Big Data and How it can grow your Business Date:   Wednesday , August 06, 2014 Majestic MRSS is a Mumbai based marketing research solutions provider catering to clients in Asia and Middle East with services like product design and innovation, concept evaluation and feasibility study and others. There is enough noise everywhere to make you sit up and notice Big Data, but not much to tell you how it translates to your business growth. The term \"Big Data\" was coined by Haseeb Budhani, founder and CEO of BubblewrApp and caught on as a blanket term for any large and complex collection of data sets which are difficult to process using traditional data processing applications. Let me give an example to exhibit its importance - Google\'s autocomplete and translate features are based on comprehensive data collection and real time analysis. So, is your data Big Data? Yes, if it is in the order of exabytes (2.5×1018 or 1,024 petabytes) and if it is all from different sources such as sales, customer contact center, social media, mobile data, blogs and so on). The data is typically a mix of structured data and unstructured data. However, what will be considered \"Big Data\" depends on the capabilities of the organization managing the set, and on the capabilities of the applications that are traditionally used to process and analyze the data set in its domain? For example, Facebook handles 50 billion photos from its user base and eBay.com uses two data warehouses at 7.5 Peta bytes (PB) and 40PB as well as a 40PB Hadoop cluster for search, consumer recommendations, and merchandising. What are the characteristics of Big Data? There are three main characteristics of Big Data, popularly referred to as \"3Vs\" i.e. Volume, Velocity and Variety. Data volume is increasing exponentially. From 0.8 zb (zeta bytes) in 2009 to estimated 35 zb in 2020. Velocity means data is generated fast and need to be processed fast. Variety refers to different formats, types and structures. It includes text, numeric, audio, video and social media data. One can add one more V - Value to make it \"4Vs\". Value refers to the valuable insights one can get from Big Data. Why is Big Data so happening right now? Because the companies have realized the potential of Big Data and the insights it offers. And each buyer of your product is generating data when he uses his smart phone with GPS and internet connectivity, and there are roughly 4.6 billion mobile phone subscriptions and between 1 to 2 billion people accessing the internet. When some Tom buys shoes online and tells his friend Gina about the amazing service he received at the store on Facebook, he is one of the 1.06 billion monthly active users who share 30 billion pieces of content every month. Twitter contributes in a huge way too. About 175 million tweets are generated everyday from more than 465 million accounts. So, generally speaking, in 2 days we are creating as much information as we did from the beginning of time up to 2003. Does Big Data makes Market Research obsolete? The question is if we can get insights from Big Data should we do research? The answer is big YES !! Because insights from Big data will help Market researchers design more meaningful surveys. Also, the market research helps to analyse large sets of data and break it down to small pockets of consumer segments so that the marketing spends of our clients are more focused. Many of the analytical techniques used in market research can be successfully employed to analyse Big Data. Research can help reduce the noise in Big Data by applying our concepts of consumer perception and brand differentiation. Social media data can not speak for itself. It requires researcher\'s experience and understanding of brands to leverage the language used by consumers in describing brands. Which is why the market research industry is well placed to embrace the opportunity that Big Data provides. Kurt Kendall, McKinsey\'s Business Head for its consumer and marketing analytics centre, acknowledges that, \"With the right capabilities, you can take a whole array of new data sources - web browsing data, social data and geo-tracking data - and develop a much more complete profile of consumers\". He says \"The retailer can combine information it has about past purchases with details about the customer collected through the company\'s Facebook page and elsewhere to determine exactly what price to sell the item and if it is right to negotiate,\" he adds. So, when Tom agrees to share his information, it causes him a direct benefit by the high degree of customization pursued by Netflix and Amazon, which recommend films and products to consumers based on analysis of their previous choices. The next step for organizations can be to add in new areas for more insights. Social media sites give brands the necessary data for sentiment analysis, which when integrated with retail data, helps better understand how real sales are driven by your virtual presence. When this is achieved, people who already like a brand can be targeted individually in-store or with relevant DM and email content, effectively linking the on- and offline environments where consumers interact with a brand. On the flip side, while Big Data allows retailers to more effectively segment their customers and market their products to them, the same information can also be used by price-comparison businesses to push down prices in the market. With more consumers using their own data to search and compare products and services, there is a risk that companies may see their margins squeezed as they try to compete. Big Data for SME? According to an HBR blog by Christina Donnelly and Geoff Simmons: Usually, small or medium sized businesses don\'t feel the need to invest in extensive customer data, relying instead on intuition to help hold your own against data-rich, bigger competitors, which allows them the flexibility to change quickly. While cost is a justifiable barrier, small firms also tend to find the whole concept daunting due to the time involved in the learning curve. However, during the three years of the study, they found that not only small businesses benefited from the precision offered by customer data, but also that exposure to data encouraged owner-managers to share insights with employees and get them involved in companies\' competitive thinking. A yogurt maker, for example, learned by analyzing the data that older adults were a key market for its products, so when the company\'s representatives visited supermarkets for in-store tastings, they no longer tried to entice younger shoppers and instead focused on older people. The tactic improved the events\' productivity. By giving SMEs access to finances that brings these technologies within their reach in an affordable way, big data/analytics capability is making its way to smaller companies quickly. It\'s a trend that\'s only going to grow for small businesses. Popular Big Data Software: Platfora - Platfora Inc FICOŽ Blaze AdvisorŽ - FICO Datameer - Datameer Inc Hadoop - Apache Foundation Spark - Apache Foundation HP Vertica - HP MongoDB - MongoDB, Inc Splunk - Splunk Inc Tableau - Tableau Inc Text Ad for Majestic MRSS in Silicon India: Version 1 One stop for all your marketing research needs Send us a query at info@mmrss.com Visit us at www.mmrss.com Or join our community on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MajesticMRSS?ref=hl Version 2 High Tech MR you need to grow your business Send us a query at info@mmrss.com Visit us at www.mmrss.com Or join our community on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MajesticMRSS?ref=hl Version 3 Envisioning Growth? Let us help you find the right segment to focus on. Send us a query at info@mmrss.com Visit us at www.mmrss.com Or join our community on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MajesticMRSS?ref=hl