Why Data is the New Superpower?

Have you ever been working on your phone or computer and while thinking about some content it just pops out in front of you, in a sort of ad or recommendation? Well, this “mind-reading stuff” is a superpower given by data to various industries. It isn’t only about “mind-reading”, data can help in “forecasting” and “making judgments.” These abilities once conceived as “superhuman”, aren’t anymore. Likewise, data are revolutionizing businesses with Personalization, Big Data Analytics, and Business Intelligence.

Personalization

Personalization or Individual Branding is all about creating unique experiences for users. Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, once said: “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It's our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” [1] This way of thinking got Amazon to the top. Being customer-centered is not a choice anymore. Every company should use transparent data to enhance the user experience. For instance, with a customer purchases’ data companies can recommend to him better products and services, thus improving his buying experience. Moreover, personalization can only be achieved through Data analytics. Analyzing customers' behavioral patterns provide business insights that help better strategize. 

Big Data Analytics

As its name implies, Big Data Analytics is about analyzing big data and making a big impact. This well-advanced field caught the eyes of many. It is used to generate new values for businesses, cut trial time in product development, orchestrate ports and factories. Data are abundant, so why not exploit them? Today, companies are democratizing analytical tools by instructing their stakeholders on analytical technologies. They are redefining jobs that were based on human analyses and deductions. Finally, they are reshaping their organizational culture to increase profits. A data-driven culture fosters more innovation inside organizations. 

Business Intelligence 

“One-click to strategize”. This is the motto of Business Intelligence, a discipline that concerns analyzing and representing different business aspects to help make conversant decisions. Making trends more visible changes hunch-based decisions to data-driven decisions, thus increase the decisions’ stability for the enterprise. This field eases the interpretation of data through dashboards, predictive analytics, reporting, and benchmarking. The following figure better illustrates the results of Business Intelligence on a business case:

(Example Microsoft Power BI dashboard [2])

Moreover, its technologies can be used to manage the business fundamentals: people, operations, accounting, strategy, finance, and marketing.

Many companies are following the lead of data and adopting new business models. Personalization, Big Data Analytics, and Business Intelligence represent a survival kit for businesses. Similarly, we began paying more attention to the data around us. We have developed a data-driven mindset, asking ourselves questions like: How could we better use the daily information we process? What insights can we get from this data? Are there some data that we shouldn’t access? However, a more ethical question arises as we think more about this superpower: 

Whether data can be utilized against people?

References

[1] “Amazon & Customer Experience: 13 Quotes from Jeff Bezos” —SUITE FEEDBACK

[2] “New Power BI features available for preview” —The Power BI Team, Microsoft

Further Readings

“Ports 4.0: The New Drivers of Economy” —Oussama KIASSI

“Artificial Intelligence for Enterprise” —Oussama KIASSI

“Predictive Maintenance: an Industrial Necessity or a Trend?” —Oussama KIASSI

“Getting big impact from big data” —McKinsey & Company