Implementing Big Data Analytics in Marketing Departments: Mixing Organic and Administered Approaches to Increase Data-Driven Decision Making

Abstract

This study examines the experience of marketing departments to become fully data-driven decision-making organizations. We evaluate an organic approach of departmental sensemaking and an administered approach by which top management increase the influence of analytics skilled employees. Data collection commenced with 15 depth interviews of marketing and analytics professionals in the US and Europe involved in the implementation of big data analytics (BDA) and was followed by a survey data of 298 marketing and analytics middle management professionals at United States based firms. The survey data supports the logic that BDA sensemaking is initiated by top management and is comprised of four primary activities: external knowledge acquisition, improving digitized data quality, big data analytics experimentation and big data analytics information dissemination. Top management drives progress toward data-driven decision-making by facilitating sensemaking and by increasing the influence of BDA skilled employees. This study suggests that while a shift toward enterprise analytics increases the quality of resource available to the marketing department, this approach could stymie the quality of marketing insights gained from BDA. This study presents a model of how to improve the quality of marketing insights and improve data-driven decision-making.