The Data Asset. How Smart Companies Govern Their Data for Business Success

Leverage big data to add value to your business Social media analytics, web-tracking, and other technologies help companies acquire and handle massive amounts of data to better understand their customers, products, competition, and markets. Armed with the insights from big data, companies can improve customer experience and products, add value, and increase return on investment. The tricky part for busy IT professionals and executives is how to get this done, and that's where this practical book comes in. Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business is a complete how-to guide to leveraging big data to drive business value. Full of practical techniques, real-world examples, and hands-on exercises, this book explores the technologies involved, as well as how to find areas of the organization that can take full advantage of big data. Shows how to decompose current business strategies in order to link big data initiatives to the organization’s value creation processes Explores different value creation processes and models Explains issues surrounding operationalizing big data, including organizational structures, education challenges, and new big data-related roles Provides methodology worksheets and exercises so readers can apply techniques Includes real-world examples from a variety of organizations leveraging big data Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business is written by one of Big Data's preeminent experts, William Schmarzo. Don't miss his invaluable insights and advice.

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. Free of confusing jargon and complemented with lots of step-by-step guidance and helpful advice, it quickly and painlessly helps you get the most from using big data in a small business. Business data has been around for a long time. Unfortunately, it was trapped away in overcrowded filing cabinets and on archaic floppy disks. Now, thanks to technology and new tools that display complex databases in a much simpler manner, small businesses can benefit from the big data that's been hiding right under their noses. With the help of this friendly guide, you'll discover how to get your hands on big data to develop new offerings, products and services; understand technological change; create an infrastructure; develop strategies; and make smarter business decisions. Shows you how to use big data to make sense of user activity on social networks and customer transactions Demonstrates how to capture, store, search, share, analyse and visualise analytics Helps you turn your data into actionable insights Explains how to use big data to your advantage in order to transform your small business If you're a small business owner or employee, Big Data For Small Business For Dummies helps you harness the hottest commodity on the market today in order to take your company to new heights.

The best-selling author of Big Data is back, this time with a unique and in-depth insight into how specific companies use big data. Big data is on the tip of everyone's tongue. Everyone understands its power and importance, but many fail to grasp the actionable steps and resources required to utilise it effectively. This book fills the knowledge gap by showing how major companies are using big data every day, from an up-close, on-the-ground perspective. From technology, media and retail, to sport teams, government agencies and financial institutions, learn the actual strategies and processes being used to learn about customers, improve manufacturing, spur innovation, improve safety and so much more. Organised for easy dip-in navigation, each chapter follows the same structure to give you the information you need quickly. For each company profiled, learn what data was used, what problem it solved and the processes put it place to make it practical, as well as the technical details, challenges and lessons learned from each unique scenario. Learn how predictive analytics helps Amazon, Target, John Deere and Apple understand their customers Discover how big data is behind the success of Walmart, LinkedIn, Microsoft and more Learn how big data is changing medicine, law enforcement, hospitality, fashion, science and banking Develop your own big data strategy by accessing additional reading materials at the end of each chapter

Don't simply show your data—tell a story with it! Storytelling with Data teaches you the fundamentals of data visualization and how to communicate effectively with data. You'll discover the power of storytelling and the way to make data a pivotal point in your story. The lessons in this illuminative text are grounded in theory, but made accessible through numerous real-world examples—ready for immediate application to your next graph or presentation. Storytelling is not an inherent skill, especially when it comes to data visualization, and the tools at our disposal don't make it any easier. This book demonstrates how to go beyond conventional tools to reach the root of your data, and how to use your data to create an engaging, informative, compelling story. Specifically, you'll learn how to: Understand the importance of context and audience Determine the appropriate type of graph for your situation Recognize and eliminate the clutter clouding your information Direct your audience's attention to the most important parts of your data Think like a designer and utilize concepts of design in data visualization Leverage the power of storytelling to help your message resonate with your audience Together, the lessons in this book will help you turn your data into high impact visual stories that stick with your audience. Rid your world of ineffective graphs, one exploding 3D pie chart at a time. There is a story in your data—Storytelling with Data will give you the skills and power to tell it!

Information doesn't just provide a window on the business, increasingly it is the business. The global economy is moving from products to services which are described almost entirely electronically. Even those businesses that are traditionally associated with making things are less concerned with managing the manufacturing process (which is largely outsourced) than they are with maintaining their intellectual property. Information-Driven Business helps you to understand this change and find the value in your data. Hillard explains techniques that organizations can use and how businesses can apply them immediately. For example, simple changes to the way data is described will let staff support their customers much more quickly; and two simple measures let executives know whether they will be able to use the content of a database before it is even built. This book provides the foundation on which analytical and data rich organizations can be created. Innovative and revealing, this book provides a robust description of Information Management theory and how you can pragmatically apply it to real business problems, with almost instant benefits. Information-Driven Business comprehensively tackles the challenge of managing information, starting with why information has become important and how it is encoded, through to how to measure its use.

