1 Lets say you work in a metropolitian city for a large depa

1. Lets say you work in a metropolitian city for a large department store chain and your manager puts you in charge of a team to find out whether keeping the store open for an hour longer each day would increase profits. What data might be availanle to your decision making? what data woul d be important to your decision?

2. what kinds of data might we want in OB applications?

Case Incident 2: Big Data for Dummies Do you need big data? Maybe the question is better phrased as: Can you afford not to use big data? The age of big data is here, and to ignore its benefits is to run the risk of missed opportunities Organizations using big data are quickly reaping rewards, as a survey of 2,022 managers worldwide indicated recently. In fact, 71 percent of respondents agreed that organizations using big data will gain a \"huge competitive advantage.\" These managers also saw the need for big data: 58 percent responded that they never, rarely, or only sometimes have enough data to make key business decisions. Furthermore, they\'ve witnessed the benefits: 67 percent agreed that big data has helped their organization to innovate. So why did only 28 percent find that their access to useful data significantly increased in a year? According to Amy Braverman, a principal statistician who analyzes NASA\'s spacecraft data,

Solution

1.

The data that would be very essential to take the decision are demographic data (relating to age, gender, education, income, generation, social status and others), psychographic data (relating to lifestyle, values and personality) and behavioral data (behavior of the customers in availing the services of the department store chain).

The data that would be available are most likely demographic data and behavioral data. One may be easily able to find out the age, gender and generation of an individual by perusing his/her Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or other social media profiles. One may even get to know about the educational qualification of the person if it is made public by him/her. One may have some idea about the person’s income by observing the type of vehicle in which he/she is coming to the store, the amount and number of purchases made by the person in a month and others. One may also be able to collect behavioral data by interviewing the customers during their visits to the store or by keeping a watch on their spending patterns. However psychographic data will usually be not available that easily because it is related to the inner self of the person in a big way.

2.

In OB applications, mostly psychographic data would be required as it would help to understand the psychology of the person in a large way. Demographic data would also be required to a certain extent.

3.

An enhanced understanding of psychology would definitely help in an improved understanding of the lifestyle and personality of the person, which in turn would lead to a greater comprehension of his/her buying behaviors and spending patterns. One would also come to know about the tastes and preferences of the person more easily. Further, it would help in delineating the big data (collected from multiple sources) into different categories as per one’s need and convenience and also sieve out the various patterns from the myriad data (i.e, big data).