Small Business Show: Big Data for SMEs

Kehlan Kirwan from ‘The Small Business Show’ looks at what data can mean to small business and why firms need to incorporate it into their strategy.

Technology has changed, utterly, how we do and view everything in business today.

Apps and cloud programmes have produced a whole swathe of easily accessible and cost-effective solutions for business.

This has allowed businesses to manage everything from accounts to meetings in a much quicker time than was ever possible before.

However, technology has also given us something that is being under-utilised by SMEs: Big Data. It has never been easier to get a picture of what your customers’ needs and wants are. Gone are the days where advertising and marketing agencies try to sell people ‘things they don’t need but can’t help buying’, now they can see what customers want through their digital fingerprint.

Facebook, Twitter, and Google make vast sums of money by developing analytical data on customers and potential customers. For the first time ever we can now get a sophisticated and up-to-date view of the consumer, without ever having to talk to them.

Everybody leaves a digital fingerprint when they go online. What you view determines who you are and what you like to buy.

Facebook knows what you click on in your timeline, what pages you like, and what your interactions are like. This — combined with the core data of your age, where you live, marital status, etc — allows the customer to be drip-fed things they ‘may like’ or are interested in.

Data is as expansive as it sounds. When I did research for this article, I came across an interesting quote. It said that “data allows correlations to be found to spot business trends, determine quality of research, prevent diseases, link legal citations, combat crime, and determine real-time roadway traffic conditions”.

Data is now determining things in our everyday lives and its influence is set to grow.

For businesses this has been an under-utilised tool. Businesses need to be able to form pictures of customers and, in particular, potential customers, in order to begin accurate business strategies. More and more we are seeing how the use of data is determining how and when to sell to customers. This collation and collection of data will be vital to the future of business and SMEs need to begin looking at how they can access these types of information in order to better understand consumer needs and allow for laser beam accuracy in sales and marketing.

The data is out there and now it’s time for SMEs to delve in and begin to add this to their business strategy. The accuracy of the data is astounding and we, in the business community, are losing out on what could be a great addition to our businesses. The time of Big Data is here and it’s up to us to tap into its potential.