Nowadays, a new generation of toys has features that include realistic responses to children’s questions. By using big data/machine learning inspired approaches (e.g. advanced analytics, natural language processing), talking toys are able to capture what the child says and respond accordingly. In order to make this possible, these toys have to record the responses of the child, send it to a cloud-based server and receive instructions back. While Mattel (e.g. leader in the global toy industry) claims that these recordings are primarily owned by the company, there is an increasing risk of privacy violations. How about the other partners that work together with Mattel to make this possible?

The toy industry is different from other industries. First, there is a lot of uncertainty around the success of new products. Therefore, it is almost impossible to predict whether a particular toy would be liked by children. Second, as toy sales are seasonal, most of the toy companies try to sales their toys in the third and last quarter of the year. Third, manufacturing is often outsourced to low cost environments which makes it difficult to control quality. Consecutively, the short life cycle of toys drives the need for innovation, research and aggressive marketing campaigns. However, should toy manufacturers be able to use the input from talking toys for their marketing campaigns?

From my point of view, parents have to be cautious of buying talking Interned-connected toys. Talking toys are constantly in listening mode, meaning that data can be easily spread and illegally accessed by individuals with other intentions. To prevent unauthorized recording of a child’s conversation, toy manufacturers have to grant consumers the option to turn off continuous listening. Also, sensitive information stored in the database at Mattel needs to be deleted and not be made accessible to other third parties that can use it for marketing purposes. To conclude, I believe that the government has to set up data privacy rules for the toy industry to secure sensitive data from children.

What do you think about Big Data in the toy industry? Should parents become more cautious with regard to buying talking toys for their children?

Share your opinion!

Sources:

• Bartlett, C. A., Ghoshal, S., & Beamish, P. W. (2008). Transnational management: Mattel and the toy recalls (5th ed). Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin

• Big Data and Children. (2018). Retrieved from: https://www.kdnuggets.com/2016/03/nurture-big-data-children.html

• Clarck, B. (2015). Here’s why privacy experts are concerned about Mattel’s new Hello Barbie.Retrieved from: https://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/11/28/are-connected-toys-just-a-ruse-to-gather-marketing-data/

• Millar, S.A., Marshall, T.P., & N.A. Cardon. (2017). The Toy Association Privacy & Data Security: New Possibilities and Perils Retrieved from: https://www.toyassociation.org/App_Themes/toyassociation_resp/downloads/research/whitepapers/white-paper-data-privacy.pdf

We often hear about Big Data when talking about the big giants in the online retail world. But not every small business has the resources of an enterprise-level corporation. Nowadays, it is often argued that businesses that do not invest in Big Data technologies risk getting left behind as the marketplace becomes more and more data-driven. The question arises whether there is value for big data in small businesses. In other words: How can small businesses derive value from their data?

What about Big Data?

Big Data can be defined as huge data that may be analysed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behaviour and interactions. Almost every business that has been operating for more than a year has likely Big Data in their business records. Considering a small online business, it will involve collecting, storing, and processing valuable data (e.g. customer data, visitor data, product data) to optimize offers, customers processes and predictions that will favour the online business.

How to start?

To gather valuable customer insights, small businesses have to look at their older data resources. Not all of these archives might be available digital format, but non-digital formats are also needed. Furthermore, a business needs to decide on the benefits they would like to achieve with Big Data. For instance, do you want to gather valuable customer insights or rather save time and improve employee performance.

In order to act on data-derived insights, small businesses need to define the problem they would like to resolve. It has to be noted that small businesses are required to look at some smaller complications and focus on specific problems rather than general problems. Following their specific problems, small businesses should decide on the needed features of their Big Data self-service tools. Features may include data visualization, integration of data sources, dashboards or support for collaboration. By utilizing Big Data tools, with the features needed, small businesses can gain competitive advantage in the fast-paced modern market.

Advantages for everyone?

The advantage of small business’ agility enables them to act rapidly and efficiently on new data-derived insights, which is not always the case for the big businesses. Besides this size advantage, Big data driven tools are becoming more affordable and available than before. Being small is no longer limitation to obtain market and business intelligence. As Big Data becomes accessible to everyone, I do believe that the maturity phase of a business has to be taken into consideration. If a small online business size retailer just has hundred visitors a day, personalized offering as result of Big Data tools will not result in a considerable increase in turnover. Small businesses have to be realistic and search for specific tools that will help them to become big.