The entire culture of marketing and business has shifted as our society has become more digital—traditional tactics are being replaced with data-backed strategies and campaigns focused on measurement. What can the intersection of the proliferation of big data and the rise of market intelligence as a tool mean for your business? The answer is: a lot. Let’s dive in.
Just How Big is Big Data?
A 2015 tally reported that more data was created in the previous two years than ever before—when I say “ever before,” I mean the entire history of the human race. Let that sink in for a minute. If you haven’t gotten on board with big data, now’s the time.
That’s not the point, though. We could talk about data volume all day. After all, nobody is disputing its exponential growth. Having a pocket full (ok, a lot of pockets full) of big data and doing nothing with it, though, is an epic waste of resources. In fact, non-application of big data is probably its biggest problem—all the more reason to pay attention to the following uses for big data in market intelligence.
Applications for Big Data in Market Intelligence
Market intelligence isn’t just about sales and staying ahead of the next guy—that is a big part of it, yes, but it’s also about finding and using information to make your business run more smoothly from top to bottom. Big data, for instance, can work internally to improve employee advocacy and company efficiency. Read on, as I highlight more areas that can benefit when market intelligence embraces big data in actionable ways.
Supply chain management. According to SCM World’s 2015 Future of the Supply Chain report, seventy-seven percent of supply chain executives said they consider big data analytics an important and disruptive technology—and for good reason. Big data can help these professionals manage supplier relationships and enhance inventory management for the delivery of products based on real-time demand. Plus, smartly-appropriated big data initiatives can help supply chain execs with risk management—specifically safety or quality issues, cited by 46 percent of companies as a major concern in 2015—by providing more efficient risk mapping and scenario planning.
Sales. Big data—primarily user-generated big data, in this case—can provide insights that allow enterprise companies to identify prototypical customers and determine what product(s) they should be promoting in different scenarios. It’s a great example of what’s been called the “consumerization of the enterprise,” a concept describing how today’s connected customers require marketing so personalized and engaging that it resembles a service all its own.
Public relations. Because so much of the data we’re talking about is user-generated, the PR potential is pretty staggering. Let’s take a look at this collectively for a moment: You can use big data to put the right products in the hands of the right people, improving the consumer’s experience with your brand—PR points. If you can target consumers who are most apt to review and refer, you’ve got word-of-mouth spokespeople instead of merely customers—more PR points—all because you made smart use of user-generated data.
Competitive analysis. Big data collected by companies—and, sometimes, even generated by them—can help market intelligence professionals better analyze their industries and where they fit within them relative to the competition. In short, insights gleaned from big data can help those in the enterprise better position their campaigns and investments to outshine their competitors.
What’s Next?
How many ways does your business touch big data? Can you identify any big data strategies your business could use to help optimize your supply chain, get a leg up on your competition or even make your PR efforts more robust? Big data is definitely a worthwhile talking point these days, but I’m interested in how you’re making it actionable within your business.
Regardless of your industry, I think we can all collectively stand back and say, “Big data, meet marketing intelligence. We’re glad you’re here.” What’s your take? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
This article was brought to you in part by HP, Inc. Opinions and thoughts are those of the author.
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Daniel Newman is the Principal Analyst of Futurum Research and the CEO of Broadsuite Media Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise. From Big Data to IoT to Cloud Computing, Newman makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology projects, which leads to his ideas regularly being cited in CIO.Com, CIO Review and hundreds of other sites across the world. A 5x Best Selling Author including his most recent “Building Dragons: Digital Transformation in the Experience Economy,” Daniel is also a Forbes, Entrepreneur and Huffington Post Contributor. MBA and Graduate Adjunct Professor, Daniel Newman is a Chicago Native and his speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.