The future of analytics seems to be brighter with IoT data, it's near real speed analysis and complex event processing systems. But, where exactly is IoT analytics going. Michael Hummel, co-founder and CTO of ParStream, talks future of IoT analytics. Daniel Gutierrez has summarized his talks in an article on Inside BigData highlighting the 4 predictions Michael made:

• Big data, fast data and more analytics

• Horizontal integration and vertical application 

• Decentralization

• Integration of advanced analytics and Machine learning

For more on this piece, follow the link http://insidebigdata.com/2015/05/28/and-this-is-the-future-of-iot-analytics/

Planning before working out is the most basic idea. A planner successfully merges both aesthetics and practical planning. But a strong design comes from the collected data. Combining user and sales data, Ford F-150 has been designed to reduce weight and increase sustainability which are made keeping in mind both environmental and business sense. Though A/B testing was a popular method of creating effective marketing choices due to its manufacturing constraints, companies nowadays use data gathered by observing public interest to create new products or make changes to earlier products. With increasingly complex algorithms, architectural design is now getting more accurate. With faster computing power, various tests can be done to establish strength and quality. Read more about this article by Chris Towers (Big Data Divisional Head) at:  https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/designed-by-data

Cut throat competition- a phrase that is enough to describe the fierce competition in today`s business scenario. Regardless of which industry one belongs to, their competitors are always there, and keeping track of their activities and decisions, most importantly searching for their customers. So it is important for business leaders to monitor the activities of their rivals as well, and keep a tab on their competitors, in order to retain customers. There are many tools for monitoring, one such tool is spyfu, which can be used to track down what the opponents are searching online. Another way is to use the social media, such as observing what the competitors are doing in public forums and how people are responding to that. To know more, read: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brett-relander/know-your-competition-wit_b_7555660.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in

In today`s business world, time is a precious resource, so there is increasing demand for a faster system of data analysis. An emerging open source analytics tool called spark is slowly gaining popularity and is being used for getting faster results obtained from big data analysis. Earlier many companies used and relied on Hadoop for processing and analyzing information, which used to take days to arrive at a meaningful inference. The spark analytics technology uses a completely different technique for storing data than Hadoop, with spark data is directly written in the memory rather than storing in disks, which increases the speed of data analysis remarkably.  There are also other interesting technological features for which spark is gaining attention.To know more read:  http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2015/06/03/spark-a-tool-at-big-datas-cutting-edge-helps-under-armour-perform-faster-analytics/?KEYWORDS=analytics

Rapidly changing consumer demands are becoming one of the major concerns of the financial institutions. Analytics is the technology which can be adopted to address this need. With evolving customer expectations, analytics solutions, too, have adapted, but the question under consideration is whether the banks are prepared to adopt and benefit from the next-generation analytics solution. As viewed by Thomas H. Davenport, evolution of analytics is a three-stage process of which Analytics version 3 is the latest generation which merges qualities of previous technologies and focuses on prescriptive analytics. Based on the data collected, Analytics 3.0 will enable the financial institutions can create tailor made services for customers. However, to fully reap the benefits, the institutions have to make sure that the right technologies and practices are in place. Read More at: http://internationalbanker.com/banking/are-banks-ready-for-next-generation-analytics/

In recent years over the span of the last two decades, industries have been disrupted by internet competitors. People are becoming more and more interested in online or virtual shopping than to go outdoors. From newspapers to travel agencies, there are numerous sectors which have faced the heat due to e-business expansion of their counterparts. Despite this, it seemed that some business like telecom, television media etc.  were immune to this digital onslaught, but not anymore. A second wave of internet disruption threatens not only electronic and telecom business, but also industries like taxi services, banking and cosmetics. This leaves no other alternative for existing sellers other than to switch into online trading for survival. To know more read: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7688.html

Responsible for the largest and most complicated science experiment, the LHC, CERN has tried to uncover the secrets of the universe. Its major experiments are all in the domain of Big Data. How? Well the LHC single handed generates 30 Petabytes yearly. They use effective data warehousing and Big Data Analytics tools to make sense of such large amounts of raw data. Crunching all the data collected from the 600 million particle collisions per second requires enormous processing power. Distributed computing gives them access to enough processing power and storage capacity otherwise far too costly to build into one data center. The data can be accessed at greater speed by researchers wherever they are in the world now. Read more at:https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-data-uncovering-secrets-our-universe-cern-bernard-marr

