The Long Game ~ Technological Innovation and the Transformation of Business Performance

This paper brings a new perspective to knowledge by focusing on the application and exploitation of Big Data in two UK companies providing respectively online and branch retail services. The companies innovatively exploited their data to respond to challenges facing their operations to transform their profitability and productivity. The findings from both case study examples show that benefits come from someone thinking about and exploiting the potential benefits of ITC, not simply adopting it. The conclusions are that delayed emergence of 'universal benefits' of technological innovation is natural, once the hype cycle has been completed and the revolution has subsided. The paper demonstrates that there is opportunity to create sustainable competitive advantage through the application of big data although the social, technological and human consequences and implications for managing in such organisations are only now beginning to emerge. These implications need to be addressed if true long-term advantage is to be achieved across in businesses.