While organisations recognise the potential of data, many struggle to turn data into actionable insights that provide value

According to a recent Alteryx-commissioned IDC Info brief, The State of Data Science and Analytics, there are approximately 14 million data workers in the Asia Pacific and they spend 80 per cent of the workweek on data-related activities.

Yet, 45 per cent of this time is wasted each week because data professionals are bogged down by the sheer scale, complexity and diversity of their organisations’ data.

Also Read: Women are starting to get in on the cybersecurity action, but more can be done

A huge problem revolves around the way many organisations have siloed data departments away from the rest of the organisation, limiting the way data can be used.

It is an antiquated thought model and one that needs to be changed in the age of Big Data as organizations continue to generate what seems to be untapped goldmines of data sources across industries and internal functions.

So how can organisations bust down the old siloes around building an analytic culture? How can they finally realise the potential of data analytics to achieve higher ROI?

These are questions that many organisations are grappling with as they think about either establishing a data science team or empowering existing team members to become data scientists.

 Empowering business analysts to be citizen data scientists

To start, organisations need to empower data professionals on their team, regardless of technical acumen, to become more data literate and to improve their analytic knowledge.

In a workforce that is becoming increasingly data-centric, there is not enough expertise to keep pace with the explosive demand for data scientists.

Data scientists come at a premium, are difficult to retain and are few and far between, making it challenging for enterprises to build out this technical capability.

Furthermore, organisations need to recognise that not every data-related job requires a data scientist with advanced qualifications.

Also Read: Why virtually everything relies on cloud technology in 2019

Instead, the key is to empower business analysts sitting in various lines of business, many of whom are currently stuck in spreadsheets, to analyse data more efficiently and drive real, measurable, business results.

Coined by Gartner, the term ‘citizen data scientist’ is defined as a person who creates or generates models that use advanced diagnostic analytics or predictive and prescriptive capabilities, but whose primary job function is outside the field of statistics and analytics.

With the power of a code-free platform behind them, a citizen data scientist (CDS) can be up-levelled to create data and business models with the help of data analytics tools, even if they do not have advanced mathematical expertise or technical skills such as writing custom codes.

It’s not rocket science. Creating and empowering citizen data scientists is a unique opportunity to develop existing talent who know an organisation’s data and understand their business priorities and objectives.

These professionals know the business inside and out and probably have a laundry list of ideas they aren’t empowered to tackle. Imagine then, the power of unleashing their potential and the type of quantifiable business impacts they could realise.

Often, they are eager to learn and develop skills to improve their personal development and contribute to the business, thus, creating a virtuous cycle of improvement.

Providing self-service tools that put humans at the centre of analytic intelligence

As the data and analytics landscape becomes more complex and fragmented, it is more pertinent than ever to democratize access to analytic tools among members of a business who can best create and derive value from the data.

The rise in the use of self-service data analytic tool has become so pronounced that Gartner predicts that by the end of 2019, the analytics output of business users with self-service capabilities will surpass that of professional data scientists.

Going beyond the implementation of self-service capabilities, business analysts and citizen data scientists must be encouraged to ask tough questions and be provided with the necessary training to answer these questions, to ensure the success of a self-service approach.

Today, there are even self-service data analytic platforms that have taken it one step further to put more advanced analytic capabilities into the hands of business experts.

These are people who know their company’s business and data and are in the best position to assess whether a prediction that can impact the business – but do not have technical skills to write codes and deploy predictive models.

To help them advance their skills and harness the advantage of AI, self-service platforms now come with a guided walk-through to build machine learning models in a code-free, drag-and-drop environment.

Data is at the core of digital transformation, and this trend is driving demand for analytics across all business functions of an organisation.

Also Read: The cloud has moved mountains, but always keep an eye out for security

Building this analytic mentality and creating a platform that embraces teamwork and model building will be pivotal in developing the next generation of data workers. One that thrives on making self-service analytics your competitive advantage.

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From mental health awareness to online medical consultation, these ten startups are the healthtech rising stars of the country

Malaysia, as we know it, is a breeding ground of hundreds if not thousands of startups today, supported by its modern, tech-enabled infrastructure and strategic location. Among many tech sectors it boasts, Malaysian healthtech has seen quite a productive year so far, with the latest funding deal was secured by Naluri, the digital therapeutic platform.

According to The Malaysian Health Care System: A Review by David Quek, Malaysia has a “dual-tiered system of healthcare services: a government-led and funded public sector, and a thriving private sector creating a dichotomous yet synergistic public-private model”. However, the report stated, there is no unified system of universal access to healthcare for every citizen.

The heavily subsidised public sector caters to the bulk of the population (about 65 per cent) but is served by just 45 per cent of all registered doctors, with even fewer specialists (25-30 per cent). The private sector also has grown tremendously over the past 25 years.

The report further noted that this two-tiered system has significantly different goals that can be unsustainable in the longer term.

The way forward, it suggested, is to foster closer partnership, collaboration, and sharing of services and personnel with an integrated system of medical information and expertise access. To achieve so, Malaysia’s healthtech startup has to aim for a more cost-effective system and a portable system of reimbursement, exactly what these startups are working on:

BookDoc

BookDoc has a presence in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, where it teamed up with Siloam Hospital to open way to the country, Hong Kong, and Thailand offering a platform that connects patients to healthcare as well as gives incentives through BookDoc Activ, where users can earn rewards and discounts from retail partners and service providers for maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle.

