Big data has proven to be more than just a buzzword floating around the business-world. The industry has continued to grow at a rapid pace, and the global big data market is expected to hit over $40 billion in 2018. More and more companies in multiple sectors and industries are getting in on this valuable technology.
So why are some small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) and startups still holding out?
The truth is that many smaller companies feel that there are just too many challenges in their way when it comes to using this big data. This relatively new and swiftly changing form of technology can be intimidating, but the rewards far outweigh the risks. In fact, IDC’s 2017 survey found that 87% of SMBs saw better results than they anticipated once they invested in data technology.
Big data has shown to be especially effective when applied to project management strategies. If your business is considering adding big data to their project management methods, then they will need to be aware of the challenges they will face and the tactics to use to overcome them.
Let’s discuss.
Multiple Team Coordination
One of the greatest qualities of big data is that it is not limited to any single branch. It can help marketing teams develop better strategies, accounting departments budget more efficiently, and make sure IT departments have the best information at their fingertips.
However, one of the biggest challenges that businesses face is coordinating this type of technology between various departments. Project management with big data requires leaders to manage cross-functionally across multiple teams and departments. For example, big data can bring tremendous results for sales teams, but only if they are able to coordinate their findings with marketing and web development departments for a unified strategy. Project leaders are responsible to make sure this happens.
If a business is ready to start using big data for development and project planning, they must implement the best tools to encourage team coordination and organization. Many teams have found that web based project management is especially effective for keeping teams virtually connected through every step. Businesses that started using project management programs saw significant spikes in productivity, communication, and overall project quality, with 75% of teams successfully reaching their goals.
Coordination and communication are vital to any team project, especially when big data systems are involved.
Knowing How to Apply it
Last year, 16.1 billion zettabytes (one ZB = trillion gigabytes) of data was generated on a daily basis. While that number is certainly remarkable, by 2025, that number is expected to increase to 163 ZB every single day. Due to the sheer volume and complexity, many struggle to know what exactly certain datasets mean and how they can apply new advancements to their organization.
Project leaders must be creative and find new ways to implement big data resources into their business. Sadly, poor application of data can cost businesses big time, with estimates between 6% to up to 30% of revenue lost. In order to avoid this catastrophic mistake and properly use the information provided through data analysis, businesses need to be open-minded to change and innovation.
Once teams know how relevant datasets will benefit and guide their efforts, they will be able to apply it more accurately. Project managers must push teams to find new ways to use their data findings for improved results.
Staying on Top of New Developments
The industry of big data is constantly changing, evolving, and expanding, causing many small businesses to question whether or not they can keep up with latest developments. As more businesses begin to rely on big data, industries are predicting a major shortage in 2018 of up to 190,000 workers who can fulfill the necessary roles for proper data analytics. Becoming a data-driven organization will require teams to stay educated on the latest developments in the field.
Project managers should encourage everyone involved to stay educated and up-to-date with big data developments. There are lots of courses offered online for education and certification in data science that could be beneficial to project leaders and managers. Leaders should set an example for their team members by familiarizing themselves with big data trends and terms while sharing their findings with others. There are lots of intricacies and misunderstandings when it comes to big data, so managers must stay on their toes and informed in order to lead their organization to success.
Businesses of all sizes should be proactive when it comes to training their employees so that they don’t fall behind or use outdated practices. By pushing for continued education, startups and SMBs can pave the way in their industry and surpass their competitors who fail to adapt.
Conclusion
Big data has the potential to revolutionize traditional project management practices. From planning strategies based on reliable metrics, to accurately measuring results, companies seem to only gain from implementing big data to their systems.
It is important for small businesses and startups to understand the incredible impact that big data can have on their success. This realization can help fuel project managers and team members alike to come up with creative strategies and innovative ways to collect and apply big data metrics.
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With the prospect of GDPR looming – many of us are starting to ask a lot of questions about the regulation, and what it means for our business. The astronomical penalties that will come into place for those found not complying with GDPR has lead to it becoming one of the most talked about issues in the world of business, and more specifically in marketing sphere.
It’s for that reason the Head of Marketing at leading UK-based SaaS business AppInstitute, Nabeena Mali, wrote this monster 6000+ word guide to help fellow marketers and businesses alike get to know these new regulations. The article gives a rundown of what exactly GDPR is, what it means for you, and an FAQ section answering 21 of the most searched questions relating to GDPR.
