SigmaWay Blog

According to Marge Breya (CMO and Executive Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Informatica Education), “data is the fuel powering business processes, machines, sensors and customized user experiences.” Using data in marketing gives you a competitive advantage. Some basic steps for making data driven marketing team: firstly, identify a person who has knowledge about data analytics within and outside the organization. Secondly, to create a data driven culture, find a leader. Thirdly, a leader needs to create an environment where their marketing team feels safe in becoming data literate. And to solve the problem of “how to make a data literate team,” use education, exposure and practice. Read more at: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2928800/big-data/how-to-create-a-data-driven-marketing-team.html

There is a lack of awareness about the insurance sector but it has a lot of attractive and interesting propositions to offer. Amendments have been made to the Insurance Act, 1938.  Foreign investment ceiling in insurance companies has been increased which will boost job opportunities and growth potential. But, talent retention is a challenge in this sector. Economic and regulatory changes have affected this sector. This led to companies adopting short term policies over long term ones. It is also predicted that salary structures would increase slowly with average increment levels at 8% for the current year. Read more at: http://info.shine.com/article/talent-retention-is-a-big-challenge-for-insurance-firms/8814.html

There is a positive correlation among investment in employees and output generated. This phenomenon has been defined as the Return on Employee Investment and it has been a challenge for organizations. It has been found that employee investment leads to business growth, revenue generation and has significant effect on long term growth. There is no hard and fast rule to measure the return on investment but it does bring back positive changes within an organization. This investment can be treated by the employees as a motivation factor, a "benefit on efforts". This can help to retain talents in an organization. Experts believe that though it is possible to find a measure for ROI, HR is not always the right choice to quantify it. To know more, please follow: http://info.shine.com/article/spending-on-employees-can-maximise-your-roi/8849.html

Mainstream retail companies are taking a heavy beating from their online counterparts. These companies are facing stiff competition due to discounts and lots of advertising from the e-commerce industry. Company reports indicate that the decline in sales for the brick and mortar firms are a steady affair, and sales do not increase even during the festive seasons. Revenue growth of these companies has slowed down impacting the distributors. Distributors are stocking less and there has been a significant decrease in inventory holding. With the number of offline firms growing day by day, these firms are looking for a change in their marketing strategies to counter online competition. To know more, please follow the link: http://info.shine.com/article/the-churn-in-the-retail-sector/8822.html

Optimizing production for manufacturers with complex operations is not an easy task. There can be volatility in costs and prices, managing multiple plants and figuring out the combination of inputs for products are complex operations. These complexities are abundant in the chemical industry. Advanced data modelling and analytical techniques have helped this industry perform better. Data about companies’ performances can be put into a mathematical model which predicts production under different conditions. The resulting model brought sea changes in the companies’ production decisions, increased plants’ EBIT returns and production capacity. This change was not without a side benefit: better cross-unit collaboration and decisions were made with all constraints and trade-offs in mind. Read more at: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/operations/taming_manufacturing_complexity_with_advanced_analytics

In healthcare, conclusions drawn from predictive analytics can directly influence patient's health but unfortunately it's not used widely because of the vendor hype and sales exaggeration of sales. Nowadays, doctors are using predictive analytics in treating breast cancer also. They ask questions like: Of the last 10,000 Asian females, with a tumor like this, how were they treated, what was the outcome, what were the side-effects to ensure she gets the right kind of medicine. That is what we call a learning health care system. Using data and predictive analysis is the need of the hour to improve our health care delivery.?Read more at:  http://www.zdnet.com/article/harvard-medical-professor-big-data-and-analytics-help-cure-cancer/

News agencies are venturing into analytics. A news agency also cleans the Internet for news, indexes it, and then allows users to ask questions of that data. It also allows you to extract facts and do trend analysis. Firms are taking data collected by machines or people, and using that data to generate news. Thanks to big data technology, it's becoming more practical to incorporate the field intelligence into the predictive models that executives increasingly rely on to make good, fast decisions.  Read more here: 

http://www.datanami.com/2015/05/29/how-big-data-is-changing-how-businesses-use-the-news/ana

