All the talk surrounding big data is getting old; it is time for companies to step up and show what they can actually do with it.

I have had meetings with various vendors recently – where we are talking about mobile and tablet computing in banking, big data, cloud and the such like – and I am fed up with it. I am not fed up with the vendors, but of this bandwagon of hype around words that are just meaningless jargon. Five or 10 years ago, they were meaningful, when no one knew what they meant, but now everyone throws these buzzwords into their presentations and I think: “Shut up and show me something useful.”

Big data, cloud, mobile, social... it's like watching the news. The first time you hear that about a major issue, you go: “That’s interesting.”  When that issue is aired over and over again, day in and day out, you eventually switch off and wait for something else that is interesting to come along. That is how many of us feel about vendors and their mobile, big data, cloud storage dialogue.

What we really want to hear is something new.

Tell me about the Internet of Things and wearable computing, and how that is going to change banking. That is a far more interesting dialogue. I am not hearing enough of that. That is future positioning.

Invest in tomorrow

This is why solutions providers need to talk about what the world will look like in three to five years and, if they are confident about their vision, bet the farm on it. After all, any vendor that poured their money into mobile, big data, cloud storage stuff five years ago should be making a mint today.

Five years ago, the mobile, big data, cloud storage conversation was interesting because it was new and unknown. But now? Yada, yada, yada, tell me something else. Tell me about how you have implemented a solution for a bank that allows them to pinpoint a customer, anywhere, anytime with a relevant offer.

Sure, that is a big data conversation but just don’t call it big data. Call it small data. It is small, in that you have taken that exabyte stream of data and converted it into this really small moment of truth where the customer gets an amazing experience that is totally personalised.

Now, you have taken the dull conversation and turned it into a story with benefit and a relevance. This is why you either talk about long-term vision or short-term illustration. The vision is the concept that is three to five years away from realisation. The illustration is the here and now.

That is why I do not want to hear about mobile, social, big data and the cloud storage but about how banks are using the mobile network to identify where the end customer will be in the next 10 minutes and, by using a global positioning system combined with small data, making them an offer they cannot refuse.

Solutions providers just need to get detailed when things are here and now, and macro when they are yet to come.

Chris Skinner is an independent financial commentator and chairman of London-based The Financial Services Club.

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