Introduction
Companies today use big data to adjust their business models for the better. Sales and marketing in the modern era have transformed drastically over the past decade. This is greatly due to big data. Big data has changed the way businesses market to their customers thereby helping them increase their revenue. With technology usage growing at a rapid rate, big data is certainly here to stay. According to Statista.com, the global big data market is estimated to grow up to 103 billion U.S. dollars by the year 2027. It predicts that the software segment, with a share of 45 percent, would emerge as the large big data segment market by 2027.
What Is Big Data?
Big data refers to data sets which are large or complex and are high in volume, velocity, and variety. It is created by people, machines, and tools. It includes information which has been gathered from social media, smartphones, tablets, video and voice recordings, and machine data. It includes both structured and unstructured data which an organization is bombarded with on a daily basis. Big data helps businesses take better decisions and decide on strategic business moves.
Using Big Data To Boost Sales
Big data helps both big and small businesses to boost sales. It alters the way companies market to customers. This helps enterprises increase profits and reduce overall costs. The three powerful ways in which big data can help boost sales are:
1. Predicting Products That Customers May Want To Purchase
The recommendations on the Amazon website is the perfect example of understanding customer’s needs. Amazon utilizes big data to determine the type of products customers will want to buy in the future. This retail giant, which achieved a net worth of 1 trillion dollars in the year 2018, points out the factors which help determine recommendations for products.
They are:
- Timing of customer purchases.
- Ways in which customers rate their purchases.
- Product preference of customers with similar buying habits.
This data can be used by any business to make predictions for their own customers. It is easier to start noticing trends when there is an increase in sales.
2. Using Key Data to Influence Customer Behavior
Big data helps figure out the ways to get customers to make important decisions when they land on the page of a company. Companies use this data to help in pointing towards a sale or a conversation and to learn the behavioral patterns of customers. Big data analyzes each and every move of a customer right from the very moment they land on a website. It notices each and every keystroke of a customer and by the way, he or she moves the mouse, it will predict the actions that will be taken next.
This data can be used by a business owner to give his customers what they want when they want it. When big data predicts that the viewer is going to close the window, a curated pop-up can be created which makes the customer give his email id and join the mailing list of the company. The system can now be automatically programmed to send reminders to customers. This helps the marketing plan of companies to flourish.
3. Gaining an Edge Against Operational Risks
Operational risk is especially high in financial institutions. Scammers are continuously creating schemes in order to take advantage of both individuals and companies. Financial institutions are now realizing that they can use big data to stop scammers before their actions become detrimental to their businesses. Banks are now using big data to monitor transactions on a “front-to-back” business line which helps them eliminate fraud at all levels. They are able to gain access to information such as the sender/ receiver of money, place of residence, frequency of transactions, and the amount of money that is sent. This helps companies identify fraud and keep operational risks at a minimum.
Conclusion
The need for businesses to derive insights from information to take real-time, fact-based, smarter decisions, is the major reason that has fuelled the growth of big data tools and platforms. Big data transforms the manner in which businesses compete and operate. Evolving technologies have been instrumental in extending the potential of big data into every facet of an enterprise. In order to extract value from big data, companies need to process and analyze it in a timely manner. The effectiveness of data for an organization depends on having the right combination of process, people, and technology. The bigness of big data is growing at a surging rate and is a crucial success factor for companies. It is an amazing technology which helps solve major business-related challenges.