Big Data

Big Data

A Road Map for Successful Digital Marketing

Edited by
Amandeep Singh, Rohit Bansal and Sandhir Sharma
ISBN 978-3-11-073841-4
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-073371-6
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Contents
Preface IX

Bui Huy Khoi

Chapter 1
AIC Algorithm for Employee Motivation 1

Reena Malik, Sonal Trivedi

Chapter 2
Big Data Analytics in Predicting Consumer Behavior 9

Seprianti Eka Putri

Chapter 3
Using Big Data on Customer Behavioral Analysis in Indonesia 17

B. J. D. Kalyani
Chapter 4
Customer Vision with Big Data Analytics 29

Fazla Rabby, Ranga Chimhundu, Rumman Hassan

Chapter 5
Digital Transformation in Real Estate Marketing: A Review 39

Namrata Sandhu, Sandhir Sharma, Dilpreet Singh

Chapter 6
Drivers of Bank Penetration: A Bankers’ Perspective 63

R. Dhaya, R. Kanthavel
Chapter 7
Elaborative Perceptions on Big Data and Social Media Analytics 89

Harmanpreet Kaur
Chapter 8
Impacts of Big Data on Mobile Marketing (Big Data and Mobile
Marketing) 107
VI Contents

Komal Kapoor
Chapter 9
Implications of Big Data in Execution of Social CRM Techniques: Cases from
Developed and Emerging Economies 119

S. Balamurugan, M. Selvalakshmi, M. Palanivelrajan

Chapter 10
Leveraging Big Data for Digital Marketing 133

Ram Krishan
Chapter 11
Performance Analysis of Algorithms Used for Workflow Scheduling in Cloud
Environment 139

Manish Mohan Baral, Subhodeep Mukherjee, Chittipaka Venkataiah, Sudhir

Rana, Bhaswati Jana
Chapter 12
Role and Impact of Big Data Analytics Determinants in Improving Supply
Chain Agility 147

Kriti Aggarwal, Gulshan Goyal

Chapter 13
Role of Big Data in Growth of Digital Marketing 165

Oliver Moisés Cervantes Flores, Valeria Meléndez Cervantes, Claudia Malcón

Cervera, José Gerardo De la Vega Meneses
Chapter 14
Text Mining Applied as Business Intelligence in the Tourism Industry 179

Alock Gupta, Tanvi Kaushik, Vipin Mittal

Chapter 15
Big Data: Impact on Digital Era of Twenty-First Century 193

Tareq Rasul, Rhodora Abadia, Ashfaq Ahmad

Chapter 16
Enhanced Customer Experience through Reasoned Big Data Analytics
Strategies 207
 Contents VII

Rohit Malhotra
Chapter 17
Asymmetries in Concepts of Digital Asset Pricing Sustainability
Literature 217

List of Figures 231

List of Tables 233

List of Contributors 235

About the Editors 241

Index 243
Preface
Imagine being able to target an audience made up of highly qualified and pur-
chase-ready prospects and easily building them into loyal clients by anticipating
their needs and hence offering true value. This is the power of big data for digital
marketing. Big data is an immense amount of information that is analyzed compu-
tationally to produce conclusions and demonstrate a company’s ongoing innova-
tion. With the help of big data, marketers can analyze every action of the consumer.
This will allow digital marketers to acquire better insights and transparency in an
organization. Big data has transformed how businesses used to evaluate their cus-
tomers’ behavior around the world. Along with the potential of analyzing past
trends, it can also envision future customer behavior and uncover numerous new
opportunities for an enterprise. When it comes to audience segmentation, senti-
ment analysis and targeted marketing, big data plays a prominent role. This book
will strengthen research in the following fields:
– Applications of big data in digital marketing
– Leveraging big data for digital marketing
– Using big data to engage online customers
– Role of big data in predicting consumer behavior
– Integration of big data with other data sources
– Recent trends in big data and digital marketing
– Big data and social media analytics
– Big data and mobile marketing
– Big data and search engine optimization
– Customer relationship management and big data enabled digital marketing

Big data provides insights to lower customer acquisition cost (CAC), customer life-
time value (CLTV), and manage many other customer driven metrics. It helps digital
marketers to make more accurate and advanced marketing strategies as it enables
personalized targeting, increasing sales, improves the efficiency of a marketing
campaign, budget optimization and enables more accurate measuring of a cam-
paign’s results. As collection methods become more streamlined through the Inter-
net of Things, use of mobile devices, voice search in homes and vehicles using AI
assistants, data may become even more accurate, sophisticated, and expedited.
Companies that leverage this data could potentially create better retargeting cam-
paigns, craft more relevant product suggestions, and deliver advertising content
that speaks directly to their audience.
Gaining a competitive advantage in your respective field will become more dif-
ficult as more marketing groups gain access to the same consumer data. This will
require marketers to distinguish themselves from the pack through innovation. The
need for advanced tools to analyze and store data will grow. It’s safe to say that
very soon all marketing efforts will need to invest in online software specifically

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-203
X Preface

geared toward handling big data. Furthermore, the big data tools of today need to
evolve or will be outdated tomorrow.
As the marketing world moves into a data-focused future, the success of market-
ing efforts will be wholly based on attention to detail in data analysis and effectively
acting on insights in order to implement changes that will deliver improved results.
With this focus in mind, this book will help digital marketers to better understand
the role of big data; it will act as a road map for successful digital marketing.

Dr. Amandeep Singh

Dr. Rohit Bansal
Dr. Sandhir Sharma
Bui Huy Khoi
Chapter 1
AIC Algorithm for Employee Motivation
Introduction
A successful and effective business is always based on the contribution of a good
staff. This contribution is reflected in their actions toward the business. To attract
employees who are both enthusiastic and loyal, businesses are constantly improv-
ing in terms of human resource development, remuneration policies, as well as re-
muneration for their employees. What we all realize is that when an employee feels
they are working in an environment with satisfactory regimes (e.g., there are always
many opportunities for development and improvement), they will do their best to
complete the job, from which the results exceed expectations.
In deciding work satisfaction levels, job motivation plays a critical role. This
study aims to examine the effect of job motivation on job satisfaction. The result of
multiple regression analysis shows that job motivation influences job satisfaction
significantly and positively. This means that it is critically necessary to boost job
motivation to increase job satisfaction among employees (Omar et al., 2021).
Laurence et al. (2020) conducted a study that focuses on job creation by study-
ing the role of enjoying work, and successful and employment-oriented users as the
job creation engine. A total of 154 Google monitoring employees were surveyed. Ex-
citement about the job and motivation are supported as incentives of job creation.
An interaction effect was observed, with a low impulse to work undermining the
relationship between job enjoyment and fabrication. Job creation mediated the rela-
tionship between motivation and job performance. The author complements re-
searchers with an understanding of job creation while making the first attempt to
explore the phenomenon of job creation in East Asia.
Saether (2019) conducted research analyzing the relationship between motiva-
tional forms from self-determination theory and the concept of the personal organi-
zation (PO) to provide insight into some of the factors in the innovative work
behavior (IWB) of the high-tech research and development (R&D) staff. The re-
search method is quantitative and qualitative. Survey data from R&D staff in three
high-tech organizations show that employees with a higher PO level have higher
autonomous (deterministic and intrinsic) motivation and employees are motivated
to participate in the IWB more often. Autonomous dynamics mediate PO’s relation-
ship with IWB. Furthermore, the fair pay (i.e., distributive equity) and the creative
support of the organization are closely related to the PO, suggesting that these may
be useful for managers to consider concerning employees, employee motivation,

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2 Bui Huy Khoi

and those who are creativity cautious so as to match the values of the employee
and the organization, and to support employee autonomy.
This chapter will present the theoretical basis of employee work motivation,
summarizing many studies on employee motivation throughout the world as well
as in Vietnam, from which the proposed research model includes seven factors: sal-
ary, promotion opportunities, peers, organizational priorities and strategies, re-
views, rewards, and staffing plans.

Methodology
Sample Approach

According to Bollen (1989), the minimum sample size to undertake a study is 5 sam-
ples for one parameter. The sample size can be defined as 5:1 (5 observations per 1
variable) (Hair et al., 2006). This study was carried out with 230 survey forms in
Mobile World Corporation in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Of the 230 votes that
were collected, 210 votes were filtered, 20 were left blank and selected only one col-
umn in Table 1.1. The table describes statistics of sample characteristics.

Table 1.1: Statistics of sample characteristics.

Characteristics Amount Percent (percent)

Sex and Age Male  .

Female  .

–  .

–  .

–  .

Above   .

Monthly Income – million VND  .

– million VND  .

– million VND  .

Over  million VND  .

Time Working Below  year  .

– years  .

> – years  .

>  years  .

 Chapter 1 AIC Algorithm for Employee Motivation 3

Table 1.1 (continued)

Characteristics Amount Percent (percent)

Education Certificate  .

Diploma  .

Degree  .

Master’s  .

We use the 5-point Likert scale to evaluate the level of consent for the related
factors for 180 respondents. Therefore, this chapter also uses the 5-point Likert
scale to evaluate the level of consent for all observed variables, with 1: Disagree . . .
and 5: Agree in Table 1.2.

Table 1.2: Factor and item.

Factor Code Item Mean SE

Salary (SA) SA Understand how salary is calculated in the company. . .

SA Salary commensurate with capacity. . .

SA Reward policy promptly and publicly. . .

SA The company’s income is high. . .

SA The company has many rewarding programs for . .
employees.

Working Promotion WP The company has different career promotion plans. . .
(WP)
WP The company always has many opportunities for career . .
advancement.

WP The company’s promotion and promotion policies are . .
fair and transparent.

WP Clear company promotion plans in the company. . .

WP The company promotion policy is fair. . .

Colleague (CO) CO Colleagues are always friendly and sociable. . .

CO Colleagues have high internal solidarity. . .

CO Colleagues always support, help, and motivate each . .
other at work.

CO Collaboration working well. . .

CO Colleagues are willing to share work experience. . .

CO Trusted colleague. . .

4 Bui Huy Khoi

Table 1.2 (continued)

Factor Code Item Mean SE

Organizational OS The necessity of creating an organizational strategic . .

Strategy (OS) plan.

OS There are priority policies for each organization. . .

OS Priority creates personal success. . .

Evaluation (EV) EV The company has highly rated tools. . .

EV The monitoring company is likely to lead the . .

assessment interview.

EV The company is highly specialized in the field. . .

EV The company has professional and objective reviews. . .

Reward (RE) RE The company has a timely reward policy. . .

RE The company has been rewarded in many different . .
forms.

RE Company rewards with company profits. . .

RE Company rewards based on performance. . .

Personnel Plan (PP) PP The importance of workforce planning. . .

PP The organization has a development management . .

system that has a staffing plan.

PP Human resource planning helps to systemize work. . .

PP Human resource planning positively affects the quality . .
of service provided.

Working Motivation WM Voluntarily improve your skills to do better. . .
(WM)
WM The company is inspired at work. . .

WM Intent to quit work. . .

WM Willing to sacrifice personal interests to get the job . .
done.

WM Get excited about your current job. . .

Blinding

For the duration of the study, all study staff and respondents were blinded. No one
from the outside world had any contact with the study participants.
 Chapter 1 AIC Algorithm for Employee Motivation 5

Results
Akaike Information Criterion Selection

Akaike’s Information Criteria (AIC) was utilized to choose the best model by R soft-
ware. AIC has been used in the theoretical context for model selection. When multi-
collinearity occurs, the AIC approach can handle multiple independent variables. As
a regression model, AIC can be applied, estimating one or more dependent variables
from one or more independent variables. An essential and useful measurement for
deciding a complete and straightforward model is the AIC. Based on the AIC informa-
tion standard, a model with a lower AIC is selected. The best model will stop with the
minimum AIC value in Table 1.3 (Burnham & Anderson, 2004; Khoi, 2021).

Table 1.3: Akaike information criterion selection.

Model AIC

MW = f (SA, WP, CO, OS, EV, RE, PP) –.

MW = f (SA, WP, CO, EV, RE, PP) –.

MW = f (SA, WP, EV, RE, PP) –.

In Table 1.3, R reports show the steps of searching the optimal model. The first step
is to start with all seven independent variables with AIC = –507.2. The second step
is to find the best model; R stops with a model of five independent variables (SA,
WP, EV, RE, PP) with AIC = –508.61.

Table 1.4: The coefficients.

MA Estimate Std. Error t-value P-value Decision

-Intercept .

SA . . . . Accepted

WP . . . . Accepted

EV . . . . Accepted

RE . . . . Accepted

PP . . . . Accepted

All variables have a p-value lower than 0.05 [8], so they are correlated with working
motivation (WM), which is shown in Table 1.4. Salary (SA), working promotion
(WP), evaluation (EV), reward (RE), and personnel plan (PP) impact WM.
6 Bui Huy Khoi

Table 1.5: Model test.

VIF SA WP EV RE PP

. . . . .

Autocorrelation Durbin-Watson = . test for autocorrelation

p-value = .

Model Evaluation Adjusted R-squared = . F-statistic p-value:

. .

Variance Inflation Factor

The multicollinearity phenomenon occurs when there is a high degree of correla-

tion between the independent variables in the regression models. Gujarati and Por-
ter (2009) showed some signs of multicollinearity in the model when the variance
inflation factor (VIF) coefficient is greater than 10 (see Table 1.5).
According to Table 1.5, VIF for the independent variables is less than 10 (Miles,
2014), so there is no collinearity between the independent variables.

Autocorrelation

The Durbin-Watson Test shows that there is no autocorrelation from the model in
Table 1.4 because the p-value = 1.8423 is greater than 0.05 (Durbin & Watson, 1971)
in Table 1.5.

Model Evaluation

According to the results from Table 1.5, SA, WP, EV, RE, and PP the impact of WM
is 72.94 percent in Table 1.5. The analysis shows the following regression equation
is statistically significant (Greene, 2003):

MW = 0.07572 + 0.23471SA + 0.15015WP + 0.14253EV+ 0.15223RE + 0.28744PP

Solutions

The results of the AIC Algorithm for WM showed that five independent variables: SA,
WP, EV, RE, and PP have a positive impact on WM because their p-value is greater
than 0.05. The impact level of these four variables on the dependent variable WM in
 Chapter 1 AIC Algorithm for Employee Motivation 7

descending order is as follows: personnel plan (0.28744), salary (0.23471), reward

(0.15223), working promotion (0.15015), and evaluation (0.14253). The Mobile World
Corporation must regularly pay attention to motivating issues for employees so that
they can work spiritually and contribute to the company more effectively.
The Mobile World Corporation needs to pay more attention to working condi-
tions and a better working environment for its employees so that employees can
work in the most comfortable environment possible. It would then be possible to
maximize their capabilities and devote more to the Mobile World Corporation.
The Mobile World Corporation needs to organize more confidential conversa-
tions with employees to motivate them and increase solidarity among each other,
so leaders can understand employees’ aspirations and give them a chance to ex-
press their opinion.
The Mobile World Corporation encourages a balance between work and family
life and takes note of employees’ birthdays, employees’ family members’ status,
etc. so they consider the company like a second family.
Mobile World Corporation has a salary and bonus policy for employees working
overtime. The sales lines beyond 50 km should support more gas and food expenses
so that employees will have a sense of comfort and dedication.
Mobile World Corporation creates rewarding policies to motivate employees to
work better; besides, managers often pay attention to the attitude and working mo-
tivation of each employee so that they stay on for a long time and are dedicated to
their job.

Conclusion
Researching the motivating factors for employees is a job that is essential for all
businesses. This helps businesses understand the essential factors that motivate
employees to work more efficiently and reduce the pressure during the work pro-
cess. Since then, there are reasonable policies and ways to impact and motivate em-
ployees to achieve high efficiency. This research creates a very good competitive
advantage if businesses capture and apply it well. WM showed that it was influ-
enced by SA, WP, EV, RE, and PP. Accordingly, all five factors discussed earlier
have a positive impact on WM. Besides, the AIC Algorithm also shows the influence
of five independent factors on the dependent factor. The results of the study analy-
sis are quite like the results of some previous studies cited earlier.
8 Bui Huy Khoi

Further Research
When employees are motivated, they work harder than expected to deliver the best
results, which is an important feature of company development in the present as
well as in the future.
If the company handles this well, employees are always motivated to work with
them for a long time, rather than actively looking for new jobs, and always recom-
mend the company as the best place to work. Mobile World Corporation does not
spend a lot of time training or on training costs for new employees.
As mentioned in the earlier part of this study, the goal of this study is to keep
the company’s employees motivated by making them feel that the working environ-
ment is the best for long-term employment. However, motivation needs to have a
measure of work efficiency, so it is necessary to study the factors that affect employ-
ees’ performance as well as the factors that affect the intention to quit. Then, the
factors built into the original model may play a different role in the correlation rela-
tionship for these two factors, and at the same time, motivation will be considered
as a factor affecting the employee’s work performance and the intention of quitting.

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Reena Malik, Sonal Trivedi
Chapter 2
Big Data Analytics in Predicting Consumer
Behavior
Introduction
With the advent of the internet and consumers being exposed to new technology, it
has become harder for marketers to predict ever-evolving consumer behavior. Ma-
chine learning has allowed studying buyer behavior and has made it easier to antici-
pate the buyer’s next move for future purchases. Electronic commerce has made it
more complex for consumers to buy products as nowadays there are a vast number
of options along with comparisons. Overexposure to digital platforms requires a
deeper scrutiny of these digital platforms. Data analytics tools are being used to track
the digital footprint of the buyers. Marketers need to infer the relevant information
from the big data collection from varied digital platforms. When big data analytics
come into the picture to analyze customer behavior, it is referred to as customer ana-
lytics. By using customer analytics, marketers can draw valuable information and
predict buyer behavior, which may lead to enhanced sales, personalized marketing,
optimization of the market, fraud identification, and many more applications. Using
big data, companies can predict consumer behavior more accurately than with con-
ventional statistical techniques alone (Balar, Malviya, Prasad, & Gangurde, 2013). Big
data is emerging as a new power that can drastically change the way companies ana-
lyze customer behavior. There are four V’s of big data: volume, variety, velocity, and
the fourth one is emerging as the most significant to the marketers, and that is value,
as companies understand there is a huge difference in the online and offline behavior
of customers. Most of the industries are trying to get one step closer to big data by
seeing the various opportunities it has to offer. Retail has always been an important
part of our economy and our lives since in order to fulfill our needs (business and
customer), we must buy products and services every day. The retail sector is also im-
portant for the economy as it significantly contributes to the national economy. To
better understand the needs and wants of customers and to satisfy them, most of the
companies are getting help from big data. E-vendors can avail market and managerial
transaction cost and time effectiveness by using big data analytics as they can easily
track buying behavior of an individual and can convert them into regular customers.
Consumer behavior data now can be measured and analyzed even for the customer
experiences as it can tell what they need, want, and think.

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10 Reena Malik, Sonal Trivedi

Review of Literature
The advent of the internet has revolutionized the world, and algorithms are ruling
it. These mathematical equations are encountered by each one of us – in recom-
mendations of movies, serials, blogs of your choice, to ad pop ups and social media
feeds (Finley, 2014). Big data applications are most commonly used by enterprises
not for the benefit of companies and organizations but for personalized and cus-
tomer understanding and experience, and building a long-term rapport with cus-
tomers in order to make them loyal, as big data helps in predicting what a customer
wants (Chen et al., 2012). Big data analytics has proven to be a very effective tool in
improving interactions with customers, which aids in effective development of mar-
keting strategies. With numerous brands being able to connect through more chan-
nels with consumers, improving and maintain relationships are essential (Uğur &
Türkmen Barutçu, 2017). Many industries are successfully applying big data and
reaping the benefits of it in terms of increasing profits and growth rate by under-
standing the real purchase behavior of customers. Using big data analysis helps en-
terprises and their customers by providing them a competitive marketing advantage
as it promotes customization (Linoff & Berry, 2011). The collected data can be ma-
nipulated in different ways to figure out the things customers like, prefer, bought
together, and what, when, and how to buy (Tirunillai & Tellis, 2014). Big data ana-
lytics helps in predicting and segregating the total customer base, based on their
demographic and psychographics features.

Tools of Predictive Analytics in Marketing

Predictive analytics is now widely applied by the marketers to understand the cus-
tomers and frame marketing strategies accordingly. In marketing it can be used in
segmenting the market, forecasting, demand pricing, and better customer satisfac-
tion. The following models are widely used for predictive purposes:

RFM Modeling

Recency: customers who have spent money recently on products or services are
more likely than others to spend.

Frequency: customers who have spent money repeatedly are more likely than
others to spend.

Monetary: customers who have spent more money at a business are more likely to
spend again.
 Chapter 2 Big Data Analytics in Predicting Consumer Behavior 11

The RFM model is being widely used in retail today to understand customer
purchasing patterns and behaviors, such as how frequently they are buying, their
recent purchases, and their involvement (heavy/low) with the product.
By calculating customer lifestyle value with the help of RFM, various sales and
marketing strategies can be framed out (Khajvand et al., 2011).

Black-Box Model

This model deals with the external stimulus response, that is, environmental stim-
uli, including economics, technology, and culture and marketing stimuli, which in
turn include product, price, and promotion. These stimuli lead customers to make
their own buying decisions. In this model the marketing mix acts as a stimulus, and
customers respond to these stimuli as they can influence purchasing decisions. The
internal factors also influence the purchase decision, for example, values, beliefs,
lifestyle, etc. The decision-making process is also a part of the black-box model as
customers realize the arousal of a certain need and the fulfillment of that need by
purchasing or not purchasing a particular product or service.

Personal Variable Model

Under this model consumers make decisions based on internal factors (beliefs,
opinions, values, tradition, and goals). The complex model includes both internal
and external factors. This model mainly focuses on the internal stimuli and the in-
fluence of that internal stimulus on the purchasing decision. Some contemporary
models include Bettman, EBK model, Markow model, etc.

Statistical Analysis and Market Research Tools

For efficient integration of customer behavior data into marketing strategies, different
techniques have been used such as multiple regression, conjoint analysis, Hypothesis
testing, tests for statistical significance, discriminant analysis, factor analysis, and
cluster analysis. These tools help in combining the vast data and provide the most
relevant factors, which can be taken into consideration for preparing various market-
ing strategies and tactics. So that only those factors can be targeted which are crucial;
cluster analysis provides such a compilation.
12 Reena Malik, Sonal Trivedi

Gaining Insights from Big Data Analytics

Increasing reliance on big data for information has made it challenging for market-
ers to understand and evaluate marketplaces. Converting data into meaningful in-
sights useful for decision makers is one purpose of marketing research (Hyman &
Sierra, 2010).

Venn diagram: By combining different segments together, an effort is being made

to discover hidden relationships and explore customers that bought different cate-
gories of products together. This analysis helps marketers in understanding what
types of products are generally bought together, so they can be placed on shelves
accordingly. Consumers who are not data literate can benefit from this technique as
it presents data in a simplified way.

Data prefoliation: Identifying customers who have common features and similar
behavior, purchase patterns from the data set to frame efficient marketing strate-
gies. Customers having similar tastes and preferences can be targeted easily as a
deeper study of that group is possible and tactics can be framed out accordingly.

Time series analysis: Prediction about monthly sales volume or orders placed in
the near future can easily be anticipated accurately using time series analysis. Time
series analysis provides insight for anticipating costs and sales as it gives a certain
pattern over years that would assist in identifying and anticipating consumer be-
havior. Based on the relevant information, marketers can easily frame out various
strategies and tactics.

Mapping: Under mapping, colors are used to identify consumer behavior. A map is
prepared that is divided based on geography and indicates in different colors which
products sell the most. A particular region can be identified for catering to the cus-
tomers, and specific marketing strategies can be framed on that basis.

Basket analysis: Most useful insights are inferred from basket analysis such as
products often bought together by customers, and when they buy, which customers
are not buying and why? The answers to such questions reinforce the understand-
ing of customers by the marketers as to what products can be put at similar places
ensuring greater sales and increased revenues as they frequently will be bought
together.

Decision tree: When it comes to classification, the decision tree has been used as
an important tool. It helps in recommending the right products to customers and
even helps in identifying potential customers. Probability of choosing a product
can be analyzed by using this technique. Predicting and understanding customer
behavior is very complex but with the help of big data analysis tools, marketers can
modify their marketing strategies to reach the right audience.
 Chapter 2 Big Data Analytics in Predicting Consumer Behavior 13

Big Data and Consumer Purchase Decision

To access every “P” of marketing, that is, product, price, place, and promotion
(McCarthy, 1960) requires collecting data relevant to these P’s, which are then ana-
lyzed by using various statistical tools to gain useful insights for decision-making by
the marketers. Traditional methods and big data when combined with decision-
making helps companies reduce their product failures (Xu et al., 2016). Understand-
ing of big data for success cannot be ignored as “small data” can not be scaled up to
tackle complex marketing problems. Big data can alter a five-step traditional con-
sumer purchase decision (Hofacker et al., 2016) as they get influenced by exposure to
the vast information available. From the very first stage of need recognition and to
the last stage of post-purchase decision, consumers easily get influenced as meaning-
ful information reduces the need for search and recommendation agents, and filter-
ing tools provide automated evaluation of alternatives as customer preferences can
easily be analyzed and accessed by a ranking system. Feedback and ratings provided
online influence the purchase decisions. With vast social networks, different consum-
ers participate in the evaluation of post-purchase decisions. Presence and participa-
tion of consumers in online/virtual communities has made it even more relevant for
markets to understand consumers’ group behavior as well.
Prediction in any area has many benefits as it is a combination of advanced sta-
tistical analysis, data mining, real time access, predictive modeling, etc. When it
comes to benefits of predictive analytics, the major work revolves around security
such as fraud detection and chargebacks, which every retailer wants to tackle as it
can reduce the overall fraud that can help withdraw products from assortments
that are more prone to fraud occurrence. It is also beneficial for the entire E-
commerce industry, backed by the features it offers. Predictive analytics for supply
chains also serve and help in understanding the demand for customers effectively.
This will include all the forecasting related to the delivery and fulfillment of the or-
ders and their returns, etc.

Analytics – The Road Ahead

As per the recent report released by Statista, the big data market is about to in-
crease rapidly from 23.7 billion (US) dollars in 2016 to 92.2 billion (US) dollars by
2026. Analyzing large data has only become possible with the help of big data ana-
lytics. Most of the industries are benefiting from predictive analytics and reaping
various benefits in terms of correctly analyzing consumer behavior.
14 Reena Malik, Sonal Trivedi

Conclusion
Big data is emerging as a new power, which can change the way companies analyze
customer behavior drastically. The Indian retail sector is transforming rapidly pro-
pelled by rising household incomes, technology advancements, e-commerce, and
increased expectations. New innovative technologies are being used by retailers to
provide a seamless and unique shopping experience to the customer. With the ad-
vent of the internet and consumers being exposed to new technology, it has become
harder for marketers to predict the ever-evolving consumer behavior. Machine
learning has allowed studying buyer behavior. Electronic commerce has made it
more complex for the consumers to buy products as today the availability of vast
data can be compiled easily and of course will help marketers for making better de-
cisions. All the digital activities of the consumers can easily be traced in real time
like their browsing history, downloading history, etc., which helps marketers ana-
lyze the data collected for understanding the future moves of customers. Big data
offers various advantages to the marketers and helps in building brand loyalty. The
rise in big data and analytics puts a magnifying glass on the consequences that
have arisen from the use of the internet in this digital age.

References
Balar, N. Malviya, Prasad, S. & Gangurde, A. (2013). Forecasting consumer behavior with innovative
value proposition for organizations using big data analytics. IEEE International Conference on
Computational Intelligence and Computing Research, 1–4. doi: 10.1109/ICCIC.2013.6724280.
Chen, H., Chiang, R. H., & Storey, V. C. (2012). Business Intelligence and Analytics: From Big Data
to Big Impact’, MIS Quarterly, 2012 36 (4):1165–1188.
Finley, K. (2014). Wanna Build Your Own Google? Visit the App Store for Algorithms’, Wired 2014
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Hofacker, C. F., Malthouse, E. C., & Sultan, F. (2016). Big data and consumer behavior: Imminent
opportunities. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 33(2): 89–97. https://doi.org/10.15295/bmij.
v5i1.101
Hyman, M. R., & Sierra, J. J. (2010). Marketing Research Kit for Dummies. Hoboken: Wiley
Publishing.
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Analysis of Big Data Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation, Journal of Marketing Research 2014
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 Chapter 2 Big Data Analytics in Predicting Consumer Behavior 15

Uğur, N. G., Türkmen Barutçu, M., & Uğur, E. (2017). Determining The Dynamics Of Customer
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analytics on new product success: A knowledge fusion perspective. Journal of Business
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Seprianti Eka Putri
Chapter 3
Using Big Data on Customer Behavioral
Analysis in Indonesia
Introduction
Big data analytics has been revealed as a method for assisting managerial decision-
making and exploration activities by presenting previously unknown results that can
lead to new insights (Dyché, 2014). Big data analysis has a meaningful impact on the
value of a company and its success, resulting in cost savings, increased returns, en-
hanced customer relationships, and growth. Conditions are not always perfect for big
data collection in some institutions (Duan & Xiong, 2015), but big data has definitely
increased the volume, speed, and variety of data in today’s world. Data analysis is
simpler to do, more accurate in statistics and model improvement (Chen et al., 2012),
and in decision-making in e-commerce, e-government, database segmentation, and
social network analysis. In this era of digitalization, information coming from a well-
structured quantity of information and relevant technology from big data has a signif-
icant effect on consumer-to-consumer (C2C) e-commerce.

Overview of C2C E-Commerce

Today big data technology is developing in Indonesia and in the last two years the
use of big data in different forms and shapes has reached 90 percent of the world.
In Indonesia the utilization and application are still minimal in various aspects.
From the research results, it is evident that consumer behavior in a digital society
will be influenced by an increase in the number of possibilities that lead to emer-
gent and unexpected behavior, and there is a tendency for future generations to
want unlimited access to content on the internet.
Electronic business is a process that utilizes the employment of computerized
innovation with the internet in these main operations. E-business includes internal
management activities of a company as well as coordination activities through sup-
pliers and business partners (Laudon & Laudon, 2014). E-commerce is the division
of e-business that bargains with purchasing and selling goods and services via the
internet. It also includes activities that support these transactions, such as advertis-
ing, marketing, consumer support, security, shipping, and payments (Laudon &
Laudon, 2014).

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18 Seprianti Eka Putri

In this case the type of e-commerce to be discussed is C2C, which refers to com-
panies that provide a network platform. Consumers can easily transact on such
sites, such as eBay, and buyers and sellers can conduct business online. The e-
commerce business in the form of C2C involves consumers who sell directly to con-
sumers. Generally, these transactions are carried out online through third parties
that provide online platforms or marketplaces to carry out these transactions so
that C2C becomes an intermediary between sellers and buyers such as Tokopedia,
Shopee, OLX, and others. In many countries, such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thai-
land, and Pakistan, e-commerce has increased the number of buyers (Bhatti et al.,
2020), even Indonesia has experienced a significant increase (Sudaryono et al.,
2020). Many foreign investors are interested in investing in e-commerce companies
so that businesspeople can increase the scale of their business. E-commerce is con-
sidered to have good prospects in the future. Based on a report released by McKin-
sey, entitled “Unlocking Indonesia’s Digital Opportunity,” the digital economy is
predicted to be able to increase the national economy to US$150 billion by 2025.
Likewise, Ipsos Indonesia, as reported by Marketeers, predicts that Indonesia has
the potential to become a big player in e-sector commerce in Asia and even in the
rest of the world.
Moreover, the Population Census Report shows that the total population in In-
donesia reached 270.20 million in September 2020 (Badan Pusat Statistik Indonesia,
2020). The report by Asosiasi Penyelenggara Jasa Internet Indonesia (2019) has
shown that the number of internet users in the second quarter has grown signifi-
cantly compared to the behavior of internet users in 2018. The number of users in
2020 reached 196.7 million or 73.7 percent of the population. This number increased
by about 25.5 million users compared to 2020. Big data and consumer behavior re-
search will yield behavioral information about customers, which businesses will
use to gain a competitive edge. Consumer behavior analysis, in general, refers to
tools that assist in the discovery of hidden trends in data, and businesses have pro-
duced much more data than they can use through connected systems in recent
years (Fayyad et al., 1996; Friedrich et al., 1983).

Defining Big Data

The literature gives a few meanings of big data (De Mauro et al., 2015; McAffe et al.,
2012; Popovič et al., 2018; Provost and Fawcett, 2013). They can be characterized as
organized information like authoritative data sets, and unstructured information cre-
ated by new correspondence advances like the IoT, just as pictures, recordings, sound.
These IoT gadgets―regardless of whether they are cell phones, online purchases, inter-
personal organizations, electronic correspondences, GPS, or hardware―create deluges
of information by interfacing with and observing individuals. In other words, enor-
mous information is only the acknowledgment that buyers are currently generators
 Chapter 3 Using Big Data on Customer Behavioral Analysis in Indonesia 19

of both customary and unstructured information (Erevelles et al., 2007). By utilizing

the information created by IoT and big data, organizations can settle on more viable
choices (McAfee et al., 2012).

Define Consumers in Big Data

The average shopper has become part of a pattern because of advances in technol-
ogy, structured, transactional, and contemporary behavior (McAfee et al., 2012).
Data diversity, as well as high-speed continuous data generation, are transforming
marketing decision-making. Quantity, velocity, and variation are the three dimen-
sions that make up big data (IBM, 2012; Lycett, 2013; Oracle, 2012).

Volume

The size of data is measured in petabytes, exabytes, or zettabytes. Walmart is esti-

mated to generate 2.5 petabytes of hourly shopper data; one petabyte is the same as
20 million standard filing text cabinets (McAfee et al., 2012). As the information
index grows in scale, this metric will become obsolete. Likewise, in 2013, the ad-
vanced universe was estimated to be 4.4 zettabytes (1 zettabyte is equivalent to
250 billion DVDs) (Cisco 2014). The advanced universe must be 44 zettabytes in vol-
ume. In this case, the organization endeavors to control the expanding difficulties.
On the global demand for programs, software, and administration in storage, data
investigations are projected to double every few years (IDC, 2014).

Velocity

This is the subsequent key component of huge information (Lycett, 2013) or uninter-
rupted data generation speed. Marketing executives with admittance to rich, per-
ceptive, and up-to-date data can improve choices dependent on proof at some
random time, not on instinct or lab-based buyer research. There is a big discrepancy
between the United States statistical records and the patron information received
with the help of a main girls’ clothing company whose advertising heads are contin-
uously aware of the variation in consumer exchanges and what customers do
within the interpersonal commercial enterprise. Both types of statistics are detailed,
well-sized, and informative. Only the latter, however, equips marketing executives
with the tools they need to make new, evidence-based decisions in the face of com-
petition; big data insights will be difficult to compare.
20 Seprianti Eka Putri

Variety

Several big data sources provide variations where the transition from orga-
nized transactional data to unstructured behavioral data is the main difference
between contemporary and conventional big data (Integreon Insight, 2012).
Marketers have been collecting structured data (scanner or sensor data, docu-
ments, files, and databases) for a long time. Textual (blogs and text messages)
and nontextual data are examples of unstructured data (videos, images, and
audio recordings).
Individuals exchange personal and behavioral information with friends and
family on social media, which generates a lot of unstructured data. Semi-structured
data is created by combining various types of software that can organize unstruc-
tured data. Standard Generalized Mark-up Language software, for example, allows
organizations to identify common elements in instructional videos (e.g., a YouTube
video shows people using the product).

Consumer Behavior is Affected by Big Data

Traditional purchasers’ conduct isn’t like the circumstance of purchasers in
this big data era. The accumulation of huge information and the C2C e-trade
version era has delivered new influences, which includes converting purchaser
conduct in Indonesia. The purchaser shopping selection version has several
stages. It’s equal to buying in a conventional buying environment. With the
appearance of the “big records” era, the large use of accumulation and gener-
ation modified purchaser conduct and feelings. We need to investigate what
has an impact on purchaser online buying conduct, then guide that online
buying behavior.
Further, the information scanning activity related to consumer behavior con-
sists of several parts and these are discussed below.

Scanning Information on Needs Recognition

It is easy for emotional consumers to drive their purchase wants and demands
through information networks. Second, as rational consumers, information-rich ser-
vice products can better meet their rational assessment needs and reduce informa-
tion retrieval costs (Cao, 2006).
 Chapter 3 Using Big Data on Customer Behavioral Analysis in Indonesia 21

Scanning Information Against Information Seeking

When making online purchases, consumers often gather information. Online

shopping is more energy-efficient and knowledge-based than shopping at conven-
tional stores.
Consumers can benefit greatly from the ability to purchase high-quality and
low-cost goods.

Scanning on Alternative Evaluations

The primary decision is based on complete information. Buyers, on the other hand,
have limited resources (including time, energy, and money). Consumers want to
gather information online quickly and comfortably.

Informed Scanning of Purchasing Decisions

When consumers, who have enough time and comfort to analyze prices, quality,
and performance, search for goods on the internet, this becomes important in mak-
ing purchase decisions.

Information Scanning of Post-Purchase Behavior

Consumers may find fascinating information that they can filter and use systemati-
cally to affect their product or service assessment. Then, the effect of the security
system on post-purchase actions can be seen in the relationship with the shopping
network, where the spacetime blocks allow consumers and producers to share in-
formation through network availability.
Delivery of products is usually carried out by the logistics company as a
third party. All of this has discouraged consumers from monitoring the efforts of
the entire trading process. Consumers have no way of knowing if all confidential
data is adequately secured during transmission. This will make customers feel
nervous, particularly those who have had problems with shopping security in
the past. This is a common reason why people don’t worry about the specific IoT
devices they have because they don’t consider the data collected sensitive or ac-
cept the effectiveness of protecting themselves from privacy or security-related
threats.
22 Seprianti Eka Putri

Credibility Impact and Security System on Consumer Behavior

The following two things are important and need to be considered:

1) The impact of credibility on consumer behavior
2) Credibility in evaluating options

Previous encounters and relationships with other people have credibility. For both
sellers and buyers, knowledge is asymmetrical (Zhao, 2012). When buyers prefer high
credit scores and better products, they expect vendors to provide high-quality service.

The Buying Decision’s Credibility

The greatest benefit of online shopping over conventional shopping is cost sav-
ings. The use of “big data” technologies allows for the transfer of knowledge at a
low cost of operation. This has the important benefit of establishing a reputation.

Post-Purchase Behavior’s Credibility

Consumers will display their good online experience after a purchase if they are sat-
isfied (C. B. Li, 2013). Nevertheless, if customers are disappointed after shopping,
they are more likely to express their dissatisfaction on social media, and therefore,
many potential customers may lose interest in buying the item.

Consumer Behavior and the Impact of Security

Systems
Online shopping is conducted in a simulated world in C2C e-commerce. Information
flow, cash flow, and logistics are all separated by time and space. This gives com-
modity manufacturers access to confidential information and raises the possibility
of confusion in the shopping network. The majority of customers are worried about
the unauthorized violation of personal information during the network shopping
process, which would affect their online shopping habits.

Information Retrieval on the Security System

With the advancement of information technology, collecting, analyzing, and using

personal information without permission has become relatively simple. Since an
 Chapter 3 Using Big Data on Customer Behavioral Analysis in Indonesia 23

interpretation of commodities on the network can only be achieved by image and

text descriptions, there is a possible personal privacy risk if the definition of prod-
uct information is not clear. Several vague definitions can easily lead to different
interpretations.

The Assessment Alternatives’ Safety System

Unlike traditional shopping, online shopping, especially online payments, necessi-

tates the transmission of information over the internet. Unauthorized offenders are
likely to tamper with the transmission mechanism. Personal details, such as credit
card numbers, have been modified, copied, and removed. If not managed properly,
this would enhance consumer fears of the risks of online shopping.

The Security System on Purchasing Decisions

Companies entering and exiting the industry may find their capital exhausted due
to networking, and online retailers can suddenly disappear. When compared to tra-
ditional shopping, returning items purchased online is inconvenient. Online retail
products, on the other hand, are dependent on impersonal electronics stores to
complete transactions.

Conclusion and Recommendation on Customer

Buying Behavior
The rise of big data is a challenge for data protection, and customer analytics is at
the heart of the revolution. New tech allows capturing the wealth and abundance of
information related to the real-time customer phenomenon in Indonesia––volume,
velocity, and variant that can be obtained from personal consumers. The conve-
nience and short records seek to allow consumers to depend on big data. Recom-
mended networks offer extra alternatives for purchasers. Many that have had more
marketing exposure would seek personal knowledge and become interested in
marketing.
Massive amounts of data itself have three main components or characteristics;
therefore, big data provides solutions for businesses or the IT industry to identify
new opportunities that might be managed.
1) Volume: Big data as a large data set can function as a data collector from vari-
ous sources. The data collected varies greatly, such as transaction data, social
media, and data obtained from automatic machine sensors.
24 Seprianti Eka Putri

2) Velocity: As a data set and with the large amount of data collected, it requires
high-speed flows to handle the traffic of incoming data. From the incoming
data, it will be distributed appropriately so that it can be presented in real-time
via the device.
3) Variation: The amount of data that enters and accumulates in big data, of
course, has certain and unique variations. This wide-ranging data can be in the
form of documents, photos, videos, emails, databases, and many other varia-
tions of data contained in big data.

Big data is a collection of data that has great characteristics and benefits for busi-
ness development and has the potential to become an insightful opening for busi-
nesses, which will certainly be useful.
Some of the benefits of using big data for businesses are discussed below.

Get to know Customers Better

By applying big data, we collect all information from customers who use our serv-
ices or business. We can use this collection of information as a reference to under-
stand consumers who we can better provide products to according to their needs
and desires. From the data collected in big data, we can see the facts in the field,
consumer trends, and their behavior and activities. By using big data, the process
can be done faster.

Build a more Effective Marketing Strategy

With all the customer or consumer data that we have today, it will not be difficult
to build an effective marketing strategy that can reach every consumer according to
our market. Using the right marketing strategy will prevent us from shrinking mar-
ket shares caused by relationships that have not been fully developed with our
customers.

Building Relationships and Consumer Trust in the Business

Our strategies will also affect the risk factors that will begin to decrease along with
the implementation of the right strategy. An effective strategy, in addition to in-
creasing consumer confidence, will also increase revenue in the business we are
running.
 Chapter 3 Using Big Data on Customer Behavioral Analysis in Indonesia 25

Improve the Consumer Shopping Experience

The amount of data that is contained in this big data can be used to improve the
shopping experience of our consumers. Producing products and services based on
customer wants and satisfaction as revealed by data inputted into big data. When a
consumer visits our website, it does not mean that they will just shop right away,
but they are also looking for other product insights that they think they need. Hav-
ing this consumer data as a business owner can provide product recommendations
according to what consumers need and want through their search history. Thus, we
can also analyze consumer data from the time they visit our website until they
leave the website.

Increase e-Commerce Innovation

Innovation is a necessity that needs to be done by businesspeople and intended to

bring the company flexibility in the face of shifting trends. Business actors can see
the trends of their consumers through information so that they can take advantage
of this tendency to create new, more targeted innovations.
Hereinafter, the recommendation system will view evaluation of commodity in-
formation, customer interest, product matching, recommending customers for simi-
lar goods (S. X. Wang, 2013).

Recommendation System About Needs

According to research, consumers are unable to shape stable and distinct preferences
because they lack an accurate understanding of product details. Consumer preferences
are often not set because of knowledge adjustments during the purchasing process.
Therefore, a recommendation system provides complete and personal information to
consumers. The survey results also show that consumers are influenced by website
information and promotions. They think that the recommendation is to provide them
with more references (Zhao, 2012).

Recommendation System of Information Search

Information review is the recommendation framework’s greatest strength. The ad-

vice offers customers knowledge that is more detailed and more completely person-
alized. To reduce the cognitive deviation between different brand items, buyers
must have a deeper and more detailed assessment of product function, perfor-
mance, and price of the product.
26 Seprianti Eka Putri

Recommendation Framework for the Evaluation of Alternatives

The prescribed framework additionally gives data to clients simultaneously such as

professional and customer reviews. This will influence the assessment and attitude
of consumer products to differing forms. The purchasing decision process is a com-
ponent of the recommendation system that influences customer preferences, prod-
uct ratings, and selection strategies.

Recommendation System on Post-Purchase Behavior

This suggestion method will save shoppers time by finding, analyzing, and selecting
information, offering more precise and productive data to the buyer. The suggestion
system enhances the assortment of items and evaluations; empowers purchasers to
have a more noteworthy assortment of merchandise, aligning with the customer’s
buying behavior. This improves consumer confidence and enhances trust.

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B. J. D. Kalyani
Chapter 4
Customer Vision with Big Data Analytics
Introduction
Adelman et al. (2002) introduced integration of big data analytics with digital market-
ing that provides business intelligence, which in turn helps the rise in revenue and
reduces risk. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) report “Worldwide
IT Industry” (2019), “total revenues from big data and business analytics will rise from
$122 billion in 2015 to $187 billion in 2019. And enterprises who invest in big data and
obtain the power to quickly analyze the large-scale data and extract actionable infor-
mation can get an additional $430 billion in terms of productivity benefits over their
competitors.”
Cui et al. (2007) demonstrate that big data enables enterprises to better under-
stand customers and provide real time customer insights to retain customers. Big
data facilitates enterprises to utilize the data in a more innovative and stable way
when designing a product for a potential customer (Anjariny & Zeki, 2013). Due to
digitization enterprises have enormous data to deal with. Big data extracts all the
valuable data that can drive a company’s benefits.

Influence of Big Data on Digital Marketing

The following have a great impact on digital marketing collaboration with big data:

Personalized Learning Management

The outstanding features of big data in the digital marketing is specified by Malhotra
(2000); marketers visualized a decline in their expenses, in addition to being able to
promote their product development process by improving quality and reducing
costs. The application of voluminous datasets, enormous computing power, ad-
vanced analytics, and classy data modeling can assist the management significantly
to engage the customer on a large scale. Goodhue et al. (2002) points out that big
data can also be helpful in creating personalized campaigns targeting individuals.

B. J. D. Kalyani, Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, Institute

of Aeronautical Engineering, e-mail: [email protected]

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-004
30 B. J. D. Kalyani

Marketers can easily grasp patterns of customer behavior, which in turn engages
audiences at the distinct level.

Improved Customer Behavior Analysis

Hartemo (2016) focused on big data analytics, which deals with customizing the user
experience with related offers that are personalized to the right audience. The cus-
tomer behavior analytics of Jenster et al. (2009) provides essential customer insight
by highlighting both lagging and leading customer trends and offers predictive mod-
els for the marketing department to follow and act upon.

Enriched Employee Retention Processes

The predictive analytics that Harding (2003) focused on supports the smarter em-
ployee retention process, which includes directly interviewing people, surveys,
feedback from the target audience to assess skill, analyzing expertise, and a deep
understanding of audience behavior. The new drivers of data analytics affect every
area of the recruitment process including vacancy marketing, talent development,
and filtering of prospective candidates (Kannan & Li, 2016).

Rise in Revenue

The integrated technologies of big data like “Apache Hadoop”, “Ambari and Cloud
Computing Analytics” result in noteworthy cost advantages especially with regard
to sustenance for storing large amounts of data. Market analytics creates greater
prospects of companies getting better in decision-making, goal setting, boosting
revenue, and providing better services to their customers (Durmaz & Efendioglu,
2016). With the power of big data, businesses are now able to foster great innova-
tions, taking customer experiences to greater levels.
Once the marketer successfully gains an accurate and deep understanding of
their audience’s behavior, they can strategize how to make use of the existing data
and provide insight into how to impart it into their digital marketing operations (Brea,
2012). Artificial intelligence and machine learning technology strategies (Yuniarthe,
2017) used to access volumes of data about consumer preferences and to allow enter-
prises to discover how to optimize branded items, such as customized logos with col-
ors and font styles that boost consumer engagement, lead to lower design costs and
improved revenues.
 Chapter 4 Customer Vision with Big Data Analytics 31

Present Data Content with Statistics

Lou (2017) insisted that content can serve as an initial touch point that funnels a
customer toward a desired action. When creating content, based on customer inter-
est, the content is designed with graphs, pictures, and histograms. Using data en-
terprises can help discover key insights into customer behavior that helps to create
quality content and increase audience engagement (Ruhi 2014).

Methodology
Integrating big data techniques with digital marketing strategies involves five steps
as shown in Figure 4.1.

Learn

Sivadasa et al. (1998) proposed that enterprises focus on customer preferences,

shopping habits, and market surveys to learn customer behavior. This step in-
volves web analytics to process volumes of data, which is unstructured, semi
structured, and structured from databases, websites, warehouses, and social
sites. Various distributed storage and processing tools used in this step includes
Hadoop, “Apache Spark is a unified analytics engine for large-scale data proc-
essing” n.d. Spark, “snowflake data cloud,” n.d. snowflake, and “Apache strom”
n.d. strom.

Decide

With predictive analytics the enterprises analyze the past, pick up current trends,
and foresee the impact in the future in a simulated platform and rely on the desired
results to apply strategy leading to dynamic decision-making, Search Engine Opti-
mization, paid search. Market basket analysis and content marketing are all other
forms of digital marketing aided by the big data of M. Goyal et al. (2012). Grandon
and Pearson (2004) state that marketing teams should concentrate on understand-
ing the online marketing channel and use these non-traditional data sources,
like search engine information, customer transaction, and other big data sources
available. In addition, focus on online data, which is the energy that drives any suc-
cessful digital marketing campaign.
32 B. J. D. Kalyani

Figure 4.1: Digital marketing with big data steps.

Buy

Enterprises are initiating data analytics as a service by integrating data base man-
agement system solutions, voluminous storage, and ETL tools for small business
that can utilize these services through dashboards (Hatta et al., 2017).