BookDoc’s ecosystem allows users to search and book healthcare professionals anytime and anywhere, and integrates with navigation (Google Map, Waze), transport (Grab, Uber, AirAsia), accommodation (Agoda, Airbnb), and recommended restaurants & attractions (TripAdvisor) for more efficient healthcare appointments.

BookDoc was founded by Dato’ Chevy Beh with the goal of improving the timeliness of diagnosis and helping patients to find appropriate care.

In 2018, the company received funding from Bruneian royalty.

Naluri

Freshly-funded, Naluri took a different approach to conquer chronic disease by focussing on patient’s mental health. It offers a digital therapeutic service that is combined with behavioural science, data science, and digital design.

Naluri, which is founded by a former iFlix Malaysia CEO Azran Osman-Rani, said the healthcare concept it offers is aimed at “building mental resilience needed to achieve goals and overcome life’s challenges that stand in the patient’s way”.

Also Read: Startup in Spotlight: How dengue helped create Malaysia’s BookDoc

Naluri provides self-serve modules/lessons, tracking through connected weighing scale, food journal, and thought journal and peer group support. It also gives users regular feedback and coaching and access to professional health coaches, dieticians, executive coaches, fitness coaches, medical advisors, and pharmacists.

It then presents the users with a machine-learning and Natural Language Processing-based results that predict health outcomes of users and increase the productivity of coaches.

REMEDi

REMEDi offers its users a paperless, responsive system that connects patients with healthcare professionals and services, from doctor visit to prescription management, and gives access to medical history securely.

Patients can connect to selected records online to review historical and current results securely. This allows patients to have an active say in taking care of their health together with the health professionals that treat the patients.

ClicknCare

ClicknCare was founded based as an initiative of Simple Motion Sdn Bhd to create a healthcare platform for migrants around the world. It aims to make it easy for any migrant in any country to find local doctors that are not restricted by barriers, at a reasonable cost.

ClicknCare was founded by Abu Hasnat Mohammad Sultanur Reza, using a telemedicine approach called ClickTalk, that allows health care professionals to evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients using telecommunications technology. ClickDoc, on the other hand, are a contact pool of registered doctors in Malaysia with Bangla-speaking operator.

Check Up Asia

Check Up Asia recently made news after signing a partnership agreement with Takaful Malaysia to promote a healthy lifestyle, as well as related services and solutions, for the insurance giant’s Employee Benefits (“EB”) customers. Check Up Asia is best known for its product CHECKUP PLUS, that is aimed towards helping individuals subscribe to a healthier lifestyle to manage and control heart disease risk factors.

The programme includes consultation with a doctor of users’ choice, the use of the Ourcheckup Platform and Mobile Apps, and health data collection devices.

DoctorOnCall

DoctorOnCall claimed to be the first and currently the largest online doctor consultation platform in Malaysia. It offers healthcare services via chat, phone, and video calls.

Besides consultation, the company also provides medical second opinion and medicine delivery.

Also Read: HealthMetrics, the first Malaysian startup to join Google Launchpad, raises US$1M from Spiral Ventures, Cradle, RHL Ventures

DoctorOnCall works by connecting patients to registered doctors simply with registering to write symptoms. Then, patients will be able to speak to a doctor online and get needed treatments and answers, all the way until a prescription is ready and medication is being delivered to the patient.

HomeGP

HomeGP is an online platform that connects patients to house call healthcare practitioners such as doctors, nurses, and caregivers.

Patients simply book an appointment with a smartphone or web device. After the booking is confirmed, the selected medical service provider will arrive within an hour to tend in the comfort of the patient’s home.

To date, HomeGP claimed that it has over 300 on-demand healthcare practitioners.

HypoBand

HypoBand is healthtech product that is designed to alert caregivers when the life of a diabetic patient is in danger. If a wearer is having a cold sweat or hypoglycemia, a distress call is made on auto to prevent a hypoglycemic attack, that usually happens when the person with diabetes is asleep and unaware.

The cold sweat detection is done by inbuilt sensors monitoring the patient’s temperature and sweat levels using the HypoBand. A panic button also can be triggered in case of emergency.

According to the World Health Organization, in Malaysia alone, one out of 8 adults has diabetes and 50 per cent of them do not even know that they have diabetes.

The Hypoband itself is integrated with the Android-based app that makes auto calls and sends out pre-written text messages (SMS) to caregivers, doctors, or hospitals during an emergency hypoglycemic attack.

It also has a local alarm mode that can alert nearby caregivers to assist the patient.

PurelyB

PurelyB is a health and wellness platform that offers customised health programmes, curated content, and a platform to connect with a like-minded community.

The company was started in 2015 by duo Raja Jesrina Arshad and Stephanie Looi as a healthy food recipe and directory platform. It has expanded to include an online marketplace that sells healthy lifestyle products in an English and Chinese platform.

HealthMetrics

HealthMetrics acts as a personal assistant to manage employees’ health benefits. It offers transparent healthcare pricing as well as predictive analytics to help companies budget and manage the administrative work under one platform, eliminating the use of Excel or even receipts traces.

With HealthMetrics, all data are converted into analytics for the users to make business decisions.

Also Read: Malaysian healthtech startup Naluri raises US$250K seed funding from 500 Startups, BioMark

HealthMetrics became the first-ever Malaysian startup to join Google Launchpad Accelerator in 2017. The company got a chance to go to Google’s headquarter in Mountain View to take part in intensive mentoring from the Google team and experts from top technology companies and venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. In 2018, it received US$1 million funding from Spiral Ventures, Cradle, and RHL Ventures.

