Cyber Security ⯀  

Every year, the big data companies possess grows exponentially, which is why cybersecurity is an ever-growing field at all levels of business and government. According to the FCC, “Theft of digital information has become the most commonly reported fraud, surpassing physical theft.”

Big Data ⯀  

There are numerous ways that small businesses may be able to utilize data analysis tools, techniques and methods in order to improve almost every aspect of their operation. Being able to assess and manage information-rich data sets more quickly, accurately and with greater ease can provide small businesses with the insight they need in order to make superior decisions.

Business Tools ⯀  

As businesses move to occupy opportunities opening up online, they realize that they have a common problem. The primary concern relates to the management of the torrents of data emerging online as entities interact. The ever-growing over reliance on the internet by consumers and companies is creating a lot of amount of information that a company must analyze.

Competitor and customer analysis are possible through following up and evaluating the data trails that they leave online. Unfortunately, conventional analytics tools are inept against this amount of data. Big Data is the term used to reference these torrents of information online. Specialized Big Data analytics can make sense of this data and inject some advantages for your company. The following applications demonstrate how business are making use of Big Data.

Hiring Process Optimization

The quality of a company’s workforce goes a long way in determining its performance. The aggregated employee performances constitute the holistic business' performance, making every employee’s effort count. The hiring process in a company evaluates whether a candidate would add value to the enterprise.

Big Data analytics focus on determining patterns and flagging issues on a chosen path. Therefore, these tools demonstrate hiring trends, problems in the process and also offer recommendations on the talents that your company needs. Overall, the process becomes easier, cheaper and more synchronized to business performance.

Related articles

• How Professionals are Making the Most Out of Big Data? 
• The Role of Technology in Transforming Business 
• Why Companies Need Big Data Technology 

Employee Management and Retention

Employee turnover concerns have always plagued companies since every employee lost accounts to lost business value. Further, the recruitment process for replacement costs the company in productivity and money. Big Data solutions help the HR department to identify root concerns that the employees point out.

Factors related to the company operations or management highlighted through these systems assist in developing new strategies for the enterprise. Addressing these concerns will improve retention rates in your business and improve performance. These results might also reveal factors impeding your company performance.

Brand Tracking Tools

The reputation of a company is important in pushing sales and improving its competitive advantage. Critics and customers often talk about your business in light of emerging issues and create a mean for you to track company performance. Data for the feedback process is found on blogs or social media platforms where thousands of comments are made.

Going through this amount of traffic is impossible today but can be attempted at a high cost which involves hiring a lot of analysts. However, some social platforms offer analytic tools that help companies go through the thousands of posts placed on the platforms. These Big Data tools highlight critical posts for review and provide statistics about the company reputation on the platforms.

Rapid Reporting

Presenting a case in a boardroom is complimented by real data schematics. These presentations aid in showing the market status and performances of a company. Some skeptical executives are hard to convince and presenting a case based on an aspect such as social media requires real data. Big Data tools equip you with reporting features which whip up data schematics in seconds. Such functionalities make reporting and decision making an easy task.

Improve Efficiency

Given the relevance of data in business decision making today, it is important to remain updated and connected. Therefore, having a reliable connection to the internet through platforms that can handle traffic is important. Employing a system like Vsat should keep you actively informed about new statistics from your Big Data tools.

Big Data solutions in real-time allow implementation of strategies that are in line with the market trends. These insights are particularly valuable when following up on a scheme's performance. Real-time information helps in fine-tuning a strategy to fit your customer's needs.

These Big Data uses in business are relevant to any company today. Following up on market changes today requires you to employ tools with the capability of handling Big Data efficiently. Deciding to use Big Data in business not only improves your company performance and productivity but also saves you money.

By  Lindsey Patterson	Embed
Author Bio - Lindsey is a freelance writer specializing in business and consumer technology.

Business Tools ⯀  

For businesses today, there is really no way to consider running your operation without the Internet. Cloud-based business tools for customer relationship management, data analytics and social media management can all help your business grow and thrive.

Here are a few examples of how the Internet can help you convert user numbers to sales.