Use

Harris and Attour (2003) emphasize on most of the enterprises. The main task is to
catch real time customer insights and enhance customer experience due to heavy com-
petition and to retain the customers. The sentimental analysis, customer shopping ana-
lytics, and forecasting market trends with statistics of big data tools can help businesses
to offer such insights and catch customer thinking (Lanquillon & Mallow, 2015).

Reengage

Information integration, governance, stream computing, social transactions, and en-

hanced algorithms are helpful for reengaging with big data for digital marketing. “Zoho
cloud software suite,” Zoho, “SAP Hana in memory database,” Hana and “Apache Ca-
sandra software foundation,” and Casandra are some tools used for reengaging.

Case Study

Monitoring and managing strategic customers in a corporate sector is very important

for planning customer satisfaction, customer retention, and repeat new project works.
 Chapter 4 Customer Vision with Big Data Analytics 33

In view of Hennig-Thurau et al. (2012), most of the corporate sector across the globe
require such systems with enhanced data, image analytics, and artificial intelligence by
developing customer vision project. A recent McKinsey Survey shows investors have
the desire for good. The McKinsey survey found that companies that extensively use
customer analytics are reporting 115 percent higher return on investment (ROI) and
93 percent higher profits as shown in Figure 4.2.

Extensive use of customer analytics drives corporate

performance heavily.

% of companies above competition1

No extensive use of customer analytics2 Extensive use of customer analytics

28 +93% Extensive
Profit users
54 of customer
analytics are
significantly
more likely to
28 +82% outperform
Sales the market
51

25 +112%
Sales
growth
53

26 +115%
ROI
56

1Based on “Please describe the performance of your firm/business unit in the following areas relative
to your average competitor.” “Above competition” defined as 6 to 7 on 7 point scale: 1 = Well below
competition, 7 = Well above competition.
2Based on “Please indicate how much you agree or disagree with the following statement: In our

firm/business unit, we extensively use customer analytics.” Scale 1 to 7: 1 = Strongly disagree, 7 =

Strongly agree. Comparison of low 2 vs top 2 box.
McKinsey&Company

Figure 4.2: McKinsey survey.

The main activities of the customer vision project are as follows:

– Identify top customers.
– Create image profiles of these customers.
– Create a training set of customers with suitable marketing parameters, such as
customer acquisition costs and lifetime value.
34 B. J. D. Kalyani

– In the corporate sector, enterprises should have various marketing meetings

and symposiums.
– Develop imaging analytics and track enterprise key customer movements and
participation.
– Develop analytics using python illustrated by Hawking and Sellitto (2010) and
Anaconda described by Tvrdikova (2007), data science, and image processing
tools and libraries.
– Identify key customer interests and associations.

Data Flow Diagram

According to Crespo et al. (2010), the data flow model involves three phases as
shown in Figure 4.3.
1. Enterprises track every touch point of the customer from websites, mobiles,
and social sites with big data tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, Mailchimp,
Optimizely, etc., which are used for data collection (Borka et al., 2012).
2. In view of Kearns and Sabherwal (2006), corporate customer data platforms,
like segment, Zeotap, SAP to preprocess data, and data analysis, prioritized
with MongoDB, BigQuery, and Postgres.
3. Customer analytics are carried out with customer relationship management
(CRM), Labview, and R and Python programming (Artun and Levin, 2015).

Figure 4.3: Data flow model.

Implementation
Corporate sales and marketing teams are generally interested in customer vision
and various risk factors involved at each stage of implementation as described in
Table 4.1.
 Chapter 4 Customer Vision with Big Data Analytics 35

Table 4.1: Risk factors in implementation.

Area Risk Factor Risk management/m

S/H environment Low The software’s used in the development are Python and Anaconda,
highly proven for prediction in data analytic problems.

Development Low Implementation is carried out with data supervisory and decision
process table models for a comprehensive solution.

Training and Medium Explore global training data sets to minimize risk.
test data sets

The key metrics of data collection at every touch point of customer at stage 1
are illustrated in Figure 4.4.

Figure 4.4: Customer dashboard.

Results and Discussions

To apply customer analytics two key parameters are considered and they are customer
acquisition cost (CAC) and the lifetime value LTV, which are applied to a music app.
Most of the corporate operational customer analytics are carried out with these two
36 B. J. D. Kalyani

factors. Enterprises use proactive measures to reach potential customers when they
primarily start a trail. The customer retention based on eight favorite songs is illus-
trated in Figure 4.5.

Figure 4.5: Customer retention.

It is worth noting that the ratio of LTV and CAC plays an important role in customer
analytics, and in customer vision project the recommended ratio is 3:0 for investing
in marketing for faster growth. After noticing the ratio for consecutive years the
time needed to increase marketing by focusing advertising budgets rigorously at
that time is described in Figure 4.6.

Figure 4.6: Ratio of LTV and CAC.

It is evident that digital marketing with big data provides proactive risk assessment,
gains visual insights into real time customers, and identifies customers with precision.
 Chapter 4 Customer Vision with Big Data Analytics 37

Conclusion
Digital marketing with big data provides managers smart decision-making, imple-
ments customer retention strategies, and gains real-time customer insights. Big data
integrated with digital marketing improves the revenue of enterprises and minimizes
the business risk. In a customer vision project, the right time to focus on digital mar-
keting is when LTV and CAV ratio is greater than 3:0. This project can be extended
with the image analytics libraries of Python to determine and monitor customers.

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Fazla Rabby, Ranga Chimhundu, Rumman Hassan
Chapter 5
Digital Transformation in Real Estate
Marketing: A Review
Introduction
The availability of computers in the 1990s changed marketing demonstrations as
integrated marketing communications (IMC) focused on promotion. In 1996, Hutton
hoped that IMC would broaden the outlook of advertising and cement the relation-
ship between public relations and marketing. Pomirleanu et al. (2013, 166–181)
have presented the growth of the internet in figures. The number of websites in-
creased globally from 23,000 in 1995 to over 644 million in 2012. In the US alone,
internet driven sales revenues rose from a negligible amount in 1995 to $256 billion
in 2011. The evolution of digital marketing motivated the real estate industry (Gan-
gly et al., 2017, 1–20) to create novel experiences that were not previously possible
(Lamberton & Stephen, 2016, 146–172).

Background and Rationale

A great deal is written about marketing, both offline and online, but technology is
changing, and it would be unrealistic to think, particularly regarding online real es-
tate marketing, that the subject has been conclusively researched and completely un-
derstood. This chapter begins with an overview of digital marketing, and from that
context hones in on the field of real estate marketing, where new technologies impact
on current management thinking and practice. In real estate and more widely in digi-
tal marketing, it is imperative to see the effects of marketing through system dynam-
ics. Thus, Section 5 on real estate begins and ends with that perspective.
This review seeks to draw out the implications of what is taking place and criti-
cally clarify the nature of new technologies and their defining involvement in the
practice of digital marketing and real estate marketing, in particular. In that regard,
the function of virtual and augmented reality reflects a later day storytelling in the
world of imagination that draws human interest while demanding high levels of
technology. At the same time, questions regarding the implementation of the Inter-
net of Things (IoT) involve difficult decisions because they are so far-reaching, and
they demand choices that – no matter how difficult – are not going away. This
chapter aims to trace the development of digital marketing within the electronic
revolution and gauge the effects of new technologies on the real estate business.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-005
40 Fazla Rabby, Ranga Chimhundu, Rumman Hassan

Methodology
After consulting a range of articles on digital marketing and current technology,
this review comments on attitudes and beliefs that reflect current views on digital
marketing and current technology in business, and particularly in real estate. Digi-
tal marketing concerns business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C)
issues. In real estate the emphasis is on B2C matters, although there will be cases
where a video record is kept of apartment block construction; and ROI can also in-
volve B2B (Leeflang et al., 2014, 1–12). Both B2B and B2C can effectively use digital
marketing tools (Malik, 2017, 715–718).
Mustafi et al. (2011, 16–17) discuss three types of online-offline division in real
estate. Kotler and Armstrong (2008) viewed online marketing as part of the offline
marketing framework. Chaffey and Smith (2017) concluded that real estate compa-
nies have separate online and offline marketing frameworks within a nominal over-
all marketing framework. They also shared a third approach, enabling optimal
integration between online and offline marketing functions. Mustafi et al. (2011,
16–17) adopted the third approach, allowing writers on both online and offline mar-
keting to express their viewpoints.
The methodology used is the selection of published material on topics evident
for understanding digital marketing for real estate. Ullah, Sepasgozar, and Wang
(2018, 3142) use a dynamic approach to real estate to identify the role of “disrup-
tive” new technologies in the real estate business. Their article comments critically
on the term “disruptive” in this context, as we do not know whether any or all tech-
nologies will disrupt the existing market position (Ullah et al., 2018, 3142). Referring
to the 2016 Global Information Technology Report (Baller et al., 2016), they placed
Australia in a global picture of technological use for real estate. Soon after, Ullah
and Sepasgozar (2019) discussed the adoption of IT in real estate management.
Winson-Geideman and Krause (2016, 17–20) investigated the role of big data in real
estate. In 2015, Yasmin and colleagues (2015, 69–80) published a study on the effec-
tiveness of digital marketing.
The references in this section on methodology outline key steps in research for
this article, with a viewpoint expressed in one article balancing viewpoints ex-
pressed in the other articles. The result is not encyclopedic, but reading relevant
documents, following leads, and writing the text of the article has enabled findings
as expressed below.

Literature Review
Marketing is challenged by technological advances resulting from demanding
customer relationships and expansion of the service economy (Rust, 2020, 15–26).
 Chapter 5 Digital Transformation in Real Estate Marketing: A Review 41

Product mix could be expanded to cater to these challenges (Harvey et al., 1996, 1–15),
but the internet, network expansion, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI), the 4
Ps—product, price, promotion, and place (a description of the marketing mix dating
from 1960)—are obsolete (Rust, 2020, 15–26). Social media marketing, with its viral
basis, is “the non-commercial proactive product promotion among peers through
any internet-based social media network” (Rust, 2020, 15–26). “The driving forces
persuading Facebook members, who are also prospective real estate consumers,
to develop favourable attitudes toward any real estate product displayed in their
network” (Shareef et al., 2018, 258–268). They believe that members of a social
network differ in terms of behavior and attitude, from traditional consumers
who are persuaded by traditional advertisements. Five constructs that might mo-
tivate members of social networks, as opposed to more objective attitudes that
might come out of scholarly analysis (Shareef et al., 2018, 258–268) are: hedonic
motivation, self-concept, source derogation, message informality, and experien-
tial message.
Digital marketing technical skills gaps are inadequate evaluation metrics and
technological future proofing (Royle & Laing, 2014, 65–73). They note the problem
that digital marketing in real estate is not fully integrated with established market-
ing practice. Talent gaps, adjusting organizational design and actionable metrics
are important challenges for real estate companies (Leeflang et al., 2014, 1–12).
There exists a lot of complexity in online retail behavior and this helps in deter-
mining the developing structure of retail centers (Alexiou et al., 2018, 97–109). De-
cisions on whether to go online in retail shopping are influenced by demographics,
including age and socioeconomic status, convenience, and accessibility. For exam-
ple, a population cluster of young professionals are more likely to shop online
(Alexiou et al., 2018, 97–109). The multichannel customers, using a mixture of face-
to-face and ICT channels can cross a “line of visibility” that allows them to see into
the organization’s back-office systems (Tate & Johnstone, 2011, 66–98). That sug-
gests that organizations must focus on consistent quality delivery and internal
back-office procedures to maintain customer confidence (Tate & Johnstone, 2011,
66–98).
A list of peer-reviewed articles dealing with digital marketing, digital technolo-
gies, social media marketing, digital technologies in real estate industries, real es-
tate consumer behavior, and consumer attitude toward digital marketing in real
estate industries or any combination of the terminology mentioned earlier, were
identified. An extensive analysis of the literature was performed on various perti-
nent articles from different journals (see Table 5.1), resulting in factors that have
revolutionized real estate marketing industries and the impact of digital technology
on real estate consumer attitude and buying behavior. A summary is presented in
Table 5.1.
42 Fazla Rabby, Ranga Chimhundu, Rumman Hassan

Table 5.1: Summary table, a thorough review and analysis of the literature.

Author(s) and Year Topic Findings Journal

Alalwan, A. A., Rana, Social media in Social media marketing Telematics and
N. P., Dwivedi, Y. K., marketing: A review and has effective influence Informatics
& Algharabat, analysis of the existing on business performance
R. (). literature. and contributes to the
firms’ marketing aims
and strategy.

Ashley, C., & Tuten, Creative strategies in Social media channels Psychology and
T. (). social media marketing: and message appeals Marketing
An exploratory study of customer engagement.
branded social content
and consumer
engagement.

Aytekin, Ç., & Demírlí, The role of social media New online tools, Journal of Marmara
S. M. K. (). in real estate marketing: including social media University Social
A research on the are being developed and Sciences Institute/
transformation of real incorporated into Öneri
estate marketing in business models across
Turkey. the real estate industry.

Boyd, D. E., & Koles, Virtual reality and its Virtual reality and Journal of Business
B. (). impact on BB technology supporting Research
marketing: A value-in- BB marketing.
use perspective.

Christensen, C.M., Disruptive innovation: Disruptive innovation Journal of

McDonald, R., Altman, An intellectual history theory is maximising Management
E. J. and Palmer, and directions for future business performance Studies
J. E. (). research. and eventually surpasses
existing needs.

Flavián, C., Ibáñez- The impact of virtual, The combination of Journal of Business
Sánchez, S., & Orús, augmented and mixed technology-mediated Research
C. (). reality technologies on experiences and current
the customer customer core
experience. experiences results in
integral technology-
enhanced experiences,
which increases the
value provided to
customers.
 Chapter 5 Digital Transformation in Real Estate Marketing: A Review 43

Table 5.1 (continued)

Author(s) and Year Topic Findings Journal

Ganguly, A., Das, N., The role of marketing Disruptive technology International Journal
& Farr, J. V. (). strategies in successful facilitates the creation of Innovation and
disruptive technologies. ofmarketing strategies to Technology
promote them effectively Management
to the target market.

Hutton, J. G. (). Integrated marketing Technological revolution Journal of Business

communications and the has ongoinginfluences Research
evolution of marketing on consumer confidence
thought. but not controlling over
marketing process
including
communication.

Jones, S., & Framing ICT usage in the This study noted that ICT International Journal
Benjamin, Z. (). real estate industry positively influences the of Organizational
real estate industry Design and
through directly affecting Engineering
the performance of
property agents.

Labrecque, L. I., vor Consumer power: Companies should Journal of Interactive

dem Esche, J., Evolution in the digital provide accurate Marketing
Mathwick, C., Novak, age. information in order to
T. P., & Hofacker, build consumer trust and
C. F. (). empowerment in internet
and social media
contexts.

Lamberton, C., & A thematic exploration of New technologies and Journal of Marketing:
Stephen, A. T. (). digital, social media, DSMM (digital, social AMA/MSI Special
and mobile marketing: media, and mobile Issue
Research evolution from marketing)has
 to  and an increasingly highlighted
agenda for future its transformational
inquiry. power in business and
consumer life.

Mahalaxmi, K. R., & A study on impact of Consumers prefer digital International Journal
Ranjith, P. (). digital marketing in marketing to buy product for Innovative
customer purchase but does not support the Research in Science
decision in Trichy customers in a change of & Technology
opinion when purchasing
a product.
44 Fazla Rabby, Ranga Chimhundu, Rumman Hassan

Table 5.1 (continued)

Author(s) and Year Topic Findings Journal

Taffese, W. Z. (). A Survey on Application Information technology rd International

of Artificial Intelligence and application of Conference on
in Real Estate Industry. Artificial Intelligence Artificial Intelligence
effect on the profession, in Engineering &
as well as influence on Technology
the Real Estate Industry.

Ullah, F., Sepasgozar, Systematic review of Technologies needs to be Sustainability

S. M., & Wang, smart real estate transferred to end users,
C. (). technology: Drivers of, or consumers to make
and barriers to, the use better decisions in the
of digital disruptive real estate industry.
technologies and online
platforms.

The Role of the Influencer

The credibility of influencers and para-social interaction both relate positively to

purchase intention (Sokolova & Kefi, 2020). The authors discuss how these factors
relate to social and physical attractiveness, and compatible attitudes, based on four
popular beauty influencers in France (Sokolova & Kefi, 2020). They note that com-
patible attitudes (homophily) relate to para-social interaction but show no evidence
of positive relationships.
Killiann and McManus (2015, 539–549), explained how social media fit into a
firm’s existing marketing communications strategy. They found that managers seg-
regate social platforms into four categories: relationship management, newsgather-
ing, creativity, and entertainment. As social platforms continue to develop in real
estate, niche platforms are emerging. Platforms that were nonexistent two years
ago now have millions of users (Killiann & McManus, 2015, 539–549). Real estate
brand managers need to be adept at recognizing the strengths of different platforms
and using these to further the customer-brand relationship in this very personal
space (Killiann & McManus, 2015, 539–549).
Everyday consumer activities, especially online, are affected by corporate power.
Search algorithms control accessible information, and bloggers and other opinion
leaders influence consumption decisions through recommendations and product
tests distributed across social media (Labrecque et al., 2013, 257–269). The concept of
influence in social media environments as a type of control was studied by Labrecque
et al. (2013, 257–269). These authors explore the intersection of real estate consumer
behavior and digital media by clearly defining consumer power and empowerment
 Chapter 5 Digital Transformation in Real Estate Marketing: A Review 45

via the internet and social media. Real estate consumers can change the way they
browse online if they feel that giving out personal information might give companies
too much power over them. Thus, the rise of the internet and the development of so-
cial media are signs of increased consumer power (Labrecque et al., 2013, 257–269).
In this technologically advanced world, ordinary consumers can access large stores
of information and influence their lives in commercial and other contexts.
Recalling Levitt’s (1960, 24–47) influential article “Business Myopia,” Smith,
Drumright, and Gentile (2010, 4–11) see companies focused on the customer and
ignore other stakeholders. They define customers and their needs narrowly and are
oblivious to decision-making in the broader social context, where there are multiple
stakeholders. The authors put forward a vision for marketing management that will
broaden marketer views and engage multiple stakeholders in the process of value
creation (Smith et al., 2010, 4–11).

The Future of Marketing

The growth of technology will continue to contribute to the theory and practice of
marketing (Lee, 2017, 293–303). Big data represents a new technology paradigm for
high volume, high velocity, and high variety data that can revolutionize real estate
business operation across many industries (Müller et al., 2016, 289–302). At the
same time, the incursion of marketing into a wide range of human activity will give
rise to ethical issues. For example, access to data in social media; using big data;
consumer segmentation; marketing to ethnic groups; and marketing to vulnerable
communities (Kitchin, 2014, 1–41).
Finally, social media and big data will continue to play a substantial part in
digital marketing to consumers, as marketers endeavor to understand consumer
thinking and promote their products and services (Müller et al., 2016, 289–302).
Consumers will not adopt an entirely passive role in this. Rather, consumer reaction
will influence the feasibility of marketing particular products at specific prices (Lee,
2017, 293–303).
Alalwan et al. (2017, 1177–1190) review themes and trends in social media mar-
keting from 144 articles, covering marketing and social media; electronic word of
mouth; CRM; and firm brands and performance. Sources of user information, in-
cluding user trust, perceived marketer credibility and reliability, along with user-
marketer interactivity, are the primary focus of most social media studies (Aytekin &
Demírl Demírli, 2017, 17–36). However, the authors comment that users’ perception
of online marketing activity and their related behavior are difficult to measure accu-
rately (Kitchin, 2014, 1–41). Therefore, factors influencing user reactions to marketing
on social science platforms will remain the focus for future research (Alalwan et al.,
2017, 1177–1190).
46 Fazla Rabby, Ranga Chimhundu, Rumman Hassan

With the popularity of social media, real estate companies can readily and eco-
nomically reach consumers. Big data 2.0 is driven by Web 2.0, which developed
from the web technologies of the 1990s and social media. In doing so, it created a
paradigm shift in organizational collaboration (Alalwan et al., 2017, 1177–1190). Un-
like web analytics, which are mainly used for structured data, social media analyt-
ics analyze social media behavior. Understanding this behavior helps real estate
companies target consumer segments, tailor products and services to consumers,
and develop marketing campaigns (Müller et al., 2016, 289–302).
Lee (2017, 293–303) notes that as long as managers can exploit the data, there
is potential for real estate companies to create new businesses, improve business
operations, and develop new products and services, at the same time as maintain-
ing cost savings and improving product and service quality. Personalized marketing
is possible through analysis of shopper preferences. The challenges, however, are
data quality and data security, and – from a consumer perspective – privacy (Lee,
2017, 293–303).

Big Data Analytics

The creation of data-driven research is engendering paradigm shifts across various

disciplines (Kitchin, 2014, 1–41). Big data is continuously generated, and it produ-
ces massive, dynamic flows of diverse, fine-grained, and relational data. Kitchin
(2014, 1–41) argues that big data challenges existing definitions of knowledge and
social life.
Big data analytics offer a novel and complementary source of data and a meth-
odology for data analysis (Müller et al., 2016, 289–302). However, the skills for data
preparation and the use of analytical tools and criteria for cross-instrumental evalu-
ation are necessary for data mining, machine-learning algorithms, neuro-linguistic
programming techniques, and graphic visualization for the intuitive understanding
of large data sets (Müller et al., 2016, 289–302).
The availability of methodologies impedes our understanding of real estate con-
sumer thinking. However, decision makers must know the rationale behind various
methods for examining and assessing markets from the perspective of consumers
(Alalwan et al., 2017, 1177–1190). Big data raised the stakes in marketing through
greater ability to discriminate among alternative approaches to real estate consum-
ers. Nonetheless, there must be post-positivist insights that complement or overtake
decisions indicated by positivist or big data research (Kitchin, 2014, 1–41). Callahan &
Elliott (1996, 79–114) studied the metaphors of listening and conversation to the search
for proper understanding of the significance of events. They conclude that free narra-
tive is a valuable approach to our everyday understanding and of real-world behavior
as clients are involved in discussions that concern their interests (Callahan & Elliott,
1996, 79–114).
 Chapter 5 Digital Transformation in Real Estate Marketing: A Review 47

Virtual Reality in Marketing

Beginning with science fiction, virtual reality (VR) can take the participant away
from reality into another world where different measures of sensation and time are
valid. VR has shown promise in various fields, including education, science, and
engineering (Flavián et al., 2019, 547–560). In real estate marketing, it can catch
the imagination of a client and convey a convincing message. Documenting the
construction of a building can be a practical use of VR. That is because it is linked
with a subsequent exploration of the significance of the architecture, and the inclu-
sion of stereoscopic elements can form part of augmented reality (Berg & Vance,
2016, 1–17). But the production of thoughtful, impressive VR projects may lie be-
yond the resources of many marketing units. Brooks (1999, 16–27) describes VR as
an encounter where the user is “effectively immersed in a responsive virtual world”
with dynamic control over the viewpoint he or she takes within that world.
VR and mixed reality technology are examples of integrating physical and vir-
tual objects at different levels, so that various devices provide hybrid experiences
within the customer experience landscape (Flavián et al., 2019, 547–560). However,
the boundary between virtual, augmented, and mixed reality technologies has not
been established (Brooks, 1999, 16–27). Flavián et al. (2019, 547–560) propose a
new taxonomy of technologies that integrate technological, psychological, and be-
havioral perspectives, which might add meaning to client experiences with VR.
The use of VR in B2B marketing has not been fully explored. The remaining def-
icits in our knowledge for implementing VR in society affect the post-purchase
stage of the supplier-buyer relationship, especially regarding the level of workload
stress (Boyd & Koles, 2019, 590–598). VR is also used in psychological therapy.
Most research on this subject is related to the phenomenon of presence, and there
is a theoretical consideration of the roles for attention as a mental process, and
models of the virtual space (Boyd & Koles, 2019, 590–598). More needs to be learned
regarding the relation between presence and emotional responses to virtual stimuli,
as research on such responses could play an important role in developing new VR
applications (Schuemie, 2001, 183–201). Yoon and Vargas (2014, 1043–1045) find
that individual behaviors aligned with the predetermined traits of individual ava-
tars in virtual environments could be accentuated with possible antisocial effects.
VR is a set of technologies that enable immersion in a world beyond reality and
engagement in encounters that mimic participants’ interpretation of reality (Berg &
Vance, 2016, 1–17). Despite their emphasis on the inherent complexity of the under-
lying technologies involved in VR, Berg and Vance (2016, 1–17) maintain constant
attention to the value of the experience (Berg & Vance, 2016, 1–17).
48 Fazla Rabby, Ranga Chimhundu, Rumman Hassan

Digital Marketing in Real Estate

The internet is the primary source of information for consumers, and digital market-
ing has allowed the real estate industry to reach the masses (Despinola, 2018). A
study by Bankwest (2018) found that in the last five years, Australian real estate
revenue increased by 5.4 percent to USD 16.3 billion. The daily work of a real estate
agent depends on advertising and the following specific activities. An agency may
use Search Engine Optimization, blogs, keyword research and video marketing; the
agency may also use pay per click search engine marketing (SEM) advertisements,
Google Adwords, social media Adwords with specific hashtags, or paid listings with
real estate aggregators (Benjamin & Benjamin, 2013, 137–148). An agency may use
email marketing, automatic messaging tools – Boost or HomeSpotter, for example.
It may use Instagram for walk-throughs, open house and new listing photos, and
Facebook for Lead Ads, events, testimonials, and industry news (Ullah & Sepasgo-
zar, 2019). It may advertise on leading realty portals to generate verified and quali-
fied leads in Multiple Listing Service (MLS) using an automatic and manual XML
(Extensible Markup Language) system (Ullah et al., 2018, 3142).
Some agencies have found that the ROI in digital marketing in real estate has
attracted real estate customers and associates through digital platforms (Ullah
et al., 2018, 3142). They may find that the language of a marketed property creates
an image for interested buyers and that the content of messages should be person-
alized, relevant, educational, authoritative, and backed by technical knowledge of
marketing (Abelson & Chung, 2005, 265–281). An imaginative agent may initiate a
virtual tour of a property under construction or use augmented reality to satisfy a
client’s interest in a piece of residential real estate.
Digital technology continues to facilitate real estate marketing. To show the
strength of this link, it is worthwhile reflecting on our movement away from routine
advertising and automatic responses to a more thoughtful and imaginative ap-
proach to technology (Ashley & Tuten, 2015, 15–27).

Innovative Technologies

“Innovative technologies” refers to the shift from traditional real estate to “smart real
estate” using smartphone technology, websites and social media-based online plat-
forms, and the need for sustainable, user-centered real estate (Ullah, Sepasgozar, &
Wang, 2018, 3142). They examine the adoption of disruptive technologies or innova-
tions that create a new market with new values which overtake existing markets
(Ullah, Sepasgozar, & Wang, 2018, 3142). The application of technologies showing in
Figure 5.1, such as drones, IoT, clouds, software as a service (SaaS), big data, 3D
scanning, wearable technologies, VR and augmented reality (AR), AI, and robotics
 Chapter 5 Digital Transformation in Real Estate Marketing: A Review 49

should help real estate consumers gather as much information as possible and pre-
vent regret over purchase decisions (Ullah, Sepasgozar, & Wang, 2018, 3142).
Although Australia is technologically advanced, Ullah, Sepasgozar, and Wang
(2018, 3142) rank Australia behind the US and the UK in global technology adop-
tion. The top three countries for technology adoption readiness are Singapore, Fin-
land, and Sweden, respectively (Ullah, Sepasgozar & Wang, 2018, 3142). Among the
139 countries studied, the US ranks the highest on most criteria, followed by the UK
and Australia, showing that the US, the UK, and Australia are leveraged to adopt
and implement the latest technologies and likely to attract investment in online
real estate. Ullah, Sepasgozar and Wang (2018, 3142) see “smart real estate” man-
agement as user-centered and sustainable, utilizing innovative technologies to
achieve holistic benefits.

Innovative Technologies Innovative Technologies in Real Estate

AI
BLOCKCHAIN

BIG DATA

loT

REAL ESTATE
VR

Wearable
Technology
Augmented
3D SCANNING
Reality

Figure 5.1: Innovative technologies in real estate.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has already made its mark in
the real estate industry, changing the nature of real estate agents’ work (Jones &
Benjamin, 2013, 137–148). Social media platforms have also improved client access
to real estate information (Ashley & Tuten, 2015, 15–27). Ullah and Sepasgozar
50 Fazla Rabby, Ranga Chimhundu, Rumman Hassan

(2019) suggest the adoption of new technologies such as 360° cameras for VR or AR
(Ullah & Sepasgozar, 2019).

Disruptive Innovation

In Christensen’s (2018, 1043–1078) “disruptive innovation,” simplicity and accessi-

bility enable a new product or idea to form in a complicated, high-cost market that
eventually redefines the industry (Christensen et al., 2018, 1043–1078). However,
new technologies can have either sustaining or disruptive effects on real estate
companies, depending on the company and its fortunes in real estate marketing
(Christensen et al., 2018, 1043–1078). The concept of disruptive technologies ap-
plies to cases where an innovation occupies a particular niche or proves efficient in
such a way that elements in the industry rely on it to the point where existing mar-
kets are disrupted (Christensen et al., 2018, 1043–1078). New technologies, if not
strategically approached and adequately embedded in the organizational structure,
can erode the competitive position of brands and shrink their marketing edge.

Blockchain and the Internet of Things

The adoption of blockchain is an incremental innovation that can lead to substan-

tial changes in real estate marketing. The gains from this technology may signifi-
cantly reshape existing real estate marketing practices and improve established
business processes. Six propositions suggested by Rejeb et al. (2020, 1–12) provide
starting points for further research to identify enablers and barriers. They believe
that blockchain technology: creates contemporary market structures by fostering
disintermediation, helps combat click fraud, helps reinforce real estate consumers’
trust in brands, enhances privacy protection, empowers digital marketing security,
and can enable creative loyalty programs. Disadvantages of this technology are that
storing transactions is complicated and expensive, and cost and security burdens
may outweigh the value of its marketing applications (Rejeb et al., 2020, 1–12). Fur-
thermore, blockchain technology does not have a suitable governance structure,
maintenance is expensive, and, where a “proof-of-work consensus protocol” is
used, there is high energy consumption (Rejeb et al., 2020, 1–12).
Kibet’s (2019, 327–334) blockchain-based smart contract design aimed to make
transactions shorter, more transparent, and more reliable, particularly regarding tax-
able income, reducing operational costs and obviating the need for middlemen. Now-
inski and Kozma (2017) discuss the possible disruption of existing business models.
Blockchain offers “data security, transparency and integrity, anti-tampering and anti-
forgery, high efficiency, and low cost” (Zhu & Zhou, 2016, 1–11). Thus, it will be useful
 Chapter 5 Digital Transformation in Real Estate Marketing: A Review 51

for data exchange where security is required, and it can work through authenticating
traded goods and disintermediation.
IoT will cause real estate issues, especially if a property is already embedded in
an arrangement or series of arrangements for internet connection. Yeo et al. (2014,
568–571) propose an “IC design in cloud” as a turnkey infrastructure for IoT devel-
opment (Yeo et al., 2014, 568–571). IoT is a complex area where change is inevita-
ble, and so are difficulties. It will benefit infrastructure, transport, industry and
agriculture, and disability and healthcare, at the same time as challenging existing
regulatory frameworks (Yeo et al., 2014, 568–571). Mainwaring (2017, 265–289) uses
“provider network” to denote the different private and public sector actors provid-
ing “eObjects” and the associated system. At the same time, customers can be indi-
viduals, corporate entities, not-for-profit entities, or public agencies (Yeo et al.,
2014, 568–571). Equipment, software, or services may be supplied by different enti-
ties, privately, or publicly. Manufacturers, assemblers, and distributors, as well as
providers of software services and testers, enter the picture from a consumer point
of view (Mainwaring, 2017, 265–289). Mainwaring and Hall (2019) cite evidence that
IoT will be more vulnerable to interference and remote attacks than conventional
connected computers. Harm is likely to emerge when a vulnerability is exploited,
allowing access to controls of cars or industrial safety shutdown systems. Cyber-
crime, privacy, safety, security, and equal treatment are all matters of concern
(Mainwaring & Hall, 2019).
With the exponential growth of network size, blockchain’s decentralized, au-
tonomous capacities could solve some key security challenges associated with the
cloud (Kshetri, 2017, 68–72). Blockchain can verify its information and transactions,
and this can help trace insecurities in supply chains and deal with crises such as
locating security and safety vulnerabilities (Kshetri, 2017, 68–72). However, Fernán-
dez-Caramés and Fraga-Lamas (2018) point to complex technical challenges related
to blockchain and IoT, especially issues of scalability, security, and cryptographic
requirements. Interoperability and standardization in the public interest will re-
quire compromise by all stakeholders. Decentralized ownership and international
jurisdiction are major issues to be solved by research and collaboration with organ-
izations and governments in relation to blockchain and IoT (Fernández-Caramés &
Fraga-Lamas, 2018).
Santoro et al. (2017, 347–354) see “new disruptive technologies” in the context
of IoT as demanding an internal knowledge management capacity coupled with a
capacity for innovation. Amid of the various issues surrounding IoT, Santoro et al.
(2017, 347–354) underline the real estate concern that a client who is put through
an IoT arrangement for their home will need to ensure that the security and effec-
tiveness of the network is guaranteed by all agencies involved.
52 Fazla Rabby, Ranga Chimhundu, Rumman Hassan

Artificial Intelligence

In “Smart Factories,” under the umbrella concept of AI, intelligent robots, tools,
IoT, and big data interact to achieve self-optimizing production (Benotsmane et al.,
2019, 143–163). Fountaine, McCarthy and Saleh in 2019 wrote an article entitled
Building the AI-Powered companies in the Harvard Business Review (Fountaine,
McCarthy, & Saleh, 2019, 62–73). They argue that AI may need patient adaptation to
succeed, but leaders must first understand AI and then motivate the workforce to
change. Rather than being risk-averse, leaders must be experimental and adaptable
(Fountaine, McCarthy, & Saleh, 2019, 62–73). Highlighting worker success with a
new AI tool is one way to inspire other workers. Several initiatives with different
time schedules may be useful: AI-assisted fraud detection, for example, may take
several months, while AI-supported customer service may take years (Benotsmane
et al., 2019, 143–163). A leader should be able to detect and discourage signs of re-
sistance to AI initiatives. As innovation succeeds, a virtuous circle can spread AI
throughout an organization, and individual decision making can flatten organiza-
tional hierarchies (Benotsmane et al., 2019, 143–163). In short, there are advantages
in collaboration between humans and machines (Fountaine, McCarthy, & Saleh,
2019, 62–73).
In response to the Harvard Business Review article, Latshaw (2019, 72–78) as ed-
itor of the Corporate Real Estate Journal points to the enormous flood of data as a
cause of company failure in adapting to AI, and not the technology itself. She ar-
gues that “AI is not about IT or cybersecurity, and corporate real estate (CRE) is not
about real estate” (Latshaw, 2019, 72–78). Rather, AI is about core business strategy
and support of the business; and CRE is in the business of customer service. Lat-
shaw (2019, 72–78) quotes Michael Ford, Microsoft General Manager for Global Real
Estate and Securities, who says that as “a data-driven culture,” Microsoft’s products
and services pervasively utilize technology through “Artificial Intelligence, machine
learning, augmented reality, IoT devices and much more.” Latshaw, (2019, 72–78)
comments that CEOs who may not have Ford’s qualifications can still engage in
data analysis and knowledge management. She notes, CRE already shares in data
analytics aimed at transforming the workplace. Latshaw’s (2019, 72–78) suggestions
for CEOs may be summarized in terms of alertness to changes in priorities and read-
iness to be involved in new business activities (Latshaw, 2019, 72–78).
Taffese (2016) explains that the real estate profession is responding to client de-
mand for faster and more accurate property valuations. The author presents two AI
valuation methods, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Expert System (ES). Both
methods have their advantages and disadvantages and can become a hybrid sys-
tem. GeoInformation Neural System (GINS) integrates a Geographic Information
System (GIS) technique with ANN modeling. ANN system’s reasoning is difficult to
ascertain, and results are often tentative. However, a trend toward the use of AI for
property valuation has already begun (Taffese, 2016).
 Chapter 5 Digital Transformation in Real Estate Marketing: A Review 53

Drones and Wearable Technologies

Drones described as “Paparazzi Aloft” capture images not attainable by a land-based

camera, while “Panoptic Aloft” drones, which are operated by law enforcement agen-
cies and potentially moral minorities within a community can transmit real-time
voice (Clarke, 2014, 286–305). Clarke (2014, 286–305) shares concerns for privacy and
individual rights in industry self-regulation of media, but these do not substantively
contribute to regulating surveillance activities. For a real estate agency, there are ad-
vantages in obtaining drone images of a property, especially in augmented reality.
However, given that community reaction to alleged abuse of the personal right to pri-
vacy would be very counterproductive, courteous deference to residents’ feelings is
advisable.
Wearable wrist displays, wireless headsets, and technical lanyards allow ergo-
nomic interaction in real-time. Przegalinska (2019), looking at the future of wear-
able technologies, considers the role of the smartphone in the business world. She
sees noninvasive, holistic, and assistive devices as even displacing smartphones
and tablets to sit unobtrusively on the person with definite economic value to busi-
ness. One criterion for their future success might be that they enhance the value of
concentration on tasks rather than relegating staff to routine but trivial work (Prze-
galinska, 2019).

Augmented and Virtual Reality; 3D Scanning

Augmented reality (AR) enables access to a space where, through a camera or

video, graphic visualization can increase the perception of reality around the opera-
tor in real-time (Rocha, 2016). AR combines real and virtual imagery; it is interactive
in real-time and takes 3D form (Rocha, 2016). In business terms, augmented reality
is considered any product that adds to a view of reality (van Kleef et al., 2010,
1–36).
With the concepts of AR and WR in mind, real estate circles have turned to avail-
able technologies – and even emerging technologies – that will be able to provide
the content and processing necessary to bring their expectations into forms that ap-
peal to consumers (Rocha, 2016). This is not only to attract sales but also to demon-
strate the broader concern of the industry for proper solutions to problems that arise
in real estate. When an online US survey conducted in 2017 asked respondents about
any the choice of their current home, 51 percent admitted to having regrets (Trulia,
2017). This is not the result that a real estate practitioner wants to hear from clients.
They are not only after gains from advertising and routine real estate tours of proper-
ties; they want to know that they are trusted for sincerity and expertise as they work
on the client’s behalf (Trulia, 2017). Thus, out of a sense of responsibility to the client,
attention to existing and developing resources is justified. Mobile AR advertising can
54 Fazla Rabby, Ranga Chimhundu, Rumman Hassan

also take place in the viewer’s environment, and mixed enhanced reality engages
viewers with local information and instructions (Mathew, 2015). Aslan, Çetin, and Öz-
bilgin (2019, 407–414) projecting hardware, software, and advertising opportunities
to 2022 in the AR market, see giants such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft using aug-
mented reality to boost traditional business and open doors to new markets.
AR and VR are developing technologies, where concepts run ahead of the ac-
tual adequacy of scanning and projection devices. In the case of VR, a practical doc-
umentary will not compare to the masterpieces of science fiction cinema (Rocha,
2016). VR, however, can be valuable in tracing the future development of high-rise
dwellings through the stages of construction, so the client can see the gain from
paying a deposit for an off-the-plan apartment after completion (van Kleef et al.,
2010, 1–36). AR adds a designed 3D model or other sensory elements by a mobile
device to the real-world (Rauschnabel & Ro, 2016, 123–148). Although it is expen-
sive, a deposit can detect flaws in the way ducts and pipes are laid out in office ceil-
ings. Clients can visualize a project without being on-site (Rauschnabel & Ro, 2016,
123–148). Biljecki et al. (2015, 2842–2889) explain that many 3D city models cannot
be listed, not only because of the absence of technical information but because of
fuzzy images, ambiguous terminology, and inadequate 3D environmental informa-
tion. Their descriptive inventory of city models is intended for stakeholders in the
geospatial industry, such as companies and national mapping agencies. This may
serve as a reminder of the potentially broad nature of research supporting the real
estate industry (Biljecki et al., 2015, 2842–2889). Urban planning is another area
which touches on the real estate industry. Urban planning involves consultation
and interaction, where geo-virtual environment visualization could serve as a spa-
tial planning communication tool (Kibria et al., 2008, 379–395).
In stratified urban architecture, database management systems (DBMS) are im-
portant in GIS to ensure the consistency of spatial and alphanumerical data in one
integrated environment (Zlatanova, & Stoter, 2006, 155–180). Wang et al. (2014,
453–476) use building information modeling (BIM) with an AR tool to enhance ar-
chitectural visualization in a building life cycle. The system allows designers to
place a virtual building scheme in a physical environment and provides owners
and real estate agents with an interactive experience (Wang et al., 2014, 453–476).
Felli et al. (2018) introduce 360⁰ cameras and Mobile Laser Measurement systems
that record building data during construction that occupants can use later. This
study uses smart data collection technologies for an innovative field experiment
where 360-degree cameras and mobile laser measurement (MLM) collect data from
a case study building. Buyers were shown 3D videos, models, and visualizations of
construction quality, workmanship, and defects in real-time to increase their pur-
chase confidence (Felli et al., 2018). Poushneh (2018, 169–176) finds that as well as
augmentation quality, customers value being able to control access to their per-
sonal information.
 Chapter 5 Digital Transformation in Real Estate Marketing: A Review 55

Putting augmented or virtual reality applications into practice quickly becomes

a matter of finding and utilizing available technologies. Zlatanova et al. (2002,
71–80) notes that various software can cope with the description of spatial objects,
complex analysis, and 3D visualization. However, more advanced tools to represent
the 3D world are needed, and 3D geographic information system (GIS) warrants
more research. They describe software packages and 3D case studies carried out in
Oracle and MicroStation, 3D GIS research issues in 3D structure, and 3D topology
(Zlatanova et al., 2002, 71–80).
Doctoral research by Kukko (2013) on mobile laser scanning is valuable as a re-
source on the background and potential of such topographical scanning tools. Urey
et al. (2013) explain how the mobile pico-projector equipped with a microelectrome-
chanical (MEMS) scanner can provide a stereoscopic display system with 3D and
interactive AR. In addition, handheld and wearable smart devices enable AR hyper-
media print advertisements which can superimpose virtual hyperlinked 2D images
over traditional print advertisements. Consumer response found this informative
and effective (Yaoyuneyong et al., 2016, 16–30).

A System Dynamic Model for Technology Adoption

Ullah and Sepasgozar (2019) present a system dynamic model for technology adop-
tion based on the quality of the systems, information, and service of real estate
websites and their perceived ease of use. The model was based on a literature review
on real estate management and information systems or websites (Ullah & Sepasgozar,
2019).
The real estate sector comprises 20 percent of the Australian construction in-
dustry, and with its IT orientation tends to a high rate of technological adoption
(Despinola, 2018). Factors such as website perceived-usefulness, user-satisfaction
and behavioral-intention-to-use have been included in a conceptual system dy-
namic model of customer appeal with various constituents derived from published
literature along with suggestions for future improvements (Mahalaxmi & Ranjith,
2016, 332–338). The model may have value for website managers and real estate
agents, suggesting new ideas for clients and incorporation of the latest technologies
in the business. For example, using 360° cameras for photographs, video, and virtual
reality (Ullah & Sepasgozar, 2019). The conceptual model is a growing synthesis of
real estate technology adoption and customer perception, which can be validated
using real-life data from clients and real estate agents (Ullah & Sepasgozar, 2019).
Wofford and Thrall (1997, 177–201) show how familiarity with GIS and other in-
formation technologies influence thinking on real estate issues and assist in real
estate problem-solving. Applying this inductive logic to real estate will probably
56 Fazla Rabby, Ranga Chimhundu, Rumman Hassan

impart professional skills and a definite competence in knowing how and where to
apply the range of technological assets available (Wofford & Thrall, 1997, 177–201).

Findings and Conceptual Model

Digital marketing has motivated the real estate industry to adopt alternative meth-
ods of handling data and new technologies. A mature marketing framework will
allow both offline and online marketing approaches.
Social media has been a strong contributor to data acquisition, but big data is
emerging as dominant.
Information and communications technology (ICT) has already made its mark
in the real estate industry, changing the nature of real estate agents’ work. At the
same time, social media have improved client access to real estate information.
The following technologies are significant in relation to real estate marketing:
drones, IoT, clouds, software as a service (SaaS), big data, 3D scanning, wearable
technologies, VR and AR, AI, and robotics. New technologies can have either sus-
taining or disruptive effects on a firm, depending on the firm and its fortunes in
marketing. Applying these technologies may provide information to real estate con-
sumers that will avoid later regret over a decision to purchase.
Australia trails the US and the UK in global real estate technology adoption but
is included in a picture of technological advance. The real estate sector comprises
20 percent of the Australian construction industry, and with its IT orientation tends
to a high rate of technological adoption.
Australian network readiness is ranked 18 out of the 139 countries surveyed, ac-
cessibility of the latest technologies is ranked at 24, adoption of technology at the
firm level at 22, capacity for innovation based on adoption capabilities at 25, and
B2C successful transfer over internet use is ranked at 25.
Blockchain is likely to be an incremental innovation that can lead to substantial
changes in marketing. It can make transactions shorter, transparent, and more reli-
able. But storing transactions is complicated and expensive, and cost and security
burdens may outweigh the value of its marketing applications.
IoT is likely to raise real estate issues, especially if a property is already embed-
ded in a series of arrangements for internet connection (IC). An IC cloud solution
would have to be considered alongside blockchain. Network security and effective-
ness of the network must be guaranteed by all agencies involved in its operation.
AI is new and complex, and leaders must learn how to operate effectively with
AI in the overall business environment. AI is being tentatively tried in real estate
valuations.
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are developing technologies.
The conceptual model is a growing synthesis of real estate technology adoption and
 Chapter 5 Digital Transformation in Real Estate Marketing: A Review 57

customer perception, which can be validated using real-life data from clients and
real estate agents. VR in B2B marketing will interest consumers, but with the
amount of preparation required, hard work is demanded to achieve quality. VR can
trace the future development of off-the-plan high rise dwellings through all stages
of construction. AR adds a designed 3D model or other sensory elements to the real
world.
The global use of digital technology is growing every day (Çizmeci & Ercan, 2015,
149–161). The adoption of these digital technology enables real estate companies to
connect with a larger consumer base and to create new contacts to establish reliable
relationships. Marketing is the real-time integration of strategy, through a particular
method, having strong objectives using different channels, mechanism, content, and
social media marketing (Lamberton & Stephen, 2016, 146–172). Due to digital technol-
ogy in marketing and the use of digital technologies, businesses need to recognize
consumers’ needs to able to identify the correct digital channels to reach consumers.
We now have the capacity to reach a world audience with a single click within milli-
seconds. The power of this is both exciting and overwhelming.

Conclusion
The rate at which technology changes and the way marketing is regarded in chang-
ing societies is influenced by observation and participation. It is true to say that the
development of marketing has been significantly influenced by the rise of the inter-
net. Nevertheless, technological development is not limited to the internet, and the
functions of technology also need to be assessed against the relative power of mar-
keters and consumers in society, where principles of ethical conduct play a role. No
one can be sure of the future, but a wise observer of historical events and recently
influential factors can see trends that may continue in their present form, change
significantly, or disappear. However, active trends such as social media analytics
and big data analytics are very likely to continue for many years. It is our job to
prepare for these changes, assert the importance of ethical principle, and continu-
ously survey the world around us.
This is not the end of the story. Developments and adjustments will achieve bal-
ance in due course. Big data could flourish in some societies, but in Western socie-
ties, it appears unlikely that centuries-old traditions of scholarship will disappear
for the sake of apparent efficiency in marketing. A final word about this review
chapter might be that wisdom is more than knowledge, but wise action depends on
accurate knowledge. A marketing manager would be well advised to ensure a co-
herent grasp of big data alongside a clear sense of critical realism.
58 Fazla Rabby, Ranga Chimhundu, Rumman Hassan

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Namrata Sandhu, Sandhir Sharma, Dilpreet Singh
Chapter 6
Drivers of Bank Penetration: A Bankers’
Perspective
Introduction
Of late, deep penetration strategy has become crucial to the overall marketing strat-
egy of Indian banks. Bank penetration has become an important component of
mainstream thinking for Indian bankers, and most Indian banks have made head-
line market penetration commitments in the last few years. Indian banks are chas-
ing ambitious targets and adopting a well-resourced approach to achieve market
penetration (Singh & Singh, 2016).
India is the seat of the largest unbanked population in the world (CRISIL, 2015).
Patterns of deposits and loans indicate that deposit and credit penetration in India
are restricted (CRISIL, 2015). In fact, credit penetration in India is the lowest in the
world (Bank for International Settlements, 2016). While regulators view these facts
with concern, banks recognize opportunities in them (Bank for International Settle-
ments, 2016). Banks are reaching out to the unbanked and under-banked with a
bouquet of innovative and attractive offerings (KPMG, 2015).
Due to the recent focus on bank penetration, provision of banking services has
gathered pace in India. Bank penetration in terms of ATM penetration, bank branch
networks, and penetration of plastic money has tremendously improved in the last
few years (Jakki, 2016). During 2015 and 2016 there was a significant increase in dig-
ital bank penetration. Bank account penetration increased from 35 percent in 2011
to 53 percent in 2014. In absolute numbers, this increase translates to 180 million
new account holders (The Indian Express, 2015).
The sheer enormity of the increase in bank penetration in India makes its drivers
an episode worthy of examination. This study adopts an interesting approach and
captures the drivers of bank penetration from the viewpoint of senior bank employees
engaged in the development and execution of strategies. This study categorically
aims to (1) identify the factors that drive bank penetration, and (2) assess the impact
of these factors on bank penetration.
The case of India is particularly suited to the study of drivers of bank penetration
because in the recent past India has experienced significant bank penetration. It might
be the right time to document what motivates Indian banks to pursue this strategy.
The study is also important because despite the increase in bank penetration, India is
still characterized by an overall low level of bank penetration, and a strong latent de-
mand for banking services (CRISIL, 2015; Ernst and Young [EY], 2015). Consequently,
the government and central bank are rigorously seeking deeper penetration of banking

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-006
64 Namrata Sandhu, Sandhir Sharma, Dilpreet Singh

services. Within the context, the results of this study are likely to have consider-
able policy implications. The evidence provided by this study is likely to push the
bank penetration agenda of the policy makers. Lastly, this study also adds to the
developing literature on bank penetration in emerging economies. Bank penetra-
tion in emerging economies has captured the interest of all stakeholders, and liter-
ature is replete with call for further research in this area (Singh, Singh, & Sandhu,
2017a; 2017b). This study answers this call for further research and compliments
and builds upon the already existing evidence.
From a methodological perspective, the study is robust. First, the universe of the
study was carefully defined. Only senior bank employees were approached for data
collection. The intent was to ensure familiarity of respondents with design/imple-
mentation of strategies. Second, substantial rural representation was ensured in the
sample. The problem of nonavailability of banking services is acute in the rural areas
(Kodan, Garg, & Kaidan, 2011; Dupas, Green, Keats, & Robinson, 2012; Karlan, 2014).
The mandates provided by the government call for rural bank penetration. Therefore,
it was considered necessary to include the perspectives of bank employees deputed
with rural bank branches.
The rest of the chapter is structured as follows. The next section elaborates the
related theory and previous research. Subsequent sections describe the methodol-
ogy, data, hypotheses, and results. The article ends with a discussion of the policy
implications and limitations of the study.