Nowadays, companies are focusing on the best possible answers than asking the right questions to get the minutest details. To get the best details, a set of connect questions has to be answered which requires using a connected set of data sources. This is called unified analytics. It will enable the access and analysis of data from multiple sources on a single interface. But we need to keep certain things in mind like integration of unstructured and structured data which is not an easy process. Also, we need to look beyond traditional sources within firewall and focus the data strategy on customers. Read more at: 

 http://www.analytics-magazine.org/web-first/1266-unified-analytics-a-new-mastery-over-the-data-wave

A Formula 1 car (F1) may take 5 months from the drawing board to production. Testing programs of the car's speed, stability, aerodynamics and tire degradation around a racetrack is done by the engineers and data analysts. Some teams uses technology which enables its existing systems to process this data faster than ever before.  It is not just about interpreting analytical information, but being able to make strategic decisions as a team. It would be interesting to see the sport getting audiences more integrated with real-time data. Exposure to basic forms of live data via a mobile app may give viewers an indication of why teams make the strategic decisions that they do. The F1 car technology shows how the sport is in pole position in terms of technology innovation especially with data. Read more about this article at: http://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/f1-and-data-analytics-it-s-a-numbers-game

Transport for London (TfL) data, collected through ticketing systems, censored vehicles, traffic signals, survey groups etc. is provided through open API's for 3rd party app developers. This data is then used to produce maps showing when and where people are traveling, and allowing analysis at the level of individual journeys by using Big Data. The key priority to initiate this data was to provide travel information which gives the routes customers use and to send travel updates to them. Thus Bernard Marr from Forbes in his article showed how big data played a big part in re-energizing London's transport network. Read more about this article at: http://www.content-loop.com/big-data-internet-things-improve-public-transport-london/

Software as a service (SaaS) is a software licensing and delivery system in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. The advantages of the SaaS model are that it is easier to manage and that all the users have the same version of the software because updates and patching is done automatically. It grants global accessibility, making remote working models easier, which reduces costs and improves performance. The SaaS industry is now maturing beyond simple, historical financial measures towards a sophisticated operational measure in the form of a new Customer Success Metrics and Predictive Analytics.
Some of the giants in the industry are Salesforce, LinkedIn and Workday and while their services vary, the most significant one remains their cloud computing applications and platforms. Read more at: http://zeendo.com/info/top-10-software-as-a-service-saas-companies/

In market research, it is observed, quite frequently that when the research is undertaken by paid bodies, they have a tendency to skew the data, for the company's favor, which may not be healthy for the company in the long run. Hence more and more companies are turning to, undergraduate or graduate marketing students who are unpaid and usually furnish unbiased information, as their main interest lies in gaining knowledge about the industry, learning about research analysis and developing presentation skills. Companies are preferring the fresh outlook of students, guided by proper mentors. Read more at:

http://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/is-college-the-key-to-better-market-research/

80% (including tangible assets) of a business total corporate value on the S&P500 index, now only count for 20%. Now, intangible assets such as data, talent and intellectual property has become the hallmark. In this competitive world, the CFO needs to allocate their entire budget in digital technologies. CFOs need to become leaders and guide business during digital transformation. According to Gartner, "intangible assets are the core competency value of any business." And they need to rebalance their investment portfolio. According to Shailender Kumar (MD of Oracle India), data and access to the data are the most valuable intangible assets for businesses today and cloud helps organizations to get the most from the data. Organizations need to rethink on their ROI measurement procedure. They need to develop new metrics, risk and performance measures in order to measure ROI. To know more about the CFO role in cloud and digital technologies, please follow this link: http://www.financialexpress.com/article/industry/companies/data-talent-and-ip-are-key-to-a-companys-market-worth/78557/

