Today’s information society is consisting of people, businesses and machinesthat together generate large amounts of data every day. This exponatial growthof datageneration has led to the creation of what we call Big Data. Amongother things the data produced, gathered and stored can be used bycompanies to practise knowledge based business development. Traditionallythe methods used for generating knowledge about a business environment andmarket has been timeconsuming and expensive and often conducted by aspecialized research company that carry out market research and surveys.Today the analysis of existing data sets is becoming increasingly valuable, andthe research companies have a great opportunity to mine value from societyshuge amounts of data. The study is designed as an exploratory case study that investigates how theresearch companies in Sweden work with these data sets, and identifies someof the challenges they face in the application of Big Data analysis in theirbusiness. The results shows that the participating research companies areusing Big Data tools to steamline existing business processes and to someextent use it as a complementary value to traditional research and surveys.Although they see possibilities with the technology, the participatingcompanies are unwilling to drive the development of new business processesthat are supported by Big Data analysis. There is a challenge identified in thelack of competence prevailing in the Swedish market. The result also coverssome of the ethical aspects research companies need to take intoconsideration. The ethical issues are especially problematic when data, thatcan be linked to an individual, is processed and analysed in real time.