Please reply to the discussion below in 250 words.  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY “Big Data: The Management Revolution” is an article written by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson that emphasizes the role of big data in our modern times and its contribution to company’s decision-making culture. Before, companies used to collect information in written reports and extent files in order to develop algorithms and strategies that could help them understand the market and perform better. Companies not always had enough information to act timely and accordingly with customers’ demand. Today, although the intentions are the same, the tools available to organizations are far more advanced, leading to improved data-collecting techniques. The “Big-Data” era allows these same companies to make better decisions based on evidence-supported predictions, which leads to greater opportunities and competitive advantage. The big data movement makes marketing, advertising, and selling much more effective than it was a decade ago. It enables companies to gather all types of information that (1) are available to them, (2) can help them strategize better, and (3) lead to increasing sales if interpreted and analyzed right. Big data offers many benefits to the companies that decide to embrace it. It allows them to make better estimates of possible outcomes, increasing accuracy of transactions or events, reducing potential restraints that could end up in costly setbacks, and offering better solutions. Big data enables planning marketing strategies to be faster, easier, and more functional than ever before. Because of the enormous streams of data tied to people, activity, and locations, personalized marketing takes place increasing the chances of targeting more people. Of course, more data requires more responsibility. Although it may be perceived as otherwise, having a big pool of information is worthless if there is no human insight. Executives need to learn to effectively organize, analyze, and make sense of these data in a way that leads to better interpretation and greater knowledge. Leaders need to know how to understand the data available to them in order to decide what’s best for the company. Therefore, big data and great leadership are the main two factors that contribute to an organization’s success. Which are the three most critical issues for this reading? Please explain why? Analyze and discuss in great detail. 1 – Many executives base company’s important decisions in intuition and hunches. In today’s era, technology is not only a luxury but also a necessity. Technology gives us power to gather and collect data that is important for decision making. Experts’ opinions are important; nonetheless, they can be mistaken. On the other hand, data is reliable and unmistakable. Evidence will always overpower intuition. Traditional executives that don’t realize or maybe don’t trust the power of big data will have a disadvantage, and sadly they will not only be limiting th.

1. Please reply to the discussion below in 250 words.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
“Big Data: The Management Revolution”
is an article written by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson
that emphasizes the role of big data in our modern times and its
contribution to company’s decision-making culture. Before,
companies used to collect information in written reports and
extent files in order to develop algorithms and strategies that
could help them understand the market and perform better.
Companies not always had enough information to act timely and
accordingly with customers’ demand. Today, although the
intentions are the same, the tools available to organizations are
far more advanced, leading to improved data-collecting
techniques. The “Big-Data” era allows these same companies to
make better decisions based on evidence-supported predictions,
which leads to greater opportunities and competitive advantage.
The big data movement makes marketing, advertising, and
selling much more effective than it was a decade ago. It enables
companies to gather all types of information that (1) are
available to them, (2) can help them strategize better, and (3)
lead to increasing sales if interpreted and analyzed right. Big
data offers many benefits to the companies that decide to
embrace it. It allows them to make better estimates of possible
outcomes, increasing accuracy of transactions or events,
reducing potential restraints that could end up in costly
setbacks, and offering better solutions. Big data enables
planning marketing strategies to be faster, easier, and more
functional than ever before. Because of the enormous streams of
data tied to people, activity, and locations, personalized
marketing takes place increasing the chances of targeting more
people. Of course, more data requires more responsibility.
Although it may be perceived as otherwise, having a big pool of

2. information is worthless if there is no human insight.
Executives need to learn to effectively organize, analyze, and
make sense of these data in a way that leads to better
interpretation and greater knowledge. Leaders need to know
how to understand the data available to them in order to decide
what’s best for the company. Therefore, big data and great
leadership are the main two factors that contribute to an
organization’s success.
Which are the three most critical issues for this reading? Please
explain why? Analyze and discuss in great detail.
1 – Many executives base company’s important decisions in
intuition and hunches. In today’s era, technology is not only a
luxury but also a necessity. Technology gives us power to
gather and collect data that is important for decision making.
Experts’ opinions are important; nonetheless, they can be
mistaken. On the other hand, data is reliable and unmistakable.
Evidence will always overpower intuition. Traditional
executives that don’t realize or maybe don’t trust the power of
big data will have a disadvantage, and sadly they will not only
be limiting their own potential but also hurting the well-being
of the corporation. Although it’s true that in prior generations
decisions were to be made based on expertise and experience, in
today’s world data and information readily available play a
bigger role. Unfortunately, executives that fail to realize this
will be replaced.
2 – Not every company is data-driven, and that is affecting their
business. Although many businesses claim to be using big data
to influence their decisions, studies show that not every
company use data effectively and some of them don’t even rely
on data at all. Sometimes companies (usually small) are
reluctant to use data gathering technologies and justify this with
its expensive cost. However, these technologies are becoming
more and more economical and easier to obtain compared to