Operational Definition and Previous Research

This section presents the related theory and a critical review of the research that
sheds light on the drivers of bank penetration. The operational definition of bank
penetration as relevant to this study is also provided in this section. This section
serves a two-fold purpose. First, it explains and orients the dependent variable of
the study, that is, bank penetration. Second, it helps shortlist the variables that
form the basis of the questionnaire.
Market penetration is the most popular marketing strategy adopted by banks
around the world (Meidan, 1983). Traditionally, bank penetration was recognized
as a growth strategy aimed at increasing the usage rate of bank branches and serv-
ices by acquiring new customers from the existing market, or by bringing in more
business from the existing customers (Meidan, 1983; Varadarajan & Berry, 1983). As
competition in the banking industry reached new heights, more and more banks
sought growth and increase in market share by cross selling to existing customers
(Philp, Haynes, & Helms, 1992). Banks pursued penetration by introducing numer-
ous ancillary products and services. This was viewed as a cost-effective and effi-
cient strategy since access to the segment in question had already been established
 Chapter 6 Drivers of Bank Penetration: A Bankers’ Perspective 65

(Philp et al., 1992). Critics have underscored the flip side of this policy. Though ac-
knowledging the positive association between cross selling and bank growth, schol-
ars fear that a heavy focus on this strategy would place more stress on peripheral
activities rather than the actual purpose of a bank (Howley & Savage, 1980).
The term bank penetration has different connotations in banking literature.
Howley and Savage (1980) suggest that bank penetration also includes transmis-
sion of banking services to the unbanked population. They further indicate that
bank penetration is the percentage of adult population that has a bank account.
Howley and Savage (1980) opine that there are two ways in which growth and prof-
itability can be achieved through bank penetration. The first source is cross selling
to existing customers. The second source is targeting the previously unbanked pop-
ulation and the ignored niches, especially the youth (Howley & Savage, 1980).
Allen et al. (2012) use the term bank penetration to refer to the extent to which the
population of a country has access to banking services. In the recent Indian con-
text, Kumar and Mishra (2011) use the words banking penetration and banking out-
reach interchangeably and measure it as a function of number of deposit and credit
accounts. Singh and Singh (2016) establish an increase in number of account hold-
ers, bank branches, aggregate deposits, and ATMs as the most important measures
of bank penetration. Most policy documents and news articles estimate bank pene-
tration in terms of increase in number of ATMs, debit and credit cards, bank
branches, percentage of households with access to banking services, etc. (Jakki,
2016). In current literature, number of ATMs is accepted as the new proxy for bank
penetration (“Banking Penetration a Major Challenge in India,” 2016). Sharma
(2016) uses two measures to estimate bank penetration: number of deposit and
credit accounts, and demography of bank branches and ATMs. Some literature also
measures bank penetration in terms of geographical expansion of banking services,
especially in the previously unbanked/under banked rural areas (Vinayak, 2017).
The sense in which the term bank penetration is used in recent literature, espe-
cially in the Indian context, indicates that this strategy has characteristics of both
growth and competitive strategies. Indian banks are seeking penetration by infil-
trating virgin markets, opening new accounts, devising alternative low-cost chan-
nels of service delivery, and exhibiting greater efficiency in handling the business
of individual clients (Singh & Singh, 2016). Therefore, the question is: what is bank
penetration? Keeping in mind the way the term is used in current literature; the au-
thor has chosen to define it as expanding the reach and range of banking services.
However, just like every other definition, the precincts of this definition are indis-
tinct. Bank penetration as understood and practiced by Indian banks overlaps with
numerous other marketing strategies.
Many social and economic changes have facilitated bank penetration. First, the
ever-increasing population and integration of the population into the workforce has
steadily increased the demand for banking services (EY, 2015). Second, demand for
banking services has also increased because of a greater willingness to borrow
66 Namrata Sandhu, Sandhir Sharma, Dilpreet Singh

money. Removal of traditional taboos associated with taking loans and a greater
confidence in ability to repay loans has facilitated this change (Howley & Savage,
1980). Third, improved literacy rate and economic affluence have driven bank pene-
tration (Marin & Schwabe, 2013). Fourth, changing perception of risks associated
with banking has proliferated the adoption of the banking habit (Capgemini Con-
sulting, 2017). These demographic and perceptual changes have created new oppor-
tunities for banks. Banks are exploiting these opportunities through geographical
expansion and new customer acquisition (EY, 2015).
Further, innovation in the form of new product development and alternative
channels of delivery has also improved the reach and range of banking services
(EY, 2015). Banks are seeking higher market shares through the development of cus-
tomer-focused new products and partnerships with nonbanks (EY, 2015). Banks are
also extensively leveraging technology to pursue market penetration (Singh et al.,
2017a). Use of technology has helped explore the otherwise expensive new avenues
of growth in a cost-effective manner (Chukumba, Oyewole, & Prabhakar, 2007). In-
terface with technology is the foremost strategic choice that has enabled bank pene-
tration in the inclusive economies (Karlan, 2014). It may be of interest to point out
that while both public and private banks in India are seeking to penetrate new mar-
kets, the strategies that they are using are significantly different. Public sector
banks are seeking new market entry by augmenting the physical infrastructure and
private sector banks are relying more on technology and innovation (Singh et al.,
2017b).
Some research also establishes a link between bank competition and bank pene-
tration (Beck, Demirguc-Kunt, & Maksimovic, 2004; Beck, Demirguc-Kunt, & Martinez
Peria, 2008). Evidence is available that suggests a robust positive correlation between
the two constructs (Marin & Schwabe, 2013). Increase in bank competition causes
banks to deepen the access to banking services. In the words of Marin and Schwabe
(2013, p. 9): “competition affects banks’” decisions to install branches, ATMs, and
POS terminals. These measures impact bank penetration (Marin & Schwabe, 2013).
Extant literature suggests a correlation between bank penetration and inclusive
growth (Sharma, 2016). Bank penetration is recognized as a precondition for social
and economic development (Sandhu & Singh, 2016). Access to formal banking has
the potential to uplift masses by creating economic opportunities that reduce poverty
and promote social equality (Burgess & Pande, 2005; Burgess, Pande, & Wong,
2005). The welfare effects of bank penetration at the individual level include ac-
cess to cheap credit, insulation from financial shocks, and better management of
resources (Burgess, Pande, & Wong, 2005; Arora & Meenu, 2012; Sandhu & Singh,
2016). At the macro level, bank penetration helps reduce the size of the shadow
economy and transfer resources to the deficit units leading to balanced and sus-
tained development (Kumar & Mishra, 2011; Bansal & Behal, 2013; EY, 2015). The
developmental gains of bank penetration explain why it is rigorously pursued as a
policy agenda in a developing economy such as India (Singh & Sandhu, 2016).
 Chapter 6 Drivers of Bank Penetration: A Bankers’ Perspective 67

However, empirical verification is required to assess if this social motive aspires

banks to seek penetration.

Methodology
Details of the methodology used are presented in this section (refer to Figure 6.1).
This section consists of three subsections: questionnaire development, sample, and
respondent demographics.

Figure 6.1: Study methodology Questionnaire development.

Attributes that formed the basis of the research instrument were identified through a
broad review of academic and practitioner literature, as well as interviews conducted
with senior bank officials. In all, eight interviews were conducted. The interviewees
were employed as presidents/vice presidents/assistant vice presidents/zonal mangers/
chief managers with different public and private sector Indian banks. Use of inter-
views is suggested to identify concerns and variables in under-researched and
emerging areas (Rao & Perry, 2003), such as the present area of bank penetration
in an emerging economy.
68 Namrata Sandhu, Sandhir Sharma, Dilpreet Singh

Detailed review of available literature ensured face and content validity of the
questionnaire. The qualitative approach made the questionnaire context specific.
The final questionnaire constituted 26 unduplicated variables anchored on a 5-
point Likert scale. Table 6.1 exhibits the scale items.

Table 6.1: List of study variables.

. Cheap technology solutions

. Profit motive
. Acquire additional volume growth
. Alleviate poverty and financial exclusion
. Increase market share
. Economies of scale
. Social welfare
. Dominant market presence
. Increased demand for banking services
. Improve customer service
. Serve the underserved/unbanked
. Universalize access to banking services
. Distribution channel innovations beyond traditional banking
. Product and service innovations
. Survival concerns in the face of attractive banking terms offered by competitors
. Greater willingness to borrow money
. Equitable distribution of resources
. Increased industry competition
. Self-service banking (internet banking, ATM, mobile banking, etc.)
. Reduced dependence on branch banking
. Increase in employment and personal affluence
. Increase in aggregate savings
. Targets provided by government
. Emerging digital ecosystem
. Regulatory and policy focus
. Increase in literacy rate

Source: Author’s study.

Sample

To ensure rational responses, only senior bank employees engaged in the develop-
ment and/or implementation of strategies were approached for data collection. It
was the author’s understanding that they would be familiar with bank strategies
and ideally suited to provide information on the drives of bank penetration. Fur-
ther, a conscious attempt was made to ensure substantial rural representation in
the sample. This was done to capture the perspectives of the bank employees de-
puted in rural areas where the problem of nonavailability of banking services is
gargantuan.
 Chapter 6 Drivers of Bank Penetration: A Bankers’ Perspective 69

One hundred questionnaires were conveniently distributed to senior employees

of two public sector (State Bank of India, and Punjab and Sind Bank) and two pri-
vate sector banks (HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank) to test the questionnaire. Out of
these 100 questionnaires, only 39 usable were obtained. Based on this pilot survey,
the wordings of two variables used in the questionnaire were changed. Overall, the
questionnaire was found to be error free.
After the pilot survey, 1,250 questionnaires were distributed to senior officials
of various public and private sector Indian banks. The sampling technique used
was convenience sampling. Out of the 1,250 questionnaires distributed, only 493
questionnaires were returned. Thus, the survey had a response rate of 39.44 percent.
The respondents of the study were senior bank employees. It was difficult to ap-
proach them. This explains the low response rate of the survey.
Out of the 493 questionnaires returned, usable questionnaires were identified
with the help of missing value analysis (Little & Rubin, 1987). This treatment recom-
mends exclusion of questionnaires with over 25 percent missing values (Graham,
Hofer, & Mackinnon, 1996). Based on this treatment, 89 data records were excluded
from the data set. The final analysis was conducted based on 404 responses. The
final sample included responses from employees of 34 Indian banks. Of these 34
banks, 22 were public sector banks, and the rest were private sector banks. Details
of the sample, including a bank-wise break up are exhibited in Table 6.2. Designa-
tions of the respondents include president, vice president, assistant vice president,
general manager, deputy general manager, assistant general manager, zonal man-
ger, chief manager, senior manager, etc. It may be noted that employees below
management level were not approached for data collection.
Further, a robust check for nonresponse bias was conducted. Nonresponse bias
is the difference in the responses of the respondents and nonrespondents (Lambert &
Harrington, 1990). The 404 usable questionnaires were divided into two groups.
Group one consisted of questionnaires returned without a reminder (n = 318) and
group two consisted of questionnaires returned after a reminder was sent (n = 86).
Fifteen variables used in the questionnaire were randomly subjected to t-test. No sig-
nificant difference (at 5 percent significance level) across the two groups was found.
It is safe to say that in the present study nonresponse bias is not a matter of concern.

Respondent Demographics

Table 6.3 exhibits the demographics of the respondents. Two variables, that is, gen-
der and age were used to capture respondent demographics. Male respondents con-
stituted 75.50 percent of the sample and the female respondents constituted the
remaining 24.50 percent. The age of the respondents was classified into four catego-
ries: under 30 years, 31–40 years, 41–50 years, and over 51 years. Age categories
were adopted from Sarros, Pirola-Merlo, and Baker (2012). The respondents who
70 Namrata Sandhu, Sandhir Sharma, Dilpreet Singh

Table 6.2: Details of the sample.

Number of questionnaires distributed ,

Number of usable responses after data cleaning 
Number of usable responses from officials employed with public sector banks 
Number of usable responses from officials employed with private sector banks 
Number of usable responses from officials deputed with rural bank branches 
Number of usable responses from officials deputed with semi-urban bank 
branches
Number of usable responses from officials deputed with urban and 
metropolitan bank branches

Bank-Wise Details of Sample

Bank Name Number of

Responses

Public Sector Banks

Allahabad Bank 
Andhra Bank 
Bank of Baroda 
Bank of India 
Bank of Maharashtra 
Canara Bank 
Central Bank of India 
Corporation Bank 
IDBI Bank 
Indian Bank 
Indian Overseas Bank 
Oriental Bank of Commerce 
Punjab and Sind Bank 
Punjab National Bank 
State Bank of India✶ 
State Bank of Hyderabad✶ 
State Bank of Patiala✶ 
Syndicate Bank 
UCO Bank 
Union Bank of India 
United Bank of India 
Vijaya Bank 

Private Sector Banks

Axis Bank 
City Union Bank 
Federal Bank 
HDFC Bank 
ICICI Bank 
IndusInd Bank 
ING Vysya Bank ✶✶
J and K Bank 
 Chapter 6 Drivers of Bank Penetration: A Bankers’ Perspective 71

Table 6.2 (continued)

Karnataka Bank 
Kotak Mahindra Bank ✶✶
South Indian Bank 
Yes Bank 

Notes:
✶
The State Bank of Hyderabad and the State Bank of Patiala have now merged with the State Bank
of India.
✶✶
The ING Vysya Bank has now merged with the Kotak Mahindra Bank.
Source: Author’s study.

were under 30 years of age made up 27.48 percent, 21.78 percent were between 31
and 40 years of age, 14.11 percent were between 41 and 50 years of age, and those
over 51 years of age made up 36.63 percent of the respondents.

Table 6.3: Respondent demographics.

Variable Classification of variable Frequency Percentage (percent)

Gender Male  .

Female  .

Age Under  years  .

– years  .

– years  .

Over  years  .

Source: Author’s study.

Data Analysis
This section is divided into three sections: data reduction, model development and
model test.

Data Reduction

The collected data were reduced with the help of factor analysis. This was done
with a view to extract fewer variables out of the initial 26 variables used in the ques-
tionnaire. The aim was to subject the fewer extracted variables to further treatment.
Before proceeding with factor analysis, it was assessed if it was appropriate to
use the technique in the present case. For this, the Kaiser Meyer Oklin (KMO) and
72 Namrata Sandhu, Sandhir Sharma, Dilpreet Singh

Bartlett’s test, and the correlation matrix were used. The results of the KMO and Bar-
tlett’s test are displayed in Table 6.4. This test assesses the suitability of data for
structure detection. KMO is a measure of sampling adequacy for each separate vari-
able and the overall data (Dziuban & Shirkey, 1974). A cut-off value of 0.5 is recom-
mended (Yong & Pearce, 2013). In the present case the value of KMO is 0.849. This
implies good partial correlation in the data and suggests that reliable factors can be
extracted (Che et al., 2013). The Bartlett’s test of sphericity assesses the presence of
correlations among variables (Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Tatham, 2006). Suffi-
cient correlation between variables ensures that representative factors can be pro-
duced from the data (Hair et al., 2006). As can be seen from Table 6.4, the Bartlett’s
test of sphericity is significant (p = 0.000). Therefore, patterned relationships exist in
the data that make it suitable for subjection to factor analysis (Yong & Pearce, 2013).
Further, the correlation matrix is exhibited in Table 6.5. The correlation matrix re-
veals sufficient correlations between variables to proceed with factor analysis.

Table 6.4: KMO and Bartlett’s test.

Kaiser Meyer Oklin measure of sampling adequacy .


Bartlett’s test of sphericity Approx. χ .

df 

Sig. .

Source: Author’s study.

After ensuring factorability of the data, it was subjected to factor analysis. Principal
component method with Varimax rotation was employed. Factors with eigen values
over 1.0 and variables which distinctly loaded on a particular factor with loadings over
0.5 were retained (Malhotra, 2008). At this stage, three variables were dropped since
they did not qualify this criterion. In all, seven factors accounting for a cumulative vari-
ance of 70.95 percent were extracted. Factors were named based on the variables
loaded on them. Care was taken to ensure nomological validity. The results of factor
analysis are exhibited in Table 6.6. For rotated component matrix refer to Annexure 1.
Cronbach’s coefficient α was used to establish the reliability of the factors. A cut-
off value of 0.7 is recommended (Cronbach, 1951; Nunnally & Bernstein, 1967). In the
present case, this value worked out to 0.812. This value establishes adequate reliability
of the factors.
Output of factor analysis reveals that the most important factor that drives bank
penetration is supply side innovations, followed by growth and profit objective, so-
cial responsibility, competition, demographic dividend, regulatory mandates, and
cost-effective solutions. These seven factors are subjected to further analysis in the
next sub-section.
Table 6.5: Correlation matrix.

V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V

V 
V .✶✶ 
V .✶✶ .✶✶ 
V .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
V .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
V .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
V .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
V .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
V .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
V .✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
V –. –. –. –. –.✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
V –.✶✶ –.✶✶ –.✶✶ . –.✶✶ –. . –.✶✶ –. .✶✶ .✶✶ 
V . . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶ . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
V . .✶✶ –. .✶✶ . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
V . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
V .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ –.✶✶ –.✶✶ –. . .✶✶
V . –. .✶✶ . . . .✶ . . . .✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶
V .✶ . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶ .✶ . .✶ . .✶✶ . .✶✶
V .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ . –.✶ –. .✶✶ . .✶✶
V . .✶✶ .✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ . –. . .✶✶ .
V –. –. –.✶✶ –.✶ –.✶ –. . . –.✶✶ . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶
V .✶✶ . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ . . . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶ .✶✶
V . –. –.✶✶ –. –.✶✶ –.✶✶ –.✶✶ –.✶✶ –.✶✶ . . .✶✶ .✶ .✶✶ .
V . . –. . –. –. –. –. –.✶ .✶ . .✶ . .✶✶ –.
V . .✶ .✶ . .✶✶ . . .✶ –. –. –.✶ –.✶✶ . –. –.
V –. –.✶✶ –.✶✶ –.✶ –.✶✶ –.✶✶ –.✶✶ –.✶ –.✶✶ –. . . –. . –.
Chapter 6 Drivers of Bank Penetration: A Bankers’ Perspective

(continued)
73
Table 6.5 (continued)
74

V V V V V V V V V V V


Namrata Sandhu, Sandhir Sharma, Dilpreet Singh

.✶✶ 
.✶✶ .✶✶ 
.✶✶ .✶ .✶ 
.✶ –. . .✶✶ 
–. .✶ . .✶ .✶✶ 
.✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ . .✶✶ 
–. . –. –. . .✶✶ –. 
. . –. . .✶✶ .✶✶ . .✶✶ 
. –. –. .✶✶ .✶✶ . . .✶✶ .✶✶ 
–.✶✶ –. –. –. . .✶✶ –. .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 

Notes:
✶
Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level;
✶✶
Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level.
 Chapter 6 Drivers of Bank Penetration: A Bankers’ Perspective 75

Table 6.6: Factor analysis: Drivers of bank penetration.

Factor Eigen Cumulative Variables Loadings

value variance
( percent)

Factor : . . Self-service banking (internet banking, ATM, .

Supply side mobile banking, etc.)
innovations
Emerging digital ecosystem .

Distribution channel innovations beyond .

traditional banking

Product and service innovations .

Reduced dependence on branch banking .

Factor : . . Increase market share .

Growth and profit
Acquire additional volume growth .
objective
Profit motive .

Dominant market presence .

Factor : Social . . Universalize access to banking services .

responsibility
Serve the underserved/unbanked .

Alleviate poverty and social exclusion .

Social welfare .

Factor : . . Improve customer service .

Competition
Survival concerns in the face of attractive .
banking terms offered by competitors

Increased industry competition .

Factor : . . Increase in employment and personal .

Demographic affluence
dividend
Increased demand for banking services .

Increase in aggregate savings .

Factor : . . Regulatory and policy focus .

Regulatory
Targets provided by government .
mandates

Factor : Cost . . Cheap technology solutions .

effective solutions
Economies of scale .

Source: Author’s study.

76 Namrata Sandhu, Sandhir Sharma, Dilpreet Singh

Model Development

A multivariate regression model was developed to assess the impact of the seven fac-
tors extracted from factor analysis on bank penetration. The seven variables extracted
from factor analysis, that is, supply side innovations, growth and profit objective, so-
cial responsibility, competition, demographic dividend, regulatory mandates, and
cost-effective solutions were assumed to be the independent predictors and bank
penetration was assumed to be the dependent variable. To arrive at factor scores, the
scores of all the variables loaded on particular factors were averaged (Comrey & Lee,
1992; DiStefano, Zhu, & Mindrila, 2009). For model development refer to Table 6.7.
Presuming that the seven independent predictors impacted bank penetration, the set
of hypotheses exhibited in Table 6.8 were proposed.

Table 6.7: Model development.

Dependent variable Bank penetration

Independent variables Supply side innovations, growth and profit objective,

social responsibility, competition, demographic dividend,
regulatory mandates, and cost-effective solutions

Y = a + β1X1 + β2X2 + β3X3 + β4X4 + β5X5 + β6X6 + β7X7, where . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Equation 1)
Y = the dependent variable (bank penetration),
X1 to X7 = the seven independent variables extracted from factor analysis (supply side innovations,
growth and profit objective, social responsibility, competition, demographic dividend, regulatory
mandates, and cost-effective solutions),
a = the constant, and
β1 to β7 = slope coefficients
Source: Author’s study

Table 6.8: Hypotheses.

Null hypotheses Alternate hypotheses

H: There is no significant impact of supply side H: There is a significant impact of supply side
innovations on bank penetration. innovations on bank penetration.

H: There is no significant impact of growth and H: There is a significant impact of growth and
profit objective on bank penetration. profit objective on bank penetration.

H: There is no significant impact of social H: There is a significant impact of social
responsibility on bank penetration. responsibility on bank penetration.

H: There is no significant impact of competition H: There is a significant impact of competition
on bank penetration. on bank penetration.
 Chapter 6 Drivers of Bank Penetration: A Bankers’ Perspective 77

Table 6.8 (continued)

Null hypotheses Alternate hypotheses

H: There is no significant impact of H: There is a significant impact of demographic

demographic dividend on bank penetration. dividend on bank penetration.

H: There is no significant impact of regulatory H: There is a significant impact of regulatory
mandates on bank penetration. mandates on bank penetration.

H: There is no significant impact of cost- H: There is a significant impact of cost-
effective solutions on bank penetration. effective solutions on bank penetration.

Source: Author’s study.

Model Test

Multiple regression analysis was used to test the developed model. Before the appli-
cation of this technique, the appropriateness of its use in the present case was estab-
lished. First, normal distribution of variables was ensured with the help of normal
probability plot of regression standardized residual. Second, absence of multicolli-
nearity among the predictor variables was established with the help of correlation
matrix and by examining the values of the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) of predictor
variables. Multicollinearity is a situation in which the correlation between the in-
dependent variables is high enough to reduce the accuracy of regression analysis.
If the pair-wise correlations between different pairs of predictor variables are
greater than 0.75, or VIFs of variables exceed 10, then multicollinearity maybe a
matter of concern (Kishton & Widaman, 1994; Gujarati, 2008). In the present case,
the pair-wise correlation coefficients are less than 0.75 in all cases (refer to Table 6.9).
Also, VIFs in case each are less than 10 (refer to Table 6.10). This provides evidence
of discriminant validity and suggests absence of multicollinearity in the data. Third,
the assumption of independent errors or autocorrelation was tested with the help
of the Durbin-Watson statistic. A value of close to 2 is recommended (Gujarati, 2008).
In the present case, the value of the Durbin-Watson statistic is 1.772. This value indi-
cates that the assumption is almost satisfied. All the above diagnostics suggest that
the model is valid and reliable, and the use of regression analysis is appropriate in
the present case.
The output of regression analysis is displayed in Tables 6.10–6.12. As can be
seen from Table 6.12, the overall model is significant (F = 99.175; p = 0.000). This
establishes a significant correlation between the dependent variable and the inde-
pendent variables. The value of R2 shows that the independent variables explain
63.7 percent of the variation in the dependent variable. Table 6.10 shows that the
coefficients of six factors, that is, supply side innovations, growth and profit objec-
tive, competition, demographic dividend, regulatory mandates, and cost-effective
78 Namrata Sandhu, Sandhir Sharma, Dilpreet Singh

solutions are positive and significant at 95 percent confidence level. As such, H01,
H02, H04, H05, H06, and H07 are rejected. The coefficient of the third factor, social
responsibility, is not significant. As such H03 is accepted. Based on this analysis
equation 1 takes the shape of equation 2.
It may be of interest to note that an examination of the standardized βvalues of
the six significant factors suggests that at the absolute level, demographic dividend
has the maximum impact on bank penetration. In the hierarchy of impact, demo-
graphic dividend is followed by competition, supply side innovations, regulatory
mandates, growth and profit objective, and cost-effective solutions.

Table 6.9: Pearson’s correlation.

F F F F F F F Y

F 
F .✶✶ 
F .✶ . 
F .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶ 
F –. .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
F .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
F .✶✶ .✶✶ . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 
Y –.✶ . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ 

Notes:
✶
Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level;
✶✶
Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level.
Source: Author’s study.

Table 6.10: Results of multiple regression analysis.

Factors Unstandardized Standardized t Significance VIF

coefficients coefficients (p value)

B SE β

Supply side innovations . . . . .✶ .

Growth and profit objective . . . . .✶ .

Social responsibility –. . –. –. . .

Competition . . . . .✶ .

Demographic dividend . . . . .✶ .

Regulatory mandates . . . . .✶ .

Cost effective solutions . . . . .✶ .

Notes: ✶Significant at 5 percent level of significance; intercept (constant) = 0.595; R2=0.637;

adjusted R2=0.630.
Source: Author’s study.
 Chapter 6 Drivers of Bank Penetration: A Bankers’ Perspective 79

Table 6.11: Model summary.

Model R Adjusted R SE of the estimate

 . . .

Source: Author’s study

Table 6.12: ANOVA for regression.

Sources of variation Sum of squares df Mean square F Significance

Regression .  . . .

Residual .  .

Total . 

Source: Author’s study.

Y = a + β1X1 + β2X2 + β4X4 + β5X5 + β6X6 + β7X7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(equation 2)
Y = 0.595 + 0.338 + 0.219 + 0.409 + 0.553 + 0.250 + 0.142, where
Y = bank penetration,
a = the constant,
X1 = supply side innovations
X2 = growth and profit objective
X4 = competition
X5 = demographic dividend
X6 = regulatory mandates, and
X7 = cost effective solutions

Each of the six significant factors is discussed separately in the following part of
this subsection.

Factor 1 – Supply Side Innovations

Many supply side innovations such as technology enabled service delivery; digital
withdrawals, transfers, and payments; distribution partnerships; and customer
driven products facilitate bank penetration. All these innovations leverage the po-
tential of digital channels. Fortunately, data on many macroeconomic variables
such as growth rate of e-commerce, penetration of the internet, adoption of mobile
phones etc. indicate that the prerequisites for digital bank penetration are in place
in India (KPMG, 2015). As such banks are rolling out digital offerings and reducing
reliance on physical contact with customers. The promise held by digital channels
80 Namrata Sandhu, Sandhir Sharma, Dilpreet Singh

has made self-service banking popular in India and positively impacted bank pene-
tration (PwC, 2012). Enforcing the other measures of digital bank penetration as out-
lined in the “Digital India” campaign of the Government of India can further
increase bank penetration. India may also take cues from other supply side innova-
tions such as use of next gen technologies, biometric apps, image-based banking
etc. that have internationally facilitated bank penetration.

Factor 2 – Growth and Profit Objective

The objectives of growth and profitability encourage banks to adopt market pene-
tration strategy. This finding is in synchronization with existing literature. Available
banking literature suggests that the revolutionary changes witnessed by the bank-
ing industry have forced banks to identify profitability and growth as strategic ob-
jectives (Carey, 1989; Singh & Sandhu, 2016), and market penetration is the most
frequent response to these strategic objectives (Meidan, 1983). In the advanced
countries growth through a penetration strategy has proven to be a profitable strat-
egy (Philp et al., 1992). Banks commonly use this strategy to increase and sustain
high growth rates in competitive markets (Philp et al., 1992).

Factor 3 – Competition

Competitive pressures drive bank penetration. An increase in the number of banks

in the market causes the profit of individual banks to decline (Marin & Schwabe,
2013). The ever-increasing number of players in the Indian banking industry is
squeezing the profits of individual banks. Banks are seeking fresh avenues of
growth through market penetration. This study replicates the work of previous re-
searchers in the Indian context and confirms the previously established positive
correlation between bank competition and bank penetration (Beck et al., 2004;
Beck et al., 2008; Marin & Schwabe, 2013).

Factor 4 – Demographic Dividend

Demand side changes are a significant driver of bank penetration. As more and
more people get integrated into the workforce, economic affluence and savings rise.
These macroeconomic changes increase the demand for banking services. Banks re-
spond by penetrating previously unbanked and under-banked demographic niches
and geographical territories (EY, 2015). Banks are continually reorienting them-
selves to the new customers and developing specialized products to cater to their
specific needs.
 Chapter 6 Drivers of Bank Penetration: A Bankers’ Perspective 81

Factor 5 – Regulatory Mandates

Bank literature documents government participation and regulation as a crucial co-

variant of bank penetration (Marin & Schwabe, 2013). The evidence provided by the
current study also suggests the same.
In India, bank penetration is pursued as a policy agenda. Under the grandiose
Prime Minister’s People’s Wealth Program, the government has envisaged 100 percent
bank penetration. The government has created a regulatory and policy framework
that facilitates bank penetration. Some of the recent initiatives of the government
that deserve a mention in this context are increasing the number of rural bank
branches, reducing the cost and documentary complications associated with opening
accounts, introduction of the no frills account, payments banks, financial literacy
campaigns, etc. All these initiatives along with the ambitious targets provided by the
government to the banks are driving bank penetration.

Factor 6 – Cost Effective Solutions

Earlier banks considered market penetration as a high-cost strategy. Seeking bank

penetration with the help of traditional banking models made this strategy uneco-
nomical and hence financially unviable. However, technology solutions have substi-
tuted the need for physical infrastructure and the cost of bank penetration has
reduced significantly (KPMG, 2015). As the cost of availing banking services reduces
dramatically, banks respond by significantly increasing their penetration rates, espe-
cially in emerging economies such as India (EY, 2015).
The reduced cost of bank penetration not only helps drive bank penetration,
but also provides a competitive advantage to banks. There exists an inverse correla-
tion between the extent of market penetration and the cost of delivering services
(Meyer & Tran, 2006). Bank penetration helps achieve economies of scale, reduces
cost of service delivery, and provides an edge over the competition.

Discussion
This study captured the drivers of bank penetration from the perspective of bank
employees. The study found seven factors that impact bank penetration: supply
side innovations, growth and profit objective, social responsibility, competition, de-
mographic dividend, regulatory mandates, and cost-effective solutions. In the over-
all model, all these factors except social responsibility were statistically significant
at a 95 percent confidence level. Figure 6.2 exhibits the findings of the study.
82 Namrata Sandhu, Sandhir Sharma, Dilpreet Singh

Standardised Regression Beta Values

Supply side innovations = 0.264
Growth and profit objective = 0.184
Supply side Competition = 0.353
Demographic dividend = 0.484
innovations Regulatory mandates = 0.193
Cost effective solutions = 0.108

Cost effective Growth and

solutions profit objective

Bank
penetration

Regulatory
Competition
mandates

Demographic
dividend

Figure 6.2: Proposed model: Drivers of bank penetration.

Though not specifically documented as drivers of bank penetration, previous

literature recognizes a link between each of the above six significant factors and
bank penetration (Howley & Savage, 1980; Meidan, 1983; Beck et al., 2004; Beck
et al., 2008; PwC, 2012; Marin & Schwabe, 2013; EY, 2015). Therefore, it can be said
that in its essence this study is a confirmatory study, and its value lies in its ability
to document different drivers of bank penetration in the same study. Further, as in-
dicated by the regression (β) weights, this study also depicts the relative impact of
each significant factor on bank penetration. This qualifies as another contribution
of the current study.
The findings of this study have definite policy implications. From a policy view-
point, four things are relevant. First, growth and profit motive are a significant driver
of bank penetration. Growth opportunities are typically concentrated in developed
districts (Allen et al., 2012). Demand for banking services, another significant driver
of bank penetration is also the highest in these districts (Allen et al., 2012). Therefore,
banks are likely to deepen their penetration in developed geographical pockets, de-
feating the government’s agenda of providing banking services to the rural under-
served/unbanked population of the country. On the other hand, if under-regulatory
mandates (another significant driver of bank penetration), banks do penetrate rural
markets/districts will poor growth potential; it is likely to harm their commercial
interests. Considering the continuously deteriorating asset quality, liquidity, and
 Chapter 6 Drivers of Bank Penetration: A Bankers’ Perspective 83

profitability of Indian banks (Pattnaik & Rattanani, 2017), the government needs
to proceed with caution and rethink its lack of focus on growth of banks (Pattnaik &
Rattanani, 2017). Second, regulatory mandates significantly impact bank penetration.
With the regulatory focus on bank penetration, India has witnessed a surge in bank
account penetration. However, it is estimated that over 40 percent of the new ac-
counts opened are dormant (The Indian Express, 2015). This indicates that Indian
banks are not making genuine efforts at market penetration; rather they are just chas-
ing numbers to fulfill regulatory requirements. Experts believe that the objective
of any bank penetration program is to ensure availability of formal banking to all
(Karlan, 2014). However, the fear is that government policies aimed at bank penetra-
tion in India are misdirected and trying to generate demand for banking services
through incentives. Once these incentives are withdrawn, banking may not offer any
convenience to the poor population of the country. Thus, the current penetration
strategies of the government may not be sustainable in the long run. This is another
policy area that needs a rethink. Third, bank competition and bank penetration are
positively correlated. Therefore, it is important to institute policies that directly ad-
dress competition in the banking industry. Evidence is available that suggests that
such policies tend to be cheap, easy to deploy, and show quick results (Marin &
Schwabe, 2013). Use of bank correspondents and mobile banking are particularly ef-
fective in increasing competition in the banking industry (Marin & Schwabe, 2013).
While both these channels are used to deliver banking services in India, their impact
is limited because of restricted competition in these channels. Market-based policies
that address these alternate channels of service delivery and favor new technologies
can reduce barriers to entry and foster competition (Assuncao, 2013). Such policies
can become an important tool in the government’s quest for bank penetration.
Fourth, in the recent past many researchers have attempted to examine the link be-
tween social responsibility and provision of banking services in India (Mukherjee,
2012; Dhingra & Mittal, 2014; Pushpam et al., 2015). The research undertaken by
these researchers suggests that in the Indian banking industry, the expenditure head
of CSR is unregulated (Mukherjee, 2012). CSR expenditures by banks are driven by
the vested marketing interests of banks (Mukherjee, 2012) and do not significantly
contribute toward government’s agenda of bank penetration (Dhingra & Mittal,
2014). Past researchers have emphasized the need for government participation in
this space (Mukherjee, 2012). The current study also did not find a significant link
between social responsibility and bank penetration. Planned participation of the gov-
ernment through policies that address social responsibility of banks may encourage
banks to seek market penetration as a social agenda.
The study suffers from some limitations. First, by exhibiting only within coun-
try evidence, the possibility of cross-country comparisons is forfeited. The structure
and nature of emerging economies is very different from the advanced economies.
There is considerable difference in the extent of bank penetration, policy and regu-
latory environment, and opportunities for further bank penetration offered by
84 Namrata Sandhu, Sandhir Sharma, Dilpreet Singh

emerging and advanced economies (EY, 2015). Hence, the results of this study may
not be entirely generalizable in the context of advanced economies. Second, the
data for the study was primarily collected from Northern Indian states: Punjab, Hi-
machal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, and the union territory of
Chandigarh. Therefore, the data sample was not nationally representative. Third,
this study suffers from all the inherent drawbacks of convenience sampling. None-
theless, this study has definite policy implications and can help push the govern-
ment’s agenda of bank penetration.
Many issues remain unaddressed and provide scope for future research. Future
researchers may examine the difference in the drivers of bank penetration for public
and private sector banks. From a policy perspective, they may also examine how
specific drivers of bank penetration can be activated to further bank penetration.

Annexure 1: Rotated Component Matrix.

Component
      

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V

V

V .
 Chapter 6 Drivers of Bank Penetration: A Bankers’ Perspective 85

Annexure 1 (continued)

Component
      

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V .

V

Source: Data Analysis using SPSS.

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R. Dhaya, R. Kanthavel
Chapter 7
Elaborative Perceptions on Big Data
and Social Media Analytics
Introduction
Amid the development of the internet, social media have turned out to be part of the
life of people. These platforms have not only been used by persons to join with other
persons but also by businesses to arrive at their viewers. The explosion in big data cre-
ates an impact in both marketing and social media that has the pre-knowledge of what
customers are fond of and contributes in setting up their promotion accordingly. The
utilization of big data effectively creates a positive impact on social media by offering a
quick assessment in the form of identifying the latest developments in the sector and
facilitating marketers to take a sharp speedy decision to identify the likable brands of
customers and the best platforms to reach them first. Secondly, through the personali-
zation concept toward customers, the requirements of the customers can be fulfilled by
sharing and caring through social media with the help of big data. Thirdly, being
aware of the potential tendency and actions of customers for social advertisement de-
velopment that might go beyond customer prospects. Fourthly, the investigation of big
data helps marketers to follow the efficiency of their social media operation before,
through and, later than their commencement. Lastly, big data studies can help market-
ers in understanding the strategies to adapt quickly by the experience that they gain
from the immediate past. Hence, with the effective utilization of big data along in social
media by proper analysis, marketers can have enhanced value their online group of
people and envisage their activities to deliver personalized businesses as well as rap-
idly resolve every subject.
On the other hand, big data plays a vital role in productively administrating so-
cial media advertising operations. Because social media platforms have been pres-
ent throughout our existence, the quantity of information substituted crossways
has sharply increased. The simple communication and understanding terms are
like preference, track, share, and pin that has been used in social media with the
help of big data analysis by structured and unstructured data. The mood of social
media users should be categorized based on their interest in the sectors, brands,
styles, and characteristics to make intelligent decisions as quickly as possible with
accuracy.
Big data can be described as enormous and difficult data sets, impractical or
tough to hold with typical data tools. One of the necessary characteristics of big
data initiated from social media is real-time calculations and decision-making by
examining an extensive perception of happenings at present and past with the

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-007
90 R. Dhaya, R. Kanthavel

parameters for quantitative, qualitative, and exploratory data. The two types of
data that social media platforms need to collect are structured and unstructured for
human to machine and machine to machine. Therefore, the volume of data allows
the description of numerous classes, standards, and the refinement of examination
divisions and subdivisions. Next, data formats differ from text credentials, charts to
record statistics, acoustic facts, and more, which boosts the data analysis to a supe-
rior complication stage; therefore, it gets hold of practicable data.
Speed is a factor in tendency and real-life occurrence investigation; by analyz-
ing the distribution velocity of a positive data set, one can extract the possible flow
of the data as it occurs in an exact social collection in a distinct region. Finally, the
data velocity should be able to assess the straightforwardness, precision, and truth-
fulness of the data or veracity. As the need of big data analysis is required for the
effective utilization of social media in various angles, this chapter is divided into
six major sections that include the need for big data in social media, social media
tools, structured and unstructured data management, impacts on social media cum
analysis on big data in social media, the challenge of working with big data, and
the benefits leveraging big data for social media.

Literature Survey
The preliminary studies from the previous papers on big data analytics, models,
problems, and challenges in social analytics environments are displayed in this
section.
Ghani et al. (2019) evaluated the quality attributes of various big data analytics
techniques. Furthermore, we illustrate the state-of-the-art approaches, processes,
and quality features of different studies to include a discussion on the applications
of social media big data analytics. There are also open research challenges in big
data analytics mentioned. Sebei et al. (2018) conducted a survey to assist interested
researchers in identifying problems faced during the study phase, as well as big
data solutions. A literature review was conducted to discuss the challenges of inte-
grating big data technology, as well as some appropriate solutions.
Sivarajah et al. (2020) reviewed the research results, which are useful for re-
searchers and managers who want to better understand and improve the business
usage of participatory web resources to achieve business sustainability. As a result,
this could be called a unique approach to achieving sustainability. Paul et al. (2017)
addressed the model, theme, performance assessment, benefits, and drawbacks of
using social media data for big data analytics. The challenges and opportunities in
big data visualization were described by Agrawal et al. (2015), who also reviewed
some existing approaches and visualization tools. Belcastro et al. (2019) suggested
the amount of research and findings in the field of big data analysis, which is
 Chapter 7 Elaborative Perceptions on Big Data and Social Media Analytics 91

increasing all the time, and new and powerful architectures, programming models,
frameworks, and data mining algorithms are constantly being developed.
Bothos et al. (2010) developed the agent-based framework that can utilize user-
generated content from social media to collect user sentiments and assessments,
which in turn can be used to make informed market transactions. The state of the
art in social media analytics and intelligence research that has direct relevance to
the AI subfield from either a methodological or domain perspective was summa-
rized by Zeng et al. (2010). Big data analytics techniques, processing methods,
some published case studies from various vendors, some open research challenges,
and the opportunities brought about by big data were addressed by Yaqoob et al.
(2016). Wu et al. (2016) provided a comprehensive survey to describe this fast-
growing field and summarize the state-of-the-art techniques for analyzing social
media data, as well as a comprehensive survey to obtain a comprehensive picture
of the area, recognize research challenges, and develop new techniques. Strohbach
et al. (2016) gave a succinct overview of big data storage systems that can handle
high velocity, high volume, and a high variety of data.
Vatrapu et al. (2016) proposed social set analysis as a new approach to big data
analytics. A generative framework for quantitative social science philosophies, the
theory of social data, conceptual and formal models of social data, and an empirical
framework for integrating large social data sets with organizational and societal
data sets make up social set analysis. Hu et al. (2014) published a literature review
and framework tutorial for big data analytics systems to provide a broad overview
for nonexpert readers and inspire experienced audiences to customize their big
data solutions. The aim of the survey presented by Injadat et al. (2016) is to examine
the data mining techniques used by social media networks between 2003 and 2015.
Birjali et al. (2017) addressed the use of Twitter in a variety of proposed subjects.
Twitter is the largest social networking website, and its data is growing at an expo-
nential pace every day, making it a big data source. Birjali et al. also discussed, in
depth, how big data technology, such as Info Sphere Big Insights, allows for the
processing of this data, which was mainly obtained from social networks by Apache
Flume and stored in Hadoop storage.
Olshannikova et al. (2017) proposed a synthesized description of the concept,
as well as an overview of the types of data that big social data encompasses, intend-
ing to foster potential research activities around this fascinating, but underexplored
form of big data. Power and Phillips-Wren (2011) discussed how a variety of hypoth-
eses could be useful, as well as how social media could influence decision-making
and its implications.
According to preliminary research, there is numerous big data social analytics
available, each with its own set of benefits and drawbacks in terms of data volumes,
types of data, reliability, and security concerns. As a result, there is a strong need
to conduct a study comparing and analyzing general big data analytics for social
media.
92 R. Dhaya, R. Kanthavel

Need for Big Data in Social Media Analytics

Approaching different metrics, such as expectations, post comments, post replies, etc.,
allows a company to better understand the actual idea of the relationship between
their client base and their content. Social analytics, which is at the heart of the rapidly
evolving advanced marketing scene, allows businesses to sharpen their advertisement
message while also providing better support and transparency through relevant and
accessible data. In any case, research is good and gone without an adequate method to
compile and quickly encounter the available data, just as it is for any other issue asso-
ciated with big data. Furthermore, devices such as our own personal Locowise (a de-
vice which is used for social media analysis) exist for this purpose.
Big data on social media analytics holds a lot of significance. On the off chance
that you utilize big data analytics instruments on social media, it encourages you to
grasp the indispensable measurements of your image execution when you ap-
proach a lot of measurements, such as remarks on the post, responses, answers,
preferences, etc. Any business can understand the communication between their
client base and their substance. In this way, all socioeconomics, outlines, and
charts give you essential data about your image. As socioeconomics determines
what your present crowd is, commitment outlines will furnish how your crowd en-
gages with the substance and the crowd development diagram encourages you to
discover how many likes are on your social media profile each day. Eventually,
every bit of it gives you the best approach to pursue moving your targets or brand
message with the goal that it can more readily fit the current client base.
Social media promoting takes the most extreme profit by big data on social
media because advertisers can settle on the best choices for their business. It
prompts better client experience and better benefit. Not just this, social media ana-
lytics will allow you to uncover the issues related to your image. As expected, an
advertiser can’t break down the issues regardless of how much of a master he is. He
will require the correct apparatuses or analytics to discover legitimate data.

Social Media Analytics Tools

Marks frequently have accounts on a few organizations, with web clients usually
holding 6 billion social media site logins. You can use a devoted social media site
analytics system for each account or a device that encompasses all of the organiza-
tions you’re involved with. We have categorized the rundown into instruments that
are created on stage and those that are shaped by the public exterior of the stage.
The two types of social media analytics tools are shown in Table 7.1:
– Social media analytics tools for internal use
– Social media analytics tools for external use
 Chapter 7 Elaborative Perceptions on Big Data and Social Media Analytics 93

Table 7.1: Social media analytics tool-types.

Social media analytics tools for internal use Social media analytics tools for external use

– Facebook Insights – Brand watch Consumer Research

– Pinterest Analytics – Brand24
– Twitter Analytics – BuzzSumo
– Instagram Insights – Vizia
– YouTube Analytics – SumAll
– Google Analytics – Cyfe
– Quintly

Social Media Analytics Software for Internal Use

A few social media platforms allow you to dissect your efforts from inside the actual
level. While the utility of these apparatuses can be limited when evaluated to a spe-
cific analytics device, they are a good place to start because they are free and open
to all.
– Facebook insights: The Facebook Insights stage offers social media research.
Once you have more than 30 followers, all the administrators of your organiza-
tion page can use this tool. It provides detailed information about your posts
and the level of contribution they get. Crowd analysis, which includes section
and area breakdown, will help you understand who is drawing in with you.
Every one of your posts has commitment metrics, which will help you figure
out what kind of content works best. It displays a paid and natural breakdown
so you can understand the value of your paid promotions. There are also met-
rics for video views, events on your website, and the length of your posts.
– Pinterest analytics: Pinterest has integrated advanced analytics. It is accessi-
ble to anybody with a company account who has enrolled on their Pinterest
website. This enables Pinterest to actively monitor your website and the social
media outlet. Pinterest Analytics helps in tracking a variety of metrics. It splits
the research into three phases: the movement of the pin, the behavior of the
crowd, and the explicit pins that drive traffic to your website. The indicators
involve daily average perceptions and audiences, crowd numbers, gender, dia-
lect, the overall amount of repines, the overall number of snapshots, and a
maximum number of likes.
– Twitter analytics: Twitter has integrated advanced analytics that is accessible
to both individuals and companies. Your overall number of tweets, tweet view-
points, position visits, letters, and supporters are all monitored. Month after
month, there are indications with your most popular tweets, advertisements,
and supporters. You’ll see the number of impressions; this needs to be shared,
94 R. Dhaya, R. Kanthavel

re-tweeted, and you must show appreciation of every Tweet by clicking it. If
your company uses Twitter Tokens, Twitter data analysis will show you the ob-
servations for the total number of times your tokens have been considered.
– Instagram insights: Instagram Insights is only available to businesses and
large influencers who have many followers. You can also access this directly
through the program. Even though it’s not so much inside and outside, it’s a
convenient expansion and to the point. Here you will see different metrics,
such as your overall scope and profile visits, as well as the following for each
post.
– YouTube analytics: YouTube has an in-house analytics system that allows
anyone who has transferred videos to understand how they are presented. The
apparatus displays data on execution, data on engagement rate, and socio-
economic data. It allows you to see how people found your recordings, how
much time they spent watching them when they went to your website, and who
they were.
– Google analytics: While Google Analytics is primarily a web analytics tool, it
also plays a small but important role in social media research by providing a
breakdown of the social media sites that drive traffic to your site. To see the
social media sites that drive the most traffic to your site, click Acquisition, then
Social. You might find that a particular organization isn’t worth the time and
money if it doesn’t move traffic, or that a well-functioning network deserves
more attention.

