Big Data. Analytics. If you ask twenty people what these terms mean, you are likely to get twenty different answers.
Big Data Analytics is a simply analysis of patterns and behaviours of people –like clicks on social media apps and corporate websites. Why would a business want to do that? Well, your traditional data processing tools can not handle such data. However, with big data analytics, you have different architecture, as well as algorithms to process and store them.
In today’s digital world, with the impressive number of it that is generated every second, data is king. Apparently, with such an overwhelming amount of data, businesses now have a large pool of information to work with. Patterns can then be yielded on consumers’ habits and provide feedback on the company’s actions.
In effect, big data analytics helps businesses reveal various hidden patterns, latest trends in marketing, customer choices and other vital business information. Simply, big data analytics helps in building business relationships by providing a holistic view of customers to enhance communications.
Big data analytics offers three key benefits to enterprises.
Vital Information about Traffic Source and Conversions
Interestingly, even the smallest businesses generate data these days. A business with a website, a social media presence, or one that accepts credit cards has data collected on its customers based on site traffic.
For any business enterprise, the two key performance metrics needed would be to track the website’s conversions and traffic sources. Therefore, to make its marketing strategies more effective, a company needs to know from where its visitors are coming. Through business analytics, the company can know the number of visitors arriving at its site via the different search engines.
Behavioural Patterns of the Website Visitors
Like it or not, the quantity and diversity of what you know about your market is key to business growth. Companies, no matter how small, get better insights into what customers want, how they use it, their purchase channels, etc. This is how businesses create/maintain their privacy policies and security needed to protect all that user data. For instance, the backlash against Microsoft 10 recently must have required that Microsoft gather data on why customers wanted to opt-out.
Additionally, big data analytics help to show visitors behaviour with respect to a company’s website. The company can identify how much time visitors spend on specific pages of its site. With this information, decisions can be made on the pages of its site that require some work. Consequently, for the pages that are not performing well, improvements can then be considered.
Effective Determination of KPI’s
Using big data analytics, an enterprise can effectively determine its key performance indicators. For example, this might include the number of generated leads, revenue earned and online sales made. Soon, with this important knowledge, the business can figure out clearly what’s working and what’s not.
Big data has the potential to improve internal efficiency and operations for almost any type of business and in many different departments. Businesses can track performance, optimise delivery routes, better track employee performance and even recruiting top talent. Also, data can be used to quantify what makes a good manager or employee, thereby, improving the HR and hiring process at any level.
Evidently, data is slowly but steadily breaking away from the IT department. It is becoming an integral part of every department in a company.
Are you a budding or a seasoned business owner? Did these tips help? Tell us in the comment box!