SigmaWay Blog

To stay ahead of new disruptive competitors, banks must understand the value of the data produced from daily transactions across email, mobile and online channels by digitally-led customers and use them to build on their strengths. High street banks and private financial service organizations give customers potential to develop new initiatives with cross-marketing events, loyalty programs. Bank must adopt a mobile-first strategy which engages with customers to maximize longevity. They must deploy mission-critical analytics tools with access to real-time data. Also, more flexible and intelligent OS harnessing the use of big data must be used. By using sophisticated analytics features, banks’ risk management departments can access information on customer-purchasing behavior enabling them to make immediate adjustments to individual customer credit limits or lending rights. Read more about it at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/7749-how-is-data-remodelling-the-fs-ecosystem 

A recent survey on customer retention revealed that insures lose as much as 20% of their customers each year. For the insurance agency this corresponds to approximately £500,000 to £1 million in lost premiums for every 1,000 policies. Customer retention is thus an important issue facing the industry. Three key points can help insurance companies to eliminate customer churn.
• Firstly, they need to properly understand their customers, which mean determining overall market segmentation to understand cross sell and up sell opportunities at individual policyholder level.
• Secondly, insurance companies must be able to provide tailor made policies for each individual and also have a unique selling point in comparison to their rivals.
• Lastly, companies need to realize that they have to listen to their customer’s preferences rather than the customer having to choose from the list of policies the insurer has to offer.
Should the above be kept in mind in a company’s planning and operations customer churn can certainly be minimized if not completely eliminated.

For more information visit:
http://blogs.sap.com/banking/2015/06/19/preventing-customer-churn-with-better-data-analytics/

A loyalty program is less about points and rewards and while these perks might attract consumers, they don’t suggest a sense of loyalty. In this age of data, the focus of these programs should be collection of useful data to help maintain good relations which benefit both consumers and the brand. However a business that trusts consumer-provided data is a business making decisions based on what is untrustworthy, random information. From observation of customer activities and external data sources, advanced analytics can create a profile of the customer for precise segmentation of the customer base. Business analysts and data scientists agree that expanding the data for any given model will typically produce dramatic improvements in analysis. That’s why many organizations have turned to a Big Data solution. Read more at: http://www.smartdatacollective.com/davemendle/323701/redefining-loyalty-programs-big-data-hadoop

Up to 16 Exabytes of RAM can be supported by a 64-bit system. Machines with 128GB RAM or more are becoming common with this era of Cloud Computing and Big Data. The data sets for Big Data are getting too large for even heavily loaded machines with memory despite the best efforts, don't fit into the RAM even after clustering in some cases. Researchers at MIT created a cluster called BlueDBM using Solid-State Drives (SSDs) to get rid of the memory problem. They also moved some of the computational power off the servers and onto chips. By pre-processing known parts of the data onto the flash drives prior to passing it back to the servers, the chips made distributed computation much more efficient than before. They thus got rid of the overhead of running an operating system. Read more at: http://www.itworld.com/article/2947839/big-data/mit-comes-up-with-a-no-memory-solution-for-big-data.html

Uncontrolled urbanization is posing as a great threat as it puts immense pressure on the resources available. Some of the issues that will be faced in this scenario are clean water, clean air, power, waste management and living space.
Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT) are some of the technological forces which are pushing towards smart cities. With the help of Big Data a range of applications are being made available with the help of which smart cities can be made more livable. Applications like smart street lights are already being used in smart cities like Birmingham. Street lights are attached with sensors which monitor footfall and noise levels and based on this data, the light turns on or off. Cities like Bristol, England are installing an infrastructural network that will support the data generated through Big Data and IoT.
These examples are minor steps in building of Smart cities which can sustain growing population without hampering the quality of life. Read more at: https://icrunchdatanews.com/big-data-building-smart-cities/

There is no doubt about the revolution that big data has brought to the way business is done. But, most of the talk has been around the structured data. It has been increasingly becoming clear that the potential of big data can be truly understood if we take up the challenge of harvesting unstructured data. Jonathan Buckley, senior vice president of marketing at Qubole, in an article in Smartdatacollective emphasizes that if businesses want to remain relevant and profitable then it’s the right time to turn their attention to text analytics. The most important advantage that text analytics have is that it provides with a much larger sample of customer sentiment and extract data which is otherwise not quantifiable. But all of this boils down to having the right technology. For more on this follow the link http://www.smartdatacollective.com/jonathanbuckley/329383/text-analytics-next-frontier-big-data

In today's world most of the jobs which were performed by humans have been replaced by robots and computers leading to increase in unemployment. For example: robot waiters, robot doctors and self-driving cars. A company in China is installing 30,000 robots every year that has snatched the work that was earlier done by human beings. Today robots are becoming cheaper so there is possibility that they might take over the jobs of human beings even in low cost companies. The main cause of this threat is the invention of smart machines. There is inverse relation between smarter computers and employment. Every year computers are becoming smarter, doubling their processing power and memories.  Machines that have Artificial Intelligent (AI) and smart computers that can act own their own have adversely affected humans, leaving them unemployed. Also high skills are required to operate these smart computers and not all humans got the same. According to some economists, AI should be controlled otherwise the results could be disastrous. Read more at:http://www.smartdatacollective.com/bernardmarr/330436/ai-biggest-threats-your-job