The film Moneyball based on a 2003 book, talks about the Oakland Athletics baseball team whose focus is on the team's analytical, evidence-based approach to improve the baseball team despite its poor revenue system. This film made the plot for professional sport associations to spend big on analytics. Analyzing data points captured by video cameras around the stadium uncover patterns that coaches and players might miss. Data can also be collected by wearable devices to help prevent injury by measuring its likelihood. So, companies need to follow get up and move up to the major leagues of Big Data. But predictive analytics can decrease efficiency as supporting analytics platform records, analyzes and visualizes trends. Read more about this article at: http://www.tibco.com/blog/2015/05/26/how-big-data-analytics-are-transforming-sports/

With increasing number of data breaches, companies should now take necessary steps to combat it. Phishing, though a fairly old method, is the most common method of attacking companies. Emails which contain phishing methods should be identified, filtered and prevented from hitting inboxes. Spam filters are already doing this task to a great extent, but creating flagging system that can filter out the necessary emails through human logging works better. Systems should be upgraded to prevent from being vulnerable to malware and malicious cyber-attacks. Misuse of system and human error should be prevented to prevent hacking. The most important way of protecting system from attacks is by educating people who use it in the best ways to protect it. Read more at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/data-breaches-aren-t-changing-but-you-should

Businesses have made use of data for operations management, for decades now. Data being used for operations management involve continuous flows of information and mining of data. Such data are handled and untangled using advanced and unique storage, management, analysis and visualization techniques. Big data analytics is usually dependent on extensive storage capacity and quick processing power. Insightful data can be gathered from various sources like web, social media etc. Big data is now being used to predict customer purchase decisions. Big data when linked with production applications and timely operational processes enables continuous improvements. Organizations are now realizing that data can bring value through continuous improvement in their operations. Thus, data needs to be collected, filtered and analyzed. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/big-data/crunching-big-data-operations-management-01255094

Development of an agile culture is the key to company's success. It helps in employee engagement and faster completion of the projects. The advantages of agile methodology is that it helps to move fast and iterate, and hence this approach is preferable. Jacob Shriar (Growth Manager of Officevibe, an employee engagement platform) in his article in business2community.com, discussed about the benefits of having an agile company culture which are:

1. First-mover advantage.

2. Motivates the team.

3. Involves your customers.

  However, he further pointed out the steps for a company to be more agile and they are as follows:

• Give Employees Autonomy.
• Lead By Example.
• Create Focus For Your Team.
• Understand The Value.
• Get Rid Of Fear.

To know more about this study, please follow the link: http://www.business2community.com/human-resources/the-advantages-of-an-agile-company-culture-01251209

Facebook app has not only emerged as a news-reading function for many people these days but also various renowned publishers post articles on the social networks "News Feed" function. This has gained importance for a number of different news outlets, although most of them being negative. The modern era of digital publishing focuses on how self-publishing can evolve such that e-books are placed in front of their readers. In the next phase of digital publishing, the capability of a digital publisher to make a book more visible will be of crucial significance. In other words self-publishing plays a significant role in digital publishing.

Read more at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/the-future-of-digital-publishing

Healthcare as an industry faces serious challenges in the context of improving patient care and safety of their staffs and patients, besides managing costs. Bryan Warren, the director of corporate security at Carolines Healthcare, said that the video surveillance and analytics had helped to increase productivity both within and outside of the security function. Video analytics helps to set checks in order to ensure that patient satisfaction remains high. In Europe, it affects audit scores and government funding. Video analytics can also be used for efficient staffing levels or better handling of the emergency procedure. Video surveillance plays a crucial role in the provision of evidence whenever a problem occurs and in traditional security.

 To know more, please follow the link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/avigilon/2015/06/11/healthcare-meeting-future-challenges-today-with-video-analytics/

Analytics are now being deployed by sports clubs to buy new players. With the huge amount of data being generated, selling clubs are now looking for ways to increase the chance of their players being bought for more money and buying clubs are looking for ways to assess the potential of new players. Analytics comes into play here. Clubs are now using data to assess the potential of new players, with efforts being devoted to developing data programmes to accomplish this task. There are several companies who offer this kind of service, but a significant number of clubs have outdone, these companies with their hiring process by carrying out deeper analysis and using metrics. Read more at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/data-in-player-transfers-in-the-premier-league

