Big data analytics has the potential to do great things for businesses.
It can help them achieve their goals by delivering valuable insights that can improve their decision-making processes. Many businesses have joined the big data fray recently, but not all of them are getting the results they expect.
While big data analytics can be very useful to businesses, it can be complicated to implement.
Instead of being disappointed with the early results of big data implementation, businesses should focus on getting little wins that can lead to big wins in the future.
Is Big Data Meeting ROI Expectations?
According to a study conducted by Wikibon, about 46 percent of big data practitioners said that they had only derived “partial value” from their deployments of big data systems, and two percent said that their deployments were “total failures”.
The study also revealed that companies were getting an average ROI of 55 cents per dollar spent.
However, they expect their ROIs to rise to $3 to $4 for every dollar in the long-term. Wikibon identified several reasons for companies’ failure to get maximum ROI from their big data projects, and they are shortage of big data skills, immaturity of big data technology and lack of a compelling need.
How Little Wins Can Contribute to Future Big Data Success?
In an article entitled “Little Wins Key to Big Data Success“, it is said that businesses that invest in big data face immediate pressure to justify their investments, because it is relatively costly to implement a big data system.
However, it is unrealistic for businesses to expect significant results in the early stages of implementation.
Getting a number of little wins is more realistic, and it can bring great rewards in the long run.
Product Improvement
Businesses can use big data analytics to understand how consumers perceive their products.
By doing so, they can improve their existing products or create new products to better meet the needs and preferences of their customers.
Big data also enables them to test thousands of variations of computer-aided product designs in a very short time and see how changes will affect performance, costs and production lead times.
Improving products may take some time, but it will eventually lead to higher sales and profits.
Better Customer Experience
Big data analytics can also help businesses provide a better experience for their customers. It allows them to profile their customers and engage them on a more personal level.
For instance, when a customer enters a store, an employee can check his or her profile in real-time and use the information to help him or her choose the right products.
By providing a more personalized shopping experience, businesses will be able to attract more new customers and retain existing ones.
Risk Management
Failure to manage risks properly can result in severe losses.
Big data analytics enables businesses to obtain new insights from their data, so that they can make better-informed decisions and reduce their risks.
They can use big data to discover ways to prevent errors, minimize losses and reduce costs, which can help them increase their profit margins significantly.
It takes time for big data analytics to deliver significant results.
The small positive changes that businesses make with big data can one day propel them to a whole new level of success.
About the Author: John McMalcolm is a freelance writer who writes on a wide range of subjects, from social media marketing to Cloud computing.