Social Media Analytics Tools for External Use

You will use these devices to carry out social media site research through all your
data. This utility, overall, means that these are paying machines. Many people have
some spare highlights or testing time. You get what you pay for, just like anything
else in life, except with a paid instrument, the level of detail and adaptability can
be even higher. This indicates that the level of comprehension is higher and that it
extends beyond checking notes and likes.
– Brand watch consumer research: In this section, we might start with our-
selves. Brand watch consumer research is a fantastic analytics tool that devotes
a lot of time to social listening and advanced customer knowledge. When all is
said and done, we take data from social stages and the internet, which means
you, can unite information from a diverse basis. All is set up with enormously
flexible inquiries, and you can use the system to label and unexpectedly orga-
nize specifics. You can also create data impressions with ease, ranging from
basic outlines to emoticons and point mists.
 Chapter 7 Elaborative Perceptions on Big Data and Social Media Analytics 95

– Brand24: An interactive dashboard that displays continuous bits of informa-

tion and provides granular insights into your substance and audience. While
Brand24 lacks the breadth of the larger apparatuses, it does have some note-
worthy features to brag about. You build your following by specifying explicit
watchwords, such as your image’s name or a topic you’re interested in. Imagine
being able to observe some estimate and authority ratings, as well as the ability
to sort by source and request by celebrity. You can also drill down into specific
dates using the time diagrams.
– BuzzSumo (www.buzzsumo.com): BuzzSumo is an outstanding instrument for
social media site research, tracking billions of bits of content through social
networks and events such as Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Pinterest, and You-
Tube. It’s especially impressive when it comes to content analysis.
– Vizia: Vizia is a visual analytics and broadcast system that is especially benefi-
cial for social media data. It’s set up to share any information with people in
your organization; it helps keep track of your social media activity. Vizia mon-
itors have been used in workplaces all around the globe to show actual infor-
mation as well as reports to the whole business.
– SumAll: SumAll is an inter-social media marketing tool that creates visually ap-
pealing diagrams to help better understand your social media platforms’ con-
nections. Despite the lack of a defined screen spotlight or anything else, it is
valuable for data delivery to your mailbox for a fast review. You can keep a
close eye out again for elevated indicators with daily email refreshes; it also al-
lows you to go much further.
– Cyfe: You can build a simple interface with Cyfe that monitors a variety of
measurements, namely social networking sites. It could also gather data on
offers, link building, comments, development, and research. A free version
is open, but this only allows for five phones and thirty days of information.
– Quintly: Quintly is a service that provides free Facebook analytics. Quintly is a
dashboard device that sits on top of it. It comes with a standard interface that
you can configure with accessories to meet your specific needs and track the
metrics that are essential to you.

Structured and Unstructured Data Management

in Social Media
The metadata is structured and the substance is unstructured, which is tabulated in
Table 7.2. In social media research, the differentiation between the two isn’t always
clear. While you can gather data from the structured data, examining the unstruc-
tured data is the best way to reveal bits of knowledge.
96 R. Dhaya, R. Kanthavel

Table 7.2: Structured data and unstructured data.

Structured data in social media Unstructured data in social media

– The annotations that appear when a – Quality and interaction measurements are
connection is shared through social just a small part of unstructured data.
networks are known as social structured Unstructured data forms include files,
data. pictures, video, recordings, messages, and
comments. When a person shares anything
on social media, they’re giving the world a
peek into their lives.

– Databases and search algorithms are two – Email addresses, word processing
of the most common places where documents, audio or video files,
structured data is created. collaboration tools, and instant messages
are examples of unstructured data sources.

– Structured data will tell you what happened, where it happened, and when it
happened, but not how or why it happened.
– Regrettably, attempts to normalize the evaluation of social media often focuses
on standardized data. Quantitative metrics such as retweets, pins, and likes.
The kind of information that enables you to conduct an organizational analysis
of who is conversing with whom, or to (attempt to) quantify “effect” and “com-
mitment.” This is all fascinating, and it sets the stage for any subsequent study.
However, when it comes to putting together a solitary system for moving to-
ward the test, treating structured and unstructured data as if they were the
same goes a long way toward providing a solitary system for running a center
gathering and preparing a report.
– It likewise sells out a computerized dualism in survey social media as a solitary
element, where an expendable tweet about a moving hash tag is dealt with
equivalent to an Instagram med photograph or inside and outside the conversa-
tion on a message board.
– It further neglects to separate various perspectives from various individuals uti-
lizing various destinations.
– There won’t ever be one approach to decipher a discussion. It will consistently
rely altogether upon the setting of how the conversation is being sorted and to
what exactly reason.
– You can’t generally make the unstructured data from social media do what you
need it to do, which is the reason inspecting it in confinement doesn’t generally
work.
– Seeking a solitary system strikes me to be as incorrect as seeking a solitary mea-
surement to gauge impact. Furthermore, you don’t view as such a large number
of tenable individuals proceeding to advocate the last mentioned.
 Chapter 7 Elaborative Perceptions on Big Data and Social Media Analytics 97

– Instead of forcing unbending norms, we should mean to clarify unmistakably

and straightforwardly how we approached gathering, coordinating, and deci-
phering the data such that sounds good to the first target each time.
– Making wide rules, instead of a normalized structure, will likewise empower us
to react more rapidly to arising sorts of social media.

Impacts on Social Media Analytics

Social media plays an important role in connecting people and building relation-
ships, not only with key influencers and writers in your industry, but it also provides
a fantastic opportunity to set up client care by gathering knowledge, answering ques-
tions, and listening to their feedback. Social media data analysis can help organiza-
tions better comprehend the requirements and assumptions for their clients, improve
the effectiveness of client care and statistical surveying on social channels, be more
astute in item advancement and advertising, increment their serious knowledge, and
exhibit their social media. The advantages of social media analytics are shown in
Figure 7.1.

Increased brand awareness: It’s critical to align your substance and increase your
perceivability at any opportunity. Your social media accounts are essentially new plat-
forms for the Speech as well as parts of your brand. That’s also essential since that is
what allows you to be more normal and unmistakable for current customers while also
making you easier and more accessible for new clients. For example, a daily Twitter
user may be interested in learning more about your company after seeing it in a news-
feed. Alternatively, a normally unconcerned client may become more familiar through
your picture after considering your essence on numerous organizations.

Increased brand trustworthiness: As per a study published by Texas Tech Col-

lege, brands that rely on social media platforms achieve better client loyalty. The
study is ending, “Organizations must use the tools offered by social to interact
with everyone’s potential customers. A critical and transparent social media strat-
egy could be successful in turning purchasers into popular brands.” According to
research reported by Convince Convert, 60 percent of Americans that adopt social
media brands are much more faithful to all these brand names.

Increased conversion chances: Each comment you publish on a social media net-
work is a chance to attract consumers. When you put out comments, you will encoun-
ter new customers, early business partners, as well as outdated customers at the same
time, and you’ll have the opportunity to interact with any one of these. Also, all blog
posts, images, multimedia, or comments users make offer a chance for others to react,
and each reaction may lead to a visit to the website and, ultimately, to a conversion.
Even one in every odd interaction with your picture will result in a reaction, and every
98 R. Dhaya, R. Kanthavel

Expensive
Customer Increased brand
Experiences and awareness and
Improved brand
Customer trustworthiness
Insights

Increased
Improved Search
Conversion Chances
Engine Positioning
and rates

Lower Marketing Increased Brand

Costs Authority

An increase in
inbound traffic

Figure 7.1: Advantages of social media analytics.

sure partnership will increase the chances of a conversion. Irrespective of how low the
click-through rate is, the sheer lot of chances you have on social networking sites is
essential.

Increased conversion rates: In a couple of different ways, social media marketing

increases conversion rates. The adaptation aspect, in which brands become more
refined through collaboration in social media channels, is perhaps the most impor-
tant. Brands may behave as individuals on social media, which is important be-
cause people choose to collaborate with others rather than with organizations.
Also, studies have indicated mainstream press has a 100 percent increase follow
rate than outgoing advertisements and there is a higher number of online support-
ers that would increase the image’s confidence and credibility in general, address-
ing social facts. In that capacity, essentially assembling your crowd on social media
will increase your current traffic’s change rates.
 Chapter 7 Elaborative Perceptions on Big Data and Social Media Analytics 99

Increased brand authority: Regularly connecting with your clients demonstrates

good intentions toward various clients, because once individuals have some critics
of an item or brand, those who rely on social media should have an option to claim.
Besides, when users comment on your picture, new members of the crowd will
have to follow you for updates. The more things you speak about it on social media,
the most important and credible your brand appears to potential customers. Also, if
you can connect with key determinants on Twitter and perhaps other social net-
working sites, your visibility, as well as arrival, would skyrocket.

An increase in inbound traffic: Lacking social media, your traffic is restricted to

people familiar with one’s product who are scouring for search terms that you are
presently overall rating. Each social media account you create is an additional link
back to your website, and each piece of content you organize on these profiles is
another opportunity for a new visitor. The higher the concentrations you distribute
on social networking sites, the more incoming traffic you produce, which means
the most clicks and prospects.

Lower marketing costs: For a medium as large as social media, six hours is any-
thing but important. Indeed, paid social media promotion on Facebook and Twitter
is usually modest (contingent upon your objectives, obviously). Take baby steps
but you’re never going to have to be concerned regarding exceeding the budget –
as your sense of what’s in store improves, you can increase your spending plan and
your transformations accordingly.

Improved search engine positioning: Website optimization is the most excellent

method to get pertinent interchange from web crawlers, however, the specifications
for achievement still are evolving. That is not sufficient to refresh your blog. Regu-
larly, ensure that your title labels and Meta descriptions are optimized and that you
have appropriate links leading back to your website. Since solid brands also use
social media, Google and other web search tools can measure their standings utiliz-
ing presence on social media as a significant element. As a result, being active on
social media could serve as a “name signal” to web crawlers, indicating whose pro-
file is true, trustworthy, and reliable. In other words, if you’d like to evaluate for a
specific set of themes, you may need to have a strong presence in social media.

Expensive customer experiences: The core of social media is a communication

medium similar to an email or phone calls. Each customer contact you engage in on
social networks is also an incentive to explicitly illustrate their level of client provider
and discuss your needs with them. Conversely, if you are congratulated by a con-
sumer, users could even appreciate the others as well as suggest multiple items. It is
a one-on-one interaction that shows clients what users know regarding each other.

Improved customer insights: Social media also offers the opportunity to learn
more about what your consumers have become involved in or how they have
100 R. Dhaya, R. Kanthavel

started behaving. Users could even see which kinds of materials are most of benefit,
and create more types of substances. You can cause fluctuations based on different
notifications provided on various social media platforms and, at the end of the day,
find the right mix to increase profits.

How Might Big Data Help Social Media Advertisers

and Entrepreneurs?
– Big data is a key for effectively overseeing social media showcase efforts. Big
data considers personalization inside each mission to target new possibilities.
Social media advertisers utilize the gathered data to observe clients that are re-
ally inspired by their brands. The advertisers abstain from overspending pro-
moting financial plans on the individuals who don’t coordinate with their
intended interest group.
– Big data investigates an individual’s social media use. What posts would they
say they prefer and are sharing? What pages would they say they are following?
This data creates a profile for advertisers on what items and administrations
the client might be interested in.
– Big data is additionally valuable for crusade following purposes. The adver-
tisers take a gander at past and current missions and investigate the profit from
speculation for each. This permits the advertiser to calibrate a mission before
dispatch and make changes once the mission goes live.
– Social media post arranging is another way advertisers bridle the force of big
data. Commitment numbers allow you to see which posts the crowd is interfac-
ing with and the posts that are dead on appearance.

The positive effects of big on social media including are shown in Figure 7.2.

– social media field using big data analysis and make

Faster choices better and quicker decisions as needed

– personalized path based on their desires by analyzing

Personalization big data

– assist advertisers with understanding future patterns

Product Insights and shoppers' practices

Effective social media crusade – Advertisers can monitor the effectiveness of their
assessment social media campaigns

– Advertisers will learn what worked and what

Plan future occasions didn’t work in the past by analyzing big data

Figure 7.2: Positive effects of big data.

 Chapter 7 Elaborative Perceptions on Big Data and Social Media Analytics 101

– Faster choices: Advertisers can discern the most recent trends in the social
media field using big data analysis and make better and quicker decisions as
needed. Big data enables marketers to comprehend what concerns people have
about a brand, as well as their preferred content and the best way to reach them.
– Personalization: Advertisers can travel toward their clients in a more personal-
ized path based on the customers’ desires by analyzing big data. In this case,
they may create personalized ads based on what their customers like and then
post them on social media.
– Product insights: Big data can assist advertisers with understanding future
patterns and shoppers’ practices, so they can create social posts that may sur-
pass client assumptions.
– Effective social media crusade assessment: Advertisers can monitor the ef-
fectiveness of their social media campaigns before, during, and after they are
launched using big data analyses. They will discover the slow changes in ROI
this way, just as they can test crusades before distributing them.
– Plan future occasions: Advertisers will learn what worked and what didn’t work
in the past by analyzing big data and determining how to plan future projects.

The Challenges of Working with Big Data

Today, no association can operate merely through access to information. With tre-
mendous amounts of information, the findings need to be explained for each subse-
quent deal, marketing projection, client record, and partner; information is the
motivation that keeps the organization going. This information gets accumulated in
a tremendous information deposit that is alluded to as big data. This information
should be dissected to upgrade the dynamic. However, there are a few difficulties
of big data experienced by organizations as shown in Figure 7.3. These incorporate
information stockpiling, absence of data science specialists, data approval, and
gathering information from a variety of sources.
1) Absence of appropriate comprehension of big data: Organizations fall short
in their big data initiatives due to a lack of planning. Legislators cannot under-
stand which information gets stored, how it is stored and prepared, and where
it comes from. Although data experts may have the knowledge, someone else
may not have had a strong understanding of what is proceeding. For example,
if legislators fail to recognize the importance of information storage, those who
are doubtful to maintain the restoration of critical material are unlikely to make
the best use of databases in terms of space. If this essential information is col-
lected, it can be extracted without complexity.
2) Data development issues: One of the most challenging aspects of big data is
properly storing most of these massive collections of information. The amount
of information being stocked up in statistics groups and company information
102 R. Dhaya, R. Kanthavel

Absence of appropriate comprehension of Big Data

Data development issues

Disarray while Big Data apparatus choice

Absence of data experts

Getting data

Incorporating data from an assortment of supplies

Figure 7.3: Some of the challenges of working with big data.

records is speedily growing. It becomes incredibly difficult to deal with these

data sets as they grow exponentially over time. The bulk of the data is unstruc-
tured and comes from a variety of sources, including records, recordings,
sounds, text documents, and other media. This means you won’t be able to find
them in databases.
3) Disarray in big data apparatus choice: Organizations are often perplexed
when it comes to determining the best device for big data analysis and capabil-
ity. Is Spark a better option? Organizations are troubled by these questions, and
they don’t always know how to respond. They end up making helpless deci-
sions and picking the wrong innovation. As a result, money, resources, efforts,
and working hours are squandered.
4) Absence of data experts: Organizations need talented data specialists to oper-
ate these innovative technologies and big data devices. These experts can con-
sist of information analysts, data examiners, as well as data engineers who are
experienced in acting with computers and deciphering large amounts of infor-
mation. Organizations are dealing with a scarcity of big data experts. This is
because data storage devices have advanced rapidly, but experts have not. To
solve this problem, significant progress must be made.
5) Getting data: One of the most challenging aspects of big data is obtaining
these massive data sets. Organizations are frequently preoccupied with compre-
hending, storing, and dissecting their data sets and data protection is pushed
to the back burner. However, this is definitely not a wise decision, as insecure
data vaults can easily become attractive targets for malicious programmers. A
stolen record or a data breach will cost a company up to US$4 million.
6) Incorporating data from an assortment of supplies: Information in a com-
pany originates from several sources of places, including social media accounts,
Enterprise Resource Planning functions, client records, monetary information,
 Chapter 7 Elaborative Perceptions on Big Data and Social Media Analytics 103

messages, introductions, and employee information. It’s a challenging task to

link this data to plan reports. This is an area that many businesses overlook.
Data integration, on the other hand, is critical for research, detailing, and mar-
ket insight, so it must be excellent.

Benefits of Leveraging Big Data for Social Media

Social media advertising these days gets its importance more from business experien-
ces than from simple methods for correspondence. Since being at first created for as-
sociating individuals, social media has advanced into a new substance. Furthermore,
social media advertisers should consolidate significant elements of the two experts
and financial specialists. This crude unstructured data carries no incentive to busi-
ness structures and that is the point at which a big data technique hits the stage. The
seven most normal advantages of big data analytics for social media advertising are
shown in Figure 7.4.

Omni
channel
sources

Reasonable Real-time
costs communication

Benefits of
Leveraging
Big Data For
Campaign Social Media Target
assessment customers

Security Future
issues expectations

Figure 7.4: Benefits of leveraging big data for social media.

104 R. Dhaya, R. Kanthavel

1) Omni channel sources: Artificial intelligence technique permits handling data

that comes from numerous channels, particularly with the actualizing of a very
much spread sign in innovation and synchronization. Various business sites rec-
ommend recruits using Google or Facebook accounts, along these lines, this em-
powers advertisers to assemble data about clients from social media movement,
program history, work area, and versatile applications, cloud stockpiles, etc.
2) Real-time communication: Clients’ movement on social media, for example,
promotions clicked, pages visited and followed, remarks posted, joins saved,
companions added, is the main path to an effective market study. No other out-
let can give a more refreshed and exact image of market interest. It changes so
staggeringly quickly that the central issue is to use the circumstance sooner
than contenders.
3) Target customers: Like some other business activities, social media showcasing
is pointed toward expanding income; however, it is no utilization offering meat
to a vegetarian. So, realizing you focused on the crowd means the world. ML ar-
rangements reach a long way past and give the likelihood to separate significant
experiences from individual data, a huge number of photographs, music inclina-
tions, areas, and numerous other social organization exercises.
4) Future expectations: Big data systems and prescient analytics in media settle
on it to get better dynamic stands on the previous history. The data-driven busi-
ness will in common achieve something massively as personal computers can
give approaching customer choices. Even though preferences and proclivities
shift over time, they are generally associated. While a social organization client
purchases something, there is an extraordinary chance of picking comparative
items.
5) Security issues: With the prospering of social media and individual data being
in plain view, security is everything for clients, bizarre however it may sound.
Though this perspective fails to impress anyone, most of the ventures consider
security issues to be of first concern. Data merchants inside and out with adver-
tisers and entrepreneurs are obliged to give data wellbeing from holes to out-
sider’s hands without clients’ consent. Big data arrangements propose various
methods of security, for instance, face and voice acknowledgment, approval,
registration notices, and so on.
6) Campaign assessment: Big data analytics makes it possible to viably monitor
the teeter-totter rudiments of measurements. Therefore, publicists should be
able to acquire bits of knowledge on how fruitful a social media crusade was.
Prescient logical apparatuses perform massively with regard to expecting what
items and administrations clients need. Estimating client exercises across dif-
ferent social media channels, in particular, their connection and reaction to on-
line advertisements can say a lot about a client’s conduct and their shopping
inclinations. All things considered, whether a mission will be gainful might be
expressed on the ground of past clients’ experience removed from social media
 Chapter 7 Elaborative Perceptions on Big Data and Social Media Analytics 105

conduct analysis, sites’ recorded data, email memberships, and different sorts
of advanced communication.
7) Reasonable costs: Evaluating choices can be disappointing on occasion since
loads of components should be remembered. Generally, it begins with item cost,
rivalry issues, market interest, positive income, money, and expansion levels,
and winds up with a by and large monetary circumstance on the planet. A vigor-
ous big data procedure utilizing social media ought not just to incorporate pay-
ing heaps of cash to your Instagram influencers, but also speaking with your
dependable clients, say, through A/B testing or online studies, to acknowledge
the amount they are prepared to spend on your items. This can assist advertisers
with changing costs in a more adaptable and precise manner to conform to client
assumptions.

Conclusion
The investigation on the challenges and benefits of leveraging big data for social
media has been elaborately presented. This chapter also reviewed both structured
and unstructured data for big data in social media, as well as their suitability by ana-
lyzing big data. The initial part of this chapter explains the need for big data in social
media analysis. In addition to the above, social media analytics tools for internal use
and external use has been discussed. From this chapter, it is inferred that big data
has created a considerable transformation on how every industry activates, as well as
a social media marketing organization. Social media approaches have been made
based on the imminent establishment inside big data promotion administration. Fur-
ther, big data keeps saving spending time and money because the analytics permit
for enhanced ad targeting. Also, big data has left its outcome on numerous segments
and is varying the method community effort from trade to healthcare, and advertis-
ing. Finally, the unstructured data is connected to the structured data by using cus-
tomer details to obtain actionable perceptions through big data in social media to
meet the most ambitious expectations of clients for their products.

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Birjali, M., Beni, S., Abderrahi, E., & Mohammed. (2017). Analyzing Social Media Through Big Data
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Technology Tutorial. IEEE Access, 2: 652–687.
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Neurocomputing, 214: 654–670.
Ghani, N.A., Hamid, S., Targio Hashem, I.A. and Ahmed, E. (2019). Social media big data analytics:
a survey. Computers in Human Behavior. 101: 417–428.
Olshannikova, E., Olsson, T., &Huhtamäki, J., et al. (2017). Conceptualizing Big Social Data. Journal
of Big Data, 4(3): 66
Paul, P. V., Monica, K., & Trishanka, M. (2017). A Survey on Big Data Analytics Using Social Media
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Journal of Decision Systems 20(3): 249–261.
Sebei, H., Taieb, M. A. H., & Aouicha, M. B. (2018). Review of Social Media Analytics Process and
Big Data Pipeline. Social Network and Analysis Mining 8(1): 1–28.
Sivarajah, U. Irani, Z. and Gupta, S. (2020). Role of big data and social media analytics for
business to business sustainability: A participatory web context. Industrial Marketing
Management. 86: 163–179.
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Curry, E., Wahlster, W. (eds), New Horizons for a Data-Driven Economy. Springer, Cham,
pp. 119–141.
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Approach to Big Data Analytics. IEEE Access, 4: 2542–2571.
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Intelligent Systems, 25(6): 13–16.
Harmanpreet Kaur
Chapter 8
Impacts of Big Data on Mobile Marketing
(Big Data and Mobile Marketing)
Introduction
The planet is filled with data, generated primarily by mobile devices, which can be
used to create more useful services and ads for mobile users. CIBC, a Canadian
bank, expects a 50-fold rise in information-generation growth over the next decade.
Similarly, IDC, the industry consulting firm forecasted correctly that data volumes
would increase 44 times between 2009 and 2020. Mobile plays an important part in
driving this eruption (Figure 8.1).

5731
5387
5114

2660 2503

1302
342 820

SMARTPHONE 4G SMARTPHONE TABLET LAPTOP

2012 2019

Figure 8.1: Growth in average traffic per device.

Source: I Intelligence Report 2019

Many mobile administrators are beginning to use mobile data to influence con-
sumer retention and marketing decisions. Personalized strategies and hypertarget
communications are crucial in mobile, personal, and private environments. And
this can only be generated using big data. We describe big data; look at mobile ac-
cess to it; evaluate its capacity, realistic uses, and falls; analyze how it is processed;
and address six of the most often asked big data and smartphone questions.
Big data is usually defined as data sets that meet three attributes: “Vs.” However,
“I want to remind you that there is a fourth V: meaning,” said Kipp Jones, Sky-
product Hook’s vice president. To be useful, data must be collected and securely
processed. Someone must then handle the results, interpret them, and derive mean-
ing from them. Data, massive or not, does not add value if it has no value for anyone.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-008
108 Harmanpreet Kaur

Mobile is suitable for a massive data lens in particular: Mobile big data is not
just a function of smartphone adoption and consumer patterns. The data is often
generated through background applications or other resources. Technically speak-
ing, this is not so unlike conventional web-created results. The difference is to gen-
erate more consumers as we turn our activities into digital channels and leave a
trail of information that records our actions and behaviors. And if we don’t use our
phones ostensibly, we still build sources of info.
These specifics can be used to improve and customize the experience of smart-
phones: Mobile big data may be used for a variety of purposes but is often used to
optimize, customize, and sell mobile services strategies. For example, Flurry’s analyt-
ics can be used by software developers to improve their applications. Retention is a
key measure of success. In order to learn how they are stored and what they would
have to do to improve their statistics, developers should match the consumer reten-
tion statistics for every other product and application with their own categories.
To help speed up mobile advertising and explosion in marketing: Location data
is a central component of mobile big data, possibly the most important source of
data that differentiates between mobile and web-based large data. The marketing
and mobile advertising industry are supposed to adjust location info. The opportu-
nity to deliver hyperlocal, custom advertising in real time represents a potentially
important development in the ad industry. The social network data can also be
used along with location data to carry out personalized campaigns.

Key Areas of Mobile Marketing with Big Data

For business strategy and efficiency, big data is important. At a time where overpow-
ering the amount of data allows us to make more data-driven choices and connectiv-
ity plays a crucial role in the data revolution, big data analysis is very likely to be the
central process of mobile marketing. Any company knows the invincible role of mo-
bile apps in the promotion and creation of a brand image. But to make the app dis-
coverable, you probably need the latest data resources, big data analytics.

A Summary of Big Data’s Position in Sales

and Marketing
What are big data analytics’ major sales and marketing sectors? In accordance with
the Forbes survey, 48 percent of big data cases are used for market analysis, while
only 21 percent of big data cases are used in corporate analytics. The same report
also shows that big data use in fraud and enforcement is 12 percent. New product
 Chapter 8 Impacts of Big Data on Mobile Marketing (Big Data and Mobile Marketing) 109

and business generation is 10 percent and the optimization of the industry data
warehouse is 10 percent. According to this survey, many companies use big data for
customer insights. Smartphone apps play a key role in the use of big data to pro-
mote sales and marketing.

Mobility and Big Data: A Connection

The link between mobility and big data is more mutual and promotes joint produc-
tion. First, to understand the length of this relationship, one requires basic princi-
ples. The invention of smartphone apps has led to the exponential growth of the
volume and range of digital data and, in turn, mobile device analysis has helped to
better understand customers. The same user information created from device sen-
sors and analytics provides more practical insights into analytics and policy mak-
ing. Therefore, handheld applications for the whole big data trajectory are so
awesome. The essence of perpetual mobility allowed companies to gain greater in-
sight into consumer behavior, habits of usage and user data dependent on feed-
back. This huge reserve of mobile user data can be used further to refine mobile
user interfaces, create, and encourage mobile traffic, promote market conversion,
and cultivate further effort and user engagement.

Get the Edge of Big Data in Real Time Analysis

Recently, so-called management analysis has focused more on making it happen in

real time. Mobile advertisers are now predisposed to their importance in real time.
With the enormous volume of accurate data that analytics will track, real-time ana-
lytics offer businesses more advantages. In this respect, the promise of emerging
big data technology would be critical. The Hardtop monitoring helps data get proc-
essed in real time. The corporations will now take fast decisions and adapt to shifts
in immediate marketing campaigns through real-time monitoring. This real-time ad-
vantage allows an organization to respond to developments at the midst of every
campaign.

Critical Elements of a Good Marketing Campaign based on Data

Now that data-driven marketing has led several companies to use big-data approaches
and analytics, few important items must be remembered. First, a data-driven marketing
approach must be cross-disciplinary, while also improving teamwork across different
divisions and team members. Secondly, focus on the right key performance indi-
cators (KPIs) and prioritize insights between lines rather than numbers. Not all
110 Harmanpreet Kaur

numerical values will correctly lead you. Evaluate the customer from time to time
based on evidence. Your company’s customer must be assessed, and more detail
must be added if possible.

Customized Mobile Marketing with Big Data

Most administrators now use the words “big data” as a slogan. But unlike other hol-
low mottoes that make people sound intellectual, this word affects the way people
do business. In reality, more facets of the market are now data-driven, including
sales. After all, advanced big data entails identifying numerical development possi-
bilities to make things more usable and competitive. Since revenues are the primary
source of cash flow for businesses, investing in sophisticated analytics only helps
to ensure that sales staff are at their best.

Coming up with the Best Price

In a 2014 survey, McKinsey found that 30 percent of price decision-makers struggle

to provide the right price for all the available data. One of the key points empha-
sized in the study is that B2B businesses prefer to handle data, but do not use it in
decision-making. In addition, the automation of their goods and price forecasting
can help them distinguish visible and unobvious variables, including product
tastes, the duration of their sales period, and the larger economic situation, to dem-
onstrate what affects pricing for each client segment. The right price will signifi-
cantly boost company sales up so it is something that companies cannot take for
granted.

Better Customer Analysis

Aggregating data or what we all know as big data isn’t new. Companies have long
sought to gather more information from customers to provide more insight into
their conduct and where their desires lay. It is just that the “big data” today is so
much greater than before. In an earlier post I wrote about the potential effects of
mobile hitting big data. With mobile data, we get more customer knowledge in real
time than ever before. More systems are being digitized with the growth in cloud
communications, which means more data. For example, RingCentral business tele-
communications system vendors can provide businesses with insights where the
bulk of their calls come from simply extracting data from the telephone numbers of
 Chapter 8 Impacts of Big Data on Mobile Marketing (Big Data and Mobile Marketing) 111

the organization. And if researchers can successfully gather mobile data as ex-
pected, it would have dramatic effects for how businesses advertise and distribute.

More Customized Selling and Marketing

Eric Tobias, vice president of Predictive and Online Products at Salesforce Market-
ing Cloud, addressed the prospect of hyperpersonalized marketing. The concept is
that marketers would be able to offer customized touchpoints not only on the inter-
net, but also in retail stores with more data to determine how customers respond in
the most exact way possible. Big data will, in the (near) future, lead into a world
where publicity, email, and smartphone deals are tailored for each customer and
not only one sector of the population, rather than applying macro marketing and
distribution tactics for a wider public.

Better Overall Product

When the product of the business is successful, it encourages the work of the sales
staff. If it’s fantastic, it’s almost going to sell itself. But how do you go from decent
to fantastic for your product or service? Simple, just listen to your clients. Feedback
from clients is also data you can use. You get to know the pressure points and other
areas for change by opening all available contact networks. Companies may grow
their goods by understanding them. Data may lead to enhancing your product or
service. Your business will present a stronger product or service with these changes.
This means you will have more sales points and no pressure to justify your product
or service, which is similar to more satisfied sales staff. This illustrates how big
data will change the way businesses do things radically. It is just a matter of identi-
fying and accurately using the right data.

Social Media and Big Data

Businesses prosper with the best possible perception of their clients. Therefore,
tracking people’s online activity is vital for their progress. The company engages in
the processing of big data analysis as a core component to track social media be-
haviors, in particular on platforms for social networking like Facebook, LinkedIn, &
Twitter.
Social networking analysis was the synthesis of the behavior of internet users.
The provision of statistics on online browsing, internet buying habits, user feedback,
and social networks, and marketing research enables businesses to receive accurate
112 Harmanpreet Kaur

and detailed customer details. Therefore, companies should target their business
analysis efforts on various targets, including advertisement and product launch, ad-
vertising and market strategy, consumer engagement marketing, customer tailored
services, market dynamics, and rivals keeping track of risk minimization, cost reduc-
tion, and overall organizational growth.

Tools and Metrics

Website Ranking

Web pages may be categorized to estimate the success of any website for a given
period compared to all other websites (for instance, six months or one year). Rank-
ings are provided by tools such as www.ranking.com and www.alexa.com. The
lower the ranking, the better the website (for instance, the rank of Google.com is 1
followed by Facebook.com and YouTube.com). The rankings can be used both by
businesses and their competitors to assess the success of their websites in general.

Analytics of Online Traffic

Online devices such as Google Analytics and www.alexa.com have website traffic met-
rics in tables and dynamic graphs that can be adapted to the needs of consumers.
Some resources provide data collected in a tablet that can be used by businesses to
generate their own graphs. Any of the measurements given are the total number of
website visits over a certain period, the number of single visitors, the total number of
visited spaces, the average number of website pages used during a visit, the average
time and pace of visiting a website (i.e., visits in which a user left the website from the
first page without continuing to view other pages within the site).

Social Media Mentoring

On social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and blogs, organiza-
tions meet their customers every day. Organization like Yammer or a private social
network that encourages team, local or industry collaboration may even connect
with staff and other stakeholders (e.g., Students, clients, external advisors).
 Chapter 8 Impacts of Big Data on Mobile Marketing (Big Data and Mobile Marketing) 113

Engagement of Customer Via Mobile Marketing

by using Big Data
Companies have often focused on what their clients think to enhance their offerings
and goods. Today, corporations don’t have to wait until their clients talk to them
directly. The use of broad data will let your consumers decide what they want be-
fore they know what they want, and understanding what the buyers need now is
not enough. You also need to see what they are going to need in the future. Big
data would allow advertisers to understand how consumers feel, who they are and
whether they want to communicate with themselves. There is a problem where so
much data is available that it cannot be handled. Data experts should encourage
data collection, processing, and use.

Improved Customer Engagement

The American Express and its loyalty partner Acxiom are an example of a company
exploiting big data. This device boosted sales, improved brand awareness and fos-
tered loyalty. Passengers are given points by using their American Express card and
then can purchase flight tickets. The scheme required sophisticated technology
and, while American Express initially planned to operate internally, the dynamic
system had to be externalized. Pace and security are two of the most important
problems in system management. Both companies use the amount of information
present in the system to help understand their customers’ tastes and lifestyles. The
result is a dynamic loyalty program that matches.

Customer Records must be Maintained and Often Updated

Customer data were quickly stalled. This means that you can’t contact or customize
your clients and not dedicated customers.

Use the Desired Contact form of a Client

Customers should be able to use their feedback page for their preferences. You re-
spect their wishes and just communicate in this way. It’s needed. First, if American
Express wishes to keep its members up to date, it will contact them by email, text
message, or telephone as it pleases. If not, you can hit them through these three
means, interrupt, and possibly losing your customers.
114 Harmanpreet Kaur

Using Omnichannel

It is essential to your customers when they view your website, smartphone applica-
tion, or print advertisements with the same brand experience. Similarly, anyone
who has flights browsed on your platform must be able to pick up simultaneously
using the app. If you have the information to let you know how people like to con-
nect with your brand, you will be glad and loyal.

Emphasize the Importance of Security

Confidence is part of the relationship between brands and their customers. All this
big data must be kept private, and the customers must be assured that their infor-
mation is safe when registering to handle their customer relations.

Issues and Challenges faced during Mobile

Marketing by using Big Data Customized Decisions
Issues of Big Data in Mobile Marketing

1) Issue of scalability and storage: The data development rate is far greater than
the new processing systems. Such data cannot be contained enough by storage
devices (Chen et al., 2014; Li & Lu, 2014; Kaisler et al., 2013). A processing sys-
tem that meets not only today’s needs but also future needs must be developed.
2) Timeliness of analysis: The value of the data decreases with time. Many applica-
tions, such as telecoms, insurance, and financial crime, require transaction data
to be interpreted in actual or nearly real-time (Chen et al., 2014; Li & Lu, 2014).
3) Heterogeneous data representation: Data gathered from different sources are
designed heterogeneously. Unstructured data (e.g., photographs, videos, social
media) are not captured or evaluated using conventional techniques like SQL.
4) Missing pool of talent: Talent is needed to increase the amount of (structured
and unstructured) data generated. Demand for people with good analytical ex-
pertise in big data is growing. The analysis states the need for additional big
data experts between 140,000 and 190,000 by 2018 (Brown et al., 2011).
5) Privacy and security: The connectivity and storing of information for the pur-
pose of research was provided by modern devices and technologies such as
cloud computing. This incorporation of IT architectures would improve data
protection and intellectual property risks. Links to sensitive information such
as purchasing habits and calling data would raise privacy issues (Kaisler et al.,
2013; Benjamins, 2014). Researchers have technological facilities for accessing
 Chapter 8 Impacts of Big Data on Mobile Marketing (Big Data and Mobile Marketing) 115

data from any source, even social networking platforms, while users do not
know what benefits may be obtained from information they share (Boyd &
Crawford, 2012). The distinction between privacy and ease cannot be under-
stand by big data researchers.
6) Not necessarily better data: Researchers have been drawn by social media
mining. Twitter has been a common new source of knowledge. The world popu-
lation is not measured by Twitter users. Big data researchers should understand
the difference between large data and whole data. Pornography and spam com-
parisons tweets are removed, and the topical frequency is unreliable. Amount
of Twitter users and Twitter profiles have several human and multiple users
generated one-account redundancies.
7) Out of context: Data reduction is a common way of fitting into a mathematical
model. During data abstraction, it is essential to keep the context. Focus infor-
mation loses relevance and significance. The introduction of social networking
sites as a “social graph” is fascinating. Big data introduces two types of social
networks: “articulated networks” and “enforcement networks.” Contacts via
mediation technologies are the product of articulated networks.
8) Digital divide: Big data access is one of the main restrictions. Data vendors
and social media platforms have access to broad social data. Few organizations
determine who and to what degree will access info. Few offer the right of view
at high fees, although some researchers have a range of information sets. This
leads to “internet division” in big data: rich big data and poor big data. There
are three classes of people and organizations in this field of big data.
9) Data errors: The development of information technology produces vast volumes
of data. Big data can be used for data storage and recovery by introducing cloud
computing. Big internet data sets are vulnerable to and therefore inconsistent to
errors and losses. The data source should be understood to minimize errors
caused using various data sets. Before the analysis, the properties and deficien-
cies of the data set should be understood to avoid or explain the data representa-
tion distortion (Boyd & Crawford, 2011). Imagine, for example, reviewing social
media websites from first parties and third parties, where the content of the first
party accounts is examined while the other is not (Kaisler et al., 2013).

Opportunities of Big Data in Mobile Marketing

Big data analytics are now attracting too much popularity, but there are still a lot of
analysis issues to be solved:
1) Photos, audio, and video storage and recovery: Multidimensional data above
and over large minimized data can be applied in computing to investigate in-
memory model arrays. Multidimensional data models integrating big data calls
116 Harmanpreet Kaur

for changes in HiveQL query language by multidimensional extensions (Cuzzoc-

rea et al., 2011). The creation of images, audio, and videos is unprecedented as
smartphones appear. However, storing, compiling, and analyzing these unstruc-
tured data requires tremendous research in each aspect.
2) Data lifecycle: Most applications include big data analytics to run in real time.
In order to make the computational process real time, the life cycle of the data,
its significance, and the computation process must be defined (Chen et al.,
2014). Big data is not always better, but appropriate filtering techniques should
be developed to ensure data coherence (Boyd & Crawford, 2012). The availabil-
ity of full and usable data is another important issue.
3) High-dimensional data visualization: At any point of data processing, visual-
ization enables decision analysis. The complexities of visualization remain a
part of data processing and online analytic processing (OLAP) science. There is
space for large-scale data visualization tools.
4) Algorithms for real time computing: The pace at which the data is produced,
and the optimal time delay is not achieved would not fulfill the criteria for
these algorithms.
5) Efficient storage equipment: The need for digital data storage is rising. The
purchase and use of available storage devices cannot meet this demand. Re-
search in the development of suitable storage devices that will remove the need
for fault-tolerant Hadoop Distributed File Systems (HDFS) can increase data
processing and substitute the requirement for software layers.
6) Dimensions of social perspectives: It is important to remember, though, that
any technology can provide faster efficiency, and policy makers must do it with
experience. This research may have various social and cultural implications and
cynically contribute to online forums. There are few concerns as to whether large
search data can contribute to improved resources and services, or invasive pri-
vacy and advertisements will increase; whether it is used to track protests and
limit free speech or whether data analytics can understand online behavior, com-
munities, and political movements (Boyd & Crawford, 2012).

Impacts of Big Data on Mobile Marketing

Millions of bytes of data that people use daily can be used by smartphone app de-
velopers to create and produce better applications. Users need prompt insights into
their mobile life and times that a customer will order, settle on fuel, and deliver
their brands or services in real time and context through a range of devices. How-
ever, developers need comprehensive knowledge from several sources to drive soft-
ware growth by incorporating research and big data.
 Chapter 8 Impacts of Big Data on Mobile Marketing (Big Data and Mobile Marketing) 117

1) Using and understanding of big data: Big data is just larger than life itself, so
it provides a complete rendering to the customer. The volume of data generated
by users overtook the petabyte level; several zeta bytes of raw information or
data have been clocked and this number is increasing exponentially. In the
next few years, the volume of data stored globally will hit the yotta byte mark.
The total amount of data collected years ago is lower than the unstructured
data that were given before the data were produced. Therefore, it is only by
using high-level analytics that the vast amount of these data can be minimized
and translated into useful information. It’s a lot to do, but it’s worth it.
2) Making customer-driven mobile apps: Quick, bug-free, attractive, and criti-
cal of all, it should be easy to use and must be able to meet users’ needs as
much as possible. A comprehensive analysis of user engagement of big data an-
alytics will also give enough insights into the development of broader, more
open apps, and provides knowledge about what users want the applications to
do. Moreover, user interface is the main source of the best possible concepts for
making fresh and great applications.
3) User experience analytics for big data fuels: As previously stated, for app
creation, a thorough review of user interactions is needed. Big data explains
the full activity descriptions of users that can highlight vivid points when tak-
ing user experience into account in software development. The overall desires
and expectations of users are then communicated by evaluating their cumula-
tive actions in relation to the software. This will also allow the production of
the latest app. Mobile app creators will learn fresh ideas for creating new appli-
cations by seeing how much the consumers like the app by the study of big
data behind apps identical to the ones they make.
4) New marketing age: Business analytics and big data lead to the awareness-
based mobile app design in which product marketers strive to connect email
networks to mobile apps. In addition, other well-known advertisers include the
Cloud Email Studio sales team, the Agility Harmony Network of Epsilon, the
Powerful Selligent, and Cheetah Mail. For companies to address customers at a
technological level, the ability of mobile apps to use big data analysis is critical.
From business analysis to corporate intelligence and marketing, anything can
be useful.
5) Future app’s main feature: The mobile app market reached $189 billion by
2020, shattering the $100 billion quota thanks to many customers, who have
almost fully converted to tablets and smartphones. Thus, the future of emerging
technologies is simply the creation of better accessible smartphone applications.
Mobile devices are much more volatile than computer applications. Thanks to
their features and easy view, they are considered simpler to use. Users who dis-
play considerable interest in these unique characteristics are necessary. Big data
processing is the most effective way to collect knowledge and to make it a big
expense for companies.
118 Harmanpreet Kaur

Conclusion
This chapter offered an outline of big data and explored different big data methods
and approaches in mobile marketing. We have also attempted to compare various
frameworks for the management of large-scale data collection, big data manage-
ment tools, various libraries, and bundles. This chapter has summarized the effect
of big data on mobile marketing along with different big data opportunities and
threats in mobile marketing.

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Komal Kapoor
Chapter 9
Implications of Big Data in Execution
of Social CRM Techniques: Cases from
Developed and Emerging Economies
Introduction
Technology adoption and integration are creating huge volumes of data about con-
sumers, their purchase patterns, tracking history, etc., that are leading to improved
understanding of the consumers and their buying intentions. Big data of consumers
thus helps in the development and dissemination of flow of information that con-
verts into better decision-making (Ahani et al., 2017). This information needs to be
systematically developed to form a coherent set of information helping the manag-
ers serving the consumers better. Thus, the use of big data has increased manifold
in countries and in many sectors like automobile, fast food, e-commerce, etc. Even
the most complex of data can be managed and meaningfully analyzed thereby pro-
viding improved managerial implications in many sectors.
Each organization aims at developing strong and meaningful relationships with
the customer segments with the adoption of technology-led methods. In recent
times, these include digital marketing and branding efforts, customer services, cus-
tomized offers, personalized analysis of each consumer, etc. In this line, undertak-
ing social CRM based on big data collected about consumers and their preferences
is highly successful marketing strategy (Orenga-Roglá & Chalmeta, 2016). Social
CRM is the adoption of social media platforms to connect, attract and retain the
consumers through relationship building activities and tools. These further differ in
various sectors and various nations that need a deeper understanding to develop
the most appropriate conceptual framework in the use of big data for social CRM.
The chapter has focused on understanding the importance of big data in the current
technology age and on how social CRM has evolved from just simple CRM.
A comparative analysis of sectors and nations would be an important analysis of
the chapter thus helping both academicians and managers further implement the
same in their purview and working. Different case studies would be analyzed to dis-
cuss the common areas and concerns of how social CRM was adopted with the help
of big data (Malthouse et al., 2013). It would also enhance how the understanding of
big data can be used in other CRM tools and techniques. For a long time, CRM has
been understood as the subsidiary wing of marketing, coming into place only after
the sale had happened. As it is purely based on a developing relationship with the
existing and potential customers, the flow of the chapter would be determined

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120 Komal Kapoor

through that. Real learning can be acquired with the help of understanding real life
cases from the market, which are based on both developed nations and developing
nations’ brands taking up social CRM in an important way.

Big Data
Big data is the management and development of a large volume of data, which may
exist in both structured and unstructured form but needs to be developed into a
more systematized understanding using complex tools. On a daily basis, millions of
organizations and consumers are generating large volumes of data about them-
selves that would further aid in strategic decision- making of the future. The man-
agement of such data sets require statistical and technical tools to work on complex
data and numbers for drawing meaningful implications for managers. It also in-
volves storing, analyzing, disseminating, visualizing, transferring, queuing, and
the evaluation of the data (Woodcock et al., 2011). The large volumes of data are
built upon market data, consumer data and many internal tasks that can be used
more meaningfully for better decision making. Big data analytics works on the pre-
dictive analytics, user analytics, behavior analysis, etc. that helps in drawing mean-
ingful conclusion from the data leading to better managerial decisions. The big
data analytics need to be built upon both in volume of data and value of the data
that is developed to develop more critical decision making for various functions
(Lobato et al., 2016). This analysis of data can find various trends, spot new oppor-
tunities, prevent disease and crisis, and even reduce crime. The application of big
data has become pertinent and imperative in all the industries in this world includ-
ing healthcare, medical practitioners, advertising, research, government agencies,
fintech, geographic information systems, urban informatics, complex physics and
geological studies, and even environmental research. The creation of data and
usage of data has exponentially increased to such levels where this explosion
would further lead to the creation of more data in the coming years.
The source of such huge volumes of data are the multiple devices and accounts
that people hold such as smart phone, laptops, computing, radio-frequency identifi-
cation (RFID) devices, sensory devices, cameras, storage devices, etc. As each con-
sumer today is well connected and generates large amount of data, this management
and assimilation has further become very complex (Lobato et al., 2016). The huge
data that is getting created also needs to be converted into business intelligence so
that the decision making can be improved further. This is achieved with the help of
many technologies and data architecture platforms like OLAP, MPP, DARPA’s topo-
logical tools, and many other cloud computing tools along with data base manage-
ment software. The competitive advantage has been achieved by the information
technology giants like SAP, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, etc., that have developed software
 Chapter 9 Implications of Big Data in Execution of Social CRM Techniques 121

and data analytics platforms to serve their clients on big data issues (Amelina et al.,
2016). This has become more pertinent in developing economies where technology
and mobile penetration has seen an upsurge in the last few years, along with its
adoption in many government processes and tasks to reduce cost and increase pro-
ductivity while adopting more innovation.
The biggest use of big data has been in marketing and advertising where the
large-scale data developed by consumers and their social media accounts can be put
to great use for undertaking targeted marketing methods. With social media plat-
forms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter generating huge amounts of
data about the consumers, making meaningful analysis about consumers from these
platforms has become an important aspect for organizations. Beginning from market-
ing, releasing of ad campaigns, developing customer engagement, promoting certain
offers, and long-term relationship building, marketers are utilizing the data created
on these platforms to the best possible use (Chen et al., 2016). Gradually, these plat-
forms have been utilized for CRM as the old traditional methods of connecting with
the customers have become obsolete. As consumers are spending more time on the
social media platforms, it makes more sense to attract and connect with them there.
With the help of the big data and analytics tools, detailed information and under-
standing about consumers can be obtained that helps in developing more targeted
marketing communication. Social media and CRM have been deeply integrated over
the last many years leading to more meaningful use of consumer data. Researchers,
marketers, advertisers, brand owners, brand users, and social media bodies also
have accepted the application of big data in developing the marketing campaigns
and CRM strategies for the consumers (Anshari et al., 2019).

