Traditionally, when people think about big data they refer to the three V’s – volume, velocity, and variety – working with petabyte data sets, collecting data in real time or near real time, from a great variety of sources, i.e., mobile phones, online shopping, sensors, videos, tweets, etc. A big challenge that remains is the fourth V – value. How can businesses extract value from this flood of information? Integration of different data from these disparate sources is essential to getting value from big data. But key to getting even greater value from big data applications is the use of analytics, and therefore, our focus in this volume is not on big data per se but “Big Data Analytics.”

This Editor’s Cut collects research papers primarily from INFORMS journals, industry articles, as well as videos and podcasts that discuss successful applications of Big Data Analytics from a variety of resources, including seminal work from the INFORMS community. There are many applications in the healthcare area represented in this collection. For example, an INFORMS podcast discusses an application in which the genetic characteristics of patients for whom Tamoxifen, a breast cancer drug, is essentially 100% effective, has been determined using Big Data Analytics. From TutORials, a chapter describes how Big Data Analytics is useful in assisting physicians in recognizing abnormal brain and behavioral patterns to help them decide whether a patient is likely to develop Parkinson’s, Diabetes, or Alzheimer’s disease.

There are many consumer marketing applications in this collection. The Internet of Things also holds tremendous potential for applications as discussed in the industry report by McKinsey. The Deloitte University article on cognitive analytics gives a great overview of current and potential applications of IBM Watson and other cognitive systems in healthcare and other areas. The area of Deep Learning, described in the MIT Technology review article, has also drawn attention after dramatic successes with image recognition and has potential for a broad range of applications.

In addition to technical papers and applications, there are items that will appeal to managers and executives of technical teams. The Harvard Business Review article on “Big Data, A Management Revolution” is a great starting point for such an audience. The selected TED Talks also provide interesting perspectives on some aspects of the world of big data.

It is indeed an exciting time to be an analytics professional. We are at the cusp of potentially major breakthroughs in many disciplines ranging from medicine and healthcare to Internet of Things, primarily driven by the Big Data Analytics revolution. But while Big Data Analytics has great potential, there are also challenges around ethical and privacy considerations when managing data from multiple and disparate sources, and this requires careful design of policies dealing with security, privacy, and governance. This volume of Editor’s Cut provides a wealth of information key to these and other challenges and opportunities in big data.