SigmaWay Blog

Big data developments in 2015 show significant change in terms of data storing as well as data analyzing techniques. Measuring data agility is becoming more and more popular, as opposed to the conventional system of storage and management of data resources. The investment and scope of big data projects will be directly related to the impact and of an organization's response to changing trends among consumers, markets and competition. Another big trend organizations will focus on in 2015 is usage of data lakes. Using data lakes, Hadoop and BI systems and cloud computing, real time data analysis and decision making is expected to be fast. So the dynamic change in technology will bring revolution in terms of business decision making. Read more at: http://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/advancements-in-big-data-in-2015 

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most hot and debated issues in context of Big Data Analytics. It provides huge and enormous volume of data and reduces the cost of obtaining data significantly. It is estimated that within the next five years there will be more than 50 trillion gigabytes of data. The huge volume of data may provide valuable insights into the market and may be useful for development of technology related to business expansion. Sometimes it may be a challenge to handle such large volume of data and extract useful information out of it. But with rapid progression in technology, analyzing such data is becoming less difficult, and it importance in modern business practices is rising exponentially.  Read more about this article at: http://www.content-loop.com/search-true-value-internet-things/

Mobile applications are an integral and inseparable part of modern data analytics. Mobile applications not only influences consumer`s decision to make purchases, but also allows companies to get insights into consumption pattern and market demand. Enterprises seek immediate-data from a wide range of sources, to fuel business processes by means of big data and analytics and this is provided by different types of mobile applications. It plays an important role, particularly in the field of global supply chain management and predictive analytics. On the other hand mobile applications are also being fuelled by data analytics, so that it cannot only collect the data but also analyze it and process it simultaneously to provide instantaneous results in real time. Read more about this article at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/benkerschberg/2014/12/17/how-big-data-business-intelligence-and-analytics-are-fueling-mobile-application-development/ 

With significant increase in online sales and more customers opting to purchase through mobile devices, high street retailers are facing difficult times. No wonder it is time to elevate shopping experience to a whole new level. Though Retails Analytics is not a new concept, the approach faces challenges in brick-and-mortar stores. Investing in real-time Wi-Fi analytics, where modern in-store analytics technologies can integrate with existing in-store Wi-Fi infrastructure to capture precise and real-time customer behaviour in stores, can be a solution. Creating an inclusive shopping experience that effectively combines the online and offline experience is the need of the hour. Read More at: http://www.fourthsource.com/mobile/future-analytics-retail-19148

The Internet of Things has the ability to benefit the healthcare sector vastly in the future. With EHR clinical analytics and sophisticated machine learning combining with big data from wearable, home monitors, medical devices, the Internet of Things has a huge potential for creating a productive environment of predictive analytics and prescriptive insights. Yet the concept is met not without challenges. In order to successfully reap the benefits, Jennifer Bresnick suggests development of certain core competencies, like "Developing the Mindset", "Building the health IT infrastructure" and others. Read More at: http://healthitanalytics.com/news/five-core-competencies-for-the-healthcare-internet-of-things

Yes, a $10 supercomputer swept Wall Street away. Braxton McKee, math and computer whiz, is tapping into the cloud to fetch all that market data inexpensively and built a software that employs Machine Learning algorithms to understand this data. Thanks to Cloud Computing and Big Data analytics getting cheaper, many startups and businesses can now employ their functionalities to provide services that are efficient, fast and scalable. The large amounts of data is mostly unstructured data, such as corporate documents, transcripts and social media and with the rise of Cloud Computing, the process is finally cost effective. Entities have begun leveraging cloud power to help hedge funds and other financial players run complex, big-data computer models. Maybe Cloud based Big Data analytics is the future. Read more at: http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/10-hedge-fund-supercomputer-sweeps-wall-street-with-power-from-the-cloud-20150521-gh68hx.html

For start-ups and SMEs, Open Source (OS) software will be the most attractive option because it’s free and also there is no vendor lock in. So there are no contracts to break. The biggest advantage of OS software is that is gives us the option of operating, sharing, and modifying the software as we choose. Collaborators are able to access the software from around the world to share ideas and add features that could improve it. Its drawbacks involves low costs, which gets further complicated by a lack of support with OS software. Lyndsay notes four questions that needs to be answered in Wise’s book, Using Open Source Platforms for Business Intelligence: Avoid Pitfalls and Maximize ROI. Read more about this article at: http://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/is-open-source-analytics-software-the-right-option 