1. Answer Your Customer's’ Questions

When customers are undecided about purchasing your product or service, quite often it is because they have unanswered questions. Including a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ’s) and answers on your website can help convince them.

Consider common questions you receive in your inbox and start saving some of the most frequent ones in a document. You can even anticipate questions that will come with a new service, or product. For example casino.com has an elaborate help page that answers all questions. New casino gamers will find such pages helpful. Similarly upwork.com has FAQ page to guide new users.

Along with making it easier for customers to commit to purchasing from you, FAQ pages also can be a business tool to help cut down on customer support costs, as users can pursue a self-service workflow.

Related articles

• Top 5 Technology Trends That Will Boost Your Small Business 
• The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Social Media 
• How Your Technology Needs To Grow With Your Company 

2. Creating Effective Customer Databases

Part of every internet-engaged business today is gathering, maintaining and growing a database of customers. Even if your product is not immediately perceived to be something that would engage repeat business, a database of satisfied customers could be available for your next venture, or product availability.

An effective customer database is all about knowing your customers. This tool enables you to; identify customer trends, create customer loyalty and increase customer communication.

For the long term, your customer database is one of the key value metrics of your business. Your products may evolve and become obsolete, but if your customer database is up-to-date and logging effective data points, you will always have the foundation for a new or evolving venture.

3. Exploring Customer Behavior with Analytics

With the wealth of data that can be collected via web tools today, even the smallest business can gather and analyse comprehensive customer use data.

With an effective customer database you can also use analytics tools to derive value for the raw customer data. Insights and actionable data can include:

Transforming and augmenting data into a more comprehensive version of your client with intentions, context, , and interactions. This can help you to target your customers and segment them accordingly.

Turning business data into insights, with scores, segments, recommendations and forecast. By using predictive modelling the tool in customer relationship management (CRM), that is used to target messaging to those customers who are most likely to make a purchase, data can be used to generate more accurate forecasts for your business, based on customer data.

Connecting with your customer in real time leads to increased conversion rates. Real time data analysis tools allow your business to be very flexible and responsive to the needs of your customers. This type of data can help you to focus priorities, to deliver and exceed your customer’s expectations. There is no better way to build loyalty to your brand.

4. Engaging with Users via Social Media

Social media is one of the best tools for persuading consumers through the conversion funnel. Followers on twitter, Pinterest and Facebook can gradually be converted from an awareness of your good or service, to action, and even to evangelism. According to Forbes, studies suggest that implementing features like social login on your website can increase signups considerably. While 86 percent of users will not sin options. Social media helps makes your business grow by first growing your user database on a different platform. It is much easier to turn someone who follows you on twitter into a buyer. Social media presence is not a nice-to-have part of business nowadays. It is an expectation of all customers.

5. Reach Even Greater Numbers with Mobile Presence

In the next five years, according to Silicon Valley investor Steve Jurvetson, the internet will see explosive growth in the developing world. The majority of these users will be viewing content exclusively on a mobile device.

Even in mature markets, consumers use mobile devices to browse, research, and even shop on the go.

For businesses today it is virtually a necessity to create a responsive website, or sometimes a complete mobile version of your web properties. This may increase your conversion rate dramatically. Like social media, a mobile-friendly presence is already an expectation in the business world.

Like every aspect of technology, the tools and processes are constantly changing. The pace of change means that conversion tools are no exception. So as a final bonus tip, do not neglect to be an active and engaged member of the greater business community online and in your area. Such networks can help you stay abreast of the latest tools and developments that may have a huge impact on your own business.

By  Emma Sturgis	Embed
Emma is a freelance writer currently living in Boston. When not writing, she enjoys baking and indoor rock climbing. Find her on Google +.

Business ⯀  

Ranking organically on Google is a powerful resource for your business. But outside of natural strategies like this, Google offers a wide variety of advertising resources that can truly help your brand engage with potential customers.

With extensive offerings that are both paid and free, it's tough to dig down to which tools are most worth the time for your bottom line. Here are just three of the many ways Google is helping businesses like yours grow.

