Any astute business person can sense that we are on the cusp of something big in the digital space. It is palpable. But only the enlightened can optimize and leverage it.
Although big data has been around for a while, its scalability is just being realized.
According to Forbes, 95% of businesses acknowledged having harnessed large amounts of consumer data, but they all lamented that the same was difficult to analyze and manage.
For that reason, these businesses wind up potentially sitting on an information goldmine, an asset they are unable to utilize to their benefit. Most companies still have to rely on guesswork when making crucial decisions, despite having a treasure map that lies right beneath their feet.
Here are compelling reasons why investing in big data is advisable and how you can organize your data while at it.
Typically, big data is gathered from an array of sources.
It is a treasure trove of trends at particular times and locales, from social media trends to online purchases and sales patterns.
That sort of data infallibly indicates your customer needs, preferences, purchase patterns, and even behaviour.
Knowing your market trends allows you to develop effective marketing strategies and campaigns that easily convert into sales. It also equips your business with vital information on what its customers want, thus formulating new products to meet these needs.
Gone are the days when you had to rely on a questionnaire to give you a rough idea of what your consumers want. Big data means you no longer need to interview random targets with the hopes of accurately guessing your consumer needs or insights.
Instead, your company can passively collate valuable and accurate data availed by its actual market. With that information, it can then generate detailed mailing lists for targeted marketing, thereby reaping maximum benefits.
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Upon tracking market trends, companies are then armed with a vast cache of accurate organic data. Consequently, they are better informed and can thus forecast and sidestep risks and challenges.
It is, however, essential to remember that besides the real-time data harnessed by the business, big data also includes data generated by Systems Analysis Programs (SAPs).
SAP offers forecasting solutions by rendering reliable, relevant data to supplement that collated by your business. Why is this necessary?
Well, according to calculations done by Unicorn Insights, a market research company, it would take an individual approximately 181 million years to download all internet data.
Therefore, harnessing relevant big data requires a structured approach, primarily if the data is funnelled from multiple sources.
SAP products do precisely that, thereby enabling accurate projections for your company's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), among other functions.
Consequently, your company can optimize its internal operations, minimize risk by utilizing that information to effectively 'read the market' and formulate risk-free decisions.
Big data can also be a tool with which businesses get to monitor the activities of their competitors. That could include learning their marketing behaviour, market interaction, social media presence, etc.
In other words, it avails you a panoramic view of the market and its players and enables your company to make sound and informed investment choices moving forward.
Keeping tabs and taking notes on what your competitors do may also stoke your innovative spirit as far as new products are concerned.
However, proper organization and management of the information gathered along the way are necessary for this to happen. Keeping meticulous notes or thought catalogue is an excellent way to build new ideas from the inspiring thoughts spurred by your rivals.
Business success demands that the client be made and kept happy.
Customer onboarding and retention are some of the key challenges facing most enterprises. Plenty of startups ponder how to solidify their market presence by giving their customers exactly what they want.
Also, as mentioned before, even established businesses with servers full of data could not analyze it to determine what their clients want.
Indeed, according to The Guardian, back in 2012, only 0.5% of data was analyzed.
Recognition of data as an asset has, however, grown exponentially. Fast-forward to 2017 when The Economist went on record stating that data was now the world's most valuable resource.
That accolade was hitherto reserved for another commodity- oil.
Today, it cannot be gainsaid that big data, and its proper analysis is the blueprint for ensuring optimal customer experiences and, ergo, customer retention.
That is because big data places the business in a vantage position to know what customers dislike about a product. It also lets the company learn what aspects of their development are misunderstood.
As far as business operations are concerned, the company can also tell which of its processes are inefficient or counterproductive, thus enabling it to formulate efficient, customer-friendly solutions to all these issues.
For industries prone to fraudulent claims, investing in big data can help forestall the incidence of such fraud.
It offers a predictive method to review past fraudulent claims and identify tell-tale patterns, thereby arresting similar situations in future even before they occur.
Training your team on how to deploy and manage your cloud solutions is one of the ways to ensure that your data is optimally utilized.
Some enterprises that can significantly benefit from this include insurance companies and company sectors dealing with procurement and supplies.
Moving forward;
Big data might be the very determiner of the success or failure of all business processes. Holistically speaking, it promises to save companies tremendous amounts in resources and energy.
It might also be the catalyst catapulting some startups to blue-chip status while others fail to survive their infancy.
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