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Disproving Myths of Big Data

At a recent conference, I heard a dozen speakers interchangeably refer to big data as “e-commerce” or “digital marketing”. Those are components of big data, but the terms should not be used interchangeably. Unstructured big data refers to information in the cloud, including e-commerce, digital marketing, geo-spacial information, RFID, mobile offers, video, mobile wallets and payments, comments, tweets, NFC (Near Field Communication), blogs, “likes”, schematics, photos, infographics, clicks, QR codes, onlinesearches and much more.

Structured big data mostly refers to internal data, including shipments, manufacturing, orders, inventory, CRM, promotions, POS, forecasts, spreadsheets, syndicated data, etc. Characteristics of big data include volume, variety and velocity. Relational Solutions extends that description to include complexity. That’s because, unstructured big data has significant value, but that value grows exponentially when you are able to leverage it against your internal, structured data. There is a lot of complexity involved in that process. Some technology vendors claim there is no longer a need for structured data. This is untrue.

Structured data exists in applications from Oracle, SAP, IBM, Microsoft, etc. These companies all offer solutions for unstructured data, but their structured solutions will not be going away any time soon. These two technologies can be merged together leveraging a sound infrastructure that accommodates growth and change.

What if you could: Use comments to explain why sales are down in certain stores rather than sending out a rep? Localize sentiment and identify what’s impacting sales in certain regions? Proactively “push” offers out to customers when they arrive at the store? Turn negative commentators into advocates? Determine what clicks are leading to sales? Integrate Amazon sales with internal sales? Big data is about much more than just e-commerce and digital marketing.

It’s about leveraging all forms of information to streamline productivity,understand customers better, improve public perception, service retailers better and maximize sales.

Warm Regards,

Bhavish Madurai (www.linkedin.com/in/bhavish/ )

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