Big Data in Business: The truth is that with digital transformation, companies have begun to enter a new era. Now it’s easier to prepare to face potential obstacles and anticipate trends.
All thanks to the data and detailed information that we can have access to. Do you want to understand better how Big Data can benefit your business and help you make decisions? So, let’s explain:
- What is Big Data;
- The 3 Vs. of Big Data;
- How to implement it in your company.
What Is Big Data?
According to some definitions, Big Data is “a large volume of structured and unstructured data generated every day by companies.” Companies need to cross-reference this information to reach valuable insights and make the right decisions. In this way, financial and marketing strategies can be defined.
The HBO series West World manages to explain this concept excitingly. In season three, an advanced artificial intelligence can gather data from all human beings to predict future events and even know how each person will die. Of course, in reality, this is not so radical. But you get the point.
Companies can benefit a lot from Big Data; after all, data helps predict behaviors and trends and analyze consumers. It’s like they say: Information is power.
The 3 V’s Of Big Data
The practice of collecting and analyzing data is not as recent as before the emergence of digital media. However, the concept of Big Data began to be worked on in the 2000s, when analyst Doug Laney determined the three Vs. of Big Data: volume, velocity, and variety. Find out more by reading below.
Volume
Volume refers to the large amount of data collected from various sources used by companies. This includes data from social networks, tracking websites, machines, sensors, and financial transactions. The Internet of Things is a concept that enters here, as a lot of data can come from devices connected to the internet, whether mobile or not.
Speed
This is how quickly data is transmitted and processed. Ideally, data processing should be constantly agile; you will get much better results when analyzing recent and real-time data than outdated information.
Some technologies that help in this type of processing are:
- RFID tags;
- measurements;
- Smart sensors.
Variety
These are the formats in which the data is generated. They can be structured (numerical data in traditional banks) or unstructured (data in video, text, image, audio and financial operations format). The more complex the information, the more likely you will get valuable and relevant data.
How To Implement Big Data In Your Company?
Well, now we come to the most crucial part: how to implement Big Data in your company in a way that brings benefits?
First of all, let’s understand the following: the technology that allows you to collect, organize and process your data is called Big Data Analytics. You will transform seemingly loose information into something useful that will help you make decisions with it.
There are 3 types of data a business can use:
- Social data: are those data derived from people, which help identify behaviors, habits, interests, and other personal information. They may arise from Google searches, comments, and messages on social networks ;
- Enterprise data: data generated by organizations, which are widely used to measure the productivity of teams or the results obtained;
- Data of things: are the data originating from devices connected to the internet based on the concept of the “Internet of Things.”
Therefore, we can conclude that your application depends a lot on the reality of your business. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to collect data from sensors if your company doesn’t work with them. So it’s worth thinking about your business model and implementing accordingly. See now how you can apply Big Data in the following sectors of your company.
Big Data In The Financial Sector
Analyzing the numbers is always essential, as this will ensure financial health. In the sales sector, you need to understand the production costs. In the marketing sector, you need to analyze the budget and ROI of the actions taken to identify the most profitable efforts.
Big Data In The Marketing Industry
To create practical digital or outbound marketing actions, you need to understand everything about your persona. You will verify if you are reaching your ideal customer profile through data analysis. With data analytics, you can visualize the differences in consumer behavior according to each region and culture.
Big Data In The Quality Sector
With data analytics, it is possible to measure several quality control variables, such as first-pass yields, defects per unit, employee training, and the environmental conditions of production. Production data can also be integrated with others, thus eliminating slowdowns and bottlenecks.
An exciting example is agricultural companies. After all, they can predict climatic factors, vegetation state, and planting conditions. All of this contributes to increasing the productivity of farmers. Therefore, we can conclude that Big Data is here to stay, and if you don’t implement it in your company soon, you will lose your place to more prepared competitors.
Also Read: Big Data: Understanding The Power Of Data Analytics