Business Intelligence Trends

August 29, 2012

There is no doubt that 2012 will be another big year for BI and information management. In the article we`ve tried to gather what we suppose are the top BI trends for near future

Big Data → Need for Speed

The rise in volume (amount of data), velocity (speed of data) and variety (range of data) gives way to new architectures that no longer only collect and store but actually use data: on-demand or real-time BI architectures will replaces traditional datawarehouses. Successful business intelligence projects will need to consider Big Data as part of their data landscape for the value that it delivers. More and more organizations will look toward statistics and data mining to set strategic direction and gain greater insights to stay ahead of the pack.At the same time the BI user is expecting faster answers from their BI environment disregarding the fact that the size of data is increasing.

Shift from analytical BI to operational BI

Increased adoption of cloud and mobile BI encourage individuals to access their KPI dashboards (key performance indicators), more often. An operational dashboard works much like a car’s dashboard. As you drive, you monitor metrics that indicate the current performance of your vehicle and make adjustments accordingly. When the speed-limit changes, you check your speedometer and slow down, or when you see you are out of gas you pull over and fill-up. Likewise, an operational dashboard allows you to make tactical decisions based on current performance, whether it is chasing a red-hot lead or ordering an out-of-stock product.

Data democracy

Latest surveys showed that only 25% of employees in businesses that adopted BI had access to that tool. And that is not because they didn`t want to or didn`t need information, but because traditional BI tools have been too bulky and technical for that other 75% of employees to use.
As now organizations more and more are adopting cloud and mobile BI dashboards, this situation is likely to change. Business intelligence is heading towards simpler, more straightforward methods and tools..

Agile

An Agile approach can be used to incrementally remove operational costs and if deployed correctly, can return great benefits to any organization. Agile provides a streamlined framework for building business intelligence/data warehousing (BIDW) applications that regularly delivers faster results using just a quarter of the developer hours of a traditional waterfall approach.

It allows you to start a project after doing 20 per cent of the requirements and design that deliver 80 per cent of the project’s value. The remaining details are filled in once development is underway and everyone has a good look at what the challenges actually are.

BI going mobile

In a survey conducted by Gartner, it was found that by 2013 one-third of all BI usage will be on a mobile device, such as a smart-phone or tablet. BI users want to access their data anytime and anywhere. This puts a demand on both the backend of any BI solution (like datawarehouse appliances) but also on the frontend where information access and visualization must be possible.

BI going up to the Cloud

As Cloud computing continues to dominate the whole IT landscape, so BI also dominates in the Cloud . Throughout next few years adoption of cloud BI tools will be driven by a number of important factors. First, cloud-based solutions offer the advantage of being relatively simple and convenient to deploy. Second, cloud tools are more easily scalable to provide access to key performance indicators (KPIs) to everyone in your organization, no matter where they are or what device they are using. Lastly, continually improving security measures will put to rest any reservations businesses have with storing their sensitive data in the cloud.

We believe these above enumerated areas will grow over the next few years. Organizations will embrace the Agile approach, utilizing new tools and technologies to decrease delivery times and demonstrate substantial business value. As we put more data into the Cloud, big data will become standard. Data itself will be delivered to satisfy the desires of users, so access from mobile devices will dominate desk-based consumption. The businesses that embrace these new business intelligence trends, and take steps to change and adapt the way data is hosted, analyzed, utilized and delivered, will be the ones that grow and prosper in the near future.

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Posted by david ricketts

Cloud back-up meets the enterprise: An infographic

August 6, 2012

Did you know that the average mobile worker now carries 3.5 mobile devices in 2012, up from 2.7 devices in 2011?

And that 92% of mobile workers believe that they should be able to read work email on their phone?

What happens to corporate data residing on endpoint devices such as laptops, tablets and smart phones? Is this data backed up hourly, daily, monthly? How is the enterprise protecting corporate assets residing on endpoint devices brought into the workplace?

Check out the infographic to find out how Cloud Backup addresses these challenges and more.

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Restaurant Industry Is Leading the Pack in Mobile Adoption [INFOGRAPHIC]

June 14, 2012

The restaurant and food industry is embracing the mobile movement more than other business sectors, according to a new infographic.

