The digital transformation: how data-driven approaches can deliver value for e-commerce companies

Abstract

Decision making is among the most important activities a business has to deal with in order to accomplish its goals - both in short and medium-long terms. The history of decision making has evolved across the centuries, growing up in depth and complexity, and thanks to the great technological innovations occurred in the last decades, today managerial decision making involves an amount of data way bigger than ever before. With the wide spreading of computer technology, the means to process large databases became more available and accessible, but informations are collected and shared in many more ways as well (Internet of Things, Social Media, ecc.).

In this context, the term "Big Data" has become very popular to indicate a huge volume of data that can not be analyzed using traditional technology, but with the aid of special tools that can extract relevant information from it. The appeal of making decisions based on a gigantic mass of numerical information leads to extensive use of big data in many business sectors: marketers use it to target advertising, insurance providers use it to optimize their offers and Wall Street bankers use it to read the market (Kabir and Carayannis 2013).

The innovation that has involved the way that companies have to collect and interpret data has gone hand in hand with the evolution of the consumer and of his online purchasing behavior. The new digital context requires an internal change by companies to be correctly interpret information about consumers and therefore generate economic value. The fundamental usefulness of Big Data in decision-making procedures has been openly acknowledged by companies, who therefore need to adapt their approach to making decisions taking into account these new shifts.

The present work intends first to present the digital revolution developed in recent years, with particular attention to enabling technologies, the different implications of the phenomenon and the relative risks involved. Then the new consumer model will be described, with which companies must relate, bringing to light the differences with traditional models. The new approach to data will be discussed focusing on e-commerce, presenting the reasons why insights and context contribute to a better understanding of reality.

In support of this statement, the discussion will continue analyzing the case of Time Out Group plc, an international media company whose mission is to help discover the best of the big cities around the world. In particular, this example will show how the company approached the optimization project of its e-commerce portal, and the extent to which the data-driven attitude has helped to establish the best choices that would satisfy the final user and improve key metrics.