Big Industry: Big Data or Very Small Data?

I’ve been asked to prognosticate on emerging mobile trends for attendees of the ePharma Summit next week in NYC. In the past we’ve shared our thinking on: the coming tablet wars, hybrid applications, total cost of ownership of mobile applications, and the evolution of sales forces.

A current hot topic is “big data” – a trend affecting all industries. At $1.0+ trillion in global revenue, Life Sciences is clearly big, and growing rapidly and generates “big data”.

With the explosion of mobile computing the communications transactions of individual sales reps (and the content they convey to their customers) generate a lot of “digital exhaust” that can be collected and analyzed. How does one harness this opportunity?

The first step is to understand and embrace this data source – what transactions take place and how much data could be generated? Second, adopt a comprehensive strategy for ALL mobile applications regarding data capture. Third, promote these standards for all mobile application vendors. Last, develop a means to move this data to your data warehouse for subsequent analysis using routines similar to other marketing channels.

However, blogger Alan Mitchell postulates an even more interesting hypothesis – Very Small Data. Mitchell states:

“So there are two classes of data which help solve different types of problem. Big Data is statistical and deals with general trends and patterns; Very Small Data is specific and deals with getting things done: gathering the information needed to make a decision, to make an arrangement, or to get some administrative chore done. Because it’s Very Small and rather mundane and specific, it doesn’t seem as glamorous and important as Big Data. But it is.

“In fact, this is where our economy’s next big productivity breakthrough is going to come from: information logistics – getting exactly the right information to and from the right people at the right time so we can solve problems, make decisions, organise and implement things without wasting time and effort looking for the right data or sifting through and discarding the wrong data.”

Ubiquitous mobility offers two major opportunities: 1) a means to capture transactions to feed the BIG data warehouse and 2) to present very SMALL data to field reps enabling them to act – in real time. And the two are related: how do you use big data to predict; and how do you communicate this with your employees? The companies that get this right gains competitive advantage – how are you putting this to work?