To stay competitive, SMEs need to embrace the fourth industrial revolution, which is based in a digital realm teeming with data. Companies that can transpose these raw data into effective business strategies will be more agile than their competitors. Here’s a look at big data, a unique tool to stimulate your company’s growth.

The characteristics of big data can be broken down into 5 Vs: volume, velocity, variety, veracity and value. These data arise from a variety of sources, their volume is growing—we now produce more data in two days than was created in the period between the dawn of humankind and the year 2003—and they can be exchanged at huge speeds. Finally, these data have intrinsic value and their veracity is of primary importance when it comes to ensuring the reliability of subsequent decision making and analysis.

Big data obviously cannot be processed by traditional software. Instead, powerful algorithms and analytical tools enable them to be interpreted to optimum effect. But once they have been properly organized, they enable valuable observations to be gleaned that will support clear decision making. Here are the benefits brought by big data.

1) Enhanced customer experience

Big data enable valuable data to be collected from social networks and your website, particularly when it comes to improving your business offering. The digital footprints left by virtual visitors provide the possibility of personalizing your service offering to their preferences and characteristics as consumers.

Attracted by products that are more responsive to their needs, users will want to make repeat their purchasing experience. Remember that gaining a new customer costs a lot more than retaining those who already swear by your brand.

2) Better understanding of consumer behaviour

Until very recently, wanting to better understand your clientele meant performing costly market studies. Now, however, companies can quickly analyze their available data in order to better understand their consumers’ behaviour. What’s more, big data enable you to answer particular questions in this regard.

Why do you lose customers at a certain time of year? Why is it that product A, and not product B, is responsible for your revenue growth? A deeper understanding of your customers’ expectations and needs enables you to not only adapt your service offering, but also make decisions on what to do about a product range with lower performance, for example. Big data can also allow you to to anticipate your target’s needs.

Now that you can identify the factors that drive customers to make a purchase, you can use that new knowledge to plan, produce, and launch new products and services.

3) Improved advertising campaigns

Data sources such as transaction history, social network interactions, and loyalty card data, for example, play a role in improving your ad campaigns. Make use of this data to create a profile of your ideal customer and make that profile the target of your future marketing activities.

There are other applications to big data you might also find useful. For instance, you could plan a targeted campaign based on geolocation data. Or you could entrust certain analytical tools to quickly detect new strategies put in place by your main rivals. When it comes to big data, the best practices generally enable growth in your sales and profits, as well as an increased return on your marketing investments.

4) Better operational efficiency

As the saying goes, “Information is power.” Since big data enable you to improve your decision making, you should in principle be able to do more with less! Use big data to upgrade your internal processes, which will lead to improved operational efficiency. This will particularly produce savings in terms of production and your supply chain. However you go about it, combining big data with the power of artificial intelligence will turn your SME into a success story for many years to come!