Big data can be best understood using graph theory. Several open-source graph databases have come up and are used by several organizations. These databases are becoming popular as graphs are the best way for storing and querying huge amount of data. Graphs are being used by several domains of the industry as it provides competitive advantage. Social media uses graphs to provide accurate and personal recommendations to users. It is being used by a major online shopping company to compute fast and provide localized door-to-door delivery of goods. Graph databases store data safely and make querying it fast and easy. According to Dr. Marsten, creating and analyzing graphs will lead us to answers. Read more at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/7132-the-key-to-understanding-big-data-lies-with-the-graph

The worldwide market for cloud-based SaaS offerings is expected to expand by about 20 percent per year through 2018, when it could exceed the $100 billion mark.

- International Data Corporation (IDC)

In the world of softwares, cloud is becoming the next big thing. Companies are now switching to cloud based delivery models. But that is not an easy task. For this a number of factors need to be considered like:

• The process by which new products are developed and old products are reconfigured for the cloud
• The ways companies should manage customer relationships
• The pace at which product-development teams should operate
• Companies’ tolerance of failure
• The degree to which companies are willing to invest in new technologies and capabilities

Keeping these factors in mind, Santiago Comella-Dorda, Chandra Gnanasambandam and Bhavik Shah, have listed out six principles that will help companies to make an easy shift towards cloud. They are:

1. Emphasize minimum viable products rather than ‘big bang’ releases
2. Treat users as part of the day-to-day development team
3. Expect and tolerate failure
4. Adopt agile approaches to software development
5. Give developers quality-assurance and testing responsibility
6. Invest in cutting-edge capabilities

To know more, please read the following article at McKinsey Insights:

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/from_box_to_cloud

Most of us must have heard these sayings – “Customer is the King” or “Customer Satisfaction should be the Top Priority”. We surely focus on satisfying customers but, what we sometimes fail to remember is the fact that the route to customer satisfaction goes via employee satisfaction. Thus, essentially, employee satisfaction should be considered as “the key focus area” for any organization.

Satisfied and loyal long term employees are an asset for the organizations. One way of enhancing employee satisfaction and thus customer satisfaction is by creating a digital workplace with intranet as its hub. Kevin Conroy, Founder and President of Blue Rooster, in his article at cmswire.com, has talked about the importance of employee satisfaction and has also listed out few steps that need to be taken before creating intranet for the organization. They are:

• Talk to employees
• Consider the user experience
• Map the top priority use cases and how they affect customers
• Define metrics
• Build an employee and customer-centric culture

So, creating a digital workplace with an enthusiastic consent of employees will eventually lead to gain of customers for life.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.cmswire.com/social-business/creating-employees-for-life/

The concept of agile marketing is taken from software development. The goals are to improve the speed, predictability, transparency and adaptability in the marketing functions. Tim Matthews (VP of marketing @Incapsula_com and author of The Professional Marketer) in his article in business2community.com mentioned about the six lessons he learned while managing agile marketing teams at two companies. They are as follows:

1.  Set the right cadence.

2. Take a break.

3. Insist on metrics.

4. Prioritize realistically.

5. Don't allow overly aggressive goals.

 6. Set the work volume competition.

Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/marketing/six-lessons-learned-managing-agile-marketing-teams-01250732

Companies are mostly using Big Data solutions for log management. Sam Heywood (director of the Cloudera Security Centre of Excellence of Cloudera) said that "log data, intrusion alerts and other types of security-related information is a perfect fit for Big Data systems". Unlike the traditional approaches to collect the information, Big Data offers a platform which is scalable in order to collect the data and hence also cost-effective. It also provides the tools for long-term analysis which remains unaffected by the rules-based approaches. The necessary steps taken by the companies’ leads to an increase in security because they want to make sure that they are operating Big Data system in a safe and secure environment.

Read more at:http://www.cio.com/article/2935940/data-analytics/log-management-is-leading-use-case-for-big-data.html

The use of electronic cash is gaining popularity. Particularly the use of electronic cash transfer through cellular services is increasing rapidly in the developing world. It is estimated that electronic currency system will improve lives of more than 2 billion people, who live on less than 2 dollars per day. Use of electronic transaction system will facilitate more secure, accessible, and reliable ways to store and transfer money than are currently available. The most important thing in this context is the role of agents conducting cash for electronic value and vice-versa. By developing such a network a robust and efficient banking system can be developed. To know more read: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2549171