Social CRM
Social CRM is the adoption of social media platforms, services, tools, techniques, and
technology to enable organizations for engaging consumers more meaningfully while
aiming to develop long- term relationships. The adoption of the same is not only wit-
nessed in CRM but also in marketing, services, customer services, sales, and branding.
This is undertaken through social media engagement with current and new customers
by engaging with them and allowing them to share their likes, preferences, sentiments
about the products or the brands. It also builds upon developing stronger social media
customer service by aiding customers to get the customer services through social
media channels (Phillips-Wren & Hoskisson, 2015). The channels are not only used for
outbound marketing communications but also for inbound customer services issues
that are resolved with the help of technology tools thereby building brand advocacy.
Social media also promotes personalized marketing strategies and communication that
leads to the creation of custom content that is increasingly dependent on access to
122 Komal Kapoor

reliable, qualitative social user data to facilitate precise audience segmentation. Fur-
thermore, dynamic audience segments, built on both social data and demographic
data, allow for a more accurate measurement of campaign KPIs (Ennaji et al., 2015).
CRM as such has changed over time where earlier it used to be more traditional
and based on collecting and managing data about the consumers, past purchase infor-
mation, contact details and history, customer demographics, communication details,
etc. Based on this, certain communication used to be done with the consumers and
offers used to be promoted for building long-term loyalty. But as the world became
more digital and social media driven, a deeper layer of social CRM has been created
where the consumer data analytics driven CRM is undertaken through the social media
platforms (Harrigan et al., 2020). This layer is comprised of other social networks that
provide much needed deeper data about consumer activities on Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, Linked In, etc. As consumers share information publicly on such platforms,
these can be used to build future communication and relationship building activities
with them. Companies operate in multichannel environments in the current era and
they have to develop multiple ways of communicating with the customers which are
meaningful and relevant for them. Social CRM enables companies to track a customer’s
social influence and source data from conversations occurring outside of formal, direct
communication (Harrigan & Miles, 2014). Social CRM also allows companies to keep a
full audit history of all customer interactions, regardless of the social channel they
choose to use, available to all customer care employees.
Critical social CRM metrics need to be understood if the right decision about
consumers needs to be taken. The key metrics for building awareness among the
consumers involve web traffic, search volume trends, followers, social mentions,
etc. that can help in building the right level of consumer awareness (Harrigan et al.,
2015). Similarly, the metrics that can be adopted for increasing sales are related to
website traffic, social mentions that are positive, volume and kind of followers, re-
peat visits, social content acceptance rate of consumers, etc. For measuring and as-
sessing the changes in the environment in an industry so that it can be put into
right use, the share of voice or how much overall voice a single brand consumes, is
based on its presence on all the platforms. With the help of such evaluation and
usage of consumer data, many other social CRM activities can be taken further in
customer experience management, sentiment analysis, social analytics, social sell-
ing, text and data mining, etc. Even social CRM is not static and is evolving along
with the transformation of these platforms based on the consumer engagement of
these platforms.
 Chapter 9 Implications of Big Data in Execution of Social CRM Techniques 123

Big Data in Social CRM

Integrating big data analytics into social CRM has given a new face and meaning to
how CRM is undertaken with consumers today. It needs to be understood that it
may not be a disruptive way of doing CRM but provides a new and improved dimen-
sion to adopting more social media driven CRM strategies where the data about con-
sumers, their usage, their demographics, user analytics, interaction with the brands
can be put to better use while maintaining the long-term relationship with them.
This collection of data about consumers provides a better way to monitor, track and
benchmark the consumer behavior online on social communities while developing
a better understanding about tools, metrics, and dashboards (Woodcock et al.,
2011). With the explosion of huge amount of consumer data on the internet based
on the social media activities they do; big data analytics is providing guided direc-
tion to build more specific messages that lead to the right results. The use of this
data for understanding consumers better uses the predictive analytics modeling for
gaining a much deeper understanding of how consumers would behave and react.
Big data helps in making more accurate and informed decision-making about the
consumers and how they interact online (Ibrahim & Adetya, 2017).
Big data technology analytics is used by organizations for many purposes in so-
cial CRM. Most of them include core customer services and developing stronger,
more engaging relationships. Some key uses include:
1) Commercial recommendation, which relates to suggesting the product or service
with greater probability of success for each customer
2) Competitive intelligence, which builds upon showing real-time automated infor-
mation customized to the situation created by the customer, thereby allowing
the company to maintain a contextualized dialogue and to obtain real-time in-
formation needed to make suitable decisions (Daif et al., 2015)
3) Debt recovery for customers from public information sources and aiding them in
subscribing and renewing
4) Automated categorization and routing of customer interactions over any channel
along with shifting between various platforms
5) Predictive models of trends (purchase, abandonment, nonpayment, etc.) and
clustering of customers that helps community building
6) 360° customer view, showing the relevant customer information provided through
any channel and format.

The above tools are utilized in collaboration with each other for providing the right
amount of leverage to the marketers for building up the strong social CRM network
(Chan, 2014). Consumers in the online space may be entirely heterogeneous and
poles apart yet must be approached with similar kinds of marketing and communi-
cation efforts. The role of web technologies in collating the different aspects of con-
sumers thus becomes very important. Therefore, big data and Web 2.0 technologies
124 Komal Kapoor

have undertaken a complete change in developing social CRM objectives and also
in achieving the connection with the “social customers” who are difficult to ap-
proach but have bigger business opportunities. It has also helped in building the
superior competitive advantage of brands in the market.
Big data application is not only providing more accuracy in approaching the
right target audience but also developing more personalized and customized mes-
sages and offers to help consumers in easy converting (Sigala, 2016). The technol-
ogy-based tools develop the right service offer and customer service through more
targeted consumer profiling which is a hybrid mix of demographic and psycho-
graphic features. A big data enabled CRM strategy is more based on the benefits
that can accrue due to the integrated nature of multiple outcomes. As the profiling
of the consumer is done more accurately and precisely with the help of data analyt-
ics, predicting trends in future customer reactions to marketing and product mes-
sages can be made more effective. Many other usages of the big data have been
adopted through customer value chain management, in producing accurate assess-
ment measures, campaign-based strategies, digital marketing effectiveness, etc.
The tools can be used by the data (Greenberg, 2010).

Cases and Implications

Big data has been the epic solution to many organizations adopting social CRM for
their brands over the social media platforms. The data is generated from multiple
sources such as social media platforms, server logs, web click streams, mobile
apps, database stores, business records, etc. Interestingly, limitless data can be
generated using real-time sensors embedded in devices that can be connected to
the internet through a technology that is known as “Internet of Things.” Many
global organizations are utilizing the technology platforms of big data for under-
standing the consumer psychology better on the social media platforms thereby un-
dertaking more effective social CRM campaigns. This has been impacted by many
IT companies building such software and data analytics tools that help brands un-
dertake social CRM. A discussion on the brand usage of big data and how these
comparisons can be done would provide meaningful data for the study. Most of the
organizations are working on the 5 V model, which is volume, velocity, variety,
value, and veracity (Guha et al., 2018). Big data has generated endless opportunities
for the brands for better integrating the customer data into software management
systems.
1) Netflix: being the leader in the OTT industry and having disrupted the movie
viewing experience, the company has been a big user of big data of consumers
and how to reach out to them on the social media platforms to connect. As Netflix
has now entered many emerging economies like India, CRM methods have been
 Chapter 9 Implications of Big Data in Execution of Social CRM Techniques 125

adopted to undertake market analysis. This has been based on the huge data of the
Indian consumers and what content they create on their online platforms. That has
helped the company streamline consumer psychology and the preferences of the con-
sumers toward the kind of content that is desired. The market analysis data has helped
in undertaking predictive modeling for targeting the Indian consumer better (Delanoy
& Kasztelnik, 2020). The ever-changing mindset of the consumers is clearly visible
through the online activity and presence of the consumers. It provides huge data and
understanding of how the consumers would behave and react to CRM campaigns to
determine their effectiveness. The past and present behavior of the consumers on Face-
book, Instagram, and even Twitter helps in developing a deeper understanding in
modeling their future behavior. This has helped Netflix develop superior customer ex-
perience both before and after usage of Netflix. Better handling has led to a higher
level of retention of the consumers that belong to the right target audience for the en-
tertainment provider (Zerbino et al., 2018). Conjoining historic interactions with prov-
able statistics crosswise over the two platforms will be able to provide real-time
centralized perspective of clients. This is collaborated with CRM innovation that is
largely dependent on a hidden social or enterprise information catalogue that in-
creases the accuracy of customer understanding while reducing the shortcomings.
The automation of offers being floated and conversion clicks has brought about an-
other wave of success for the platform. CRM will be able to pick up many requests
more meritoriously and will not require any substantial human oversight. This con-
sumer understanding has helped the platform in gaining immense knowledge about
Indian consumers for Netflix and in transforming their content and method of com-
munication (Chen et al., 2016).

2) Amazon: The true value of big data has been utilized by Amazon, which is the
biggest e-commerce platform catering to the multiple needs of the world. From a
humble beginning of being an online book seller, the platform has come to include
almost anything on earth. Millions of consumers shop on Amazon thus creating
huge volumes of data about themselves and their purchasing patterns. At all the
touch points of the consumer, while browsing, searching, reading, or seeing the
product, adding to cart, not buying, checking out and purchasing, CRM methods
are adopted for overall improved customer experience (Chen et al., 2017). Using the
big data technologies and customer information, the company has been developing
customized solutions for the consumers for many years that they also promote on
the social media platforms. The data about the consumers not only help in CRM but
also in customer servicing while transactions are being done. But only big data
technologies would not help the companies in developing strong systems, the inte-
gration of technology with strategy would have to be adopted that was done by Am-
azon. Amazon has adopted a very professional and systematic approach to building
up of big data acting upon social CRM. This begins with knowing the consumers,
managing their data and choices, interacting with customers on various platforms
126 Komal Kapoor

with the help of technologies, and analyzing the customer choices through the
clicks, bounce rate, etc., that helps in real time information. In a more systematized
approach, the platform has been able to improve the conversion rate of global con-
sumers who now visit the platform for all their needs motivated by the social CRM
clicks (Kunz et al., 2017). Amazon has been responsible for taking the CRM and
more so social CRM to the next level of consumer analytics there by building a more
collaborative knowledge set about consumers. With the help of big data analytics,
the company undertakes pattern analysis of consumer buying history in a more
structured manner thus leading to more appropriate answers to what they consider
right for the consumer’s future behavior. The company also uses it for sentiment
analysis by looking at consumer responses to social media campaigns that bring
the consumers to the level of purchase and loyalty. This also helps in optimizing
the marketing decisions and messages that are sent to consumers on a regular basis
for conversion to take place thus converting into long-term CRM base (Cheng &
Shiu, 2019). The social CRM has also been effective and meaningful for recommen-
dation analysis of consumers that would convert into higher level of sales in the
future. When consumers post their satisfied experiences on the social media plat-
forms, it not only helps in recommending their own choice of products but also
communicates in their social media connections and communities. This further
builds the basis for both the consumer specific CRM but extending the CRM to other
new and existing consumers (Chang, 2018). The social CRM platform has further
been used by Amazon for influence analysis also where the current satisfied con-
sumers are being built into the bigger system of big data for better future decision-
making about marketing to them.

3) Taco Bell: One of the most preferred fast-food joints in the world undertakes
CRM on the social media in a very engaging manner. Being the world’s best taco
maker, creating relationships with customers while incorporating fun into it has
been the core strategy of the retail brand (Amado et al., 2018). The company under-
takes many kinds of witty and fun posts on their social media to generate interest
and likeability among consumers. They also invite and solicit complaints and prob-
lems of consumers to openly provide solutions to them on the public forums. This
helps the brand build a much higher level of engagement and commitment while
developing long-term consumers. Consumers find it rewarding to connect with the
company on the open platforms that provides all the options of shoutouts for both
positives and negatives linked to the brand. The company has built upon active so-
cial listening on social media in order to provide meaningful conversations to con-
sumers (Tiruwa & Yadav, 2015). Sometimes, the pace of social CRM is too quick for
the company to manage as many kinds of communications by the customers may
get viral leading to a negative impact on the brand’s image. But to solve this, the
social media managers at Taco Bell undertake meaningful work for managing posi-
tive outcomes for the consumers. The brand has had an open line of communication
 Chapter 9 Implications of Big Data in Execution of Social CRM Techniques 127

with the customers on both negative and positive remarks thereby building in more
credibility with both mistakes and good experiences. Being in the public domain of
the consumers, the brand has extensively used Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
for the promotion at various ends while dealing with the problems with equal ease
(Amelina et al, 2016). Even when the problems of the consumers are solved, the satis-
fied responses are also promoted on the social media to prove their undying loyalty
toward customers and their long-term relationship. This has helped the company
gain quite a lot of credibility in the social spheres, which is very important in the cur-
rent times.

3) Zomato: Being India’s largest food delivery service is no joke; catering to such a
large number of consumers and their complaints. The food delivery aggregator uses
the social media platforms aggressively to promote the offers and schemes thereby
enticing the consumers to act on it while aiming to build higher levels of engage-
ment. The company completely understands that as they serve millions of orders
per day, issues pertaining to food and deliveries may arise even after the best of
efforts are made by the platform with the use of big data. The company has devoted
a complete platform for solving the complaints as Zomato @ care and have it an
important part of the CRM strategy. With the help of regular updates on their Twit-
ter and Instagram accounts, the company actively engages the Indian consumer
who seeks to order from Zomato; the adoption of such methods of food ordering
along with the reliability of the quality of food being delivered is a new service for
the customers (Ghazaleh & Zabadi, 2020). Many irritated consumers have com-
plained regularly on the platform for social CRM that has always been taken up by
the company in a meaningful manner. As the social platforms are public forums,
developing the solutions there provides widespread trust or mistrust about the
brand. As quoting communication and reviews has become very easy for consumers
today, developing social media CRM strategy can help the brand survive many cri-
ses by solving them online so that every consumer can observe and develop an
image about the brand. It also builds a higher level of trust and credibility in the
eyes of the consumers that the company is eager to solve the problems of the con-
sumers (Perera et al., 2018). Social media has become an important tool for communi-
cating with the large-scale audience for companies who may be seeking to develop
long-term relationships with the consumers.

4) Adoption of AI and big data cases: Each company builds upon its own require-
ments of adopting AI into the working of the business process. Many of the busi-
nesses use live assistance on their platforms for better social media engagement like
the Aberdeen group that has posted an 83 percent enhancement in revenues due to
the live assistance provided by the company for the consumers. This helps in a big
part of the customer journey as consumers face live problems while dealing with the
brand on the social media platform. Without visiting the branch, the bank can pro-
vide all the services through the online assistance that develops into a much higher
128 Komal Kapoor

level of social engagement (Chierici et al., 2019). The video chat and co-browsing op-
tions provided to consumers help in more personalized services and a seamless expe-
rience. Such kind of omnichannel presence helps for better bonding between the
consumer and company. The collaboration of both online and offline platforms devel-
ops strongly into an integration of text and services. Oasis, a leading woman’s
clothing brand provides much better customer experience to the customers while
browsing and placing the order online. The social media platforms have devel-
oped customer touch points to create a seamless customer journey for the process
to be smooth and relevant (Hallikainen et al, 2020). This is collaborated with In-
stagram content and Facebook posting. Knowing the customer preferred channels
is thus critical for creating a much more conclusive long-term relationship. Avail-
ability of the chat bots on the social platforms help in better connectivity leading
to enhanced customer experience. Many of the platforms are being utilized by
brands to send messages, thank you mails for the purchases made by them, ask-
ing for reviews as they provide authenticity, cross-sell and up-sell the products,
customer loyalty programs and offers, and also requesting referrals while building
a much deeper social connection (Goldenberg, 2015). Sephora, the beauty brand is
highly appreciated for its loyalty program covering around 17 million consumers.
These accounts for almost 80 percent of sales of the company as a majority of the
consumers build upon the loyalty programs that are given to them through the
social media coverage. The traditional point system works but with the collabora-
tion of the social media platforms to make it livelier and more connected. These
brands, as researched by Gartner are also delivering superior customer service
through the social media CRM methods (Askool & Nakata, 2011). Popular social
channels like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are not just for business
promotion. They can be used to connect with your customers. Almost 78 percent of
customers want brands to help people connect through social media. Framing good
customer relationships on social media helps businesses to improve relationships
with customers by making them feel connected to your brand. Nike undertakes en-
gagement with customers even when they fix their issues through active engagement
on the platforms where the consumers are not able to solve the problems themselves
(Hofacker et al., 2016). Similar efforts are made by Airbnb through the referral pro-
gram which brings in around 25 percent of their sales and revenue by connecting
people through the social media platforms. The stories and journeys of consumers
are posted on their social media handles leading to a much higher level of customer
reach and segment building. Many older brands like Colgate have also learned the
art of responding to the customers by rekindling the relationship through reminding
them of their relationship with Colgate and advertising that they are using the best
product for dental care (Faase et al., 2011). This re-emphasizing of the core bene-
fits and value proposition of the brand with the consumers provides an opportu-
nity to them to interact and communicate.
 Chapter 9 Implications of Big Data in Execution of Social CRM Techniques 129

Many of the top brands of the world like Apple, Coca-Cola, Tesco, LinkedIn, Spotify,
and many others continuously develop means and ways of regular interaction with
their consumers to build the connect and focus on long-term sustainability. Upon
comparison of the brands and how they operate in developed and developing na-
tions, it has been observed that in developed nations, the social media engagement
is based more on reconnecting and also developing referral marketing programs.
While in the developing nations, the brands must still focus on problem solving,
customer services, and complaints resolution that in the long run develop into re-
ferrals and loyal consumer base (Syed et al., 2013).

Conclusion and Future Areas of Research

The understanding of use of big data in CRM and now social CRM has been growing
with new opportunities becoming important with the development of many new tech-
nologies. Big data technologies like Hadoop, SQL, etc., have played an important role
in the development of data that is helping the companies in building much more
meaningful CRM concerns. In the chapter, it has been understood in detail as to what
the concept of big data is in the current scenario and how huge amounts of struc-
tured and unstructured information about consumers can be helpful in developing
better socially engaged campaigns (Kong & Song, 2013). Big data has been used for
many key marketing and strategy decisions for companies and brands and now also
has usage in CRM strategies. Earlier CRM was based on traditional methods of build-
ing relationships but with the advent of social media platforms, its use for building
social CRM methods has further increased. Social CRM is deeply based on adopting
the relationship building approach with consumers through social media platforms
and their engagement through the same.
Global organizations having a presence in many nations have now adopted big
data about consumers and their buying patterns to approach them in the right manner
on social media platforms. As consumers are spending more time online and other so-
cial media platforms, attracting and retaining them on these platforms have become
very critical for the future profitability of the company (Jimenez-Marquez et al., 2019).
Big data about the consumers helps in pattern understanding, influence marketing,
recommendations to be made, purchase sentiment analysis, referral analysis, etc. So-
cial CRM theory building and application for brands has led to much deeper consumer
understanding that is helping the marketers in building higher levels of social engage-
ment. Each brand, both in the developed and developing market, is innovating their
own ways of developing the CRM strategies while aiming to enhance the overall social
brand for the company. These platforms are being used for both marketing and solving
consumer problems so that a credible social image can be created.
130 Komal Kapoor

While considering the future course of action and research need in the adoption
of big data in Social CRM, many areas of future research can be identified. Firstly, as
social media is ever evolving, new big data technologies may need to be developed
for particularly enhancing the social CRM. This puts the onus on IT and software
companies that should understand the requirements of the brands for developing
such platforms that can serve multiple objectives. The second area of research would
be developing certain theoretical models and conceptual frameworks particularly
pertaining to social CRM as this is still in the infancy stages of being developed as an
academic field. Many models do exist for CRM and its study that can be adopted by
academicians and researchers but work still needs to be done on social CRM as it is a
new area of development. With the exponential rise of social media, it would be
meaningful to develop how each of them can be used for the same.

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S. Balamurugan, M. Selvalakshmi, M. Palanivelrajan
Chapter 10
Leveraging Big Data for Digital Marketing
Introduction
This chapter examines how capacities with respect to using large information and
big data can help make important associations with clients. In the era of modern
transformation (Industry 4.0) big data significantly affects business, since the un-
rest of organizations, stages, individuals, and digital technology, have changed or-
ganizations’ development and intensity. Big data analytics prompts important
information and advancement of innovative movement of endeavors and associa-
tions, changing economics at the public and worldwide level.
Big data helps and shapes the decisions on pricing, especially in the business-
to-business (B2B) area, as each deal is different from the next. It examines various
part of pricing strategy; consider what items a specific client has bought in a spe-
cific period? What is their disposable income? How much will they pay for an item?
The manager can consider the GDP development rate, inflation rate, exchange rate,
interest rate, etc. Then the manager can incorporate all these insights to make bet-
ter pricing choices. Big data helps to design a website—what visitors are interested
in based on the browsing history. So, the website will rely on who is looking at it.
Companies can compete with digital marketing in today’s market. Accordingly, big
data has acquired extensive significance as a powerful device for digital advertisers.
It empowers organizations to be super-focused on communications with the pur-
chasers they are looking for, in view of web client profiles and interests. Big data
offers organizations limitless prospects to improve their advertising productivity.
This methodology offers 250 percent more prominent proficiency than current prac-
tices and using big data for digital marketing is a good thought. The digital market-
ers can make the most powerful moves by turning data into a story. The company
can gain an advantage over competitors by enhancing a pricing strategy, using fore-
casting, adjusting customer segmentation, and optimizing marketing campaigns in
real time. The accessibility of big data opens doors to improve digital marketing
through an expanded comprehension of client inclinations and conduct to custom-
ize communication and to improve the closeness of associations. The accessibility
of big data makes it necessary for the organization to create interior abilities to en-
sure its upper hand (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000; Winter 2003). Along these lines we
ask the accompanying research issue: How should associations create digital mar-
keting capacities to use big data for important associations with their clients?
Today the enormous amount of data through the Internet of Things has added to
the assent of an “information driven period” where big data analytics are utilized in

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134 S. Balamurugan, M. Selvalakshmi, M. Palanivelrajan

an energy area (agribusiness, wellbeing, etc.) and throughout the economy. In that
context, the bulk of companies are assembling, putting away, and analyzing data
for key business choices prompting significant information.
Big data is a trendy expression in business and financial fields, since it assumes
a fundamental part in monetary movement and has fortified its roke in making eco-
nomic value by empowering better approaches to spur innovation and profitability
development. Enterprises plan to use data produced in organizations through their
tasks to acquire important customer experiences to help them make better, quicker
decisions and that’s just the beginning of the story of how big data can help pro-
mote definite choices in urgent business matters.
The significance of big data is demonstrating the various ways that can be uti-
lized, from supply chains to customer loyalty, to the advantage of companies.

Digital Marketing Objectives

Digital marketing objectives focus on customer acquisition, engagement, and reten-
tion. In 2006 two consultants working in Finland, Xavier Blanc and Leevi Kokko,
fostered a model to use with clients which they named Reach, Engage, Active, and
Nurture, abbreviated to REAN (Jackson, 2009). It states that all businesses need to
arrive at possible client’s commitment; engagement begins a discussion; activation
organizes the sale; and nurturing looks after the customer, encouraging them to
return.
It improves the capacity to separate online a specific crowd from the traditional
section, comprehend their requirements and how they approach purchasing a simi-
lar brand on the web. It assists with understanding audience segments which in-
cludes an investigation to follow and comprehend purchaser segments as a piece of
customer research. When the brand elements have been created, brand informing
and promoting strategies become essential to get online clients to try the item and
get hooked to buying it on the web. Depending on business targets and how firmly
the brand is as of now situated in the minds of the intended online clients, the ad-
vertisers can go all out for a huge explosion of communication technique to launch
or create a specific multiple burst methodology on powerful channels that the audi-
ence visits consistently.
The stronger and clearer the objectives, the easier it is to build a digital market-
ing plan (Figure 10.1).
 Chapter 10 Leveraging Big Data for Digital Marketing 135

Figure 10.1: Process of leveraging big data.

Importance of Big Data

Big data helps you learn as much as you can to acquire a competitive advantage,
and before every other person gets on the bandwagon. Information and data are
advantageous and one can expect them to have a significant role in distinguishing
winners from losers in our super aggressive worldwide economy. Also, indeed,
there will be definite sales and obstacles to clear. From a business point of view,
we’ll need to figure out how to:
– Use big data analytics to increase an incentive for our endeavor that lines up
with our core competencies and gives the company an upper hand.
– Capitalize on new innovation capacities and influence our current innovation
resources.
– Enable the proper progressive modification to move toward truth-based conclu-
sions, select up-to-date innovations, and join individuals from various groups
into a solitary versatile group.
– Deliver quicker and predominant outcomes by embracing and exploiting on the
ever- growing pace of progress, which is happening in the worldwide market
area.

Big data analytics will at the same time limit operational expenses while driving
top line wages to net considerable overall revenues for the venture into new deals
(Table 10.1).
Big data broadens the extent of existing scientific capacities with an assortment
of extra information sources that may lie with company limits. The idea of big data
impacts the skill to decide about information and subsequently introduce modifica-
tions, “to the overall practices of data collection, generation, and use.” Hence, big
data abilities allude to the exercise to store, supervise, and separate this huge size
of coordinated and irregular data that are persistently produced (Chen et al., 2012).
136 S. Balamurugan, M. Selvalakshmi, M. Palanivelrajan

Table 10.1: Big data Business Models.

Improve Operational Increase Income Achieve Competitive Differentiation

Planning

Lessen dangers Set to micro-trends Offer new administrations

Save time Empower self-service Seize market size

Lower difficulty Increase client adventure Incubate new ventures

Empower self-service Detect misrepresentation

Source: Brett Sheppard “Putting Big Data to Work: Opportunities for Enterprise” Gigaom pro,
March 2011.

Through the use of big data and change comparisons of the company, we would
anticipate an expansion in digital marketing performance. Consequently, we antici-
pate that big data straightforwardly and emphatically impacts data about clients,
which thus decidedly impacts the organization’s closeness with its clients by apply-
ing this data and eventually impacts advertising execution through making value,
respectively.

Big Data Analytics Application

There are various logical instruments that can be used to perform BDA and statisti-
cal examination. These methodologies and devices are effective and quick in pre-
venting misuse of big data. Enterprises that figure out how to exploit big data using
real-time information that we get from different sources like sensors, associated
gadgets, and so on, can comprehend their current circumstance and assign new
patterns, make fresh and creative items/administrations, react rapidly to changes,
and enhance their advertising activities. The influence of big data can add to effec-
tive resource distribution and management, waste reduction, assistance for new ex-
periences and a more significant degree of straightforwardness in various areas of
enterprises from creation to deals. Subsequently these applications are present in
almost every business territory.
Subsequently, it may be used very well in all areas like receiving an order and
delivering the items and applications of marketing, while it assists ventures to ex-
amine client conduct in a 360° client picture for execution of improved advertising
activity to affect client procurement and fulfillment. It gives new appreciation of cli-
ent conduct and inclinations and accordingly improves customer administration.
Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook are advanced and data-driven enter-
prises. Amazon was conceived as a computerized platform; it utilized enormous
amounts of information, and succeeded in upsetting the traditional book market
 Chapter 10 Leveraging Big Data for Digital Marketing 137

and thus transformed into the pioneer in advanced shopping. Another framework
of an eminently conceived computerized firm is Google that tackled information
step by step to give and modify search capabilities for its clients while also collect-
ing information that helps to create possibilities for altered promotional strategies.

Conclusion
This chapter explored the application of big data by listing those limits that are per-
tinent to use big data to enhance the execution of digital marketing. We tracked
down numerous ventures, from beginners to large companies, endeavoring to ac-
quire an information-driven culture battling for an upper hand against opponents.
The utilization of big data needs individuals with capacities and fitness who
will be ready to interpret data insights giving critical information to administrators
and leaders.
Big data isn’t just about information volume, it’s also about variety and veloc-
ity. Big data analytics can help organizations understand their environmental fac-
tors, their clients’ conduct, and their rivals’ exercises. It assumes a significant role
in digital marketing. The enterprise can form their products and activities to satisfy
clients’ requirements and enhance against rivals through better expectations and
more intelligent choices on the premise of proof rather than instinct. As more or-
ganizations get familiar with the fundamental abilities of utilizing big data and how
to attract clients with the current advancements in the field, they will stand out
from their opponents and enjoy an unequivocal competitive advantage.

References
Chen, H., Chiang, R., & Storey, V. (2012). Business Intelligence and Analytics: From Big Data to Big
Impact. MIS Quarterly Executive, 36(4): 1165–1188.
Eisenhardt, K. M., & Martin, J. A. (2000). Dynamic Capabilities: What Are They? Strategic
Management Journal, 21(10–11): 1105–1121.
Jackson, S. (2009). Cult of Analytics: Driving online marketing strategies using web analytics (1st
ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780080885179
Winter, S. G. (2003). Understanding Dynamic Capabilities. Strategic Management Journal, 24(10):
991–995.
Ram Krishan
Chapter 11
Performance Analysis of Algorithms Used for
Workflow Scheduling in Cloud Environment
Introduction
Cloud computing is a very common technology, which has a lot of work opportuni-
ties in diverse fields such as resource management, job scheduling, protection, and
privacy, etc. Scheduling is among the major problems that can boost the presenta-
tion of all cloud-based resources (Kim et al., 2016). Task allocation is often used in
cloud infrastructure to delegate the work for implementation. There are various
forms of algorithms available to coordinate such activities. Many problems such as
time required for implementation, implementation cost, and complexity etc., have
been addressed in task scheduling.

Task Scheduling in Cloud

This process involves two of the following stages: The first is resource provisioning and
another is the process of task scheduling (Arunarani et al., 2019). Task scheduling is
mainly defined for the identification of suitable resources for a task based on quality of
service (QoS) (Kaur et al., 2019) needs usually demanded by the consumers of the
cloud. The process of resource scheduling represents the execution and mapping of
cloud customer workloads based on chosen resources with the help of resource-based
provisioning. Here, firstly, the cloud customer submits the request for the execution of a
workload/task with task details. Based on task details, the broker observes and finds
the appropriate resource(s) for a known task as well as further establishes the reliability
of resource provisioning that depends on QoS needs. The broker forwards the requests
to the scheduler of resources to schedule after outstanding resource provisioning. Other
types of broker responsibilities include additional resources to the resource pool, which
includes the information of provisioned (protected) resources as well as monitoring per-
formance to remove or add a distinct type of resource. After the procedure of resource
provisioning, the arrangement of resources is completed in the 2nd stage. In such a
stage, the agents of scheduling perform mapping of the provisioned resources to the
known (given) tasks, perform task execution and further release the resources in turn to
the pool of resources after successful task completion process. Based on the requirement
of QoS, resources scheduling for adequate tasks represents a challenging problem (Kaur
et al., 2019). Figure 11.1 shows the basic architecture of scheduling in cloud computing.

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140 Ram Krishan

Figure 11.1: Scheduling architecture in cloud computing.

For efficient and effective task scheduling, it is very significant to consider the
requirements of QoS. An effective form of algorithms based on task scheduling
helps to reduce the cost of implementation, time of execution, consumption of en-
ergy and considering other requirements of QoS such as security, availability, scal-
ability, and reliability. The consumer of the cloud and the service provider of the
cloud represent the two major entities. The consumer submits the tasks while the
service provider gives various resources for task execution. Both entities have dis-
tinct needs – the provider wants to make a large profit with the lowest investment
and have maximized resources-based utilization, while the consumer of the cloud
thinks of performing their task execution process with minimum time and cost. The
resources of the cloud may create task interference that can show the way to the
unfortunate response of the performance and reduce the satisfaction of customers.
To maintain the QOS, providers of the cloud must perform the task rejection that
results in an unexpected environment. Task scheduling to suitable resources be-
comes more challenging as both the providers and the user do not willingly share
 Chapter 11 Performance Analysis of Algorithms Used for Workflow Scheduling 141

the information. The scheduling challenges in cloud environment involve the re-
source security as well as distribution of resources, which are not determined with
conventional algorithms. So, there is a need to execute the tasks efficiently for cap-
tivating cloud computing property.

Workflow Scheduling
Workflow scheduling (Devi et al., 2018) in cloud computing, aims at the execution
of workflows by considering their requirements of the constraints. In workflow
scheduling, a task is further segregated into subtasks. Resources are distributed to
a subtask in such a way that predefined standards are met. The applications of the
workflow are executed in steps. A task in the workflow structure follows the se-
quence of task execution depicted in Figure 11.2. In sequence structure, a new task
is executed only after the end of the past task. Simultaneous task execution is per-
formed in a parallel structure. In a choice-based structure, execution of a task is
performed in a series.

Figure 11.2: Workflow structure classification.

A workflow is a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) such as GðV, EÞ where V is the task’s
quantity and E is the order among the tasks. In a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG),
there are two types of tasks: the first is named entry task and the second is the exit
task. An entry task is also known as a root task and the task that has no further task
is called an exit task. Figure 11.3 depicts A as the entry task and it will execute prior
to other tasks such as B, C, and D. Task E will be executed in the end after the com-
pletion of all other tasks.
142 Ram Krishan

Figure 11.3: DAG representation of workflow.

Performance Parameters
It has been observed from different development of workflow scheduling strategies
(Krishan & Kumar, 2020) that there is a need to improve them to fulfill the client’s
requirements. Performance and quality of service (Kaur et al., 2019) limitations in
workflow scheduling are determined by the clients according to their requirements.
The performance parameters (Devi et al., 2018) listed in Table 11.1 are used to exam-
ine the workflow scheduling algorithms.

Table 11.1: Performance parameters for workflow scheduling.

Parameter Description

Make span Upper limit of time needed for the finishing of an activity

Execution Time This is the specific time taken to execute the given assignment

Cost Utilizations cost of resources

Energy Consumption Measure of energy devoured by the entire nodes

Throughput Total number of processes completed in a given time

Resource Consumption Maximum usage of processing resources

Migration time Time needed to move one task starting with one node then onto the next node

Budget The cost approved by the user to hold the cloud resources for a particular time
Table 11.2: Analysis of performance parameters used in workflow scheduling.

Parameters Algorithms

Hybrid Optimization Optimization Cost- Aware Execution, Max-Min Genetic, List Hybrid
Optimization Using BAT Budget Security Computation Approach Scheduling Heuristic
Algorithm Approach (Kaur & and Deadline Approach Time-Based (Singh Algorithm Algorithm
(Zhang, et al. Singh, ) Constraints (Devi et al. Algorithm and Rao (Kumar & (Mirzayi &
) (Amalarethinam & ) (Zheng, Wang, & ) Verma, ) Rafe, )
Beena, ) Zhang, )

Make span Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Execution Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No

Time

Cost Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes

Energy No No No No Yes No No No
Consumption

Throughput No No No No Yes Yes No Yes

Resource Yes No No No Yes Yes No No

Consumption

Migration No No Yes Yes No No No No

Time

Budget No Yes Yes No No No No No

Chapter 11 Performance Analysis of Algorithms Used for Workflow Scheduling
143
144 Ram Krishan

Review and Analysis of Scheduling Algorithms

The algorithms which are developed for scheduling various workflows in the cloud
domain are restricted to various constraints and parameters like makespan, budget
cost and consumption of resources, execution time, reliability, and throughput, etc.
Table 11.2 presents the review of various performance parameters used in algo-
rithms of workflow scheduling with their strengths and limitations. This review is
attempted on the most cited research done in the field of workflow scheduling.
Parametric analyses of data show the algorithms are considering some of the perfor-
mance parameters like makespan, execution time and cost while others are not fo-
cused. It is observed that algorithms can be developed which can perform for all
parameters effectively.

Conclusion
In cloud computing, workflow scheduling is the basic issue that is focused on by
the researchers. This chapter reviewed and analyzed the various algorithms used
for workflow scheduling. The workflows differ in the number of tasks and complex-
ity in terms of dependencies of tasks. The author presented the various performance
parameters of workflow scheduling and analyzed their strengths and limitations. It
has been analyzed that only makespan, execution time and cost parameters are fo-
cused on the various algorithms and there is a scope to examine other parameters.
In the future researchers can focus on other parameters of the workflow scheduling
to enhance the performance of the algorithms.

References
Amalarethinam, D. I., George, and Beena, T. L. A. (2016). “Workflow Scheduling for Public Cloud
Using Genetic Algorithm (WSGA).” IOSR Journal of Computer Engineering 18(3): 23–27.
https://doi.org/10.9790/0661-1803052327
Arunarani, A. R., D. Manjula, & Vijayan Sugumaran. (2019). “Task Scheduling Techniques in Cloud
Computing: A Literature Survey.” Future Generation Computer Systems 91: 407–15. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2018.09.014.
Kaur, Navneet, and Sarbjeet Singh. 2016. “A Budget-Constrained Time and Reliability Optimization
BAT Algorithm for Scheduling Workflow Applications in Clouds.” Procedia Computer Science
58 (Euspn): 199–204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2016.09.032.
Kaur, Simranjit, Pallavi Bagga, Rahul Hans, and Harjot Kaur. 2019. “Quality of Service (QoS) Aware
Workflow Scheduling (WFS) in Cloud Computing: A Systematic Review.” Arabian Journal for
Science and Engineering 44 (4): 2867–97. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-018-3614-3.
 Chapter 11 Performance Analysis of Algorithms Used for Workflow Scheduling 145

Kim, Ahyoung, Junwoo Lee, and Mucheol Kim. 2016. “Resource Management Model Based on Cloud
Computing Environment.” International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks 12 (11).
https://doi.org/10.1177/1550147716676554.
Krishan, Ram, and Vivek Kumar. 2020. “Optimization of Resource Aware Task-Scheduling
Approaches in Cloud Computing.” Journal of Green Engineering 10 (3): 1077–96.
Kumar, Pardeep, and Amandeep Verma. 2012. “Scheduling Using Improved Genetic Algorithm in
Cloud Computing for Independent Tasks.” ACM International Conference Proceeding Series,
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Zheng, Wei, Chen Wang, & Dongzhan Zhang. (2016). A Randomization Approach for Stochastic
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9136107.
Manish Mohan Baral, Subhodeep Mukherjee,
Chittipaka Venkataiah, Sudhir Rana, Bhaswati Jana
Chapter 12
Role and Impact of Big Data Analytics
Determinants in Improving Supply Chain
Agility
Introduction
In the current scenario supply chain (SC) has been recognized as a competitive ad-
vantage for any firm. It is a very challenging task to handle SCs (Lee, 2002). Due to
continuous advancement, outsourcing, globalization, etc., SC managing has be-
come a very challenging job (Lee, 2004). Fisher (2011) tried matching SC strategies
(for instance, responsive vs efficient) to characteristics of goods (for instance, inno-
vative vs. functional). Lee (2002) had proposed strategies (like agile/hedging risk/
responsive/efficient) to provide solutions to supply and demand uncertainty. The
firms’ SC agility (SCA) can have a direct impact on its capability to deliver and pro-
duce ingenious goods for their clients at the correct place, correct cost, and the
right time (Khan & Pillania, 2008). In spite of high popularity of SCA little is under-
stood about it (Braunscheidel & Suresh, 2009). As per Liu et al. (2013), firms are
becoming reliant on IT advancements due to environmental uncertainties. As per
Brusset (2016), there is huge pressure for improving cost of inventory turnover on
SC managers. As a result, there is a need to build SC agility for surviving in the mar-
ket place (Gligor et al., 2016). SCA has appeared as a investigating area that is dif-
ferent from flexibility (Dubey et al., 2018).
As per Choi et al. (2018), there is a significant impact of big data in practices of
operations management. Srinivasan and Swink (2018) stated that big data analytics
(BDA) has been utilized for understanding client behaviors/intentions. However,
for SC operational decision-making is less understood. There is a positive impact of
predictive analytics and big data on firm and SC performance (Gunasekaran et al.,
2017). A few prior studies (Frisk & Bannister, 2017; Gunasekaran et al., 2017; Ji-fan
Ren et al., 2017) stated there is a connection between competitive advantage and
BDA and competitive advantage and SCA (Blome et al., 2013; Gligor et al., 2016).
As per Boyd et al. (2012), SC management performance impacts environmental
perspectives (Sousa & Voss, 2008). This research contingency theory (CT) has been
utilized for examining factors impacting BDA. Organizational flexibility (OF) has
been discussed in prior literature. The objective of the current study is to find the
impact of the competitive advantage, organizational flexibility, and knowledge

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148 Manish Mohan Baral et al.

management along with mediating variable BDA on SCA, which is the dependent
variable.
The next sections of the chapter are as follows: Section 2 discusses the back-
ground of the study, Section 3 discusses the theoretical framework and hypothesis
development, methodology of research has been discussed in Section 4, which in-
cludes sampling techniques and respondents’ demographics; data analysis has
been discussed in Section 5, Section 6 contains discussion, managerial implications
and practice and research contribution and Section 7 contains the conclusion,
scope and future research guidelines.

Background of the Study

Dynamic Capabilities View (DCV)

As per prior studies conducted DCV gave explanation for firms’ competitive advan-
tage in these environment changing circumstances (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000;
Singh et al., 2013; Sirmon et al., 2010). Teece et al. (1997), stated, “firms’ ability to
build, integrate and reconfigure external and internal competencies for addressing
changing environment.” It adds competence to shape and sense opportunity, and
maintaining competency through reconfiguring, protecting, combining, and en-
hancing resources of a firm. Dynamic capabilities are unstable, simple, experimen-
tal processes that enable renewal, transformation, or combinations of competencies
and assets that are critical for markets that are uncertain (Eckstein et al., 2015).
Based on these debates researchers have decided to adopt BDA, which will be re-
sulting in firms’ ability for reconfiguring firm-level assets.

BDAC

Arguments are going on about BDA essentialness in fulfilling objectives of a firm

(Jabbour et al., 2019; Prescott, 2014), but until now there is no general accord on
how this BDA should support them (Galbraith, 2014). BD are those data that have
variety, velocity, and volume which makes it hard for traditional methods to man-
age analyses. Analytics means “from data extracting valuable information, building
statistical models, visualizing and exploring information . . . and helps in planning,
execution and taking decisions” (Srinivasan & Swink, 2018). BDA helps firms inves-
tigate alternatives for demand and supply uncertainties (Wang et al., 2016).
 Chapter 12 Role and Impact of Big Data Analytics 149

SCA

As per Lee (2004), firms have been investing a lot in developing SC agility to fulfill
unexpected and sudden advancements in the market place. As per Swafford et al.
(2006), SCA impacts the ability of firms to make and deliver innovative goods to
their clients at the right price and time. As per Braunscheidel & Suresh (2009), due
to highly competitive pressure and turbulence firms need agility in SCs. As per
Dubey et al. (2018), SC visibility increases SCA by combining firm assets. As a result,
agility is craving assets of SC that enables it to manage changes in supply and de-
mand instantaneously and handle outside disruptions smoothly.

OF

As per Volberda (1996), OF means a firm should have operational control. Hence,
this helps in operating firms in an uncertain environment (Srinivasan & Swink,
2018). As per Sanchez (1993), in a dynamic environment a firm can have competi-
tive advantage by making strategic flexibility. As per Sanhez (1995), flexibility is re-
strained not only by assets but also by the approaches a firm adopts to utilize
assets (Y. Liu et al., 2009).

Competitive Advantage

As per Hinterhuber (2013), associations can obtain a competitive advantage by de-

termining and enforcing different game plans for differentiation of the firm from its
peers. As per Mellat-Parast and Spillan (2014), competitive advantage is the poten-
tial of a firm to sustain or maintain more than average returns. Chen (2019) stated
that competitive advantage will be borrowed from various points. For example, ex-
pertise within a firm’s control can be achieved to develop competitive advantage
for high accomplishment (Eidizadeh et al., 2017; Nayak et al., 2021)

Theoretical Framework and Development

of Hypotheses
CT and DCV had been utilized to propose the research model for the current study.
DCV had been utilized for investigating and combining a firm’s competencies and
assets in this uncertain environment. Advancement in technology had been argued
as a solution to uncertain environments. BDA will help in future decision-making
and planning in this environmental uncertainty. Also, OF are proven to be more
150 Manish Mohan Baral et al.

valuable in this time of uncertainty (Pagell & Krause, 1999; Swamidass & Newell,
1987). Four research hypotheses had been proposed to check the impact through
SEM approach (Figure 12.1).

Competitive
Advantage

Organizational Big Data Supply Chain

Flexibility Analytics Agility

Knowledge
Management

Figure 12.1: Proposed framework.

Competitive Advantage (CA)

CA means having any benefits one firm has over its peer firms (Porter, 1985). As per
LaValle et al. (2012), analytics are utilized five times more by a high performing firm
than other firms that are below average. Raffoni et al. (2018), stated that if BD is
utilized properly then it will help in achieving better outputs. BDA is still in its in-
fant stage, but it will be offering high opportunities. As per Zhang et al. (2017), BD
is being exploited to develop CA in a firm. Thus,
H1: CA influences BDA

Organizational Flexibility (OF)

As per Galbraith (1973; 1974), firms require flexibility to apply decisions efficiently
and quickly. It had been identified as a critical element for decreasing SC risk
(Braunscheidel & Suresh, 2009). As a result, OF has the potential to manage with
supplies and demand uncertainties (Swafford et al., 2006) and achieve excellence.
Thus,
H2: OF influences BDA

Knowledge Management (KM)

It helps in achieving a firm’s objectives by sharing, creating, and managing infor-

mation and knowledge of a firm. As per Lugmayr et al. (2017), BD is an incremental
 Chapter 12 Role and Impact of Big Data Analytics 151

or disruptive innovation. Also, a framework for KM and BD was to dig up informa-

tion from social media and compare it with peers in the marketplace. Thus,
H3: KM influences BDA

BDA and SCA

IT potential had a positive impact on SCA (Swafford et al., 2006). SC visibility is a

fundamental need for developing data analytics potential. As per Srinivasan and
Swink (2018) firms investing in developing SC visibility are also willing to spend in
BDA. Dubey et al. (2018) determined a positive impact of BDA in SCA. As a result,
utilizing BDA will help management to understand various changing circumstances
for developing strategies for trade. Thus,
H4: BDA influences SCA

Research Methodology
Information was gathered by different sources like primary and secondary. Second-
ary sources incorporate literature audit and different articles, and essential docu-
ments incorporate assortments of information through organized questionnaires.
The questionnaire’s reliability test was conducted. The different Indian industries
were considered as the target population. Manufacturing companies and listed
companies on the stock exchange were set as target population. IT service providers
were excluded from the targeted population. The respondents from the selected
firms were IT workforce and officers who have IT information of future and present
tasks of their individual firms. The sampling method utilized here is simple random
sampling (Hair et al., 2010). Finally, 269 responses were utilized for data analysis
after cleaning of data in SPSS 20.0. Established scales had been adopted from prior
literature here (Malhotra & Grover, 1998).
By keeping away from common methods, the examination group has avoided
potential risk amid preinformation assortment level. In the beginning of the ques-
tionnaire there was a note that mentioned the information will be utilized only for
academic study and privacy of information will be kept up. Case screening was di-
rected in the gained dataset followed by factor screening so explanations can be
given for assortment in the data. Data cleaning methods were used to keep data
free from bias; for instance, there were very few instances of missing data and so
this was not seen as a significant factor. No cases had been eliminated. Notwith-
standing, after the information is gathered into the exploration group Harman’s sin-
gle factor test was conducted. EFA was conducted and outcomes displayed that an
initial factor clarifies most extreme covariance (40.184 percent). This value is below
152 Manish Mohan Baral et al.

50 percent, which is the suggested value and lies within the acceptance range (Pod-
sakoff et al., 2003).
SEM had been utilized for analysis of data. This was performed in four different
phases using firm demographics, validity and reliability test, exploratory factor anal-
ysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modeling
(SEM). EFA was done to check the cumulative contrast revealed to recognize and
bundle the items utilizing a rotated component matrix table. EFA and the reliability
test were conducted using SPSS 20.0 on information gathered. Thereafter, CFA was
carried out for testing and supporting the model. CFA was carried out utilizing AMOS
22.0 for assessing model outcomes (Byrne, 2010; Hair et al., 2010). Finally, SEM was
conducted for checking model fit and supporting hypotheses (Table 12.1).

Table 12.1: Scales used for the study.

Construct Reference Item Description

BDA (Akter et al., ; BDA Advanced tools need to be used for data analysis.
Srinivasan & Swink, )
BDA Multiple sources have been used for collection of
data.

BDA Data visualization is used for getting complicated

information from big data sets.

BDA It helps in increasing accuracy.

SCA (Gligor et al., ) SCA Firm can identify changes in the environment.

SCA Firm can recognize opportunities in the

environment.

SCA Firm collects information from clients.

SCA Firm can make fast decisions to manage changes

in the environment.

OF Sethi and Sethi (), OF Our firm can adopt change for changing supply
Upton () and demand uncertainties.

OF Our firm is more flexible than our peers.

OF We can adopt changes in firm structure.

OF It helps in achieving excellence.

KM KM It helps in managing information.

KM It is a database of information.

KM It helps in enhancing accuracy in outputs.

 Chapter 12 Role and Impact of Big Data Analytics 153

Results
Demographics of Firms Surveyed

A questionnaire-based survey method was used. Table 12.1 shows the distribution of
respondents based on different industries. The response was taken from manufactur-
ing and retail firms which involved SC and IT officials. The data is a representation of
population. Table 12.2 shows the population representation.

Table 12.2: Respondents’ demographics.

Item Percentage

Managers  percent

IT Managers  percent

Reliability and Validity

Cronbach’s Alpha (α)

Assessment of reliability helps in examining the level of inner consistency between

factor estimation and its freedom of error at any point in time (Kline, 2015). Con-
structs’ reliability was checked utilizing α-value as its most common method for
measurement (Hair, et al. 2013). Constructs’ α-value has an over endorsed mark of
0.70 (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). The 7-point Likert scale has been utilized for
creating the questionnaire. SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 22.0 had been utilized for analyz-
ing the information gathered. The latent variable CA has four indicators CA1, CA2,
CA3, and CA4 and its α-value is 0.860; OF has four indicators OF1, OF2, OF3, and
OF4 and its α-value is 0.889; KM has three indicators KM1, KM2, and KM3 and its α-
value is 0.850; BDA has four indicators BDA1, BDA2, BDA3, and BDA4 and its α-
value is 0.845. Consequently, all values are inside the edge level and the 15 elements
are used in further examination.

Exploratory Factor Analysis

Fittingness of sample size is the fundamental step for EFA. SPSS 20.0 had been uti-
lized conducting EFA. Factors’ correlation was investigated by Bartlett’s test of sphe-
ricity (Hair et al., 2010). Principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted to
recognize significant predisposition and explicit similar characteristics. Varimax rota-
tion was utilized for the explanation of initial results, it is hypothesized (established
154 Manish Mohan Baral et al.

from the relevant literature) that there is no correlation within the factors (Hair et al.,
2010).
Therefore, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) was calculated to evaluate whether those
things adequately correspond and to decide if EFA can be conducted. The KMO
value for this study is 0.788, which is greater than 0.60, the acceptance level (Hair,
et al., 2010). Significance value is 0.000, which is below 0.05, the likelihood value.
Table 12.3 displays the KMO and Bartlett’s test output.

