| Business Trends Over the past several years, the global hydrocarbon processing industry has begun to increasingly adopt new digital technologies to enhance operations. This month's Business Trends examines the use of big data in chemical operations and the competencies and tools necessary to make the investment for big data adoption, as well as a review of current and future big data adoption challenges and how entities must collaborate to overcome them. Photo: Over the past several years, the hydrocarbon processing industries have begun to adopt more digital technologies to optimize operations. Photo courtesy of Siemens.