Human element plays an important role in successful application of big data.  Companies mainly focus on the tools (like Hadoop), using the R language, MongoDB and a few others.  But, it is also very important to understand what kind of data is available, what kind of data is needed and what role an expertise in computer science and applications, modeling, statistics, analytics play. Very often single source of big data leads to incorrect conclusion. So, human power is very much needed. To know more on this topic, go through the article link by Daniel Kusnetzky (a reformed software engineer and product manager):

http://www.zdnet.com/the-human-element-is-critical-in-applying-big-data-7000028983/