Data analytics is not new but with the massive advancement in technology, the process has brought new discovery to the information behind these data. The outputs have become so important and significant to the businesses. Despite the importance, what exactly is big data and its analytics?
In simple term, big data refers to sets of data that are collected by businesses through regular interactions with the customers. These data which are in abundance can be in both structured and unstructured form, and in huge volume. Businesses need to process these data in converting them into information that can be applied to various uses.
The process of filtering and re-configuring the massive raw data into useful information is known as big data analytics. Data have become so important that they are now treated as valuable assets for the businesses.
The power of big data
It is a known fact that big data analytics is significant and important to businesses. Following are the key benefits of big data to businesses:
Predictive Future – The application of artificial intelligence in big data analytics has raised the effectiveness of this process to the next level. The analysis of the massive and humongous volume of data enables the system to provide a predictive trend of consumer behavior in the future.
This is critical for businesses to realign and reposition both their product value proposition and business strategy in capturing more transactions from the customers. The application of artificial intelligence enables deeper and broader analysis on the data.
Innovation – By knowing what the customers prefer and possibly want in the future, businesses can focus on developing suitable products and services for the customers. Products and services that are designed and developed according to customer needs and wants are expected to deliver better results as compared with those that are produced without useful references to big data analytics.
Operational Efficiency – Big data not only can be used for effective product development, but it can also be applied when improving with greater successes, in the long run, and raising the efficiency of business operations. Improved processes – reducing and simplifying steps, and costs; can easily enhance the operational efficiency of the businesses. This would help the businesses to perform.
Customer Experience – Fast turnaround time, simplified transactions and lower operating fees would make the customers happy. This improvement coupled with great products and service delivery will bring great customer experience which is critical for any businesses. By raising customer experience, businesses will be able to attract new customers while retaining the existing ones.
Fraud Detection – The dynamics of data analytics that validate the genuineness and regularity of data can be used to trace and identify any potential fraud to the businesses. Potential frauds that can be identified early can be addressed, leading to avoidance of greater challenges in the future. Detection of potential fraud is translated to cost savings and more importantly protecting the business reputation.
Principles on Execution
Having reviewed the importance of data and its analytics, it is important that businesses maintain and operate within a set of key principles when carrying out data extraction and analytics on their customers. In all instances, customers must be made known that data pertaining to their spending behaviors and patterns are collated and analyzed for businesses to improve their dealings with the customers.
As such, businesses must execute their exercise based on the following key principles:
Transparency – Data extraction shall be carried with great transparency. Customers are informed of the exact information that will be compiled for processing. In Malaysia and many other countries, customer’s consent must be sought prior to collating of any information from them ie. Personal Data Protection Act in Malaysia.
User Control – Customers shall have full control over the data collection and processes. They must feel comfortable and agreed to the data that will be collected without which they can opt out anytime they wanted to without question asked.
Relevance – The information collected by the businesses must be relevant to their business nature. This is to avoid the sharing of information with other unrelated parties.
Benefits Customer – By consenting their data to be collated by the businesses, customers must be benefited from the entire exercise. Without any apparent benefits, there is no reason for the customers to provide their cooperation in this aspect.
Data, when processed effectively creates value to the businesses. Therefore, businesses must not ignore the importance of data, hence to spend enough resources in the mining, filtering and clean up data in driving business growth. Businesses need to leverage the power of data and the information it creates in charging forward.
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