The Use of Big Data and Knowledge Management in Brick and Mortar Retailers

The rapidly changing business landscape requires businesses to get rid of traditional management, business and computing technologies. The brick and mortar business manager seeks to generate new revenue through e-commerce. However, to do so, the company needs to integrate the concept with either of these two technologies: Big data management, wireless computing and mobile e-commerce.

            Big data and knowledge management is a tech that enables physical businesses to create presentations, create reports, carry out internal analysis and track revenue performance. The disadvantage is that it will require a huge budget due to the serious analytics expertise needed.

On the other hand, wireless computing is a modern alternative to old-fashioned wired networking that relies on wired networking that depends on inter-connecting cables. Mainstream wireless tech include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth technology, 5G cellular internet and Li-Fi (Sinha, Ghosh & Sinha, 2016). This technology meets the company’s requirements because it eliminates unsightly cables and it enhances portability and freedom of movement. The disadvantage is that it requires additional security features. The technology requires for such kind of a business should be able to use proximity marketing techniques, pull clean data from Wi-Fi, android devices and Bluetooth signals in order to find out what the customer exactly wants (Morabito, 2015).. Within the decision matrix, both technologies need to ensure customer privacy while collecting raw data, analyzing it and acting on the big data in real time. Also, retailers should be able to log in into the database using their smartphones. An example of a company that embraces big data management is TechCrunch while firm 42 (based in San Francisco) uses cloud computing.  

Recommendation

            Big data and knowledge management is the most appropriate technology for the brick-and-mortar business. It is suitable for managing inventory, enables online payment processing, providing reports and managing customer contacts. Moreover, it accounts for sales, payments, and inventory, and customer contacts (Morabito, 2015). The business owner needs to implement this tech because it cracks the riddle of brick and mortar retailers. It uploads the businesses’ raw data and analyses it in real time. To keep off third party vendors, the security features needed include a solidly designed system, alarm and access points and badge readers. Internal safeguards include encryption codes, firewalls, antispyware, virus detection programs, mapping and masking.

Works Cited

Morabito, V. (2015). Big data and analytics: Strategic and organizational impacts.

Sinha, K., Ghosh, S. C., & Sinha, B. P. (2016). Wireless networks and mobile computing. Boca Raton: CRC Press.