These are the 10 disruptive, emerging healthtech from Malaysia, among other thirty-something healthtech startups that are reported to be operating in the country. With many innovations ahead that covers a multifaceted issue in health, Malaysia is on its way to transforming the fragmented healthcare system not only in the country but potentially in neighbouring Southeast Asia countries as well.

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As businesses expand, optimising SEO in international markets can be different from optimisation in-home markets

Having a well-optimised SEO website is the first step towards success.

If your website ranks high for the most popular keywords within the client base in your home country, your revenue generation will be on a constant upward trajectory.

And now because you have conquered the local market, it would be the best time to expand your business in the international market.

However, there lies a problem. The kind of online domination that has worked for you so well back home doesn’t seem to work in these new markets.

Also Read: 8 SEO tools most used by bloggers and marketers in 2019

Your international target audiences do not seem to relate well with the niche keywords that had brought you huge traffic back home.

Now you are panicking, not knowing what to do. But don’t worry; this article will help you understand what’s wrong with your online marketing strategies and how to navigate around the problem. 

So, what is happening? Well, your global success is stagnating because you probably have not yet found the right combination of multilingual SEO and global localisation.

The international audience wants the content in your website translated to the language they understand best, and then everything is spiced up by a strong multilingual SEO strategy.

What exactly is multilingual Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

Multilingual SEO is a content optimising strategy where you align your website and its content to the language and structure that search engines can quickly identify with. At the same time helping engines to pick which country or region every language in your website is targeting. 

To leverage the full potential of multilingual SEO, your localisation strategy must be flawless. You must anchor your plans for global success on these two factors.

Also Read: 5 effective tricks to boost your SEO

And because you only get one chance to impress your audience, then you cannot afford to get anything wrong, be it on multilingual SEO or global localisation. 

Bottom line: You only get a fair shot at global success if your web content is cultivating, readable, understandable, easily accessible, optimally targeted, and easily searchable in as many countries, languages, and slangs as possible. 

With over 200 million websites actively competing for a limited number of clients today, you cannot afford to miss out on the visibility that comes with a good SEO ranking. That being said, here are some of the benefits of incorporating your multilingual SEO into your localisation plan:

The two are intertwined

“SEO experts will tell you that it is difficult to tell multilingual SEO and localisation apart. These two are so close that one cannot function without the other. When you think of localising visual content to a certain language, then you are already overlapping to multilingual SEO. When you think of localising code for maintenance, you definitely will have to engage local linguistic experts, which is multilingual SEO.” say SEO experts of Tactica. In a nutshell, multilingual SEO cannot stand on its own without localisation and vice versa.

Direct translations aren’t enough

If your idea of localisation is using a translation tool to translate your content into a foreign language, then you are leaving a lot to fall through the cracks.

One language can have more than five terminologies referring to the same thing, or one word having more than five possible translations. The only way you will take care of that is by using multilingual SEO tactics.

Assemble a reliable translation team and ask them to help you to identify the keywords that resonate most with the culture and slang of each of your target locales. That is the only way you’ll succeed.

Identifying the right search engines for your audience

This goes without saying: Google is the dominant search engine in most developed global economies. But the word we all look for in business is “all” and not “most”. What you need is a team of lingual experts to help you optimise your keywords for not only Google but also other relevant engines. 

Also Read: Why we need to rethink how we measure SEO

Think of a case where you are targeting Chinese consumers with your product. The chances are that you won’t get any business going in the country because only 1 per cent of the Chinese population uses Google to search for products online.

You will have to optimise your keywords for Baidu, the dominating engine in the region with over 70 per cent of all internet users. Localisation alone will not get this done. You will need the help of multilingual SEO to succeed.

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Even as technology advances at a rapid pace and the possibilities for AI increase, it’s important to remember that the most effective applications of AI will still require a human touch

As artificial intelligence (AI) technology continues to advance and its capabilities expand, we might wonder what the role of humans is going to be as things become increasingly automated. This is particularly true when it comes to creativity, given that the ability to ideate and produce new things is one of the characteristics that distinguish humans from other animals.

Defining ‘Creativity’

We already have many examples that AI can be trained to exhibit creative behaviours. For instance, AI can be used to transfer a particular artistic style to original photographs. Mobile applications like Prisma, which allow artistic style transfer, have become extremely popular. AI can also be used to generate new images or paintings. It was recently reported that a new painting created by an AI program has been sold at auction for astonishing US$432,500!

It’s important to distinguish ‘creative behaviours’ from ‘creativity’ with regard to what AI technology is actually doing. How humans decide what is and isn’t creative is largely subjective. AI cannot be creative, in that it cannot experience something like inspiration, but rather it can learn creative behaviours and mimic the human creative process, via which it can produce an output.

Also read: How to cultivate your team’s creativity by thinking outside the box

AI is widely acknowledged to be good at handling huge data sets, uncovering patterns and relationships in data, optimizing towards a clear objective and making predictions. In the case of the painting mentioned earlier, the data set was 15,000 portraits painted over a period of 600 years. An algorithm was then able to emulate the properties of the paintings and produce something based on what it had learned. Other specific applications of ‘creative AI’ include developing special effects for entertainment; providing customer service through chatbots; and designing new proteins and chemicals in the health and science arenas.