Get the expert perspective and practical advice on big data The Big Data-Driven Business: How to Use Big Data to Win Customers, Beat Competitors, and Boost Profits makes the case that big data is for real, and more than just big hype. The book uses real-life examples—from Nate Silver to Copernicus, and Apple to Blackberry—to demonstrate how the winners of the future will use big data to seek the truth. Written by a marketing journalist and the CEO of a multi-million-dollar B2B marketing platform that reaches more than 90% of the U.S. business population, this book is a comprehensive and accessible guide on how to win customers, beat competitors, and boost the bottom line with big data. The marketplace has entered an era where the customer holds all the cards. With unprecedented choice in both the consumer world and the B2B world, it's imperative that businesses gain a greater understanding of their customers and prospects. Big data is the key to this insight, because it provides a comprehensive view of a company's customers—who they are, and who they may be tomorrow. The Big Data-Driven Business is a complete guide to the future of business as seen through the lens of big data, with expert advice on real-world applications. Learn what big data is, and how it will transform the enterprise Explore why major corporations are betting their companies on marketing technology Read case studies of big data winners and losers Discover how to change privacy and security, and remodel marketing Better information allows for better decisions, better targeting, and better reach. Big data has become an indispensable tool for the most effective marketers in the business, and it's becoming less of a competitive advantage and more like an industry standard. Remaining relevant as the marketplace evolves requires a full understanding and application of big data, and The Big Data-Driven Business provides the practical guidance businesses need.

OPTIMIZE YOUR BUSINESS DATA FOR FIRST-CLASS RESULTS Data Driven Business Transformation illustrates how to find the secrets to fast adaptation and disruptive origination hidden in your data and how to use them to capture market share. Digitalisation – or the Digital Revolution – was the first step in an evolving process of analysis and improvement in the operations and administration of commerce. The popular author team of Caroline Carruthers and Peter Jackson, two global leaders in data transformation and education, pick up the conversation here at the next evolutionary step where data from these digital systems generates value, and really use data science to produce tangible results. Optimise the performance of your company through data-driven processes by: Following step-by-step guidance for transitioning your company in the real world to run on a data-enabled business model Mastering a versatile set of data principles powerful enough to produce transformative results at any stage of a business’s development Winning over the hearts of your employees and influencing a cultural shift to a data-enabled business Reading first-hand stories from today’s thought leaders who are shaping data transformation at their companies Enable your company’s data to lift profits with Data Driven Business Transformation.

Residents in Boston, Massachusetts are automatically reporting potholes and road hazards via their smartphones. Progressive Insurance tracks real-time customer driving patterns and uses that information to offer rates truly commensurate with individual safety. Google accurately predicts local flu outbreaks based upon thousands of user search queries. Amazon provides remarkably insightful, relevant, and timely product recommendations to its hundreds of millions of customers. Quantcast lets companies target precise audiences and key demographics throughout the Web. NASA runs contests via gamification site TopCoder, awarding prizes to those with the most innovative and cost-effective solutions to its problems. Explorys offers penetrating and previously unknown insights into healthcare behavior. How do these organizations and municipalities do it? Technology is certainly a big part, but in each case the answer lies deeper than that. Individuals at these organizations have realized that they don't have to be Nate Silver to reap massive benefits from today's new and emerging types of data. And each of these organizations has embraced Big Data, allowing them to make astute and otherwise impossible observations, actions, and predictions. It's time to start thinking big. In Too Big to Ignore, recognized technology expert and award-winning author Phil Simon explores an unassailably important trend: Big Data, the massive amounts, new types, and multifaceted sources of information streaming at us faster than ever. Never before have we seen data with the volume, velocity, and variety of today. Big Data is no temporary blip of fad. In fact, it is only going to intensify in the coming years, and its ramifications for the future of business are impossible to overstate. Too Big to Ignore explains why Big Data is a big deal. Simon provides commonsense, jargon-free advice for people and organizations looking to understand and leverage Big Data. Rife with case studies, examples, analysis, and quotes from real-world Big Data practitioners, the book is required reading for chief executives, company owners, industry leaders, and business professionals.

Effective data presentation is an essential skill for anybody wishing to display or publish research results, but when done badly, it can convey a misleading or confusing message. This new addition to the popular “How to” series explains how to present data in journal articles, grant applications or research presentations clearly, accurately and logically, increasing the chances of successful publication.

Integrate big data into business to drive competitive advantage and sustainable success Big Data MBA brings insight and expertise to leveraging big data in business so you can harness the power of analytics and gain a true business advantage. Based on a practical framework with supporting methodology and hands-on exercises, this book helps identify where and how big data can help you transform your business. You'll learn how to exploit new sources of customer, product, and operational data, coupled with advanced analytics and data science, to optimize key processes, uncover monetization opportunities, and create new sources of competitive differentiation. The discussion includes guidelines for operationalizing analytics, optimal organizational structure, and using analytic insights throughout your organization's user experience to customers and front-end employees alike. You'll learn to “think like a data scientist” as you build upon the decisions your business is trying to make, the hypotheses you need to test, and the predictions you need to produce. Business stakeholders no longer need to relinquish control of data and analytics to IT. In fact, they must champion the organization's data collection and analysis efforts. This book is a primer on the business approach to analytics, providing the practical understanding you need to convert data into opportunity. Understand where and how to leverage big data Integrate analytics into everyday operations Structure your organization to drive analytic insights Optimize processes, uncover opportunities, and stand out from the rest Help business stakeholders to “think like a data scientist” Understand appropriate business application of different analytic techniques If you want data to transform your business, you need to know how to put it to use. Big Data MBA shows you how to implement big data and analytics to make better decisions.