Sister investing in restaurant – big data benefits

I was someone who believed in big data, but it has never quite hit me quite as hard as it did when my sister of all people (who I am not especially close with) decided that she wanted my market experience in relates to customer analytics for restaurants.



Before we had hard data, it would mean that we rely on the data that you can gather from monitoring a specific location. Nowadays you use social media responses and even get hard information like physical addresses, e-mail addresses, and names from a loyalty program.



She came up with three different locations and while one of them certainly looked cute (it really did, it had an awesome look to it) it just did not have the data necessary to actual warrant the investment. Could that place have become a great success? Sure, people may be willing to travel to get to a specific location.



However, that does not mean that it would have been. She is now current renovating the place (and sinking thousands of dollars into it) that I recommended and I hope that I will provide an update in six months to a year that will highlight the success that big data had for her. Anyone else have big data or customer analytics story to share?