Mobile Big Data: how to link very large scale analytics with very small scale personal needs.

[Source: Wikimedia Commons]

Retail is being drastically changed by new digital technologies like Big Data analytics and the services that mobile smart phones can deliver. Big Data has been discussed a lot but there is little analysis on what it can specifically do for firms and their customers.

Also, apps that run on Mobile devices, like smart phones and tablets are revolutionizing multi-channel retailing and customer relationship management. But mobile apps are usually just catalogues and directories when they could be personal shopping ‘sat navs’ – like your best friend owned the store.

Most pressingly of all, there is very little useful thinking, or practical advice, available on the overlap between Big Data analytics and personalised services that are delivered by your phone, i.e. the links between the outputs of very large scale analytics and the very small scale personal needs of individuals.

Firms are still working out what they can do with these technologies. Customers are still deciding how they want to use them.

We need a roadmap

New digital technologies are producing a bewildering number of options: new shopping and customer relationship technologies, new Big Data information resources, new analytical possibilities and new business strategies.

Firms need an underlying roadmap for taking advantage of these new tools and resources as they unfold and develop. We need to connect back to the fundamental business objectives of commercial success and amazing customer service in the face of a chaotic digital landscape.

This is the first of three linked posts that show the significance of these technology-driven changes; explain the underlying processes at work; point out the business challenges on the horizon; and map out the strategic options that are now possible for retailers, their customers and the brands that they partner with.

Part One covers how new Big Data and mobile technologies are changing marketing, retail and the rest of business from a business strategy perspective rather than from a technological perspective.

Part Two maps out and explains the confusing new options and approaches that these new digital technologies are now making possible. From the retailer’s perspective, from the customer’s perspective and from a business strategy perspective.

Part Three explains some ideas on how to deal with the emerging possibilities described in the first two parts – from a strategic and analytical perspective, then from an implementation perspective and then with a consideration of how these fascinating changes will continue to unfold.

Part One: A mobile app is like the finger of God

Mobile apps are location-here, segment-of-one, stage-of-now, and downloaded by YOU.

Every app can potentially give you incredibly personalised recommendations, suggestions and advice based on knowing where you are, who you are, being with you every minute of the day and being trusted by you (you downloaded it).

These dimensions are revolutionising how firms communicate with you, learn about you and produce services for you. Everyone you know and most people that you don’t know also has a phone so you could multiply the previous sentence’s possibilities by most of the human population.

But neither firms nor consumers have fully worked out how to use these dimensions. Using mobile phones to figure out a person’s location has grabbed a lot of headlines and initiated a few start-ups and service features like geofencing.

Services that run on smart phones naturally segment customer populations down to a single individual because we rarely share our phones. So phones are platforms for personalisation, i.e. precise learning about individual needs as well as giving customised advice and information.

Also, we carry our phones around everywhere and a lot of people never switch them off – so services can potentially be real-time and anytime, whenever customers need them. Most importantly of all, customers choose to download the app and then give the app the permissions it needs to work.

So services that are delivered by phone apps [or mobile sites] have the capability for complete personalisation in terms of ‘where’, ‘who’ and ‘when’ plus they are a potential bridge for two-way exchange of information.

What goes around comes around

Complete ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ personalisation is great but an app [and the huge supply chain behind it] needs to know which service options, product variants, SKU number, model, user experience configuration or other permutation of what it could potentially provide is best for each particular ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ customer at the moment that they tap the screen to say they want it.

This need to decide which service would best fit the immediate needs of a specific consumer will be even more pressing when apps suggests useful things without an actual request from the consumer. Like Google Now is starting to do.

The absolute best thing about mobile phone apps and services is not their in-build sense of ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ – it’s the information that the consumer gives to the app owner or service provider [and the huge supply chain behind it] plus the permissions to use it.

Mobile apps are not just a bridge to God-like services – they are a two-way bridge to God-like services.

‘God-like’ means not quite omniscient, i.e. you have to give the app some clues as to what you need from it.  Mobile apps know who you are [you registered], when you ask for something or contextually might need something [they are always on] and where you are [they are in your pocket]. So if the app does not abuse the data permissions that you give it [an unresolved issue] and keeps being indispensible then it can potentially act as the ultimate loyalty card.

Introducing the ultimate loyalty card – the Mobile + Big Data version

Big Data is the minute-to-minute personal diary of everyone and everything. Mobile apps have the potential to be the pen that writes your Big Data diary.

All our on-line transactions, communications and surfings are recorded and increasingly stored, analysed and used. But there are still vast gaps in our personal Big Data diaries. For example, a huge retailer like Tesco with a tremendously sophisticated loyalty programme, like Clubcard, only directly knows about the part of your life that is your shopping-life. It can buy-in shared data from its partners to get a better insight into your specific needs. But it can never know your full Big Data diary.

But a mobile app [or collection of apps and mobile services] – that you trust enough to give the right permissions to about collecting your personal data and that you interact with as you go through your life events – could potentially know your whole Big Data diary. The Big Data diary of your on-going minute-to-minute life.

Just think of how helpful [or dangerous] this could be. Just think of the services, new services and benefits to society that this could be the platform for. Nobody could accuse those people behind Siri and Google Now of aiming too low.

Linking smart phones and Big Data means everything in the cloud delivered to you, right here and now. The intimacy, immediacy and relevance of smart phone apps is combining with the vast scale and power of Big Data and the cloud.

This generates many confusing and unfolding possibilities. A massive aggregation of information and other resources is combining with a highly specific understanding of customised requirements. Very large scale Business Intelligence is colliding with very small scale human needs.

The scale and variety of Mobile Big Data is both an enabler and a barrier. For firms and government it changes the problem from ‘we would like to do’ to ‘which should we do?’ plus ‘are we sure that’s the best thing we could do?’ There are too many new possibilities in too many new areas.

Part Two maps out and explains the confusing new options and approaches that Mobile + Big Data is now making possible. It does this from the retailer’s perspective, from the customer’s perspective and from a business strategy perspective.