Big Data for Small Business for Dummies

Capitalise on big data to add value to your company.

Big Data For Small Business For Dummies explains what big data actually is and how it can help you make better business decisions and transform your business model by developing products and services. Topics to be covered include:

* Using big data to make better decisions in small businesses - SMART methodology
* Using big data to transform your business model - developing new offerings, products and services around data
* How small companies can get their hands on big data - public data, social media, free data, ways of collecting and accessing data (generate, provoke, etc.)
* Understanding the technological change that underpins big data - cloud, hadoop, MapR, etc.
* Analytics: How to turn our data into insights - types of big data analytics (text analyse, video analysis, image analysis, etc.)
* Developing big data competencies in small businesses - skills shortage, expensive - service providers, partnering, crowed sourcing, etc.
* Creating a big data infrastructure in small businesses - rending resources, no in-house footprint, cloud, SAAS - solution overview (Google, Amazon, SAP, etc.)
* Developing a big data strategy for a small business[AK1]

The aim of Big Data For Small Business For Dummies is to show small businesses how they can develop business models and products around big data. This title is a good fit with our SME and entrepreneurship titles and wouldn't focus on the technical aspects of big data.

Business data has existed for a long time. However, it has been trapped in filing cabinets, and floppy disks, and so has been an untapped resource. Older software helped only so much. Many such applications could work only with individual databases and were often costly and difficult to use. Until very recently, such data could be used only by much larger organizations.

Now, thanks to a reduction in technology costs and new tools that display complex databases in a much simpler manner, smaller companies can benefit much more from data. Your company's databases can be cross-referenced with the expanding amount of information drawn not just from social networks, government databases, and usage patterns on mobile devices, but also from increasingly specialized information sources such as digitized transcripts of call-center interactions and sensors sending updates from various steps within a supply chain, and do so affordably.

Companies ranging from established giants to startups offer affordable, cloud-based data-crunching services-which can help you get nondigitized data into data-crunchable form-and today virtually anyone can get involved in the world of Big Data.

Big Data for Small Business For Dummies will explain exactly how you can understand Big Data, and use it to your advantage in order better develop new products and services and transform your small business.

List of contents

Introduction 1
Part I: Getting Started with Big Data Basics 5
Chapter 1: Introducing Big Data for Small Businesses 7
Chapter 2: Digging into the Essence of Big Data 23
Chapter 3: Identifying Big Data Uses in Small Businesses 39
Part II: Unpacking Big Data 53
Chapter 4: Unpacking the Many Types of Data 55
Chapter 5: Discovering New Forms of Data 69
Chapter 6: Understanding the Technology Changes that Underpin Big Data 87
Part III: A Brave New World for Small Business 101
Chapter 7: Focusing on the Value of Insights 103
Chapter 8: Developing and Accessing Big Data Competencies 115
Chapter 9: Building a Big Data Infrastructure 131
Part IV: Show Time! Making Big Data Work for Small Business 149
Chapter 10: Creating a Big Data Strategy 151
Chapter 11: Applying Data in Your Business: Decision Making 163
Chapter 12: Applying Data in Your Business: Operations 185
Chapter 13: Creating a Big Data Culture in Your Business 199
Part V: The Part of Tens 211
Chapter 14: Ten Biggest Big Data Mistakes to Avoid 213
Chapter 15: Ten Free Big Data Sources 219
Chapter 16: Ten Key Big Data Collection Tools 225
Index 231

About the author

Bernard Marr is a big data guru and bestselling author. A strategic performance consultant, he has and advised many of the world's best-known organizations including Accenture, Barclays, BP, DHL, Fujitsu, Gartner, HSBC, Mars, Microsoft, Oracle, The Home Office, NHS, Orange, Tetley, T-Mobile, Toyota, Royal Air Force, SAP and Shell on their business and data strategies. A frequent keynote speaker, he also writes on the topic of data and analytics for various publications including Forbes, the Huffington Post and LinkedIn Pulse. Bernard Marr is also the author of Data Strategy (2017) published by Kogan Page.

Summary

Capitalise on big data to add value to your small business Written by bestselling author and big data expert Bernard Marr, Big Data For Small Business For Dummies helps you understand what big data actually is and how you can analyse and use it to improve your business.

Product details

• Authors: Bb Marr, Bernard Marr, Bernard (Advanced Performance Institute Marr, Bernard B. Marr
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.2016
• EAN: 9781119027034
• ISBN: 978-1-119-02703-4
• No. of pages: 256
• Subjects: Guides > Law, job, finance; Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business > Business administration, companies; Social sciences, law, business > Business > Management