Big Data Analytics has started to make significant strides in less explored areas like improving manufacturing performance. No wonder the theme of ARC European Forum, 2015 was intended to help develop some clarity over emerging related concepts such as Industrie 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Several use cases about how "applying these concepts can deliver tangible benefits in real-world industrial production across a broad cross-section of industrial sectors" were presented. Read More at: http://www.automationworld.com/industrial-internet-things/big-data-analytics-improve-manufacturing-performance

Predictive marketing has taken hold of enterprises today. Marketers are now making use of predictive analytics and this has given birth to predictive marketing. Predictive marketing is the application of algorithms and machine learning tools to Big Data in order to help marketers direct their efforts in the most profitable direction. Using predictive analytics tools, marketers can gauge future sales and thus formulate appropriate marketing strategies to help boost sales. Predictive analytics can be used for segmenting customers, deciphering the pattern in their behavior and thus offering them the appropriate deals. Marketing and sales are the areas where predictive analytics is most used. Read more at: http://www.cio.com/article/2934274/why-marketers-are-betting-big-on-predictive-analytics.html

Predictive Analytics is making its entry into the toolbox of small companies. Predictive Analysis is a three-part formula- analysis of past performance of situation under consideration, understanding the present and applying the past to present to predict the future. For small businesses, it can be applied for customer retention, target marketing, demand forecasting, and overall marketing. However, it is crucial to ascertain the purpose for using Predictive Analysis, as the technology may not necessarily be right for every company or for every situation in the small business sector. Read more at: http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/News/Marketing/can-predictive-analytics-help-your-small-business.html

The role of risk management has become more pronounced than before and companies are resorting to predictive analytics along with business insights to visualize and manage risk. Predictive analytics has gained immense popularity in the area of risk management due to its ability to identify and predict vulnerabilities, fraud, security breaches and the quality of control systems and governance, as pointed out by Rita Sallam, a research Vice President and analyst. Several firms are utilizing the advanced techniques for data extraction to manage risks. Post data gathering and visualization, firms are able to identify risks and mitigate them. Firms engaging in risk modelling produce impressive returns. Read more at: http://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/risk-visualisation-and-predictive-analytics-in-risk-management

The only possible way to ensure public safety and act against the financial ruin or loss of the company's reputation is to know how and when to respond. The timing of a crisis cannot be predicted with certainty but crisis management plays a crucial role to ensure that the company stands in the wake of an unexpected and unfortunate mishap.

Steps to be followed for management of crisis are :

• Messaging is a fickle art - A humble dosage of humanity and being transparent is the best policy. It is important to provide the information about the issue to the public in a polite manner.
• Restoring and rebuilding your reputation through media - Working with the media is the best way for restoring people's trust.

For further details on crisis management, please follow the link :

http://www.business2community.com/crisis-management/need-crisis-management-01239230 

Inspite of the fact that Big Data analytics is found everywhere, the willingness of the firms to invest and to act on analytics insight is extremely slow. This is decision latency, where the companies have all the required data and knowledge but lacks the speed to make decisions on major issues. In today's world, data becomes less relevant with each passing minute. Traditional analytics tools face challenges in handling this data because they are designed to store and process the data but not to analyze this data from moment to moment. Three capabilities crucial for event processing systems to deliver ROI, are as follows :

1. High availability
2. User empowerment
3.  Empowerment of developers in order to built better distributed system with custom UIs (User Interface).

Read more at http://www.tibco.com/blog/2015/06/09/decision-latency-solving-the-big-data-analytics-oversight/

In modern world, there has been an increase in communication channels and hence this customer-centric era presents both challenges and opportunities for businesses. Companies must have the skill to connect to the data sources relating to customer experience. Hence, nowadays the big data challenge has gained more importance. In case of customer experience management, the data needs to be combined with unstructured customer feedback data and this is important in order to have a complete picture of customer experience. Data governance plays a crucial role here. One big challenge of customer data is that they don't know which data is more relevant in the first place. Data governance creates the base for the common understanding of the customer across the business.

