2014 is expected to be the year of cheaper analytics. Along with the announcements of new features from some SaaS providers like Gainsight, gShift and pricier systems from Adobe, IBM, Oracle etc., a firm Rival IQ has recently released the beta version of a new SEO analytics features which is now included in all the company's service tiers and its service includes analytics for websites and social media. It might also provide an easier approach for marketers who are now technically backward. About 1,000 companies are now the users of digital marketing/analytics. One of the officials of HP's cloud computing division has started using Rival IQ and said that they are trying to provide enough data across all the different areas at a very cheap rate so that one can easily grab charts, and see reports from one place and then export everything to PowerPoint, CSV or PDFs. The landscape features of this SEO analytics also allow users to see what their competitors are doing in social and SEO and can be used to research best practices for a whole area like e-commerce. Read more at:http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/a-cheaper-alternative-to-marketing-analytics-025687.php

Healthcare industry has changed a lot from what it was five years ago. Thanks to influx of technology, policy reforms and care model innovations. Patients, today, are better informed by instant access to health information sources. According to a recent study by Intel, patients today are ready to see technology play a greater role in their care. Technologies like ingestible monitors can collect valuable health data and also the providers are eagerly using mobile devices and telemedicine tools to better care for their patients which in turn helps to increase operational and administrative efficiencies. Health systems are also dependent on big data to improve and better manage population health. Physician and hospital use of health IT has already more than doubled in 2013, and 2014 is going to see another exponential innovation. Cutting costs and broadening access to quality of care and also emphasizing on patient's experience, providers are refining ways to better serve their patients. Apart from such innovations, use of sensor technology, relying more on big data will increase. Health systems will become more transparent. Read more at:http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/leadership/healthcare-in-2014-innovate-or-be-left-behind/d/d-id/1204285

Big Data is about large volumes of unstructured data along with rapid analysis with insights being noted within seconds. Big Data allows narrower customer segments and help in tailoring precise products and services which will then allow for companies to develop the next-generation products and services. The fact is that Big Data requires more capacity, highly efficient accessibility. It would require scale-out or clustered storage systems - such as scale-out NAS (Network Attached Storage) which can scale out to meet capacity and uses systems which are distributed across many storage devices and can handle billions of files without degradation of performance. Big Data using Hadoop stack has been gaining acceptance widely. Also, organizations which create and store more transactional data in digital form can collect more accurate and detailed performance information on everything. RAID-based storage systems have huge storage capacity but not necessarily what Big Data requires and RAID based systems cannot protect data from loss. Thus, most IT organizations incur additional costs which use RAID for Big Data storage as they need to copy it two or three times to protect it from loss. Read more at:http://www.informationweek.in/informationweek/perspective/296730/environments-object-storage

Apart from external threats that disrupt law and order, public security officers in India also face challenges within an organization. Lack of interoperability and exchange of information leads to weaker response time and fewer positive outcomes. Technology can help to overcome these problems with better integration and management of operational process and data. A single integrated information stores the data from various sources on people, objects, events etc. which in turn leads to efficient resource management. However, law enforcement agencies in India lack a robust IT infrastructure which can help them deal with threats to public security and safety. Ability to capture and mine huge amount of data from diverse sources actually leads to success of a big data project. To analyze and make fast yet accurate decisions, all intelligence sources, law enforcement and other public security agencies gather a large amount of data and employ specialized analysts to make sense of raw intelligence gathered from different sources. Using Big Data, intelligence agencies can analyze and make sense of this huge volume of structured and unstructured data, in real-time speed and it enable agencies to identify relationships and helps to detect, avert & resolve crimes. Read more at:http://www.informationweek.in/informationweek/interviews/296242/help-enhancing-indias-national-security.

It is found that big data and healthcare analytics help patients to stick to their treatment plans following doctor's orders. According to a New England Journal of medicine report, despite having treatable ailments, about 125,000 people die in United States every year just because they don't take their medication properly advised by the doctors. According to a doctor, to overcome the problems, they needed to identify the gaps in scores and ratings which includes Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information set (HEDIS), Consumer Assessment of Health Providers and Systems (CAHPS) etc. As non-compliance hurts healthcare provider's goal of improving care and reducing costs, many organizations are handling the matter by growing their insights built from big data and analytics to deploy human resources like managers and social workers in better ways. Medicare, Medicaid, dual-eligible, and commercial plan members on care management strategies incorporate technologies such as big data, analytics and integration to improve health outcomes, enhance satisfaction and compliance, also increases income and lower cost. For populations who often have chronic conditions and don't want to comply with doctor's orders because of homelessness, financial instability, joblessness and emotional issues, one can use big data to solve the problem in a logistic-driven way to help those patients comply on their care plan. Read more at: http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/analytics/analytics-help-patients-follow-doctors-orders/d/d-id/1278717