Wondering whether GDPR will affect UK businesses after Brexit? Or even if it will affect you at all? Maybe you’re a USA based business. Will you need to start thinking about GDPR compliance?
Learn the answers to these questions and more including what types of marketing will need to take extra care after the GDPR comes into effect – and some key actionable tips for ensuring your employees remain compliant with the new standard.
Check it out here: https://appinstitute.com/gdpr-guide/
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The universe of banking and payments is ever evolving. 2017 has seen a number of significant changes in the payments industry, thanks to advances in technology. Consumers now have access to a myriad of ways to pay. As a result, payment and shopping habits change. e-Commerce and m-Commerce methods such as in-app and one-click commerce are becoming increasingly popular. In addition, the exponential growth of IoT, one can foresee a wealth of new payment use-cases over the next few months. In this infographic, we present 10 key trends that will shape the payments industry in 2018.
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Data Visualization is an art of presenting data in a manner that even a non-analyst can understand it. A perfect blend of aesthetic elements like colours, dimensions and labels can create visual masterpieces, hence revealing surprising business insights which in turn helps businesses to make informed decisions.
Data Visualization is an inevitable aspect of business analytics. As more and more sources of data are getting discovered, business managers at all levels embrace data visualization tool in order to analyze trends visually and take quick decisions.
It also allows data scientists to converse with their end users, because most of the times, the outcome of data analysis may not be immediately comprehensible to the people who do not directly deal with data. Data visualization bridges that gap and makes people appreciate the possibility of the data analysis.
Tableau
Tableau is a Business Intelligence tool for visually analyzing the data. Users can create and distribute an interactive and shareable dashboard, which depicts the trends, variations, and density of the data in the form of graphs and charts. Tableau can connect to files, relational and Big Data sources to acquire and process data. The software allows data blending and real-time collaboration, which makes it very unique. It is used by businesses, academic researchers, and many government organizations for visual data analysis. It is also positioned as a leader Business Intelligence and Analytics Platform in Gartner Magic Quadrant.
Let’s make our hands dirty and make some visualizations!!
The following table tells you how to choose the right visualization for your dataset out of many available options.
We are going to work upon Amazing mart dataset to make different types of plots and to combine them using Tableau.
Let’s load data into tableau!!
After loading data, check out the information present in the file and check what we must do. Our aim is to create plots and combine them together.
Let’s join the sheets present in the dataset. By default tableau picks inner join by taking common key between files.
Just drag and drop the sheets or click on the sheet name to join them. After making the join, let’s make some visualizations. Go to sheet1 to see what tableau made using this data.
Make a line chart using Tableau
Drag order date to Columns shelf and you will see by default it will show a year there is plus icon if you press that it will convert that year into quarters, months, weeks and days according to requirements. Here in this plot we are considering months. We are plotting line chart between months and Sales.
We can change this line chart into different charts by going into marks shelf and changing automatically to some other type of a bar chart.
Let’s make a plot showing same data for different categories.
Combining Plots
When working with multiple measures in a view, you can customize the mark type for each distinct measure. These measures can be displayed as individual axes, blended axes, or dual axes.
Because each measure can have customized marks, you can customize the level of detail, size, shape, and colour encoding for each measure too.
Here we are combing targets measure into a plot to compare how the company is performing.
If we see below graph it is showing two different plots in one plot which giving insights about sales and targets achieved by each category.
But it’s difficult for us to compare which category is doing well. Using Tableau we can make it very much easy to visualize and get which category is doing well.
Dual Axis Plot
Dual axes are useful when you have two measures that have different scales.
Mouse over to axis and right click we get a menu and select the dual axis to merge this both plots.
If we see here both plots merged but if we see the axis on either side it’s not same and it will be difficult to say which category is doing well. So synchronize this axis using menu when we click right mouse click on axis.
This shows dual axis plot and through this we can predict which category is doing well.
Another example showing a combination of plots.
We can combine different plots like line and bar chart, many other combinations according to the requirements.
Conclusion
Tableau is the richest data visualization tool available in the market. Tableau provides flexibility to users to make great insights using drag and drop functionality. There are so many more insights that can be unlocked from the data we have. Explore more by combining diverse types of plots. Practice more to be perfect.
