8 innovative examples of Big Data usage in India

From predicting ticket confirmations of trains to checking for water supply leakages and even for finding the perfect bride and groom, Big Data is being used in a number of creative ways in India.

Dataquest takes a look at some innovative use cases

#1 Using Big Data to win elections

India's current ruling party, the BJP, used Big Data analytics effectively in the elections. The BJP accurately mined data from almost every Internet user in the country, and used this data to accurately understand voter sentiments and local issues. Data-based analysis was also used to raise funds and create different models for different regions. The targeting was done not on national issues, but local issues which were considered far more important.

When you consider the fact that elections in India involve more than 800 million voters with different ideologies and expectations, the innovative usage of Big Data marked a huge change in the way elections were fought traditionally.

The result - BJP could identify issues far more proactively due to data available at its disposal and customize its strategy accordingly. This ultimately played a huge role in its victory.

#2 Big Data for finding a perfect match

Online portal, Matrimony.com which is in the business of matchmaking, adds over 8,000 subscribers on a daily basis. Faced with an ever-increasing amount of data to sort, generate, analyze and match, Matrimony.com needed a reliable and scalable analytics platform to support several petabytes of data and deliver near real-time responsiveness.

Today, by capturing customer data from multiple channels including e-mails, SMSes, banner ads (across the website), telesales and from their retail center, the online firm uses IBM’s technology to gauge insights and leverage it for driving personalized marketing campaigns to match potential partners faster and attract more subscribers.

#3 Big Data for detecting water leakages

The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) is using Big Data and predictive analytics technology from IBM to create systems for monitoring water distribution systems. Bangalore’s massive population growth (from 5.4 million in 2000 to over 10 million) has put tremendous strain on the city’s water supply and distribution systems. In partnership with IBM, the BWSSB has built an operational dashboard, which serves as a “command center” for managing the city’s water supply networks.

Around 45% of the water supplied by the BWSSB goes unaccounted. Implementing this solution will help minimize unaccounted water by detecting large changes in water flow, through real-time monitoring.

#4 Big Data for gaining insights into shopping behavior

DLF has deployed an innovative mobile-phone based solution that channels data insights from customers visiting DLF Promenade, a high-end shopping mall serving the metropolitan New Delhi area. The technology performs real-time analytics to convert data gathered from shopper’s movements in the mall to provide meaningful interactions for smartphone users. DLF is now using the solution to allow retailers in the mall to extend sales deals to shoppers via the app, based on footfall heat maps.

This is also seen in the eCommerce world. From a Flipkart to a Goibibo, almost every eCommerce firm uses Big Data extensively. eCommerce giant Flipkart for example, analyzes 25 million rows of inventory data every day to enable data-driven decision-making. Likewise, other leading companies like Snapdeal and HomeShop18 claim they generate 30-40% of their orders with the help of big data tools that they use.

#5 Big Data for ensuring proper water supply

The Kerala Water Authority (KWA), Government of Kerala, India is using IBM’s Analytics and Mobility solutions to analyze, monitor and manage water distribution in the city of Thiruvananthapuram.

With a population of more than 3.3 million, providing connections with equitable water supply to 210,000 households across divisions/ subdivisions was a challenging task, due to aging pipes, leaking infrastructure and unauthorized use of water. There were huge losses in water distribution with close to 45% of fresh water unaccounted for or wasted due to leakages. Also, without systems in place to monitor and provide real-time visibility into water consumption, it was difficult for KWA to track the performance of water treatment.

KWA was also facing challenges in revenue collection as the billing system was unable to accurately track water consumption by consumers. Today, due to the Big Data analytics system, the data monitored by the IBM systems will help KWA in tracking water meters across the city on consumption, thereby reducing billing anomalies and improving revenue collection by more than 10%. With the solutions, KWA aims to achieve 100 % success in equitable water supply with the ability to monitor and flag irregularities in water usage using sensors and intelligent meters.

#6 Using Big Data to improve India's financial inclusion ratio

Close to 40 percent of India’s population lacks access to formal banking and financial services, resulting in financial inclusion serving as a key government policy imperative for the country. Micro-finance firm, Janalakshmi Financial Services, is looking to capitalize on this opportunity through an aggressive expansion plan to increase its footprint from 154 branches and 3 million accounts to 1,400 branches serving over 20 million accounts by 2020.

In a business such as micro-finance, data is crucial as the risks are far more than a traditional banking firm. Janalakshmi Financial Services, today uses Big Data to get insights into the behavior of the unbanked masses. Using these insights, the firm designs a customized loan. The micro-finance firm will also use geo-spatial insights with credit-decisions process to help it improve distribution and collection models.

#7 Using Big Data to improve product development

Owning some of the top ten games in terms of revenue, Reliance Games has more than 600 game developers working for over 2,000 devices across various operating systems. To keep on improving its product, the company’s basic need was to analyze the products at the product development level to have a better understanding of daily active users (DAUs), number of downloads, user behavior, game performance, dropouts, reasoning for drop-outs, etc.

Reliance Games today uses Big Data analytics to get quick insights on customer behavior and improve its overall product. Researchers analyze daily data volume of 37 million records and total events reaching 100 billion per game mark. 40 GB data is being added every day and nearly 300 events are captured from each device daily for each game session

#8 Using Big Data to predict ticket confirmations for trains

Using the power of Big Data, ixigo has launched a PNR prediction feature for train travelers. For any given train’s wait-listed status, ixigo is now able to show the near accurate probability with which the ticket will confirm, so that travelers may decide whether or not to book a wait-listed ticket.

PNR prediction feature also shows the probability of getting your ticket confirmed if already booked and solves a huge pain area for millions of daily train travelers. The company claims that its app gives far more accurate PNR prediction than all existing PNR prediction services since ixigo has mined data from over 10 million PNRs over the last two years. The company claims an accuracy rate of 90% accuracy and hopes to raise it to 95% over a period of time.