The Role of Human Intelligence

Human intelligence (HI) is better at creating content, such as art or literature, and is better at creative problem-solving, such as identifying an opportunity to start a business. Even though AI has been used to generate art and descriptive text, it can only mimic what already exists. It cannot yet create ‘new’ styles of art, dance or literature. In other words, AI can learn patterns that underlie the creative process. However, for things like starting a business- which are rarely if ever replicated in exactly the same way — HI significantly outperforms AI.

Also read: How artificial intelligence is disrupting education

Because of this, even as AI capabilities advance, humans are still important. Subject matter experts are critical for creating examples for AI to learn from, and we still need to provide the goals for AI to work towards and the parameters within which to do that. Humans are still the final decision makers on what ‘creativity’ looks like.

At Appier, one way we have experimented with AI and creative behaviours is to see if it can design clothing. I recently spoke at an event hosted by SGInnovate, where I spoke on the topic of AI and creativity, and I showed the audience both human designs and AI designs. Several people were certain that the AI designs were created by humans, showing that in this case, there was some alignment on ‘creativity’ from both an AI and HI perspective. As Appier works with many e-commerce clients, identifying ways to expand the capabilities of our AI technology allows us to provide more comprehensive solutions to our customers.

Understanding AI’s capabilities and limitations

For now, even as technology advances at a rapid pace and the possibilities for AI increase, it’s important to remember that the most effective applications of AI will still require a human touch. Bringing AI in the creative process will not diminish the role of humans or replace them, but rather it will enhance the creative process and help people produce greater and more varied content and allow them to explore more options when it comes to creative problem solving.

The most critical role for humans working alongside AI is to be clear about what we want it to achieve. We must clearly understand AI’s role and limitations, and provide it with the assets it needs to best perform, particularly robust and high quality data for it to analyse and learn from.

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This article was first published on e27, on November 26, 2018.

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The ineffectiveness of too many how to’s on leadership can be solved by knowing this one trick

I’m simply going to get right into it: a lot of leadership traits are bullshit.

For one, leaders are expected to have many ‘qualities’ and ‘traits’. How many traits should leaders have? Is it 10? 11? Or is it 5?

Fact is, great leaders are an embodiment of many qualities. It is the blend of the qualities that makes each leader unique in every environment. Some leaders may be more cool-headed; others may be great communicators.

Leadership is such a nebulous term which has various definitions based on the organisation that they are in. The culture and values of the organisation are factors that can set the type of leadership they are looking for.

“Siri, what are the traits that leaders should have?”

Asking that gives you at least 350 million results, within the first page and the second page being almost indistinguishable. The only distinction between all the links? It’s about the source.

Does it come for a blog or from a news site? Is it a thesis, or is it a contributing article on Forbes? The similarity between all of them is that they are talking about the same few traits repeatedly: honesty, integrity, communicating skills, to name a few.

While important skills, as a leader, you need to understand that these values are merely extensions from your fundamentals. Let’s not even talk about the theory, like servant-leadership and laissez-faire leadership.

Also Read: 6 leadership techniques for business growth acceleration

As a leader, you need to have laser-focus: what are your fundamentals? The base of your leadership is significant as it is the deciding factor for how your ‘extensions’ will be like and how effective they will be.

In this day and age, leadership is a tricky thing; businesses have to manage a multigenerational workforce and millennials and Gen Z’s pose great management challenges on their own.

Be it at work or on campus, effective leadership is only displayed when a team of people with opposing personalities work together with enthusiasm and passion, without asking for rewards or holding any expectations.

Here’s the key: asking for rewards and holding expectations.

Setting the stage

Ditch those traits on integrity, passion, and respect—we are looking at fundamentals here. Like a content strategy, when you operate without a clear direction, your leadership is bound to have multiple blind spots and flaws which you cannot resolve as quickly as you would like to.

Think of traits as branches from a tree: without the root, you are unable to grow. How can there be so many branches without a single tree trunk?

Also Read: How OKR training for managers can create a more realistic approach to learning

You need to set your ‘stage’: a single, solid value that you abide by like a principle, which you carry with you in every task that you do.

Violating this principle is equivalent to being contradictory to your leadership, and that is something you must avoid.

If you’ve been reading The Human Leader or following my posts, you will know that I am a big believer in empathetic leadership: it is the only leadership style that can bring any business or organisation the best of both worlds in results and engagement. Autocratic styles do not work anymore, and Laissez-Faire is only useful to a certain extent.

You’re in the listening business.

Complete autonomy married with limited management is the style. Instead of focusing on control, you focus on guiding. You adopt the role of a mentor.

However, this article is not about theory; it is about the single value that leaders must adopt to build a fundamental for the growth of their leadership.

And that is gratitude.

Gratitude specifically for the team that you’re leading; without them, there would be no you. It is the same kind of gratitude that you should have for your parents; it is through a blend of unique experiences and personalities that you are able to grow and reach the level where you’re at right now.

When you’re grateful for your team, you understand their significance in the organisation that you’re in. You know that these are the people that you’re working for—not the other way around—and that these are the people who will prop you up in the future. They are your supporters.

When you adopt gratitude, growing the ‘branches’ of that value is extremely easy only because it makes so much sense:

Why would you not respect your team?—you know that they are significant. You know that they are important to you: why would we not respect the things that are important to us?

You’re going to pay a lot more attention to them—when you are grateful, you pay close attention to what they are doing. You know that they are the people who will help you: hence, you are going out of your way to see what you can do for them. Do they need more resources? Does someone need mentorship and guidance?