Statistical analysis is being used extensively in all sorts of sports now-a-days. However the growth of analytics in soccer has been quite slow, mainly because of its orthodox nature. Hence, enters Thomas Bayes’ famous theorem, the Bayes’ theorem, according to which, the chances of an event taking place, is updated, by integrating the former chances of its occurrence and the new information that might affect its prospect. The Bayes’ theorem completely encourages the use of analytics to revise our perspectives regarding players and teams. Stats refer to raw data collected from each match regarding both the individual player’s performance and the performance of the team as a whole. Analytics manipulates this data, thereby extracting the desired information, which helps in predicting future game scores. Read more at:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/soccer-analytics-premier-league/

According to Gene Pease, CEO of Vestrics, "The power of predictive analytics is you can understand where your investments are working". In the last few years, the idea of hiring, retaining and training employees has been a foreign concept for many companies due to the downsizing. Thus, predictive analysis in collaboration with HR is proving to be one of the ways managers are modernizing with their hiring and engagement practices. Organizations can thus create the profile of workers that should fill a particular position. According to writer Anne Loehr, "The biggest benefit is that predictive analytics can help remove human bias". Thus customized on-boarding and leadership development programs may evolve out of predictive analytics in the near future.  Read more about this article at:  http://fieldservice.com/2015/05/26/predictive-analytics-a-magic-bullet-for-field-service-hiring-managers/

According to a recent study in 2014-15, it was found that today's high school students are heavy internet users using social media channels to stay well-informed with current affairs and to be connected with family and friends. 52% of them are part of at least one community on Facebook and 65% of them have Google+ accounts; 6 out of 10 use Whats App. According to the study, it was also found that 75% of these students spend an hour online every day. Two-third who survey, shop online. 63% use Wikipedia, 51% use PDF and 44% use videos as learning resources. Read more about this article at:  http://www.dqindia.com/over-75-of-indian-school-students-spend-an-average-of-1-hour-on-social-media-every-day-tcs-study/

Small Medium Businesses (SME) contribute to around half of the GDP and two-third of all private sector jobs in UK, thus playing a massive role in innovation. Nearly 9% of the UK adults are now in early-stage entrepreneurship.  Tech firms & digital enterprises has sprung up all over the country. Banks are helping smaller companies with correct tools and best practice in their earlier stage so that these companies can achieve their full potential. Read more about this interesting article by Richard Phelps, Head of Corporate and Employer's Solution at: https://barclayswealthblog.com/index.php/fostering-fast-growth-start-ups/ 

According to the bi-annual Entrepreneurs Index, entrepreneurship is booming in UK. The future growth of these relatively new businesses will enhance UK's Small Medium Enterprises (SME) landscape further. These businesses contribute to around half of the GDP and two-third of all private sector jobs in UK. Since entrepreneurs are fast becoming the center of the modern day business world, wealth managers must found the best way to meet their demand. To know more, please read the article by Richard Phelps, Head of Corporate and Employer Solution of Barclays at:  https://barclayswealthblog.com/index.php/the-age-of-the-entrepreneur/

There is a lack of awareness about the insurance sector but it has a lot of attractive and interesting propositions to offer. Amendments have been made to the Insurance Act, 1938.  Foreign investment ceiling in insurance companies has been increased which will boost job opportunities and growth potential. But, talent retention is a challenge in this sector. Economic and regulatory changes have affected this sector. This led to companies adopting short term policies over long term ones. It is also predicted that salary structures would increase slowly with average increment levels at 8% for the current year. Read more at:

http://info.shine.com/article/talent-retention-is-a-big-challenge-for-insurance-firms/8814.html

The present day drug traffickers are very proficient in using modern technology, manipulating it for obtaining new marketing opportunities for their drugs. These criminals are using digital networking to a large extent for distributional purposes via secure methods, provided by modern day technology, which go undetected.  Often investigators fail to identify the disturbance they must be looking for, whose data lies well concealed under suitable digital protection. Advanced crime analytics incorporates big data and advanced analytics along with crime science study to detect anomalies, often their sources and the associated people. Advanced crime analytics is also essential in controlling cross-border drug trafficking by not only protecting witness details but also speeding up the entire process. To know more follow the article by Craig Richardson (chief executive of the Wynyard Group) at:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/crime-analytics-software-proves-powerful-weapon-in-war-on-drugs-20150414-1mkp6r.html