3. when it first started. So, why are they not taking advantage of
the opportunities that these tools can offer us? There are many
reasons behind those decisions such as mindset, company
culture, type of leadership, or poor management.
3 – There is a downside to the usage of data. It’s true that
executives should place important value on data collected to be
able to draw conclusions and make better decisions that benefit
the company. However, this shouldn’t prevent executives from
using logical reasoning and applying their own knowledge and
judgement. That is, executives shouldn’t rely alone on data, but
in a combination of information collected and problem-solving
skills. Data alone will not make a company successful; leaders
with knowledge and skills are essential. The organization’s
leadership should be able to analyze and interpret data to
effectively exploit its full benefit.
Which are the three most relevant lessons learned for this
reading? Please explain why? Analyze and discuss in great
detail.
1 – Companies that are data driven usually demonstrate better
performance and greater success. Times are evolving, and
technology is a big part of the evolution. Companies that decide
to evolve and keep up with these changing times are usually the
smartest ones. In our today’s world, most of the companies use
technology and data to better focus their marketing and selling
strategies. Companies who are not willingly ready to take
advantage of the benefits these new advanced data-technologies
usually fall behind. According to the reading, a research that
was conducted by the MIT Center for Digital Business
demonstrated that companies that embraced data are on average
5% more productive and 6% more profitable than their
competitors.
2 – The use of data leads to better predictions, which in turn

4. leads to better decisions. Just like the example that the article
described Amazon, among many other companies, uses data
collected from online customers to influence their decisions. If
a customer spends a great amount of time looking for an item,
the system itself will automatically update the information
about the type of items or products the customer is interested in.
These are personalized data that the system collects and is
unique to every single customer. Based on the data collected,
then the system itself will make predictions about what type of
items the consumer would like to look at. This big-data strategy
will captivate the attention of the customers, present other
potential purchases that could satisfy their needs, and therefore
lead to increasing sales.
3 – Data offers volume, velocity, and variety. Data not only
enables companies to gather a large pool of information that is
constantly updated, but it also offers them the possibility to
access historical information at any point. Although information
is gathered every minute, it never gets erased. This allows
companies to design and project strategies based on history,
patterns, and previous information that can be used to resolve
problems and current situations. Another important
characteristic of big data is that it collects information in real
time, allowing users to manage and strategize action plans in
order to attract more customers, reach a higher client-
satisfaction, and beat competitors. The variety of data is
eminent. We can accumulate large amounts of digital
information in various devices and in different forms. We are
able to use smartphones, computers, movement-detection
cameras, and GPS devices. The information that we receive
from these devices are useful in tracking location, detecting
high demand products, ensuring safety, and targeting more
potential customers.
Which are the most important best practices for this reading?
Please explain why? Analyze and discuss in great detail.

5. One of the main things to do in order to utilize big data to our
fullest advantage would be asking questions. The authors
suggest that is important to ask ourselves one important
question “What do we know?”. Data is solid evidence, and
therefore it should be much more significant than our own’s
perception about certain topics. High-performance management
will always strive to find a reasonable balance between data-
driven decisions and knowledge from experience. Making
decisions only based off prior exposure to similar situations is
risky. It’s crucial to state facts as we see them provided the
data, and not as we think of them.
Another important thing to have in mind is to use technology to
our advantage. Big data not only makes the collecting
information easier, but it provides tools to help analyze it.
Businesses that make good use of big data are the most
successful ones. Take Amazon and Google for example. Both of
them were born digitally and manage big data successfully. This
gives them access to better marketing strategies, giving them a
potential advantage over other business, and thus, turning
themselves into two of the highest performing companies
nowadays.