Impact of Big Data on Innovation, Competitive Advantage, Productivity, and Decision Making: Literature Review

Advances in the field of technology enabled individuals and businesses to collect large amounts of data (structured and unstructured) from various sources like never before. Data from social media, user-generated, internet, health care, manufacturing, supply chain, financial institution, and sensors have grown exponentially. This paper’s objective is to review how big data drive and impact innovation, competitive advantage, productivity, and decision support. Methodology: A comprehensive literature review on big data and identifying the impact of big data analytics on innovation, competitive advantage, productivity, and decision support are studied. The reviewed literature created the foundation for studying, a model that was developed based on an extensive review of literature as well as case studies and future forecast by market leaders. Big data is the latest buzzword among businesses. A new model is suggested identifying big data and the correlation between innovation, competitive advantage, productivity, and decision support. Findings: A review of scholarly literature and existing case studies finds that there is a gap between existing frameworks and the integration of big data into various business and management functions and objectives. The findings are interesting that literature is rich with concepts and frameworks for achieving the end goal for business or management function along with framework but very little is available in the literature on the question of how to integrate big data analytics into those frameworks. This paper finds that a key question is missing i.e., what are the essential steps that businesses should perform to implement and integrate big data analytics into existing frameworks to fully exploit the big data potential. Research Limitations/Implications: The research was limited to a review of selective literature focused on in-depth understanding of big data. Additionally, it focuses on how big data leads to innovation, competitive advantage, productivity, and decision support. Although there are many other related fields of studies where big data impact can be studied but is not part of this study effort. Future studies can lead to more in-depth studies of other related areas of studies. Practical Implications: The review of the literature suggested that “Big Data” is playing an important role in innovations, creating competitive advantage, enhancing productivity, and assisting in data-driven decisions. Businesses are taking advantage of the customer insights that are innovating products and services which are very customer-centric, keeping the competition on the run, improving productivity at all levels, and making educated decisions every day. The future will be driven by smarter big data solutions and insights. Originality/Value: The study provides evidence that big data is the catalyst for innovation, creates competitive advantage, enhances productivity, and assists in decision making. The methodology is to review scholarly literature and case studies. It supports the need for developing new models, implementation frameworks for better insights, and patterns. The big data implementation methodologies, framework, and governance have been ignored in empirical research.