Google Analytics

The first step in growing your business is understanding how your current and potential clients are coming across your brand. If you don't have Google Analytics installed, it's the perfect first step. Whether through a social media campaign, a blogger's website, or even organic search, the data you pull from Google Analytics lets you know exactly how your website visitor got to you in the first place. This basic understanding gives you a kickstart to your future marketing campaigns, while capitalizing on what may already be in place.

Related articles

• How Technology Can Help Your Company 
• Will Google Make Waves In Nanotechnology Next? 
• What Will Happen, Now That Ray Kurzweil Works At Google? 

Product Listing Ads

Product listing ads are a pay-per-click advertising service that puts your available products in plain view of customers. By providing customers. Further segmenting your product feeds will help you further understand what products convert. These campaigns are consistently extremely valuable, with Search Engine Land reporting that Google has seen product listing ads spend grow by 166 percent year over year.

Re-Targeting

Display advertising through Google puts both text and graphic ads in front of potential customers on external websites. This can be valuable for businesses with large budgets. However, if you're seeking better engagement and conversion without a big budget, re-targeting through Google Adwords is exponentially more valuable. Re-targeting places a cookie on your website visitors' browsers. Once this happens, these visitors will see your advertising on other websites. You can customize your bids on a website level, and drive traffic through those display ads that show users are further engaging with your brand. By engaging with your brand or website, users are as much as four times as likely to convert with the help of re-targeting.

Google Optimize

Google optimize is a free tool for webmasters that helps you easily implement A/B testing. A/B testing, or multivariate testing allows you to create different designs and layouts on a visitor level, and help determine which one works better for conversions. This is an extremely valuable tool for growing your managed email marketing campaign, getting visitors to add items to their cart, and even encouraging longer session times on your website.

Google My Business

If you're a local business, or operating several brick and mortar stores, your marketing efforts are incomplete without Google's local listings. But these listings are more than just helping customers find you on a map. With Google My Business, you can upload images of your storefront, add links to your website, and provide information like a contact number and hours of operation to further encourage walk-in business. Furthermore, Google allows for 360-degree images of your storefront fur even further opportunity for the potential customer to research your business prior to visiting. The more data you provide, the higher your business can rank versus other local business competitors, so provide as much information and imagery as possible.

While google may seem like only a search and email tool for the basic user, business owners and marketing professionals should take the time to explore all that Google has to offer. You'll learn not only how you can better get your brand in front of your future customers, but how to capitalize on the resources that ultimately drive revenue for your business. Google has long offered both free and paid solutions for businesses to effectively market their business. Most successful offerings are paid solutions, which is why over 32% of marketers are allotting 50% or more of their marketing budget to digital solutions today.

By  Kevin Faber	Embed
Kevin Faber is the CEO of Silver Summit Capital. He graduated from UC Davis with a B.A. in Business/Managerial Economics. In his free time, Kevin is usually watching basketball or kicking back and reading a good book.

Business Technology  

Thirty years ago, making a video call thousands of miles away was impossible. Watching a movie while traveling was unheard of back then. However, things have changed today with the advancement in computer science and communication. 

Things have become easier and talking to your loved ones is just a button away. This changes have not only affected our personal lives but have also affected the way we do businesses. Communication has become easier thus collaboration and cooperation beyond borders. Business processes have also changed, and efficiency has improved. Read through this article to discover how technology is changing the way we conduct business.

Technology and Resourcing

Technology is changing the way businesses conduct their resourcing. When talking about resourcing, it’s important to consider two aspects that include cloud computing and outsourcing. Cloud computing is changing business as it allows businesses to access critical resources online at a cheaper cost. These resources include infrastructure requirements for a business such as processing power and storage. Other resources that businesses can acquire online include hardware requirements and software applications. With outsourcing, technology has allowed businesses to delegate some aspects to other small businesses that have specialized in these services. Despite the delegation, technology allows the businesses to remain connected to the whole process. Cloud computing and outsourcing helps businesses avoid the initial cost, and these expenses can be diverted elsewhere.