Honesty will be the only policy—one of the most difficult extensions (considering that we lie every day). Honesty refers to full transparency: the process, your expectations, your objectives and such.

You’re going to be genuine—having a single solid base is the key to being consistent, and that means being authentic. When you are consistent in applying your values, you are going to grow the courage to hold true to your values and principles: sometimes, lost values form one of the biggest causes of downfalls.

Why will you not be supportive and encouraging of your team?—Knowing that your team supports you, your role is to be 10x more supportive and encouraging. Help them hit their goals and provide them with the right resources. Chart their path and assist them in growing.

You will actually start caring for your employees — caring for your team member goes beyond work: it is the conversation during lunchtime and in between breaks that allow you to understand them as a human being, not just as your team member. You know that their success if predicated many different factors, and you want to understand where and how you can best help them.

As a leader, you need to think ‘preventive’. By being grateful and adopting empathy, you’re going to understand your employees better regardless of what kind of personality or life they have.

Also Read:  Filling the leadership gap: Why you cannot delegate responsibility

Before underperformance starts spreading, you aim to keep your team going no matter what situation lies before them with useful, gratitude-centric leadership.

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As businesses compete, the impacts of Big Data can give founders an edge in the ever-changing landscape

 

 

Every day three quintillion bytes of data is generated. This data comes from different sources like digital pictures, videos, posts on social media, e-businesses, intelligent sensors, and log storage in the IT industry.

According to McKinsey, “big data” refers to datasets whose size is far beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage and analyse. 

Real-world challenges of Big Data enterprises

One of the major sources of data is the log storage, which is present in the IT industries because the IT industry stores a lot of information in the form of logs of data.

This data is so vast that the traditional system becomes unable to handle such kinds of logs as this data is semi-structured in nature and is growing with great velocity.

 Sensor data refers to the data coming out of sensors. An enormous amount of sensor data is also a challenge for big data. One example of sensor data is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

LHC is the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. The data-flow in its experiments consists of twenty-five to two hundred petabytes of information that has to be processed and held on.

Also Read: How big data is impacting the legal world

So we can say that this sensor data is a very challenging one for management as the traditional system cannot handle such a variety of data.

Another place where we can find big data is in Risk Analysis.

So any financial institute needs to model data, and based on this data, they need to calculate what kind of risk can occur.

One of the problems with the data of risk analysis is that it is huge and is generally under-utilised. We need to perform big data analytics on such data to get more accurate information and predictions on risks involved in the management of risk analysis data.

The data generated from social media can be of any type—may be structured, semi-structured or unstructured.

The rate at which social media data is increasing is astounding. Therefore, it is also one of the important sources of big data in a real-life scenario.

Apart from the above scenario, there are some other significant data contributors as well; for example, customer analytics, experience analytics, threat analysis, fraud analysis, and brand sentiment analysis, where we use big data.

Big Data opportunities

From this real-world scenario, we can say that big data has a lot of applications and opportunity and lots of use cases. So it is essential to study this big data and perform analytics on it because it can be very advantageous for an organisation. 

According to a survey conducted by SoftServe in 2016. 86 per cent of organisations are now using big data analytics solutions for retaining customers, understanding customers, the trending interests of the customers, and more.

Out of this, 45 per cent of all respondents use it across an organisation, and 41 per cent use it in their organisations.

The areas where big data analytics provides the most value are:

• Customer Intelligence
• New Revenue Opportunities
• Better Customer Services

There is a lot of application of big data analytics in fields like healthcare, telecommunication, financial firms, retail, law enforcement, marketing, new product development, banking, energy and utilities, insurance, and education. 

With increasing analytic skills among various organisations, the advantage of big data analytics can be realised in sectors like constructions and material sciences.  

Also Read: Busting the myths around AI, IoT, Big Data and Cloud at Echelon 2019

Big Data analytics uses

• Big data analytics applications regularly include data from the internal system and external sources.
• Weather and demographic data on customers collected by third party information services providers.
• Also, streaming analytics applications have become common in a big data environment.

Big Data issues: security and privacy

The prime concern with big data apart from conceptual significance entails both technical as well as legal relevance.

An individual’s private information, when combined with large external datasets, leads to the inference of new and specific facts about the said person.

When law enforcers take assistance from big data, the chances that certain tagged people might have to go through uncalled sufferings decrease drastically.

Big Data analytics solutions

Getting out the secrets hidden in big data is a critical factor for developing future strategies which can help in the growth of a business. So, for this, there are many big data solution companies, which are big data solution providers.

These big data solution providers have different big data consulting strategy for solving complex big-data challenges for enterprises.

Big Data Consulting Services Companies

As all the organisations, business companies and industries are using big data analytics. The big data consulting services are largely used for big data services and solutions. There are many big data consulting services companies which are operating mainly in India like Spec India, Pythian, ScienceSoft, etc. 

Conclusion

As data is increasing day by day at a very high pace, there are a lot of challenges involved in big data and enterprises can have a lot of opportunities from this.

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, big data is in every industry and business function and is an important factor for production as well as business growth and development.

Also Read: Implications and solutions for Big Data in insurance

Many companies for big data solutions are coming with a different strategy for big data solutions and are providing big data solutions to various organisations and business companies. With the help of big data, we can make more educated decisions, and our focus can remain on business operations moving forward.

