Until recently, big-data campaigns were limited only to major enterprises with the resources to warehouse, sort and utilize mountains of data too vast for smaller operations to handle.
But recent developments have witnessed a major push to market big-data technology to small and mid-size businesses.
Has Big Data Gone Mainstream?
Forbes recently cited a study showing that although 70 percent of major enterprises have already deployed big-data campaigns - or at least have them in the works - only 56 percent of small businesses have done the same.
But that's a big "only".
If Forbes is right, 2014 is the first year that more than half of America's small businesses will have joined the big-data bandwagon.
Scalability: Marketing Big Data to Small Businesses
One analyst suggests that for small businesses, big data should only be as big as any particular business needs it to be.
For smaller businesses, the focus should be on relevant data.
Small, local operations don't necessarily need to focus on size ("For Mary's dress shop, it doesn't matter if its 2.4 quintillion bytes of data," as one expert put it). But they can harness the principles of big data to identify the information that can improve customer service and business operations.
Realities of Big Data and Small Business
As the following article shows, a recent analysis urged businesses to “Stay focused on the big data bottom line.”
It points out that businesses can't afford get "wrapped up in the hype", but instead should focus on the value that big data could provide - if any. The author focused on the biggest - or at least the most well-known and best-hyped - name in big data technology:, Apache's open-source framework.
The Wall Street Journal recently detailed the uncertainty felt by many CIOs who recognize the potential in the big data movement, but simply don't understand platforms like Hadoop.
Yet they continue to dump money into IT budgets dedicated to breaking the code of big data.
CIOs at large enterprises have the luxury of the resources to pay for uncertain pursuits. Small businesses do not.
Big data is no longer only for big business.
But just because big data is being marketed on a much smaller scale doesn't mean that every modest-sized operation will benefit from pouring capital into technologies from which they can't necessarily benefit.