Growing Your Business With Big Data
Growing your business is fairly complex. There are a lot of different components to consider and it can be extremely difficult to put together a strategy or plan due to all of the different factors involved. As such, it can be overwhelming trying to come up with a plan, especially if you’re not sure how to get started or where to even begin. Luckily, there’s one sure way to help you grow your business and even make decisions easier; by using data.
A data-driven approach to growing a company is incredibly popular these days. This is because data can tell us a lot about not just our business, but also the industry as a whole. This makes it extremely easy to get valuable insights which will make decisions a lot easier and ultimately help us grow our business.
So without further ado, let’s take a look at what a data-driven approach to growing your business means and how it can help you.
What exactly does “Big Data” mean for a business?
The term “data” can be extremely vague in most contexts. However, big data just refers to large volumes of data. It can be structured data or just random data that is generated through various websites or services. Big data is often unorganized, meaning it’s up to you to create reports around it that make sense and help you make decisions.
For example, data could refer to the way your customers interact with your website. It could record data such as how many people have clicked on your website on Google, how many come from social media, and how many people click the various products on your website.
This reveals a lot of insights such as where your biggest audience comes from, where your marketing is weaker, and what your most popular products are. This can help you make decisions such as what products to put on sale, which ones to advertise more on social media, and where you should focus on marketing efforts.
What kind of data can you use to grow your business?
In general, any data that you generate yourself is going to be your best option because it’s data that is directly related to you. Unfortunately, a small business has a hard time generating a lot of data because it doesn’t have a wide audience which leads to smaller sets of data that can be unreliable.
As a replacement, you can look at reports that show valuable insights into your industry. For example, if you’re a part of the food industry, you could look at reports regarding the most popular health trends and diet trends. This will help you create products that follow those trends so that you can be more relevant in the industry.
When it comes to building your brand, there’s nothing more important than understanding your audience and what they’re thinking. While they probably won’t explicitly tell you what they’re thinking, you can at least examine their actions to see what they’re doing, how they react, and ultimately what their preferences are. This data becomes extremely valuable for growing your business and you absolutely need to pay attention to it.
AaaS – Big Data solutions for small businesses
So how can a small business access the kind of analytics that larger competitors use? Luckily, there are several AaaS (analytics as a service) solutions which you can start using in your business straight away:
- Alteryx – https://www.alteryx.com/
Alteryx combines your business’s internal data with publicly available information to help you make better business decisions. These insights allow you to create graphs, storylines and interactive visuals from the dashboard. It also offers collaboration features that enable team discussion.
In addition to business data, Alteryx can provide department-specific data, including marketing, sales, operations and customer analytics. The platform also covers a wide variety of industries, such as retail, food and beverage, media and entertainment, financial services, manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals - ReportLinker – https://www.reportlinker.com/
ReportLinker is a technology company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. This includes the latest reports & slideshows with insights from top research analysts that provide full understanding of how 5,000+ industry sectors work (industry overview, key players, market drivers…).
Additionally, users have access to more than 25,000 trusted sources such as government agencies, international organizations, consultancies, industry associations. Combining this data with your own analytics can really help you see opportunities others will miss. - IBM Cognos Analytics – https://www.ibm.com/products/cognos-analytics
This big data analytics tool can make predictive business insights easily available to even small businesses. In addition, the platform is easy to use, meaning that you don’t need a team of data analysts at hand to make sense of it all.
Cognos Analytics is driven entirely by artificial intelligence, and it can help you effortlessly unearth any hidden insight – no matter your experience or budget.