Table 12.3: KMO and Bartlett’s Test.

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. .

Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square .

Df 

Sig. .

PCA had been used for method of extraction. The extraction is done for those eigen
values that are more than one, which describes maximum variance. For the compo-
nents, the percentage of total variance is explained by component 1 (20.367 percent),
component 2 (19.099 percent), component 3 (18.187 percent), and component 4
(15.671 percent). The total variance explained (cumulatively) is 73.324 percent.
The Rotated Component Matrix is important for deciphering outputs of exami-
nation. It organizes the factors, and each gathering encompasses multiple factors at
any rate, which helps in structure simplification. Thus, this is the point of the objec-
tive of rotation. In this study, we have accomplished this point. This assists with
distinguishing the cross-loadings on more than one gathering, and afterward it very
well may be adjusted by eliminating those things that are cross-loaded. Here, load-
ings under |.40| are suppressed because loadings more than |.40| are commonly
viewed as high. Eventually, we accomplish a simple structure. There are 11 factors
that were gathered under three distinct parts. Varimax was utilized as a rotation
technique. OF1, OF2, OF3, and OF4 are assembled under the primary segment with
upsides of 0.842, 0.826, 0.877, and 0.828. CA1, CA2, CA3, and CA4 are gathered
under the subsequent segment having values 0.823, 0.831, 0.798, and 0.683. BDA1,
BDA2, BDA3, and BDA4 are assembled under the third segment with values 0.683,
0.752, 0.810 and 0.748. KM1, KM2, and KM3 are assembled under the fourth part
with values 0.849, 0.890, and 0.786. Table 12.4 shows the Rotated Component Ma-
trix output.
CFA was led in the accompanying stage, which creates recognition from com-
posing an outline that can be attempted and determine how well the components
address forms. For model validating purpose SEM was used in the research model
 Chapter 12 Role and Impact of Big Data Analytics 155

Table 12.4: Rotated Component Matrix.

Component

   

CA .

CA .

CA .

CA .

OF .

OF .

OF .

OF .

KM .

KM .

KM .

BDA .

BDA .

BDA .

BDA .

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser
Normalization.

a. Rotation converged in  iterations.

that is proposed (Byrne, 2010). By then when their instrument shows the ordinary
plans inside, this may have been distinct to construct validity (CV) (Moerdyk, 2009)
and, especially, factorial validity.

Model Validity Measures

Composite Reliability (CR)

CR was additionally estimated for every one of the parts. It is assessed for internal
consistency dependability considering its capability to give improved outputs (Hens-
eler et al., 2009). CR values for CA is 0.864; OF is 0.887; KM is 0.851; BDA is 0.871. CR
values of all constructs are >0.7, this shows that values of CR are reliable (Hair et al.
2010). Table 12.5 displays the CR values.
156 Manish Mohan Baral et al.

Convergent Validity
This is assessed with the average variance extracted (AVE). As per Fornell and
Larcker (1981), AVE > 0.5 for satisfying this validity concern. Table 12.4 displays the
AVE values. All AVE values are more than 0.5 which fulfils this effectiveness condi-
tions for every construct (Hair, et al. 2013).

Divergent Validity
To ascertain this validity, Fornell and Larcker (1981) recommended that constructs’
AVE should be more than a square of the correlation between constructs (Hair,
et al. 2013). Table 12.5 represents values for divergent validity output (MSV < AVE)
and it was obtained using the master validity plugin in AMOS 22.0.

Table 12.5: Model validity.

CR AVE MSV MaxR(H) CA OF KM BDA

CA . . . . .

OF . . . . .✶✶✶ .

KM . . . . .✶✶✶ .✶✶✶ .

✶✶✶ ✶✶✶
BDA . . . . . . .✶✶✶ .

Significance of Correlations:
† p < .
✶
p < .
✶✶
p < .
✶✶✶
p < .

Structural Model and Testing of Hypothesis

The model fit measures for model 1 (CFA) which has the latent variables is shown in
Table 12.5. Latent variables along with its indicators are CA: competitive advantage
along with four indicators: CA1, CA2, CA3, and CA4; OF: organizational flexibility
has four indicators OF1, OF2, OF3, and OF4; KM: knowledge management has three
indicators KM1, KM2, and KM3; and BDA: big data analytics has four indicators
BDA1, BDA2, BDA3, and BDA4. The CMIN/Df is 5.354; goodness of fit indices (GFI)
is 0.845 (Forza & Filippini, 1998; Greenspoon & Saklofske, 1998); incremental fit
index (IFI) is 0.894, Tucker-Lewis’s coefficient (TLI) is 0.883; comparative fit index
(CFI) is 0.889; parsimony comparative fit index (PCFI) is 0.681; parsimony normed
fit index (PNFI) is 0.660. All the items’ loadings were greater than 0.5 and SE <± 2.5,
which is acceptable.
 Chapter 12 Role and Impact of Big Data Analytics 157

SEM was used to check the hypotheses (Byrne, 2010). AMOS 22.0 was used for
this assessment due to its astounding practical portrayals and easy to use coalition.
Figure 12.2 displays last model and dependent variable, their latent variable, and
their indicators. The indicators along with the latent variables are KS: knowledge
sharing along with three indicators: KS1, KS2, KS3, and KS4; BPP: business partners’
pressure has four indicators BPP1, BPP2, BPP3, and BPP4; HAS: higher authority sup-
port has three indicators HAS1, HAS2, and HAS3; BTA: blockchain technology analyt-
ics has four indicators BTA1, BTA2, BTA3, and BTA4. The dependent variable is SCP:
supply chain performance with four indicators SCP1, SCP2, SCP3, and SCP4.

Table 12.6: Final goodness of fit indices for the CFA and structural model.

Goodness-of-fit Indices Model  Final model Benchmark

CMIN/Df . . Lower Limit:.; Upper Limit ./. or .

GFI . . >.

Absolute badness of fit measure

RMSEA . . ⩽.

Incremental fit measure

CFI . . ⩾.

IFI . . ⩾.

TLI . . ⩾.

Parsimony fit measure

PCFI . . ⩾.

PNFI . . ⩾.

Table 12.6 shows the fit indices. For the final model, the value of CMIN is 588.592,
and df is 145. Estimations of absolute fit indices are: CMIN/Df 4.059, which is lower
than 5, it is an accepted value (McIver& Carmines, 1981). The GFI value is 0.834
(Forza & Filippini, 1998; Greenspoon & Saklofske, 1998) and RMSEA value is 0.08
that is within acceptable value of 0.08. TLI is 0.901, IFI is 0.914, and CFI is 0.90;
PCFI is 0.734; PNFI is 0.704, which are acceptable and within accepted level (Byrne
2010). Figure 12.2 displays final structural model achieved in AMOS 22.0.
Hence, we can see that the model fit values of the final model are better than
model 1. The mediating variable (BTA) and dependent variable plays a significant
contribution along with the three latent variables in establishing the model fit.
The path estimates analysis results had been displayed in Table 12.6. Output
displays four hypotheses which are accepted with by P-value (Hair, et al. 2010). The
three factors, KM, OF, and CA along with mediating variable BDA have positive
158 Manish Mohan Baral et al.

Figure 12.2: Final structural model.

impacts on SCA. The square multiple correlation (R2) assists with estimating how
well a relapse line gauges the genuine information focuses somewhere in the range
of 0 and 1, which adds how adequately a variable is anticipating another (Hair,
et al., 2010). The more the worth is more like 1, the better is the model’s capacity to
foresee that innovation (Kline, 2015). Model proposed defined variance of 61 percent
in BDA and variance of 54 percent in SCA (Table 12.7).

Table 12.7: Path estimate results.

Estimate S.E. C.R. P

✶✶✶
BDA<—KM . . .
✶✶✶
BDA<—OF . . .
✶✶✶
BDA<—CA . . .
✶✶✶
SCA<—BDA . . .
 Chapter 12 Role and Impact of Big Data Analytics 159

Discussion
The objective of the research is to find out the utilization of big data in the achieve-
ment of supply chain agility for the firms. Earlier research by various researchers
also supports the BDA in SCA (Chen, 2019; Dubey et al., 2018; Gligor et al., 2016;
H. Liu et al., 2013; Y. Liu et al., 2009; Nayak et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2017). This
research is further extended and added KM as one of the independent variables to
achieve SCA in the adoption of BDA. The α-worth and CR values for all four varia-
bles were more than 0.7, that is, acceptance level (Nunnally 1978; Hair et al. 2010).
The KMO is more than 0.6 which allows for performing EFA (Hair et al., 2010). Total
variance explained was 73.324 percent, and rotated component matrix, factors were
assembled under three gatherings. Just loadings with values above |.40| are kept in
this exploration because those are viewed as normally high and subsequently are
more critical (Hair et al., 2010).
Latent variables along with their indicators are KS: knowledge sharing along
with three indicators: KS1, KS2, KS3, and KS4; BPP: business partners’ pressure has
four indicators BPP1, BPP2, BPP3, and BPP4; HAS: higher authority support has
three indicators HAS1, HAS2, and HAS3; BTA: blockchain technology analytics has
four indicators BTA1, BTA2, BTA3, and BTA4. The dependent variable is SCP: supply
chain performance with four indicators SCP1, SCP2, SCP3, and SCP4. There are 11
total indicators that were categorized under three different components. Varimax
was utilized as a rotation technique. OF1, OF2, OF3, and OF4 are assembled under
the primary segment with upsides of 0.842, 0.826, 0.877, and 0.828. CA1, CA2, CA3,
and CA4 are gathered under the subsequent segment having values 0.823, 0.831,
0.798, and 0.683. BDA1, BDA2, BDA3, and BDA4 are assembled under the third seg-
ment with values 0.683, 0.752, 0.810 and 0.748. KM1, KM2, and KM3 are assembled
under the fourth part with values 0.849, 0.890, and 0.786. This shows that it has
very high loadings (>|.40|).
For final model, the value of CMIN is 588.592, and df is 145. Absolute fit indices
estimations are CMIN/Df 4.059, which is lower than 5, its accepted value (McIver& Car-
mines, 1981). The GFI value is 0.834 (Forza & Filippini, 1998; Greenspoon & Saklofske,
1998) and RMSEA value is 0.08, which is within the acceptable value of 0.08. TLI is
0.901, IFI is 0.914, and CFI is 0.90; PCFI is 0.734; PNFI is 0.704, which are acceptable
and within accepted levels (Byrne, 2010). Here, the elements are described and sub-
stantial with assistance of SEM approach, its most proper strategy to state evidence.
This method has not been used in earlier studies, which is why it is unique.
160 Manish Mohan Baral et al.

Conclusion
The aim of this chapter is to investigate how various organizations use big data in
the system to achieve supply chain agility. Three independent variables were iden-
tified from the literature—competitive advantages, organizational flexibility, and
knowledge management. Two more variables were found, one mediating variable,
big data analytics, and one dependent variable, supply chain agility. A question-
naire was prepared for survey-based research. The target population were mainly IT
employees working in various manufacturing companies in India. After the collec-
tion of information was inspected, it was determined that the information was not
biased. For further analysis EFA and SEM approaches were being used. The soft-
ware being used was SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 22.0. A model being developed that
showed a good fit and proposed hypothesis was accepted. Further study can be ex-
tended to various other industries like healthcare, retail, and many others.

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Kriti Aggarwal, Gulshan Goyal
Chapter 13
Role of Big Data in Growth of Digital
Marketing
Introduction to Digital Marketing
Digital marketing has changed the structure of markets today in the modern era of
digitalization, which has also resulted in the fourth industrial revolution. Digital
marketing is a component of marketing technique that uses technology to influence
consumer behavior. It utilizes the internet to create an online platform for commu-
nication services (Avery et al., 2012, 96–111). Digital marketing also relies upon digi-
tal social computing platforms to advertise products and gauge customer reactions.
The major revolution in digital marketing came in the 1990s and 2000s (Mahajan,
2020). Today, the rise of internet enabled marketing applications has led to the ad-
vent of a digital ecosystem. Digital marketing has connected various market serv-
ices across the world. It has also helped in transforming user behavior and habitats
(Naimi et al., 2014, 1143–1144).
Digital marketing has changed today’s market scenario. In contrast to tradi-
tional marketing, digital marketing has led to major growth of the industry in terms
of profitability and use (Tiago et al., 2014, 703–708). Today, even third world coun-
tries like India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc., have become supporters of digital mar-
keting strategies due to their advantages. Some of the major advantages of digital
marketing are:
1) Creation of an online community and 24/7 services: Digital marketing has
led to creation of a close-knit online community. Consumers, companies, as
well as suppliers work together rationally (Tiago et al., 2014, 703–708). Most
internet communities today provide a place for customers to keep up to date
with the companies regarding their goods or services. One can easily visit com-
pany websites to get customer support, give feedback, purchase products, and
maintain the purchase and return details. In other words, they get compre-
hensive information with regard to various products or services (Karp, 2014).
Digital marketing has allowed 24-hour service to people wherein prices are
transparent (Eri et al., 2011).
2) Monitoring and measuring of results: Digital marketing has enabled compa-
nies to monitor their internet marketing with the help of web analytics and
other online metric tools. This makes it easy to determine how effectiveness of
the brand campaigns can also help in extracting extensive information about
how customers interact with products and company advertising.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-013
166 Kriti Aggarwal, Gulshan Goyal

3) Improved return of investments: The popularity of digital marketing has led

to a substantial research interest among various data scientists and scholars
(Kannan et al., 2017, 22–45). Many researchers (D. Rogers et al., 2012, 1–17)
have tried to identify and understand the methods to improve market profitabil-
ity. They have researched ways to increase ROI (Return of Investment) in digital
marketing.
4) Precise targeting: Traditional marketing employs the spray and pray strategy,
in which an ad is spread across a large platform in the hopes that a few individ-
uals who like what they see, hear, or read will take action. Marketing via digital
platforms, on the other hand, enables targeted marketing where advertisements
are offered to clients based on their preferences or first action. Consider trans-
actional emails that will only be sent to customers after they have taken action
with the company. In other words, clients only get what they request.
5) Search engine optimization: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which is one
of the most important digital marketing techniques also uses data to operate.
SEO is a technique wherein search results from the popular search engines are
optimized to increase company reach. This strategy not only helps in program-
matic advertising or search engine marketing but also provides a way to get a
company known across the world.

Although digital marketing has various advantages, most of the techniques depend
upon collection, analysis, and usage of valuable data. In the context of digital mar-
keting, valuable data refers to the data collected in relation to a customer’s preferen-
ces and other relevant details. Thus, improved data management has the potential to
change and influence the digital market. Hence, a major change in research strategy
came when people began giving importance to data. Scholars like Kumar et al. (2014)
have successfully analyzed the influence of data in digital marketing. Data is also
one of the major metrics to measure the efficiency of companies. This metric compari-
son to calculate company efficiency has been done by Mahajan (2020). Big data analyt-
ics has resulted in the identification of valuable knowledge, as well as the promotion
of market-leading activities. It has allowed market transformation at both local and
global levels.
The further sections of this chapter describe the importance of big data and its
application in digital marketing. Section 2 analyzes the growth of digital marketing
in India while Section 3 introduces the concept of data and big data in digital mar-
keting in more detail. The last section defines the role and application of big data in
digital marketing.
 Chapter 13 Role of Big Data in Growth of Digital Marketing 167

Growth of Digital Marketing and Popular Options

Digital marketing has witnessed a major increase over the past few years. According
to Gandhi (2020) a 26 percent increase in digital advertising alone was witnessed
from 2018 to 2019. One of the major factors for the growth of digital marketing is the
increase in the number of internet users. In 2020, India reported approximately
700 million internet users.
The number is further expected to increase in 2021. According to internetworld-
stats.com, India is among the top 4 global internet users with at least 391.2 million
active internet users from a total of 4.21 billion users (Kemp, 2021). Although the
internet has been a primary factor for the growth of digital marketing, Indian digital
marketing has flourished with an increase in the number of mobile users.
Another factor related to the rise in digital marketing is the emergence of social
computing. Social computing is the new computing paradigm that starts with the
study of human behavior and their interaction with the environment and computa-
tional systems, that is, human-computer interaction (HCI). It was developed with
the goal of creation or recreation of social conventions and social context using
computer science fields like networking, data analysis and social software technol-
ogies like blog posts, social media sites, instant messaging applications, and many
more. Hence, social computing has provided a large platform for digital marketing
and advertising. An increase in the number of internet and social media users from
the 2010 to 2021 is depicted in Figure 13.1 (Dean, 2021).

Social Computing and Internet Users (2010-2021)

5000
4500
4000
Users (in million)

3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2021
Internet Users (in
million) 2035 2473 2839 3274 3742 4660
Social Media Users (in
millions) 970 1400 1910 2307 3196 4200

Figure 13.1: Number of social media and internet users (in millions) from 2010 to 2021.
Source: Dean, 2021

As shown in Figure 13.1, the number of social media users has been steadily increas-
ing every year in relation to internet users. While in 2010, only 970 million users out
of the 2,035 million total internet users were active on social media platforms, the
168 Kriti Aggarwal, Gulshan Goyal

number of social media users became almost proportional in 2021 with 4,200 million
active social media users out of the 4,600 million internet users (Dean, 2021).
The scope of digital marketing in India has become even more broad and prom-
inent due to the advent of COVID-19. The digital marketing scope for the Indian in-
dustry is expected to grow by 160 billion dollars by 2025 (Dash, 2019). This is
approximately three times the current value. Due to the pandemic, a work from
home culture has started which has led to people shifting toward freelancing and
online business ventures. Over time, many such business ideas emerged, which
helped promote digital marketing among the masses. Some of the popular digital
marketing options that have gained huge popularity among digital marketing ama-
teurs as well as professionals are:
1) Influencing customers through social media: With the rise of social media, it
has now become a major platform for brand promotions and customer reviews.
Many digital marketing professionals today use social media platforms to influ-
ence customers. Companies provide funding to influence on various platforms
like YouTube and Instagram to promote their products via strategic advertise-
ments. Blogging is also one of the ways where people affiliate with companies
to generate income. Due to its success, professional bloggers can now earn
1,000 dollars a month, while celebrity bloggers even earn more than 10,000
dollars per month (Sam, 2021).
2) Freelancing: The concept of freelancing has become a major source of employ-
ment today. Freelancing has further led to an increase in digital marketing. It
provides a way for people to choose their product and decide its price according
to the quality and quantity. Moreover, since these services are online, they can
be accessed by people across the country.
3) Augmented and virtual reality: This is a fairly new technology that is starting
to change the digital market strategy in 2021. It can help in increasing brand
awareness and can also help to satisfy customer demand. Many multinational cor-
porations, including Nivea, Starbucks, and Volkswagen, have already launched
successful AR and VR campaigns.
4) Omni-channel marketing: While the present purchaser anticipates that every
business should, at any rate, have an online presence, utilizing an assortment
of media to draw in your objective market in a consistent way is ideal. Omni-
channel computerized promoting is characterized as giving consistent client ex-
perience across all channels. These incorporate both web-based promoting
channels like web-based media, versatile publicizing, online business sites,
and disconnected channels like print-based ads, sends, customer facing facade,
bulletins, actual connections, and so on.
5) Data analytics: Digital analytics or data analytics is one of the primary aspects
of marketing. It refers to the use of tools and techniques to analyze and report
on marketing data. Companies employ data analysts to work on the data col-
lected through digital channels and social media forums. This not only helps to
 Chapter 13 Role of Big Data in Growth of Digital Marketing 169

evaluate brand presence but also helps identify flaws and strengths. Thus, to
summarize, it helps in
a. understanding the customers
b. analyzing and tracking market behavior
c. making data-driven predictions
d. optimizing search results

Since the amount of data is huge, data analytics takes the help of data science tech-
niques like big data to help with systematic information extraction and analysis.
The current chapter focuses on the role and application of big data in digital mar-
keting data management.

Big Data Evolution and Parameters for Data

Evaluation
Today, most digital marketing strategies are dependent upon analysis and collec-
tion of data. This data can range from consumers and their behaviors in the market
system to recent trends and customer feedback. The increase in the number of devi-
ces has indirectly resulted in an increase in the size and the number of data sets.
Today, these data sets are collected using not only mobile devices but many other
remote and online information devices, that is, Internet of Things enabled applica-
tions, sensor devices, software logs, RFID readers, CCTV’s, and wireless sensor net-
works (Jia et al., 2012, 1282–1285). As per IDC report prediction, the rise in global
data volume has substantially increased from 4.4 zettabytes to 44 zettabytes be-
tween 2013 and 2020. As a result, they predict that by 2025, the world will have col-
lected at least 163 zettabytes of data (Seagate, 2017). Since most of digital marketing
depends upon data analytics, relational database management systems prove effi-
cient to meet the demands of these companies. Processing and analysis of this huge
and complex dataset may need high performance parallel software that runs across
many servers (Jacobs, 2009, 10–19).
Big data has emerged because of an increase in the amount of data. Although
the notion of big data is relatively new, the concept of handling large datasets
began in the 1960s and 1970s. This was the time when the world of data was just
getting started with the first data centers and the invention of the relational data-
base. In 1990, a computer scientist named John Mashey officially introduced the no-
tion of big data in the United States, igniting the interest of several marketing
experts. Due to this, he is even referred to as the creator of the term “big data”
(Lohr, 2013). Although several definitions of big data have emerged over the years,
big data primarily refers to data that is so massive, fast, or complicated that tradi-
tional methods are difficult or impossible to process.
170 Kriti Aggarwal, Gulshan Goyal

In other words, big data is a field of computing which works with large data
sets that are not only complex but also difficult to handle using traditional techni-
ques (Elgendy, et al., 2014, 214–227). Big data hence finds ways to analyze and ex-
tract information systematically from these large and complex data sets. It classifies
data based on two main parameters, which are the number of fields and complex-
ity. Both go hand in hand. While data with multiple fields generates a lot of statisti-
cal power, it complicates data analysis. This can result in a higher false discovery
rate (Rouam, 2013). Big data analysis challenges often deal with gathering data and
its conversion to valuable information. It includes a wide range of steps, from
searching and capturing data to data visualization, storing and analysis, data que-
rying, information privacy and updating etc.
The concept of big data became even more prominent in the early 2000s when
industry analyst Doug Laney defined big data in terms of three factors referred to as
the 3 Vs of big data. The three key concepts were variety, volume, and velocity. Fur-
thermore, many researchers have hence redefined big data. While researchers like
Camacho et al. (2014, 500–505) defined big data in terms of 4 Vs (variety, veracity,
volume, and velocity), some scholars (Andreu-Perez, et al., 2015, 1193–1208) even
defined 6 Vs of big data as value, volume, velocity, variety, veracity, and variability.
In addition, 10 Vs of big data (Borne, 2014) has been discussed in context in
Figure 13.2.

variety

volume

value

veracity

visualization
10 V's of Big data
viscosity

velocity

virality

vocabulary

vagueness

Figure 13.2: Ten Vs of big data.

 Chapter 13 Role of Big Data in Growth of Digital Marketing 171

1) Variety: Before the computation can take place, heterogeneous data sources
must be identified and homogenized. Because it includes all the prework re-
quired to set up the high-performance computation, this procedure is fre-
quently the most labor-intensive. The great majority of data mistakes and faults
are discovered here, and this is the primary bottleneck in high-performance
computing.
2) Volume: The measure of information waiting to be prepared at a given time.
This can show either a sum over the long run or a sum that should be handled
at one time; finding the most popular Twitter hashtags, for example, or catego-
rizing customer opinions about a product via various social media platforms.
3) Value: This term is characterized as whatever is critical to the client. Another
approach to characterize esteem is the expulsion of deterrents in their way to
permit them to get to their expressed objective.
4) Veracity: This is one of the unfavorable aspects of big data. The veracity (belief
or trust in the data) decreases as any or all the above qualities increase. This is
comparable to, but not identical to, the concepts of validity and volatility. The
term “veracity” refers to the data source’s provenance or dependability, as well
as its context and how relevant it is to the study based on it.
5) Visualization: Due to the constraints of in-memory technologies, as well as in-
sufficient scalability, functionality, and reaction time, current big data visuali-
zation solutions suffer from technological hurdles.
6) Viscosity: The ease or difficulty with which data can be flowed to various use
cases that might benefit from its adaptability is referred to as viscosity. Internal
friction in highly viscous data stems from custom, albeit preferably internally
consistent, representations that, at the very least, necessitate high-touch inter-
pretation, transformation, and integration.
7) Velocity: Similar to volume, this has to do with the speed of the information
coming in and the speed of the changed information leaving the figure. An il-
lustration of a high-speed prerequisite is telemetry that should be investigated
continuously for a self-driving vehicle.
8) Variability: In the context of big data, the term “variability” can apply to a va-
riety of things. One is the number of data discrepancies. Anomaly and outlier
detection methods must be used to find these before any useful analytics can
be performed.
9) Vocabulary: Data science provides a lexicon for tackling a wide range of issues.
Different modeling approaches are used to tackle different problem domains,
and different validation procedures are used to harden these approaches in vari-
ous applications.
10) Vagueness: Regardless of how much data is accessible, the significance of
found data is frequently obscure.
172 Kriti Aggarwal, Gulshan Goyal

Big data’s contribution to the market toward trade, operation, and data can prove
to be valuable and diverse. It can not only help in discovering hidden relationships
but also help in identifying new opportunities for business. Valuable data captured
through big data can help companies to redefine their organizational structure and
make changes in their way of communication (Sharma, et al., 2014, 433–441). Thus,
it improves both the performance and competitiveness of the digital market and
helps the market to respond to customer demands in a much faster and more effi-
cient way.

Role of Big Data in Digital Marketing

As seen in the previous section, big data deals with handling large and complex
data. Hence, it plays an important role in the field of digital marketing, which is
highly demand dependent. It helps the market analyzers determine customer be-
haviors and business insights. It provides all the required information related to a
market. It can range from customer preferences, their highs and lows to business
and their profits and losses in particular situations.
Big data is something that all digital marketing companies are interested in and
look up to. The goal of digital marketing is to increase revenues and attract as many
clients as possible. It aids marketers in growing traffic by generating fresh strategies
and ideas for enticing customers. And none of this would be feasible without the
use of big data.
Because of their objectives, big data and digital marketing are inextricably
linked (Writer, 2020). By focusing on the proper people, big data helps to increase
traffic. It also aids in the planning of marketing for the intended demographic, al-
lowing them to come and stay. The same may be said for digital marketing. The fun-
damental goal of digital marketing is to use innovative marketing techniques and
methods to boost revenues and the number of customers. Both are linked by their
goals, which are primarily to engage as many people as possible.
Application of big data in digital marketing and big data techniques used in
digital marketing is discussed in the following sections:

Application of Big Data in Digital Marketing

The application of big data for digital marketing is briefly explained in the following
points as shown in Figure 13.3.
1) Improving competitiveness: When it comes to gaining a technological com-
petitive advantage, big data adoption allows businesses to create and capture
value (Zeng & Glaister, 2017, 105–140). By extracting value insights from data,
 Chapter 13 Role of Big Data in Growth of Digital Marketing 173

Improving
competition

Enhanced
Service
website
Customization
navigation

Big data for

Digital
Marketing

Prize Calculation of
optimization Rate of Rate
of interests

Increase in
Sales

Figure 13.3: Six Major applications of big data for digital marketing.

it allows businesses to make better decisions, improve processes, and improve

goods (Kitchen, et al., 2018, 540–574). Businesses can gain in-depth knowledge
about their customer segments and their perceptions of product and service
quality by exploiting consumer reviews. Big data capabilities include the crea-
tion of new business models in which customers receive a free service in ex-
change for delivering a revenue-generating data stream (Trabucchi & Buganza,
2019, 23–40). By providing dynamic pricing, competitive options, and better
campaign management based on the customer’s previous spending and prefer-
ences, big data even helps businesses stay competitive. The use of technology
for price optimization will go to a new level, with analysis of data at a finer res-
olution based on pricing and sales (Sanders, 2016, 26–48).
2) Enhanced website navigation: Navigation and browsing experience are criti-
cal elements for any online company. These have a direct impact on sales while
also directing customers to the checkout. With millions of visits, big data is the
only method to quantify all interactions. Every day, data is being generated all
around the world at a rate of 40 percent each year, and each single piece of this
data is critical for organizations (Schultz, 2019). Even though it may appear to
be a nuisance, big data has been developed to make things more relevant and
convert analytics into a treasure of knowledge. The sooner organizations utilize
big data, the better their chances of competing in this increasingly competitive
market.
3) Calculation of rate of rate of interest: According to certain surveys, half of
B2B marketing executives find it challenging to properly correlate marketing
174 Kriti Aggarwal, Gulshan Goyal

efforts to revenue results to justify budgets. Big data solves this challenge by
accounting for all marketing channels, activities, and investments and perform-
ing a cost-benefit analysis on each one. This makes it nearly impossible to mis-
interpret your marketing actions and budget.
4) Sales increase: Several firms around the world have already been transformed
by big data. Big data technology has aided marketing and sales professionals in
better defining products and services as well as managing sales networks. Ac-
cording to Forbes, big data has had a 48 percent influence on new age con-
sumer analytics, a 21 percent impact on operational analytics, a 12 percent
impact on compliance/fraud, a 10 percent impact on new product/service inno-
vation, and a 10 percent impact on corporate data (Columbus, 2016). Further-
more, it has been a key instrument in influencing how marketing managers
assess customer value analytics (CVA), allowing them to provide a highly con-
sistent and better customer experience across all channels.
5) Price optimization: Big data provides the best options for product pricing. It
also assists businesses in determining their profit and loss. It helps marketers
choose rates for their items and suggests pricing that will increase their profit.
According to a study, new and innovative pricing has created more than a quar-
ter of firm sales (Sneader & Singhal, 2021). Pricing flexibility has the potential
to improve sales, and big data has been a critical instrument in the develop-
ment and implementation of innovative pricing strategies. Developing the opti-
mum pricing plan is an analytical process, especially for large corporations and
brands. Big data aids in the automation of price analysis and product develop-
ment. Uber is a wonderful example of this, as it has been developing different
pricing tactics in real-time to maximize impact.
6) Service customization: Because customer self-service and product modifica-
tion are potential sources of customer data, the capabilities of big data and
business analytics enable and facilitate product or service personalization
(Huang & Rust, 2013, 251–258). The development of strategic marketing goals,
as well as the design of individualized products and contextual messages, be-
gins with a more personalized customers and the market. Firms can obtain
real-time data on their customers’ perceptions, product assessments, and rec-
ommendations (Xu et al., 2016, 1562–1566.). Big data applications improve the
firm’s ability to access consumer demands and perspectives, raise performance,
and ultimately improve customer service (Richey et al., 2016, 710–739). Further-
more, a company that uses big data to capture real-time consumer data might
have a better grasp of any unmet consumer needs. Firms can then turn these
insights into actions, increasing the efficacy of digital advertising while also
improving the organization’s dynamic capability (Erevelles, 2016, 897–904).
Big data enables retailers to deploy marketing efforts through targeted marketing
interventions and get higher returns on marketing investments (Bradlow et al.,
2017, 79–95). Big data leads to the creation of well-focused organizations that
 Chapter 13 Role of Big Data in Growth of Digital Marketing 175

focus on the delivery of individualized products and marketing equipment

and increase their capital performance by investing enough in customization
techniques.

Big Data Techniques used in Digital Marketing

Today, various big data techniques are used to boost digital marketing. Some of the
big data techniques that are used today to support all the applications defined in
Section 4.1 are defined below. These technologies include artificial intelligence
(AI), NoSQL database, voice search, blockchain, micro-moment marketing (Kh,
2020; Tyagi, 2020).
1) Artificial intelligence (AI): Understanding the target population is the major
application of big data in marketing. Knowing client characteristics, interests,
and habits in the digital environment enables organizations to design more effi-
cient marketing efforts. This increases their chances of turning clicks into real
sales. For these reasons, artificial intelligence has today become an important
technique in big data to improve existing digital marketing strategy. AI based
big data techniques are capable of successfully analyzing consumer behavior to
provide a more personalized and interactive buying experience. SEO businesses
may increase the effectiveness of their services by using specialized analytics
solutions that leverage artificial intelligence to deliver rapid and meaningful
information.
2) NoSQL database: NoSQL encompasses a wide range of distinct database sys-
tems that are evolving to construct contemporary applications. They are used
in real-time online applications as well as large data analytics. It saves unstruc-
tured data and provides speedier performance, as well as flexibility when
working with a wide range of datatypes on a large scale. It addresses design
integrity, simpler horizontal scaling to a variety of devices, and improved con-
trol over possibilities. It employs data structures that differ from those used
by default in relational databases, resulting in faster computations in NoSQL.
Every day, corporations like Google, Facebook, and Instagram keep gigabytes
of consumer data.
3) Voice search: Voice search is an AI enabled big data technology that has be-
come increasingly popular among customers in the past few years. Not only
has it helped remove language barriers to some levels, but it has also enabled
people to easily express themselves. As customers become more accustomed to
these AI-powered assistants, marketers must include the appropriate voice
search speech recognition aspects into their brand-building strategy. Personal
assistants are expected to improve further and eventually evolve to the point
where they can provide more services depending on user behavior.
176 Kriti Aggarwal, Gulshan Goyal

4) Blockchain: Blockchain is the designated database technology that contains

electronic currency (Bitcoins) with a unique property of protected data, which
means that once it is written, it cannot be removed or modified later. It is a
highly secure environment and an excellent solution for many large datasets in
banking, finance, insurance, healthcare, commerce, and other industries. Al-
though blockchain technology is still in its early stages, many merchants from
various businesses like as AWS, IBM, and Microsoft, as well as start-ups, have
performed a series of experiments to propose potential solutions for construct-
ing blockchains.
5) Micro-moment marketing: The majority of customers conduct their research
on smartphones, tablets, iPads, and other mobile devices. And most customers
dislike advertisements. Online marketers should keep an eye out for this little
window where the consumer will make a purchase. Micro-moments occur when
consumers instinctively turn to a technology – increasingly a smartphone – to
fulfill a need to learn, do, explore, watch, or buy something. They are intent-
filled moments in which decisions are made and preferences are formed. This
marketing concept is based on customer purchasing behavior, thus big data
leverages the market by capturing and analyzing these micro-moments to find
profitable business cases.

Conclusion
Digital marketing is a marketing technique that uses technology to influence con-
sumer behavior. Over the last few years, there has been a significant surge in digital
marketing. With the introduction of COVID-19, the scope of digital marketing in
India has expanded and grown more significant. Because most of digital marketing
relies on data analytics, with the rise of digital marketing, the amount of data gen-
erated has also increased. Big data emerged because of an increase in data volume.
Big data analysis problems frequently include obtaining data and converting it into
useful knowledge. The present chapter discussed the concept of big data and evalu-
ated data based on 10 Vs. The role of big data in improving digital marketing, espe-
cially in developing countries like India, Bangladesh, etc., was also discussed. This
chapter reviewed some of the recent applications of big data in digital marketing
and some of the most popular big data techniques. Due to the advantages provided
using big data in digital marketing, especially in the times where work from home
culture has been popularized, big data holds a vast scope for changing the market-
ing world.
 Chapter 13 Role of Big Data in Growth of Digital Marketing 177

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Oliver Moisés Cervantes Flores, Valeria Meléndez Cervantes,
Claudia Malcón Cervera, José Gerardo De la Vega Meneses
Chapter 14
Text Mining Applied as Business Intelligence
in the Tourism Industry
Introduction
The constant technological evolution of which we are a part has demonstrated the
importance of studying and analyzing data to obtain information that supports day-
to-day decisions. For businesses, social media, referral sites, and opinion-gathering
tools have played a key role in this information gathering process. Now, customer
opinions can be analyzed through text mining, allowing them to know and measure
the level of customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a product or service.
In the same way, this information from texts allows one to know the general
experience that one has with companies, recognizing possible points of improve-
ment and anticipating future situations that may compromise the proper function-
ing of the businesses. There is no place for business decisions based on loose
guesswork in a highly competitive market. Different data must be gathered and
managed to help develop future strategies. Only in this way can products and serv-
ices be personalized, and the opinion of customers will influence this because it is
an extremely important resource that should be used to improve their experience
and, at the same time, will serve to adjust the actions of the company.
The tips will help you pinpoint exactly where the budget should be allocated to
get the best ROI. At the same time, this will help create a better user experience
beyond the tangible, since the customer not only buys a product, but also thinks
about obtaining comfort, security, status, affinity, style, etc. Therefore, if companies
focus on delivering the best experience in every moment of truth, their customers
will remain loyal to the brand (Smilers, n.d.). There is no doubt that the best way to
deliver a memorable experience is by asking customers what they like and how the
company can improve. Likewise, it is text analysis that helps measure customer sat-
isfaction and is directly related to many benefits, such as higher market share,
lower costs, or higher revenue.
It is important to know that there is a close relationship between customer satis-
faction and business performance. Therefore, ensuring that customers are happy
with the product or service offered is essential, and the best way to achieve this is by
knowing their opinion. Using questions based on ratings, you can estimate the level
of satisfaction and, consequently, predict the performance of your company. Text an-
alytics is a reliable source of information and today, thanks to social networks, the

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-014
180 Oliver Moisés Cervantes Flores et al.

customer now relies less on commercials and advertisements in general; instead, the
opinions and comments of a customer who has already used the product and service
are a much more reliable source of information (Alaei & Stantic, 2019).
It is for this reason that it is important to analyze all those comments, opinions,
and reviews, which allow us to identify trends and behaviors. In recent years there
have been many changes, some of them due to information and communication
technologies and others to environmental factors that, jointly or in parallel, have
set new trends and consumption patterns such as new lifestyles, habits of con-
sumption, places of purchase and globalization, among others (Barrullas, 2016).
Today, it is essential to know the behavior of customers when acquiring prod-
ucts or services, the purchase decision process and the internal or external varia-
bles that shape their behavior. We are facing a society where information and
knowledge influence consumer behavior, so it is important to focus on knowing the
interaction variables. The interest of a customer no longer lies in the mere act of
purchase but goes further. You should never ignore or underestimate the voice of
customers, so you must learn to collect data using different tools and resources, be-
cause their opinion at all levels (corporate and in all departments of the company)
will help develop products to improve the service and to manage their satisfaction.

General Objective
Develop a sentiment analysis using text mining to measure customer satisfaction
for an American hotel chain.

Specific Objectives

The first concerns the collection of feedback from customers. The second refers to or-
dering and cleaning the database obtained to avoid errors in the analysis. The third
refers to using SAS Enterprise Miner® software to perform sentiment analysis. And the
fourth refers to the analysis of the results obtained, their description and discussion.

Theoretical Framework
What do Hotels do with Guest Reviews when the Room is
delivered, and how has that Review been Measured?

Knowing your customer is just as important anywhere in the world as it is at home.

This is a relevant principle to consider in the tourism industry. Each culture has its
 Chapter 14 Text Mining Applied as Business Intelligence in the Tourism Industry 181

logic, and within that logic are real, sensible reasons for the way travelers do things.
Tourism is currently one of the most important economic and cultural activities that
a country or a region can count on. We understand tourism as all those activities that
have to do with knowing or enjoying regions or spaces in which one does not live
permanently. Tourism can present many variants since there are different types of
tourism: cultural tourism, adventure, entertainment, relaxation. In the same way,
there are also different people who carry out different types of tourism: tourism for
young people, families, the elderly, couples, friends, etc. According to the World
Tourism Organization, the volume of this industry is equal to or even greater than
that of exports of oil, food products, or automobiles. Tourism has become one of the
main actors in international trade and represents at the same time one of the main
sources of income for many developing countries. This growth goes hand in hand
with an increase in diversification and competition between destinations.
In the age of the internet, the activity of a company depends directly on the
opinions of customers, so the comments and reviews of users represent a type of
evaluation of the activity of a company. Potential customers look at reviews to rate
a brand. This means that customer opinions influence a company’s sales (Soley-
mani et al., 2017).
Today, thanks to various tools such as the internet, smartphones, social net-
works, among many more it is possible to know in a matter of minutes if the serv-
ices offered are excellent, good, fair, or bad, even if the place is on the other side of
the world. It is easy to know if the business is a store, a restaurant, a hotel, etc. It is
enough to “google it” to obtain thousands of reviews from people who have visited
them, narrating their experiences. When choosing a lodging, the first thing you
want to know is if the place is a good choice. In most cases, certain factors are more
important than others, depending on the guest, such as, the cleanliness of the
room, if the bed is comfortable, if there is hot water in the bathrooms, the attention
of the staff, if there is good Wi-Fi network, the area in which it is located, among
several other factors.
A few years ago, hotels analyzed the experience of their guests only through
the questionnaires that they answered at the end of their stay. It is very different
today, as social media came to change this process the popularity of online reviews
and the importance of people’s opinion on these platforms is changing the way
hotels handle their feedback.
According to Weed (2013), hotels want to know the opinion of their customers
about their stay. They no longer consider that it is enough to leave a questionnaire
in the room and wait for a response, because of sites like TripAdvisor, specialized
in rating, publish customer satisfaction, or dissatisfaction on the web. Therefore,
hotels must further consider customer satisfaction as the most important part of
their business. The data that hotels collect affects both the way they treat their
guests in general and the way they interact with individual travelers. Some ques-
tionnaires are now shorter, allowing guests to complete them quickly and send
182 Oliver Moisés Cervantes Flores et al.

them to mobile devices to be completed by customers traveling in taxis or waiting

at the airport.
New methodologies have made use of emails to question clients about their
stay; however, they can seem annoying as an additional email is usually sent if
they don’t reply the first time. In this way, hotels control what is said about them
on social media and travel websites.
SiteMinder (2019) has published eight recommendations for handling customer
reviews that hotels can rely on to prevent these reviews from being a detriment
rather than a benefit. These points are the following:
1) Capture guest complaints before they are made public. For example, having a
feedback system in place will give you access to real-time feedback, allowing
you to respond to issues as they arise.
2) Use social listening tools or a hotel reputation management system with real-
time alerts to keep up with what guests are saying on review sites, blogs, and
social media.
3) In responding to a complaint, you must acknowledge the bad experience, and
follow up with the customer as necessary.
4) Respond to problems as quickly as possible. The longer they remain unat-
tended, the more they could potentially be out of control.
5) Act on promises to clients and move conversations off the internet when neces-
sary to provide a higher level of personalized service.
6) Limit the number of different staff who respond to reviews.
7) Share customer feedback across the company. Company staff are the front-line
brand ambassadors, but only if they understand the challenges and are incen-
tivized to create the best possible customer experience.
8) Never assume a defensive posture.

Text Analysis Applications and Effectiveness

in Results
The technological development that has been achieved in the last decade has gen-
erated an accelerated production of digital information that can be processed, to
solve problems and challenges in any situation. Exploring and exploiting the con-
tents of digital textual documents is the work of text mining, with the goal of ob-
taining relevant information and, in this case, taking future actions to always be
improving.
Also, in the last decade there has been a growing interest in the study of cus-
tomer opinion regarding the services or products provided to offer a better business
strategy focused on the experience generated to customers. Opinions are important
to almost all human activities because they influence our behavior. When a person
 Chapter 14 Text Mining Applied as Business Intelligence in the Tourism Industry 183

decides, he usually considers the opinion of third parties, to ensure that the decision
is adequate or correct. The following table shows examples of how industries in some
sectors have taken advantage of the customer opinion study (see Table 14.1).

Table 14.1: Examples of customer opinion study.

Sector Description

Hotel Case : Hyatt Hotels uses text boxes for open questions, numerical scales and check
boxes to tabulate and analyze the final opinions of customers in the surveys they take
at the end of their stay, where they classify how positive or negative the comments are
depending on the words they use, the exclamation points, etc. They also extract
comments from Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, since the first thing
other people who want information about the hotel will do is go to the web and the
comments. By analyzing reviews, staff can assign them a room away from an elevator
based on feedback from a previous questionnaire.
Case : An urban hotel that heard noise complaints added earplugs to its guest
amenity kits.
Case .: A hotel restaurant that heard complaints about delays in deliveries, decided
to increase the number of employees working that area.

Airlines Based on customer survey feedback on overnight flights, Israel Airlines (El Al)
combined food and beverage service so that passengers could finish meals more
quickly and sleep earlier.

Cruise The most common customer complaint at Crystal Cruises centered on costly and
ships confusing pricing for internet access, so pricing was simplified.

Computers Dell Technologies, through open-ended questions, analyzes customer feedback on

product and service satisfaction, customer service, and marketing. This company
collects, almost in real time, messages, and comments from customers to later carry
out a biannual analysis of social networks to detect eventual changes in satisfaction,
analyzing more than , customers on average. In this way, the organization can
quickly connect with a customer and offer solutions to the problems detected,
avoiding the generation of a “wave of dissatisfaction” that is more difficult to control
and correct.

Footwear The Grasshoppers company incorporated the assessment of texts written by

customers into its analytical strategies to provide a better shopping experience and
identify areas of opportunity. For this, it was decided to launch a mobile application
where customers could register, search for products, buy products and give their
opinion on them. The launch of the mobile application aims to record the information
used by customers, as well as to integrate a series of innovative tools to position
Grasshoppers in the new business technology environment.

Source: Own elaboration with information from Weed (2013), Trujillo (2017), and Panico (2018).

The previous examples show the particular interest that is beginning to be had in
certain companies to take advantage of the information generated in business. In
the hotel industry, the comments made by customers are much more noticeable
184 Oliver Moisés Cervantes Flores et al.

because the services and products offered are highly competitive, so each hotel
must distinguish itself. Customer satisfaction has become a key factor in measuring
the competitiveness and success of a company; thus, the analysis of raw data from
individual consumers can lead to completely new ways of understanding consumer
behavior and formulating marketing strategies. Unlike a uniform method, big data
takes advantage of various types of analytical tools to use big data to predict trends
and obtain commercial value (Ang, Seng, Zungeru, & Ijemaru, 2017).

Methodology
Transformations and Assumptions Carried out to Develop
the Text Analysis in the Hotel Chain
In recent years, companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix have
had exponential growth due to the strategic use of technological and digital tools,
such as web pages, software, social networks, but above all the use of data. A good
data analysis allows the company to know the situation of a company, helps to
make correct decisions based on the information found in the data, allows to know
which processes are less efficient than others and an infinity of needs that are not
noticed at first glance.
The objective of this project was to carry out a sentiment analysis to measure
customer satisfaction of an American hotel chain. Comments from the TripAdvisor.
com website were used, which were originally extracted by the Information Systems
and Databases Laboratory of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and
later presented as a case study (Van der Aalst, Iriondo & Van Zelst, 2018). These
opinions were provided by guests after their visit. To fulfill this purpose, all com-
ments contained in the text files, which were provided to us in a notepad format,
were compiled into a single database in Microsoft Excel®.

Methodological Development
In total 14,421 comments were collected, which were categorized according to the
rating provided by customers on a scale of 0 to 5, with the interval from 4 to 5 being
positive comments, the interval from 2 to 3 corresponding to neutral comments and
finally from 0 to 1 were considered negative comments. To finalize the data cleaning
process, comments in languages other than English or with input errors that made
them impossible to understand were eliminated.
Finally, the reviews were ordered according to the date and the place they
came from, this was to ensure the quality of the information and avoid errors when
 Chapter 14 Text Mining Applied as Business Intelligence in the Tourism Industry 185

generating a value proposition with the information derived from the data. The
comments collected from 2014 to 2017 were analyzed, comprising a total of 9,332
comments made from hotels in three cities, San Francisco, Seattle, and Los An-
geles. Since the database was clean and orderly, the SAS Enterprise Miner® software
was used to perform a sentiment analysis. Nodes were used that allowed ordering the
comments, eliminating words without relevant contribution to the analysis, highlight-
ing the topics that were mentioned most frequently by the guests, categorizing, and
identifying the existing relationships between the words used by the clients according
to the type of comment (positive, neutral, or negative) and have a complete identifica-
tion of the causes of these. This process was carried out individually with the three
categories of comments.
The main elements of the process are described below:
1) Import file: Allow loading the clean database and begin the analysis.
2) Analysis of the text (parsing of the text): Fulfill the function of eliminating
words that do not add value to the analysis and allows separating them by cate-
gory, be it verbs, nouns, adverb, etc.; in the same way, it allows to ignore auxilia-
ries, conjunctions, interjections, prepositions, pronouns, numbers, punctuation
marks, etc. Add a list of stop words in English for more accurate information.
3) Text filter: Apply filters to reduce the number of terms or documents, this al-
lows you to check spelling, add dictionaries and with the results you can per-
form a deeper analysis, allowing you to see the link between concepts or even
search all documents for a single word, filtering the texts only where it appears
(see Figure 14.1).

.. Propiedad Valor
- Ortografía
Revisar Ortografía Si
Diccionario LIB_CHA.ENGDICT …
- Pesos
Peso de frecuencia Predeterminado
Peso de termino Predeterminado
- Filtros del termino
Numero mínimo de documentos 6
Numero máximo de términos .
Importar sinónimos …
Figure 14.1: Text filter node properties.
Source: Own elaboration with SAS Enterprise Miner® software, Spanish Version

4) Text cluster: Allow grouping by similarity between words, in the same way by
trial and error it can be adjusted, so that the topics become more and more
186 Oliver Moisés Cervantes Flores et al.

specific. As shown in Figure 14.2, it was decided to leave eight clusters with 15
descriptive terms each, in which you can see what the guests talk about the
most.

