IBM Report Highlights the Power of Predictive Analytics

October 4, 2012

This morning I read an important guide by IBM, Making Critical Connections: Predictive Analytics in Government, Improve Strategic and tactical decision-making. The guide highlights the benefits of predictive analytics in government and shows how data can provide insight and guide decision making for government agencies. I’d encourage you to take a look at the report, and consider how predictive analytics can help transform your agency.

 

Today, government collects more data than ever before. There are countless examples, whether data is coming from social media, photo sharing, business operations, customer service, HR, health data, research studies, there are dozens of examples of how much data is collected. With all this data now readily available, the challenge becomes how to manage, store and drive action based on data. Predictive analytics has become a potential way to unlock data driven decisions for agencies. In discussions with government employees, here are some of the common challenges related to predictive analytics:

 

Defined Mission

Just like any kind of implementation of technology, it is important to consider what exactly is trying to be solved by using predictive analytics. Any successful program has clear metrics that the organization is aiming to reach. For example, if an agency desires to reduce call center volumes, predictive analytics can be used to identify challenges and issues that customers are facing. If there is a common thread or theme seen through the data, an agency can solve the problem, and the center may receive less calls.

 

Data Management

Predictive analytics is all about data. In order to truly capitalize on predictive analytics, agencies need to identify what data they are collecting, where it is housed, who has access, how data is currently being used, and what kind of data they may need to look at to solve the problem they identified.

 

Who else is Using Predictive Analytics? How can we use predictive analytics?

There are a lot of agencies using predictive analytics, and there are many great ways that agencies have implemented predictive analytics into their agency. Recently, I wrote about the Blue CRUSH program in the City of Memphis, as a great example of using predictive analytics to fight crime in our neighborhoods. GovLoop also hosted a webinar that discusses the Blue CRUSH program, which you can access here.

 

Another great resource comes from Frank Stein, Director of IBM’s Analytics Solution Center, also provided some great examples of using big data in his post Big Weather, Big Data.Further, the IBM guide further identifies some ways agencies have used predictive analytics, stating:

 

  • Law enforcement agencies look for patterns in criminal behavior and suspicious activity. This enables them to deploy personnel more effectively and to identify possible motives and suspects.
  • Auditors of tax returns and Medicare/Medicaid claims compare information across cases to understand normal activity patterns. In this way, they can identify cases that deviate from the norm and, therefore, warrant further investigation.
  • Disease management analysts study events that led to favorable outcomes across time and patient populations, in order to develop optimal treatment protocols.
  • Public health authorities monitor syndromic information from various sources, looking for elevated levels of certain symptoms that signal a widespread disease outbreak. This accelerates the process of uncovering the cause of the outbreak.
  • Network analysts protect the security of computer and communications systems by detecting “cyber threats.” These include unauthorized access and the release of computer worms or viruses.

 

Identifying Value

There are many reasons why agencies decide to use predictive analytics. IBM provides an extensive list of the benefits below. In today’s climate for government employees, predictive analytics can help conquer some of the most pressing challenges for government. For instance, predictive analytics has successful lead to a reduction in costs, identifying new efficiencies, and improved safety, and managing risk. IBM expands on these themes in their report:

 

  • Reduce costs while improving resource allocation. Facing an increasing backlog of collections, an agency develops a collection prioritization plan that leverages its limited resources and aligns operations with new strategic goals. By focusing its collection efforts, the agency achieves a higher success rate, resulting in additional annual revenue.
  • Reduce fraud, waste and abuse. A Medicaid fraud detection office predicts which claims are likely to be fraudulent, so that auditors can concentrate on the right claims and recoup lost revenue more cost effectively.
  • More efficiently protect public safety and security. Analysts at a U.S. metropolitan police department review and analyze crime data, identify trends and patterns, and develop predictive models that are then made available to operational personnel through an intranet. Command staff can evaluate real-time conditions and send police units where they are most likely to be needed.
  • Better manage risk. Government agencies are alerted to anomalies
in the reported number of cases of a particular illness. As a result, medical personnel in the affected area can be notified in a timely fashion.
  • Streamline processes. Millions of pieces of data from microarray experiments, such as genetic factors underlying malignant brain tumors in children, are analyzed to discover the most effective therapies, thereby extending or saving lives.
  • Increase job effectiveness. Recruiters are able to improve their efficiency at filling jobs by focusing on the few candidates among hundreds of leads that are most likely to respond favorably.