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It’s easy to see why any company or individual would want to use cloud platforms to host their most important files

You’ve seen it in marketing materials, your smartphone’s menu options, and even on social media and gaming, but why is ‘cloud’ a buzzword right now?

Cloud technology has quickly risen to prominence in internet infrastructure over recent years, and many systems use cloud-based hosting to store your most important files. 

What is the Cloud? 

The ‘cloud’ refers to a dynamic form of a web server that is capable of scaling to meet users’ and systems’ changing needs, on-demand.

Also Read: The cloud has moved mountains, but always keep an eye out for security

Whereas a traditional web server is a static, unchanging platform to host files online. Cloud servers can be added-onto in terms of both size and resources to meet customer needs. 

Why the Cloud is Everywhere 

Cloud-based technology is built to be fast, secure, and accommodating. Since cloud infrastructure is virtual, it can be deployed over a vast amount of physical web servers in a variety of locations.

This allows for super-fast data retrieval, which is handy if you’re looking to download games, photos, movies, or other large data files over the Internet. 

Common applications of Cloud hosting systems 

Smartphones, including iPhones and Android-based phones, rely on cloud systems to store videos and images that won’t fit on the internal memory system.

If you regularly take high-def videos on your phone, then you can expect a prompt to move future files to a cloud storage system, saving you the hassle of making manual backups or deleting files. 

Games and other software now use cloud systems to store primary files, making it more efficient for downloaders across different regions to access and use shared files.

Also Read: How to enter the cloud mining market

The cloud also applies to businesses and shared projects on the web, who rely on the ease and readiness of cloud tech to share updates to projects with multiple contributors. 

Cloud hosting for websites 

Another is where cloud systems are often applied is in the storage of public websites.

When you visit a website with your browser, you’re calling for files from a specific web server. Many web servers are now running on cloud-based platforms so that they can scale and meet the needs of dynamic web traffic patterns.

This is particularly useful for sites that see fluctuations in traffic or sudden spikes in visits from viral content. 

Cloud-based website hosting works similarly to traditional web hosting but typically offers boosts in speed and performance, as well as different pricing structures.

Since your usage of a cloud server may vary significantly from month to month, many cloud providers charge on a per-user basis. 

Other benefits  

Aside from being fast, secure, and scalable, there are a few different reasons that cloud systems are becoming so ubiquitous.

Clouds are highly efficient because they allow for resources to be distributed as needed. This eliminates the waste of idle resources often seen in other types of more static hosting platforms.

Eliminating such waste not only reduces utility bills for cloud providers but allows machines to be utilized to their maximum potential, which helps reduce overall e-waste. 

Also Read: How a Taiwanese cloud storage provider took on Europe and Japan

Since cloud platforms are virtualized, it is easy to build redundancy into a cloud infrastructure. One risk of any file hosting system is that files could go missing, either because of corruption due to software issues or due to natural disasters, such as flooding, sometimes at data centres.

Cloud tech mitigates this risk by making it easy to build redundant copies of each server at a different physical or even geographical locations. 

Uploading files to a cloud server is no different than uploading to a traditional server, and in many cases, cloud servers are faster than competing systems.

With cloud-based technology, you can feel more secure about your file storage, easily share projects and files with others, and even store your most important personal data directly from your phone, computer, or gaming console.

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As a startup, it can be incredibly difficult to scale up, here’s how growth can be accelerated

The secret

The secret, according to Rene, is standardisation, partnerships and people. Based on his years as CEO of McDonald’s in Holland and working with lots of companies with his acceleration programmes. Why companies are there to serve staff and clients.

That needs to be anchored into the DNA of an organisation. Only then can your business grow. Why half of the human energy leaks out of a company. Only 20 per cent of your employees are truly energetic about the work they do.

Also Read: Here are 5 ways to advance your life and enterprise with a growth mindset

Standardisation

How standardisation is the most underestimated management tool in the 21st century. Think about it, only through standardisation can you create a multiplier to scale.

His rule is 1-2-3. Stop doing half of the work, do the other half twice as good and become three times faster.

It improves your quality, makes your product more recognisable and more important increases the speed of your organisation. Speed is a pre-requisite, particularly when you want to serve lots of customers.

More speed, less friction, happier clients. With his McDonalds background, you would understand, and he uses the example of the grain of salt that McDonald’s use.

Every grain of salt is described and specified exactly, and every restaurant uses the exact same salt. You can also imagine what standardisation does with your purchasing and your cost structure.

It makes life a lot easier. Every business should develop a franchise handbook for that reason alone. Quality becomes a lot more manageable, and that will result in happier clients and happier staff. Happy clients and happy staff are the best advertising you can get. Read “Talk triggers“.

Partnerships. Don’t do it alone

The largest brands are a network of businesses. Why would you not follow that example and start building relationships with the best of the best?

Creating win-win-win. Preferably long term relations with clearly defined roles, goals and expectations. With honesty and mutual respect as the cornerstone.

An ecosystem of businesses as family or friends. It will make your life a lot easier and pleasant and create the economy of scale of a network of relations you can trust. Imagine using that ecosystem as the advisory board of your company.

When was the last time you asked a supplier what he/she really thought of your company?

People

Rene thinks there are three elements to an organisation and it is shaped as a Xmas tree. The trunk, which are the core values, the support organisation as one part of the tree and the sales organisation as the other part of the tree. The start on top is the client.

The Xmas ball at the lowest part of the tree is the CEO.