ID del
Términos descriptivos
Clúster
1 front +desk +check +valet +shower +bathroom +bed +floor +park +business +free +street +review +toilet +small
2 lodge +chelsea +toilet +subway york +share +nyc +shower +clean + place +small +street +review +recommend +little
3 hotel +staff +location +san +francisco + friendly + helpful union +square hotel + recommend +stay +small +price +clean
4 shuttle +airport +minute +universal lax +flight +free +hollywood +night +pool +breakfast +service +bed +check +los
5 car +cable +wharf +distance +walking +'cable car' +walk +park +fransisco +street +restaurant +san +location union +'great location'
6 location +hollywood +value +kitchen +'great location' +subway +nyc +great +universal +pool +clean +place +helpful york +recommend
7 view +service + pool +floor +beautiful +wonderful +love +time +business +great +stay +nice +room +place great
8 omni +downtown +angeles +los +valet +service +business +park +hollywood +excellent +comfortable +beautiful +bathroom +bed +wonderful

Figure 14.2: Clusters resulting from the analysis.

Source: Own elaboration with SAS Enterprise Miner® software, Spanish Version

5) Text theme: Create themes in a group of documents. Depending on the data-

base used, by trial and error it can be adjusted so that the topics are more spe-
cific each time providing a more precise analysis.

Finally, the interactive filter viewer was used, which allowed identifying the rela-
tionships of each word and determining the following information for each city:

Los Angeles

The positive comments about the Los Angeles hotel were mainly derived from the good
condition of the rooms. Guests mentioned as positive points the comfortable bed found
in most of the rooms, the large closet, the marble bathroom and, in general, the deco-
ration of the entire room. They also highlighted the amazing room service provided by
the always friendly and helpful staff, the fabulous food from the hotel’s well-rated res-
taurant which guests note has an incredible pool view. Finally, they highlighted the
spacious and comfortable hotel, the free parking, and the location, since the hotel is in
the heart of Hollywood, obtaining a spectacular view (see Figure 14.3).
As neutral comments, the small size of the pool, the high prices for the SPA
service, and the lack of a Jacuzzi and a quiet area where you can study or meditate
were mentioned. The negative comments came from unpleasant experiences due to
lack of water pressure in the showers, little hot water, and bed bugs. Likewise, cus-
tomers reported having problems with reservations and the check-in process, as
well as bad experiences with the smell and cigarette smoke in the corridors and
rooms, even though smoking is prohibited within the hotel’s facilities. Likewise,
guests emphasize that too much noise is filtered into the rooms from the corridors
and neighboring rooms (see Figure 14.4).
 Chapter 14 Text Mining Applied as Business Intelligence in the Tourism Industry 187

Figure 14.3: Relationships of the positive terms in the Los Angeles hotel.
Source: Own elaboration with SAS Enterprise Miner® software, Spanish Version

Figure 14.4: Relationships of negative terms in the Los Angeles hotel.

Source: Own elaboration with SAS Enterprise Miner® software, Spanish Version

Seattle

As seen in Figure 14.5, the hotel located in the city of Seattle was praised for the
cleanliness of the rooms, their comfort and spaciousness, as well as the design and
function of the showers. Guests applaud the hotel’s excellent breakfast, referring to
it as varied and incredibly delicious. The location was constantly highlighted, being
an important factor due to the number of restaurants and activities to be carried out
near the hotel, in addition to emphasizing the colorful area of the city in which it is
located. Finally, the guests appreciated the friendly and helpful treatment of the
staff, the beautiful decoration and the great atmosphere that exists within the hotel.
Neutral comments mentioned the lack of cleaning carried out in the common
areas and that, even though the hotel is somewhat old, it is kept in sufficient condition
188 Oliver Moisés Cervantes Flores et al.

Figure 14.5: Most frequent positive hotel comments in Seattle.

Source: Own elaboration with SAS Enterprise Miner® software, Spanish Version

to continue operating. As a negative comment they mentioned the constant noise com-
ing from the nearby highway, the garbage trucks, the police sirens and, above all, the
large number of homeless people who are on the outskirts of the hotel that, despite
being harmless, can end up being annoying to guests and affect the hotel image. Extra
costs for internet and gym services were also a recurring theme. The restaurant was
also listed as very small and cluttered, as most of the guests want to take advantage of
the previously mentioned excellent breakfast (see Figure 14.6).

San Francisco

At the San Francisco hotel, most guests highlighted the exceptional attention of the
lobby staff, the excellent and central location near most of the tourist spots and a
variety of restaurants around, but above all, the city and its fantastic streets with
innumerable places to visit and with many attractions. Generally, neutral reviews
mention that the hotel was only suitable for short stays, preferably one night. Most
guests who provided neutral feedback mentioned that they were visiting the hotel
for the first time. It is noteworthy that many guests mentioned the rooms as terribly
small, with many failures to maintain the shower and with old and uncomfortable
furniture. Despite being central, the location was classified as bad because it is
dirty and full of people in the street, which is noteworthy since guests mention that
the hotel is in a rather expensive area (see Figure 14.7).
 Chapter 14 Text Mining Applied as Business Intelligence in the Tourism Industry 189

Figure 14.6: Relationships of the negative terms in the Seattle hotel.

Source: Own elaboration with SAS Enterprise Miner® software, Spanish Version

Figure 14.7: Relationships of negative terms in the San Francisco hotel.

Source: Own elaboration with SAS Enterprise Miner® software, Spanish Version

Specific Recommendations for Each Case

Since a specific analysis was carried out for each of the cities, the following recom-
mendations are proposed to each of the hotels to improve these negative comments.
190 Oliver Moisés Cervantes Flores et al.

Los Angeles
The main recommendation for the Los Angeles hotel is to verify that the mainte-
nance and cleaning process is being carried out correctly, the constant spraying for
pests. Being in constant vigilance to prevent guests from not abiding by the rules
and smoking inside the hotel and, verifying the correct functioning of the reserva-
tion systems and the ability of the people in charge of checking-in.

Seattle
In the Seattle hotel, the recommendations would be to eliminate the cost for Wi-Fi
and gym services; create a more business hotel concept where guests only must
spend one or a maximum of two nights in it; due to the continuous noise outside
the rooms, provide free ear plugs; be in constant vigilance of cleanliness in com-
mon areas; expand the restaurant due to the success of the breakfasts it includes,
but as guests mentioned, space is limited.

San Francisco
The recommendation that is given to the hotel located in San Francisco is a con-
stant maintenance in the showers because it is a complaint with a lot of weight on
the part of the guests; remodel the hotel property for one that is warmer and cooler;
hire a cleaning company for public spaces to keep the area where the hotel is lo-
cated clean, because for the cost the guests are paying, they deserve to have a clean
space.

Conclusions and General Recommendations to

Improve the Measurement of Customer Opinion
Through Text Analysis
As a general recommendation, it is suggested that for future occasions in all hotels,
a follow-up is carried out with each of the clients mainly with those who leave neg-
ative comments, letting them know that their opinion was and is very important for
the company and that the necessary actions will be taken to solve the problems
that may have arisen during your stay.
On the other hand, it is important to have all the updated guest data, so it is
recommended to include sections in the satisfaction survey that request the guest’s
name, age, and email, always letting them know that the company considers the
laws of data protection. These surveys must be carried out electronically at the time
the client performs the check-out process if it is intended to reduce the time of data
capture and cleaning. An electronic form connected to a database that requests all
 Chapter 14 Text Mining Applied as Business Intelligence in the Tourism Industry 191

this information would be sufficient, if the customer is identified with a unique

code. This database could be connected to the reservation database to find out
more information about your stay and thus offer even more personalized attention,
so it is also suggested to properly identify which hotel each comment comes from to
facilitate decision-making in the future.
Through this analysis, many happy clients can be identified, but also many were
dissatisfied with their stay; but what if the client can present their complaints before
checking out? Hotels are recommended to install a tool that allows guests to always
express their opinion. When connecting to the Wi-Fi, and with their reservation num-
ber, the client will be able to connect to the network. If they accept, provide their
data to a form that will request the software automatically, allowing the client’s pro-
file to be identified and subsequently segment them to creating marketing campaigns
and improving strategies when it comes to building customer loyalty, always comply-
ing with the general data protection regulations. In this way, if the client has a prob-
lem when checking-in, with this tool the guest’s problem could be solved in a matter
of minutes, which would avoid bad reviews when checking-out.
Additionally, in any case it is important to keep in mind the Global Code of
Ethics for Tourism, which is a set of principles designed to guide governments,
tourism companies, communities and tourists in general, to maximize the benefits
of the sector while minimizing possible negative consequences for the environment,
cultural heritage and societies. The 10 principles of the code cover the economic,
social, cultural, and environmental aspects of the travel and tourism sector world-
wide (World Tourism Organization, 2017):
– Article 1: Contribution of tourism to mutual understanding and respect between
men and societies.
– Article 2: Tourism, an instrument of personal and collective development.
– Article 3: Tourism, a factor of sustainable development.
– Article 4: Tourism, factor of use and enrichment of the cultural heritage of
humanity.
– Article 5: Tourism, beneficial activity for the countries and communities of
destination.
– Article 6: Obligations of tourism development agents.
– Article 7: Right to tourism.
– Article 8: Freedom of tourist travel.
– Article 9: Rights of workers and entrepreneurs in the tourism sector.
– Article 10: Application of the principles of the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism.

In recent years, tourism has experienced continuous growth and profound diversifi-
cation, which has made it one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world.
In addition, tourism is closely related to the development of communities, which is
why it has become a key driver of economic progress. Despite the recent economic
crises in the United States, Europe and emerging countries, tourism has registered
192 Oliver Moisés Cervantes Flores et al.

virtually uninterrupted growth in the last five years. Currently, tourism contributes
10 percent of world GDP (Isik, Dogru, & Turk, 2018).
As a conclusion to the text mining process, it is important to note that this analy-
sis, and the information from it, demonstrate the importance of collecting opinions
and reviews from customers. This compilation is not only useful for the hotel indus-
try, but for all businesses that seek to avoid or correct errors, as well as identify possi-
ble points for improvement in all their processes, allowing them to better know their
consumers and offer products or services that meet all their expectations and needs.

References
Alaei, A. R., Becken, S., & Stantic, B. (2019). Sentiment Analysis in Tourism: Capitalizing on Big
Data. Journal of Travel Research, 58(2): 175–191.
Ang, L. M., Seng, K. P., Zungeru, A. M., & Ijemaru, G. K. (2017). Big Sensor Data Systems for Smart
Cities. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 4(5): 1259–1271.
Barrullas, J. (2016, October 14). El comportamiento del consumidor y las nuevas tendencias de
consumo ante las TIC. Economía y Empresa: Blog de los Estudios de Economía y Empresa.
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Isik, C., Dogru, T., & Turk, E. S. (2018). A Nexus of Linear and Nonlinear Relationships Between
Tourism Demand, Renewable Energy Consumption, and Economic Growth: Theory and
Evidence. International Journal of Tourism Research, 20(1): 38–49.
Panico, C. (2018). La eficacia del análisis de sentimientos para la empresa: el caso de estudio Dell
Technologies Inc. [Unpublished dissertation]. Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
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how-to-handle-them-at-your-hotel
Smilers (n.d.). 8 razones por las que es importante conocer la opinión de tus clientes. Smilers.
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conocer-la-opinion-de-tus-clientes/
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dissertation]. Universidad de San Buena Ventura Seccional Cali, Colombia.
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nos_mercadeo_2017.pdf
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and Not Just Your Data. In M. Hofmann, & R. Klinkenberg (Eds.), RapidMiner: Data Mining Use
Cases and Business Analytics Applications (2nd ed.). (Chapman & Hall/CRC Data Mining and
Knowledge Discovery Series). Chapman & Hall/CRC Press, London, UK.
Weed, J. (2013, May 27). Checking In After Checkout. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.
com/2013/05/28/business/hotels-work-harder-to-collect-customer-responses.html
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Organization. Madrid. Retrieved on April 1, 2018 from: http://cf.cdn.unwto.org/sites/all/files/
docpdf/gcetbrochureglobalcodees.pdf
Alock Gupta, Tanvi Kaushik, Vipin Mittal
Chapter 15
Big Data: Impact on Digital Era
of Twenty-First Century
Introduction
In the twenty-first century as digitalization has increased, almost everything is on-
line. Today we use various online platforms, sites, and when we use them, the data
is generated, which is in the form of text, audio, video, images, graphics, etc.
(Memon et al., 2017). In the COVID-19 situation we have seen or are very aware that
everything depends or relies on the internet whether it is about studies, work for
office employees, shopping, transaction of money, etc. We also use various social
media sites so that we can connect to the outer world like WhatsApp, Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram and when we use them, we generate data in various forms
such as photo, video, audio, text, etc. (Khan et al., 2014). Before 2002 there was
minimal use of the internet and the data that was generated in a structured form
and small in amount did not grow so rapidly (Mukherjee & Shaw, 2016). We could
store and process them with the help of databases and MYSQL. But when we talk
about current situation without the help of the internet nothing will be able to
work. So, when we use the internet for various purposes the data generated is very
large, complex, and complicated. For example let’s talk of how this data is different
from the previous one. Flipkart is an e-commerce website that is very popular today
and everyone knows about it. We can do our shopping by using this website. When
we explore the site and set a filter for purchasing the desired thing which we want,
at the same time millions or billions of users also use this website and a very large
amount of data is generated by all of us, and the data is in the form of terabytes,
petabytes, and zettabytes (Khan et al., 2014; Ularu et al., 2012). Since this data is
very large as well as complex, we cannot store it in the database and the data is
growing so rapidly (i.e., within a second or so) we cannot process and access it by
using MYSQL. MYSQL and database principles function with structured data, which
can be in the form of structured, semi-structured, or unstructured data. The data
that is generated today is 90 percent unstructured, which is in any form like text,
video, audio, images, etc. (Mukherjee & Shaw, 2016). For instance, when we select
some product to purchase and it is in stock, but when we click the payment option
then an error screen appears, and we are not able to buy the product: that is be-
cause at the same time many users are accessing it. So, we leave this website. We
go to another shopping website like Amazon, and we find the same product here
and we are able to purchase the same product.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-015
194 Alock Gupta, Tanvi Kaushik, Vipin Mittal

From this example we can see how this large and complex data affects a com-
pany or business organization, For example, on Flipkart the data is not managed
properly but in the case of Amazon it is better (Khan et al., 2014). Users are shifting
from one website to another website, because they dislike the previous one. So, to
prevent that we need to arrange, organize, and manage this large and complex
data. Because of all these issues a new term is introduced: which is known as “big
data,” which is the representation of this large and complicated data.

What is Data?

Data is defined as raw facts, statistics, or figures. It can be in many formats such as
text documents, images, audio, or videos. Raw data that is the most basic format of
data is processed to produce useful information. Data processing and analysis
helps organizations increase their productivity and make business decisions.

Classification of Data

Data is classified into three categories (see Figure 15.1):

1) Structured
2) Semi-structured
3) Unstructured

Structured

Semi-
DATA
structured
Unstructured
Data

Figure 15.1: Classification of data.

1) Structured data: The data that has some predefined data model and can be
analyzed. It is in tabular form in which there is a combination of different rows
and columns like: SQL Database, Excel file. In these there is a structure of rows
and columns on which the data can be stored. It is a model-based data where
there is a model that tells how data can be stored, processed, and accessed. It is
also known as traditional form of data as the Database Management System
(DBMS) was used to store, process, and access the organized data.
 Chapter 15 Big Data: Impact on Digital Era of Twenty-First Century 195

2) Semi-structured data: As the name itself says, “semi-structured”; that is, the
data is not completely in the structured form, only half of the data is in struc-
tured form. This data does not have any data model like relational database
model as in the structured one. The data contain tags and markers so that they
can separate the semantic elements.
3) Self-descriptive structure is another name for it. JSON (Java-Script Object
Notation) and XML are two examples (Extensible Markup Language). When
opposed to unstructured data, semi-structured data is easier to analyze.
4) Unstructured data: Unstructured data is data that lacks a predefined data
model and is disorganized. Unstructured data is text-heavy, with dates, num-
bers, and details thrown in for good measure. As opposed to structured data
such as audio, video, and NO-SQL databases, this makes it difficult to interpret
this data using conventional systems. When it comes to storing and processing
this form of data, new technologies such as Apache Graph for storing node rela-
tionships and MongoDB for storing documents have emerged.

Semi-Structured Data

Structured Data Unstructured Data

Figure 15.2: Traditional and Big Data.

Traditional Data
Other names for this type of data are small data or structured data. This type of
data can be maintained by business organizations using Database Management
System (DBMS). In this we use a centralized database for storing and maintain-
ing data in a fixed format or in a file. For managing and accessing the data we
use SQL, that is, Structured Query Language. It is generated at enterprise level.
The size of data is in gigabytes or terabytes. The data size is very small. It con-
tains only structured data. So, it is easy to integrate the data. We can manipu-
late data as well in this. The data is in manageable volume that means we can
manage our data easily. It is stable as well. The data model is based on strict
schema.
196 Alock Gupta, Tanvi Kaushik, Vipin Mittal

Big Data
This is a term that combines the words “big” and “data.” Big is a word that denotes
a broad quantity (Mukherjee & Shaw, 2016). Data is any knowledge that comes in a
variety of formats. So, when these two concepts are combined, we get the term “big
data,” which refers to data in large quantities and in any form. It refers to data that
is massive, fast, and complex, and that can’t be processed using conventional
methods. It is the ability to analyze unstructured data, which makes up a huge por-
tion of data in organizations. One of the most important factors driving the growth
of big data is the ability to derive value from unstructured data. According to Gart-
ner, big data is data in large quantities that is rapidly increasing, and the data
comes from a variety of sources that require cost-effective, new data processing
techniques to produce enhanced insight and decision-making (Memon et al., 2017)
(see Figure 15.2).

Characteristics of Big Data

Figure 15.3: Characteristics.

Doug Laney, a market analyst, coined the term “big data” in the early 2000s with
the idea of the “5 V’s” (Riahi & Riahi, 2018) (see Figure 15.3):
 Chapter 15 Big Data: Impact on Digital Era of Twenty-First Century 197

1) Volume: The large scale of information processed is referred to as volume. The

data is larger than conventional data, necessitating more computing and stor-
age capacity at each point of the lifecycle. As the workload grows beyond the
capabilities, it becomes a challenge to pool, allocate, and coordinate resources
from other Cluster management, and the algorithms can break the task down
into smaller pieces.
2) Velocity: It refers to the rate at which data passes through the device. With the
rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), data is moving at a breakneck pace and
must be processed quickly. The amount of data flowing is enormous, and it is
constant in nature.
3) Variety: The form of data is varied. Data is available in a variety of formats,
including structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data, as well as text,
audio, and video.
4) Variability: It is the volatile flow of data, which means it changes constantly
and varies greatly. It’s complicated, but businesses need to know when some-
thing is trending on social media and how to handle the resulting spikes in
data. Essentially, data inconsistency obstructs the process of efficiently han-
dling and maintaining data.
5) Veracity: It has to do with the data’s accuracy. Since data comes from a variety
of places, it’s difficult to link them, fit them, keep them clean, and convert
them between systems. As a result, businesses must link and correlate relation-
ships. Otherwise, the data could become uncontrollable.

How Big Data came into Existence

There were methods of gathering and storing a large volume of data before acting
on it. In 1970, the US Census Bureau began using punch cards to record population
data. The invention of the “tabulating machine” processed punch card information
much faster than humans could (Memon et al., 2017). We needed a better way to
store and access vast amounts of data in the 1940s because there was an outbreak
of information. IBM Research Labs published a paper on Relational Databases in
1970, which explains how to find data in large databases more efficiently (Ularu
et al., 2012). It’s like Excel. The internet’s development in 1995 paved the way for
Web 2.0. Initially, the internet was mostly used for information, and static websites
were prominent, resulting in a disappointing user experience. (Riahi & Riahi, 2018)
Since the introduction of Web 2.0 in 2004, users have been able to create, distrib-
ute, and store their own data in a virtual environment (Riahi & Riahi, 2018). In the
mid-2000s, internet users overflowed social media sites such as Facebook and Twit-
ter, resulting in the dissemination of even more data (Khan et al., 2014). Today,
YouTube and Netflix have forever changed the way we watch and download video
content. HADOOP, a popular open-source platform for storing data and running
198 Alock Gupta, Tanvi Kaushik, Vipin Mittal

applications, was released in 2011. In 2014, the Internet of Things (IoT) would
change big data. (Nandhini, 2018) As the world becomes more linked across the in-
ternet, businesses are turning to big data to minimize operating costs, increase pro-
ductivity, and create new products and services.

Why is Big Data Important?

As we all can see, the development of apps is increasing day by day and everyone
is shifting online, including social media, people, and businesses. So, there is a
huge amount of data is increasing day by day (Khan et.al., 2014). Take, for example,
social media sites, which draw over a million users on a regular basis, allowing
them to scale data faster than ever before. So, how is this massive volume of data
treated, analyzed, and stored? (Ularu et.al. 2012). This is where big data becomes
useful.

From where does it come? Or Sources of Big Data

1) Black Box Data: Information provided by planes, such as jets and helicopters.
It contains the voices of the flight crew, microphone recordings, and details
about the aircraft’s performance (Al-Shiakhli 2019).
2) Social Media Data: Information gathered from sites like Twitter, Facebook, In-
stagram, Pinterest, and Google+.
3) Stock Exchange Data: This is information from stock exchanges regarding cus-
tomer share selling and purchasing decisions.
4) Power Grid Data: This is information from power grids. It stores information
about specific nodes, such as consumption statistics.
5) Transport Data: This includes a vehicle’s size, model, availability, and dis-
tance traveled
6) Search Engine Data: One of the most important sources of big data is search
engine data. Search engines rely on large databases for their information.

Pros of Big Data

1) Better decision-making: It has aided the decision-making process in a more

significant way. Companies are using big data analytics before making any
decisions, rather than making them anonymously (Ularu et al., 2012). For a
better decision-making process, a number of user-based considerations are
taken into account, such as what the consumers want, the solution to their is-
sues, analyzing their needs according to business patterns, and so on. The level
 Chapter 15 Big Data: Impact on Digital Era of Twenty-First Century 199

of satisfaction and loyalty of a company’s customers can be used to gauge its per-
formance. Nothing will stop them from expanding if they give their customers
what they want.
2) Greater innovations: They are important for success of any organization. For
innovation we need data in bulk. big data gives us the freedom to achieve what
we want. Companies use big data to evaluate various consumer perspectives on
their goods and how they are perceived. It tells them exactly what they’re miss-
ing and what the most important considerations are when creating a new prod-
uct. This aids them in designing innovative products that meet the needs of
their customers. Big data serves as a backbone to the Internet of Things (IoT).
Take, as an analogy, self-driving vehicles, which are currently in progress and
will become a reality in the not-too-distant future. As the name implies, this is a
car that does not need a driver and is capable of driving us to our destination
on its own. These vehicles are outfitted with several equipment, including sen-
sors, cameras, cloud architecture, and so on. It recognizes a large amount of
traffic data, road conditions such as speed brakers, sharp turns, and so on, and
then processes the data and makes driving decisions.
3) Education sector: It is unbelievable how it handles data relevant to students
at an educational institute. It is not currently in use, but it should be. Teachers
find it difficult to handle the data because it is so big. Analysis can be used to
quantify the skills of students based on data, allowing teachers to better build
their students’ futures. Teachers become very conscious of their students’
strengths and weaknesses and can help them.
4) Product price optimization: Big data is used by businesses to refine the prices
they charge their customers (Memon et al., 2017). Their main aim is to set the
prices in such a way that their profit is maximized with the use of big data.
They set their product’s price according to the customer’s willingness to pay
under different installments or circumstances. They want the customer to get
value for his money.
5) Recommendation engines: Consider the possibility of receiving recommenda-
tions based on our past and current choices made on different online platforms.
Isn’t it much easier to live when we have the choice of choosing from things we
enjoy? People’s attitudes toward different online outlets have shifted because
of this. We’re all more at ease being involved on these channels now. Various
online shopping sites are the best example of this. What exactly do they do?
They examine each customer’s data and make recommendations based on it.
These suggestions are based on the behaviors we engaged in the last time we
visited the website, and they are also based on consumer comparisons. Who
searched for or bought similar stuff? Online networks have broken down physi-
cal walls between us and them in this way. Flipkart is the most well-known
example.
200 Alock Gupta, Tanvi Kaushik, Vipin Mittal

6) Lifesaving application in healthcare industry: Centered on the electronic

health record of patients, it assists physicians in providing advanced and high-
quality treatment to patients. It improves healthcare organizations’ operating
performance and encourages them to make improvements. By identifying un-
known associations and invisible patterns, it enables doctors to find a better
cure for disease. It can also be used to find a cure for a disease like cancer
(Memon et al., 2017; Mukherjee & Shaw, 2016).

Cons of Big Data

1) Data quality: Since most big data is semi-structured or unstructured, quality

isn’t always consistent. For this reason, data analysts must ensure that the in-
formation gathered is reliable. Its format should be suitable. If these issues are
effective, they will cause a problem (Nandhini, 2018; Acharjya & Ahmed, 2016).
2) Rapid change: As technology advances, it improves and becomes more ad-
vanced than previous iterations. As a result, many businesses are unable to
meet the demands of developing these resources. It may often result in a busi-
ness disaster (Khan et al., 2014).
3) Lack of professionals: Big data analysts are people who evaluate big data to
find useful information for growing a company’s productivity. However, people
with this expertise are not always accessible (Ularu et al., 2012). The number of
people capable of working on big data analytics is decreasing. As a result, it is
one of the major drawbacks.
4) Cyber security risks: There is a lack of security. Big data necessitates a lot of
storage, and data that isn’t properly stored can be hacked. Data security is dis-
rupted due to a lack of facilities (Acharjya & Ahmed, 2016).
5) Cost factor: Big data analytics is a costly procedure. Hardware, storage, and
servicing, infrastructure, tool implementation, and recruiting talented workers
are just a few of the extra costs. Working on big data research needs a signifi-
cant investment of time and effort (Riahi & Riahi, 2018).

Applications of Big Data

Over the past few years, big data has acted as a major game changer in a variety of
industries. Big data applications are designed to assist businesses in making more
informed business decisions by analyzing vast amounts of data. It has a major im-
pact on a variety of areas, as follows:
1) Finance: The financial organization is reliant on its data, and protecting it is
one of the most difficult tasks facing any financial institution. After income,
 Chapter 15 Big Data: Impact on Digital Era of Twenty-First Century 201

data is the second most important thing to them. Financial institutions were
among the first to use big data and analytics. Financial companies use big data
for fraud prevention, risk analysis, and other purposes. Instead of focusing on
security issues, they are now focusing on delivering quality services to their
customers. MasterCard, for example, uses a lot of big data. They have saved bil-
lions of dollars thanks to their big data fraud detection technique (Mukherjee &
Shaw, 2016; Tarekegn & Munaye, 2016).
2) Telecom: It is at the heart of every digital transformation taking place any-
where on the planet. As the use of smart phones grows, the telecom industry is
being overburdened with large amounts of data. Companies can provide strong
access to customers by using big data and analytics, as well as eliminate all
network obstacles that customers face. Companies can now monitor the areas
with the lowest and highest network traffic and adjust network access accord-
ingly. Big data has aided the telecom industry in gaining a better understand-
ing of its customers (Mukherjee & Shaw, 2016; Tarekegn & Munaye, 2016).
3) Travel industry: For many people, getting a stress-free travel experience is a
pipe dream. Travel companies can now have more personalized travel experien-
ces thanks to big data and analytics. They now have a much better understanding
of our specifications. From supplying them with the latest deals to being able to
make real-time recommendations. For any traveler, big data serves as a reference.
4) Media and entertainment industry: It’s all about creativity and career oppor-
tunities. It’s like a work of art when it comes to big data. The aim of this indus-
try is to keep customers happy. To do so, they must provide new content to
their customers to keep them engaged with their company. The recommenda-
tion engine plays a significant role in this. Today, audiences expect content
that is tailored to their preferences (Ularu et al., 2012), content that is different
from what they’ve seen before. Companies used to distribute advertisements at
random, without any research. However, they are now providing advertise-
ments that draw customers and broadcasting them at times when they are most
likely to be seen. Netflix, the world’s most popular internet streaming service,
uses big data in its recommendation systems. Let’s say we’ve finished watching
a Netflix series and then get recommendations for other shows of the same
genre that we like. This occurs because of big data’s recommendation engine.

Big Data Analytics

What does this Imply?

This is a concept that combines the words “big data” and “analytics.” Big data is a
concept used to describe a set of data that is massive, increasingly increasing, and
202 Alock Gupta, Tanvi Kaushik, Vipin Mittal

complex in nature. The amount of data in this is enormous. Using mathematics, sta-
tistics, predictive modeling, and Machine Learning Techniques, analytics is used to
derive relevant patterns in data and find hidden patterns, consumer preferences,
and another useful knowledge (Al-Shiakhli, 2019). As these two words are com-
bined, the result is big data analytics. It collects through a vast volume of data to
uncover secret trends and other insights. With today’s technology, we can analyze
our data and get answers or facts from it almost instantly. In other words, we can
conclude that by applying advanced analytical techniques to very broad, complex
big data sets that include structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data from a
variety of sources and sizes ranging from Tera bytes to Zeta bytes, we can achieve
this. We can make smarter and quicker decisions, model future outcomes, and fore-
cast future outcomes with big data analytics. Companies implement it as they want
to make more informed business decisions (Riahi & Riahi, 2018). It provides various
advantages for better decision making, preventing fraudulent activities, among
other things as well.

What is the Aim of Big Data Analytics?

It is important for all industries. Take Spotify as an example of a music streaming

site. Our definition is clarified because of this illustration. Every day, the company’s
millions of users produce a vast amount of data. The cloud-based platform uses this
to create a recommended song list using a smart recommendation engine based on
our likes, shares, and search history, among other factors. The outcome of big data
analytics is this. If we use Spotify, we have the top recommendation section, which
is based on our preferences, experience, and other factors. We use a recommenda-
tion engine that employs data filtering tools to gather data and then filter it when
operating on an algorithm.

Types of Analytics

1) Descriptive analytics: It explains or summarizes current data using existing

business tools to gain a clearer understanding of what is happening or has oc-
curred (Riahi & Riahi, 2018).
2) Diagnostic analytics: It reflects on past results to figure out what went wrong
and why.
3) Predictive analytics: It uses mathematical models and machine learning tech-
niques to forecast potential outcomes.
4) Prescriptive analytics: It recommends one or more course of action to analyze
the data.
 Chapter 15 Big Data: Impact on Digital Era of Twenty-First Century 203

Tools for Analyzing the Data

1) HADOOP—It allows in the storage and analysis of data.

2) MONGODB—This database is used for constantly changing datasets.
3) Talend—Talend is a data integration and management tool.
4) Spark—This program is used to process and analyze vast volumes of data in
real time (Khan et al., 2014).

HADOOP: What exactly is HADOOP?

Apache Hadoop is a Java-based open-source software platform for data processing

and storage in big data applications (Yaqoob et al., 2016). Hadoop works by distrib-
uting large data sets and analytics workloads across nodes in a computing cluster
and breaking them down into smaller workloads that can run concurrently (Ularu
et al., 2012). It can handle structured and unstructured data, and it can scale from a
single server to thousands of machines.

What is Hadoop’s Evolution?

Hadoop grew from the need to process vast amounts of data. It is based on Google’s
MapReduce programming model, which divides an application into small chunks or
sections that can run on different nodes. When Doug Cutting and Mike Cafarella were
working on the Apache Nutch Project in 2002, they came up with the idea for Hadoop.
(Khan et al., 2014) Doug called Hadoop after a toy elephant his son had. Yahoo re-
leased Hadoop as an open-source project in 2008, after a few years of development. In
November 2012, the Apache Software Foundation made Hadoop available to us.

What is the Significance of this for Big Data Analytics?

It allowed businesses to analyze and query large data sets in a scalable and cost-effective
manner using free, open-source software (Riahi & Riahi, 2018). It’s a replacement for
data warehouse solutions and closed data formats, which dominated in previous years.
As a result, HADOOP paved the way for potential big data analytics advancements.

Core HADOOP Modules

1) (HDFS): HDFS refers to Hadoop Distributed File System. Huge datasets can be
shared across nodes in a cluster using HDFS (Ularu et al., 2012).
204 Alock Gupta, Tanvi Kaushik, Vipin Mittal

2) YARN: YARN refers for Yet Another Resource Negotiator. It’s used to control
cluster resources, organize activities, and schedule work (Riahi & Riahi, 2018).
3) MapReduce: This is a programming model and large data processing engine
that is used to process data sets in parallel. In HADOOP, it was the only execu-
tion engine available (Ularu et al., 2012).
4) Hadoop common: This module offers a collection of resources to help the
other modules work together (Memon et al., 2017).

Benefits of using HADOOP

1) Scalability: Traditional systems have a data limit at the end. Hadoop is scal-
able because it operates in a distributed environment. This allows data creators
to make their own data pools. First data lakes are a form of centralized data
repository that can store both structured and unstructured data. It is a low-cost
object storage system with an open format that allows a wide range of applica-
tions to access data.
2) Resilience: HDFS is a resilient file system. To compensate for the possibility of
hardware or software failures, data stored on any node of a Hadoop cluster is
duplicated on other nodes of the cluster. This satisfies the fault tolerance re-
quirement. There is always a backup of data available in the cluster if one node
fails (Riahi & Riahi, 2018).
3) Flexibility: Hadoop allows us to store data in a variety of formats, including
semi-structured and unstructured data. It enables companies to gain access to
new data sources (Ularu et al., 2012).

Challenges in HADOOP

1) Complexity: HADOOP is a low-level, JAVA-based technology that can be tough

to work with for users. HADOOP architectures necessitate physical activity and
facilities to set up, manage, and improve.
2) Performance: Hadoop performs computations by performing repeated reads
and writes to disc, which is time consuming and inefficient as compared to
frameworks that want to store and process data in memory as often as
possible.
 Chapter 15 Big Data: Impact on Digital Era of Twenty-First Century 205

Conclusion
We began by studying about data, its types that are structured, semi-structured, and
unstructured. Then we looked at traditional data. To overcome the drawback of this
traditional data, big data comes into play. Big data is characterized as a large collec-
tion of complex data that is structured, semi-structured, or unstructured and is rap-
idly increasing. We explored how it came into existence and its importance, also its
concept of 5v’s (i.e., volume, velocity, variety, variability, and veracity); its advan-
tages and disadvantages, and about its applications in various places such as in en-
tertainment, healthcare, education sector, etc. We also discussed the term big data
analytics, which is used to capture, process, clean, and analyze massive datasets to
help businesses operationalize their big data. We learned about the significance and
value of analytics, as well as the different forms of analytics such as Descriptive, Di-
agnostic, Predictive, and Prescriptive. Various data analysis tools, such as Hadoop
and Spark, are available. We looked at the Hadoop tool which is used for storing
and processing large data sets in any format. We’ve seen what it does, how it has
evolved, how important it is, what benefits it has, and what problems it has.

References
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Al-Shiakhli, S. (2019). Big Data Analytics: A Literature Review Perspective (Dissertation). Retrieved
from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-74173.
Khan, N., Yaqoob, I., Hashem, I. A., Inayat, Z., Ali, W. K., Alam, M., Shiraz, M., & Gani A. (2014). Big
Data: Survey, Technologies, Opportunities, and Challenges. Scientific World Journal. doi:
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Applications. Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (Aetic), 1(1): 45–54.
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Ularu, E., Puican, F., Apostu, A., & Velicanu, M. (2012). Perspectives on Big Data and Big Data
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Big Data: From Beginning to Future. International Journal of Information Management, 36(6):
1231–1247.
Tareq Rasul, Rhodora Abadia, Ashfaq Ahmad
Chapter 16
Enhanced Customer Experience through
Reasoned Big Data Analytics Strategies
Introduction
The term customer experience was first coined by Holbrook and Hirschman (1982)
and refers to a “subjective state of consciousness” that takes customers’ cognitive
and behavioral processes into account. Later, Gronroos (1988) simplified the con-
cept of customer experience (CX) by stating that customer experience is a phenome-
non that forms in them depending on their perception of service quality when they
interact with sellers at different stages of the buying process. From the marketing
perspective, CX considers customers’ every encounter with an organization that in-
cludes the prepurchase, consumption, and post-purchase phases (Codeluppi, 2001;
LaSalle & Britton, 2003). In order to provide the desired CX or improve CX, organi-
zations usually focus on multiple touchpoints, rather than the whole customer jour-
ney, for direct or indirect interactions with their potential and existing customers
(Kuehnl et al., 2019). It has been established in previous studies that CX notably
influences customers’ cognitive and affective buying behavior (Berry et al., 2002;
Cetin and Dincer, 2014). In addition, the concept of CX has been studied from a vari-
ety of perspectives, namely, extraordinary experience (Arnould and Price, 1993), re-
lationship experience (Payne et al., 2008) and prepurchase and actual service
experience (Edvardsson et al., 2005; Winsted, 1997). Effective CX has been found to
be a source of competitive advantage over an organization’s competitors (Lemon &
Verhoef, 2016).
Big data refers to large sets of data that could be structured, unstructured or
semi-structured (Oussous et al., 2018). BDA requires sophisticated technologies and
complex data analytical skills to produce meaningful information that traditional
business analysis tools can’t deliver (Kietzmann et al., 2018; Sivarajah et al., 2017).
BDA allows organizations to extract meaningful insights from a huge amount of
data that further assist them to adopt better and more effective customer-centric
strategies (Gupta & George, 2016), by utilizing a wide range of industry, competitor
and market trend-specific data to make better customer-centric managerial deci-
sions (O’Brien & Marakas, 2005; Said et al., 2015). BDA scholars have characterized
big data into seven main categories, namely, volume, velocity, variety, veracity,
variability, visualization, and value (Kietzmann et al., 2018; Sivarajah et al., 2017;
Wedel & Kannan, 2016). Previous studies on CX and BDA reported somewhat mixed
findings. While Wedel and Kannan (2016) and McColl-Kennedy et al. (2019) found
BDA benefitted organizations to a great extent in enriching their CX, Said et al.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-016
208 Tareq Rasul, Rhodora Abadia, Ashfaq Ahmad

(2015) and Villarroel Ordenes & Zhang (2019) reported that organizations still found
it challenging to utilize BDA to generate meaningful customer insights to better
handle their CX.
In an effort to further enrich the literature on CX and BDA, we have summarized
some key existing literature to give marketers and practitioners a clear indication
about how to manage and deal with BDA effectively to extract the most meaningful
customer insights to improve or update their CX. At the end, we have put together a
few exciting research areas for future CX and BDA research.

Brief Theoretical Background

Customer Experience (CX)

In the context of the business world, CX refers to the touchpoints that a customer
encounters when dealing with an organization, which eventually form an overall
experience in the customer’s mind about the organization (Homburg et al., 2017;
Payne et al., 2008). Meyer and Schwager (2007) viewed CX as organizations’ direct
or indirect contact with their existing or potential customers that turns into an over-
all experience in customers’ minds.
In a relatively new study by Molinillo et al. (2020), CX has been viewed from
the perspective of customers’ affective and cognitive processes. It has been found
that positive CX makes customers satisfied, increases their revisit and repurchase
intentions and makes them loyal to an organization (Edvardsson, 2005; Homburg
et al., 2017; Verhoef et al., 2009).
In the current literature, it has been established that positive CX is crucial for
every organization’s success; however, scholars haven’t managed to reach a con-
sensus regarding what forms CX (Mahr et al., 2019). Some scholars conceptualized
CX based on only one dimension (Siqueira et al., 2020), whereas other scholars con-
ceptualized CX from multiple dimensions, namely, physical, social, cognitive, sen-
sory, and emotional (Keiningham et al., 2017; Keiningham et al., 2020; Mahr et al.,
2019). Regardless of the lack of consensus about what forms CX, most of the schol-
ars agreed on the fact that positive CX increases revenues, customer satisfaction
and brand image (Homburg et al., 2017; Keiningham et al., 2020; Mahr et al., 2019).

Big Data Analytics (BDA)

The seven big data characteristics, as we mentioned earlier, have enabled BDA to play
an important role in the effectiveness of organizations in terms of meeting the require-
ments of customers, understanding market trends, and increasing their revenues
(Kietzmann et al., 2018; Sivarajah et al., 2017). In the context of CX, it is important for
 Chapter 16 Enhanced Customer Experience through Reasoned Big Data 209

organizations to become aware of their customers’ insights. BDA has made that
possible by transforming raw data into meaningful information by following a set
of complex algorithms (Said et al., 2015). Organizations use CX insights that they
have extracted from their raw data through BDA for decision-making on various
aspects, especially to ensure positive CX. Organizations across a variety of indus-
tries, namely, retail, health, and tourism, have been using BDA for meeting their
customers’ expectations. Despite the importance of BDA in ensuring positive CX
for organizations, there are no clear strategies that organizations can always fol-
low for guaranteed success. In the next section, we will briefly discuss some effec-
tive strategies in this regard.

Effective BDA Strategies for Enhanced CX

It has emerged from the literature that BDA provides many possibilities to practi-
tioners to unlock clear customer insights for enhanced CX, but, at the same time, it
imposes challenges on practitioners (McColl-Kennedy et al., 2019). Therefore, it is
imperative to have some clear strategies about how to use BDA effectively to en-
hance CX to increase organizational capabilities (Homburg et al., 2017). Holmlund
et al. (2020) came up with a framework of six stages, namely, strategize, assess, ex-
amine, decide, implement, and learn, to make effective use of BDA for enhanced
CX, which is congruent to Alharthi et al.’s (2017) study in which they stated the im-
portance of BDA for offering better or improved customer experience to ultimately
improve an organization’s profit margin and competitiveness over others. These
stages have been briefly discussed below, along with our propositions that have
been further supported by the existing literature:
– Whether an organization wants a short-term or long-term strategy for their en-
hanced CX through effective BDA, and whether the entire customer journey is
going to be dealt with or just a few touchpoints, should be carefully decided.
We propose that organizations identify the key touchpoints first that need im-
mediate attention, rather than dealing with the entire customer journey in one
go, as this might make the entire process slower and somewhat inefficient
(Homburg et al., 2017; Ransbotham et al., 2015).
– What kind of CX insights (e.g., attitudinal or behavioral) and BDA (e.g., descrip-
tive or inquisitive) would be required to improve an organization’s CX, needs
careful consideration. It should also be considered whether an organization has
the in-house expertise to extract insights through BDA and whether the man-
agement is skilled enough to interpret the big data insights for the desired CX
improvement. We propose a benchmarking audit in the relevant industry for or-
ganizations to identify the best practice regarding the type of CX insights, BDA,
and the required management skill sets (Ransbotham et al., 2015).
210 Tareq Rasul, Rhodora Abadia, Ashfaq Ahmad

– It must be decided what kind of CX data (e.g., structured or unstructured)

would be required for the BDA for an organization. Ownership of the CX data
must be carefully determined, as well, at this stage. Importantly, any privacy,
ethical, or legal concerns also must be addressed here in relation to the data
acquisition and data uses. We propose that organizations monitor these areas
on a regular basis to ensure regularity compliance and avoid any ethical or
legal consequences (Martin 2015; Martin 2018).
– Whether the captured CX data is sufficient to extract the aimed CX insights is
an important area of focus. If not, will the organization require external exper-
tise? Or can the in-house expertise still be used? Regardless of the decision, the
associated cost and benefits need to be measured before moving further. When
seeking assistance from an external expert entity that is instrumental and cost-
efficient, we propose that an organization chooses the most suitable one from
the available options (Popovic et al., 2018).
– The people necessary to be involved in implementing enhanced CX for an orga-
nization need careful scrutiny. It is crucial to decide here how to measure the
success or failure of the enhanced CX of an organization once the solution has
been implemented and how to troubleshoot any technical issues if they arise.
We propose that to measure the performance in this regard, an organization
should take data related to total sales, total revenue, market share and cus-
tomer satisfaction into account and compare them with the same data of the
past couple of years (Mela & Moorman, 2018; Mikalef et al., 2019).
– Reflection connected with a feedback loop is critical here on the positive or neg-
ative outcomes of the BDA-actuated CX insights. All the relevant organizational
stakeholders should be informed about the insights of the reflection and the rel-
evant challenges, thereby enabling challenges to be better handled or avoided
in future. We propose that intra-team involvement is required in the learning
process to further improve the CX through BDA (Jacobs & Moore, 2017).

While the above strategies could enhance organizations’ CX, organizations still
need to deal with some BDA-related challenges to draw out the desired CX insights
from the data sets available to them. Some of those key challenges and the relevant
possible remedies have been briefly discussed below:

Overcoming the Challenges of BDA For Enhanced Cx

To fully embrace BDA to deliver the desired CX to customers, Alharthi et al. (2017)
identified some relevant challenges, namely, infrastructure readiness, the complex-
ity of data, lack of skills, privacy and cultural barriers that hinder organizations’
ability to do so. In other studies, as well, BDA’s significance in enhancing customer
 Chapter 16 Enhanced Customer Experience through Reasoned Big Data 211

experience has been implied along with the relevant challenges, namely, quality of
data, availability of data and systematic challenges (Ghani et al., 2019; Gupta &
George, 2016; Wang et al., 2016). To address the challenges, some proposed strate-
gies are outlined below (Alharthi et al., 2017; Ghani et al., 2019; Gupta & George,
2016; Wang et al., 2016):
– Widely available hardware devices that are competitively priced and somewhat
interchangeable with other devices should be used by organizations (Trelles
et al., 2011).
– Organizations should use established software tools (e.g., Hadoop) that are reli-
able, efficient, and price-competitive to extract CX insights from the complex
data sets (Douglas, 2013).
– Hands-on training of employees who will be dealing with BDA to extract CX in-
sights needs to be ensured. In this regard, organizations can collaborate with
external training providers who are familiar with the industry requirements
(Miller, 2014).
– The protection of the sensitive data of customers should be carefully handled
by organizations; therefore, they need to incorporate the relevant legislation
into their policies and practices (Schadt, 2012).
– The incorporation of BDA and CX into an organization’s vision is critical to en-
sure a smooth cultural change (McAfee & Brynjolfsson, 2012).
– Data quality-related challenges often make an organization’s BDA process
somewhat inefficient when extracting the desired information mainly from
user-generated data as they are commonly unstructured and qualitative in na-
ture (Ghani et al., 2019). Organizations should spend more time cleaning and
structuring the gathered data, using a relevant machine language, before con-
ducting the analysis (Wang et al., 2016).
– To deal with the issue of data availability, organizations should gather an entire
dataset before the BDA starts (Ghani et al., 2019). It is worth noting that adding
new data during or after the BDA process is acceptable on a small scale. To bet-
ter manage the availability of data, organizations should proactively integrate
internal and external data (Gupta & George, 2016).
– To deal with systematic challenges of BDA that involve system architecture,
data processing platforms and energy efficiency, organizations can take cluster
computing into consideration (Wang et al., 2016).

While dealing with BDA-related challenges in extracting the desired insights into
customer experience or expectation, we need to consider that there is no flawless
solution and there is always room for improvement. We propose that organizations
consider information from other sources as well to crosscheck the CX insights that
have been extracted through BDA for better and effective customer CX.
212 Tareq Rasul, Rhodora Abadia, Ashfaq Ahmad

Future Research Directions

To further strengthen the concepts of CX and BDA in the literature, as well as for
practitioners, we have put together some key future research directions based on
the explicit and implied insights from current literature.
– The concept of CX should be redefined, considering it can be viewed from a va-
riety of perspectives (Holmlund et al., 2020). Ideally, the ecosystem of custom-
ers should be considered, which will provide organizations with extended
scope to gather more meaningful CX insights (Jain et al., 2017).
– It is also important to come up with more ways to generate CX insights (Holm-
lund et al., 2020). Especially in the context of BDA, it is not yet clearly stated
how to generate a variety of CX insights from the relevant data sets. Further at-
tention should also be paid to explaining how CX insights could be meaning-
fully interpreted.
– It is known that customer experience varies from channel to channel when
dealing with a particular organization (Verhoef et al., 2009). A comparative
study for a variety of channels in the context of measuring the effectiveness of
CX through BDA would be useful (Brun et al., 2017; Fernandes & Pinto, 2019;
Shi et al., 2020).
– Customers from different countries could be somewhat different, based on a va-
riety of social dimensions. Therefore, it warrants further studies in the context
of CX and BDA to see how people define and perceive CX in different countries
(Brun et al., 2017; Rather, 2019; Roy, 2018).
– In the context of BDA, across industries, there is a need for further research to
develop a framework to manage organizations’ total CX (Holmlund et al., 2020;
Jain et al., 2017). In doing so, resources available to organizations, such as
skills, work experience and technologies, should also be taken into account.
– In line with the concern for global sustainable development, dimensions of so-
cial causes and societal well-being could be considered in future when develop-
ing a framework to deal with organizations’ CX through BDA (Jain et al., 2017).
– While a few studies have been conducted on the concepts of CX and BDA in the
B2C setting, the same for the B2B setting is yet to be explored, especially as an
individual customer could be somewhat different from a business customer
(Mclean, 2017; Zolkiewski et al., 2017).

Conclusion
In this chapter, we focused on putting together all the relevant strategies in the con-
text of CX and BDA based on the available literature. In addition, we also discussed
how to overcome the relevant challenges while implementing those strategies.
 Chapter 16 Enhanced Customer Experience through Reasoned Big Data 213

Finally, we discussed some interesting future research directions for CX and BDA
research. It is believed that the discussed information will enrich the current litera-
ture on CX and BDA and greatly benefit practitioners from a variety of industries.

