Each minute, there are 1,500 blogs, 98,000 tweets, and 168 million emails sent. In fact, with all this data, Forrester predicts over the next few years we will outperform Moore’s Law. In this year alone we will hit of a volume of 2.7 zettabytes of global digital data.

Don’t be intimidated though, all this data presents a huge opportunity to businesses. The more information you have, the more there is to analyze, and the more insights you are able to derive.

Big data, defined by Forrester, is “techniques and technologies that make capturing value from data at an extreme scale economical.” The information comes from everywhere, and mostly outside your company such as social media, demographics, the web, and various different feeds. All this accumulated information can bring about value, opportunity, and eventually profit – if you handle it correctly.

When deciding how to manage your big data, there is no one size fits all, it’s a case by case scenario; requiring several technologies to filter, format, and prepare for analysis. And only a small set of it all can really bring the value you’re looking for.

Business Intelligence helps you turn the water to wine, giving not only managers, but employees timely, accurate information to make decisions. But where do you store the valuable and the rest? Holger Kisker, Forbes.com contributor suggests sending it straight to the cloud rather than in-house.

3 Reasons to send Big Data to the Cloud

• Big data requires advanced technologies, skills, and investments. Do you want or need this all in-house?

• It includes a significant amount of external data. Why waste the time to manage the data behind your firewall?

• Big data is high maintenance, requiring a lot of data services. Focus on the value your differentiated data can bring.

Cloud technology is continuously being optimized, boasting a variety of business values. In fact, 38% of companies surveyed in Forrester’s Software Survey, “The Changing Cloud Agenda”, are planning a BI SaaS project before the end of 2013 – showing signs for a stronger adoption of BI cloud solutions.

Before, when it came to Software-as-a-Service applications, Business Intelligence was often the last in the league, but with big data BI may have found its star pitcher.

For a visual on how you can benefit from a BI strategy, check out this cool infographic.