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Over the last few years, Big Data has taken the world by storm. What started out as an enigma, that was bewildering and complex, has gradually unravelled to the point where people and businesses can understand the inner working of Big Data and try to leverage its immense potential to meet their growth aspirations.
Rapidly evolving tools, techniques, and methodologies in Big Data management and Big Data analytics provide immense value to a solutions provider. But a bigger, hotter question is–Whether the current pace of tech evolution is enough to keep pace with the exponential rate at which data is now being generated? With millions of people using the internet on a daily basis from computers and smart devices and thousands more joining the bandwagon every day–there is a definite need to manage this deluge of data.
Challenges in Data Explosion
The dynamic and growing volume, scope, and breadth of Big Data do present certain challenges, but certainly interesting opportunities come to light as well. For forward-thinking, innovative marketers and those that craft business strategy, this flood of Big Data can present itself as a gold mine of opportunities to smart enterprising.
The problem lies in the astute management and processing of these massive streams of seemingly random, unstructured data, which organizations must perfect if they want to fully leverage it for their own business interests. With proper data analytics and smart management of the Big Data flood, companies can accomplish a lot. Optimized, targeted delivery of the right advertisements and promotional content, deploying campaigns and evaluating their results in real-time, bringing on improvements in target site selection and retargeting advertising moves based on results within very short spans of time are only a few of the things that can be achieved with good management of the Big Data flood.
What businesses really need to accomplish this gargantuan task are a few proven, tried and tested management methods. They can apply them to the mammoth volume of complex data, affecting fluid and efficient data analysis. Doing this properly and being able to scale these activities according to business requirements can give rise to a gushing torrent of critical insights, actionable information, innovative ideas, and, thus, amazing outcomes.
Big Data for Better Decision-Making
Data and analytics now form the core of the business process of many important companies. This drive has been brought about by the fact that the need to analyze data for better, smarter and faster decision-making has been felt by marketers worldwide. Since Big Data presents the richest area of opportunities in this regard, many companies are making it a point to try their hardest to leverage this medium to the fullest. A few things have come to light in this context, and it can be said that to improve management of the Big Data flood and to empower a business by capitalizing on the opportunities presented by Big Data, companies need to –
- Clearly define the governance of marketing data
- Create an efficient, high performance network of technology and partners which is entirely centered on the collection and analysis of data
- Improve their overall operating infrastructure to make room for better use of data
- Implement and integrate rules-driven, seamless fusion of disparate data in their business processes
This ensures that companies end up with the right kind of data at their disposal, which allows them to make a difference and reach new heights of success. Having access to this data empowers companies to make smart decisions and achieve the following –
- Optimize the purchase and use of marketing media and develop a clear understanding of marketing channels operating at various locations of the sales funnel
- Maximize marketing inventory by being able to identify high-value audiences and groups across platforms and publisher properties
- Optimize content targeting to be able to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time
- Being able to identify audiences with high potential and to target them effectively and efficiently
The ultimate goal is to let Big Data inform major marketing decisions. Choosing the right services to target and using the correct data points and insights provided by the study of Big Data is the right way of doing things in the current market. However, to accurately manage the Big Data flood, certain measures and optimizations need to be implemented at the core level.
Optimizations for Efficient Management of the Big Data Flood
To astutely manage the Big Data flood while taking advantage of its opportunities, we need to take a closer look at high impact use cases and the inherent problems and possibilities contained therein. Taking all this into account, there can be a few important steps and overall strategies that can help effectively manage the Big Data flood and help companies receive the data-driven advantage that they crave. Here are some of the compelling lines of thought regarding this matter –
Focusing on information, not technology
While trying to manage Big Data effectively, you should never start the reckoning with the technology, but with the information. Focus first on the existing technological infrastructure of your organization and how much data in can handle. Starting off with this volume of data gets the ball rolling while leaving your time to strategize, plan and implement technological advancements if the need arises for some.
Technologies like virtualization, mobile applications and cloud computing are now all part of the scheme of things when it comes to data management, and you need to start off with a clear goal of the amount and nature of data that you want to process and manage and work towards that, slowly building on the technology front so as to not put pressure on budgets and funds, and having a steady on ramp of expertise and competency as far as personnel are concerned.
Efficiency Pays
While the best way to manage your data will probably not be apparent from the very beginning, it always pays to be efficient in whatever you do. When it comes to data, there are many techniques and methodologies you can implement to aid efficiency. The first priority should be to avoid duplicate content, and you need to have an effective deduping process integrated into your data management platform.
This way, you can make sure that you store only the data you need. Good archiving is also a time saver and helps you free up much-needed storage, which you can use to handle more urgent time-critical data. Last but not the least, a large part of efficiency in data management has to do with data security. Properly securing your data gets rid of these headaches and creates a better environment to work in.
Consistency in Policies
When you have a lot of data, you need to have a concrete set of rules or policies which tell you what to do with that data. These policies need to be exhaustive to cover all data types and all possible data scenarios. You must also be able to enforce these policies irrespective of the location of data–cloud, virtual or physical. By achieving this, you can affect a high degree of automation when it comes to the classification and categorization of the information you have at your disposal.
You get a clear idea of the ownership and use of each fragment of data, can have versatile yet solid control on its distribution and access, automate essential procedures of information retention and significantly speed up the process of data discovery, leading to a more manageable, stable and efficient system which can aid in managing the Big Data flood.
Hierarchy of Information
You are liable to receive a large volume of information every day, and all of it is not of the same type. Some of it is likely to have immediate, urgent implications while some might be just cogs in the wheel for some future decision or strategy. Every snippet of information you receive is not equal in importance, and it pays to process them keeping in mind their degree of importance. To achieve this, you need to first develop basic knowledge about data types, data sources, data ownership and usual indicators of importance. Then, there must be a system that maps and classifies the data according to its importance. This allows you to later prioritize information retrieval based on urgency, arrange for levels of security for different kinds of data based on their merit and effectively allot more resources to the information at your disposal, which matters the most to your business.
Better Data Management with these Pointers
These pointers are just an indication of an appropriate right direction when it comes to managing the Big Data flood. Following these simple principles from a basic level can better equip your company to astutely manage the large volumes of information that you can expect to receive during your web data extraction efforts. Web crawling might have become one of the essential business activities for many companies, but the ability to smartly manage and process the data is what makes the difference in the end. If you accomplish better data management, you will be well on your way towards establishing your business as one of the leaders in your industry and getting rich dividends.
