Travica, B. Customer in the Era of Big Data 1 Custoŵer iŶ the Era of Big Data: 3 Vs aŶd 3Ws Dr. Bob Travica btravica@ms.umanitoba.ca University of Manitoba Canada EAR18Italy Conference June 30-July 2, 2018 Abstract The manner in which leading companies model the customer today differs significantly from customer modeling in the past. The change is triggered by the emergence of Big Data – the data in large volumes, of various formats, and generated at high speeds. Owing to the expansion of e- commerce carried out by the globalizing Internet and mobile technologies, the customer has become global. This customer is signified by the online behavior that traverses the Internet search, movement in the cyber world and in the physical world, online shopping, and casual or purposive residing in social media places. Larger volumes of customer data are coupled with the need to deploy new data types beyond the traditional alpha-numeric format. As well, customer modeling is dynamic, continually evolving with continuous streams of relevant data. Advances in customer modeling are enabled ultimately by the technological progress manifested in a new breed of information systems for capturing, storing, and processing the various, voluminous and rapid data. This conceptual research report explores advances in the modeling of customers with Big Data. Implications of the Big Data-modeled customer for the managerial and professional decision making in terms of benefits and risks. Guidelines for risk management are proposed. KEYWORDS: Big data, e-commerce, global customer, decision making, risk, wisdom