Big Data is becoming a big trend within many industries such as Retail and Airlines, for many important factors. For example, the Retail industry has increasingly become more of a 360 degree experience where consumers are expecting all channels to seamlessly integrate. Big Data allows companies to track everything their consumers are looking at online and even how they navigated there. Airlines are using this to improve their ETA’s in order to increase their effeciency. Ultimatley this will enable a better coordination between all staff involved in an airplane approach, by eliminating gaps of estimated and actual arrival times. This is done by combining public data about weather and flight times from air traffic control.

However, there are differences between ‘Big Data’ and ‘Analytics’:

• Volume: companies that are born digitally such as Amazon and Google are masters of Big Data.
• Velocity: speed is as/more important than volume.
• Variety: using messages/updates/social media for ultimate engagement.

To conclude, Big Data can play a significant role in Marketing for many firms across a wide range of industry. Retail firms can track their consumers thoughts in many ways, which can help measure and manage more precisely how their shoppers ‘think’. Firms can tailor many promotions and offers targeted to their key audience and consumers in order to increase their spend and loyalty.

Big Data leads to smarter decisions.

McAfee, A., & Brynjolfsson, E. (2012). Big data: the management revolution. Harvard business review, 90(10), 60-66.