Health insurance carriers are currently in a dilemma, whether to purchase an analytics platform, assemble a platform and then use it. Lack of proper infrastructure is a big hindrance for analytics in healthcare system, dominated by paper-based transactions and the dearth of their electronic imprints. Since health contracts are based on the payment of money, depending upon the health status of patients, health insurers have an incentive to build an analytics platform. Currently, the healthcare insurance companies, who are willing to purchase analytics platforms, have limited options to choose from. While options are being worked upon, healthcare insurance lags behind property and casualty carriers, who are not restricted by intricate security measures and government hindrance. Read more at :

http://www.insurancetech.com/2015-outlook-analytics-in-health-insurance/d/d-id/1318241?

Sigmaway consultants have worked with clients in benefits solutions workspace providing analytics on healthcare plans. For more details visit

http://www.sigmaway.us/

In this competitive world, relying on one or two marketing channel is not a right decision. If you want to have a competitive advantage, use omni-channel marketing. Omni-channel marketing is about teamwork and using various marketing channels towards a single goal and delivering customer satisfaction. Key to omni-channel marketing success is analytics. Analytics and predictive modelling helps in gathering data, segmentation and provide relevant information. Companies can use internal data assets with external market intelligence to drive a decision. Tying customer's digital information with strong database helps in delivering personalized messages to customers.  Analytics provides metrics which helps in comparing channel performance. Helps in combining 1st party and 3rd party data. Read more at: http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/19/129314.html

A famous chain that oversees the operation of 514 restaurants across the US, has found a way to integrate Big Data with Business Intelligence Services. The system works on data from point-of-sale, marketing, promotions and customer surveys to provide feedback on sales in real time. This not only helps them maintain a competitive edge, but also maximize profits. Big Data was used to select which item to put on the restaurant's menu too. After evaluation of sales, simplicity of preparation, profitability, quality and brand. Only once they met the required target, were they made permanent on the menu of that restaurant. Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/06/02/big-data-at-dickeys-barbecue-pit-how-analytics-drives-restaurant-performance/

According to Scott Langfeldt (Teradata) “Big data is changing the way the world works- By combining with faster processor speeds and innovative analytic tools- helps in detecting fraud, part failure, and churn.”
For implementing big data and analytics into the company- analytical, business and IT departments need to work together. But they usually have differences.
Scott Langfeldt (Teradata) discussed some ways to solve these differences:
• Categorize your business and mission critical process.
• Make sure that flexibility is built into “business critical” process.
• Create a partnership between the IT developers and analytical teams.
• Develop “business solution” specialist on the analytic team.
• Develop “analytical experts.”
To know more about these ways, follow this link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/teradata/2015/06/02/avoiding-the-drift-into-analytics-oblivion-turning-your-business-into-an-analytics-driven-one/

According to Kevin Mahaffey (CTO at a security firm Lookout) "The more ways we make data more convenient, the more risk there is to access the data and access things without your knowledge". Such is the case with Apple watch. It expands the data set freely over the internet. Not only your location can easily be traced, your heart rate and activities can also be monitored by which your mood and choice can easily be deduced. To know more about the new technology, follow: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/mobile-enterprise/is-the-apple-watch-a-security-threat-029105.php

Rolls Royce, a company that is a leader in the manufacture of engines that generate large amount of power in a high-tech industry has begun to look for Big Data solutions to increase profits and reliability. Its engines and machine parts are fit with scores of sensors that monitor their operation and detect change in real time. Royce now employs Big Data in design, manufacture and after-sales crunching of data. With over 3TB data generated per manufacturing component a year, there is no doubt that there is a need for integration of Big Data. Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/06/01/how-big-data-drives-success-at-rolls-royce/

News agencies are venturing into analytics. A news agency also cleans the Internet for news, indexes it, and then allows users to ask questions of that data. It also allows you to extract facts and do trend analysis. Firms are taking data collected by machines or people, and using that data to generate news. Thanks to big data technology, it's becoming more practical to incorporate the field intelligence into the predictive models that executives increasingly rely on to make good, fast decisions.  Read more here: 

http://www.datanami.com/2015/05/29/how-big-data-is-changing-how-businesses-use-the-news/ana

Nowadays, companies are focusing on the best possible answers than asking the right questions to get the minutest details. To get the best details, a set of connect questions has to be answered which requires using a connected set of data sources. This is called unified analytics. It will enable the access and analysis of data from multiple sources on a single interface. But we need to keep certain things in mind like integration of unstructured and structured data which is not an easy process. Also, we need to look beyond traditional sources within firewall and focus the data strategy on customers. Read more at: 

 http://www.analytics-magazine.org/web-first/1266-unified-analytics-a-new-mastery-over-the-data-wave

