How is Big Data Helping The Businesses Industry?
Learn about how big data is helping the business industry.
There are a huge number of blogs out there extolling the wonders of Big Data and predicting how it will transform our world beyond recognition. However, for the typical business, the practical, everyday applications of Big Data may appear out of reach. In this post, you will read about how big data is helping the business industry.
Making Better Business Decisions
Big Data provides businesses with the tools they need to make better decisions based on data rather than assumptions or gut feelings. However, in order for this to occur, everyone in the firm must have access to the data required to better decision making. This implies that data should no longer be the only realm of IT departments and business analysts; rather, business customers across the organisation should be able to access and examine data to answer their most pressing business concerns. Data democratisation refers to this type of company-wide data availability.
The retail giant Walmart is an excellent illustration of data democratisation in action. But, more importantly, Walmart gives its employees regulated access to data, ensuring that non-techies are not overwhelmed by data and can readily locate the answers they require.
Understanding Your Customers
Consider how much FB knows about your life and how it leverages that knowledge to provide you with relevant recommendations. This clearly exemplifies a crucial benefit of Big Data: the more you know about your clients, the better you can offer them.
Disney is using Big Data technologies to better study visitor behaviour at its theme parks in order to provide an even more wonderful experience for resort guests. All of this is made possible by the advent of the MagicBand. These guest wristbands serve as identification, entry passes, keycards, and even transaction devices, so all guests need to do is wave the band at detectors to pay for something or obtain access to a ride or their motel. However, Disney collects a plethora of data on individual guest behaviour, which it uses to manage a more efficient resort (for instance, by more readily detecting logjams) and providing a more attentive, personalised experience for customers.
Delivering Smarter Services or Products
Knowing more about your clients allows you to build smarter products or services to meet their needs. That is a component of Disney's MagicBand program.
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is likewise utilising Big Data to improve customer service. A typical bank knows a lot about its consumers, from what they prefer to purchase to where they vacation. RBS is beginning to realise the value of this knowledge in order to better address the demands of its clients.
What I like about RBS's Big Data strategy is that it isn't geared to extort more money from clients by peddling extra financial products. Alternatively, it is about providing better service to clients while saving them time and money. For example, commercial data is analysed to identify instances where clients may be paying extra for a financial product, such as paying for travel insurance that is already included with the service of a bank account. Staff at branches and call centres can then give personalised, real-time suggestions to customers.
While RBS's programs do not directly increase income, they do encourage customer pleasure and loyalty, which leads to a better bottom line.
Improving Business Operations
In industrial contexts, such as factory manufacturing lines, automation and robotics may be second nature. However, many other corporate sectors and tasks are becoming more automated and efficient. Big Data is driving the rise in automation.
As an example, consider HR, which is fundamentally a human business function. Big Data and automation have the ability to fully revolutionise or at least augment a wide range of human-related processes, from hiring to learning and development. Chat bots, for instance, have already been used to answer typical employee questions, and AI-driven training courses may detect when a learner is struggling to understand a particular topic.
PeopleDoc, an HR software business, has developed a Robotic Process Automation platform, which operates alongside existing business systems and 'listens' for procedures or events that can be automated. Difficult, repetitive activities can thus be performed by robots or algorithms. Much has been written about the danger that automation offers to jobs, but I like to look on the bright side. By automating simple yet time-consuming operations, qualified individuals are freed up to do more creative, strategic work that provides more value to the firm.
Generating an Income
PeopleDoc, an HR software business, has developed a Robotic Process Automation platform, which operates alongside existing business systems and 'listens' for procedures or events that can be automated. Difficult, repetitive activities can thus be performed by robots or algorithms. Much has been written about the danger that automation offers to jobs, but I like to look on the bright side. By automating simple yet time-consuming operations, qualified individuals are freed up to do more creative, strategic work that provides more value to the firm.
For instance, its merchant services now offer online trend analysis and benchmarking tools to assist firms in analysing how they compare to rivals and identifying industry trends. What effect does this have on Amex's bottom line? For one thing, it encourages more businesses to take American Express, which equals more transactions and more income. It's also worth mentioning that Big Data can help businesses save money. Furthermore, data-driven fraud-detection technology, which Amex and other credit card companies use to monitor and deter fraudulent activity, has saved billions.
Conclusion
Big Data, in addition to assisting businesses in these 5 ways, is fueling the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. In other words, as data sets proliferate, machines and programs have more data to learn from. This opens up new potential for businesses to automate operations, make better decisions, delight their consumers, and more.