[lvoudour]

I don't know how big those companies are, but they may qualify for big data if they have millions of users or enormous datasets to analyze. The question is, what's the advantage compared to other methods? Is being "left behind" a valid concern for the company's business or is it just a teenager's version of "left behind"?

[gaius]

The fundamental problem of Big Data is that the low hanging fruit has already been picked. Geezers (in a non gender specific sense) with 30 years in industry X have already either intuited it, or it has been uncovered by traditional KDD techniques. What do Big Data, Machine Learning or Data Science have to offer there? The remaining fruit may be very high indeed, and not economically pickable anyway...