Hiring a social media marketing consultant can help a company build long term relationships, brand awareness and lead to sustainable growth. Time is of the essence in any business venture. A consultant brings to the table the skill to assess business needs, competition in the market, the targeted audience and builds a smart and efficient digital marketing strategy. Social media is a field that operates 24/7. Keeping that in mind, using social media to promote businesses can lead to increased profit margins. On the other hand, a social media consultant adds to the business valuable information about the market. It helps in making a well informed and better business decision. Social media intelligence also makes it possible to reach out to customers faster making an impact in the business. To know more, please follow: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/3-ways-a-social-media-consultant-increases-your-revenues-01266289

The introduction of Hadoop has changed the outlook of businesses. It is a software system that has made processing large sets of data located on distributed servers an easy task. Hadoop is mainly used for analytical purposes boosting business performances and customer relationship management. It has worked wonders for small businesses as it has incorporated concepts of big data analytics. Data is much more accessible now and the cost of procurement has been drastically reduced. Some convenient features in Hadoop has made it much more attractive for small businesses. Hadoop has made effective use of big data possible to optimize businesses. With its value increasing day by day, more and more companies from various sectors are going in for Hadoop. Read more at: http://www.dataversity.net/an-introduction-to-hadoop-for-small-businesses/

Going digital has its own advantages. Along with flexibility, adaptability it allows for transparency and openness. With increasing openness and transparency, customers get to know the whole truth which helps them to trust better. Lack of trust is prominent among leading societies and economies nowadays and it has impacted them. Customers trust what they use and this is the whole point of digital transformation. It has its own culture that empowers us with digital tools to know more about the customers. Its span includes the big data surge. With more information on customers focus has been shifted to the effective use of these data. Again, while collecting personal data from customers there is often a lack of trust which hinders the whole process. To know more, please follow: http://www.cmswire.com/digital-experience/digital-change-is-cultural-change/

Permission marketing is now trending. Consumers don’t like to get interrupted often and so they take actions to block online ads, promotion emails. This new era of permission marketing can be broken down into “anticipated”, “personal” and “relevant”. A recently concluded study shows customers are willing to share information with trusted brands. Data privacy acts now protects consumers from personal data collection through websites and other online sources. Cookie law is such an example. Customer data can be explicit, implicit or structured by analytical tools. Thus data security is of utmost importance and it is the responsibility of organizations. Consumers are always looking for their needs to be met by companies and this gives the companies the chance to make the best use of data collected providing value to the organization. Read more at: http://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/tracking-customer-data-you-better-provide-value/

There are a lot of open source analytics tools available that every user can easily find on websites. But to make appropriate use of such tools each company requires equally compatible skills. So companies are required to invest heavily to develop such skills and also on collecting data. It has been found that companies are spending on an average of $7.4m on data initiatives in 2015. Free platforms also took huge investment such as Hadoop, making more efficient systems. The increasing data size led to increase in expenditure, and is likely to increase in future. Upgrade is required in currently installed systems to process huge data in less time. On the other hand huge investment is required to meet the heavy salaries of data scientists, which is approximately $118,000m. As the supply of qualified data scientists increase this amount will fall, which decreases the overall amount of employee compensation. There is a strong evidence that spending on data initiatives has been increasing at a surprising rate and is likely to continue for next 2 years which ensures a boom for the big data companies.  Read more at:https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/big-data-spend-is-increasing

Data science is the most dynamic and multifaceted industry providing useful and interesting insights with the data. Recently due to more than exponential growth of data and digital revolution, it is becoming increasingly difficult for organizations to use this data efficiently. Sifting data has become cumbersome and getting to the right data has become a top priority. Thus most organizations are formulating strategies to use this data wisely without any hassles. From operational procedures to recruiting employees, right data can direct to right ways of doing it. Thus CEOs are showing more interest in this digitized environment. In short an overhaul in usage of data driven techniques are taking shape to have a leading edge. To  read more: http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/patimes/plotting-your-data-science-strategy-0618152/

Data science with number of practical uses is becoming an indispensable tool for all businesses. Its pace has reached an exponential level in recent times due to many advancements. But many experts are now shifting the gears into next level, predictive analytics, to save the future of this invaluable science, but getting this accepted industry wide is going to be a rough ride. Getting a smooth change from data science to predictive analytics will need an industry wide trust. It also needs the barrier of welcoming the new entrant eliminated by showing the effectiveness of this new technology which will create a helping environment for employees and employers alike. But to many hardcore fans of data science it is tough time leaving it to accept a new technology, only the returns and competitive edge this provides will make the shift more pleasant. Read more at: 

https://icrunchdatanews.com/3-keys-smooth-migration-data-science-predictive-analytics/

