As a CEO, buzzwords or phrases don’t get me excited.  I’d rather show my customers the money than some newfangled acronym or buzzword.

Today, big data seems to be one of the most hyped terms in tech. It’s been PowerPointed and white boarded in conference rooms to death. It’s been lauded by tech media as the next big thing. Hot startups have taken millions from venture capitalists. There’s an abundance of big data conferences. And companies everywhere are working on their big data strategies.

Now don’t get me wrong. Big data is real. I had big data in 2002, so the big talk about big data could be considered more than a decade old and, for a lot of companies, it’s still just that: talk.

Many companies have felt the big data pain – spending heaps of money on tracking and storing it. However, the most important step is actually using it. Domo has sponsored a new research report by Bloomberg Businessweek Research Services on “Driving Revenues with Big Data” because we wanted to learn how some companies are transforming big data into real business advantage. This research also aligns with our mission at Domo – to help companies get real value from the tens of billions of dollars spent collecting and storing information about their businesses.

This report shows that big data is not a black art. Whether you are a manufacturer looking to improve your margins or a healthcare company looking to improve your quality of care while lowering your cost of delivery, there’s opportunity to turn your business information into big dollars.

I’m often asked why the time is now for companies to finally start getting value from the avalanche of data they’ve collected about their business. It’s an easy question to answer: the technology has finally made it possible. The acceptance of enterprise cloud computing (another buzz phrase) has enabled unprecedented access to business information, without adding more strain on IT.  Gartner Group projects that more than $109 billion will be spent on cloud services in 2012 alone.  Also, the proliferation of APIs makes it possible to bring data from disparate systems into one place, giving business users a more holistic view of their business and enabling more powerful and profitable decisions.

I remember once upon a time, it was around 2004 or 2005, we were asked by Walmart to expose our APIs and we said no. We feared that customers would no longer have to come to our platform if they could access us elsewhere. Nowadays, you could never, nor should you ever, expect to get away with that mindset if you want your software company to be around next year. Software companies HAVE to expose APIs because enterprise tech is morphing into one big, connected ecosystem.

We welcome you to download a copy of the report and let us know what you think. While big data is today’s big buzzword, we think it’s time for big data to start delivering big value.