All consumer-facing companies have mountains of customer data, but until recently the value proposition for all that data was left largely untapped. More and more, companies are realizing there is big value tied up in their big data, and are relying on analytics experts to help them navigate that particular jungle. Phani Nagarjuna, founder and CEO of Big Data Analytics & Apps firm Nuevora, says that misconceptions about the expense and difficulty of implementing analytics solutions are putting the brakes on many companies taking a deeper dive into their data, which could be costing them valuable insights into the needs of their customers, or even driving them away to competitors who are better able to anticipate what they want.
Consulting: What are clients demanding?
Nagarjuna: The biggest area right now they see for analytics is around the demand side. How do we understand consumers or looking for ways and means to understand their consumers and their products, how they're working in the marketplace, and taking those learnings back and infusing them into their marketing processes. That is the biggest opportunity out there. Clients are looking for experts, consulting talent, a combination of technology and human prowess to come and help them create a roadmap of this is where we are and this is where we want to go with respect to understanding our customers. If we understand them better, we can deliver the right product or service. If you can do that better, smarter, faster, cheaper than the other guy you will have a competitive advantage. So clients are looking for a blueprint of how do we use analytics to go from where we are to the next frontier.
Consulting: What's driving this big change in how companies are utilizing analytics?
Nagarjuna: What's changed is one, the deluge of data. With the advent of mobile and social media, all of a sudden the power has shifted from the corporations to the consumer much more. Today's consumer can literally dictate what they want to buy, how they want to buy, when they want to buy and at what price because they have the information in their hands, on the go on their smartphones. Information they can verify through their real-time social networks. They can corroborate the information, pricing data, reliability data, service data, etc., and at the same time be still able to transact on the go. All of a sudden, corporations are saying they need to understand the consumer or we're not going to meet their needs. The need to know the consumer's behavior is so paramount, and the only way to know more about the mind of the consumer is to get into all the data the consumer is associated with, mine it, and see if there are any patterns to help them predict behavior and stay ahead of the curve.
Consulting: Is this a double-edged privacy sword for consumers?
Nagarjuna: Yes and no. Consumers' private information is going to be in the hands of corporations, and in my view will always be there. But privacy concerns are slowly dwindling in terms of data sharing by consumers. But then you get those spikes like the recent one with the news about Target. At those types of moments, people become really concerned for about a year or six months and everything is calm, and then they can see the tangible benefit of corporations having access to data, including getting personalized offers, offers on a timely basis, and offers based on their needs. In the process, consumers are sharing their information. I think incrementally we'll start to see more transparency, but then there comes these black swan kind of events where the brakes are put on it. You take two steps back but then you go three steps forward.
Consulting: What is keeping firms from seeing the value locked up in their big data?
Nagarjuna: There are two big barriers the way we see it. Number one is leadership. Having the top leadership that believes in the value of data and using it as a means to gaining competitive advantage in the marketplace and outsmarting their competitors is the number one value. If you do not have the leadership at the top that believes in infusing these data-driven insights into their decision-making processes at different levels of the organization, then the analytics initiatives become more like isolated activities or events that do not provide an overall or bigger value for the company. Number two is organizations, especially large ones, don't know where to begin their journey. They're overwhelmed with the amount of marketing and content out there, the amount of news clips or articles people are writing about how big data can deliver value. They realize there's value in it, but are extremely worried about where and how to begin. There are a lot of misconceptions that big data is a major investment, but anyone who could really blueprint for those companies how getting value out of big data isn't a major capital investment, rather an incremental journey you can take where you identify the key data drivers within your company, then try to apply them one value driver at a time but in a manner that every value driver you are knocking down leads you to the larger goal of delivering enhanced value for your investors.
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