Advantages and Disadvantages of Big Data

One of the most complex business mysteries revolves around consumer behavior and how to best cater to the consumer needs and preferences. Companies bridge the asymmetry of information between what they know about their consumer and how the consumers truly act through gathering and analyzing relevant pieces of information. Historically, information was gathered and disseminated through different means than it is now, ushered in by an ever-changing data and analytical landscape.

Corporations have been gathering informative insights from consumer data analytics but have recently been able to increase their efforts with the advent of Big Data. Big Data is more than traditional business intelligence and has come to mean a lot of things for different people. It’s a term that’s used in varying contexts and is a dynamic and fluid concept due to its intrinsic linkages to technological advances. At its core, Big Data can be defined as “the ability of society to harness information in novel ways to produce useful insights or goods and services of significant value” (Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier, 2013, 9). Big Data is allowing companies and organizations to uncover hidden patterns, unknown correlations, and other useful information that can be used to make better, informed decisions.

Today, Big Data is moving beyond being just an experimental notion. It has become a transformative tool woven into various sectors of the global landscape. The dynamic factors behind Big Data will become the driving force for industrial growth, allowing companies to cater to their consumer base and outperform their peers in unique ways.  However, with any innovation, along with the positive aspects, negative features exist as well.

1. Potential Advantages of Big Data

Big Data has introduced more unstructured data than previously seen that can now be collected for deeper analysis. This presents as an opportunity for the creation of entirely new categories of companies, such as those that amass and stockpile these unstructured pieces of industry data. But merely collecting and warehousing this data isn't enough; these new companies must leverage their newfound competitive advantages and create personalize analytics to determine consumer behavior. Previous analytical initiatives have allowed companies to do things better, but Big Data allows companies to know what to do better, highlighting an vital advantage of the tool.

Most importantly, the sheer size, scale, and real time ability of Big Data present another opportunity for companies. Big Data enables companies to realize any errors within the organization immediately and implement new strategies just as quickly. Companies are now outfitted with the ability to quickly mitigate any effects of an operational problem, staying one step of ahead of the competition. This translates to a drastic improvement in service towards the consumer. This overall leads to a higher conversion rate and extra revenue streams for the business. Organizations can monitor and analyze the needs and preferences of their user base, proactively tapping into the pulse of the consumer.