Opportunities and Challenges with Big Data: A Case Study From the Security Industry

Abstract

Big Data has in recent years become an important and well-known term in many industries. The interest for Big Data has mainly emerged within retail to understand customer behavior and gain competitive advantage. However, the interest has also reached the security business, where the aim is to reduce crime and have systems that initiate measures in order to increase public security.

This thesis investigates what benefits a security company could gain by investing in Big Data. This has been done by conducting a case study for Nokas AS, a Norwegian security company. To evaluate these opportunities, two phases of research have been conducted; observations and interviews. The subjects of these qualitative research methods have primarily been operators in Nokas Alarm Receiving Center. The observation periods were conducted prior to the interviews and had two goals; firstly to understand how a security company works from the inside, and secondly to identify problem areas in need of improvement where Big Data could be the solution.

The purpose of the interviews was to further investigate the findings from the observation periods. This study demonstrates that the operators have mixed experiences of the work processes in the alarm receiving center, but they all share a number of challenges in terms of efficient management of alarm cases. These challenges indicate a need for implementing Big Data. The study propose improvements to these problem areas from a Big Data perspective.

After conducting the two phases of research, in addition to literary reviews, as assessment is made whether there is a need to adopt Big Data into the security business.