I Information is emerging as the new currency of business and the basis for sustainable competitive differentiation, innovation, value creation, growth, and risk mitigation. If communications service providers (CSPs), cable operators, and communications/media/entertainment companies (CME companies for short) are to survive the pressures exerted upon them by their dynamic and challenging new market environment, they must deliver consistently high quality of service (QoS) and personalized customer experiences while efficiently operating their networks at the highest available capacity. They must also innovate more frequently and cost-effectively, uncover new business models, and create new differentiated services valued by their customers. All of this requires that they manage the full life cycles of the vast amounts of customer, network, and usage data streaming from their operations and analyze this data for actionable insight — in real-time, near real-time, or offline, depending on the business context and objectives. Emerging Big Data management and analytical technologies, business processes, and decision management frameworks can help these organizations achieve their goals.
