Does Your Business Really Require Big Data Analytics?

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Big data analytics refers to the process of analyzing large and varied amounts of data in great detail to expose specific information, like, market trends, customer preferences, hidden patterns, and unknown correlations. This allows organizations to make informed decisions when dealing with clients or planning the dimension of their expansion.

According to Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President at Gartner, “Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine.”
This article highlights why your business needs big data analytics to prosper today.

1.Improves decision making

Through a powerful combination of speed and efficiency, big data allows businesses to analyze information immediately.
Instead of focusing only on profit and loss, it integrates a wide range of insights, taking into account each and every factor that could possibly influence the business. From prevailing market trends to customer preferences and cost management, it allows you to scrutinize and compare minute details for each factor, before making key decisions. So even if you own a small business, you’ll still need big data analytics to ensure that your decisions are well-informed and sound.
You can use big data with BI (Business Intelligence) to further enhance the productivity of the entire process and make even better decisions. Because BI gathers data from either a data warehouse or a data mart, it contains a copy of analytical information that makes decision-making easier and faster.

2.Protects company and client information

One of the key reasons why businesses need big data analytics, regardless of their scale or size, is simply because it not only protects your organization from harmful viruses and malware, but also hackers.
With the increase of online transactions, the rate of hackers stealing customer data has proliferated. Since big data can immediately detect irregularities in any business network, it can help evade cybercrimes and enhance the overall security of your network. From identifying ransomware attacks to catching malicious insider programs and exposing compromised devices, big data is a surefire way to avoid any possibility of unwelcomed invasions in your system. According to an online report by CSO, 84% of organizations now use big data to secure their systems against such attacks.

3.Enables risk analysis

Taking any initiative in your business always involves a risk. You have to pay close attention to each and every factor that can influence your business. Even then, there is never any guarantee that everything will go right, and your business incentive will bear fruit. Unforeseen events, influences, and interactions can always change the course of anticipated results.
Ideally, to minimize such risks, entrepreneurs and decision-makers may perform comprehensive risk analyses before implementing actions.
Because big data allows you to analyze large amounts of information in detail, you are given the opportunity to consider influencing factors thoroughly before making a final decision. For example, if you are a manufacturing business dealing with the production of a specific kind of product, and want to start producing something new, you can use big data to scan social media and check whether there’s an existing need for it, or not. There are a lot of guides present online that can help you utilize big data to its fullest, to conduct efficient risk analyses.

4.Enables effective marketing

Most brands can’t afford to stagnate in their marketing efforts. Even small businesses need to keep up with global marketing trends that never cease to evolve.
Not only does big data keep you informed about these trends, but it also ensures that you pick the right marketing method, best suited to your needs and objectives. Using big data, you will be able to compare results from different marketing strategies and create more effective marketing campaigns, based on the analysis.
Another way big data analytics helps marketing is through providing businesses with better insights about their clients. This allows the production of specifically targeted advertisements and greater levels of personalization. Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM, claims that big data will “force the marketer to understand each customer as an individual within 18 months, or risk being left in the dust.”

5.Facilitates cost reduction

Big data helps cut down costs by streamlining processes and improving operational efficiency. Implementation and results can vary from industry to industry, but big data analytics can be used to identify trends, patterns, and probabilities in incurring costs.
In addition, since it incorporates technologies like Hadoop and cloud-based analytics, investments in big data can prove to be pretty economical for your company when it comes to storing large amounts of information, at least in the long run.

Conclusion

Effective incorporation of big data analytics, once paired with management wisdom, has the potential to transform businesses for the better. To keep up with the pace of today’s business world, big data analytics is no longer an option, but a necessity.
Geoffrey Moore, author and management consultant, highlights the sinister aspect of not having big data, in the following words, and we couldn’t agree more: “Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway”.

Asim Rais Siddiqui
An innovative business technologist and strategist with over a decade's worth of experience in building scalable platforms and disruptive businesses.

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