Page 309 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 4

STS637 Magued O.
also in terms of methodological issues related to violation of assumptions and
representation bias. New windows of opportunities will emerge to develop
better techniques to model complex data and to support decision making in
an environment loaded with a mix of structured and un-structured data, a mix
of global and national data, and, a mix of public and private owned data sets.

Table 1: Global impact of digital transformation in US$ billion, 2018 to 2023.
Average annual
2018 2023
growth rate
4
Global forecast of digital payments 3598 6687 13.2
value
Global eCommerce revenue 1823 2854 9.4
forecast
Global Digital Media revenue 142 173 4.0
forecast
Global Digital Advertising revenue
forecast 291 490 11.0
Global estimated revenue for 54.5 152 22.8
smart home products
Global estimated connected car 18.7 31.5 11.0
5
revenue
Source: Statista (2019)

3. Challenges facing statistical systems in the big data era
Big data revolution is attracting huge investments and is expecting to add
significant revenues to all types of business. It started already creating its own
identity (terminology, methods, and computing tools). One should not
undermine the risk of leaving the theory and practice of statistics isolated in a
bubble that is perceived as too theoretical, too expensive, and too slow to
respond to urgent needs of business intelligence and decision making. This
paradigm shift is creating new challenges to statisticians and require the
development of new theories, methods, and tools for data integration and
visualization. Statisticians should not only participate in the debate of whether
big data will result in a better society and better decision-making process, but
should also appreciate and interact with the volume, velocity and variability of
unstructured data.
According to Secchi (2018), such an effort will result in ‘‘a better society’’,
only if there are ‘‘problems’’ where the characteristics of big data can improve

4 calculated by the author
5 a car is considered connected as soon as it is equipped with hardware which enables internet
connection.
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