Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data – in fact, 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone (Source: IBM)
That’s big data. Which is expected to reach $232B in annual spending alone by 2016. Now let’s look at how data relates to businesses:
Businesses use & generate 3 main types of data:
- Market Intelligence Data
- Competitive Intelligence Data
- Business Intelligence Data
As in military, “See thy Enemy, See thy Battlefield, See thy Self.“
Competitive intelligence is like legal spying, unlike industrial espionage. But here is the issue: competitive intelligence data is only considered to be actual intelligence data if it is actionable. Key word right there, most big data lacks actionable insight; therefore it cannot qualify as competitive intelligence. Additionally, 44% of all businesses say they cannot adopt big data because it is too complicated for their existing staff.
At it’s core then: big data is essentially lacking relevancy, simplicity, and purpose to the business.
Now, big data market intelligence. Market intelligence (MI) is external market factors that will affect the business (threats, opportunities, weaknesses, economic conditions, consumer income, consumer spending, housing). Think of market intelligence like a giant interconnected economic spiderweb. Now each one of these affects the other. If consumer income goes down, housing and consumer spending will go down. These factors kill consumer products companies. Consumer income will go down, if corporations in general go down or conduct layoffs, unemployment rates. ALL this, all this market intelligence, must flow together to sustain what is known as our GLOBAL ECONOMY.
Now…why do SMBs and SMEs not adopt BI (Business Intelligence) Big Data? Because unlike MI (Market Intelligence) & CI (Competitive Intelligence), BI only can use internal data. MI uses external data.
There is a certain point on the bell curve where a company generates enough data to actually make use of big data in business intelligence. Most companies do not reach this bellcurve until they are over 1,000 employees. This is where collective BI from a large number of small businesses combined with top of the line MI and CI data comes into play to fullfill a large core, missing, market gap in our global economy.
The end goal of this company, is to provide them with this data and actionable insight. Why? It’s about leveling the playing field for these small and medium businesses.