Data is everywhere. With the rise of the internet economy and mobile technology both business and citizens generate huge volumes of data.

Indeed it is estimated that the value to Scotland from this data boom could be as much as £20bn.

Brian Hills, Head of Data at The Data Lab in Edinburgh

Cutting through the numbers and the hype surrounding Big Data, Machine Learning and AI, the question is how can businesses and citizens alike benefit from this newly emerging asset?


In addition there is a new data economy being driven by new products and services powered by cross-functional and external data streams.

From a business perspective data can be used to describe and understand changes to business performance. For instance the root cause of failures in manufacturing or the behavior of customers through web channels.

From a citizen’s perspective this could be analysing historical data from a fitness monitor, the spend on bank accounts or the energy used at home from smart meters. This type of analytics would typically be called “descriptive” and be facilitated by a business intelligence team.

Increasingly we are using data to look forward and predict what could happen in the future.

For example predicting when an IT component may fail enabling proactive action before an outage, identifying likely flows of people through a city during major events to plan policing and optimise traffic or even predicting the likely outcome of an election!

This type of analytics would typically by called ‘predictive’, making a prediction of an event or scenario facilitated by a data scientist who will form hypothesis, collect and prepare data and run experiments.

Scotland’s growing capabilities in the data space is attracting new businesses to move into the country.

Organisations such as Brainnwave, Spiritus Partners and Cloudwick have chosen to set up in Scotland.


The rapidly growing data ecosystem throughout Scotland indicates that we have a fantastic opportunity to harness the full potential of the data opportunity across the country for the benefit of both business and individuals

Brian Hills is Head of Data at The Data Lab. The Edinburgh firm recently won 'best in class' at the Data 50 Awards in London which recognised the best individuals and companies creating business value and innovation from data