Today’s business owners learn the value of using, capturing, and monetizing big data. Whatever your business size, chances are you’ve learned about this, too. Many businesses have been told to gather as much data as they can, and they have complied. But, what is big data?
Technically, big data refers to data sets that are large and complex enough for businesses to manage within their accustomed IT systems.
Big data, stripped off its technicality, is all about opportunity to learn about your company’s data in order to make the correct business decisions. It’s not surprising that large corporations and enterprises are using the opportunity that big data provides them. But did you know that small business owners can do the same?
If you’re a small business owner, your ambition to succeed and stand alongside larger competitors is driven by your passion and commitment to offer a greater service. However, big data is transforming the landscape of businesses everywhere.
Some of your competitors, whether they’re large, mid-size or small, chances are that they are using big data to improve the quality of their products. Boost their marketing operations, and foster customer relationships. This brand-new productivity of larger competitors can be a potential threat to the sustainability of your small business.
As a small business owner, you know that finding the right tool and resources for the right users can accomplish work faster. With big data, new solutions are being developed every day and some have been built for the specific needs of smaller-sized businesses.
Check out the three characteristics that small business owner must seek in a big data solution:
Flexibility: Big data solutions geared at larger corporations usually require customers to strip current systems, thus imposing an amount of time and heavy costs on IT departments. This doesn’t simply work out for small businesses. A big-data solution for small business owners must enable them to cherry-pick only the capabilities they really need and control the solutions and systems that are already established.
Simplicity: Big data solution for small business owners should be easy to install and utilize. It should only take a few days or weeks for a business to begin using it, and should not take months or years. The system’s capabilities should all flow seamlessly together. If a customer happens to incorporate new capabilities with current systems, it should be likely to achieve this devoid of expensive specialists.
Cost: Big data solutions for small businesses should also be reasonably priced. Customers must be able to pay for their only needed and the licensing strategy must let them launch small and scale up as the requirement for analytics grows. This approach is mainly valuable for a fast growing small business, where it’s crucial for the capabilities and costs of software investments to fall in-line with the growth and expansion rate of the operations.
The shift from a gut-driven business to an analytics-driven enterprise is one small business owners can embrace. Searching for the right big data solution, one targeting the specific needs of small businesses, can help make it useful and affordable to benefit from the gamut of opportunities that big data delivers.