Abstract:

There is a shortage of case studies to support the teaching of Big Data Analytics, particularly in the area of business applications to SMEs to achieve competitive advantage. The literature indicates there is lack of adoption to Big Data Analytics in SMEs citing insufficient case studies success, expertise, and financial cost as barriers to adoption. The paper outlines the application of a proposed holistic Big Data Analytics framework for UK SMEs to a case study for the purpose of demonstrating how a business can overcome the barriers to adoption. SMEs comprise 99% of all businesses in the UK (6 million), employ 61% of the country’s workforce and generates over half of the turnover of the UK’s private sector (£2.2 trillion) assisting them to gain competitive advantage by the adoption of technology is important. SMEs represent 99% of all businesses in Europe and 90% of all businesses worldwide. The paper presents Big Data Analytics tool based on the proposed holistic framework and shows how a small business using web technology in recruitment software marketing can adopt Social Media Analytics. The paper presents the scores of the framework tool across three stages of the business development: pre-Business Intelligence, Business Intelligence and Big Data Analytics. The second and third stages of the case study show how measurable improvements are gained and how the company can benchmark itself against competitors together with an indication of the software selection either using free (trial) or commercial software, expertise, and the financial costs of the respective stages. The application of Big Data Analytics tool is transferrable to other SME sectors such as manufacturing, logistics and service industry. The development of this case study provides an approach which could be utilised by other educators to develop their own case studies to support teaching.

Keywords:

Big Data Analytics, Case Study, SMEs, Competitive Advantage, Social Media Analytics.