Big Data is defined by data legends IBM as “any type of data - structured and unstructured data such as text, sensor data, audio, video, click streams, log files and more. New insights are found when analyzing these data types together.”
So imagine. Every second of every day you and your organisation has an opportunity to capture not only slow moving customer order data but the continuous flow of comment, tweets, shares, enquiries, website mouse clicks through your site, some of which could be literally travelling at the speed of light.
The myriad of potential pieces of data you could capture multiplied by the frequency of each one, produces a tally counter that even for the smallest of businesses could spin faster than the Worldometers real time world statistics!
This is potentially HUGE, so how do you reign it in?
You ask questions first, before you look for the answers.
If you have ever looked at the relatively smaller minefield of Google Analytics you’ll know that you can very quickly become swamped by information and that’s not very helpful when you need to find answers. Multiply this by all of your Big Data and you get the point…
So the better approach is to decide what questions you need answered and keep those questions really tight: Be specific and keep things time-bound.
The trick with Big Data is to following the QIKI rule:
Question: Decide precisely what question you need to answer
Information: Integorate your data with just that one question in mind and do not get distracted
Knowledge: When you find a potential answer from your data, apply your knowledge of previouse experience and research to interpret what it means
Intelligence: Apply that new found interpretation to your business decisions, turning the information into intelligence for improving growth and reducing risk
Once that’s done you can ask another question and repeat the process. From being tight and specific you find clarity. And remember, with the speed of Big Data available to you once you’ve answered a question things may have moved on and you might need to ask again! This world certainly isn’t going to stop for anyone but keep questioning with the right questions and you’ll find the right answers to help leverage your customer data and enhance your relationship management.