 

The complexity of data and the challenges faced by government today require new ways of thinking, new technology and for agencies to continually learn how to provide improved services more efficiently. As pressures continue to grow on agencies to improve service delivery, while budgets and resources decrease, predictive analytics is one way agencies can find new and innovative ways to transform their agency with data drive decisions.

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IBM Survey: Social Media Impacting Threats From Reputational Risk

September 21, 2012

 

So here’s a question for you? What is your organization doing to more effectively manage its risk profile?

IBM recently released its 2012 Global Reputational Risk and IT Study, and the findings suggest that companies are viewing their IT investments through a new lens.

First, some background, and then a summary of the findings.

This study is an investigation of how organizations around the world are managing their reputations in today’s digital era, where IT is an integral part of their operations and where IT failures can result in reputational damage.

The report was written by the Economist Intelligence Unit, which both executed an online survey and conducted client executive interviews.

That included 427 senior executive responses from around the world, 42 percent of those being C-level, with 33 percent of respondents coming from North America, 29 percent from Europe, and 26 percent from Asia-Pacific.

The survey included industries that ran the gamut, including banking, IT, energy and utilities, and insurance.

Impact of Social Media On Risk

Corporate reputations are especially difficult to manage in an era when anyone with a smartphone and Internet connection can file their complaint with a single touch.

With social media sites like Facebook and Twitter boasting over 1.4 million people combined, there is now a highly visible and immediate alterative to a company’s own communications regarding its reputation.

Because of that, more organizations have introduced reputational risk as a distinct category within their enterprise risk management frameworks.

The study suggests that companies have begun to pay closer attention to the links between IT failures and reputational damage, and also examines how executives are attempting to protect their brands from what could arguably be called “a preventable glitch.”

So, drum roll, please. Here’s a summary of some of the key findings:

  • IT risk management and investment directly supports a company’s reputation. Reputational risk has evolved into an asset that is fundamentally supported by IT planning and investment. 78 percent say they included reputational risk in their own IT risk planning, and 75 percent say their budget will grow due to concerns for such. Eighteen percent indicate that spend will increase by more than 20 percent in the next 12 months.
  • The CEO owns it but shares it. When asked to name the top 3 C-level execs who owned reputational risk, close to two-thirds say it was shared across the C-suite. 80 percent of CEOs indicated it was theirs to win, followed by 31 percent of CFOs, 27 percent of CIOs, 23 percent of CROs (Chief Risk Officers), and 22 percent of CMOs.
  • Five characteristics of highly effective companies — they get reputational risk and invest in it. Of those who do, 83 percent indicated they have integrated IT into their reputational risk management regimes. They also perceive stronger links between IT threats and key elements of reputation (especially customer sat and brand reputation), and they also say they have strong or very strong IT risk management capacity (84 percent). Seventy-seven percent indicated they have well-resourced IT risk management functions, and are more likely to require vendors and supply chain partners to meet the same levels of control as they require internally.

Improving Reputational Risk Management: Best Practices

So what’s a concerned C-level exec to do? The study revealed several core strategies:

  • Be proactive rather than reactive. That is, be prepared to invest in developing comprehensive reputational risk management strategies that include robust controls on IT risks, particularly those related to security, business continuity and tech support.
  • Create an organization where IT managers collaborate with other risk management specialists. Together, they should be tasked with presenting a comprehensive profile of organization-wide reputational risks to senior management.
  • Engage in scenario analysis, especially with new and emerging technology. Don’t wait for the worst to happen — there are plenty of case studies to be used as a basis for “what-if” planning.
  • Assess risks across the entire supply chain. A failure by a downstream supplier can be just as devastating as an internal problem, and risk controls can be harmonized among key players.

A More Integrated, Holistic Approach

This more integrated, enterprise-wide approach to risk management — led by the C-suite on down — can help your organization increase the attention being paid to the direct reputational impact of IT risks, and help you mitigate those risks (including those stemming from the use of new technologies).

To learn more and to gain access to the full study, go here.

 

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Live @ IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit Madrid: IBM’s Mike Rhodin On Insight-Driven Computing

September 20, 2012

IBM vice president Mike Rhodin hit the stage this morning at the IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit, with presenter emcee Jon Briggs introducing Mike as “the man who eats analytics for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.’

IBM senior vice president Mike Rhodin explains to the gathered audience in Madrid how the Smarter Commerce initiative was a logical and inevitable offshoot of IBM’s smarter planet campaign, one driven by the need for more insight- and action-driven analytics.

