BigBox: From Big Data to Actionable Insights, Quickly and Cost-Effectively

This quote from Peter Drucker finds relevance in the businesses today, more than ever. When it comes to enterprises, quantifying the value of data to identify patterns, set targets, and measure progress can be a game-changer in achieving success. While big data is already playing an instrumental role in improving operational efficiency and driving informed decisions, enterprises struggle to use big data to glean insights quickly and cost-effectively. At this point in the evolution of big data, the challenges for enterprises boil down to deploying a big data solution that helps generate insights for supporting decision making, governance, strategy, and progress.

Enter BigBox. The Indonesia-based, end-to-end big data solution provider, BigBox is on a mission to assist companies or industries in becoming sovereign with their data (sovereignty), comprehensive with regard to data solutions (holistic), and agile in following changes in their business strategy (agility). “BigBox’s end-to-end big data platform empowers clients with profound insights that align with their operational and business needs,” says Muhammad Sigit Pramudya, CEO, BigBox. The solution helps companies to transform complex data into actionable insights, depending on the use case of the industry. Besides its powerful platform, BigBox also enables companies to become data-driven organizations through its expert support, training, and consulting services.

At the core, BigBox equips companies with eight end-to-end solutions to reap the benefits of big data technology. The portfolio includes BigLake, an enterprise data lake or an enterprise data warehouse; BigSearch, a faceted search engine with people and product profiling; BigQuery, BI tools with dashboard builder, and BigBuilder, a real-time dashboard builder for command center purpose. BigBox also offers BigSpider, a web crawler with e-commerce scrapper capability, data integration tools, namely BigAction, BigEnveloper (API factory), and BigSocial (a social media analytics solution). Other solutions comprise Mini Cluster, which is a low-cost big data infrastructure, and BigCloud—a big data bare metal cloud that will be launched in 2020.

Founded in 2017 by three innovators—Muhammad Sigit Pramudya, Akas Triono Hadi, and Budi A. Setiawan—“BigBox has evolved from ‘zero to hero,’ from user/ customer to vendor. We started our journey as big data technology users and then brought in innovation to provide the best solutions that are cheaper, faster, and instant,” says Budi A. Setiawan, CMI, BigBox.

In a matter of just two years, BigBox is already a step ahead of the competition for delivering the safety and ease of data management factors that are currently demanded by several companies. As a company that complies with the One Data Indonesia program, BigBox acts as a ‘local’ product, providing the speed of adoption and improving cost efficiency for companies that lack the ability to leverage big data. “We provide a three-month freemium package to our clients through a Mini Cluster, so that companies can try the BigBox service for free,” adds Akas Triono Hadi, COO, BigBox.

In an instance, Indonesia’s state-owned oil and natural gas corporation, Pertamina, had embarked on a project with Telkom to digitalize operations at 5,518 Pertamina gas stations across the country to collect real-time data on fuel usage customer transactions. The company sought BigBox’s assistance in increasing the visibility on the volume of subsidized fuel and special fuel assignments in Indonesia. While Telkom provided digital solutions such as big data infrastructure, data center, connectivity, and electronic data capture required for the project, BigBox was responsible for data-in-motion and data-at-rest platform. The project saw the biggest MiNiFi deployment in Asia. Multiple Internet of Things (IoT) sensors were implemented in the petrol stations to measure all aspects of the pumping of gas. Data collected included timestamps of when customers lift the gas nozzle, type of petrol selected, and the amount of petrol pumped. Customer footfall at the gas stations throughout the day was also tracked to help optimize the scheduling of manpower resources. The sensors tracked the amount of gas in the petrol station’s tanks, enabling the timely provision of information on the station’s stocks to various stakeholders and the authorities. “Till July 2019, 1000 gas stations have been integrated with the big data cluster and are providing a steady flow of data. BigBox aims to digitize an additional 4,518 stations by the end of the year,” states Hadi.

In the current Industrial 4.0 era, BigBox is helping companies realize the need for big data, cloud services, and IoT through data analytics services and aims to evolve as a horizontal platform for banking, health, and manufacturing verticals that will leverage IoT and the cloud. “In line with Telkom Group’s footprint, BigBox will continue to encourage its services to attain a global reach,” concludes Pramudya.