SigmaWay Blog

The market is becoming more competitive nowadays. Companies like General Electric, Honeywell, Raytheon and IBM have managed to save billions of dollars in cost savings by process and quality improvement through Six Sigma. The majority of companies like to implement DMAIC methodology because they have existing processes. The remaining minority of Six Sigma practitioners is using a Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) approach to design a new product. DMAIC mainly focuses to improve the existing processes in such a way that final products can be produced with extremely low defects i.e. 3.4 defects in 1 million opportunities. Design for Six Sigma on the other hand, is about the design, development and commercialization of new products and processes for Six Sigma quality. To know more about DMAIC and DFSS, please go through the link: www.isixsigma.com/new-to-six-sigma/design-for-six-sigma-dfss/design-six-sigma-dfss-versus-dmaic/

Ceridian announced Dayforce Recruiting- real-time SaaS based application, which includes payroll, workforce management, benefits and HR. This application provides recruiters and hiring managers with the intuitive means to identify staffing needs, create job requisitions, attract candidates, and hire best-fit job candidates.

To read more, visit the following link: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/award-winning-ceridian-dayforce-human-capital-management-extends-industrys-only-single-hcm-application-with-dayforce-recruiting-2014-05-21-917340?reflink=MW_news_stmp 

Dyn, internet performance service provider, announced that it has acquired Renesys, a company that specializes in monitoring the Internet to provide data about cloud services, connectivity and potential performance issues. Renesys runs a real-time network of monitors that analyze Internet routing and performance data to help businesses get a deeper insight into the network and Dyn will combine the data gathered from this network with its own telemetry. Using this data, Dyn will be able to offers its customers better data about how to optimize their CDNs, clouds and data centers.

To read more, visit the following link: http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/21/dyn-acquires-internet-intelligence-service-renesys/

Lean Six Sigma, a globally accepted set of tools, techniques and project management practices is applied across various types of industries. It is also applied to the industry which supports our lives – the pharmaceutical industry.

Going by a process oriented approach, maintaining quality and regulatory standards are vital for pharma industries. Different parameters like value (service and cost), customers (internal customers, patients, doctors, regulators, health care providers, etc.) and quality (patient safety, fit for use) must be taken into account in the process flow. And all these will result into maximum effectiveness of the plant realizing the maximum ROI.

To learn in details how Lean and Six Sigma is applied in the pharma industry, read at http://www.ijqr.net/journal/v6-n1/3.pdf .

Recently Amazon Web Services (AWS) is in the news for reducing its cloud services prices by up to forty percent and turning into a strong competitor overnight against Google and Microsoft offering similar services. The cost reduction has resulted in an intensive price war where the price has touched a rock bottom level.

The price reduction is in line with reducing waste at every opportunity as mastered by Andy Jassy, senior VP of AWS. The price reduction policy has made public cloud space very much competitive, but the other side of the coin is that the place has become jam packed too.

So, how can AWS afford to cut its prices and offer a stiff competition? Brett Winterford and Steven Kiernan from CRN write about them here: http://www.crn.com.au/News/382683,four-secrets-of-awss-low-prices.aspx .

Today, every company is talking about Big Data, but there is also an important thing to consider - that is organizational culture. As high technology companies are embracing Big Data, the direct beneficiaries will be their IT professionals – who will have the opportunity to outshine themselves. Companies need to look for new generation talents who can handle latest challenges keeping in tune with the advancement of Big Data technologies.  With bright futures ahead, big data can make a scope in every aspect – be it scientific research, medical science, or any data driven industry, companies and their IT professionals can see a silver line. To see increased productivity and boost profitability, what is required is the right mix of big data tools, vendor support and IT talent team.

To know how organizations can earn the feather cap by using big data analytics tools, taking alongside the cultural change, read at http://midsizeinsider.com/en-us/article/big-data-analytics-success-through-cult .

Datastax has updated its Apache Cassandra-based NoSQL database. An in-memory computing feature is added to increase the performance of online applications. DataStax Enterprise 4.0 includes improved search, an updated version of the OpsCenter visual monitoring tool, and certified Cassandra 2.0. Performance benchmarks conducted by DataStax on the in-memory feature show significant improvements in speed. To know more on this topic go through the article by Toby Wolpe, senior reporter at ZDNet in London:

http://www.zdnet.com/apache-cassandra-gets-in-memory-option-with-datastax-enterprise-4-0-7000026757/

Small and midsize businesses(SMB) are going to play a major role in India in the coming days. Adoption of social, media, analytics and cloud(SMAC) in SMBs will not only increase the number of new customers but also raise efficiency. According to a report by EY and Assocham, the number of SMBs adopting cloud computing will increase highly. To know more on this topic, please go through the article link by Eileen Yu, a freelance blogger and content specialist.

http://www.zdnet.com/in/cloud-adoption-among-indian-smbs-to-soar-7000029009/

While considering Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution versus a traditional on premise software application, several factors should be kept in mind  at the time of calculating total cost of ownership and ROI. Both software providers and customers can be benefitted from the efficiency of the cloud's economic model. TO know about SaaS pricing, please go through the following link:

http://www.business2community.com/cloud-computing/saas-pricing-compare-cost-premise-vs-saas-0847567#!OHXf2

Facebook released Cassandra, its NoSQL, big data distributed data store to open source. It can power massive data sets quickly and reliably without compromising performance. Different new features and improvements are included in the latest version. To know more about Cassandra 2.0, follow Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols's, article link:

http://www.zdnet.com/cassandra-2-0-the-next-generation-of-big-data-7000020237/

Project management provides a strict framework to achieve business goals. As economic conditions are improving day by day, responsibility of project managers are also increasing to deliver projects efficiently. It is important to allocate resources properly by providing structural framework in such a way that ensures the investment in a positive direction of a growing economy with anticipated benefits. Hence, it is important for project managers to estimate and invest wisely in projects to ensure a long-term future. Please go through the link for more details: http://www.projecttimes.com/articles/can-project-management-lead-us-out-of-recession.html

To manage your sales upwards, you need to click your senses. Have you ever thought, that much talked Big Data is also a part of your ‘sense’?

