Dealing with “Big Data” is a challenge for many marketers, but its rise in importance is pushing more and more to use it. According to research from IBM and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, the main objective for companies worldwide is to use the data to achieve customer-centric outcomes.

Nearly half of IT and business professionals reported that as their primary goal for Big Data this year. That was more than twice the number who cited operational optimization, with other objectives even farther behind.

via Companies Focus on Customers When Harnessing ‘Big Data’ – eMarketer.