DudaMobile, a service that makes websites mobile ready, found that 28% of small to medium-sized businesses in the restaurant and food industry have a mobile-friendly site, from pizzerias and bakeries to food trucks.

This category is far more advanced than other industries looking to reach out to smartphone users, including professional services such as locksmiths and attorneys (16%), health and wellness including spas and salons (10%), travel and tourism such as hotels (8%) and automobile/transportation (6%). Retailer was number six on the list (5%) for small to medium-sized businesses.

Mobile Infographic

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Your App’s Location Awareness: Micro or Macro?

April 17, 2012

There is little disagreement among those involved with mobile at major retailers that making their apps location-aware represents a huge opportunity. Because mobile phones travel everywhere with their owners and are always on, location is one of the most powerful pieces of context by which to understand a shopper’s intent and to engage with her in a way that highlights her environment.

However, within the location discussion it’s been interesting to observe different natural starting points for location awareness. Some start with “Macrolocation” and others with “Microlocation.” Macrolocation is the idea of being able to understand when and where a device is at a high level – within a particular neighborhood, a particular store, or a particular public venue (like a park, sports arena, or golf course). Microlocation is the idea of focusing on the inside of the store and understanding in which department or even in which aisle a shopper is standing. Naturally, these two types of location involve very different technologies and can be used (ideally) in complementary fashion.

But most large-format retailers start by focusing on one or the other, and I think it’s useful to talk about the benefits of these two contexts and when one or the other might make more sense for a particular retailer. A bit of important disclosure, we at Digby made the choice to focus our technology on macrolocation – so I promise to be as objective as I can be. I’ll surface some of differences here and ask you to contribute and keep me honest in the comments.

What’s the Goal?

The obvious difference is one of marketing objective. Both approaches will tell you when a store visit happens and how long it lasts. A Macrolocation focus optimizes around the store and the world outside of it, and is more powerful for understanding and driving store traffic. Microlocation focuses on enhancing a shopping experience for someone already inside of the store down to the aisle or department level, and can be more powerful in maximizing the size of the purchase they might make. Macrolocation can lead a shopper to a store, microlocation to an item.

Focus on Shopper Marketing: Advantage Micro

The biggest advantage of Microlocation is, in my mind, how well it aligns with the Loyalist, who is the most likely person to download a retailer’s app. These 50,000, or 500,000, or 5 million people are the people who visit the store most often. As such, a retailer might not need to focus on driving additional store visits as much – but will and can focus on driving up the size of purchases during a store visit by enhancing in-store service and delivering timely offers.

Meaningful Segmentation and Analytics: Advantage Macro

The biggest advantage of Macrolocation is how location at the macro level is much more meaningful than at a micro-level. For instance, interacting with a shopper based on whether they are in-store, in a region of a city, at a local sports event, or in a local park is more meaningful than whether they are in aisle 3 or aisle 7. Location suffers from a signal vs. noise problem in terms of how useful it is when you get to a small enough scale. For instance, if you followed me as I walk all over a store looking for that cleverly hidden peanut butter (is it a vegetable? a baking item? a snack?), you might get all the wrong cues about what I’m interested in. Inside of the store, personalizing on what I scanned, on what’s on my app shopping list, or what I’ve bought in the past is probably more valuable than where I’m standing.

I know I’ve positioned this as a battle between two ways of looking at location, but honestly there are ways to do both very well and make them highly effective for a retailer. Knowing the right situations to focus on one over the other and understanding the pitfalls of each and how to overcome them is the key to effectively bringing location to your mobile app.

What other considerations might I be missing? Micro or Macro?


http://www.themobileretailblog.com/in-store-mobile-tools/your-apps-location-awareness-micro-or-macro/

 

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Data storage is on everyones mind

March 15, 2012

According to Gartner in 2010, 47% of enterprise survey respondents ranked data growth in their top three challenges. The steady growth in the pace of file creation and systems to save all of those files shows no hint of a slowdown.

