Big Data Opportunities, Limitations, Data Mining for Carrefour UAE

This report critically evaluates the marketing opportunities and limitations of big data, focusing on the Carrefour UAE case study, specifically examining organic food and electronics sectors. It analyzes the potential of big data to understand customer preferences and identify new marketing strategies, while also addressing the limitations such as biased data and the complexity of interpreting results. The report explores the value of big data in gathering customer insights and its necessity in data mining for both the organic food and electronics markets within Carrefour. It also discusses the need for data mining to analyze market demands, evaluate the organization's market position, and suggests changes to data mining applications to improve user comprehension and efficiency. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of data mining in optimizing marketing strategies and enhancing customer relationships.

Running head: BIG DATA OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS
Big Data Opportunities and Limitations
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1BIG DATA OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS
Table of Contents
Big Data Opportunities and Limitations..........................................................................................2
Critical evaluation of the marketing opportunities created by big data.......................................2
Critical analysis of the limitations of big data and its associated technologies...........................2
Evaluation of the marketing value of big data.............................................................................3
The Need for Data Mining...............................................................................................................4
Summary of the details of the selected situations and their respective industries.......................4
Why and how data mining is a necessity in both of the selected situations................................5
Evaluation of the value created from data mining in both of the selected situations..................6
Changes to the data mining applications used by an organization..............................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

2BIG DATA OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS
Big Data Opportunities and Limitations
Critical evaluation of the marketing opportunities created by big data
Big Data has been the latest implemented technology that has changed the opportunity of
marketing and sales ever since internet has rendered as mainstream in the contemporary times.
Big Data has been a huge collection of a humongous amount of data sets, which analyzes the
data sets to figure out different identified patterns in them. These help in monitor a huge range of
digital streams including the marketplaces.
Taken for an example, the case study under observation, that is the organization
Carrefour in UAE and its two branches for organic food and electronic devices have been
heavily benefitted with the use of Big Data analytics (George, Haas and Pentland 2014). The
application of big data in these divisions helps the organization to make use of the data to figure
out the information about the customer’s choices and also helps in the discovery of new ways
and opportunities to offer the customers with highly-valued products and services. These create
an opportunity where the organization can implement different strategies by figuring out the
public interests and demands.
Critical analysis of the limitations of big data and its associated technologies
When the functions of the technologies of the big data marketing analysis is critically
analyzed, it is found that there are several limitations to the system when implemented on the
organic food and electronic devices for the organization of Carrefour. The limitations can be
listed in details as below:

3BIG DATA OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS
 Fundamentally biased nature: Mostly it has been found that the individuals who
have visited the site for Carrefour have access to the user-level data presented by
the big data analysis. However, this is not the actual target base of consumers but
only the people who have clicked on the site. This marks as an irrelevant analysis
for the organization.
 Unavailability to publish user-level results: The big data analysis often posts
the results in a restricted visualization form, mostly through flow diagrams. These
flow diagrams can often be incomprehensive to the entire workforce of Carrefour,
except for domain experts. The results thus become restricted to access by a
layman regarding expertise in the domain field.
 User data do not produce learning: Big data has been found to produce 20
percent of the overall conversion rates. That is, if the Carrefour applies big data to
personalize the organic foods and electronics section of the organization, big data
would be able to produce cohesive conversion rates by 20 percent of the entire
system (Goes 2014). This raises the standards of marketing but does little help to
aid to the marketers in charge of the analysis.
Evaluation of the marketing value of big data
Although there are possible limitations in big data analysis front for the organization of
Carrefour regarding the organic food and electronics, the advantages that this technology holds
generates much value to the organization as a whole (Fulgoni 2013). This is because; gathering
information about the customer base who might be interested in these sectors in Carrefour is a
much needed expertise. Big data analysis have been able to make the organization understand

4BIG DATA OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS
that there have been a huge demand for electronics in UAE but compared to it, the customer base
for organic food is quite less. This valuable information is produced by the implementation of
big data analysis, and therefore, it is essential that Carrefour continues to use big data analysis as
a part of the company’s business strategy.
The Need for Data Mining
Summary of the details of the selected situations and their respective industries
Organic Food: Organic food sector has always seen an upward trajectory in the western
countries like USA, and recently it has seen the same fate in the market of UAE as well. In spite
of following a strict government regulation, UAE has expanded their shelf spaces for more
organic products in retail industry, with Carrefour following suit.
Figure 1: Market Base of Organic Food in UAE

5BIG DATA OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS
(Source: Globalorganictrade.com, 2018)
Electronics: The market of UAE in electronics has been one of the most influential in the
world. Even in the last few years the consumer market for UAE has grown to 7.7 percent to 14
billion Dh. Taking the advantage of this, Carrefour has implemented the idea of retailing
electronics in the organization, which has ever since grown exponentially.
Figure 2: Market Base of Electronics in UAE
(Source: Emerging-markets-research.hktdc.com, 2018)
Why and how data mining is a necessity in both of the selected situations
In both the situations, that is, organic food and electronics, data mining is extremely
necessary to implement for the organization of Carrefour. This is because; the modern UAE
market needs to be analyzed to determine the market demands for both the selected situations

6BIG DATA OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS
(Davenport 2014). Where electronics have already created a huge consumer base, organic foods
have been slowly gathering the market. In both cases Carrefour needs to figure out the exact
customer reactions for the sections to strategize their next step in approaching their customers
and gathering more potential customer base.
Evaluation of the value created from data mining in both of the selected situations
In both the cases, data mining helps the organization of Carrefour to figure out the exact
market situation about the selected items, which helps in analyzing the organization’s place in
the market in comparison with their competitors (Anthes 2015). Where electronics have already
created a huge consumer base, organic foods have been slowly gathering the market. Since,
thriving in the market with proper and potential customer base is the basic requirement of any
organization, data mining adds tremendous value to the organization for both the situations.
Changes to the data mining applications used by an organization
In case of both present and future use, data mining can attain a change in the market of
UAE by presenting the results much cohesively as per user-level so that it becomes easy for
understanding in all levels of the organization (Peppers and Rogers 2016). This would further
help in saving time for analyses in future and in the present time as well, since the domain
experts would not have to be involved in every level for understanding the complicated flow
diagrams for the results.

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References
Anthes, G., (2015) Data brokers are watching you. Communications of the ACM.58(1) pp.28-30.
Davenport, T. H., (2014) How strategists use “big data” to support internal business decisions,
discovery and production.Strategy & Leadership.42(4) pp.45-50.
Emerging-markets-research.hktdc.com. (2018). United Arab Emirates: Market Profile | HKTDC.
[online] Available at: http://emerging-markets-research.hktdc.com/business-news/article/Middle-
East/United-Arab-Emirates-Market-Profile/mp/en/1/1X000000/1X003IOU.htm [Accessed 17
Jul. 2018].
Fulgoni, G., (2013) Big data: friend or foe of digital advertising? Five ways marketers should use
digital big data to their advantage.Journal of Advertising Research.53(4) pp.372-376.
George, G., Haas, M. R. and Pentland, A., (2014) Big data and management. Academy of
Management Journal.57(2) pp.321-326.
Globalorganictrade.com. (2018). United Arab Emirates | Global Organic Trade Guide. [online]
Available at: https://globalorganictrade.com/country/united-arab-emirates [Accessed 17 Jul.
2018].
Goes, P. B., (2014) Big data and IS research. MIS Quarterly. 38(3) pp.iii-viii.
Peppers, D. and Rogers, M., (2016) Managing Customer Experience and Relationships: A
Strategic Framework. Hoboken: Wiley.