Businesses succeed or fail by understanding what works and what doesn’t. In decades past, this knowledge was gleaned over time and trial and error. Big data technology has helped businesses understand this information much faster and much more accurately.
ITPro refers to big data as, “datasets that are too large and complex (for example, unstructured data like emails or voice recordings) for ordinary computing systems to handle.” Big data programs are able to predict user behavior, analyze behavior, and other analysis that’s useful for businesses looking to make decisions.
Business decisions are made every day, and the information used to make them matters. What are some of the areas that businesses have seen improvement since applying big data technology to improve decision making?
#Marketing
With predictive analytics and customer data, businesses can better understand what’s likely to resonate with customers and while, helping them to target and refine their marketing efforts.
#Customer service
Based on past data and industry information, big data helps businesses better predict customer problems and allows organizations to troubleshoot and solve potential issues or complaints.
#Inventory and logistics
Big data gives insight into potential stock problems or shipment delays faster and more accurately than ever before. This helps business understand when to speed up production, bring on additional transportation options, or start communicating to customers and vendors.
#Human resources
Big data helps businesses make better decisions about hiring, employee engagement, and performance reviews, contributing to better strategy around human capital management and a better way to build strong, capable teams that support the business.
It’s not enough just to jump on big data technology without understanding how it will better your processes and benefit your business. Big data can be transformative, but only if you know how to match its capabilities with your business goals.
The importance of big data in hiring
Here are some of the reasons to consider big data in your recruitment process.
1. Reduced cost
Big data technology helps to speed up the process of getting positions filled. With advanced resume screening, businesses are shown the most qualified candidates and don’t have to spend as much time weeding through applications to find the right fit. When the process of finding potential hires is reduced, it shortens the overall time it takes to get someone working in that role. Someone starting sooner usually translates to an impact on the business’s bottom line.
2. Time saved and invested in the strategy
Recruitment isn’t a standalone process – it’s strongly connected to retainment. One of the best ways to increase the likelihood of recruited employees staying on with your business for the long-term is providing a good human resource management experience that provides employees with things like training and development and a path towards advancement. HR groups that are most successful at this are the ones who have more time to invest in creating solid HR strategy and processes. With big data recruitment, your HR team is often able to save time on automated tasks and reinvest that elsewhere.
3. Creating a culture of knowledge
When businesses decide to use data to inform their decisions, they are helping to establish a priority of knowledge and learning as a driving factor in all decisions. This can help not only create the kind of culture that employees want to be a part of – directly affecting your recruitment efforts – but it also empowers current employees to use data to advance the business and remain competitive.
Big data technology is becoming an important part of shaping business processes and decisions. It requires a good amount of groundwork and investment of time and money to establish a solid big data strategy, but it can benefit your business long into the future.
