Big data
The smart management of large amounts of data, numbers and statistics to be analyzed is increasingly strategic. Data refers to text, images, video, audio and other elements of calculation. To exploit these enormous masses of data, forms of reading, calculation and interpretation far superior to human ones have been developed.
Big data applications are found in the following sectors: banking, insurance, social media, manufacturing, large-scale distribution and retail, public administration and healthcare.
Big data in companies
In a large or medium-sized company, the use of big data could be used in:
- Mapping, organisation and verification of company data flows;
- Study and analysis of data value for each business area;
- Ability to analyse the customer experience based on customer data;
- Ability to develop forms of interaction between the various corporate business areas in order to identify and create new opportunities for tactical (cross selling) and strategic (new products) development;
- Ability to analyse data related to customers according to the development of new services or new products (“customer listening” is increasingly significant, by using social media to help companies to extend and deepen their customer knowledge, clients’ segmentation and behaviours);
- Ability for the company to react quickly to market and society changes;
- Greater understanding of how the market perceives the various brands;
- Identification of the key factors that drive people to buy a specific service or product;
- Demographic segmentation to customise various strategies to be implemented;
- New feasible experiments thanks to the availability of new data;
- Possibility of forecasting thanks to a long-range data and information history;
- Testing on new business models.
Applications of big data analytics in management activities
Big data analytics is an important issue for entrepreneurs aiming for a smart business organization, both for the development of actions capable of affecting cost reduction and for the knowledge of customers and the development of new services.
The smart management of information flows can make a company become so proactive that it is able to anticipate the needs of users, customers, consumers and citizens.
Big data: advantages
- Creation of new careers: big data play an important social role because they create new jobs;
- Budget savings: big data allow budget savings in the public administration and the optimisation of the tourist flows in the territory;
- Monitoring of hydrogeological catastrophes: monitoring and management of natural disasters thanks to advanced analytics.
