The problem we’re encountering now is how to manage these massive amounts data and make them easily searchable and filtered. It’s one thing to have a lot of data, but companies need to learn how to manage that data and create value by making it ‘parsable and accessible across many departments and standards.

Here is a infographic that shows the worlds capacity to store information. Is it any surprise that digital has exploded like it has this decade?

Many companies implemented  data architecture without understanding the ramifications of their decisions. To illustrate my point, lets create a fictional company named Caldwell Inc.

Caldwell is a corporation of 15,000 employees who embraced the technology revolution in the 1990′s. They are very departmentalized and acted independent of one-another in many ways in the past. Each department bought their own data storage and archival technologies. Early on in computing history it wasn’t important to have easy ways of sharing information internally. However, that’s all changed. Now days the amount of information being generated by companies is immense. There is incredible value and insight if companies can understand how to manage the intelligence and information their company generates. But Caldwell now has a big dilemma on their hands.

Departmentalization and no strategic planning 15 years earlier has left Caldwell in a tough spot. They will need to learn how to bring all their data together in an efficient manner. Now they have data in different formats, in different silos and different standards for archival. Caldwell will have to overcome this obstacle if they want remain a viable company in the future.

Has your company addressed the amount of data they are generating? Have they created a company-wide standard and instituted good practices for back-up? Tell me about your experiences or your company in the comments below.