Related articles

• 4 Reasons the Cloud is More Secure Than Ever 
• What Will Computers Look Like in Ten Years? 
• How Your Technology Needs To Grow With Your Company 

Real Time Analytics

Technology is playing a crucial role in understanding the customer behavior by offering businesses real-time information. At the same time, technology allows businesses to conduct market research through the many resources offered online. With technology, it’s possible to analyze feedbacks found on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. It’s also possible to analyze feedbacks found in various industry forums and public opinions. With technology, video conferencing becomes easier and so is conducting online customer surveys. Technology has also played a major role in the development of tech tools that a crucial in helping businesses make decisions. An example of these tools includes Microsoft’s CRM Dynamics and Google analytics.

Thirty years ago, it would require 30 scientists to solve a complex problem that can be solved by artificial intelligence today thanks to fast processors and improved hardware specification. This coupled with higher memory has led to the introduction of collaborative software, organizing tools, and smart tools. All these tools are geared towards one objective which is to make the process of conducting business easier. People can research faster, share tasks easily and analyze easily. Other than the mentioned features, technology has played an important role in the development of customer relations management systems that are geared towards understanding customer behavior.

Connectivity

Technology is making it easy for businesses to stay in touch. Whether it’s the management, a fellow employee or a customer, communication has never been easy like today. These technologies have been made possible by the advancement in satellite broadband. With the introduction of Ka Band satellites seven years ago, communication has enhanced, and the cost of doing businesses is has decreased. Technology has made it possible to text/video chat with whoever you choose. Also, it’s possible to send an email that targets a certain pre-qualified customer base. Social media has also shrunk the business world making it easier to conduct business with people regardless of their financial background, geographical background, and social status. This has resulted in the rise of review sites where dissatisfied customers can express their views. This has led to businesses being careful in the services and products they offer as one negative review is likely to affect their reputation and thus a decline in sales.

Regardless of the opinions you hold as a business person, the rapid growth in technology is going to increase in the coming years. The businesses that refuse to adapt to the changes in technology will be wiped out, and new ones will rise. If you have an existing business, you don’t have to build another business from scratch but you can incorporate technology and changes will be instant.

By  Lindsey Patterson	Embed
Author Bio - Lindsey is a freelance writer specializing in business and consumer technology.

Big Data  

Big data allows companies to cut costs, create new products and services and make faster, more informed decisions. Here are some of the sectors where Big Data is already having a big impact.

While nobody can specify the exact volume of available big data, up to three billion gigabytes of data are generated every day. Big data offers endless potential for businesses and organizations. Big data allows companies to cut costs, create new products and services and make faster, more informed decisions. Continue reading to learn how four professional fields are using big data to their advantage.

Law Practices

Many law firms still manually analyze achieved documentation to search for patterns and create reports.

Related articles DARPA's Strategy For the Coming Years  Juan Enriquez Talks About Your Online Life  Quantum Computing May Make Big Data Unstructured Search Lightning Fast

However, big data analytics can help law firms through providing critical case correlations. That is, law firms will be able to reduce their costs and court wait time through understanding relevant case connections. Additionally, law firms can also use big data to make predictions based on historical rulings. As a result, the law firm will be able to provide their clients with an accurate time frame and save them money. In fact, law firms will be able to increase financial transparency through comparing how their legal fees compare to competitors. Finally, the law firm will be able to statistically analyze which cases are even worth accepting based on past success and failure.

Health Care

Health care reform in America is a hot topic that is debated by political pundits and media experts. However, no substantial change can occur without hard data. One of the best ways that big data can improve the health care system is through preventing diseases. Medical and data techs can now analyze patient decisions, demographic data and health and insurance records in order to identify medical trends. For example, big data can analyze radiology information systems to profile high risk patients and prevent disease. Big data and mobile technology will soon allow health care technology companies to analyze mobile phone users through fitness and health apps. For example, wearable apps, such as the Apple Watch, will soon provide health care providers with unique insight into the private lives of users. This will result in expanded databases of health information that will improve public health and education.

