The Middle East region, on account of its young population, is expected to witness one of world’s highest growth rates in mobile phone data traffic, with the volume of text, photo, audio and video files transmitted by mobile devices every month projected to reach nearly 4.3 exabytes (4.3 billion billion bytes) by 2020, some 15 times the current volume.

This exponential growth offers both a threat and opportunity for business organisations, according to a report recently published by UK-based analytics firm Global Data.

“Companies that fail to derive actionable insights from the wealth of data that they possess will struggle to compete with rivals using diverse data sets to gain a deeper understanding of their customers and marketplace,” the report says.

The report, which discusses the big data trends globally over the next 12 to 24 months, cites the clear and wide-ranging benefits of big data for companies that operate across sectors including retail and pharmaceuticals, as well as the need for tailored solutions to maximise benefits and ensure a successful outcome.

The report identifies seven key technologies within the big data theme and the leading companies in each. They are:

• Data governance: Alteryx, Daitaku, Dell, IBM, Informatica, Oracle, SAS, Splunk, TIBCO
• Business intelligence: SAS, Oracle, Tableau, IBM, Microsoft, Splunk, TIBCO
• Data analysis: IBM, Google, Amazon, Microsoft
• Data storage: Oracle, SAP, IBM, Amazon, Google, Hortonworks, Cloudera
• Data processing: Amazon, Google, Oracle, Microsoft, Cloudera, Intel, IBM, Nvidia, Oracle, Software AG, TIBCO, Baidu
• Data aggregation: Informatica, Teradata, Oracle, Amazon, Cloudera
• Data integration: IBM, SAP, Alteryx, Red Hat, SAS, Hitachi, Cisco

Big data is being seen as one of the main technology stacks enabling digitisation in the consumer and industrial spaces.

The other disciplines include mobility, cyber security, machine learning and blockchain.