Have you seen The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook?

This comprehensive and practical guide to the latest ideas in customer-focused marketing hands you over 200 packed pages of strategy, best practices, do's and don'ts, practical know-how, facts and figures, and ideas to optimise your marketing strategy, boost sales, market share, increase ROI and profit.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)

How 'big data' investments are paying off

The survey found that 84% of respondents believe that big data helps them make better business decisions, and that 73% of companies have already used their data to increase revenue. For the most part, these increases were achieved by growing existing revenue streams (57%) and creating entirely new sources of revenue (43%).

Beyond tangible business value, the survey suggests that big data has become pervasive: more employees in businesses have greater access to increased technology options for managing and analysing data. More than half of the companies surveyed (57%) said that, in the previous 12 months, more technology options had become available to help analyse and manage their data.

Perhaps more significantly, companies are now investing in these technologies, with most companies surveyed (91%) reporting the use of such tools to manage and analyse data.

"Big data has gained a top spot on the agenda of business leaders for the real value it has begun to create," said Tyson Hartman, Avanade's chief technology officer. "Today, the technologies and skills used to leverage big data for business purposes have reached a tipping point: new types of data supported by better tools to leverage it enable companies to find financial and competitive benefits from their data."

Big data has moved beyond the confines of the IT function as well, with 95% of businesses not considering data analysts to be specifically part of their IT team. Instead, companies are now distributing that expertise to line-of-business groups throughout the company. Some 58% reported that data management is now embedded throughout their business as a dedicated function. And 59% reported that more employees than ever before are involved in making decisions as a result of more widely available company data.

However, as with many major technology trends, the benefits of big data come with signficant challenges, as 85% of respondents reported obstacles in managing and analysing data, including being overwhelmed by sheer volume, data security concerns, and not having enough dedicated staff to analyse the data. Nearly two thirds of stakeholders (63%) also feel their company needs to develop new skills to turn data into business insights.

The survey also found that three current trends (employee mobility, cloud computing, and social networking) are making the data deluge more challenging. Most respondents reported that employee mobility (73%), cloud computing (65%) and social networking (61%) are all causing their company to rethink its data management strategy.

"The challenges of big data remain, but the opportunities are even greater. Business leaders are moving from defense to offense in their data management strategies. Forward-looking companies are empowering more people across the enterprise with the tools and skills needed to make better business decisions and, ultimately, harness the power that big data promises," concluded Hartman.

Have you seen The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook?

This comprehensive and practical guide to the latest ideas in customer-focused marketing hands you over 200 packed pages of strategy, best practices, do's and don'ts, practical know-how, facts and figures, and ideas to optimise your marketing strategy, boost sales, market share, increase ROI and profit.

Learn the insider's tricks and techniques to turn every customers into a 'super spreader' for your brand. It's better than free advertising. Once you start this ball rolling, your brand can grow rapidly through word-of-mouth, advocacy, influencers, and customer loyalty. Super-charge your company's marketing strategy, build up your market share, and make more sales through repeat business and customer loyalty.

Find out what works - and what doesn't - and who's succeeded, and how they did it. See how the world's top brands keep their competitive edge against all odds.

The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook walks you step-by-step through the techniques, metrics, reporting, analysis, marketing models, technologies, tools and innovations for successful marketing strategies - both traditional and emerging - with expert guidance from thought leaders in every major market. Find out the best ways to gather, analyse, and act on customer data to increase profitability, build your brand, empower your customers, beat the competition, reduce churn, and increase customer profitability. This is a marketing book you simply can't afford to be without.

This book aims to hand you all the facts, figures and research data you need for the best decisions for a more profitable, more engaging marketing strategy. It also highlights all the facts, forecasts and trends identified by our experts from the global Marketing Factbook's vast database of market data, news, studies, research and articles, and presents you with an invaluable library of ideas and practical support you can call upon at will.

With The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook at your side, you'll have instant access to a true goldmine of easily adaptable and up-to-date strategies, walk-throughs, trends, research and market data, plus all the supporting arguments you need to build a solid, profitable marketing strategy.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)