Finance

The financial sector depends on accurate data in order to make better decisions. As markets become more complex and customers more demanding, financial firms need big data to increase efficiency and competitiveness. For example, one of the fundamental aspects of big data is the velocity that data is stored and evaluated. Million dollar investment decisions depend on millisecond data updates. As investment firms better analyze and understand structured data, their ability to manage volatile markets will improve. Furthermore, algorithmic trading now allows investment firms to entirely rely on advanced software programs to make extremely fast and accurate trades. Software programs that have access to enormous volumes of historical data and proven strategies will automatically make better real-time decisions.

Telecommunications

According to IBM, communications service providers (CSPs) have access to a gold mine of data that will help them win customers and increase revenue. CSPs, such as nationally recognized mobile phone and Internet providers, are continually engaged in continual competition to gain and win back customers. Luckily, telecommunication data is already digitally available for analysis on almost all of the BPM software. For example, big data can help CSPs understand local and regional customer behaviors and preferences. As a result of big data analytics, CSPs can strategically plan for the future, improve the customer experience and adjust their business objectives accordingly.

In the end, every industry can benefit from big data analytics, which saves money for companies and customers alike, however certain industries are leading the way. Law practice, health care, finance and telecommunications are four sectors that are using big data to increase efficiency and competitiveness.

By Dennis Hung

Embed

 Big Data  

Traditional approaches to data integration that rely on moving data, are struggling to handle the extreme volume and diversity of Big Data. Data virtualization has emerged to address the need for real-time, universal access to data, regardless of format or location.

No person would ever discount the importance that data plays in today’s business environment. This data has grown exponentially over the years—whether it’s in the form of streaming data, legacy data, or even operational data—and it is moving faster than ever before. All told, this data is completely transforming the face of business, and it is no incumbent upon businesses to have a comprehensive solution for dealing with it in order for those businesses to ensure their long-term success.

Dealing with all of this data presents a number of technical challenges. But, it also presents a number of tremendous opportunities. Further, not all of the data that businesses have to contend with these days is transactional. Some of it is machine-to-machine based data, as is the case with RFID tags, and some of it has to do with regulatory compliance, as is the case with data in the financial sector.

Related articles IBM Teaming Up With Universities To Advance Cognitive Computing  WatsonPaths Shows How AI Will Augment Human Intelligence  Quantum Computing May Make Big Data Unstructured Search Lightning Fast

All of this unstructured data has come to be known by the name of Big Data. No doubt you’ve heard a lot about that. But, Big Data is not the end-all-be-all of data. In fact, there is another form of data that deserves close attention: mainframe data. This data is incredibly important for vital business functions, and it moves in the same volume and at the same speed as Big Data. Mainframe data includes a number of different things, depending upon the business in question. For example, banks must deal with an incredible amount of this type of data in order to effectively handle the many transactions of their customers on a day-to-day basis.

Having ready access to this data is incredibly important for every business’ analytics and business intelligence. However, facilitating such ready access requires a great deal, namely the realignment of data closer to analytics. Also, such ready access requires that non-relational data and relational data be seamlessly blended together. To accomplish this, traditional methods of accessing this data, which require data to be physically moved, must be done away with.

No one can doubt the importance of offering this level of convenient access to data. Both decision makers and customers have been conditioned by our modern society to expect access to data on the fly. However, just because this expectation has been conditioned doesn’t mean that meeting that expectation is easy. There are a number of obstacles that must be overcome in order to facilitate this. Most importantly, a solution must allow for data from multiple sources to be integrated together and standardized, and the data must be made consistent across the business side of things and the customer side of things.

The way to accomplish this is through a solution that virtually combines data indiscriminately of where that data comes from. If this can be accomplished, then the BI tools and analytics tools that a business employs can be used to their maximum effectiveness. However, the majority of businesses do not deploy such a solution. Rather, they rely upon the outdated ETL method, which stands for Extract, Transform and Load. While this method may have been sufficient in the past, it isn’t sufficient any longer. Such a method fails to meet the need of timely access to data, as the data must be physically moved for the process to work. Further, the process of physically moving the data reduces the consistency of the data, introducing a number of additional costs and complexities for businesses.

