Big Data

The world of e-commerce is tough, and it’s only going to get tougher as more and more companies shift away from traditional brick and mortar stores and go with online enterprises. Because of the increase in competition and products offered, it’s more important than ever that companies get their marketing strategies right. And in a world filled with so much noise from email, social media, apps and the like, that too is getting more and more difficult. Not only is it harder than ever to get a customer's attention, but it’s also harder than ever to keep them coming back to your site/store. With big data technology and programs like Hadoop Hive, however, it’s becoming much easier.

Giving Brands the Power to Realize the Promise of Big Data and Deliver Smarter, More Relevant Customer Experiences through the Acquia Platform

BOSTON – November 4, 2014 – Acquia, the digital experience company, today introduced Acquia Lift ContextDB, the latest addition to its suite of Digital Engagement Services for the optimization of digital experiences. ContextDB is a petabyte-scale data warehouse solution that finally delivers on the long-sought ideal of automating data-driven, context-aware customer experiences.

The implementation of big data has proven to increase a company’s ROI by as much as ten to 20 percent depending on the metrics used. Productivity can also increase by five percent and lead to six percent higher profits than other competitors. Enterprises not using big data in their operations are missing out on the benefits that come from increased data gathering and analytics.

Why marketing teams have not become data-driven

In today’s digital world big data almost sounds like an over prescribed medication. A company has revenue struggles? Use big data. Another needs more marketing ROI? Big data. But really, we have only scratched the surface of utilizing big data to its full, practical potential. Big data is a metaphorical iceberg, with the portion above water being structured data and the massive portion below the surface being unstructured data. The challenge for companies today is tackling unstructured data to unlock the full potential of big data computing and analytics.

When people think of big data, they naturally assume that it’s just about gathering large amounts of information to provide more accurate searches online and help companies provide more targeted advertisements and marketing efforts. They’re both right and wrong. True, there is so much more to big data than just marketing and advertising. It’s effects are now being seen in numerous industries across the globe. It’s solving world problems and improving the quality of life for millions of individuals.

While the overall job market may still be struggling, for those in the field of big data, the opportunities are plentiful. We’re currently in the middle of a big data boom, where companies of all shapes and sizes are finding ways to use big data to grow and be more successful than ever before. Businesses are in the hunt for people that possess the right skills for big data jobs that have been rapidly emerging in recent years. Higher education is also responding, instituting programs and new degrees to keep up with the demand. In a field that is still ripe with innovation, changes are expected to happen on a fairly regular basis.

Companies from the cosmetics industry to pet food are finding better ways to interact with customers, improve services and identify new markets through the capabilities they gain from using big data technology, like Google Compute Engine. Google Compute Engine allows companies to run extremely large workloads in the cloud, making big data more affordable and efficient to use than ever before. With this type of technology, companies are able to gather and store more data and, more importantly, they can take that data and perform dynamic queries and analyses that yield real-time results.

Big data and social media, individually and together, are changing the world in so many different ways. Not only are Facebook and Twitter some of the biggest developers in big data technology, but the information they gather is so important to so many different companies.

One of the more important ways that big data and social media are changing the world landscape is through their effects on Human Resources (HR). They totally change how companies do business. Big data in the cloud is making it easier and more affordable than ever for companies to implement big data technology.

Major enhancement to the Sitecore® Experience PlatformTM brings unlimited data capacity for real-time customer experience management at global scale

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – April 30, 2014 – Sitecore, the global leader in customer experience management, today announced early access to the next generation of its experience platform including the Sitecore® Experience DatabaseTM , a highly scalable big data repository that collects and connects actionable customer data to deliver unique customer experiences in real-time. Marketers can view the entire experience of every individual customer that engages with their brand through the Sitecore® Experience ProfileTM, also announced today.

It’s no secret that social media is a tremendous tool for keeping in contact with friends and family. Businesses have quickly picked up on just how effective it can be for marketing purposes as well, particularly mobile marketing. More people are connected to the internet than ever before, and mobile platforms are driving that explosive growth. In fact, internet traffic on mobile devices is expected to exceed the internet traffic on desktops soon. Much of that internet use is geared towards social media outlets, so mobile marketers are finding new ways to use social media to reach new customers and inform existing fans.