Novel digital technologies (particularly Social, Cloud, Mobile and Big Data) are transforming the
ICT industry and the way companies across all vertical markets can operate. They create new
business opportunities for digital entrepreneurship both on the supply-side (to launch new
services and/or establish new businesses) and on the demand-side (to optimize operations,
reduce costs, improve services and/or launch new services along companies' horizontal business
processes and vertical specific ones).

This report focuses on Big Data. It assesses current adoption, plans of adoption, and drivers and
barriers, and identifies business opportunities that EU companies can leverage by relying on Big
data and advanced analytics.

Focus of the analysis is on the potential for new business value creation, driven by new or higher
revenue, faster go-to-market, enhanced services, reduced costs, increased productivity or
competitiveness. New opportunities are described as well as functional related ones, impacting
R&D, production and operations, sales and marketing, customer support, financial and
administrative functions. Industry specific opportunities are also identified.

While the focus of the report is on raising awareness of the potential opportunities related to novel
digital technologies, it should be stressed that these of course depend on their appropriateness
for specific enterprises, the quality of their actual execution as well as the market and enterprise
context. In short, opportunities always entail risks and barriers, which should be very carefully
considered by enterprise managers, directors and shareholders.

The analysis is part of a series of reports which assess the impact and business opportunities of
other key novel digital technologies: mobile, social media and the cloud.