too many organizations don't quite grasp that being "big data-driven" requires more qualified human judgment than cloud-enabled machine learning.

Human judgement also comes with a caveat, the human's have to be knowledgable about the business at hand. So many times consultants come in and use terms like "big data" and "data modeling" with promises of transforming the business. Much more goes into transforming the business with data and that is the knowledge to take the findings and apply those findings into the CRM efforts to make an impact.

What works best is not a C-suite commitment to "bigger data," ambitious algorithms or sophisticated analytics. A commitment to a desired business outcome is the critical success factor.

The desired outcome is so important. Otherwise the result is usually not actionable, just informational.

Executives need to understand that big data is not about subordinating managerial decisions to automated algorithms but deciding what kinds of data should enhance or transform user experiences. Big Data should be neither servant nor master; properly managed, it becomes a new medium for shaping how people and their technologies interact.

Without taking the findings and enhancing decisions made by frontline staff or database marketing experts, the data is not actionable.