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Rohit Malhotra
Chapter 17
Asymmetries in Concepts of Digital Asset
Pricing Sustainability Literature
Introduction and Conceptual Overview
It is well established that the gross domestic product (GDP) at real prices is not the
right measure of economic growth. The welfare component is measured by con-
sumer and producer surplus, together, with the advent of digital information, more
interesting and innovative measures of user-driven satisfaction can be derived
(Coyle, 2017).
Digital platforms as an aggregate resource in improving the overall perfor-
mance of the economy are not appraised fully in the form of a national indicator
since GDP considers factor costs at market prices (considering complete markets),
which is not realistic (Simon, 1991). Similarly, the component of the digital econ-
omy in the overall welfare cannot be measured with the assumption of symmetric
information and complete market assumptions.
Hence, the underlying philosophy of dynamic pricing for digital platforms is a
reasonable preposition since prices are driven by idiosyncratic and time-inconsistent
factors. The present work is going to discuss the literature attempting to understand
and analyze the possibility of providing a comprehensive conceptual digital platform
pricing framework for its sustainability and growth.
Brenner (2018) explained how digital imperatives, the digital ecosystems where
the customer-centric approach of providing single window solutions and products,
is the need of time. This according to the author is achieved by integrating theoreti-
cal postulates from contingency theory, transaction cost theory, resource-based ap-
proach, and shared-value logic. Another important view is that often balance sheet
assets need to include data and customers as they bring value and revenue to busi-
nesses in the digital age.
Chicago Gazzola, Colombo, Pezzetti, and Nicolescu (2017) described the three
hypotheses about the competition and consumer skills enhancement, about his/her
skills about sustainability product laws, and later improving his/her engagement
with the product/service. However, the responses collected were not dynamically
acknowledged and no phenomenological study was conducted to support the seven
hypotheses mentioned in the article.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-017
218 Rohit Malhotra

Theoretical Constructs
DA Pricing and Static Versus Dynamic Pricing Framework

The article demonstrates the digital platform theory where firms use digital technol-
ogy infrastructure for matchmaking, that is, complex resource allocation to match
demand and supply between the economic actors in the system. The article empiri-
cally explains the principles of the digital platforms pricing process as predeter-
mined pricing where the products are usually static, versus, dynamic pricing,
where the prices are decided in real-time based on demand and supply matching
among the economic actors as stated above. Digital platforms provide extensive di-
rect and indirect or crossover network effects and thus help organizations reduce
their marginal costs substantially. The article uses four theoretical principles of dig-
ital platform theory namely relationship building, governing transactions, motivat-
ing innovation, and curating matches using the case study.
Hence, theoretically, the digital platform can command high prices (both through
licensing and through dynamic pricing) only when they ensure a highly positive cou-
pling in the relationships among actors, providing freedom for generative exploration,
curating matching through the sophistication of algorithmic architecture, have orches-
tration symbolizing proper incentives for ecosystem players in the digital space.

The Methodology used in this Study

Before delving further into the subject, an important point on the choice of unique
methodology needs to be highlighted.
The methodology chosen in this essay does not either proliferate to pure quan-
titative or pure “explications,” it is the middle path in which the author’s amalgam-
ated “diverse viewpoints” expressed in the earlier empirical studies on DA, digital
economics, and its sustainability issues.
To give more scientific parlance, one can imagine this study resembling “asym-
metric discourse studies” although unlike the use of “language” and its phenome-
nological justifications, the author limits his understanding to developing a simple
yet meaningful time-invariant conceptual model of digital asset (DA) sustainability.
The model is thus a manifestation of one of the dimensions in which the author has
tried to summarize his views after “converging” diverse literature about the com-
plexity of DA sustainability.
 Chapter 17 Asymmetries in Concepts of Digital Asset Pricing Sustainability Literature 219

The Terminologies used in the Study

1) Digital asset: In this essay, a DA essentially means a long-term content (usually
more than 12 calendar months from the date of creation and its commercial
launch). The essay specifically excludes bitcoins or cryptocurrencies as they are
purposefully used for short-term speculative trading.
2) Complex digital asset: The complex DA essentially means digital content that
has a significant investment and a comparatively “complex” front-end and
back-end development process involved.
3) Static digital asset: Static DA essentially means that digital content or digital
platform on which essentially one-time investment was desired for its long-
term sustainability and only a static or reasonable lower maintenance cost is
targeted for its upkeep.
4) Dynamic digital asset: In this essay, dynamic digital asset refers to any digital
content on a digital platform that has time-variant requirements of price changes
due to R&D and innovation required to ramp up the features for users.
5) Digital consumption: Essentially specifies any form of digital content
consumption.
6) Sustainability of digital asset: This is unlike bitcoin prices that have unlim-
ited or undefined periods, unless trading ceases and such bitcoin traders delist
them from terminals. The sustainability of digital content (as used as a DA in
this essay) is concerning the content that is curated with a purpose in which
the digital platform creator is essentially looking for a dynamic pricing process
that matches with customers and reduces completion significantly.
7) DA sustainability: To improve the longevity or sustainability of a digital asset,
using the strategies (1–4) described later, sustainability can be achieved by a
“hybrid” combination.

Asymmetric Literature Review

Developing and sustaining a DA strategically never remains in control of a single
entity. The platform developers, the advertisers, and other technology or digital en-
trepreneurs and consumers share the space of deciding the sustainability or useful
life of the digital asset.
For DA, the pricing process is cumbersome since it is important to justify how the
price translates into the optimal distribution of margin. Essentially, this seems a com-
plex discussion since for an end consumer, the entire approach is application usabil-
ity, its usage, comfort, and leisure appeal, and so on. For an end-consumer defining
a technical viewpoint is not possible. And thus, who brought the maximum user
220 Rohit Malhotra

experience in terms of revenues or margins becomes a never ending challenge. Thus,

pricing a DA at the optimal time of its life becomes a tedious task.
Morton et al. (2019) had explicitly described a concept of tipping in the digital
platform markets. Tipping means that digital platforms essentially are highly con-
centrated markets with the ability to provide “complements” (in the form of innova-
tive apps). These complements attract and retain customers thereby increasing the
economies of scale and scope for digital players.
Goldfarb and Tucker (2019) described an intriguing situation where digital con-
sumption of a leisure product could sustain a longer life cycle even without techno-
logical breakthroughs. So, under such circumstances pricing issues dominate in
terms of context and appearance which become core aspects of brand conscious-
ness. Now, scaling up such brand-loyal DA or product is not advisable unlike what
happens in the case of the physical goods industry. You can see this in the example
that consumers who visit online grocery stores would not like to see the same for-
mat in their mobile or web app and a creative appearance like a banking site.
DA generate enormous data, and due to compatible analytics data software,
today it is far easier for economists studying DA to examine the end-user experience
and other key participants in sustaining and nurturing the DA. Data science em-
powers economists to assimilate and classify the digital stakes of each participant
in the user-experience journey. This also to an extent solves the mystery of shared
responsibility of the continuity of DA. However, needless to say, the authenticity of
such data and noise factors are to be calibrated to make it more decision-oriented.
Of far-reaching importance for an economist while studying the longevity of a
DA is examining the choice of lower cost of distribution vis-à-vis the investment in
the creative content and the up-gradation of cutting-edge technology. How to bal-
ance the sustainability of such DA for such choice sets requires a sophisticated opti-
mal mechanism that needs to be dynamically studied under different scales of
market penetration. Certainly, as traditional market context goes, highly creative
content incurs considerable research costs (may not be development costs) and
thus a premium price should be commended due to the market principle. Whether
such phenomena work in DA, is extremely doubtful.
The source of conflict further mounts when the stakeholders in the DA sustain-
ability journey are geographically differentiated. Several studies concluded that de-
spite the ease of hiring and offering work with lower costs to global workers, the
real choice depends solely on skill-differentials and the trust factors lying with the
employers. What matters additionally is that while selecting the candidates or
stakeholders when deciding to extend the sustainability of a DA, an understanding
stakeholder and the principal-agent relationship resonating the same ideas or work
on the same principle are extremely important which, at times, are not governed by
traditional supply and demand mechanisms.
Are the stakeholders truly understanding the softer issues of usability status
of consumers of digital content across the globe more clearly and visibly? Such
Chapter 17 Asymmetries in Concepts of Digital Asset Pricing Sustainability Literature 221

disproportionate knowledge or information asymmetry can lead to biased deci-

sions that permeate through adverse selection. This can either happen at the end-
user level or perhaps also at the producer level. Since any markets where both
buyers and sellers are ill-informed can never lead to market corrections in the
short term, to that extent, it is usually seen that digital consumers have some sort
of “stickiness” toward a particular digital platform.
Now let us dig a little deeper and take up the aspect of sustainable yet complex
digital platform pricing into consideration. Aartsen, Peeters, Wagers, and Williams-
Jones (2018) forwarded their empirical work explaining “Drug-discovery platforms”
(these can be considered as highly complex digital platforms) which are backed by
funding to support proof-of-concept. But as observed the sustainable economic pro-
tection about such assets cannot be guaranteed due to limited funding. Problems
come up when the partners in the making of DA do not always have economic mo-
tives per se. In the case of drug discovery platforms sustaining beyond the initial
funding period requires a continuous sponsorship, demanding accelerators who may
be in the form of impact organizations (non-profits) that can constantly strive to ex-
pand the user base and possibly assist in sustaining the sustainability of such assets.
But this is a formidable task, since, unlike static DA, drug discovery platforms are
complex digital products and therefore constant funding is usually marred with a
concept called “foundation fatigue.” To overcome such “foundation fatigue” the
agency in terms of nonprofits must constantly engage a wider market spectrum.
It is evident that, unlike natural resources that have the risk of depletion due to
over- consumption, in the case of DA, over-consumption is the only savior for its
survival and growth (Stuermer, Abu-Tayeh, & Myrach, 2017). Hence, a wider user
network can only bring in the economic aspect of monetization. This defines higher
marginal returns to scale and almost zero distribution costs to the digital platform
sellers.
Stuermer, Abu-Tayeh, and Myrach (2017) justified that although traditional def-
initions of knowledge or DA or artifacts only act as supporting elements, it is rather
ill-defined since knowledge or DA must be preserved, nurtured, and has to be made
sustainable. The digital knowledge, ecosystem, and its management depends upon
the interactive networks or communities, as against knowledge preserved tacitly in
the brain which is of no use (Nonaka and von Krog, 2009).
Further, to stretch this dimension of indestructibility associated with digital
knowledge resources (assets) the concept “cap and floor” as a wider distinction of
natural and digital resource consumption makes an interesting point. Important
conditions for the sustainability of DA include transmutability for their usage under
various contexts.
Jain and Vazirani (2010) explained whether the fundamental two theorems of
welfare economics can be applied to both conventional and digital goods. The dis-
cussion on partial Pareto-optimal theorem (leaving the production and allocation of
digital goods fixed), and the second theorem of welfare economics in terms of
222 Rohit Malhotra

categorization of semantically substitute digital goods in terms of cardinal and or-

dinal parts is far more difficult in conventional goods (for instance, perishable
goods); but in the case of digital goods, there is no such condition. Hence as per
the author, the traditional fundamental theorem of welfare economics can be
made applicable in the mixed economy (where an optimal combination of conven-
tional and digital goods coexists) to reach equilibrium.
While natural resources are seldom created their depletion due to over-
consumption needs to be closely monitored (a cap is a strategy required for envi-
ronmental sustainability) and the floor essentially denotes investments incurred
in creating, preserving, and improving digital resources. Sustainability of DA
thus is a question of mainly “floors” and not “caps.”
Graham (2019), in his well-written text titled Digital Economics at Global Mar-
gin, explained supporting reasons which add a useful dimension to the aspect of
DA and their sustainability from a sociological point of view. He commented on sev-
eral examples where the communities who previously have been vulnerable for
such ICT or technological infrastructure have seen the possibility of using them by
removing political resistances. Such support also came from the initiative of local
authorities but what is surprising is that such ICT resources eventually had not
eradicated the problem of economic dependence as it was previously conceived by
many policy makers. The problem lies in not establishing the right connection be-
tween existing skill levels which may be required to make the best use of such re-
sources. Nevertheless, ICT and digital disruptions at the grassroots have brought
some inclusiveness at least in terms of removing the information asymmetries. As
in certain developing economies, marginal farmers are now able to get the right
price for their produce through mobile connectivity at the village level. These meas-
ures of bringing DA to the larger strata of society to harness their effective use are
certainly a laudable extension of the idea of improving sustainability from a social
perspective. For such DA’s sustainability at the grassroots level again local machin-
ery in the form of nonprofits or public-private support cannot be undermined.
Dolgin (2008) had provided an excellent context in his work in Economics of Sym-
bolic Exchange where he described how the music industry over the years had been
severely impacted by the advent of internet-based distribution innovations. He quoted
the Compact diskettes industry stiff competition from internet-based music distribu-
tors who disrupted the music distribution markets. However, such massive exploita-
tion from such disruptors in this industry was not completely free from several
challenges. Firstly, even though such online distributors had scaled up their distribu-
tion and managed to expand this market by giving free-of-cost music platforms to con-
sumers, the content delivered needed to be completely improved and curated which
requires engaging creative talent which at times are not economically cheaper. Such
disruptors who entered the distribution markets, selling at a much cheaper price than
their physical counterparts, also face the illegitimate logic of piracy and copyrights in-
vasions. Not only this, but even legal machinery imposes stricter restrictions for end-
Chapter 17 Asymmetries in Concepts of Digital Asset Pricing Sustainability Literature 223

users who fail to adhere to piracy acts laid down by the state. Well, how far such poli-
cies work to protect some sections of industry and not others, is again a debatable
issue. How far such legal structure can stop these digital disruptions where consumers
are charmed by free-content, is again contravening the process of a free-will approach
of entrepreneurial spirit. These are tough questions under the banner of economist
lenses and promising solutions are not imaginable in the short term. In the same
book, a concept of uniform prices was also depicted, but as the author analyzed cor-
rectly, making the price as a unit of control is against the market forces, such meas-
ures from an economic point of view will only increase mispricing and asymmetries in
the long run. Any effort to reduce the differentiation will severely dampen the growth
of creative platforms in the future. The prices of such DA must be decided based on
the principle of end-user experience and the size of the segment being served.

Pricing Strategies for DA – A Literature Survey

Academic literature on DA pricing is very scarce. Bertani, Ponta, Raberto, Teglio, and
Cincotti (2021) in their recent paper discussed that the DA landscape is prone to com-
plexity. The authors coined the term intangible or “DA developer” as an agent in the
existing macroeconomic heterogeneous agent model framework. The paper used the
production function where the knowledge component of the labor force accelerates
the process of total productivity. For DA pricing dynamics, the paper used the mix of
collusive and competitive pricing strategies, where according to the author, only in
the competitive pricing model, a variation in the mark-up was exhibited. This concept
closely resembles the idea used in my research of hybrid pricing since depending
upon the type of product, and its state (static or dynamic), and time spent in the mar-
ket, the pricing dynamics need to be altered for sustainability of DA.
Concerning pricing of cloud computing Laatikainen, Ojala, and Mazhelis (2013)
depicted an interesting SBIFT model (Scope, Base, Influence, Formula, Temporal
Rights). There has been discussion on hybrid pricing in the context of a combina-
tion of elements of penetration and skimming pricing concepts. (I used reasonable
pricing and competitive pricing in the same sense.) The authors also in the same
article reported on free or follow-the-free pricing approaches. The study also ex-
plained that almost 90 percent of PaaS cloud products command a free trial version
strategy. In a similar vein of research work, the service renting model was explained
as a pricing strategy by Ojala (2016) and several others.
Abrams, Cruse, Kunze, and Mundrane (2012) used the concept of total cost pres-
ervation (TCP) which closely resembles the idea of identifying the key components
in preserving the digital asset. This paper talked about static DA and suggested a
hybrid pricing model. Hybrid pricing under this model depends upon what compo-
nents are predictable in the future and what are not. What it means is that paid-up
224 Rohit Malhotra

costs constitute a one-time component. But certain fixed components, like future
inflation rates, rate of investment, can be made flexible. For this, the author pro-
posed the use of stochastic modes like Monte-Carlo simulation in calibrating the op-
timal pricing process for the long-term preservation of static DA. Keiser, Nielsen,
and Thirifays (2011) also talked in similar lines in terms of static. Warren (2010)
used a similar example of a hybrid model of the university where the physical and
digital access of books was utilized dynamically by the students.
Harmaala (2016) explained that in the age of digital consumption, the end-user
acts as a collaborator in the production, maintenance, and development of DA.
There are networks of collaborators who can have a blurred distinction of consumer
and producer. DA (platforms) have reduced the scope for implementing old pricing
and revenue models and there is the scope of extending the sustainability by the
concept of distributed power law. The platforms can sustain profitability in the
long-term tailed curve. There will be a core interaction through participants which
include producers and consumers both assisting in the scalability of the DA. The
core interactions or collaborative approach also helps in rationalizing the pricing
since now the value of digital products resonates more closely with the dynamic
user experience. Under the phase of such dynamic user experience, the DA cannot
command a static price mechanism, they must reconfigure their pricing strategies
involving elements of homogenous mass market (reasonable price) and heteroge-
nous or dynamic component of the DA (competitive price). The dynamic interplay
of the pricing method will only ensure a smooth trajectory of long-tailed profitabil-
ity (Ciccone, 2017). Ciccone (2017) in their work also questioned that there must be
an extent toward restricting DA exclusion. Such regulatory exclusions will disturb
the economic justification of hybrid pricing utilized under the collaborative model.
In the expansionary phase with a complex digital product, a free-pricing approach
can be justified only when the two-sided network externalities are available.
Lightcap, Peeo, and Fullenkamp (2012) explained that oligopolistic pricing
models by traditional advertisers have been replaced by click-through models.
Thanks to DA, the media consumption through the internet is less differentiated
since all the available digital content is now accessible through a single app or digi-
tal platform.
Few empirical ideas on hybrid pricing were found in electricity markets. Chase
(2014) explained demand response (DR) model in terms of the smart grid framework
where the hybrid pricing model incentivizes the customer through the DR channel
promoting the efficient use of electricity (demand side electricity management). The
Chase (2014) paper explained three prevalent forms of electricity pricing namely
time of use (TOU), critical-peak (CP), and customer-baseline load (CBL) pricing
methods in US markets for both residential and industrial consumer segments.
Chapter 17 Asymmetries in Concepts of Digital Asset Pricing Sustainability Literature 225

Sustainable Pricing Strategies for Digital Assets (Spsda) Matrix

for Improving the Digital Assets
Before proposing the four strategies for sustainability of DA/platforms, it is impor-
tant to understand the process of auction, under which the winners curse can be
significantly reduced when the product and service characteristics and features are
explicitly told to the bidder (Janssen, 2020). Hence, the asymmetries for a particular
product/service are reduced, the pricing of that product/service provides more con-
sumer surplus and thus generates a welfare perspective.
I propose the following four important DA pricing strategies under the SPSDA
Matrix approach:

Strategy A

A more complex and dynamic DA for mass consumption requires initial funding
but can sustain on its own at a reasonable price. The differentiation strategy may
not be required since it is expected that such digital assets may not require reinvest-
ment in terms of constant innovation after some point of time in the future.

Strategy B

A more static DA for mass consumption requires initial funding and can survive or
sustain by increasing the user base by reducing the price over the period.

Strategy C

A more complex and dynamic DA for a particular consumer segment requires initial
funding beyond which there are two possibilities, either take this product to the
masses with a reasonable price, or insure bringing an element of innovation and
disrupt the same consumer segment by charging competitive prices.

Strategy D

A static DA for a particular consumer segment, again with initial funding over some
time may see a limitation its terms of saturation and early maturity of the market,
and to sustain, it has to be freely distributed to the mass market with the active sup-
port of backbone organizations for its sustainability and growth.
Let us observe the above strategies for better comparison (see Table 17.1).
226 Rohit Malhotra

Table 17.1: SPSDA Matrix – Sustainability-oriented pricing strategies for digital assets.

Complex and dynamic DA for Mass complex and dynamic DA for the limited end-user market
market (Strategy C)
(Strategy A)

After Initial Funding After Initial Funding

(Sustain it by charging “reasonable (Sustain it by either charging “reasonable price” for mass
price<<competitive price”) markets or, charge “competitive prices>>reasonable prices”
after making major innovative disruption for same
consumer segment)

Static DA for the mass market Static DA for the limited end-user market
(Strategy B) (Strategy D)

After Initial Funding After Initial Funding

(Sustain it by reducing the price over (Sustain it by “freely” distributing into the mass market,
sometime) backbone agency support)

Explanation of the SPSDA Matrix

The pricing dynamics in the case of static or dynamic DA acts as “hybrid” in nature.
We observe that any “new product” at the initial stages, because of its limited
existence, tends to resemble the characteristics of a closed or opaque market with
information asymmetries. We can substitute the art market concept for such DA.
But, as DA penetrates wider segments, or starts maturing, it follows the rules of
pure markets in the true economic sense. Although, in my SPSDA matrix, for a digi-
tal asset, the journey is not always from class “to mass markets.”
Sometimes, it must be sustained at a certain market segment, where the logic
of pure-market where arbitrage-free transaction prevails does not exist. This, how-
ever, requires extensive funding of the R&D capital.
Hence, my proposed “hybrid” pricing model best explains this phenomenon,
where sustaining in the same market does not necessarily fit the rules of either mar-
ket, that is, a DA may still retain its information asymmetries despite spending rea-
sonable time in the consumption space, and to the contrary may sometimes, as the
matrix explains, behave in the conventional way of entering into the expansionary
phase with reasonable price moderation due to substantial reduction in the infor-
mation asymmetry.
The economist will understand reasonable price as “minimum” optimal price,
which may be required for upkeep, wider distribution, and maintenance of DA,
which is different from competitive prices (which are external or market-driven).
Here in the case of competitive prices, after initial funding, a reinvestment in DA
innovation is required at various stages of extended sustainability. In the case of
Chapter 17 Asymmetries in Concepts of Digital Asset Pricing Sustainability Literature 227

static DA for mass market, price reduction over some time will ensure its sustain-
ability. However, for a complex and dynamic DA, it is important to charge the rea-
sonable price over the entire life of the DA. Now, it is important to understand that
the reasonable price in the case of a mass market for a complex and dynamic DA
will be definitely higher in comparison to the reasonable price of a static product
for the mass market.
For the class (limited user-segment market), as mentioned in the above SPSDA
matrix, for a static DA, after the saturation stage, such DA needs to be set free
since, without any innovation, such static products only need to be used for reduc-
ing the digital inequalities in the communities.
For complex and dynamic products for the class market, after the initial fund-
ing, and churning the premium elements out of such limited end-user segments in
the first phase of consumption, either ensure to reduce the price to the reasonable
rates for mass markets, or reinvest in the second wave of disruption in the same DA
and same end-user segment by charging the competitive or premium prices.
Hence, depending upon the characteristics of the market, type (mass or class
market segment) of the product, length of time of the product use (short term or
long term), and sustainability objective in place, a suitable DA pricing portfolio can
be developed by the stakeholders.

Conclusion and Future Scope

Understanding the pricing of DA or platforms demands a nontraditional economic
pricing approach. The digital-asset mix will have DA for serving different time-
dependent or event-dependent markets. The pricing process therefore also needs to
be dynamically optimized. As understood through extant literature, the stakehold-
ers in the space of DA or infrastructure do not work in silos, they work collabora-
tively in a two-way network space.
The prices are decided by the consumer liking in the value network and to ensure
the sustainability of such assets, pricing requires gauging the real needs of digital
consumers, and his or her constant engagement in the life cycle of asset curation and
sustainability.
As understood through the proposed framework for the DA portfolio pricing
model (SPSDA matrix), no single-point strategy can lead to optimal results. It is a
path-dependent optimal matrix, since, as any digital platform (asset) matures, the
pricing process has to accommodate the user experience and calibrate the monetiz-
ing threshold to generate smooth transitions resisting the market forces. The hybrid
pricing model of the type explained in the previous paragraphs serves the purpose
of redistributing optimal economic incentives to various stakeholders in the DA
journey.
228 Rohit Malhotra

In the end, after reading a few pages of Mokyr, Vickers, and Ziebarth (2015), it
can be safely argued that economists should foresee whether digital technology
anxiety is one way economic instinct fulfills the need of consumer, society, govern-
ment, and human institutions in the coming time, or dehumanizes them, making
the entire workforce vulnerable to this man-made economic order.
The pandemic will surely put this expression to its real test.

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List of Figures
Figure 4.1 Digital marketing with big data steps 32
Figure 4.2 McKinsey survey 33
Figure 4.3 Data flow model 34
Figure 4.4 Customer dashboard 35
Figure 4.5 Customer retention 36
Figure 4.6 Ratio of LTV and CAC 36
Figure 5.1 Innovative technologies in real estate 49
Figure 6.1 Study methodology Questionnaire development 67
Figure 6.2 Proposed model: Drivers of bank penetration 82
Figure 7.1 Advantages of social media analytics 98
Figure 7.2 Positive effects of big data 100
Figure 7.3 Some of the challenges of working with big data 102
Figure 7.4 Benefits of leveraging big data for social media 103
Figure 8.1 Growth in average traffic per device 107
Figure 10.1 Process of leveraging big data 135
Figure 11.1 Scheduling architecture in cloud computing 140
Figure 11.2 Workflow structure classification 141
Figure 11.3 DAG representation of workflow 142
Figure 12.1 Proposed framework 150
Figure 12.2 Final structural model 158
Figure 13.1 Number of social media and internet users (in millions) from 2010 to
2021 167
Figure 13.2 Ten Vs of big data 170
Figure 13.3 Six Major applications of big data for digital marketing 173
Figure 14.1 Text filter node properties 185
Figure 14.2 Clusters resulting from the analysis 186
Figure 14.3 Relationships of the positive terms in the Los Angeles hotel 187
Figure 14.4 Relationships of negative terms in the Los Angeles hotel 187
Figure 14.5 Most frequent positive hotel comments in Seattle 188
Figure 14.6 Relationships of the negative terms in the Seattle hotel 189
Figure 14.7 Relationships of negative terms in the San Francisco hotel 189
Figure 15.1 Classification of data 194
Figure 15.2 Traditional and Big Data 195
Figure 15.3 Characteristics 196

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-018
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Statistics of sample characteristics 2
Table 1.2 Factor and item 3
Table 1.3 Akaike information criterion selection 5
Table 1.4 The coefficients 5
Table 1.5 Model test 6
Table 4.1 Risk factors in implementation 35
Table 5.1 Summary table, a thorough review and analysis of the literature 42
Table 6.1 List of study variables 68
Table 6.2 Details of the sample 70
Table 6.3 Respondent demographics 71
Table 6.4 KMO and Bartlett’s test 72
Table 6.5 Correlation matrix 73
Table 6.6 Factor analysis: Drivers of bank penetration 75
Table 6.7 Model development 76
Table 6.8 Hypotheses 76
Table 6.9 Pearson’s correlation 78
Table 6.10 Results of multiple regression analysis 78
Table 6.11 Model summary 79
Table 6.12 ANOVA for regression 79
Table 7.1 Social media analytics tool-types 93
Table 7.2 Structured data and unstructured data 96
Table 10.1 Big data Business Models 136
Table 11.1 Performance parameters for workflow scheduling 142
Table 11.2 Analysis of performance parameters used in workflow scheduling 143
Table 12.1 Scales used for the study 152
Table 12.2 Respondents’ demographics 153
Table 12.3 KMO and Bartlett’s Test 154
Table 12.4 Rotated Component Matrix 155
Table 12.5 Model validity 156
Table 12.6 Final goodness of fit indices for the CFA and structural model 157
Table 12.7 Path estimate results 158
Table 14.1 Examples of customer opinion study 183
Table 17.1 SPSDA Matrix – Sustainability-oriented pricing strategies for digital
assets 226

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List of Contributors
Dr. Rhodora Abadia is the program facilitator at the University of South Australia. She manages the
online delivery of the IT, Data Analytics, Engineering, and Construction Management degrees. She
has received several major research grants for undertaking research projects in the areas of
artificial intelligence (e.g., machine learning, multi-agent systems, case-based reasoning) applied
in education; multimedia and human-computer interaction; user experience and usability; online
learning; data analytics; and virtual reality. Dr. Abadia has published in such journals as Artificial
Intelligence in Education; Journal of Research in Science, Computing and Engineering; Intelligent
Tutoring Systems: Computers and Education Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Pacific Rim
International Conference on Artificial Intelligence; and International Conference on Computers in
Education, and has been invited to present in conferences in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North
America. She currently has several research projects that focus on the application of adaptive
learning, data analytics, and virtual reality in online education.

Kriti Aggarwal is an undergraduate scholar pursuing a BE in computer science and engineering at

Chandigarh College of Engineering and Technology (Degree Wing), Chandigarh, India. She is a
research enthusiast and has published papers in leading conferences, book chapters, and
journals. Kriti has experience in organizing, managing, and working with large teams and events.
Kriti has been a part of national level government seminars and programs as an organizer and
host.

Ashfaq Ahmad obtained an MBA from the University of Asia Pacific, Bangladesh. He has over six
years of experience as a business consultant and has worked for many national and multinational
companies. In addition, he worked as a part-time academic for a few universities in Bangladesh.
His research has been published in many international journals such as Tourism Recreation
Research and Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, among others.
Ashfaq Ahmad is a qualitative researcher who focuses on the interpretive paradigm of research. He
is currently working as a research associate at the University of Asia Pacific (Bangladesh). His
areas of interest include marketing and entrepreneurship.

S. Balamurugan obtained his BE from the College of Engineering, Anna University, Guindy,
Chennai; PGDM from the Indian Institute of Management IIM- Bangalore; MBA from Indira Gandhi
National Open University, New Delhi; and an FRPM from the Indian Institute of Management and
Technology, Hisar, Haryana. He was also a student at the Indian Institute of Technology IIT –
Kharagpur. He has submitted many technical papers at national and international seminars, and
published papers in ABDC, Scopus, and UGC journals. Dr. Balamurugan is a Fellow at the
Institution of Engineers (FIE) and the Institution of Valuers (FIV).

Manish Mohan Baral is Assistant Professor in the Department of Operations, GITAM (deemed to be
university), Visakhapatnam, India. He is an engineering graduate from KIIT University,
Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India, MBA in International Business from GITAM University,
Visakhapatnam and pursued his PhD in Management from Birla Institute of Technology Mesra,
Ranchi, India. Manish has published in reputable journals and high indexed book chapters. He has
presented 12 papers in various conferences and has also received three best paper and “best
paper presented” awards. Manish’s research areas include information technology, cloud
computing, supply chain management, artificial intelligence, operations research, and quality
management. His expertise is in statistical techniques like SEM and MCDM techniques like TOPSIS,
Fuzzy TOPSIS, etc.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-020
236 List of Contributors

Valeria Meléndez Cervantes is Professor of Business Intelligence at Universidad Popular Autónoma

del Estado de Puebla, Mexico.

Claudia Malcón Cervera is Professor of Business Intelligence at Universidad Popular Autónoma del
Estado de Puebla, Mexoco.

Ranga Chimhundu is a senior lecturer in marketing and academic team leader (marketing) at the
University of Southern Queensland in Australia. His research interests are in FMCG marketing,
brand and product management, grocery retailing, marketing strategy and digital marketing, and
he supervises PhD and DBA candidates in marketing. Ranga is a chartered marketer (Chartered
Institute of Marketing, UK) and a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Australian and
New Zealand Marketing Academy, Australian Marketing Institute, and the European Marketing
Academy.

Venkataiah Chittipaka is an associate professor in the area of operations, quality, and project
management in India. He is an engineering graduate and earned his MBA from National Institute of
Technology, Warangal, India and obtained his doctorate from the Department of Business
Management, Osmania University and qualified in UGC-NET conducted by University Grants
Commission, New Delhi, India. He is a certified ZED Master Trainer from Quality Council of India
and National Monitoring & Implementation Unit (NMIU) for the Zero Defect and Zero Effect (ZED)
scheme of Ministry of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (MSME). He also received the “Best
Professor in Project Management” Award from Business School Affaire & Dewang Mehta National
Education Awards. Venkataiah is a life member in National HRD Network (NHRD), International
Association of Academicians & Researchers (INAAR), and editorial member in International Centre
of Economics, Humanities and Management (ICEHM). Venkataiah’s areas of interest include
operations, quality, marketing research, logistics, supply chain management, and project
management.

Dr. R. Dhaya has 16 years of experience in teaching and research in computer science and
engineering. She has published more than 80 research papers in peer-reviewed international
journals. She was the recipient of the IEI young women engineers award. R. Dhaya’s areas of
interest include wireless sensor networks, embedded systems, and machine learning,
communication systems.

Oliver Moisés Cervantes Flores is Professor of Business Intelligence at Universidad Popular

Autónoma del Estado de Puebla, Mexico.

Dr. Gulshan Goyal is currently employed as Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer
Science and Engineering at Chandigarh College of Engineering and Technology (Degree Wing),
Chandigarh, India. He holds a B.Tech, M.Tech and PhD in the field of Computer Science and
Engineering. He has 19 years of teaching experience at undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD
levels. He has worked at DVIET, Karnal, SDDIET, Barwala (Panchkula) and Chandigarh University.
He was selected for his present position by UPSC New Delhi in 2016. He has published research
papers in various conferences and journals of repute. He has published three books, as well as
organized and participated in various faculty development programs. His research areas include
digital image processing, big data, theoretical computer science, discrete and statistical
structures, algorithm design and machine learning.
 List of Contributors 237

Alock Gupta is Assistant Professor in CSE DEPTT at Vaish College of Engineering, Rohtak, India. He
has 10 years of teaching experience at the graduate and post graduate level. He has published
papers in reputed journals as well as presented papers in national and international conferences.
He is well versed in network administration and administrative work.

Rumman Hassan is a lecturer in marketing at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia.

His research interests are in FMCG marketing, consumer behavior, green/eco-friendly marketing,
services marketing and digital marketing, and he supervises PhD and DBA candidates in
marketing. Rumman is a member of the Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy and the
Australian Marketing Institute, and is a Certified Practicing Marketer (CPM).

Bhaswati Jana is a doctoral scholar at GD Goenka University, Gurgaon, India. She is also CHRO at
Radiant Institute of Skill Development. She graduated from Calcutta University, has an MBA in HR
from IK Gujral Punjab Technical University and received her diploma in French Language from
Alliance Française. Bhaswati is currently pursuing her PhD from GD Goenka University, Gurgaon.
She has received the Faculty Excellence Award from Woxsen University for giving stellar
performances and the Gold Certificate in Communication and Business Negotiation from IIT
Kharagpur. She has worked for reputable organizations like Chandigarh University, ICFAI
University, and Woxsen University and is currently a member of SHRM USA. Bhaswati has 25 years
of working experience and expertise in teaching HR analytics, French language, soft skills, and
communication and all HR-related subjects. Bhaswati’s areas of interest in research are HR
analytics, IT, and digital marketing.

Dr. B. J. D. Kalyani is Associate Professor and Head of Computer Science and Engineering at the
Institute of Aeronautical Engineering. She was awarded a doctorate from Acharya Nagarjuna
University, Guntur, in cloud computing. Dr. Kalyani has six years of industry experience and 12
years of teaching experience. She has guided eight postgraduate and 20 undergraduate projects.
She has published 15 papers in various national/international conferences and journals. She is
associated with several committees such as R & D, Discipline, Anti Ragging, and Hospitality. She
has acted as Convener for R&D and was actively involved in organizing ICRTEMMS-2018 as
registration committee Convener. Dr. Kalyani’s areas of interest include cloud computing, data
analytics, business intelligence, software engineering, and database management systems.

Dr. Prof. Kanthavel has 22 years of experience in teaching and research in the field of information
and communication engineering. He has of more than 100 research articles in peer-reviewed
international journals. Prof. Kanthavel’s areas of interests include computer networking, machine
learning and AI, cooperative communication, computing, and mobile networks.

Komal Kapoor is a research-oriented academician, enthusiastic educator, and avid reader with
over 18 years of teaching experience, research, and student development with key focus on quality
input and stimulating learning environment. Her key areas of teaching and learning are marketing
strategy, brand management, strategic management, ethics and CSR, entrepreneurship
development, advertising and marketing services leading to a multi-disciplinary approach to
developing students and content alike. Pursuing her PhD around consumer behavior toward luxury
brands, she has published many research papers and book chapters. With the adoption of
innovative pedagogical tools, Komal focuses on the holistic development of her students.

Harmanpreet Kaur is Assistant Professor in CBS, Chandigrah University, Punjab, India. She is a
research oriented academician and has published papers in peer-reviewed and indexed journals.
238 List of Contributors

She has also participated in many national and international conferences. In addition, she is well
versed in initiating and implementing student engagement activities for effective development of
students.

Tanvi Kaushik is B. Tech final year student at Vaish College of Engineering, Rohtak, India. She is
passionate about research work. Her areas of interest include big data, machine learning,
blockchain technology and the Internet of Things. She has also participated in national and
international conferences.

Bui Huy Khoi is at the Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Bui has published many
research papers and chapters in peer reviewed journals and books. Bui has also participated in
many conferences and has made significant contributions in academics and research.

Dr. Ram Krishan is currently Assistant Professor and Head in the Department of Computer Science,
Mata Sundri University Girls College, Mansa, Punjab (A Constituent College of Punjabi University,
Patiala), India. Dr. Krishan obtained his PhD in computer science and engineering from Guru Kashi
University, Talwandi Sabo, India in 2017 and MTech in computer engineering from Punjabi
University, Patiala, India in 2009. He has more than 15 years of teaching experience at various
colleges. Dr. Krishan has authored two academic books and published more than 35 research
papers in various international/national journals, conference proceedings, and book chapters. He
has also edited three research books in the field of wireless communication and computing. His
research areas include wireless communication, cloud computing, and antenna design.

Dr. Rohit Malhotra (PhD, MBA) is currently a subject matter expert at the Faculty of Economics and
Finance with NMIMS, Mumbai. He has published in reputable journals included on ABDC, Sage,
Scopus, and Repec listed rankings. Dr. Malhotra has presented several papers at international
conferences and received Best Paper Awards including at the AIB 2020 MIT-IIMV International
Conference. His research interests include financial econometrics, accounting anthropology,
empirical asset pricing, risk management, and portfolio analytics.

Dr. Reena Malik is currently Assistant Professor in Chitkara Business School, Chitkara University,
Punjab, India. She has a PhD in management and post graduate degree in management and
commerce. She has qualified the UGC/NTA NET in both commerce and management. She has
published more than 20 papers in reputed national and international journals and has presented
papers in various government sponsored seminars and conferences. She has two books to her
credit. Having a teaching experience of more than eight years she is actively working in the
research areas of marketing and finance.

José Gerardo de la Vega Meneses is Professor of Accounting and Finance at Universidad Popular
Autónoma del Estado de Puebla, Mexico.

Vipin Mittal is Assistant Professor in the MBA department at Vaish College of Engineering, Rohtak,
India. He has published papers in peer-reviewed journals as well as participated in many
conferences at national and international levels. His areas of interest include strategic
management, entrepreneurship, big data and ecommerce. He is passionate about academic and
research initiatives.

Subhodeep Mukherjee is a PhD student at the GITAM (deemed to be university), Visakhapatnam,

India. He obtained his master’s degree from the Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, India.
 List of Contributors 239

His main research interests include food supply chain management, cloud computing, and
blockchain technologies. He has published in reputable journals and high indexed book chapters.
Dr. Mukherjee has also presented more than nine papers in various conferences and also received
two best paper and best paper presented awards. Dr. Mukherjee’s main research interests include
food supply chain management, cloud computing, and blockchain technologies. His expertise is in
statistical techniques like SEM, etc.

Seprianti Eka Putri holds a Faculty, Economics and Business position at Universitas Bengkulu,
Indonesia. He is a research oriented academician, proactive researcher and keen on implementing
student engagement programs. He has published papers in reputed journals as well as
participated in many conferences. Seprianti adopts innovative pedagogical tools to focus on the
holistic development of students.

Fazla Rabby is a doctoral research candidate at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia.
In 2000 he received his BS from the University of Madras in India and in 2003, his MIS from
Central Queensland University in Australia. He worked in a number of organizations in top
management positions in Australia from 2004 to 2021. Fazla has also held formal teaching
positions at universities and private colleges. In 2012, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer
(CEO) in one of the reputed marketing companies in Australia. Fazla has a keen interest in digital
marketing and consumer behavior, as well as augmented and virtual reality in marketing.

Dr. M. Palanivelrajan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Management Studies, Madurai

Kamaraj University, Madurai. He has a master’s degree in MS (Information Technology &
Management) and holds a doctorate in business administration. In addition to seven years of
academic experience, he has been actively engaged in guiding research scholars of MPhil and PhD
degrees. He has also presented papers at national and international seminars and conferences,
and is a member of various academic bodies and management associations. Dr. Rajan’s areas of
specialization are marketing and entrepreneurship.

Sudhir Rana believes in driving and motivating academics and research in such a way that it can
be best utilized in an enthusiastic and dynamic environment to foster versatile personalities. He is
a faculty of marketing and strategy at the College of Healthcare Management & Economics at Gulf
Medical University, UAE. He holds a PhD degree with the Ministry of Human Resource Development
Scholarship from the Government of India and post-doctorate from Putra Business School (AACSB
Accredited), University of Putra, Malaysia. Sudhir has set high standards in academics and
research. He has been associated with the Fortune Institute of International Business, India and
Maastricht School of Management, Kuwait. Sudhir has delivered more than 150 workshop
sessions, keynote speeches, and webinars. His research area is consumer behavior and emerging
markets. Sudhir’s work has been published in the Journal of Business Research, International
Journal of Emerging Markets, and Journal of Promotion Management, among other reputed
journals. He is a well-known scholar and editor in the field. He was involved with the progression
of the journal FIIB Business Review, which is one of the most preferred journals from Sage
Publishing. He launched as well as chaired the doctorate program at Fortune Institute of
International Business, India.

Tareq Rasul is Senior Lecturer at the Australian Institute of Business (AIB), Australia. He holds a
doctorate in marketing from the University of South Australia, Australia and an MBA from the
University of East London, United Kingdom. His area of research is multidisciplinary and
encompasses Digital Marketing, Customer Engagement, Entrepreneurship and Tourism. He is
240 List of Contributors

comfortable with both qualitative and quantitative research. To date, he has published 50 (+) peer-
reviewed journal articles, conference papers and book chapters. His research has been published
in high-ranked journals such as Australasian Journal of Information Systems, International Journal
of Bank Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Islamic Marketing, Journal of
Knowledge Management, Journal of Strategic Marketing, and Tourism Recreation Research, among
others.

Namrata Sandhu, PhD, has 16 years of experience in research, consulting, and teaching graduate
management courses. She has authored/edited three books and published over 60 research articles in
journals of academic repute such as Development Policy Review, Development, Journal of Financial
Crime, Global Business Review, Journal of Human Values, International Journal of Business and
Globalization, Paradigm, Business Perspectives and Research, Indian Journal of Women and Social
Change, FIIB Business Review, etc. Dr. Sandhu has worked as a consultant with the United Nations
Development Program and Metamorph Consultants, Mumbai. Dr. Sandhu’s areas of interest include
ethics, finance, and gender studies.

M. Selvalakshmi has approximately 20 years of experience teaching business communication,

marketing, and strategy. She has published in several research publications on subjects ranging
from customer service to student skills, and inclusive growth. Her latest publication was in the
International Journal of Innovation Science on Pedagogy Innovation in January 2021.M.
Selvalakshmi published the cases in Ivey Publishing and in the Case Centre. She has also been
actively involved on consulting assignments with several MSMEs. She has rendered yeoman
service to the Thiagarajar School of Management in numerous administrative roles and became
principal in 2015. As a corporate trainer, she has helped executives from numerous top companies
in India to achieve their true potential, including Airtel India Ltd., Ramco Cements, TVS Tyres,
Honeywell Technology Solutions, SPIC, Hi Tech Arai, etc.

Dilpreet Singh, PhD (Strategy), MBA (Marketing), has over 15 years of academic and industry
experience. He is an accomplished teacher, researcher, consultant, and trainer with expertise in
strategy and sales. He has presented research articles in various conferences, in addition to
publishing them in journals of repute. Dr. Singh is the author of the following books: Bank
Marketing Strategies – An Indian Perspective and Contemporary Issues in Business published by
renowned international publishers. He received the Best Research Paper Award at the IMRA-IIMB
International Conference, 2015, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Dr. Singh is also an
avid trainer and consultant and has imparted training/consultancy to various organizations
including Reliance Communications, Hero Cycles, Subhiksha Trading Services, Punjab State
Cooperative Development Bank, Punjab Agriculture Department, etc. Dr. Singh is currently
Assistant Dean, BBA Programs with Chitkara Business School, Chitkara University, Punjab, India.

Dr. Sonal Trivedi has more than 10 years of teaching experience. She is the author of two books,
chapters in edited books, and has published many research papers in national and international
journals of repute. She has participated in many conferences and proactive academic initiatives.
About the Editors
Dr. Amandeep Singh has obtained his BIT, MBA, and PhD and is also UGC-NET qualified. He has
served as dean/principal in various reputable universities and colleges. Dr. Singh is currently
working as a professor at Chandigarh University, Punjab, India. Dr. Singh has more than 15 years
of teaching experience, and was named “Best Teacher” in 2008. He is also part of the board of
studies of various B-Schools and leading universities in Northern India. He has published 28
research papers in various journals and conferences indexed in Scopus, Web of Science, and ICI. In
addition, he has authored three books with renowned publishers like Wiley and IGI Global. Dr.
Singh is on the editorial board for three international journals, and has also chaired many national
and international conferences. His main area of research is marketing with a special focus on
digital marketing.

Dr. Rohit Bansal is Assistant Professor in the Department of Management Studies at Vaish College
of Engineering, Rohtak, India. He obtained his PhD in management from Maharshi Dayanand
University, Rohtak, India. With 13 years of experience, Dr. Bansal has achieved career growth
through robust and proactive academic initiatives. He has presented papers at 30 conferences and
seminars, and has acted as session chair in many conferences. Dr. Bansal also served as a
member of the advisory committee at many international conferences, in addition to being a
member of the editorial advisory board for 110 national and international peer-reviewed journals.
He is the managing editor of International Journal of Management Reviews and International
Journal of Techno-Management Research. He has authored and edited eight books, as well as
published 95 research papers in reputable national and international journals including chapters
in edited books. He has reviewed more than 700 articles for international peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Bansal’s areas of interest include marketing management, human resource management,
organizational behavior, and digital marketing.

Dr. Sandhir Sharma has a PhD in strategic management with nearly 20 years of experience in
higher education and five years in the telecom industry. With more than 43 published research
papers in various journals and conferences at national and international levels, Dr. Sharma has
developed his core expertise in the area of strategy formulation. His research has been widely
published in various newspapers. Currently, he is serving as Dean at Chitkara Business School and
is visiting faculty at Binus University, Indonesia, and University of Applied Sciences, Osnabruck,
Germany.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-021
Index
3D 37, 40–48, 53–57, 142 Facebook Insights 93
Firms 174
AIC 1, 5–7 Flexible 127, 128
Akaike Information Criterion 5 Framework 29, 102, 103, 126, 142, 173
Algorithm 1, 6–7, 143 Freelancing 168
Augmented Reality 44, 46, 47
GDP 133, 192, 217
B2B 40, 42, 47, 57, 110, 133, 173, 212 Google Analytics 34, 93–94, 112
B2C 40, 56, 212 Growth 75, 78, 80, 82, 108, 165
Bank Penetration 63
BDA 136, 147–153, 155–159, 207–212 HADOOP 197, 203–204
BDAC 148 Hadoop Distributed File System 116, 203
Big Data 9, 12, 14, 17–18, 29, 89–90, 107, 119, HCI 167
133, 136, 147, 165, 193, 195, 198–201, 203, Hybrid Heuristic Algorithm 143
207–208 Hybrid Optimization 143
Big Data Analytics 9, 12, 29, 147, 202, 207
Blockchain 50–51, 56, 176 IMC 39
Budget 142–143 Impacts 107
Business Analytics 21, 143, 155 Instagram Insights 93–94
Integrated Marketing Communications 45
C2C 17–18, 20, 22
CAV 37 Job Motivation 9
Cloud Computing 30 Job Satisfaction 9
Competitive Advantage 124, 125, 127
Consumer Behavior 9, 22 Knowledge Management 29, 47, 67,
Consumer Preferences 47 102, 126
Customer 17, 29, 34–36, 113, 184, 207–208
Customer Relationship Management 14, 28, LTV 35–37
102, 103, 104
Marketing Mix 45
Data Analysis 85 Max-Min Approach 143
DCV 148–149 Mobile Marketing 107
Digital Assets 186
Digital Marketing 133, 165
Optimization 31, 48, 143, 166
Digital Transformation 39
Organizational flexibility 147, 150
Disruptive Innovation 44
Dynamic Capabilities 108, 124, 125, 127
Performance 139, 142, 204
Personnel Plan 4
E-Commerce 21, 22 Pinterest Analytics 93
Ecosystem 186 Pricing 174, 217
EFA 151–154, 159–160 Pricing Model 187
Employee Motivation 1
Evaluation 4, 6
QoS 139–140
Exploratory Factor Analysis 67, 69

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733716-022
244 Index

Real Estate 39, 44, 52 Strategy 4, 225

Review 39, 52 Supply Chain Agility 147
Reward 3–4
Risk 35 Technology Adoption 47
ROI 33, 40, 48, 101, 166, 179 Text Mining 179
Twitter Analytics 93
SC 147, 149–151, 153
SCA 147–149, 151–152, 158–159 Virtual Reality 44, 47
Search Engine 31, 48, 166, 198
SEM 48, 150, 152, 154, 157, 159–160 Workflow Scheduling 139
SEO 166, 175 Working Motivation 4
Social Media 89, 198 Working Promotion 3
Social Media Analytics 89
SPSDA Matrix 225–226 Yet Another Resource Negotiator. 204
Static 219 YouTube Analytics 93