You are responsible for the well being of your customers and your staff. Starting with a clear definition of the core values. By defining your core values, you create collective leadership and accountability.

It only works if it is authentic and you should regularly check if they fit with how your clients perceive you. Core values are a fundamental part of your brand. Read “Fusion“.

Serving leadership

You need to know what you stand for and it is highly unlikely to be products, process and money. It is more likely to be about people, love, attention and respect. Do that well, and the money will follow.

Also Read: 3 essential crisis communication strategies every entrepreneur should know

You can copy any product or process, but you cannot copy an authentic culture. Successful companies are nice places to work, where the management team serves the employees, help and coach, share knowledge, train, and give positive attention.

These type of companies are also twice as successful. Read “Lovability“. CEOs, CFOs, COOS, are there to serve the shop assistant, mechanic, rubbish collector and not the other way around.

CEO

You are here to serve as a leader. Making sure that the emotional electricity moves towards the clients and not towards the CEO.

The only job of a CEO is to make sure that all barriers are removed to ensure that a client is happy. You lead by example and an epitome of the core values.

You network, you ensure the feedback flows, you consider the future, you energise and most of all you are the metronome and beating heart of the organisation. You pave the road and set the direction.

Sales

When Rene talks about sales organisation, he does not mean just the salespeople. He means everybody that has contact with the client. Direct or indirect. Helpdesk, toilet cleaner, the truck driver. Everybody.

Do you know who they are? Have they been instructed to ensure that the client gets the best experience possible? That their job is to deliver happiness. The book “The connected company” asks if you are designed for delight? Are you? So you need happy staff that are genuinely interested in people and want to make them happy.

As part of the core values of your company. With your support structure, making sure that everything is available to make that happen. All you want is fantastic customer service, reducing the cost of marketing. Marketing is the price you pay for being unremarkable. Read “The laws of brand storytelling”

Feedback loops

The final thing you need is smart feedback loops. A good information system increases your ability to learn and grow. His suggestions:

• No spreadsheets, but (client) stories. Ensure that the feedback loop works with all units within the company.
• Let your employees use their common sense on what information they need.
• Use formal and informal structures.
• Feedback can come from anywhere — suppliers, clients, staff, etc.

Realise that organising the feedback is a management role. If you do it right, the feedback loops ensure that your workload gets diminished. People know what to do themselves. Shared leadership.

De Efteling

Rene uses examples from McDonald’s, HEMA, Cool Blue and the Efteling (my favourite park).

The Efteling works with the best in the business, and everything is centred about making their visitors feel good, making them a fan (like me), who come back to visit regularly and whose brand is a love mark. That is what you want.

Also Read: “Nail it then scale it” – the new mantra for startups

Your business needs to become the Efteling of your sector. Where every client has a positive, authentic, human experience. Where clients become fans and friends, where the client is not part of your work, but the work. If you do that you will grow.

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Essential tips on securing a successful round of fundraising from VC’s

 

Fundraising has never been an easy task, but yet it is usually one of the most crucial things that startups need to do in order to quickly scale their businesses to the next level and many are still wondering how to do it successfully.

Now with a lot more VC-fund available in the region compared to a decade ago, there never was a better time to fundraise with VC than today.

Therefore, here are some essential tips that you should consider when you’re fundraising with VC:

Invest enough time with your pitch deck

Pitch deck is essentially the CV of your company and it is almost definitely going to be the first thing that VC will ask to you if you want to be considered by them.

Also Read: How to write a PR pitch for your white paper

However, there have been many occasions where startup founders have put 30+ irrelevant slides in their deck which certainly does not increase their chances of being considered.

Hence, you should always keep your deck concise from 10-13 slides which include the following – name and purpose, the team,  the problems, your solution, the market size, the competition, the product and it’s a roadmap, the monetization model and the tractions.

Carefully identify all of the potential investors

Identifying and picking the right investors to be your partners is very important and you should never blindly send out your decks to all VC’s without taking your time to learn about them one-by-one.

The reason being that some VC’s may already have existing portfolios that have a similar business model and target market like your startups and you certainly don’t want to give them any leverage of your company’s secrets to competitors.

Hence, allocate enough time to identify and list the VCs that you want to send your deck to by knowing their backgrounds, current portfolios, investment thesis, sector focus, the analyst’sand partners.

Know what you want to say in the first meeting

Great! So you’ve already sent your deck and you get a response from the analyst/associate to invite you for a meeting.

Your first meeting with the VC will be similar like any first dates and your only main goal is to make them more interested in your company.

In order to do that well, you should prepare yourself with all critical and relevant data/information of your company and be prepared with all possible questions that will be asked.

Also Read: Pro pitch deck tips for beginners

Lastly, be passionate and sincere while talking about your company but never try to oversell.

Due diligence process

If you made it to the VC’s due diligence (DD) process, it means you’ve already made a significant milestone in your fundraising process.

DD process can take some time and the only thing you should do is to be patient and always give accurate answers for all detailed questions that will be asked by the VC.

If you think the DD process has taken too long, always be courteous in following-up with the VC and never put any pressure on them to rush the process.

The final process

Once the VC complete their DD process, it is usually going to be their final decision (either yes or no). If they say YES, congratulations!

All you need to do is wait until they give you the term sheet and pay careful attention with all of the terms and clauses.

But if you get a NO, try to request another meetup with the VC to ask for their feedback on why they decided to not proceed further with your startup and what other things you can improve.

