Big Data for Sales

In the last weeks, I outlined several Big Data benefits by industries. The next posts, I want to outline use-cases where Big Data are relevant in any company, as I will focus on the business functions.
This post’s focus: Sales.
Las week I outlined Marketing possibilities (and downsides) with Big Data. Very similar to Marketing is Sales. Often,  those two things come together. However, I would say it needs to be stated separately. In this post, I won’t discuss the Sales opportunities in Big Data from Webshops and alike. Today, I want to focus on Big Data opportunities that respect privacy but still have an impact.
Last year, I attended a conference where a company outlined their big data case. It was about analysing bills issued in their chain stores. The data from the bills included no personal details like credit card number, bonus card number and alike. It was only about what was in the basket. With the help of that, they could figure out what products get more attention at a specific store and how it differs from other stores. This data was joined with open data from public sources and other data about demographics. They could also find out that specific products get bought with another products – which means that if customer X buys product C, the customer is very likely to buy product D. An example of that for instance is that if you buy a skirt, you are also likely to buy a top.
The later example focused on analysing data for fashion stores. However, most stores can benefit from Big Data. I recently had the chance to talk to the CIO of a large supermarket chain. They also have some Big Data algorithms that improve their chain stores. The company’s policy is to accept their customer’s privacy and they don’t work on their personal data. They figured out when the neighbourhood changes – e.g. because a university was built. They could see that other products are demanded and changed the assortment of goods accordingly.
There are many opportunities where Big Data can improve Sales, and as shown in these two examples, they don’t necessarily need to violate someone’s privacy.