Seizing the potential of ‘big data’

McKinsey Quarterly's "Strategy in Practice" addresses how best to seize the potential of "Big Data". According to McK, too few leaders fully understand big data’s potential in their businesses, the data assets and liabilities of those businesses, or the strategic choices they must make to start exploiting big data. By focusing on these issues, senior executives can help their organizations build a data-driven competitive edge. McKinsey's team lay out four principles to help corporate leaders: (1) ID and size the opportunities and threats. (2) ID Big Data resources and gaps. (3) Align on strategic choices. (4) Understand the organizational implications.  (However, the example given is AstraZeneca's big data partnerships, so again the focus on a large global player leads to the question of how applicable this strategy is to small and medium-sized organizations -- ironically, the ones who stand to gain the most?)