7 Big Data Benefits That Can Help Improve Decision Making

Jan. 28, 2022

What is one benefit of big data and business analytics that can help improve decision-making?

To help you benefit from big data and business analytics, we asked business professionals and leaders this question for their best insights. From assessing product fit to seeing the bigger picture, there are several benefits you can gain from using big data for decision-making.

Here is what 7 thought-leaders had to say:

  • Assess Product Fit
  • Measure to Manage Better
  • Craft the Right Story
  • Identify Patterns
  • Find New Opportunities
  • Collect Customer Feedback
  • See the Bigger Picture

Assess Product Fit

Understanding the current market trend, competitor analysis and knowing the product's current stage in its lifecycle are the predominant decision-making strategies for an organization's/product's success. Analysis of massive data using big data analytics aids to forecast trends of customer behavior, markets, prices and so on. Business Analytics helps organizations better adapt to the changing or upcoming competitive environments. Thus big data and business analytics can help in improving decision making through the predictive analysis for a perfect product-market fit.

Sri Sagar Kalisetty ’20 MBA, Product Manager at Markitors

Measure to Manage Better

In my field of marketing, business analytics and real-time data help marketers and business leaders make decisions based on real-time campaign performance. Being able to quickly see what campaigns are driving brand awareness, qualified leads for sales and customer conversion helps marketers optimize campaigns to improve metrics and drive measurable business results. This helps to reduce marketing spending by focusing on the right channels and tactics that are driving optimal performance while improving overall ROI and revenue impact. Without big data and business analytics, marketing would be working in a silo instead of seeing how their campaigns are impacting the bottom line.

Elyse Flynn Meyer ’07 BSBA (Marketing and International Business), President and Founder of Prism Global Marketing Solutions

Craft the Right Story

When you're faced with a challenge such as allocating budget, determining product features or building a selling presentation for a customer, it's incredibly important to have the right data to be able to do that effectively. Data can come in the form of case studies, projections based on similar products and more qualitative measures such as market research studies. If you have this data, you can craft stories such as "buying this product from us will increase your sales 15 percent". The sell story will only be convincing if you have the data to make the benefits clear to the other party.

Evan Reed ’14 BSBA (Marketing), Associate Category Development Manager at The Wonderful Company

Identify Patterns

One benefit big data and business analytics can help improve decision making is by identifying patterns. Identifying problems and providing data to back up the solution is beneficial as you can track whether the solution is solving the problem, improving the situation or has an insignificant effect.

Joseph Romani, ’22 MBA, MBA Consultant at Chewy

Find New Opportunities 

No matter how much you think you know, there is always more to discover. Big data and analytics can help you make sense of where you stand and make better plans going forward.

Are you totally sure your marketing campaigns are as effective as possible? Is there an untapped market for your product lines that you’re missing out on? With big data and business analytics, you can plug holes in your strategy or find new opportunities to bring in more business.

Randall Smalley, Cruise America

Collect Customer Feedback

Big Data tools and analysis can help you collect customer feedback and make heads or tails of it, and decide what to do about it. What if customers rate your products or services highly online, generally expressing satisfaction, but aren’t returning for more? Big Data can help you comb through their opinions and observations to figure out why and if such trends are limited to one region, sector or demographic. Using this information, you can redirect if needed.

Allan Switalski, LendThrive

See the Bigger Picture

In the day to day running of your business, it’s often the case that you can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s natural, as you have a lot to focus on. Big data can help you see the bigger picture and business analytics can help you figure out what it all means. With all of the information gleaned, you can bolster your decision-making with hard facts to back it up. 

Guy Katabi, Lightkey

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