Choked by a data deluge

Choked by a data deluge

Even Richard Winter was surprised by the results of his latest survey of the world's largest databases. While the Massachusetts-based consultant knows better than anyone that companies are accumulating data at a rapid rate, he found hoarding on a massive scale.

For the record, France Telecom was top of the heap with 29.2 terabytes - equivalent, to use a familiar standard, to the printed collection of the Library of Congress six times over.
......
Here there is some room for doubt. At sixth place on the Winter Corporation list, for example, comes Kmart, the retailer that last year filed for Chapter 11 protection from its creditors.

A whopping 12.6 terabytes of data - covering stocks, sales, customers and suppliers - was not enough to save Kmart from bankruptcy. Data have little value on their own; they are useful only when they have context and relevance - when they are turned into information.
....
"It is easy to start a business, to get access to customers and markets, to develop a strategy, to put up a website, to design ads and commercials. What's in short supply is human attention. Telecommunications bandwidth is not a problem but human bandwidth is."

....
All this leaves marketers with a dilemma. They have made substantial investments in database and related technologies designed to facilitate direct, personalised communication. Yet an increasingly small proportion of these messages is being heard.

The solutions offered by marketing gurus come in two varieties.

The "viral marketing" wing of the industry argues that companies can get their message across by securing the attention of trendsetters and opinion leaders whose voices are always heard: do not build relationships, build a buzz.

Others say company/ customer relationships need to be taken to the next level.

C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy argue in The Future of Competition, published next month, that customers need to be co-opted so they take a direct role in creating a product. Only then can a company be sure of getting their attention.