Nov 6, 2019,08:00am EST|12,147 views

Five Benefits Of Big Data Analytics And

How Companies Can Get Started

Terence Mills
Forbes Councils Member
Forbes Technology Council
COUNCIL POST| Membership (fee-based)
Innovation
POST WRITTEN BY

Terence Mills
Terence Mills, CEO of AI.io, is an AI pioneer, thought leader, and digital technology specialist.

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Consumers are inundated every day with ads for products and services. The
number of options is exhausting. What makes consumers stop and pay
attention?

As brands work to answer this question, they become more creative as a result.
In fact, many are diving into the benefits of big data analytics. For instance, in
2016 Starbucks started using AI to send personalized offerings to its
customers via email. Beyond customizing drinks to match personal tastes, the
company uses its loyalty card and app to collect and analyze customer data,
including where and when purchases are made.
Big data isn’t a new term. It’s a concept that has been around for many years
— but the first big data analysts used spreadsheets that were typed by hand
and then manually analyzed. You can imagine how long that process used to
take.

Innovations in technology have changed the rules when it comes to big data.
Advanced software systems greatly reduce analytics time, giving companies
the ability to make speedy decisions that help increase revenue, reduce costs
and stimulate growth. This offers a competitive advantage to the brands that
are able to work faster and target their consumers more effectively.

If you're a brand considering investing in big data analytics, here are some of
the ways you may benefit:

1. Customer Acquisition And Retention

To stand out, organizations must have a unique approach to market their

products. By using big data, companies can pinpoint exactly what customers
are looking for. They establish a solid customer base right out of the gate.

New big data processes observe the patterns of consumers. They then use
those patterns to trigger brand loyalty by collecting more data to identify more
trends and ways to make customers happy. Amazon has mastered this
technique by providing one of the most personalized shopping experiences on
the internet today. Suggestions are based not only on past purchases, but also
on items that other customers have bought, browsing behavior and many
other factors.

2. Focused And Targeted Campaigns

Businesses can use big data to deliver tailored products to their targeted
market. Forget spending money on advertising campaigns that don’t work. Big
data helps companies make a sophisticated analysis of customer trends. This
analysis usually includes monitoring online purchases and observing point-of-
sale transactions.

These insights then allow companies to create successful, focused and targeted
campaigns, thus allowing companies to match and exceed customer
expectations and build greater brand loyalty.

3. Identification Of Potential Risks

These days businesses are thriving in high-risk environments, but these

environments require risk management processes — and big data has been
instrumental in developing new risk management solutions. Big data can
improve the effectiveness of risk management models and create smarter
strategies.

4. Innovative Products

Big data continues to help companies update existing products while

innovating new ones. By collecting large amounts of data, companies are able
to distinguish what fits their customer base.

If a company wants to remain competitive in today’s market, it can no longer

rely on instinct. With so much data to work off of, organizations can now
implement processes to track their customer feedback, product success and
what their competitors are doing.

5. Complex Supplier Networks

By using big data, companies offer supplier networks, otherwise known as B2B
communities, with greater precision and insights. Suppliers are able to escape
constraints they typically face by applying big data analytics. Through the
application of big data, suppliers use higher levels of contextual intelligence,
which is necessary for their success.

Supply chain executives are now looking at data analytics as a disruptive

technology by changing the foundation of supplier networks to include high-
level collaboration. This collaboration lets networks apply new knowledge to
existing problems or other scenarios.

How To Begin Putting Big Data To Work

If you are a business that has data, but you do not know where to begin or how
to use it, don't worry. You are not alone.

First, you must determine what business problem you will be trying to solve
with the data that you have. For instance, are you trying to determine the level
of shopping cart abandonment and why?

Second, just because you have the data doesn't automatically mean that you
can put it to use to solve your problem. Most organizations have been
collecting data for a decade or more. Yet, it is unstructured and messy — what
is known as "dirty data." You will need to clean it up by putting it into a
structured format before you can put it to use.

Third, if you decide to work with a firm, you will need one that can do more
than just visualize the data. It will need to be a firm that can model the data to
drive insights that will help you solve your business problem. Modeling data is
not easy or inexpensive, so it's important to have a budget and plan in place
before taking this step.
An Important Investment

The biggest businesses are continuing to grow, thanks to big data analytics.
Developing technology is becoming available to more organizations than ever
before. Once brands have data at their disposal, they can implement the
appropriate analysis systems to solve many of their problems.

Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class

CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?

Terence Mills
Terence Mills, CEO of AI.io, a data science & engineering company that is delivering AI solutions in
healthcare, travel, and entertainment. Read Terence Mills' full
…
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