The way big data and analytics are making a progress, especially in marketing and to increase sales, it can no longer be ignored. Your buyers are now more informed about your products and services and you have to dig in deeper to gain new insights about the mind and heart of your customers.

That’s where big data comes in effect. Lots of customer data are now available and without going hither and thither, you can mine for gold. Yes, gold – because customer data is like an asset to you depending on which you can gain that ‘new insight’ to keep yourself ahead of competition. Click on http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/233969  to view on how big data can raise your sales. Who may say, you may be the next beneficiary of leveraging the power of Big Data!

Giving constant connectivity to customers and ensuring customer satisfaction are two most important things for telecom companies. As an owner of telecom company, you have to ensure that customers lose their call to as minimum as possible to prevent business loss and inconvenience to them. 

For this, you have to analyze every moment and take preventive actions whenever any faults occur. It is necessary that you must have analytics tools for it. But, unlike in most business cases, you will not able to use traditional machine data analytics. It is of no doubt that you will get patterns and trends, and will be able to evaluate program performance and pinpoint defects – but all these after the fact. By that time, you may lose your customers and revenues costing millions!

What you should do is do a real time monitoring and real time analysis as well. Using ‘streaming big data analytics’, you will be able to collect and correlate streaming data at a customer’s specific location, cell site performance, call failure rates and event prevent momentary glitch before they turn up into a large scale event. Not only this, based on profile of your customers, you can prioritize their issues. All these will increase one of your important parameters – customer satisfaction.

Read more at: http://smartdatacollective.com/dale-skeen/199716/why-telcos-can-no-longer-rely-traditional-machine-data-analytics-deliver-high-qual  to know how streaming data analytics help telecom companies to monitor calls in real time and increase customer satisfaction.

As businesses are becoming tougher and becoming more competitive, usage of advanced analytics is on rise. With the help of it, companies have increased their marketing effectiveness and they are able to generate more revenue out of the cost spent.

But, one thing has to be accepted. Deploying analytics tools in an organization is not an easy task. One of the main concerns is scalability – whether analytics will be utilized on a large scale or a small scale, because, depending on that, cost will vary; and if you choose the wrong one, it will eat your revenue. Change in organizational culture is also noteworthy – those who are not yet oriented to analytics, may face difficulty in adopting the technology.  In spite of all these, analytics have proved to be tremendous successful for marketers. Given in the present dynamic situation, CEOs must learn to adopt analytics and should motivate his or her marketing organization to use. Click on http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesinsights/2014/05/19/an-advanced-marketing-analytics-cheat-sheet-for-ceos/?ss=business  to know the tips for CEOs.

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., provider of securing Internet, announced the  availability of ThreatCloud IntelliStore, a unique in threat intelligence marketplace that enables organizations to select intelligence feeds that will automatically prevent cyber-attacks.

To read more, visit the following link: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/check-point-pioneers-revolutionary-cyber-intelligence-marketplace-threatcloud-intellistore-2014-05-20

In an article by Gina Passarella, a legal intelligencer, we get to know that competitive intelligence is mostly tracking what your competitors are doing. It is a blend of business, market and competitive intelligence, with an eye toward tracking other firms, current and prospective clients, geographic and industry sectors, and the firm's own internal data.

To read more, visit the following link: http://www.post-gazette.com/business/legal/2014/05/20/Is-competitive-intelligence-spy-games-or-market-research/stories/201405130004

WORKTERRA, a provider of Human Capital Management software solutions, announced the addition of Intermedia (one-stop shop for cloud IT services and business applications) to its BenAdmin platform. WORKTERRA BenAdmin delivers an enhanced user experience, further engaging the employee in their benefits decisions. With the WORKTERRA BenAdmin platform, Intermedia has the ability to manage employee benefits information through one consolidated, SaaS delivered application designed to increase efficiency and reduce costs.

Read more at:http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1925615 

Logi-Serve, a provider of human capital management software, announced that it has been named as a "Cool Vendor" in the "Cool Vendors in Human Capital Management Software, 2014". Gartner identifies "Cool Vendors" each year in the field of Human Capital Management Software and is judged on these criteria: innovation, impact, and intrigue. This event showcases innovations in adaptive learning, talent assessments, operations and workforce intelligence, and digitized HR document management which influences HR and HR IT leaders to look beyond box.

Read more at: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1926971

Calpian Commerce (the U.S. payment processing division of Calpian), has launched the SecurePay Insights merchant analytics platform. It helps businesses to leverage value-added data and analytics to improve their businesses. Calpian Commerce's SecurePay Insights (powered by Womply, a San Francisco-based technology company) provides real-time vision into revenue, online reputation, social media performance and competitive intelligence on a web-based dashboard.

To read more, visit the following link:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/calpian-commerce-launches-securepay-insights-merchant-analytics-platform-powered-by-womply-2014-05-07?reflink=MW_news_stmp

Mortgage Returns, a provider of TRUE CRM technology and automated marketing solutions for the mortgage industry, has added new features to their TRUE CRM system. It provides companies with new marketing materials, content control and advanced reporting capabilities.

To read more, visit the following link: http://www.contactcenterworld.com/view/contact-center-news/plumchoice-establishes-new-training-facility-to-support-growing-subscriber-base.aspx