Rhodin’s talk was entitled “Transform Your Business Around the Customer,” again with the central theme of the Summit that if more businesses wanted to keep theirs, they would increasingly have to pivot their business around customer needs.

Thanks to Turbotodd

Rhodin indicated that he wanted to take a step backward from yesterday’s more outcome-driven discussion, and instead talk about “some of the foundational ideas that led us to Smarter Commerce.”

He explained that four years ago, IBM started a conversation about having a “smarter planet,” one increasingly instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent, and that since that time, “analytics emerged as a centerpiece across our entire portfolio.”

Rhodin joked that the financial crisis’ onslaught wasn’t the best time to launch a new marketing campaign, but then explained smarter planet wasn’t that, that it was a signal call heralding a new age of computing. That it was, in fact, the beginning of a movement that was going to happen “no matter what else happened in the world.”

The change this movement would bring was startling. We saw the social media embraced in both the social, political, and, increasingly business realms, and we saw that the physical world was about to become digitized…to some degree, because of the crisis.

Ergo, the world, and organizations, needed to better understand systemic risk in advance of its rearing its ugly head. Hence, the need to instrument the world around us.

“Information was flowing around the planet at a breakneck speed,” Rhodin articulated, “and so there was another form of input to make business decisions that became apparent.”

“We also instrumented the virtual world,” he went on, “whereby understanding the sentiment of your employees, your partners, and other constituents was critical.”

Yet all this new data was overwhelming many. “It was growing at such a speed that people couldn’t read or process it with traditional means, and so that’s where analytics started to play a key role, and served as a foundation for Smarter Commerce.”

“This began what we’re classifying as the next generation of computing,” Rhodin went on to explain. “We went through the age of ‘tabulating’ — we’re now entering the age of “information-based” computing.”

In this age, business outcomes are increasingly insight-driven, solutions are more intelligent, and technology is designed to be more and more cognitive.

“It’s not about understanding what happens, but rather, what you do about it, what actions you take,” Rhodin concluded.

With this explosion of data from a hyper-connected society of empowered consumers, we “must extract insight from our most important assets – employees and customers – through smarter analytics,” and the challenge, then, is to address the need for “volume, velocity, and veracity” to help find the right data amidst all those needles amidst all those haystacks.

And it’s a big series of haystacks and needles. The data generated between the dawn of civilization and 2003 is now created every two days! Rhodin explained.

He went on: “These next gen systems are creating opportunities in IT we haven’t seen in 50 years. But now, with all this information and analytics, and the march of globalization, we can start to automate areas of business we could never automate before. We can start to automate and make more intelligent the front-office areas of our business. Chief Financial Officers, CMOs, head of sales, HR…we can turn HR from a reactive to proactive process.”

“We’ve identified a new pattern of automation across industries, one whereby we can instrument, interconnect, and analyze more and more data about the world, and in the process unlock more and more valuable insight,” he explained. “We are infusing intelligent into the fabric of organizational processes. This shift is as profound as the last evolution was to transaction processing and back office automation.”

The shift being, of course, a continual transition whereby today’s analytics evolves into tomorrow’s cognitive computing capability, where Watson-style technologies utilizing natural language processing and hypothesis-generating and adaptation and learning systems virtually reinvent the IT future.

“We can remake parts of industries that have been untouched by IT in the past,” Rhodin concluded.

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In Search Of The Mobile Enterprise

September 20, 2012

The new mobile business model — with anytime, anywhere transactions and a blurring of lines between corporate and individual — can make your IT organization feel like it has lost control. For all the good that comes with mobilizing your workforce, there are challenges: maintaining security and compliance, managing multiple device platforms and addressing complex mobile requirements.

You can’t throw a rock these days without hitting a new smartphone or tablet device.

Last week, it was the iPhone 5 and the new Kindle Fire HD. Tomorrow, HTC’s expected to introduce some new mobile products.

And Apple still has yet to introduce the Apple “mini” iPad, currently expected in October.

The move to mobile computing raises some intriguing questions about the nature of work. What is it? Where does it take place?

As someone who’s worked their entire career at IBM, I can certainly attest to the idea that here, increasingly, work is not a place you go but what you do.

I’ve spent nearly nine full years working from my home, and several of those years, spent at least a week a month living (and working) in airplanes.

As the IBM “Services for the Mobile Enterprise” team recently observed, the new workplace is now undeniably a mobile enterprise.