Mainframe data virtualization is the answer, as it places data next to the analytics software used to analyze that data. It accomplishes this by diverting the process of data integration to specialized processors – IBM System Z processors – that operate in tandem with a mainframe’s central processors. There are no software license charges that need to be considered with this method, and MIPs capacity is not affected by the process of data integration. Because of this, the production of data on the mainframe is undisturbed and TCO is dramatically reduced.

The problems with latency, consistency, and accurateness experienced with ETL methods are not experienced with mainframe data virtualization. In fact, those problems are entirely eliminated. Such a method allows data to be easily accessed through and dealt with through BI tools and analytics tools, and the problem of dealing with unfamiliar mainframe environments is eliminated.

All told, this empowers the decision makers of businesses to meet their goals of mitigating risk and driving expansion. Timely and accurate data is put right in their hands, empowering these decision makers to successfully meet the demands of their customers, identify threats in the market place, and even to attack new business opportunities. Mainframe data virtualization is the future, and it leaves everything else in the dust.

By Mike Miranda

Embed

Author Bio - Mike Miranda is a writer and PR person for Rocket Software.

 Watson  

Watson Analytics from IBM brings predictive business analytics to a wide cloud-based audience with a new natural language-based freemium service.

When dealing with Big Data, start-ups and big companies are always looking for a way to bring modern data analysis and prediction to the rank and file of business.

IBM has now offered a solution, called Watson Analytics. According to IBM, "Watson Analytics helps you find and improve data sets with the touch of a button."

"You can get to work quickly instead of spending precious time cleaning up and preparing your data," claims the software's webpage.

Watson Analytics is a software service, delivered via the cloud. The software is a result of a collaboration between teams from IBM’s data analysis group and its Watson unit, which has been built into a business in the three years since Watson beat human champions in the question-and-answer game “Jeopardy.”

Related articles Watson Joins The Fight Against Cancer  WatsonPaths Shows How AI Will Augment Human Intelligence  IBM's Manoj Saxena on What Watson Will Mean for the Future

The venture's ambitious goal, according to Alistair Rennie, general manager of IBM Business Analytics, is to take a big step toward “getting analytics in the hands of every business user, which is a real challenge.”

The cloud approach is new for IBM and reflects where the world is going and where the company feels it needs to be if it wants to survive. “It’s where we have to go as company. We can’t pretend the world’s not changing, Of course it’s changing,” Eric Sall, vp of worldwide marketing for business analytics at IBM, told TechCrunch. Delivering a cloud product built on their own infrastructure platform, using the freemium model shows that IBM is trying to do business in new ways.

IBM has shown an early working version of Watson Analytics to a handful of customers and industry analysts, letting them try it out, and they are generally impressed. It combines basics of data handling with the Watson technologies of natural-language processing and machine learning. A result, they say, is that a business person, who is not a statistician or data scientist, can type in questions to probe corporate data. Examples: “What high-value customers am I most likely to close sales with in the next 30 days?” and “Which benefits drive employee retention the most?”

"It looks like IBM has leapfrogged what others have done. It feels like the iPhone of analytics to me."

A demonstration running through a selection of cases does not mean the product will be a winner in the broad corporate market. Still, a couple of the veteran technology managers who have tried out Watson Analytics say it could be a significant advance. Richard Wiedenbeck, chief information officer of Ameritas, a life insurance and financial services company in Lincoln, Nebraska, told the New York Times that he was “cautiously optimistic” that Watson Analytics could deliver on its promise, based on what he had seen so far.

“It looks like IBM has leapfrogged what others have done,” Mr. Wiedenbeck said. “It feels like the iPhone of analytics to me.”

On the Watson Anayltics site, the company has outlined how the system could potentially help workers in marketing, sales, IT, operations, human resources and finance.  For instance, an IT employee could ask which tickets have been open the longest, what the average response time is and why. He could then use the answers to predict how long it takes to close a ticket and allocate ticket resources so that more issues are handled faster.

The product goes into Beta this month and IBM is shooting for general release by November. As a cloud service, it will run on a variety of platforms including tablets, smartphones and PC/laptops, but there are no dedicated apps yet.




SOURCE  New York Times

By 33rd Square

Embed