This article was written by Juturu Pavan, Chaitanya Sagar, and Saneesh Veetil of Perceptive Analytics, which provides data analytics, business intelligence and reporting services to e-commerce, retail and pharmaceutical industries. Its client roster includes Fortune 500 and NYSE listed companies in the USA and India.
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High-tech advancements that contribute to an increasingly digital world are evident in almost every industry imaginable. Companies know to remain competitive, they must look for ways to keep customers happy and impress other stakeholders with their business prowess. The travel sector is rising to the challenge in fascinating ways that bring multiple benefits.
Better Management of Airport Operations Through Mixed Reality
Anyone who has ever been in an airport for more than a few minutes can tell it’s a highly coordinated facility with tight management of airplanes, passenger needs and more. Recently, the Helsinki Airport and SITA, an air transport IT provider, used a device called the Microsoft HoloLens to evaluate ways to improve airport operations.
The HoloLens is the first self-contained tool in the world that lets users interact with digital content and holograms in their environments. For this airport project, the participants used mixed reality, which combines virtual reality and augmented reality, to visualize and view the airport’s operations. They could watch people move through the building, check aircraft positions and more. It was even possible to see how long an individual passenger spent in an airport store.
The technology provided by the HoloLens is still in its early stages. However, the people involved in the trial said that the visuals were not disorientating. They also liked how the device had a long battery life and did not get too hot during use.
Using Past Data to Recommend Future Travels
When people arrive at their destinations, they often feel unsure of what to do and where to go first. In other cases, they feel ready to go globetrotting but are so overwhelmed that just getting started seems like an insurmountable obstacle.
Solving both of these problems, Tickets Round The World compiled frequent around-the-world trips based on customer data. Their customers can book multi-destination trips and efficiently travel the world, seeing the most destinations for the least amount of money.
Delivering Relevant Information Through Digital Signage
The tourism board of Pendle, a borough in the United Kingdom, installed a 65-inch digital panel that doubles as a brochure rack. The screen above the printed travel materials shows footage of some of the top sights in Pendle, plus helps visitors understand why people from the area are so proud of it.
The tourism authorities placed the piece in a local coffee shop and reported that its presence has delighted the visitors frequenting the retail outlet. Additionally, there is evidence that the digital board has boosted traffic to the official Pendle tourism website.
Airports also use digital signs to help customers get their bearings and take care of necessities that they’d otherwise need human help to accomplish. For example, a video screen can show a person how to get between terminals or locate the nearest restroom. Alternatively, a digital panel could also display details about sales at nearby shops or let people know what to expect when eating at a particular restaurant.
Traveling is overwhelming at times. However, thanks to digital enhancements like these, people are more equipped to enjoy smooth transitions regardless of their destination and how long they’ll be away.
Digital Initiatives to Improve Customer Experiences
Many people use digital technology to make life easier. It makes sense, then, that some forward-thinking travel brands are exploring ways to enhance people’s overall impressions with tech-driven offerings.
Marriott, in particular, seems ready to embrace digital immediately and as part of their long-term plans. It recently opened M Beta at the Charlotte Marriott City Center location. Billed as the only “live beta” hotel in the world, the M Beta facility is an innovation testing ground for a wide variety of customer-centric initiatives.
These offerings include access to more than 1,000 fitness workouts broadcast on screens in an ultra-modern gym, personal greeters and an on-site marketplace filled with local merchandise. Marriott gauges reactions to those perks in real-time through “Beta Buttons” located throughout the building. People simply push them to indicate they like a particular offering in the hotel. Digital screens allow everyone else to keep track of the positive gestures too.
There are also examples of companies not solely involved in the travel industry catering to people who are away from home. One of them is Chubb, an insurance agency that released a revamped version of its Travel Smart app. Geared towards business travelers, the app collects and filters news from thousands of worldwide sources. A 24/7 team of experts reviews the compiled content.
If they verify that travelers are at risk based on what the news headlines indicate, Chubb pushes notifications to those individuals, usually within 15-20 minutes of a potentially dangerous issue arising. It’s then easier for people on the go to decide whether to take emergency action based on the provided information.
The app also gives insights for people to use before they leave home that relate to the quality of healthcare facilities in their destinations, the value of the local currency, a country’s entry requirements and similar topics.
