, time-consuming and expensive. But the company overcame that obstacle by using Microsoft SQL Server Master Data Services. "With this technology, we found that the group could easily share information with subsidiaries, which also improves employee efficiency and competitiveness."

Li says it also helped the group to have a centralized data warehouse, where with a push of a button, employees can access and analyze terabytes of data and generate customized reports within minutes.

US-based budget hotel operator Super 8 Worldwide is another company that is using Microsoft SQL Server 2012 to gain an advantage in China. "We can now better determine our long-term development strategy in China," says Joe Xu, senior vice-president of distribution at Super 8 Hotels (China) Co Ltd.

Xu says that with the budget hotel market in China growing rapidly, it was important for Super 8 to grow at the right pace and in the right locations and be ahead of the competition. "Big data has played a key role in our success," he says.

A recent survey conducted by global networking major Cisco Systems Inc among Chinese and overseas companies showed that more than 60 percent of the respondents believed big data is essential for businesses to improve decision-making. More than 90 percent of the respondents from China expressed their confidence in using big data.

Global market research firm International Data Corp estimates the amount of digital data, mostly in the form of unstructured data, will grow by 40 percent to 50 percent every year. According to the organization, by 2020, that total will reach 40 zettabytes (one zettabyte is a billion terabytes).

The Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) big data technology and services market is expected to grow from $258.5 million in 2011 to $1.76 billion in 2016, on the back of a 46.8 percent five-year compound annual growth rate, data from IDC show.

Technology and market research company Forrester Research says that business intelligence estimates that big data projects will grow at 20 percent or more in the Asia-Pacific region over the next 24 to 36 months.

Chinese Internet firms dig big data gold	The history of cloud computing