Companies are recognizing the need of contact center analytics to gain more consumer awareness but problems like cost of hiring new staff and procurement of new equipment are holding back contact centers from investing in analytics. Other factors like funding and prioritization are to be blamed as contact centers are now seen as cost centers but terms like customer experience and customer journey are gaining exposure. Read more at:

 http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/news/4500246053/Contact-center-analytics-still-an-uncharted-frontier

The pursuit of data and analytics is helping companies to venture into new fields, transcending the fine lines between different industries. For example, a well-known sports company has ventured into the market of wearable technology, with the release of its fitness tracker, containing sensors, which automatically collects data regarding one's sleep patterns and the number of steps taken in a day.  Consumers must first download the fitness tracker app in their laptops or mobile devices. So, indirectly the company is also involved in the software business. Since the objective involves collection and analysis of data, to get customer feedback, the company is also involved in the analytics business. Cable and satellite suppliers are also using analytic tools to get deeper insights into viewing trends and ideas about more profitable programming opportunities. Read more at:

http://blogs.teradata.com/bill-franks/big-data-blurring-industry-lines-nike/

Companies are recognizing the need of contact center analytics to gain more consumer awareness but problems like cost of hiring new staff and procurement of new equipment are holding back contact centers from investing in analytics. Other factors like funding and prioritization are to be blamed as contact centers are now seen as cost centers but terms like customer experience and customer journey are gaining exposure. Read more at: 

http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/news/4500246053/Contact-center-analytics-still-an-uncharted-frontier

•  Big Data enables various capabilities like forensics and the analysis of long-term historical trends. By collecting data and analyzing historical trends, you would be able identify when an attack started, and what were the steps that the attacker took to get a hold of your systems. These techniques could play a key role to detect threats at an early stage. Big Data provides  opportunity to consolidate and analyze logs automatically from multiple sources rather than in isolation. This enhances intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS). Integrating information from physical security systems, such as building access controls and even CCTV, could also enhance IDS and IPS to a point where insider attacks and social engineering are factored in to the detection process. This presents the possibility of significantly more advanced detection of fraud and criminal activities. Big Data could result in far more practical and successful SIEM, IDS and IPS implementations. Read more at-         http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/big-data-analytics/how-big-data-is-changing-the-security-analytics-landscape/

Companies want to have an edge using analytics but struggle due to unavailable technologies, outdated software, cumbersome systems, complex integrations coupled with huge costs in infrastructure and personnel. The cloud has transformed the way organizations look at big data and analytics solutions. It has been predicted that investment in cloud over the next five years will grow threefold. • Open source platforms like Apache Spark provide simple and fast data processing capabilities. These though powerful, due to expensive hardware, long lead times are difficult to deploy. The cloud allows immediate usage of open source platforms without initial investments.
• Cloud -based software are user friendly, simple to grasp and sort in comparison to on premise counterparts and release cycles are shorter.
• Cloud-based analytics provide a platform where hard business problems can be effectively tackled.
• Processing and extracting data are easy from a synced centralized location.
• Better connectivity leads to better productivity, deployment of data pipeline is easy. Read more at:

http://insidebigdata.com/2015/05/08/5-reasons-data-analytics-in-the-cloud-will-take-center-stage-in-2015/

It was found that, 59% of CMO's who use technology strategy, depends on marketing ops for tools, analytics, process and metrics. According to Scott Vaughan (CMO of Integrate), marketing operation (marketing Ops) focuses on customer acquisition. The marketing operations function has emerged due to the need for a more transparent, efficient, and accountable view of marketing. Its growth was driven by the proliferation of marketing technology and increased pressure from the C-suite to prove the value of marketing and contribute to the bottom-line. The Marketing Ops role is increasing in today’s world, so, some tips for Marketing Ops leaders. They are as under:
Tip 1# Lead process change by organizing around the customers: Look at your current marketing plan, technology, process and resources.
Tip 2# Drive decisions based on governed data: Apply data governance to improve quality.
Tip 3# Shape the marketing technology infrastructure: Identifying and applying right technology.
Read more at: http://marketingland.com/marketings-new-customer-nerve-center-marketing-operations-127292

The retail industry is B2C industry. In B2C industry, forecasting and planning future demand and supply is a very important function to improve operation's efficiency. But, consumer behavior is very unpredictable. To analyze this unpredictable behavior, retail stores need to analyze big data. In Consumer Goods Analytics Summit in Chicago, suggestions on applying Big Data Analytics in Retail Industry were discussed. Let’s have a look on some of them:

·        By using big data analytics try to find out actual problem and their solution.

