02 November 2012 6:45am

In the wake of the global financial crisis "big data" has become a crucial marketing message for National Australia Bank.

Speaking at Cebit’s Big Data conference in Sydney yesterday, the bank’s head of analytics and research operations, Antony Ugoni, said that such was the sway that big data held within the bank that "the ExCo [executive committee] member that we report to is talking about the possibility of the chief technology officer reporting to the chief marketing officer."

"No (marketing) decision is taken without deferring to us for some form of analytics," said Ugoni....