by Martin 5 years ago 
You can enjoy the same advantages as large corporations by making use of the wealth of information that you already collect using your website.
Today, businesses of nearly any size can benefit by finding opportunities within easily accessible data. In fact, companies that neglect to do so may face an early retirement.
According to a report developed by Oxford Economics and NTT Data, 90% of executives believe that big data technology is essential for effective financial performance over the next three years.
The following are 5 more great reasons why your small business should use big data technology.
- Big Data Helps You to Save Time
Software applications such as Openbridge can enable you to clean data, convert it from one form to another, map it and store it – a process called data wrangling. Any company that needs to gather and organize large amounts of information can benefit from data wrangling (also called munging).
As an example, even a local bakery that serves thousands of customers generates an abundance of data, including:
- Cost forecasting
- Customer transactions
- Employee wages
- Event reporting
- Price forecasting
Alternatively, a manager at a beverage company may need to determine production costs using the price points of raw materials. In this instance, new manufacturing equipment may help them to boost productivity by 20%.
The most important thing about big data is not its volume – but its quality. In other words, big data refers to how researchers process information, rather than its size. For example, imagine that you have a database that contains 50 piles of paper, each with 500 documents consisting of curriculum vitae, reports and other information.
It would take you a lot of time to review 25,000 documents. Furthermore, it’s unlikely that you’d glean accurate insights from manual research. Big data systems, however, can reduce inaccuracies and perform this type of work for you automatically.
For example, tools such as Dis.co, enable you to harness the computing power of devices on your network. Given enough resources, the technology can deliver infinite power, enabling you to execute the most demanding computing tasks.
The technology is an easy to use, secure, serverless computing solution. It eliminates your commitment to a single computing vendor, while enabling you to access resources via the cloud and on-premises.
Dis.co enables you to tap into the resources of network devices that normally sit idle, such as company cell phones, laptops and tablets. The technology also enables IT professionals to intelligently provision resources with ease.
- Big Data Helps You to Learn about Your Customers
Today, we live in an era of information. Information in and of itself, however, holds little value. For example, it’s not enough to know that 57% of your customers are loyal. You must somehow extract value from that information. To do this, you must develop and test hypotheses. Big data technology, for example, can help you to develop hypotheses via text mining.
Text Mining – a form of natural language processing (NLP) – is the science of turning unstructured text into structured data. Text mining is a tool that you can use to sort through large amounts of unstructured information to discover interconnections, patterns and trends.
This ability is essential for making effective decisions based on data generated by human activity. Text mining is powered by mathematical and linguistic algorithms. For example, a typical text mining process involves searching for information, identifying meaning in patterns, cross-references, semantic text analysis and quantitative text analysis.
Sentiment analysis is another invaluable big data tool that can help you to unearth opportunities using information. You can use the technology to analyze tweets, comments, customer feedback and random customer rants.
It doesn’t matter whether the information has a positive, negative or neutral sentiment. Your business can benefit from automated sentiment analysis.
Furthermore, people cannot make firm decisions 80% of the time. Resultantly, big data analysis is more accurate than a human being could ever hope to match. With this in mind, you can learn more about how data processing techniques such as stream processing can help your business to use big data quickly and efficiently by taking a look at some of the useful resources on websites such as https://ververica.com/ for example.
- Big Data Tech Is Great for Analyzing Social Media
Social media is an inevitable part of today’s data-driven society. As a result, it’s the best source for understanding customers.
Today, big data and social media go hand-in-hand. In fact, social media is, in large part, responsible for providing the big data field with the volume of data needed for rapid evolution. Now, even small business owners can take advantage of big data technology to find previously hidden opportunities.
As a small business owner, for instance, you can gather a wealth of information from marketing data, offers, discounts and promotions that you use to engage consumers across social media. You can also use big data technology to search for negative reviews and find opportunities for improvement. As an example, companies now use big data technology not only to monitor social networks, but other digital assets such as communities and forums.
Despite the vertical, big data technology empowers stakeholders with actionable information. Now, business leaders can leverage big data technology to effectively market to consumers, design products, increase revenue, streamline operations and forecast future sales. Retailers can even use big data technology for effective inventory management.
SAS – a global, leading analytics enterprise – has served businesses since 1976. Now, small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs) face the same challenges as large corporations. According to SAS representatives, big data solutions no longer fall solely under the purview of large corporations with fat wallets. SMBs can benefit from the technology as well.
- Big Data Can Help You to Save Money
Big data technology can help you greatly reduce costs. For example, it’s a remarkably effective tool for optimizing manufacturing processes. Now, manufacturers can leverage big data for on-demand production and optimal usage of raw materials.
In addition, free, online D3 data visualization tools now enable manufacturing professionals to develop phenomenal visuals. The tool is a cost-effective alternative to expensive, commercial options. It enables users to visually represent key points uncovered during big data analysis to present deep insights into various cost leaders. This ability enables small businesses to cut costs drastically.
Now, business leaders want information on the fly. Furthermore, small business owners must match quickly changing market trends – just as their larger corporate peers. Big data systems empower small businesses to develop effective marketing campaigns. Luckily, there are services like Sureshot – Activate that allow businesses to design data-driven marketing campaigns that are personalized for their target audience.
For many small business owners, the only way to compete with big companies is to ride the tide of change by leveraging big data systems, and many companies do just that. By analyzing data purposefully, executives can develop and improve marketing strategies and promote better return-on-investment for every dollar spent on advertising.
Ultimately, big data helps business leaders make better decisions, faster. It enables companies to access high quality information just in the nick of time.
Tools such as, machine learning, for instance, give business leaders the expertise and experience to adjust to market changes in real-time. Using the technology, entrepreneurs can react to market changes as soon as they arise.
This is a remarkable advantage for small business owners who aren’t encumbered by the same bureaucracy as large corporations. Resultantly, you can use big data technology – for example – to keep your website updated instep with changing consumer tastes, resulting in more revenue for your organization.
- Big Data Will Help You to Improve Organizational Performance
Big data technology can help you to make the most of business intelligence tools. Business intelligence tools offer deeper insight compared to basic profit and loss analyses. The field encompasses a range of insights, comprehensive research and deductions.
Big data powered business intelligence tools enable business leaders to make mission-critical decisions. Now, business leaders use data science and management tools to enhance the effectiveness of information analysis. Resultantly, business intelligence tools are more helpful for small businesses than ever before.
In the end, big data systems improve productivity. For example, cloud storage providers have expanded rapidly to serve SMBs who are generating a massive amount of data.
Now, small-to-midsized businesses can access information on nearly any network in the world – whether or not they are connected to the internet. By paying a modest subscription fee, savvy entrepreneurs can access shared folders that allow them to work on presentations with employees, without worrying about bandwidth issues or version control.
Big data technology also enables SMBs to reduce their exposure to risks. Small-to-midsized businesses operate on a smaller scale than their larger peers. Resultantly, there is much less risk connected with the business practices of SMBs. Still, big data enables SMBs to analyze any risk associated with their vertical – further reducing exposure to negative outcomes.
Big data technology can transform your business. A group of qualified data scientists in your team can greatly influence growth strategy. For all of the reasons above, it’s worth your while to consider investing in big data tech.
It’s important to remember, however, that big data is not a cure-all for all the problems that might plague your organization. Big data technology is about people – not numbers.
It is, however, a tool that will enable you to make important decisions when placed in the hands of a skilled specialist. With the right combination of technology and expertise, you can leverage big data systems to nurture phenomenal profit and create sustainable long-term operations.