Surprise: Companies Who Effectively Use Big Data Make More Money

Big data, it’s a phrase we have all heard millions of times from marketing material, senior management who want to sound ‘hip’ and of course from the likes of Amazon and Microsoft who want to help you sort through this material. But, depending on how you use the big data you have, it is either giving you a competitive advantage or is putting you behind the market curve.

The truth is that every company has ‘big data’ even if it comes in small batches. Everything from sales data, trending data of market movements, customer buying patterns and anything like this is a goldmine of information if used correctly.

Microsoft commissioned Keystone Strategy to take a look at investments in big data and found, to little surprise, that companies who dig into their data assets have higher gross and operating margins. The study sampled 344 large companies around the globe with a median of 6,000 employees and $3.4 billion in revenue.

The results will likely not be a shock to anyone who follows the growth in the analytics segment. With companies doing everything they can to gain a competitive advantage in their industry, finding insights into data you already own is a key strategy that has already shown to pay big dividends; you can read the new report, here.

What may be of more value to users is the new assessment that the company is releasing as well. Microsoft has released a free tool that lets you create a ‘data maturity roadmap’ that helps you find the data strategy that works for your specific industry.

The number of tools available for capturing, tracking, analyzing, and reporting on data sets is growing at a rapid pace because of the value that is locked inside of these pools of content. Finding the right configuration that works for your company is an important part of the deployment process but it all starts with setting your objectives so that you can find the tools that best fit your specific need.