Big Data and Predictive Analytics: The Competitive Edge
How does using data/business intelligence give businesses an edge over those who don’t utilize customer or company data?
Data is the most valuable commodity for any modern business. Small bits of information — such as customer age, consumer habits, and location — all add up to a bigger picture. Minute, seemingly disposable data accumulates to form what we call “big data”, an ocean of information gathered by a company’s day-to-day interactions with a consumer. Business intelligence is the practice of forming this bigger picture, making vast quantities of information easily digestible and actionable. Here are a few questions that data analysis can answer for you and your company.
Who is our customer?
Millions of people are regularly engaging with millions of products and services. Each and every day, a single consumer interacts with dozens if not hundreds of businesses by way of advertisement, digital applications, brick and mortar establishments, and subscription-based services. Add in what they’re not partaking in and you’ve got a much more vivid picture of who your customer is. By knowing the habits of your consumer, and by way of predictive analysis, a business can know how the market will respond to an idea before it’s even rolled out.
How are customers interacting with our product or service?
People’s personal relationship with and perception of your brand can make or break your business. Do you find that more of your sales come from older people or younger? Do they sell especially well at a certain time of day or time of the year? Do customers frequently pair another product or service with yours? These details can seem like minutiae, but they form the trends that will completely determine your success.
What is our public image and what do consumers expect from us?
Data analytics aren’t just important for the direct interaction consumers have with your brand. They also help summarize how those customers are responding after those interactions take place. Posts and digital reviews — across social media platforms and Google listings — give you the most honest, unfiltered representation of how your brand is perceived. Be it positive or negative, this data allows a company to self-reflect and apply tweaks to their image that will foster a positive relationship with consumers.
Who are our competitors?
Mistakes are the growing pains of any business, but data analysis of the mistakes of others is a much more painless experience. In today’s world everything is shared, and deep in the data trail are the reasons why others have failed or succeeded. For example, if a similar company’s product failed, look and see if the mistake wasn’t in targeting the wrong demographics, or casting too broad a net when choosing an audience to advertise to. These are the foundation of what is called competitive intelligence, and it is a vital practice. If you aren’t learning from others’ mistakes, they are most certainly learning from yours.
Knowing your customer, how they perceive and interact with your brand, and how you compare to your competitors are some of the answers that can steady a business during turbulent times or take profits to the next level for even the most successful business. Information is the single most important asset, and it’s just waiting to be taken.
That’s what we at amshot aim to do for your company. We know where to look, and our expertise is in creating custom programs and applications that make it possible for this data to be gathered, deciphered, and interpreted for easy understanding by decision makers within a business. If this sounds like something your company needs, email consult@amshot.com or give us a call at (405) 418-6282 to set up a free consultation.
