It's Not the Size of the Data -- It's How You Use It

CHAPTER 1

Marketing Analytics Dashboards: What, Why, Who, and How

Data is prolific but usually poorly digested, often irrelevant and some issues entirely lack the illumination of measurement.

—JOHN D.C. LITTLE,¹ 1970

LITTLE'S QUOTE RINGS AS TRUE TODAY as it did more than forty years ago, reflecting the tension between the abundance of marketing data at our disposal and the lack of actionable insights that derive from it. The advent of the Internet and recent availability of “big data” have only increased the need to distill relevant information from a wealth of data. Don't get me wrong: I love big data, but, as with other things in life, it's not about size, but what you do with it. Managers I've worked with across industries and countries know ...