The huge demand of predictive analytics has led to various trainings been sprung up to impart or at least promising to impart the kind of skills required for developing an analytics model. But more often than not it forgets the primary ingredient. Geert Verstraeten, managing Partner and professional trainer of Python Predictions, feels that understanding the main project phases is the most important thing. He explains these phases with an interesting analogy- developing analytics model is as simple as making soup in a soup bar. Here are 5 phases of model building: 

• Taking the order- Project Definition 

• Mise en place- Data Preparation 

• Cooking the soup- Model building 

• Tasting the soup- Model Validation

• Serving the soup- Model Usage

This makes learning more engaging. To keep enjoying the analogy, click the link http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/patimes/how-to-manage-projects-in-predictive-analytics0710151/

Dubai Airports CEO, Paul Griffiths, is revolutionizing the airport experience and working. The Dubai Airport is handling 120 million annual passengers. This causes a need for something preventing the degradation of customer experience. Using in-dept. analytics to assign gates in a dynamic way is the first step. The system can assign gates in a far more efficient manner – such that if two flights have a significant numbers of passengers common between them, they will dynamically be assigned gate positions as close as possible. A new initiative allows retail stores in the airport to scan passengers' boarding passes and provide current updated about their departure gate, time, and the estimated time to move from the customer's current position to the gate. There are thus using data to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost structure of air industry operations. Read more at: http://www.networkworld.com/article/2944535/big-data-business-intelligence/big-data-enables-an-entirely-new-design-of-airport.html

In today’s world volume of data has been so large. This problem can be tackled through Hadoop-based Data Lake. A data lake is a storage repository that holds a vast amount of raw data in its native format until it is needed. There are some strengths, weakness, opportunity and treats.

Strengths:

A Hadoop-based data Lake is a low cost operation, as it is open source software and can be processed on low cost system. Hadoop has a capability of storing and processing all types of data, whether structured or unstructured, which incurs only a small proportion of cost of our currently traditional systems.

Weaknesses:

There can be a lot of confusion due to large volume, variety and velocity of big data. Although Hadoop-based Data Lake is open source and helped to meet the increasing demands of vendor’s products, it had not received complete success yet. There is a lot of security problem with this system. Open source community and vendors tried to eradicate such problem by supporting security and privacy requirement of the organization.

Opportunity:

There is opportunity to find unknown data. In spite of the existing data agents can go through the data lake to have better answers, or they could even get the answers to the questions that were not able to find. Advanced analytics also changed the view. For example descriptive analytics provided better visuals of the situation. Advanced analytics like- prescriptive, predictive and diagnostic, helped to analyze big data. A Hadoop-based data lake provided such opportunity.

Threats:

There is a significant cost and time involved to adopt these new technologies. It can affect the people, processes and the culture of the organization. Also there had been a lack of skills required to operate these advanced techniques which hangs on adoption of Hadoop. 

Conclusion:

So, all we can conclude that with the presence of some weakness and threats there are some strengths and opportunities to explore. An organization can enjoy the benefits provided by data lake depending on its requirements. Read more at:http://www.smartdatacollective.com/tamaradull/324901/data-lake-more-balanced-perspective

According to a survey, big data analytics and informatics skills are the ‘prospective’ two most important resources, to be used by the healthcare providers in their decision making and data management processes. The health information sector is experiencing some major changes, like, for example, the conversion of paper health records into electronic health records (EHR). Health Information Management (HIM) is also evolving, to be utilizing big data in population health management, predictive analytics, clinical quality enhancements, etc. Health Information Management, needs to view data as an asset, in order to utilize the data, in the best possible way. Read more at: http://healthitanalytics.com/news/him-healthcare-big-data-analytics-skills-increase-in-demand

As the frequency of credit card fraud is increasing, so are the costs associated with these bad transactions that include, lost merchandise, lost profit, transportation costs, etc. Hence, enter fraud analysts, who are continuously updated through automated machine learning, about any sort of fraudulent activities, spotted by customers, online. Five ways to spot and prevent online fraud:
1. Users with no shopping history can be suspected, who may create new accounts only to test stolen credit card information.
2. Bulk orders of multiple costly items are to be suspected.
3. Hastening up a delivery process is to be suspected, as imposters try to get benefited as much as possible, before getting detected.
4. Multiple accounts or multiple shipping or billing addresses, with any one common factor, out of the three, should be cross-checked.
5. Accounts with multiple credit cards should also be cross-checked.
Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/big-data/5-telltale-signs-your-business-is-battling-credit-card-fraud-01271169

Big data like other day-to-day works, have also entered into fitness. Just like Fitbit and Nike+ Running App, some other technology tools are also available now. Swimmers can now use Speedo Aquabeat which is an underwater iPad. The tool Trace, used in surfing and wakeboarding can now be mounted to any board to track the motion, speed, height and the tricks used while landing. The AiQ Bioman Tank monitors temperature, heart rate, and breathing of our body. For volleyball and basketball players, Vert app measures the jump and send the data to the smartphone comparing ability over time. Prescription sunglasses used for outdoor sports are also at a high popularity now. Read more about this article at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/7636-top-5-unique-sports-tech-gadgets-making-fitness-better