It is also okay to ask them for any referrals but always does it in a polite manner and always ask it for no more than once.

Also Read: What you need to know before taking Venture (or Vulture?) Capital
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Sometimes, it’s not just about the work itself

With the ever-increasing market competition and client expectations, the nature of jobs has changed drastically in the last three decades or so.

Employees are forced to work in a high-pressure environment where one mistake can put their jobs at risk. The only way to be able to survive in their careers is to maintain excellent performance. Sometimes, the urge to do this can put them under tremendous pressure, which eventually can cause job burnout.

No matter if you’re part of a multinational company or a present-day startup, this is something that must have faced in the past or are likely to face at some point in your career. If you want to get through this situation as a winner and maintain a top-notch performance, then make some immediate changes in your lifestyle and habits.

These adjustments might seem difficult at first, but if you stay committed you can easily turn yourself into an achiever and get through any high-pressure situation at the workplace comfortably.

Here are some of those tips that you can pay attention to and get desired outcomes.

1. Make Friends at the Workplace

If you look closely at your routine, you’ll realise that almost one-third of your day goes in various work-related tasks. Add travel time to it, and the number will even rise further.

You may not realise it now, but to get through this period without feeling stressed and anxious, you need friends who understand you, help you in achieving your goals, and support you when you’re feeling low.

Even though true friendships at the workplace don’t exist, you can still maintain friendly relations with everyone around you and make the most of this opportunity.

For this to happen, you need to pay heed to a couple of important points. The first is to separate yourself from workplace politics and gossips. These two can do more damage to your career and relationships than anything else. You might not stop them from happening, but you can definitely choose not to become a part of them.

Also read: 5 research-backed stress-busters that can help you improve work-life balance

By maintaining a fair distance from such activities, you can avoid unnecessary controversies and be more productive.

The second thing is to be willing to support others whenever you can. Start with being approachable. Be respectful to your seniors, courteous to your fellow employees and kind to your juniors. Help them whenever they need (and it doesn’t put you under fire in any way) without expecting anything in return.

This might not bring you positive results immediately, but in the long run, your behavior won’t go unnoticed. Give it a shot, and you’ll know the difference.

2. Maintain a Routine

Most working professionals find themselves under tremendous pressure towards the month end because they have no fixed routine. Don’t make the same mistake if you want to be able to achieve desired outcomes at your workplace.

The first step in this regard is to reach the office on time. While coming late might seem cool, it will definitely hit your productivity in the worst possible way. The negative energy that will surround you right in the morning will keep troubling until you sign off for the day.

Don’t let it happen!

Come on time in the morning, do your work with 100% commitment throughout the day and leave on time in the evening so that you can balance your life and give proper attention to your family & friends as well.

Right before you are about to leave the office premise in the evening, make a to-do list for the next day so that you have a clear idea of what’s in store for tomorrow.

3. Sweat it Out

How on earth can people handle stress without their body being able to produce sufficient endorphins on a regular basis? It’s practically and theoretically impossible.

The easiest way to make your body produce endorphins is to work out.

When you lift weights, run on the treadmill or do any other activity which involves body movements, your brain releases certain chemicals that reduce stress and work as natural painkillers.

This is the reason why most business leaders managing billions of dollars worth of funds and portfolios are known for maintaining a physically active lifestyle. Since they live 24/7 under tremendous work pressure, regular work out helps them keep things in check and achieve great results.

It’s not just business leaders who like to spend time in the gym, but everyone who sets himself out to achieve massive success follows this routine.

All the sportspersons and athletes whom you admire like to spend hours in the gym so that their body and mind remain in perfect sync with each other. They don’t stop working out even when they’re down with an injury or not feeling on top of their game. Most athletes these days have started taking medical precautions to avoid injuries and maintain a good performance over time, but at no point, they consider quitting an option.

Workout is a part of their lifestyle as it prepares them mentally and physically to face larger-than-life challenges. You need to learn from them and make work out a part of your routine.

Also read: From fitness to business: An engineer’s journey in entrepreneurship

Even if you hit the gym for a couple of hours for 4-5 days a week, it can get you amazing results and ensure that workplace stress doesn’t pull you down.

I had a word in this regard with Joy Smith, a good friend, and self-proclaimed health nut. According to her, “With the rising awareness in the medical field, cannabinoids could perhaps be used as a tool for balancing our mental tranquility and living comfortably in our physical bodies, simultaneously.”

She isn’t alone who advocates precautionary measures during regular workout sessions to give the body the strength it requires. Many other market leaders and healthcare professionals have backed this claim. They believe this step can help people achieve physical strength over time and unlock the doors to mental wellbeing in a hassle-free manner.

4. Have a Hobby

It’s one of the most ignored yet important points that can improve your workplace performance by a significant margin.

Many working professionals do their jobs and return homes with the only purpose to come back again the next day and repeat the same cycle. You can break this boring unending loop by having a hobby that you like as much as your job. It can be writing, drawing, collecting coins, designing or anything else for that matter.

The goal is to have something that you can look up to even when you have had a bad day at work. It will keep you motivated to make the other half your day productive by indulging into something that you genuinely love.

This is a tried-and-tested way to keep your mind productive and ensure that it doesn’t fall prey to negativity ever.

These are some of the crucial tips through which you can fix your career, cope with the high work pressure and maintain peak performance.

Is there any other tip that you think should be on this list? Please comment below and let us know.

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This article was first published on e27, on October 24, 2018.

e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash

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