Making sense out of big data - popular machine learning tools in business analytics

'Big data' is the new buzzword in academic as wen as industry circles. Laney (2001) came up with the three Vs that characterize big data - volume, velocity and variety. When talking about big data one is usually referring to a huge volume, in terabytes rather than gigabytes, that is captured either across cross-section or across time or more likely across both i.e. as a panel. However it is the sheer size of the data set that puts big data in an entirely different category requiring a special set of analytical tools and approaches for extracting information and also data storage for future retrieval and analysis.