In 1986, only 1% of data was stored digitally. In 2007, it was 94%. Enterprises are storing 7 exabytes of data and consumers, 6 exabytes. And while individuals generate 75% of the information in the digital universe, enterprises have some liability for 80% of information in the digital universe at some point in its digital life.

Take a look at this infographic that illustrates some interesting statistics about data growth and how it’s being stored. We also define the various technologies you can use for data storage from cloud to dedicated. Hopefully it gets you thinking about what you or your company is doing when it comes to data storage. If you need to address your data issues please contact us for advice.

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Murat Paris: Interactive Jewellery Print Ads

November 28, 2011

It seems more and more brands are looking to create richer print ads. But I still find the innovation examples around it few and far between. So here is a great example of a brand trying something new in the Jewellery sector. This Interactive Print Ad is designed for a smartphone to be placed into the position of a hand, loading a rich mobile site that allows users to flick between various bracelets and rings positioned on the virtual hand.

From there, readers can find out more information about each piece and then locate their nearest store, complete with maps. Pretty cool. And great to see print innovation. Created by Agency .V.

Thanks to Digital Buzz

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Posted by david ricketts

How companies lose data – infographic

October 28, 2011

What would your small business do if your computers were stolen or destroyed? Would your important data still exist? In April, Carbonite surveyed small businesses with between two and 20 employees to study their disaster recovery and data backup methods. We found that almost half of small businesses have already lost irreplaceable data.

Although this survey was only done for small companies, most mid market companies would be in the same situation…..

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Infographic, Asia-Pacific Social Media Stats

August 15, 2011

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

Great infographic from Burson-Marsteller that shows the growth of social media across Asia-Pacific. As you can see from the graphic it is not just about Facebook, however they are doing really well.

The information highlights how the internet is changing almost everything for everyone. I believe that Facebook will soon be on target to be the medium of choice to discuss and discover all that is important for individuals across the globe.

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The growth of mobile payment infographic. NFC, Google Wallet and the rest……

July 12, 2011

We have mentioned several times the fact that mobile phones will be playing an ever-increasing importance when it comes to the way that we pay for goods and services. The infographic below highlights what appears to be 4 of the main contenders and the type of technologies they are using.

All we can say is that the market is going to be significant, with equipment sales hitting $75 billion by 2013 with in 1 in 5 phones using NFC and by 2015 the value of goods transacted will be around $670 billion.

For those of you in retail and software development this is certainly a gravy train that you need to be riding.

Thanks to: thenextweb: How mobile phones are becoming the new credit card [Infographic]

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The Storage Problem You Can’t Ignore?

July 6, 2011

It’s not news that storage is swamping IT budgets. Our 2011 InformationWeek Analytics State of Storage Survey shows the amount of actively managed storage expanding at around 20% per year. In our practice, we work with a few companies dealing with growth levels in excess of 50%. At this rate, most data centers double storage capacity requirements every two to three years. And as employees start using multiple mobile devices and consumer applications for work, that estimate could be conservative.

In our first InformationWeek Analytics Public Cloud Storage Survey, fielded in April, 59% of respondents using, planning to adopt, or assessing public cloud storage services called out email as the application most responsible for storage growth, followed by increasing demand from new or planned applications (58%). Seventy-six percent said they’re somewhat or very concerned about storage costs, and most CIOs we speak with insist they’re actively seeking to reduce those expenditures while still keeping data available. So you can imagine our surprise that, when asked exactly what they’re spending per gigabyte, nearly half our survey respondents said they have no clue. They have data retention policies, but enforcement is all over the map. When we asked about strategies that could lower storage costs, we got a virtual yawn: Just 10% plan to use external storage services within the next two years. Only half are taking advantage of storage virtualization. Sixty-one percent either make do with the management tools provided by their storage vendors (53%) or don’t actively manage storage resources at all (8%).

To view full article visit:
http://eddblogonline.blogspot.com/2011/06/storage-problem-you-cant-ignore.html

Thanks to ediscovery news as well.

If you need to address your storage issues, C24 are experts at on premise and cloud based storage and are currently helpding countless organisations address this ever growing problem. For more information visit www.c24.co.uk

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