Big data has the potential to transform business decision-making. It can help organizations optimize operational processes, make better decisions and uncover new growth opportunities. But businesses will only realize the full potential of big data if they use it to address specific business problems and goals. Here are five areas in which big data is increasingly influencing business decisions and strategies:

The first challenge with big data is the volume of data. The structured databases that stored most corporate information until recently are ill-suited to handling the massive amounts of data generated by modern applications and Internet of Things devices. Fortunately, the cost of storage, memory, processing power and bandwidth are falling rapidly, making it possible to store, process and analyze huge volumes of data for relatively low costs.

Businesses must also prioritize speed. In order to be useful, big data must be able to be received and processed quickly. This means leveraging platforms that support rapid integration and establishing effective workflows for receiving, processing and analyzing data.

Finally, businesses must address ethical and security concerns. The vast amount of sensitive personal data that big data can generate demands policies for protecting it and addressing privacy issues.

Companies can gain valuable insights into customer needs by analyzing the vast amounts of data generated by online activity and other sources of information. This enables them to tailor products and services, improve promotions and target advertising, and increase overall customer satisfaction. It can also help companies anticipate demand, manage inventory and reduce production and shipping costs.

Using the data that big data provides, enterprises can optimize business operations by identifying inefficiencies and bottlenecks across multiple departments. For example, analyzing supply chain data can help companies identify and reduce costs through improved efficiency, better quality and reduced delivery times. It can also help companies reduce risks and avoid fraud by enabling them to predict and detect patterns of unusual activity.

Big data also enables companies to make better financial decisions by identifying cost savings and maximizing return on investment through advanced analytics. It can also help them determine the best way to allocate resources to different projects by identifying potential revenue and cost drivers for each.

The big-data-fueled insights that businesses can obtain from their data can provide the visibility they need to make smarter decisions about their investments, their growth strategy and even their business model. But the key to success is not in the size of the data sets, or the velocity at which they are produced, but in how effectively they are analyzed to surface meaningful insights.

In the end, though, it takes a combination of human insight and vision to spot great opportunities, understand how a market is developing, think creatively and propose truly novel offerings, articulate a compelling vision and persuade people to embrace it and work hard toward it, deal effectively with customers, employees, stockholders and others, and achieve lasting success. Ultimately, success in the big-data era will depend on whether a company’s leaders can use it to address all of these challenges and more.