·        Apply analytics in every possible way from making sales report to multi-structured data to understand and improve customer service.

·        Always Interpret big data.

·        Recruit persons who understand the value of data analytics. 

To know more about Big Data Analytics in Retail, read the article link “Are retailers organized for Analytics” by Gib Basset, (Consumer Goods and Retail Industry Principal with Oracle Corp) at: http://www.retailwire.com/news-article/18266/are-retailers-organized-for-analytics

According to Sujan Patel (Contributor), companies before analyzing big data, must understand the company's goals and mission. In a survey by Price Waterhouse Cooper, only 44% of companies feel that they have the right talent to capitalize big data. When any company chooses tool for data analytics, focus should be on team needs and solution and the team must know how to use that tool. Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/sujanpatel/2015/04/22/how-fortune-500-companies-are-building-big-data-teams-and-how-startups-can-too/

Punk in Punk Analytics means working fearless and having an approach to ‘do-it-yourself way’. In the last few years with the rise of new technologies, we entered into the era of punk-style analytics. Some characteristics of punk analytics are:

• No barriers for information search, as you can download easily and free of cost.
• Mistakes are part of the process, but we can overcome by using analytics software and by having familiarity with the data.
• Fast and to the point is good.
• Idea should be transparent and it should have less processed time.
• Punk Analytics are basically concentrating on the issues of the moment, as it is the starting point for active exploration.
•   Working collaboratively is important to achieve a common goal.
To know more about punk analytics follow the article link of James Richardson (Business Analytics Strategist at Qlik): http://www.itproportal.com/2015/04/19/rise-punk-analytics/

Predictive analytics is a “business game changer” that will separate the winners from the losers, according to Forrester. The better a company is at predicting what will happen in the future, the better positioned they are to do something about it. While data scientists will do the heaviest analytic-related lifting at big enterprises, the improvements that have been made to predictive analytic (also called advanced analytic) applications enables regular business people and developers to partake of the predictive bounty. With so many companies coming into the foray of analytics services, today the users have more options to choose from keeping the cost-benefit & need-value trade-offs in mind.  RapidMiner offers a “rock solid” enterprise solution with more than 1,500 methods that address all stages of the analytics lifecycle and has among the tightest integration with the cloud, Forrester says. There are also other options like SAS, SPSS, KNIME, sap, oracle to name a few.

To read more, visit:

http://www.datanami.com/2015/04/07/predictive-analytics-now-in-reach-of-the-average-enterprise-forrester-says/

The investment banks are now looking at how they can use big data to do what they do better, faster and more efficiently. Senior executives at the banks want to enhance how they use data to raise profitability, map out markets and company-wide exposures, and ultimately win more deals. Big data is also a fundamental element of risk-profiling for the banks, enabling data analysts to immediately assess the impact of the escalation in geopolitical risk on portfolios and their exposure to specific markets and asset classes. Specifically, banks have now built systems that will map out market-shaping past events in order to identify future patterns. There lies the requirement of big data talent!

The banks are actively recruiting big data and analytics specialists to fill two main, but significantly different roles: big data engineers and data scientists. Data Scientists are responsible for bridging the gap between data analytics and business decision-making, capable of translating complex data into key strategy insight, while Data Engineers typically come from a strong IT development or coding background and are responsible for designing data platforms and applications. The competition between banks and fund managers to hire big data specialists is heating up. Data scientists are expected to have sharp technical and quantitative skills. They are in highest demand and this is where the biggest skill shortage exists.

To read more, visit the link given below:

http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Investment-banks-recruit-for-the-rise-of-big-data-analytics

Cricket and Analytics are hot topics today. With the help of technology Analytics, the interest quotient of cricket has gone up exponentially. High definition telecasts, data visualisation have really made cricket exciting to watch nowadays. Vijay Sethi, VP and CIO at Hero MotoCorp Ltd, speaks about how he sees his favourite game today that comes with a generous dose of analytics. To read more, visit the following link:

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/analytics-in-cricket-is-a-technological-marvel-hero-motocorp-cio-vijay-sethi/536201-3.html