CIOs On Mobile: 66% Plan To Increase Mobile Investments in 2012

Which makes it no big surprise that 66 percent of CIOs plan to increase investments in mobile services in the next year.

And of course, there’s the “BYOD” movement to contend with (“Bring Your Own Device”), with employees expecting whatever device they have to fit into their corporate environment.

This new mobile business model, with anytime, anywhere transactions and a blurring of lines between corporations and individuals, can send IT folks into a conniption fit.

Despite all the goodness — for employees, management, and most importantly, the bottom line — there are challenges that accompany this mobilization of the workforce.

Issues such as maintaining security and compliance.  Managing multiple device platforms.  Addressing complex mobile requirements.

IBM recently released this interactive infographic that has some interesting statistics I thought worthwhile sharing here.

To start, 35 percent of the world’s total workforce is expected to be mobile by 2013.

Here in the U.S., up to 72.2 percent of workers are already plugged in remotely.

This year, some 43 billion mobile applications are expected to be downloaded.

And yet on average, mobile workers spend only a total of 28 minutes a day on technology distractions…there’s too much work to do, otherwise!

The Mobile Upside: 240 Extra Hours Worked Per Worker Per Year

And here’s the upside bonus for you managers: Such mobile workers work an average of 240 extra hours per year.

But as the infographic observes, with those benefits come expectations.

This new mobile generation of workers demands flexibility. Today’s employees expect to use their own devices and applications at work to access information and social networks at will. They even value this flexibility more than a higher-paying salary (Can you say “Mobile enables work/life balance?”).

Cisco’s Connected World Technology Report in 2011 found that 66 percent of workers said they would take a job with less pay and more flexibility in device usage, access to social media, and mobility than a higher-paying job without such flexibility.

Mobile Presents New Challenges

So, as businesses work to embrace these new productive mobile work habits, they must also face the requisite challenges asscoated with the growing number of devices, networks, and applications. Enterprises need a solution that intertwines cross-platform compatibility, security, cost management, compliance, and the inevitable complexity.

By way of example, 21 percent of mobile workers say they have experienced a security issue related to their smartphone (lost, stolen, hacked, virus) in the last year alone.

Fifty-four percent of enterprises rate security and authentication as one of the two top concerns for their mobile environments.

Seventeen percent say they need to meet compliance/regulatory requirements in mobile environments.

And yet 45 percent of IT departments say they aren’t prepared policy- and technology-wise to handle this more borderless, mobile workforce.

Bridging Your Mobile Gap

To overcome those challenges, enterprises need an experienced partner with a strategy capable of spanning the distance between mobile advances and existing infrastructures.

Those early adopters are leaping ahead: They’re already experiencing 20 percent cost savings and productivity improvements.

And 75 percent of CIOs say mobility solutions are a top priority of theirs for 2012.

On the mobile front, IBM workers are walking their own mobile talk, connecting to 10 different networks located around the world, and with 100K+ of them connecting using their own handheld devices (using at least five supported device platforms).

IBM’s own app store, Whirlwind, offers over 500 applications and was recognized by CIO Magazine with the “CIO 100 Top Innovation Award.”

All of that experience IBM has had with its own mobile enablement has informed and shaped the company’s customer-facing mobile initiatives, both through product development and through the introduction of its mobile services offerings.

IBM can help your staff develop the right strategy and governance and deliver a wide range of mobile enterprise services to create a more productive, connected workplace.

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Posted by david ricketts

Big Data – An Infographic Perspective

September 3, 2012

CSC is one of the pioneers in the rapidly growing field of big data.As most of us already know, ”big data” is changing dramatically right before our eyes – from the amount of data being produced to the way in which it’s structured (or not) and used. One million time as much data is lost each day than is consumed. This trend of big data growth presents enormous challenges, but it also presents incredible business opportunities (Monetization of Data). This big data growth infographic helps you visualize some of the latest trends.

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Posted by david ricketts

Data Science: Beyond Intuition – The Movie

August 31, 2012

Data science is changing the way we look at business, innovation and intuition. It challenges our subconscious decisions, helps us find patterns and empowers us to ask better questions. Hear from thought leaders at the forefront including Growth Science, IBM, Intel, Inside-BigData.com and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. This video is an excellent source of information for those that have struggled trying to understanding data science and its value.

