Imagine that every single shipped item in the world would be actually connected to the world wide web real time and packages would be delivered in front of your door by drones with record speed. No, that is not a daring dream! This is the next decade ahead mankind.

Information technology is getting more and more important in the 21st century. It has already become the fourth most important production aspect and requirement for competitive advantage after resources, human labour, and financial capital. Two great examples about information technology developments in the logistic industry are Big Data utilization and drones.

Firstly, we all know that the Big Data revolution is transforming several industries (e.g. oil & energy, agriculture, and manufacturing) in the world of business. The logistics industry is not an exception as well. By the exploitation of Big Data utilization, logistics companies have already been able to increase their operational excellence, customer satisfaction and experience. In addition, Big Data utilization have also helped them to build unprecedented and performance enhancing business models.

Moreover, numerous logistics companies are still pioneering and investing into the utilization of Big Data. Honourable companies to mention in the logistics industry are DHL, UPS, and Maersk. For instance, UPS spends more than one billion dollars on Big Data yearly. It helped the company to save huge and unnecessary costs by cutting on fuel use (1.5 million gallons of fuel savings). Furthermore, they utilize RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and NFC (Near Field Communication) technologies to improve their tracking and delivery services. These technologies also help them to get more precise data to analyse in order to advance their services.

Secondly, another significant innovation in the logistics sector are going to be drones. Drones were developed by armies for military operations. However, they could be also used in everyday life in order to facilitate normal operations especially in the logistics sector. So in the near future, drones will help companies to operate more effectively, quickly and customer friendly. For example, Amazon has already been testing its drone delivery service for its clients. Imagine how the global trade would evolve by using drones in logistics. However, there are some legal issues and dilemmas about the utilization of drones (e.g. privacy, transport). These rules are needed to be laid down in the near future. So, we still need to wait a little bit for the complete utilization of this ground breaking technology.

In the near future, there will certainly be even more powerful developments in the logistic industry by Big Data and other technological developments e.g. drones, better online connectivity and sharing economy. We can expect that the importance of these advancements are going to raise quickly and soon.

If you have any question or opinion about this post, please do not hesitate to comment below!

References:
https://www.talend.com/blog/2016/02/18/big-data-logistics-7-current-trends-to-watch
http://www.dhl.com/en/about_us/logistics_insights/dhl_trend_research/bigdata.html#.V_U8d_mLTDc

Click to access CSI_Studie_BIG_DATA_FINAL-ONLINE.pdf

http://www.maersk.com/en/the-maersk-group/about-us/publications/group-annual-magazine/the-data-drive
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/b/b8ac38a8-adec-4495-bb88-99331fe6613f

Big Data analytics has been changing different industries of the world. We can see that it has already had an impact on the entertainment, energy, healthcare, and higher education industry. If we take a closer look to the sport industry, we can see that industry is also not an exception. The sport industry is an enormous business for all of its primary stakeholders (e.g. associations, teams, athletes, media, and sponsors) and it is still rapidly growing yearly. That is also another reason why technological development is necessary to help sustain its growth in the future.

Classical statistics has always been a major part of sport analytics since its beginning. However, the Big Data revolution started with the so called Moneyball effect in the sport industry parallel with the technological revolution in the 2000s. The Moneyball method means that a player performance should be only measured and rated by using a data-centric approach rather than a subjective opinion and intuition. For today, profound data analytics is used by all organizations in all major sport leagues in the USA (e.g. NFL, MLB) in order to improve the teams’ performance and results. Additionally, Big Data analytics has also recently become more important and used in Europe (e.g. English Premier League, Formula 1) as well.

By having access to vast amount of data, sport scientists can utilize this information to create competitive advantage for their teams and athletes. The data is mainly gathered and used by wearable sensors, state of the art cameras, and motion analysis software. Then this information is transformed into knowledge. This competitive advantage can be increased efficiency, more precise performance forecast, and the best decision for team formation and line up for a match. For instance, the German national team also used the help of SAP’s Big Data analytics software during the 2014 World Cup. According to Joachim Löw (head coach of the German national team), the software provided them a genuine competitive advantage during the whole tournament and helped them to win the World Cup.

Moreover, Big Data analysis is not only important for primary stakeholders in the sport industry. It also improves customer experience and entertainment. The sport supporters can get more insight about the game by interactive applications and real time statistics. Fans can have the so called ‘second screen’ with relevant information parallel with the live game that makes the game even more interesting and understandable for them.

In the future, there will certainly be even more significant improvements in Big Data analytics in the sport industry. We can expect that the importance of Big Data analytics is going to increase and the information provided to coaches is going to be even more helpful (e.g. omnipresent real-time analysis) for the teams’ performance. On the other hand, since we are all humans we will be never be able to reduce the luck factor to zero in any sports, especially in team sports. Thus, sports will never get boring just more transparent and maybe even more complex for everyone.

References:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600957/big-data-analysis-is-changing-the-nature-of-sports-science/

How Big Data Is Revolutionizing Sports

https://www.targit.com/en/blog/2014/11/9-ways-big-data-analytics-changing-the-world
http://www.datapine.com/blog/big-data-in-sports-revolution/
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/data-storage/how-big-data-is-changing-the-sports-industry-182365
http://bigdata-madesimple.com/big-data-an-ultimate-weapon-in-the-field-of-sports/