To read more about customer data governance, please follow the link :

http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/Data-Matters/2015/05/the-growing-importance-of-data-governance.html

Everybody wants their workplace to be a place where they can enjoy themselves and not a place which is boring, where nobody enjoys their work and where everyone pays attention only to their respective work. As a result of conflicts between business owners which is difficult to resolve, many workers find themselves working in such environments. However according to many business owners the best way to encourage productivity is to avoid fun at work. There are few strategies which an organization can use not only to raise productivity but also to inject a light atmosphere in the office environment.

• Organic Challenges
• Encourage Breaks
• Socialize Offsite
• Celebrate Achievements
• Focus on productivity, not schedule.

For further reading on this topic, please follow the link :

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246981

Human intelligence is found in every organization. It is difficult to derive meaningful information from unstructured data and hence it's a big mistake not to use it in decision making.  Content Intelligence is the combination of technology and information science which allows machines to model, interpret, analyze and visualize human intelligence within an organization. It is used to generate new revenue streams, gain operational efficiencies, increase customer satisfaction, rise in productivity and avoiding costly networks. The rising pressure on enterprises increases costs and riskiness when content intelligence isn't available. It makes unstructured information self-describing and hence allows content-based information to be described in a similar way as structured data.For further details on content intelligence, please follow the link :  http://www.dataversity.net/what-is-content-intelligence/

As cybercriminals are trying to penetrate into each and every system, leading to huge losses, some steps that can protect an enterprise from cyberattacks are: 1. It is important to enable full disk encryption technology, so that all data on the storage drives are scrambled, which makes it impossible to restore the original data, when in wrong hands.
2. However, a concern dealing with sensitive data can maintain a separate encrypted file volume for its most sensitive files, by installing it before the first usage.
3. It is preferable to use hardware-based encrypted USB flash drives for data transfer, which provides seamless encryption of data, as it gets copied onto the drive.
4. A private cloud hosted on a network-attached storage device can be maintained for data synchronization among privately-owned devices.
5. It is always preferable to use password managers in systems.
6. Multifactor authentication should be enabled, which requires an additional information for final authentication, like maybe a pin code sent via text message.
7. It is important to have some backup account (say email id) registered to get information of any password reset, which may happen in a cyber-hijack.
Read more at:http://www.cio.com/article/2933183/cybercrime/7-steps-to-protect-your-business-from-cybercrime.html

In modern times, business leaders learned from the industry influencers the skill of how the organizations are hiring a modern HR to transform their enterprises.

The ideas below discuss how today's managers are including emerging technologies to employ the best talent, thereby keeping their workforce active and efficient

1. HR still faces the same challenges as before: recruitment of best talent, onboard recruitment and development of employees. However modern technologies solve these age-old HR challenges.

2. The next best thing is how modern HR adds value.                                                                                                                                               

 3. HR should view the data through the lens of a scientist.

4. Better segmentation of the population and understanding the behavior of each group.        

5. Empowering people to come up with ideas  that work for them as leaders in their lives.

Read more at :   https://blogs.oracle.com/OracleHCM/entry/five_ideas_human_capital_management                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Have you recently asked the right questions from your CRM application? If no then here is a piece of advice from Inside CRM blog to upgrade your CRM application. It will bring more business agility, efficient workflow and will improve customer relationship.

But what are the right questions to ask:

• How old is your CRM solution? And if you can’t remember then here is your cue to upgrade.

• How many applications are you using to support your CRM?

• Does it grow with your business? 

To find your answers, click on the link: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/how-to-tell-its-time-to-upgrade-your-crm-solution-67836

Mobile is a much more personal, interactive, engaged platform than desktop, and should be used as such. - By Ari Brandt (CEO and co-founder of MediaBrix). In this competitive era, if a company won’t recognize the opportunity first, a chance of losing the games increases. And mobile phone is one of the biggest opportunities to maintain a close relationship with your customers. But most of the ad companies are failing to recognize the demands, challenges and opportunities of mobile phones. Rule to crack the opportunity of mobile phones:
• Leave old ad methods behind.
• Take advantage of unique mobile capabilities.
• Put the customers first.
• Leverage new measures of campaign success.
Read more at: http://mashable.com/2015/06/11/mobile-marketing-innovation/