Published by Programme B
We all leave traces of information at various stops while we surf through the pages of websites, blog posts, and social media platforms. The data absorbed might include mobile app usage, digital clicks, etc., and these contribute to a data fingerprint that is unique to its owner. This info collection scheme is the basic concept of big data, and it benefits both parties: consumer and company. User data allows a platform such as an online casino with a huge variety of free no download slots to improve the consumer experience. Advanced data software now offers a reduced analytic time, thereby helping firms make speedy decisions. Faster decision-making, in turn, reduces cost, stimulates growth, and increases revenue.
This article will serve as an informative and educative drive through the path 21st-century businesses take to benefit from big data analysis.
Big Data Analysis in the 21st Century
The word “big data” was coined in 2005 by Mr. Roger Mougalas of O’Reilly Media. However, its existence dates back to about 7000 years into the past. The earliest big data usage records for the control and tracking of businesses can be found in Mesopotamia, where people used accounting to record crop growth and herd development.
From this moment, accounting principles began to improve, plus data analysis became relevant in other fields. In 1887, Herman Hollerith created the computing machine to read punched holes in paper cards. This was then used to count and hold census data. More developments emanated and resulted in the invention of more machines. For instance, in 1989, the World Wide Web was created by a computer scientist from Britain called Tim Berners Lee. He sought to facilitate information sharing via a hypertext system.
Also, in 2005, Yahoo! created Hadoop based on Google’s MapReduce. The goal was to record and organizing the information on the entire internet. Currently, Hadoop, which is open-source, is now being used by many organizations to handle a huge volume of data.
Fast-forward to Today
According to Forbes, 95% of businesses need to manage unstructured data, and 4 out of 10 businesses specify that they will need to manage unstructured data frequently. Hence it’s no surprise to see that over 50% of businesses all over the world are adopting big data analysis. The streaming giant Netflix makes use of data to greenlight new content that are likely to appeal to their global audience. This perk allows them to purchase the movie and TV series rights that they believe will register a hit among certain audiences.
Let’s take the case of Adam Sandler, an actor who was seemingly unpopular among the American and British film audiences. In 2015, Netflix gave a go at four new movies starring the actor while convinced that he was previously successful with his work in Latin American countries. Their strategy paid off. You can have up to three Starbucks shops on the same street. Yet, their businesses won’t take a hit because they can analyze big data to ascertain the new store’s success in the new location, taking into consideration lots of factors before concluding.
How Businesses Use Big Data
From the aforementioned examples, it is clear that the benefits of big data analytics tend to lean towards increased profitability. According to statistics, businesses that made use of big data analytics saw their profits increased tenfold. Some of the best big data tools these businesses use include:
- Apache Storm
- MongoDB
- Cassandra
- Apache Hadoop
- Xplenty
- Cloudera
- Knime
So, how do these businesses use big data? Find out below:
Micro-Specific Marketing: Most businesses spend billions on advertisements that ultimately fail. Most times, the failure is a result of a skipped research phase. Targeted advertisement is an area where companies can utilize big data, as with it, they can gather data about their specific market or audience and understand them. This enables businesses to create sophisticated and personalized ad campaigns that will suit their specific niche.
Risk Management: With big data, businesses can formulate strategic approaches on how to manage risks. It also enables companies to develop intelligent risk foresight as well as quantify and predict possible risks during their operations.
Identify Competition: Big data allows companies to know who their competitors are. It allows you to know about your customers’ perception of your competition and their pricing models. Also, you can determine how strong their social media presence and engagement are.
Trends Discovery: From customer’s preferences to their purchasing behavior, management can use the information from big data to analyze the shelf life of these trends and how soon they will change, allowing them to prepare for the changes. In the same way, casinos provide demo slots to allow players to have a feel of their game before making financial commitments, big data analysis provides businesses with a chance to identify trends among their customers that will be useful in product research and development.
Understanding Customers Better: Big data provides patterns and trends peculiar to their customers and enables them to create proper customer profiles. Now, companies can deliver to their customers an optimum satisfaction level.
Benefits of Big Data for Businesses
Customer Loyalty
Amazon, for instance, is one of the world’s largest online retail stores with a large number of customers worldwide. They also have massive amounts of data on their customers and their activities on the website. These large companies find ways to use such information to improve their marketing strategies and customer relations.
Better Strategic Decisions
Big data readily make all the knowledge regarding your company and its customers at your disposal. Proper data analysis affords businesses the chance to understand their customers better and know their preferences. It also gives these companies insight into their competition’s strategy and allows them to gain a competitive advantage.
Innovation & Better Products
Another benefit of big data is that it allows companies to develop new ideas while improving on the existing ones. It provides information from various channels on customers’ needs plus their feedback on the already available products. Also, with feedback, companies are more aware of the parts of their products or services that need adjustments and improvements.
Supply Chain Management
Big data also provides supplier networks with enhanced accuracy, clarity, and insights. Through recent approaches built on big data, suppliers can now leverage higher levels of contextual intelligence and break away from the constraints they faced before. With this innovation, suppliers can now ensure the retailers they supply have the right products, in the right volume, and at the right time.
Efficiency of Labor
Leveraging big data allows you to develop a concentrated approach to HR management. From recruitment decisions to employee training, big data can help you to find the best candidates. You can access the relevant data you need such as staff welfare and productivity info to understand and improve your workforce. This data will help increase the efficiency of labor at work.
The Future of Big Data for Modern Businesses
There’ll always be room for improvements in every aspect of the world, thanks to globalization. With big data, so long as there are new advancements in technology, upgrades won’t be far-fetched. There would likely be a shift from the use of the software by modern businesses to the purchase of algorithms, as companies can neither tweak their software nor create their algorithm. This allows businesses to add their data to it, hence the ability to tweak data according to their needs.
Also, privacy was an issue with ‘small data’ analysis; therefore, with big data, businesses would have to incorporate data scientists, data managers or even create space for a Chief Data Officer. This person would be in charge of mining various reports, research, feedback, customers’ information, and further spearheading new developments for that business’ industry.
Conclusion
With such exciting benefits, big data has proven to be a massive advantage for modern businesses. If you’re a business owner and you haven’t leveraged big data analysis, then you should get on board. Firms, companies, and startups tend to accrue a lot of data from multiple sources, which are stored in data warehouses. There are several tools to help you implement such a system. If you can process this data in real-time, it is useful information that would lead to growth.