The Uncertainty of Big Data – Guidance for Small Businesses

Photo credit: Infocux via Flickr under Creative Commons license

If big data buzz, hype and the glut of vendor-sponsored content have your small business in a ball of confusion, you are not alone. In fact, many large and medium-sized companies are straddling between the benefits and dangers of the data explosion as Elizabeth Dwoskin reports in a recent Wall Street Journal article, which summarizes a Forrester Research study on the big data phenomenon.

In a survey of 259 marketing and business-development executives at large and medium-sized retailers, financial-services companies and consumer-products companies, Forrester found a lot of uncertainty about big data. Roughly one-third of the respondents said the term big data was “very confusing.”…

The report highlights companies in traditional industries that have used data to change business practices or increase revenue. Clorox, for example, attributed a sales increase in early 2013 in part to mining social media for flu-trend data, and using the information to decide where to stock products. Farm-equipment maker John Deere and biotechnology company Monsanto are analyzing data from seeds, satellites, and tractors to help farmers them decide what and when to plant, and how to distribute seeds.

At the same time, Forrester warns that companies amassing large caches of data about consumers likely will face pressure from individuals and regulators over privacy, security and the ways they collect and manage the data. It cites, for example, a 2013 settlement between the Federal Trade Commission and the social network Path for collecting user contacts from minors without their parents’ knowledge or consent. The social network paid $800,000 to settle the charges, without admitting wrongdoing.

Read the article at WallStreetJournal.com

In Small Business Primer for Success in the Data Democracy, a previous post on big data’s impact, we encourage small business owners and marketers to take inventory of internal discoveries, balancing information with intuition. Use analytics in conjunction with the business and marketing plans to guide and evaluate strategies, engagement and decisions. Take a thoughtful approach to data to maximize your marketing momentum. Do not succumb to the hype or you’ll be dancing to a Motown hit and bottom line disaster.