The number of start-ups in retail technology is growing quickly and Retail Week is highlighting some of the best. This week, big data company Big Data For Humans is in the spotlight.

Big Data For Humans (bd4h) is a big data tool.

Big Data For Humans (bd4h) is a big data tool. Co-founder Peter Ellen and investor Jon Bradford, managing director of Techstars, tell us more.

Big Data for Humans

Founded: February 2014

Investment: $118k, partly from being a Techstar company and partly from a larger seed round

Investors: Jon Bradford, managing director of Techstars

Founders: Peter Ellen, Stephen Rose

Retail partners: Occa Home, Radical Travel, Holiday Autos

What it does:

Founder and chief executive Peter Ellen says: “The Customer Graph provides actionable customer centric insights, using complex big data science, but in a format that regular marketers find easy to adopt. Starting with a retailer’s transactional data, it creates a unique graph of its customers.

“Retailers use the graph to understand who their customers are, what they want, how much they are worth and how these things are constantly changing. The tool automatically identifies a series of opportunities as and when they occur. As a result marketing teams execute more effective marketing via email, desktop and mobile channels.”

Investor Jon Bradford says: “The Customer Graph from bd4h democratises big data for regular marketers so that they can put customers at the centre of their programs. Digital teams have become heavily reliant on advertising partners for their data and visitor insights. This is often at the expense of what makes their customer communities unique, valuable and different.

“The Customer Graph is a highly innovative and attractive solution to the problem which we predict will be used in the most innovative retail board rooms and marketing departments of the future.”

Why is it relevant to retailers?

Ellen says: “Retailers can add around a third to their revenue through customer offers but most digital marketers are deprived of customer centric ways to plan and execute campaigns. The alternatives involve either big, expensive tech projects or flawed ad-centric views that fail to leverage the power of customer centric marketing.

“The Customer Graph enables marketers to put the customer at the centre of their analysis so they can build multi-channel strategies. As result they have a fit for purpose way to manage customer’s relationships throughout the life-cycle that’s easy to use.” Bradford adds: “The guys have uncovered a great way to solve a complex and difficult problem which was previously the domain of large scale data plumbing and integrations projects.”

What problem for retailers does the technology solve?:

Ellen says: “The fox is running the hen house – many digital marketers are only have access to prospect, advertising and conversion data at the expense of customer focus and profit. The reason is often that ad-tech and ad-data are more ubiquitous, easier use and better integrated into digital marketing processes. This leads to a single pronged growth strategy – via advertising. The Customer Graph addresses this issue by providing an easy tool to drive marketing from the customer perspective outwards, initially focusing on what people buy then enriching their community profiles. The result is more profitable marketing at every step.”

More information:

bigdataforhumans.com