I liked Stephan den Hengst's summary- investments in Big Data are determined by the outcomes achieved with a clear strategy to achieve them.

But having more sensor data achieves nothing. valuable product- the ability to make and execute better decisions.

It's a raw material like oil and gas. It has to be collected, refined and made into a

Line of business and operations people are the ones that make things happen. Nurses, doctors, field engineers, police, fireman, paramedics, social workers... the list goes on.

Big Data Analytics can transform the data into the insights needed to make and execute better decisions. And unless the people above can help influence the analytics there will always be a gap between IT and business-operational users.

Maybe the CDO should be a Chief Analytics Officer or a CDAO.

The CDO (or CAO, CDAO)  will need a scalable and embedded analytics platform that includes secure self-service analytics that IT can be assured combines good data governance.

That way  big data insights will be relevant to, and used by, people throughout the organisation rather than remain an "ivory tower" and impractical project loved by analysts and data scientists but ignored by the business.