The Big Data Hierarchy: A Multi-stage Perspective on Implementing Big Data

Firms increasingly have access to a variety of data from sources such as customers, transactions, social media, and other stakeholders. Marketers use the term Big Data to describe this avalanche of information which they view as critical to providing a better understanding of customers and markets. This research uses a qualitative approach, through interviews with marketing managers, to evaluate the scope of Big Data, develop a hierarchy of how firms use data to make marketing decisions, describe the external and internal factors that influence where a firm falls within the hierarchy, and identify four specific transition factors that allow firms to develop Big Data capabilities. We find that the key factors that determine the level of Big Data decision making are the firm environment, competition, organizational structure, interdepartmental dynamics, and executive commitment. To transition to a higher level of data driven decision making, firms must consider their current and future capabilities in terms of data, analytics, people, and organization.