Big data

As a promised I would give a brief intro about the concept behind big data. Did you know 30 billion pieces of content were added to Facebook this past month by 600 million users? Did you know that the average teenager sends about 4762 text messages per month? Did you know that there is a 40% projected growth in global data?

So how do businesses process such an enormous amount of information? This is where big data comes in. Big data practically enable companies to process and store large amounts of data in the database. This enable organizations to actually process and identify trends in data. I will explain this using an example.

Tesco is one of the world's largest grocery chain. It has achieved successful results through the use of this "big data" concept. The giant retail chain has achieved the following financial gains;

"£6 million less food wastage in the summer, £50 million less stock in warehouse, optimizing store operations to give £30 million less wastage".

As you can see the financial savings are not small numbers. So how have TESCO done this? 

It has a loyalty card which tracks all the customer information and analyzes the information. These customers are then segmented and individually targeted by way of newsletters and other targeted promotions. It further analyzes weather conditions to evaluate perishable goods like vegetables and fruits. 

Also there is a Depot Stock holding app that monitors all goods that pass through all the depots and Tesco's largest depots hold around 12,000 products. So you yourself can understand how much of information it should hold to process this information. Finally it has the ability to reduce waste in stores by selling products at half the price in the right time. 

There are several business models around big data. But to decide the best model for you, you need to understand the ultimate goal for your organization.

 .