post Monday October 1, 2012
Two years ago, Richard Verhoeff could see the great potential of Big Data. He decided to quit his job at Center Parcs and become an entrepreneur. His first venture was Crystalloids Innovations, a business that provides its clients with software that allows them to better manage the growing inflow of customer information.
Verhoeff had developed the applications together with a group of advisors for his previous employer and knew that Center Parcs was not the only business that could greatly benefit from such technology. “This brought out the entrepreneur in me,” says the 47-year-old.
The start-up already had three clients in The Netherlands and England and currently competes with giants such as IBM and Microsoft.
Crystalloids is 50% owned by Verhoeff and the other 50% is owned by the consultancy he worked with previously.
Next frontier of innovation
Crystalloids is just one of the many start ups that build on Big Data, a phenomenon which has been described by McKinsey Consulting as the ‘next frontier of innovation’. As directors become more aware of the benefits from the large amount of information obtained from customers, Big Data has gained in popularity.
The surge in technological devices and use of social networking sites has lead to even more digital prints being left behind by consumers, but all this information gets tangled up and becomes chaotic. Those that are able to sort it and manage it can capitalize on new consumption patterns.
Data mining will start to take off
Only recently has it been possible to determine the data’s patterns and develop the data for public consumption. Data mining is especially expected to take off after this as the early restrictions no longer exist. Verhoeff believes that as his application adds to the Google software and because he is backed by Google, he has an advantage over others and is better able to compete against the industry giants.
He claims that Google’s software is a semi-finished product and that the Crystalloids application completes it by making it a more user-friendly application. “That is what I wanted, for my intern to be able to use it, you don’t need to pay an expensive analyst to be able to bring all the important and relevant information to the surface”.
In the cloud
Another advantage of Crystalloid Innovations’ application is that it runs on the cloud. The IT department therefore won’t have extra pressure on them when implementing Big Data.
Banks and supermarkets have been trying to connect their customer information for years. Only recently has there been an entrepreneurial interest in developing content for public consumption and corporate use.
Source: FD.nl
Image Source: Free Digital Photos
