On advantage of being a marketer at SAS right now is that we have a roughly 35-year head start on our competitors in terms of helping organizations manage big data. And because much of big data is driven by customer data, marketing is ground zero for big data in most organizations.

According to the smart folks at IDC, organizations and IT leaders need to focus on the ever-increasing volume, variety and velocity of information that forms big data. There are lots of reasons for marketing to focus on it, but the most important reason is that the biggest risk with big data is the one you take by ignoring it.

To recognize the opportunity presented by big data, it helps to understand the source of the urgency. The way IDC spells it out, the nature of data has changed dramatically:

• Data sets are now all-encompassing and iterative, where they may have been static and predefined in the past.
• Data processing needs to be proactive and dynamic (often in real-time), where batch-processing of data was previously more of the norm.
• Data analysis is now predictive and optimized, compared to before when it was primarily focused on reporting findings from historical data.

Understanding what to do about big data is where it gets interesting. It's not as simple as just putting "Deal with big data" at the top of your to-do list, but it's also not out of reach. Consider these two thought leader perspectives that can help you get started:

1.  Just last week, our VP of Big data  posted "5 ways to tackle big data and maintain brand loyalty" on our sas voices blog. His first suggestion is to define big data for your organization around the idea that it’s when the data you want to work with reaches a volume or complexity that puts it outside your comfort zone. You should also be sure you've defined marketing success and the metrics you'll use to measure it, that way you'll have the end in mind as you deal with the challenges of big data.
2. Harvard Business Review summarized their recent HBR Insights Center in a report called, Customer Intelligence Tames the Big Data Challenge. In it, they provide views on how some of the best organizations are applying marketing analytics to be more innovative, boost efficiency, better understand customers and more. They tackle relevant marketing issues in the era of big data, such as why email marketing is king, how customer experience should be part of your business, and mining big data to find new markets.

As I said above, the biggest risk with big data is the one you take by ignoring it. And big data is no longer a problem limited to the very largest B2C marketers - it's all around us. So how is it affecting you? What are you doing about it? Share your thoughts in a comment - and, as always, thanks for following!