Big Data Has a Complete Tale to Tell to Those Who Listen

Rob Consoli Rob Consoli
December 19, 2017 Big Data, Cloud & DevOps
Ready to learn Big Data Analytics? Browse courses like Big Data – What Every Manager Needs to Know developed by industry thought leaders and Experfy in Harvard Innovation Lab.
Data has a lot to tell brands about the products they build and sell. Big data is illuminating in the research and development phase, shining a light on consumer interest signals that can help companies get ahead of the demand curve. But what about when the products leave the manufacturing site? What about when they’re in the hands of consumers? Big data has a lot to say then too — to those who listen.
Once the product is in the distribution chain, companies can gain insight to improve sales and marketing operations by analyzing big data gleaned from the internet as well as brick and mortar retail locations, using web analytics and point of sale information. Companies that sell products that involve a gatekeeper, e.g., pharmaceuticals, can also gain insight from doctors, caretakers and others.
Increasingly, buyers conduct research online before they purchase a product, using sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to find out more about the product before making a decision. Companies that take advantage of the information available from those sites, such as Google Analytics, can learn a great deal about their potential buyers and their interests.
Taking a deeper dive by integrating analytics from social media and other online sites frequented by customers prior to purchase with the company’s own internal marketing and sales spending data can reveal additional critical business knowledge.  Integrating data from multiple sources can provide information that drives marketing and sales strategy changes, including optimizing campaign types and sales platforms for greater impact.
Point of sale data reveals what products are selling and where sales are most (and least) robust, among other important facts. But it can be a challenge to compile point of sale data in a usable format because sales outlets typically do not have a single standard to regulate what data they collect, and the systems and applications used to gather data aren’t necessarily compatible.
A well-designed, cloud-based data integration and management platform enables users to aggregate large amounts of input from a variety of sources, harmonize the data and provide the integrated information in a usable format. This approach gives marketing and sales teams the analytic fuel they need to make more informed decisions.
But that’s not the end of the story: Even when the product is in the hands of consumers, data still has an important tale to tell. Brands can track how their products are used in the real world and learn much about how they can refine manufacturing, distribution, marketing and sales techniques. The challenge is capturing that data, which often comes in unstructured form.
As an example, consider the information about pharmaceutical products residing in clinical notes embedded in electronic medical records. The most relevant content from a manufacturer’s perspective is typically found in a free-form comments field, where a physician might report descriptions about product efficacy for various symptoms or dosage amounts.
It’s prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to capture this information from unstructured notes manually. But using a platform that includes a Natural Language Processing (NLP) tool enables pharma brands to identify relationships between terms and map them visually, clarifying issues such as which symptoms the product was used to treat and patient adherence to prescribed treatment regimens.
While medical notes are an obvious source of valuable data that can be challenging for brands to capture, harmonize and integrate with existing information, unstructured notes come into play in other industries as well. Technology and safety product companies, for example, may collect information from disparate sources that needs to be put into a usable format to yield insight.  And every brand experiences users commenting on their products and services in an unstructured manner on social media channels. These comments offer a wealth of insight into customer sentiment that can have an important impact at any point in product development and marketing, especially when blended with input from other more structured data sources.
Data has a story to tell at every phase of the product lifecycle. It can predict demand, inform development and optimize distribution. But that’s only half of the tale: With the right tools, brands can continue to glean valuable insight from data once products leave the store shelves. Big data has a complete story to tell — if brands are listening.
  • Experfy Insights

    Top articles, research, podcasts, webinars and more delivered to you monthly.

  • Rob Consoli

    Tags
    Big Data
    © 2021, Experfy Inc. All rights reserved.
    Leave a Comment
    Next Post
    Fintech is not just fintech anymore

    Fintech is not just fintech anymore

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    More in Big Data, Cloud & DevOps
    Big Data, Cloud & DevOps
    Cognitive Load Of Being On Call: 6 Tips To Address It

    If you’ve ever been on call, you’ve probably experienced the pain of being woken up at 4 a.m., unactionable alerts, alerts going to the wrong team, and other unfortunate events. But, there’s an aspect of being on call that is less talked about, but even more ubiquitous – the cognitive load. “Cognitive load” has perhaps

    5 MINUTES READ Continue Reading »
    Big Data, Cloud & DevOps
    How To Refine 360 Customer View With Next Generation Data Matching

    Knowing your customer in the digital age Want to know more about your customers? About their demographics, personal choices, and preferable buying journey? Who do you think is the best source for such insights? You’re right. The customer. But, in a fast-paced world, it is almost impossible to extract all relevant information about a customer

    4 MINUTES READ Continue Reading »
    Big Data, Cloud & DevOps
    3 Ways Businesses Can Use Cloud Computing To The Fullest

    Cloud computing is the anytime, anywhere delivery of IT services like compute, storage, networking, and application software over the internet to end-users. The underlying physical resources, as well as processes, are masked to the end-user, who accesses only the files and apps they want. Companies (usually) pay for only the cloud computing services they use,

    7 MINUTES READ Continue Reading »

    About Us

    Incubated in Harvard Innovation Lab, Experfy specializes in pipelining and deploying the world's best AI and engineering talent at breakneck speed, with exceptional focus on quality and compliance. Enterprises and governments also leverage our award-winning SaaS platform to build their own customized future of work solutions such as talent clouds.

    Join Us At

    Contact Us

    1700 West Park Drive, Suite 190
    Westborough, MA 01581

    Email: support@experfy.com

    Toll Free: (844) EXPERFY or
    (844) 397-3739

    © 2025, Experfy Inc. All rights reserved.