How Big Data and Analytics Will Soon Transform Your Business

Big data is the next big thing. The effectiveness of big data for business is confirmed by the Dell Global Technology Adoption Index 2015. Revenues of SMEs that use big numbers are growing 53% faster than the competition. Data analysis allows companies to target their audience by 41% more efficiently, reduce advertising costs by 37%, and improve communication in social networks by 37%.

What is Big Data

Big data is a term that describes data that are coming in a variety of ways, with increasing volumes, and with higher velocity. Variety, volume, and velocity formed the ‘three V’ concept. With the development of the area, two more Vs appeared — value and veracity. In plain English, big data is all possible data sets that are used for business tasks.

The amount of data in the world is continually growing. According to IDC, 32 zettabytes (or 1021 bytes) of information was created last year. This is 100 000 times more than the amount of Facebook data storage. By 2025, we will all be creating 175 zettabytes of data. To visualize this figure, imagine that you are trying to burn ‘datasphere 2025’ on DVDs. In this case, a stack of disks could take you to the Moon 23 times or surround the Earth at the equator 222 times. And if you try to move data to storage media at an average speed of 25 Mbps, it would take 1.8 billion years. Even if all of humanity started doing this together, 81 days would have gone.

Since the amount of data began to grow at a tremendous pace (90% of all today’s information has been created in the last two years), big data has been divided into three categories — structured, unstructured, and semi-structured. The first data is used in its original form for analytical studies. Most PCs and applications are designed to create structured data in specified formats. Unstructured data is not formatted — for example, human texts, Google search results, etc. Semi-structured data is a combination of the two previous options. It may have a standard structure, but there are no elements to sort and process — for instance, RFID tags or XML files.

How Big Data Works

In fact, big numbers are already changing our lives. How are big data and business analytics applied now?

• Customized Entertainment

Spotify and Netflix analyze information about what users like. Companies process crowdsourced data, information about preferences in the service, and create uniquely customized content for everyone. This is how recommended playlists appear that are available to only one user.

• Increased Security

Massive data is used to predict the places and time periods when a crime can be committed. This helps the police to determine where and when to place the officers.

• Online Shopping Efficiency

Using big data, online stores analyze customer preferences and send personal shopping lists or recommend the purchase of specific products. That’s what Amazon is doing. Besides, large data allows online stores to reduce the level of credit card crimes by detecting fraud and protecting user information.

• Improving Healthcare

The digitization of medical records and the ability to monitor patients in real time make it easier for therapists to understand how effective this or that type of medicine is for the entire population. As a result, experts can monitor, isolate, and suppress any diseases that may occur. Moreover, big data helps to reduce healthcare costs.

• Content Settings

Big data is affecting social media content. Last year, Facebook announced that it was going to make global changes to user feeds.

• Chatbots Development

Chatbots are becoming more common due to their effectiveness. Big numbers received from various sources such as online purchases, chat history, helps chatbots to conduct personalized conversations with users.

• Improved Monitoring for Public Services

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is using big data and artificial intelligence to analyze market data and look for possible violations and stock fraud. Central banks around the world plan to do the same — massive data will be used to control and regulate the financial market.

• Artificial Intelligence Development

Current business processes become more automated expanding the possibilities of machine learning and accelerating the development of artificial intelligence. That is, large data not only changes our daily life but also influences the future.

Benefits of Big Data for Business

Data analysis and processing give new ideas that open up new opportunities. After all, data itself carries no value without careful analysis and search for insights which help you to act and achieve results. Big data business opportunities lie in analyzing and finding successful solutions.

So how to use big data in business?

• Social Networks Analysis

Such analytics makes it possible to determine who and what is talking about your business. Measuring brand perception provides you with detailed information that you can’t get using traditional surveys.

• Business and Marketing Analytics

The use of big data in business helps you to expand your capabilities. Massive datasets allow you to compare products, services, and overall brand reputation with competitors by cross-analyzing user behavior metrics. Marketing analytics helps you to promote new products, services, or initiatives more effectively.

• Targeting

In targeting, large data allows providing real-time analysis of actions in social networks on a specific subject from several sources, identifying the audience for marketing campaigns. For instance, you can target specific customer groups in particular geolocation.

• Customer Satisfaction

By analyzing big data from multiple sources, you can improve a web-based platform or app usability, and increase a customer’s interest. The programs that fix the mouse moves and even eye movements are helping with this. Big data analysis also improves customer service in other areas, including call centers, email marketing, chat services, and social media.

• Production Efficiency

Data analytics provides you with extensive information about each process and product and allows you to find ways to improve efficiency. Data analysis and processing effectively work with a theory of constraints that are easy to recognize. By finding and removing constraints, a business can increase throughput and productivity.

The list of options for using massive data is enormous, and it is continually expanding. Big numbers are used in analyzing financial risks, building performance forecasts, creating fraud recognition systems, etc. Effective use cases lead to cost savings and revenue growth. You can use big data for small business — Google Analytics to gather your website or application data, Facebook ad campaigns.

Why Use Big Data in 2019

Big data is already used in all areas and is of great importance for business. Working with massive datasets gives SMEs the opportunity to gain competitive advantages, develop business, and grow faster.

Only you choose to apply big data or not. But if you don’t do this, your competitors will. As the IDC specialists predict, by 2025, business will generate up to 60% of all data (now the figure is 30%), with 10% will play a critical role, and 20% will be vitally important. And some experts state that data is the 21st century’s oil. There are many new players developing products for data collection and analysis. And big data processing solutions are becoming more accessible both technically and financially. So now is the time to think about what you are already doing with massive data and when you want to reach a new level.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

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This article was originally published on the openGeeksLab blog.