“Without Big Data Analytics, Companies are Blind and Deaf, Wandering out onto the Web like Deer on a Freeway” - Geoffrey Moore (American Management Consultant and Author)
Imagine yourself to be a seller within an e-commerce market landscape. As a seller you want to sell your products, but at the same time you do not have the benefit of arranging for a personal interaction with your buyer. So how do you know your customers? How do you curate your strategy in order to meet their needs? The answer lies in Data Analytics. By way of analyzing digital metrics of consumers like search history, virtual impressions, likes, shares and so on; you certainly do stand the chance of responding to the needs of your customers in an improved manner. This is one of the many instances of Data Analytics Use Cases.
For a more detailed understanding of the issue of Data Analytics, refer to our blog on “What is Data Analytics?”
In this blog, we will look at what are Big Data Analytics Use Cases and the criteria for determining the same. We will also consider the Potential Use Cases for Big Data Analytics as well as look at its application across some of the industries.
What are Big Data Analytics Use Cases?
Before we get into defining Data Analytics Use Cases, it is important to understand the two senses in which the phrase ‘use cases’ is used.
In the first sense, use case refers to a potential scenario defining a set of interactions between the user and the system for the accomplishment of a particular objective or goal. In this sense, Data Analytics Use Cases refers to the different ways in which business enterprises would make use of the analytics mechanism and data available, in order to extract insights which would guide business decision making.
In the second sense, use case refers to a usage scenario defining the application to which the entity can be put to use. In this sense, Big Data Analytics Use Cases refers to the different forms in which Data Analytics is utilized by industries across sectors for achieving their business objectives.

In both forms, the potential use cases for Big Data Analytics would be exemplified below.
Data Analytics Use Cases: Potential Scenario
In this section we will consider some of the Big Data Analytics Use Cases strategies which companies employ in order to make optimum use of data available with them.
- Customer Segmentation
The foundation of the idea of customer segmentation rests on the belief that consumers are unique. Their tastes and preferences are not universal and hence in order to fully cater to their needs, it is important to categorize them into different groups and consequently develop marketing strategies which are specific to different groups. But what is the basis of forming these groups? Data Analytics in the form of Customer Analytics help in carefully analyzing the data collected from customer interaction and help in comprehending the attributes and traits of consumers. Consequently, this understanding helps in grouping the customers into different categories.

- Sentiment Analysis
Business organizations do serve a purpose. They cater to the commercial needs of society and operate on a profit agenda. In doing so, it is only beneficial if they are somehow able to gather information on the opinion of the people on their products and services. This has been made possible through Customer Sentiment Analysis which is again one of the prominent Data Analytics Use Cases. It is also referred to as Opinion Mining and helps in detecting opinions from a given context. Online data provide the subject matter for analysis; while Data Analytics not only helps in detecting polar opinions, but also helps in recognizing and identifying emotions.
- Personalized Marketing
How many times have you received notifications of online shopping apps or food delivery apps which addresses you by your name? or How many times have you received notifications from service booking apps which seems to provide you with the exact options of services which you were looking for? I believe that this has become quite a commonplace phenomenon. It is a deliberate attempt by companies to try and strike a personal cord with the consumers. However, it is not that these apps are reading your mind. It is through advanced Data Analytics conducted on the data collected from your interaction with these apps, that these personalized automated messages are especially curated for different customers.

- Predictive Analytics
This is one of the most important Potential Use Cases for Data Analytics. As the name suggests, Predictive Analytics is a form of advanced Data Analytics which seeks to analyze historical data in order to build future business models and strategies. It utilizes different techniques of Data Analytics like Data Mining, Machine Learning, Modeling, Statistics and so on. Since the models are based on hard core data and facts, they are presumably much more reliable than those which are merely based on foresight and gut instincts.

- Market Basket Analytics
You must have purchased commodities online from different e-commerce websites. While doing so, you must have also come across ‘product suggestions’ or ‘frequently brought together’ options which are automatically generated to help you browse more such products which are in some way or the other related to your recent purchase or the item which you have just added to the cart. This entire mechanism is another instance of Data Analytics Use Cases which helps to forge associations between products on the basis of the fact that whether they are brought together or is often placed in the same cart.
- Price Optimization
Price fixation is a crucial business decision. It affects revenue, demand, satisfaction rate as well as purchasing behavior of consumers. The determination of price itself is a result of a number of factors and variables including the forces of demand and predictions of profit. However, Data Analytics can also be extremely useful in this process of price optimization. It helps in deriving insights on the past purchasing behavior of consumers and accordingly helps in suggesting relevant discount rates. Moreover, these optimal rates, based on analyzing historical data; helps in pushing demand as well as profits. As one of the top use cases for Data Analytics, the process also helps in framing relevant promotional campaigns.