To boost manufacturing and entrepreneurship in the country, Flipkart (Indian e-commerce company)  announced its tie up with Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) promotion bodies. Strong data analytics that forms the base of e-marketplaces will help the sellers to improve their products easily and attract more customers. According to the Executive Director of NCDPD (National Center for Design and Product Development), analytics and market intelligence provided by Flipkart will assist NCDPD in improving their products and R&D and also enable the craftsmen to create better saleable products. The objective of this tie-up is to continue helping entrepreneurs to create products according to buyer requirements and grow significantly by expanding their business so that they may become manufacturers not only at a local but also at a national level. Read more at: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-06-18/news/50678912_1_data-analytics-flipkart-market-data.

In India, banking industry plays an important role in ensuring the sustainable growth through more credit flows and reaching out to more people by financial inclusion. Thus, the retail banking systems has to handle several issues like customer identity, managing credit risk, fraud detection and prevention, customer relationship maintaining etc. Data analytics helps in this way by ensuring organizations in achieving their growth objectives. It also enables them to manage and automate large volumes of day-to-day decisions. Data analytics draws inferences from large amount of data and use these inferences within banking processes transparently. Data analytics (DA) has an effective use in the following stages of customer lifecycle- Customer targeting -DA helps to develop right offer to right customer by understanding their behavior. Customer Acquisition- DA benefits banks by acquiring profitable customers at low cost and also helps to understand the affordability status of customers. Customer Management- DA helps banks to ensure responsible lending and to undertake effective risk management measures which in turn provide better customer services. Collection- Banks can use DA to reduce delinquency, manage cost of collections, and reduce wasted time by knowing the right value of the customers according to their worth retaining for the future. Read more at:http://www.informationweek.in/informationweek/perspective/287791/indian-banks-improve-customer-lifecycle-analytics?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-indian-banks-can-improve-the-customer-lifecycle-by-using-data-analytics

Technologies, today, have enabled bank customers to make payments, track spending or move money between different accounts easily just by going online with a PC, phone or tablet. People are using popular websites like PayPal, for cheap loans and saving returns. Cash machines, ATMs have also become more advanced and multi-functional which means customers will soon be able to send money overseas, receive money transfers, purchase foreign currency and carry out transactions such as applying for loans. According to futurologists, smartphones will become mobile wallets soon enabling a customer to use discount vouchers and earn cashback on any transactions.  Banks will also have to exploit social media well i.e. listening to customers and have conversations on networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Mobile banking also helps banks to know the physical location of their customers and provide services accordingly. For example, banks might text to offer foreign currency when the customer arrives at an airport. However, new rules and improved technology have made it easier to switch current accounts and will make it even easier in future which in turn provides enough incentives for the banks to excel in technology, in all aspects of their service. Read more at:http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/moneymatters/article3925149.ece

Big data is extending the range of data types in banks that can be covered beyond those common transaction data, and it helps to address problems. Some important areas in banking like fraud analytics, customer analytics and web analytics are also enhanced by big data. Today's improved technologies and frameworks enable banks to get customer data, graph data and geo-location data easily from customers, other banking channels etc. which in turn yields significant insights that can be used in customer marketing, risk management and infrastructure optimization. Big data projects are beneficial as they enhance areas like web security, compliance checks and customer analytics and thus cause the banks to make relevant investments in it. Banks need to know and understand the characteristics of the data they need and need to capture more information beyond risk and marketing data. If the users have sound idea of the nature of the available data, their strategies of making a rough analysis and then use the results to guide them in refining the analysis, will be more effective. This approach helps banks to analyze more data and gain insights that were previously difficult to achieve, without changing the current analytical infrastructure of the banks. Read more about this in Jaroslaw Knapik (Senior Analyst, Financial Services Technology)'s article link:http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2014/jun/16/big-data-set-to-boost-the-effectiveness-of-analytics-in-banking/

According to Gartner, more than 80 percent organizations will fail to develop a consolidated data security policy which will result in potential non-compliance, security breaches and financial liabilities. As big data is transforming the way of storing, processing and accessing data, so to avoid uncoordinated data security policies and security chaos Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) need to develop and manage an enterprise data security policy which will define data residency requirements, business needs, stakeholder responsibilities, data process needs and security controls. At first they need to evaluate current implementations of Data-centric Audit and protection solutions against data security policies, then they need to find out the gaps in the current implementation and finally review the risks with business stakeholders against those potential DCAP solutions. To do so, CISOs also need to build a good partnership with those stakeholders to develop a new management structure. Read more at:http://www.informationweek.in/informationweek/press-releases/296090/-centric-security-focus-gartner/