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Business Intelligence: How is business intelligence/data analytics/big data used by a company

Amazon intelligences: 3 articles then write like a summary, the introduction at bottom

Amazon.com Inc. spent two decades hastening the demise of the traditional brick-and-mortar retail industry. So why would the tech giant spend $13.7 billion to acquire an organic-grocery chain with more than 460 stores?

The deal for Whole Foods Market Inc., which people familiar with the matter said came together quickly, presents Amazon with several potential gains. It could use the stores as distribution hubs to build out its online grocery-delivery business. Amazon also could stock gadgets such as its Kindle e-readers and Echo speakers, as well as goods from its burgeoning private label.

The bigger opportunity, though, is data.

Amazon for years has been looking for more ways to gather information about how consumers shop. It has long been rumored to be on the prowl for a breakthrough deal, even as it set up its own much smaller Amazon Go and AmazonFresh Pickup stores as experiments.

If the deal goes through, the combination likely will be powerful. Amazon and Whole Foods can join their online and in-store knowledge to better predict what goods to carry in each store, said James Thomson, a former senior manager in business development at Amazon and now partner at the brand consultancy Buy Box Experts.

"They'll build better private labels and squeeze national brands even more," Mr. Thomson said. "There's lots of opportunity to experiment."

The deal came together so rapidly -- the companies signed a confidentiality agreement April 27 -- that Amazon's strategy for the acquisition is still largely in the air, according to people familiar with the matter.

Amazon shed little light on its plans for the chain of stores when it announced the deal Friday. A spokesman declined to comment on the company's strategy. Whole Foods also declined to comment.

One enticing aspect of a deal between Amazon and Whole Foods is the significant overlap, analysts say, between the companies' traditionally loyal customer bases.

A Morgan Stanley survey shows about 62% of Whole Foods shoppers are members of Amazon's Prime service, opening the door for cross-sell promotions to entice customers who shop at both to spend more. Amazon, though, doesn't know how those customers shop in stores -- a gaping hole in data about its more than 300 million shoppers.

If the deal goes through, Amazon is likely to put employees to work examining Whole Foods' strategy, cost structures and business practices -- as well as their data, according to former Amazon employees.

The online retail giant likely will add new ways to track in-store consumer spending. One option is letting people purchase with Amazon Pay, a PayPal-type solution that lets customers check out with their Amazon account information. Another option is creating a Whole Foods credit card, the former employees say.

Amazon has spent time experimenting with brick-and-mortar already. Its bookstores according to its website, have been used in part to start collecting data on how consumers naturally browse in stores, former employees said.

2. How does Am azon’s strategy com ­ pare with Alibaba’s model? Since Amazon made its big announcement earlier this year, there’s been a big increase in demand for what we do. They’ve really become a supply chain company now, with a new business model of integration, and they provide a storefront on the web. It’s fascinating to see two entirely different visions of logistics play out like this. Amazon wants to do it all itself, while Alibaba doesn’t want to control anything. Amazon’s model will work with some things, but Alibaba is much more community oriented, so you participate more in the process. How w ise was the decision to lease a fleet o f planes? I have a feeling this Amazon plan may not be sustainable. The primary reason is to have centralized service levels and greater control of your delivery, which is a problem they had before with FedEx and UPS over the holidays. So, if you’re flying a full load each way, it’s great to have your own planes. But if you have any unutilized capacity, it can be a real danger. Costs are driven by asset utilization. But I think they want to be an integrator and offer their capacity to others. To do this, people will have to have better and better information. Amazon seems cutting-edge but think how fast technology is changing these days. They have some huge assets they’re stuck with, such as owning thenown brick-and-mortar warehouses and leasing planes - those are some huge costs hanging over you. That could be a death knell for them. If it wasn’t for controlling the customer experience, they wouldn’t have done it. What can com panies do to prevent entering m ore bad data in to their supply chains? Everyone wants good data, but they’re not willing to pay for it. We enable information to be shared in a collaborative environment. What we do enables companies to get the same Amazon services without giving up control. Through our predictive analysis, we can show you what your prices would be should you make a change in your supply chain, track what will happen and assure that you get service levels you want. This can lead to higher profit margins and can move people away from a crisis mentality. In this business, a two to three percent change is a big deal. That’s pretty much most people’s profit margins right there, so it’s a very significant cost to avoid.

3. Entering the field of big data is no cake walk. Due to the many nuances of big data architecture combined with the fact that it’s so new, relatively speaking, it can be overwhelming for many executives to implement. Or, instead of being overwhelming, there’s simply a lack of experience and understanding. That misunderstanding leads management, all too often, to use big data inefficiently.

Entering the field of big data is no cake walk. Due to the many nuances of big data architecture combined with the fact that it’s so new, relatively speaking, it can be overwhelming for many executives to implement. Or, instead of being overwhelming, there’s simply a lack of experience and understanding. That misunderstanding leads management, all too often, to use big data inefficiently.

One of the best ways for companies to learn about big data and how they can effectively implement it is by analyzing those who have used big data successfully for years. Amazon.com is one of those companies.

There’s no doubting the data expertise of Amazon.com. One of the key innovators in big data technology, the global giant has given us lesson after lesson on how to successfully gather, analyze and then implement data analytics. Not only has it effectively used big data for it’s own purposes, but with services like Amazon Elastic MapReduce, the company has successfully leveraged its own data use to help others.

Amazon is full of lessons on how to successfully use big data, here are a few –

Focus on the Customer

One of Amazon’s premier uses of big data has been customer recommendations. If you have an Amazon account and you take a quick look at your Amazon home page you’ll notice as you scroll down there are recommendations based on your browsing history, additional recommendations, sale items based on what you’ve bought and searched for in the past. While this type of things occurs frequently today, Amazon was one of the first companies to do this.

Amazon has put a focus on using it’s big data to give its customers a personalized and focused buying experience. Interestingly, by giving customers this personalized experience, the customer tends to buy more than they would otherwise. It’s a simple solution for many problems.

For companies implementing big data, a key focus needs to be the consumer. If companies want to succeed in big data or at all, the consumer has to come first. The more satisfied they are, the better off you’ll be.

Be Focused

It’s impossible to know all Amazon’s uses of big data. Still, though, another lesson we can learn from the online retailing giant is to have an extreme focus on big data gathering and use.

Amazon gathers extremely large amounts of data each second, let alone each day and year. At that rate it would be easy to lose focus on what data is being gathered, why it’s being gathered, and how exactly it can help the customer. But, Amazon doesn’t let that happen. It’s very strategic both in gathering data and implementing changes and upgrades because of that data.

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