SMART Data not Big Data

"Big Data offers business an unparalleled opportunity to extract insight into the behavior of their customer that can in turn transform business results. BUT just because we can measure, monitor and access everything doesn't mean we should. It is much too easy to get bamboozled by the proliferation of smart technology and endless possibilities that send business down resource-sapping rabbit holes without any definable or useful output. The danger therefore is that we get lost in a sea of data that delivers no value whatsoever.

So on one hand Big Data is changing the world because we now have so much more data and new data formats. But on the other nothing much has changed because we are still seeking to use data and information to inform corporate decision-making. The only real difference is that we now have new data formats that we can use and new technology to actually analyze that data and leverage it.

As business leaders we need to understand that lack of data is not the issue. Most businesses have more than enough data to use constructively; we just don't know how to use it. The reality is that most businesses are already data rich, but insight poor. It may be true that companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook enjoy a considerable competitive advantage because of the data they now have access to but they also have vast budgets and teams of data scientists whose only job is to analyze that data. For most businesses that is not possible, realistic or necessary. There is probably more than enough data in your business right now for you to tap into the power of Big Data without stellar tech or eye-watering budgets. And even if your business hasn't kept very good records or doesn't hold a huge amount of existing data there is definitely enough external sources to harness the power of Big Data in your business.

So essentially it doesn't matter whether you already have access to unfathomable amounts of information or your data collection systems have been a little sketchy up until now, Big Data can revolutionize your business – but only if we focus on SMART Data not Big Data. In order to do that we need a practical framework that can help us to wrestle the Big Data monster so that we can harness it in order to gain new insights that will guide the business into the future.

We need a way to navigate the oceans of data to find the pockets of meaning. Like the modern fisherman we need a sophisticated, but practical way of working out what customers we are trying to catch, finding out what we need to know to locate those customers, predict their behavior and deliver bottom line results." Bernard Marr