A Critical Analysis of Advantages of Big Data in Ecommerce Business

This research proposal critically analyzes the advantages of big data in the ecommerce business. The study begins with an introduction highlighting the importance of big data analytics in business decision-making and organizational tasks. The proposal outlines the research aims and objectives, focusing on identifying the key advantages of big data in ecommerce, the ways these advantages can be leveraged for improved business results and employee productivity, and potential future technologies that could replace big data operations. The literature review provides an overview of big data analytics and the ecommerce business, establishing the relationship between the two and identifying gaps in existing research. The methodology section details the data collection and analysis methods, sample size, and ethical considerations. The proposal also includes a proposed timeline and expected outcomes, emphasizing the need for a more generalized understanding of big data's application across the ecommerce sector. The research aims to provide valuable insights into market trends, customer behavior, and data-driven business strategies within the ecommerce industry, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of big data's role and potential.

Running head: CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS.
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1CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
Research proposal
CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF IMPORTANCE OF BIG DATA IN ECOMMERCE BUSINESS

2CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
Abstract:
This report will highlight the importance of big data analytics in the ecommerce business and
cover its different aspects such as the advantages, disadvantages as well as the cost factors.
Big data analytics play an important role in the organizational tasks and the business
decisions that are being taken by the leaders and the managers within the organizations. By
the end of this study, the reader will be able to understand the different requirements and
considerations associated to the implementation of big data analytics within the ecommerce
business organizations.

3CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................4
Background of the study:.......................................................................................................4
Research aims and objectives:...............................................................................................5
Research Questions:...............................................................................................................5
Literature Review:......................................................................................................................6
Overview of big data analytics:..............................................................................................6
Overview on e-commerce business:.......................................................................................7
Relationship between big data analytics and ecommerce business:......................................7
Gap in literature:....................................................................................................................8
Research Methodology:.............................................................................................................9
Method of data collection:.....................................................................................................9
Data analysis method:............................................................................................................9
Sample size:.........................................................................................................................10
Ethical issues:.......................................................................................................................11
Research limitations:............................................................................................................12
Proposed timeline for study:................................................................................................13
Expected Outcome:..................................................................................................................14
References:...............................................................................................................................15

4CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
Introduction:
Background of the study:
Different kinds of researches have been done in the past in the field of big data
analytics in the different business operations. Big data analytics have immensely helped the
organization of different industries to ease their organizational tasks as well as achieve better
results within the organization. For instance, the ecommerce industry has greatly benefitted
from the advent of ecommerce technologies. Companies like Amazon Inc. and eBay have
greatly used the big data tools in its different business strategies and operational frameworks
such as in the sales, marketing, human resource as well as the other management divisions
within the organization. It has helped companies like Amazon to come up with more user-
friendly user platforms that can help the users have a better online shopping experience and
help the company in turn to improve the customer satisfaction that it offers to its customers.
Using big data tools the doctors have the provision to check the patient medical
records as well as the progress of their health in electronic formats that are generated by the
machines to be understood by the doctors. In this proposal, the different aspects of a research
on the big data tools will be discussed which are mainly needed for the betterment of the
organizations in today’s world (Raghupathi and Raghupathi 2014).
The scope of this research is to understand the different aspects of big data in its
implementation in the organizations. This research will help in understanding the market
trends, customer behavior as well as the strategies of making business decisions using big
data. Not much of research has been carried out specifically in the in-depth analysis of big
data and its different aspects, which makes this research even more interesting and important.
The following paragraphs will give the reader a clear understanding of the different stages of

5CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
the process of the research and the expected outcome for the research, which has not been
obtained in the earlier researches.
Research aims and objectives:
The chosen area of business is Ecommerce wherein the big data analytics play a very
important role in the proper functioning of the ecommerce companies and the business
operations (Zakir, Seymour and Berg 2015). The different advantages and disadvantages of
big data in the ecommerce industry will be studied in details in the following proposal.
The main objectives of this research can be summarized in the below mentioned points as:
1. To identify the most important advantages of big data analytics in the field of
ecommerce business in today’s world.
2. To identify the ways in which the big data advantages of the ecommerce business can
be positively channelized in way to achieve better business results as well as
improved employee productivity within the organizations.
3. To identify the possible threats or other options that have the capability to replace big
data operations in the future within the organizations especially in the ecommerce
segment of business.
Research Questions:
1. What are the most important advantages of implementing big data analytics within the
ecommerce companies?
2. How do the companies obtain better business results by channelizing these advantages
in the right direction?
3. What are the possible future options or technologies that are capable of replacing the
big data operations within the business organizations?
Research is needed in the field of the ecommerce business since it is one of the fastest
growing business areas in the world today. This area of business also had different aspects

6CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
that has to be taken into consideration by the business leaders as well as the managers within
the organizations which has to be researched in details before implementing any kind of new
technologies within the organizations. Past researches have already been carried out for the
ecommerce companies many of which has been for the ecommerce giant Amazon but there
are still different areas of research that has not been properly addressed by the researchers as
well as the scholars (Pardo and Siemens 2014). That is one of the reasons why it is even more
interesting to do further research in the field of ecommerce industries and the applications of
big data analytics within them. Big data not only automates the tasks but also helps in storage
and security of the data in the cloud servers. For instance, Amazon web servers that are being
maintained by Amazon Inc. also make use of big data analytics to securely store the data and
ensure at all points of time that the maintenance tasks are being properly carried out by the
employees at the data centers (Zwitter 2014). However much of the tasks and the processes
are automated the exactly working of these processes and the associated threats and risks of
these processes need to be researched in ore details, which again is one of the reasons for this
research.
Literature Review:
Overview of big data analytics:
Big data analytics play a very important role in the working of the different
organizations in today’s world. The capability of the different data driven marketing
strategies can be properly defined using the tools of big data analysis. This in turn also helps
the companies to achieve better customer satisfactions and different applications are also
developed by the companies to ensure that the customers can have a better online shopping
experience (Wildemuth 2016). For instance, Amazon recently came up with the “anytime
application” where in they can post their concerns and seeks help directly from the
organization at any point of time (Rajaraman 2016). Additionally, other aspects such as risk

7CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
portfolios can also be evaluated and therefore unnecessary data related issues can be
prevented. In big data analytics for business, large chunks of raw data are collected and
processed in the right way as desired by the managers so that the desired results and outputs
can be calculated as per the business requirements using specialized big data tools, example:
hadoop architecture (Bryman and Bell 2015). Big data technologies not only helps the
organizations to get their tasks automated but it also helps the leader s as well as the
managers to understand in details the different deciding factors of the overall business
outcomes form the organizations.
Overview on e-commerce business:
E-Commerce is business is one of the fastest growing industries in the world today.
Most of the items that were originally available in offline retail stores are now being available
for sale in online portals. Customers now do not have to travel all the way to the physical
retails stores and can easily view and order the items of their choice online, which are
delivered to their physical address. This is one of the biggest boon of technology for the
world. Customers have the provision to make secure online payments and once the payments
are confirmed their order is booked and they are instantly notified on their smartphones
through messages as well as emails regarding the confirmation of their orders (Richards and
King 2014). Some of the popular and fastest growing ecommerce companies in the present
world are amazon and EBay.
Relationship between big data analytics and ecommerce business:
Big data analytics play a very important role in the ecommerce industry in today’s
world. Earlier the customers had to physically come out of their houses and visit the physical
retail stores in order to purchase a product and if the item were not available then they would
have to wait for long periods before the item was again available. Through the integration of
big data analytics and the ecommerce industry, the process of shopping has become even

8CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
easier for the customers wherein they have the provision to securely make the payment for
the items they purchase online and the items then are delivered to their physical addresses.
Ecommerce marketing is also done through the online advertisements that the customers get
to see even on the internet. Once users click on the online advertisements that appear on the
screen the page is securely redirected to the online shopping page (Andrews and Hampel
2015). This in turn helps the ecommerce companies to understand the shopping behavior of
the customers based on the number of clicks on the advertisements that the customers get to
see by the side of the screens. This in turn helps the companies understand the number of
users that actually respond to the online advertisements and they collect and analyze such
data using big data analytics to improve their website and use the sales from the online
websites (Fowler 2013). Big data analytics has immense advantages for the ecommerce
companies that will be further studied in details in the following paragraphs.
Gap in literature:
It has been found that a lot of research has already been carried out on big data
analytics and its applications in the different industries. A lot of research has also been done
for the ecommerce giant Amazon Inc. However, the research results that has been derived
from the researched done on Amazon cannot always be applied to all ecommerce companies
since the working principles of all ecommerce companies is not same as that of amazon
(Sharma and Lijuan 2014). Therefore this is the most important gap in literature since the past
researches have been found out mainly on Amazon which has failed to provide a general
conclusion as well as recommendation that can be applied to all ecommerce companies in
general (Lausev 2014). This research will ai to provide a much more generalized derivation
of conclusions that can be applied to the entire ecommerce sector of business. This will not
only help the ecommerce industry but can also be an inspiration factor for the preexisting
retail stores to open their online portals so facilitate the customer to have a better shopping

9CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
experience (Camarinha et al. 2013). The researches that has been done in the past are not up
to the mark and do not provide complete details about the implementation of big data
analytics in the ecommerce industry and has to be further researched. Since there are
different, other companies, which also have different kinds of issues in the market, and not
much of research has been done on these companies in the past, it calls for a need for
research to be done about them now. The companies such as Jabong, myntra, alibaba.com,
EBay etc. have not been studied much in details in the past and only Amazon has been
studied. The researches that has been done in the past does not have the required information
for all the ecommerce companies’ example jabong, myntra, alibaba etc. Earlier researches has
been done mostly on the ecommerce giant Amazon. This research aim’s to fill the gap in
literature from the earlier researches to give a more generalized view on the ecommerce
industry and how the big data analytics play an important role in the working of the business.
Research Methodology:
Method of data collection:
The research will make use of data collection from both primary as well as secondary
sources for a complete and in depth analysis of big data analytics. An interview will be
conducted with an Amazon employee and his views will be discussed regarding how big data
analytics has helped Amazon as an Ecommerce company to reach exponential heights. This
will act as the primary source of data for the research and will greatly help in deriving the
conclusions as well as analysing the different areas of study regarding the ecommerce
industry, as a whole. Secondary sources of data will also be used in the research, which will
comprise of articles as well as journals by renowned authors who have done researches in the
past about the topic (Burns, Bush and Sinha 2014). It will be ensures that the secondary
sources are credible and are properly used in the understanding as well as the analysis of the
research data.

10CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
Data analysis method:
Surveys from the users will be used to collect quantitative data and the results will be
shown using graphs as well as pictorial explanations. The data that will be obtained for the
surveys will be analyzed and processed and then these numerical values will be converted
into the graphs. The format of the data will be altered as per the overall requirement of the
different ecommerce companies combines together and the values will be manipulated based
on the experiment requirements and the desired outputs (Palinkas et al. 2015). Qualitative
data analysis will be done based on the results of the interview of the Amazon employee
through which the different behavioral patterns as well as the shopping trends of the
customers can be determined and studied in details(Siegel 2013). The different conclusions
and views on big data analytics that will be shared by the Amazon employee will be
considered for the qualitative analysis of the obtained data. Incidences occurring in the
natural setting will be considered to derive the conclusions of the research (Laudon and
Traver 2013). The different data that will be collected from the different source will be used
in order to determine the possible outcomes of the research as well as future
recommendations of the ecommerce business segment as a whole (Smith 2015). There are
different kinds of statistical methods that are available for researching as well as studying the
data obtained from the different sources and they can be used to study the outcomes of the
different kinds of data obtained from the primary as well as secondary sources of data. The
interview that will be help with the Amazon employee will help in understanding the real-
time situations and the problems faced by the ecommerce companies in the market and what
the companies should do in order to overcome these kinds of problematic situations. This in
turn can also be of a great help to the other ecommerce industries as well. One the data that is
collected is properly analyzed using the complex tools it will give the reader a clear idea

11CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
regarding how the data is to be used for further research as well as the benefit of the
ecommerce companies all across the world.
Sample size:
A sampling size of 2000 will be used in order to derive the results of the research and
to determine. Users who use multiple online shopping sites such as Amazon, EBay, Jabong
etc, will be participating in the survey and the data obtained as the results will be used to
analyze how the ecommerce business can further improve in its operational as well as the
management roles based on the customer feedbacks from the surveys. Important parameters
such as employee satisfaction, calculations times, result accuracy from the big data analytics
using software’s shall be used in calculating the results of the survey of 2000 users. The
results will be used to determine how big data analytics can be further improved and better
implemented in the field of ecommerce business all across the world (Malhotra 2014). The
sample size will be carefully selected in order to perfectly determine and analyze the results
of the surveys. A bigger sample size causes ambiguous response from the users, which in turn
causes problems for the data analyzers to determine the results of the research.
Ethical issues:
There are different ethical issues that the organizations especially in the ecommerce
business are facing with the implementation of big data analytics in their organizational tasks.
It has been found in the recent study that crucial customer data such as their phone number
physical address etc. are often resold in the secondary market, which in turn causes issues
such as tax frauds and data theft. Recently Amazon faced an issue wherein the web servers
used by Amazon web services were all hacked by the hackers. The customer information that
were stored in the online Amazon databases were all accessed by the hackers and this causes
trouble not only to the organization but also to its customers and had an overall impact on the
brand image of the organization. This is not only an issue faced by Amazon but it is a

12CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
concern for the overall ecommerce business since many other companies also use advanced
techniques to store customer information in their databases (Kitchin 2013). Most of the
ecommerce companies make use of an automated technology that stores the important bank
information of the customers such as debit and credit card information in a centralized server
by making use of the centralized servers. In case of Amazon, its web services servers were all
hacked at the time of the incidence. Additionally, other ethical dilemmas also arise within the
companies regarding the honesty of the employees themselves wherein it has been found in
recent studies that employee vandalism often exists within the companies if the employees
have some revengeful attitude towards the organization (Neuman 2013). They have an
attitude to corrupt important organizational data for their own personal interests or just to
cause harm to the organization.
Another important ethical situation that the ecommerce business organizations are
facing now a days are regarding keeping the stakeholders informed (Rainer, Prince and
Watson 2014).
Research limitations:
It has been found that even if a research is properly planned and structured, there will
always be some limitations and there will always be some differences in the output of the
research conducted. For instance, the time that has been allotted to conduct this entire
research is way to less than actually needed. This is because understanding of the topic of big
data analytics within organizations is itself. In order to understand the concepts of big data
alone, it takes a very long time and then comes the research about its implementation in the
ecommerce sector (Monteiro, Swatman and Tavares 2013). In order to completely understand
and conduct the research about the implementation of big data in the ecommerce industry it
will need a minimum of 9 months to understand the complex concepts of big data analytics
and understand how they play a role in the ecommerce industry. Another limitation is the

13CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
sample size that has been chosen for the survey that will be conducted to analyse the
importance of big data in ecommerce industry. It is not practical and feasible to get responses
from all the 2000 users and it should not be expected. Even if 1000-1300 odd users
participate in the survey, the numerical figures and results obtained from the survey will be
difficult to be analysed and manipulated (Lewis 2015). That will again be very time
consuming. Another limitation is getting appointment from the Amazon employee for
scheduling the interview, which will again be a process that will require a lot of time and
follow up with the concerned employee (Niranjanamurthy et al.2013). The research could
have been conducted in a much better and structured way provided more time wag allotted
and the time could be well segregated for the multiple tasks involved in the process of the
research.
Proposed timeline for study:
Activities(For the
future research to be
conducted)
Week
1 -3
Week
4 - 10
Week
11 - 13
Week
14 - 17
Week
18 - 21
Week
22 - 23
Week
24
Topic Identification 
Secondary source
data collection
 
Creation of layout 
Complete research
literature review.
  
Collected data analysis
and interpretation.
  
Findings from the data
collected.
 

14CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
Conclusion 
Formation of draft  
Submission of the task 
Figure: Gantt chart
(Source: As created by author)
Expected Outcome:
The expected outcome of this research is nothing but the complete in depth analysis of
the implementation of big data analytics in the ecommerce business and the role it plays in
the important business making strategies that are being implemented within the companies
(Monaghan 2015). The results of the data analysis from the different data sources will be
manipulated and a conclusion will be reached regarding the different aspects that has to be
kept into consideration while implementing big data analytics. Additionally the other aspects
such as the advantages as well as the disadvantages will also be discussed and studied in the
research that will help the leader to overcome the threats as well as the risks of big data
analytics in the ecommerce business segment (Cheng and Phillips 2014). By the end of this
research, the ecommerce business leaders and the reader will be able to identify the different
aspects of implementing the big data operations in the business strategies. The mitigation
techniques to overcome those threats and risks will also be explained in the research through
which the reader will have a clear understanding of the possible risks and disadvantages of
big data operations (Moser and Kalton 2013). By then end of this study, the reader will be
able to understand the different aspects of big data analytics implementation in the
ecommerce industry and it will also help the futures researchers as well as the leaders and
managers of the organizations to make business decisions.

15CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS

16CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ADVANTAGES OF BIG DATA IN BUSINESS
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