3 Big Data Myths Debunked
18th December 2023
In today’s data-driven world, the term ‘big data’ has become universal. However, misconceptions and myths often shadow the true nature and potential that big data can add to your business.
Let’s unravel some of these myths:
Big Data Myth 1: Big Data is for Big Companies.
The short answer is no. Big Data helps businesses identify problems, recognise patterns and gain meaningful insights to answer key questions. From retail to healthcare and beyond, organisations of all sizes can use big data to enhance customer experiences, streamline operations and make data-driven decisions. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can leverage data analytics tools and cloud services to produce essential insights at a scale and cost that suits their business. Big Data is continuing to change the business landscape as we speak (or type!), and organisations regardless of their size, should get ahead of the curve and use this to their competitive advantage.
Summary: View Big Data as an opportunity, instead of a challenge.
Big Data Myth 2: With Big Data, you will always know what your customers want.
Big Data is not a crystal ball, but it can store and analyse a vast amount of your data to gain valuable insights and can be used as a tool to give you a greater overall perspective of your business.
Big Data helps you understand your customer preferences, and their activity online, your website and competitors, how customers use your product and how do they engage with your company. Big data allows you and your marketing team to prioritise your next campaign to influence customer decisions in a positive way.
Don’t just listen to us, look at Amazon. Do you ever put something in your basket on Amazon, and receive a notification hours later recommending you a similar product? That’s Big Data. Amazon are established to understand everything they know about a single customer and its why thousands of us , return to the Amazon storefront, which makes up almost 35% of their annual sales. More information on this case study can be found here.
Customer insights are key in delivering a comprehensive marketing strategy, and Big Data can help your business do this.
Summary: Don’t rely on Big Data, listen to your customers.
Big Data Myth 3: Big Data will solve all your problems.
While big data analytics is a powerful tool, it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution that automatically resolves all your business challenges. Analysing data is just one component of the process; interpreting those results and implementing actionable strategies are just as important, ensuring that the data you’re analysing is also accurate and complete. This will allow your business to make better decisions and avoid the mistakes of relying on incomplete data.
Summary: Big data is only as good as the data it analyses.
You’re probably thinking “so, what now?”
If you’re unsure of where to begin, here’s the good news, Data Clarity can help.
We have seen an increased focused on analytics as a necessity for all industries. But particularly our work in retail, where accurate and up-to-date insights are critical to meet customer demand that rapidly fluctuates.
Quite simply, we look at the 3 ‘V’s when discussing Big Data: Volume, Velocity and Variety. Volume refers to the amount of data, velocity refers to the speed of data processing, and variety refers to the number of types of data.
The 3 Vs can make analysing company or customer information to unearth the value behind raw numbers difficult. With so much information, it can be impossible to know what is valuable and what isn’t. A concern for most organisations is the validity of any information held. Can you be sure that there are no duplicated or inaccurate pieces of information in your database?
Our solution ClarityOmnivue, aggregates data across disparate systems into a single, unified view throughout the organisation to discover insights that can improve decision making from marketing to stock and manufacturing decisions.
If you want more information about how Big Data can help your organisation, talk to our data experts today.
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