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Big Tennis Meets Big Data

August 30, 2012

Major sporting events like the U.S. Open are not only exciting to watch and follow, but are also a living lab for how “big data” can translate into big business. This year, the USTA is using predictive analytics and cloud computing to improve the experience for everyone: fans, tennis players, event organizers and broadcasters. USTA’s Phil Green and IBM’s Rick Singer explain how.

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The History of Flash in a Flash

August 28, 2012

Image representing Fusion-io as depicted in Cr...

Image via CrunchBase

Many people don’t know that flash isn’t really all that new. While it’s only gained popularity in the past decade, flash was invented more than 25 years ago to be used as a new form of memory. Over the years though, developers instead implemented it as storage because flash memory is persistent, like disk drives.

The history of flash is so interesting, our team at Fusion-io wanted to share a bit of it with the world. So we created this whiteboard video to show how flash has changed the world we live in and is now powering the digital age. Along the way, we also reveal the secrets behind the Fusion ioMemory difference.

So take a few minutes and learn how flash is powering both sides of the Internet, how you can unlock its true potential, and how it’s changing the world.

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Gartner predicts that by 2017 the Chief Marketing Officer will control the technology spend

July 18, 2012

The Wall Street Journal just posted this article in advance of IBM’s 2Q earnings announcement tomorrow, leading with this sentence: “Technology companies have found a new customer—the marketing department.”

The story goes on to highlight the fact that marketing organizations are increasingly taking the lead in technology acquisition, and that “Companies are de-emphasising traditional productivity tools like PCs and standard business software in favor of advanced programs that help them boost revenue, for example by tracking customers across channels and better targeting offers and advertising.”

In the Journal article, author Spencer Ante points out that Gartner recently predicted by 2017, the chief marketing officer will control more technology spending than the company CIO. Gartner estimates that around a third of marketing department expense budgets is devoted to purchases such as systems to manage customer relationships, predict customer behavior, and run online storefronts, and that the global spend on marketing software already rose from $20 billion to $25 billion over the past year.

Anyway interesting video below:

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C24 invest in 3PAR Technology within Tier IV data centre infrastructure

May 17, 2012

May 2012 -  Birmingham, England – C24 continue to invest in their infrastructure to deliver on a continued desire to offer the very best solutions to their ever growing national and international client base.
“We have recognised that we are facing ever-evolving IT requirements. There is a constant need to consolidate storage assets, support measurable service levels and at the same time deal with the same old problems of mushrooming corporate data and a need to store this data for longer periods” commented Paul Hemming Managing Director C24.
Hemming continued “We didn’t want to invest further in traditional storage as they have not adapted effectively to the new IT requirements that we have witnessed over the last few years. For this and many other reasons the management team at C24 decided to invest heavily in 3PAR technology”.
HP 3PAR Utility Storage is the only virtualized storage platform that delivers 100% of the simplicity, efficiency, and agility demanded by todays virtual and cloud data centres. Designed from the ground up to exceed the economic and operational requirements of today’s most demanding IT environments, HP 3PAR Utility Storage also delivers the performance, scalability, and availability required of Tier 1 Storage along with unique technology benefits not available with traditional platforms.

HP 3PAR Software, with the HP 3PAR InForm Operating System (InForm OS) as its foundation, is the intelligence behind HP 3PAR Utility Storage. The HP 3PAR InForm OS has advanced capabilities that provide:

  • Fine-grained virtualization and “wide striping” capabilities that deliver massively parallel performance levels as well as the flexibility to configure various levels of service
  • Industry-leading, pioneering thin technologies for efficiency and capacity reduction
  • Sophisticated resiliency features to protect against hardware, software, and site failures
  • Storage federation capability to enable seamless migration of data and workloads between arrays without impact to applications, users, or services
  • Uncompromising security, including secure workload segregation to enable multi-tenancy
  • Autonomic management to eliminate manual, repetitive, and error-prone administrative tasks and deliver automatically load-balanced storage

The solution is currently being installed with 3PAR technicians flying in from the US to install the solution into C24’s award winning datacentre infrastructure

Further Information about C24

C24 are an business application and managed service specialist who deliver business applications to over 107 countries across the globe. The organisation has decades of experiencing delivering cloud computing solutions and currently work with some of Europe’s leading businesses.

C24’s product portfolio includes all aspects of data management and delivery, including business intelligence, application acceleration technologies and private and hybrid cloud solutions.

The business growth over the last two years has been significant we multiple client wins, which has seen the company expand its delivery footprint into mainland China. This growth is projected to continue due to a healthy order book and pipeline.

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