Small Businesses Need Insight Enabling Infrastructure to Harness Big Data Benefits

Retailers across the country are learning that customer retention is often dependent upon personalized marketing. Large retailers have the upper hand in this competition by their access to personal data through social media, third-party data, and other data stores online. A recent blog post on Harvard Business Review, “Will Big Data Kill All But the Biggest Retailers?,” tells us about the struggle for smaller businesses to compete in this Big Data infused market.

The post comments on a McKinsey study that quantifies the profit margins businesses stand to gain by harnessing the power of Big Data. We learn:

Virtually every retailer recognizes the advantages that come with better customer intelligence. A McKinsey study released in May 2011 stated that, by using Big Data to the fullest, retailers stood to increase their operating margins by up to 60% — this, in an industry where net profit margins are often less than 2%. The biggest retailers are investing accordingly. dunnhumby, the analytics consultancy partnered with Kroger in the US market, employs upwards of 120 data analysts focused on Kroger alone.

Most small businesses do not have the resources to keep up in this game and get lost in the shuffle. These small enterprises can mine the data available to them by employing insight enabling infrastructure like PolySpot. This big data solution can provide the information access needed to customize marketing and advertising and retain valued customers.

Andrea Hayden, September 20, 2012

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext