SigmaWay Blog

Internet of Things is set to digitize the world, with sensory technology in devices, feeding real time data to the internet. It is projected to have economic impact of $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion by 2025.
Such impact requires favorable groundwork, like interoperability between IoT systems and data generated must be used to its maximum. There is large potential in developing countries; customers will capture most benefits with users in businesses and other organization with remote monitoring in healthcare etc. The digitization of machines is a revolutionary idea, and even shows promise at this infant stage. Capturing full potential will require innovation and investment.To know more: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/the_internet_of_things_the_value_of_digitizing_the_physical_world

Internet of things is projected to take the world by storm. Ben Rossi (author) talks about how IoT will affect simple devices from a wristwatch to a tractor, and process usage data in real time. This will improve marketing efficiency and speedup campaigns. Large volumes of data will imply linkages and collaborations between marketers, data analyst and IoT enablers. Troubleshooting will be a new experience, with solutions coming up in real time. Customer profiling will be more complete, as devices can now integrate user activity full time. This will provide insight into customer behavior and hence provide instant solutions based on preference patterns.
 To know more: http://www.information-age.com/it-management/strategy-and-innovation/123459628/4-key-internet-things-analytics-trends-marketing-pros

Let’s say you work for a publishing company deciding upon what New Release Newsletter to send to a particular customer. One simple way would be to just ask your customers as to what genre of books they would prefer to read- Preference Modeling-and the decide accordingly what newsletter to send to whom. Alternatively you can try to predict an individual’s buying propensity for a particular genre and send the newsletters accordingly – Cluster Modeling.
Which of the above should you chose to yield more accurate results?
A survey was conducted with a New York based publisher revealed that deciding which genre newsletter to send to whom based on Clusters had a 2-time better open rate, a 4-time better and 7-time higher click-through-rate, than those based on the consumer’s self-stated preference.
The conclusion: It is equally, if not more, important to observe what people do as compared to what they say.
Read more at: http://www.agilone.com/clustering-beats-preferences

Businesses have started to realize that understanding the social media is of prime importance. However they often make the mistake of not utilizing the social media in the proper way. It is not only necessary to provide the customers with the requisite information and the various goods and services but also it is important to listen and help the customers if the need arises. So learning and understanding everything about the customer is of utmost significance. It is crucial for every business to do something which the customers are eager about so that they would be able to share their incidents through various social media channels. This however helps the organization to earn trust and cooperation of the customers.

Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/how-social-media-is-the-key-to-customer-success-01258473

Industries are flooded with data and this data can be used to extract a lot of money if only we knew how to use it. With the rapid advancement of technology, we have high-speed networks and improved algorithms for analytics. Various industries including healthcare and financial services are basically resting on terabytes of valuable data and information. Six best methods for monetizing data are as follows:

1. Building up trust and neutrality among the customers.
2. Anonymization and aggregation of data is required.
3. To acquire permission of utilizing the data that is not owned by the company.
4. To consider spinning out the data monetization unit.
5. Provision of data analytics in real time.
6. Furnishing customers with self-service capabilities.

In order to know more about data monetization, please follow the link: http://www.cio.com/article/2941291/big-data/memo-to-cios-cash-in-on-that-data.html

Marketers are concerned about the social media programs that they undertake. It often gives the impression that they are plunging into social media but however they don't really get the desired results. The five steps which ensure that B2B social media program come apart in place are as follows:

•  To be familiar with the buyer's behavior by investing in a social listening platform will help to keep updated with the existing media activities.
• Creation of people's content would enable to build trust with prospects.
• Creating and sharing the brand content actively on various social media channels to grab buyer's attention.
• Capture prospects, customers and influencers to focus on establishment of relationships and not sales.
• Tracking and calculating social media progress in order to know that the company is in which stage with the social media.

Read more at: http://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/b2b-social-media-5-practices-for-doing-it-right/

It's technology on the rocks for whisky lovers. Diageo using new technology to improve its customer experience. They have created a label (read sensor) that will create smart bottles for their whisky. Laura Denham, International Events Director at Innovation enterprise, enlightens us with the smartness of smart bottles. 

• Well, it gives specific information about the whisky helping the customer to select their best fit.

• It helps detect any kind of tampering with the bottle. Fake products will be a history.

• These sensors can’t be cloned. 

• Help track the journey of the bottles and reduce supply chain wastage. 

For more, follow the link http://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/whiskey-the-internet-of-things

Security remains a chief inhibitor to enterprise adoption of cloud computing resources. The most significant risk in using the cloud is that sensitive data can be leaked. The macro trend is that more data is going to more end-user devices, which makes controlling the data more difficult and creating more vulnerabilities. With a data classification scheme, organizations can prioritize which data needs to be heavily secured.  David Canellos, President and CEO of Perspecsys, points out 7 cloud security mistake that can be avoided. What more you get 7 safety tips too. To know more follow the link http://cloudtweaks.com/2015/07/7-cloud-security-mistakes-bound-to-bite-you/

A company must protect itself from viral attacks and hackers. Such hackers have been in existence for as long as the internet has existed and they make a living out of stealing important business information by selling them in the market to the highest bidders online which can cause terrible damage to the reputation of company in question. The appropriate way to go about this is to install malware removal software’s on all the computers and also ensure protection of their private business and assets. Some other ways to ensure this protection are:

• Sufficient disaster recovery layouts: since virus and malwares on the computer can wipe away important data and ruin the business in seconds, efficient systems for disaster recovery should be in place so that information back up is restored at that very moment after the attack ensuring no loss is incurred. Professionals should be hired for such tasks.

• Effective virus protection should be installed since sensitive information about the business as well as of the employees once leaked can lead to several other problems and regular security checks should be done to ensure everything is updated and new viruses are detected instantly.

• It’s always necessary for the company to regulate the employee’s access to the computers so that information is not mishandled. Every employee must have his own work station and not mingle with others work which ensures no personal information exchange.

Such practices can definitely help the business data stay protected in the long run if followed properly.

Read more at: http://www.smartdatacollective.com/peterdavidson/320351/how-ensure-protection-critical-business-data

Cloud has changed the dynamics of data analytics. It is believed that in the coming five years, organizations will be spending more on cloud based big data and analytics solutions than on the on premise solutions. Dave Wang, senior product marketing manager at Databricks, lists down 5 major reasons why data analytics in cloud is becoming a top priority for organizations trying to build a competitive edge through analytics. To know which among them has an upper hand and why, follow the link http://insidebigdata.com/2015/05/08/5-reasons-data-analytics-in-the-cloud-will-take-center-stage-in-2015/

BYOD (bring your own device) refers to the policy of allowing employees to bring personally owned devices to workplace and access the company's information and application on it. This practice has made major inroads as it helps save cost and ensure productivity gains especially with the variety of devices like tables, smartphone, tabs, laptops etc. at the disposal of the employee. However, BYOD is fraught with security concerns. Such security breaches can outweigh the gains one expects from it. Keith Poyester in an article elaborates on the challenges with BYOD policy and suggests 8 best practices for BYOD security. To know more follow the link http://www.itproportal.com/2015/06/28/great-debate-to-byod-or-not-to-byod/

Big data analytics in healthcare industry, encompasses the whole transformation of data, beginning from the recording of the fundamental data to predicting diseases and alerting patients. Any health concern’s big data analytics capabilities fall into three major categories, descriptive, predictive and prescriptive. Descriptive analytics quantifies past events, like for example, the number of patients, who visited the hospital in the last month. It provides considerable insights into the data which can be later used to make predictions, regarding disease trends. Predictive analytics uses these descriptive data to predict the future, which often reduces unnecessary costs, related to controllable diseases, by making early detections. Finally prescriptive analytics provides suggestions on ways to mitigate the imminent threats, suggested by predictive analytics. Hence, an efficiently functioning data analytics infrastructure, incorporates all the three processes and is invaluable in the healthcare industry. Read more at:

http://healthitanalytics.com/news/healthcare-big-data-analytics-from-description-to-prescription

Sigmaway consultants have worked with clients in benefits solutions workspace providing analytics on healthcare plans. For more details visit http://www.sigmaway.us/

# Technologies like self-service and social media are important, if insurers need to communicate, face-to-face, with customers, since, it is the best form of transferring information, till date. People working on data insights need good communication skills to convey their findings to customers, who may not understand the technical language.
# Organizational collaboration is always important between two institutions if they are supposed to work together, so that they can share their technologies and focus on other business priorities, in harmony.
# As customers are generating more and more data, insurers are turning to analytics in order to interpret the data.
# With increasing data security breaches, insurers need skills to address the vulnerabilities and manage the situation in case of a security breach.
# Insurance technology professionals must be ready to embrace the evolving technology in order to survive the competition.
# Insurers need to think creatively of utilizing the multitude of technologies, available, in order to improve customer relations.
# Social media skills are required to build customer relations, as well as, create a brand image for the concern. 
Read more at:

http://www.insurancetech.com/management-strategies/7-tech-skills-for-insurance-pros-/d/d-id/1319170?image_number=2

Organizations are now facing a change in the way they get their business intelligence services. Initially it was the IT department that provided business intelligence services, with all powers vested upon them. With business intelligence tools becoming increasingly accessible and users having knowledge of data and processes, IT departments are no more the only source of business intelligence services making self-service business intelligence the next step. The market for self-service business intelligence analytics tools is growing pretty fast. With these tools, business users can access pooled data from various sources, leverage those and produce business insights. Self-service analytics comes with several advantages. With self-service business intelligence, data has lower turnaround times leading to increase in decision-making processes and productivity. Read more at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/the-drive-towards-self-service-business-intelligence

Media companies are taking advantage of advanced analytics and technology in order to increase their sales. Hence it allows advertisers to foresee what ROI they might anticipate from an investment in different channels and how this basically generates revenue. Advertisers are also interested about the exact efforts that they need to pursue to improve the results.

Daniel Kehrar (VP Marketing, MarketShare) in his article on Forbes indicated the five rationales which led media companies to move towards performance-based selling and they are as follows-                       

* Advertisers are under greater security.

* Brands are growing accustomed to analytics.

* The technology to accurately and cost-effectively predict advertiser outcomes is here.

* Advertisers want more.

* Better data and analysis brings greater credibility.

 For further details on this study, please follow the link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesinsights/2015/06/25/4-ways-analytics-are-helping-media-companies-sell-outcomes-over-eyeballs/

 The potential to go public and make millions with an Initial Public offer (IPO) is appealing to most entrepreneurs and sometimes seems the statement of success.  But IPOs are not as pretty as they seem. Planning and executing the IPO is a hectic task, it requires huge research and strategy, which is mostly outsourced to investment bankers who gives a rosy picture hiding some important information you should know.  After the IPO is floated you end up creating a lock up since those shares can’t be sold for a while. Also, not every company is suited for IPO, except those who have a simple business model and a clear cash flow strategy. There is a difference between great valuation and accurate valuation, overvalued stocks collapse as the markets gets smart unless they grow into their valuation. Read more at: http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2015/06/23/richie-hecker-understand-the-risks-of-going-public-before-you-ring-the-bell/

Healthcare is being revolutionized by the advent of big data. New gadgets and technologies are aiding this transition. A continuous stream of health related data promises us the concept of continuous healthcare. This data will enable us to study behavioral changes among patients and diagnose problems better and faster. Real time disease management is fast becoming a reality and it will be even possible to tend to patients in the early stages of their disorders and take steps accordingly. Real time monitoring of treatment efficacy will immensely help in post-operative care, drug therapy. It also holds the power to point out which patients merit additional intervention. Read more at:

http://www.dataversity.net/how-big-data-will-enable-continuous-healthcare/

The combination of new software technology, industrial data science and visualized information is acting as a game changer in the aviation industry. Analysts monitor flight data every second on the ground, for variations and immediately alert the pilot of any anomalies. Real-time data monitoring also helps in reducing fuel consumption apart from providing safety and security. Tim Leonard of southwest Airlines while talking to business insider said that the predictive analytics tools help prevent disasters they make pilots, mechanics, and employees more aware. It also helps provide frequent and precise data on current weather conditions leading to better scheduling and minimising delays. Read more at: http://www.businessinsider.in/Why-every-flight-you-take-is-obsessively-monitored/articleshow/47694902.cms

Data science techniques are becoming increasingly popular these days to improve business outcomes. Hadoop, already showcased the broader use of big data technologies and their impact on businesses. In this new age, the limits of machine learning are constantly being tested as innovators are trying new techniques that decrease human intervention as much as possible. Companies are ready to work with the data they have in Hadoop. Penetration of SQL on Hadoop has been a great help as they have created an environment that has made data accessible to downstream apps and learning algorithms. Machine intelligence is catching up in all spheres, data science is becoming a new trend with data scientists coming in demand. To know more, please follow:

http://www.dataversity.net/predictions-for-data-science-over-the-coming-years/

Corporates today provide many pro women services like day-care centres, six months-maternity leave, transportation services etc., in fact, sometimes companies hire same number of men and women at entry levels, but still the proportion of women workforce is on a decline. According to Economic Times, a recent report shows that women “invest” in their careers differently. After obtaining a job, the effort to take it further reduces. Post marriage, her career becomes home oriented as she has both work and home responsibilities. Apparently, women who work with same passion as men are tagged “non-family type”. They are not able to develop a rapport with their bosses as strong as men’s. So, retaining female employees depends entirely on herself, the family and the supervisor. Read more at: http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/et-commentary/why-indian-companies-are-losing-their-women-workforce/