Extracting value from ‘not so big’ data in the context of small business

According to the book ‘Data Science for Business’ by Provost and Fawcett (2013), in a competitive environment where companies are constantly looking to gain a marginal competitive edge over competitors, using big data is associated with additional productivity (and maybe profit?)

It was interesting to read that when confounding factors are controlled, using big data technology contributes to additional productivity in growth for firms (pg8). The paper by Tambe indicates that one standard deviation higher utilization of big data can contribute to 1% to 3% greater productivity compared to the average firm. In other words, a firm that uses data-driven decision making on a regular basis may indeed obtain that elusive competitive advantage. The same study also found that the opposite holds true where one less standard deviation in terms of big data utilization gives rise to 1% to a 3% reduction in overall productivity.

I think it will be interesting to determine if this competitive advantage could benefit small business.