This brief overview gives a glimpse into some of the most exciting recent happenings in the travel sector.
Due to these and other improvements, travelers, as well as people working in the industry, could notice remarkable and positive changes that forever alter how people manage their trip-related needs.
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In today’s world, the progress and growth of any business are not reliant on effective promotion and quality of its products & services alone. Instead, with the advancements and rapidly growing popularity of big data and data science, the corporate sector is turning more towards the use of Business Intelligence tools. These software tools are supposed to analyze the data, interpret them, and present the underlying useful information for further use. This data and the subsequent information is becoming essential for the businesses to plan their future development and marketing strategies. That is why the use of Open-Source Business Intelligence software is becoming the need of time.
What is open source business intelligence?
Open Source Business Intelligence refers to the business data that provides important information about the company. Today, the information extracted from this data is a prerequisite for the company’s growth and development. That is why the trend of big data and data science is dominating the corporate world.
The Open Source Business Intelligence (OSBI) software are specialized for extracting relevant information from this OSBI data to provide ready details to the business owners. These software programs are adorned with typical management and analytical tools that help you get a well-presented data for your brand, project, or the company. Usually, OSBI software programs are available for free. Nevertheless, there are some tools which require you to pay subscription or service charges.
If you look up to find the best free OSBI software programs, you will come across a myriad of tools offering various impressive features. Of course, it will be difficult for you to choose the best one that meets your requirements, but it is obvious that you cannot use all of them. To help you make a decision, we have researched for the best free and Open Source Business Intelligence software. After going through the product features, here we present the ten best Business Intelligence software which might be useful for you.
Launched by Tibco in 2014, the Jaspersoft Community BI tools is one of the most robust Open Source Business Intelligence software programs available for free. It is an embeddable suite that provides interactive reports and analytics that can embed in a mobile or web app as well. The suite comprises of several tools, all of which feature unique options for your convenience. These are,
Among these, the JasperReports Server is one the key BI tools in this suite. It is a standalone reporting server that creates unique web-based reports with an intuitive user interface. The suite is also accompanied by Jaspersoft community where you can share your queries, ideas, and other discussions. The only problem here is that you are addressing the entire community of developers at large. Hence, you remain unassured of getting a response. However, if you receive a reply from someone, you are likely to get a few more replies to your query.
2. Zoho Reports
Zoho Reports is yet another Open-Source Business Intelligence software that is launched with a vision to help the business community by providing analytical data reports and dashboards. It is a great tool to analyze any data and create useful reports visually. The software allows two users at a time. Nevertheless, $10 per month may be paid to add more users (but it will not be free then).
Though this software has a limitation of two users with its free version, still, it remains a better choice for the real-time analysis of data and to get unlimited reports and dashboards. The most impressive feature of Zoho Reports is its unlimited cloud storage with no restrictions regarding the file sizes.
3. BIRT
Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) is an impressive BI suite from Eclipse that is being used by some of the business giants of the world, such as Cisco, IBM, and S1, while being sponsored by IBM and Innovent Solutions along with Actuate. Launched in 2004, BIRT indeed is the most used open-source business intelligence software, as depicted from its 12 million downloads and more than 2.5 million developers across 157 countries.
An impressive user-interface and user-friendly features are the things which make this software an industry standard. It is an embeddable tool that can generate a range of comprehensive reports including textual details, graphs, and various charts. In addition to the report layout, it also features data access and scripting tools.
Although this software is mainly designed to fulfill the requirements for intuitive reporting, it can go slightly further to include data analysis as well, and to present the data in a more grouped and analytical way by performing various functions such as summing, totals, percentage. Moreover, it can be embedded with multiple other applications. Hence, if you are already using some other business apps, no worries – this software can easily integrate with all such apps. Precisely, BIRT can be easily embedded with JAVA/JAVA EE to create riveting reports.
Following are the main components of BIRT, each of which lets you avail a unique feature to satisfy your business needs.
4. KNIME Business Intelligence Tools
The Konstanz Information Miner (KNIME) presents an inclusive platform as an open-source business intelligence software that is developed as an integration platform to create analytical reports. KNIME consists of all those components that are required for data mining and machine learning. Predominantly, there are two different programs in this business suite. KNIME Analytics Platform, and the KNIME Cloud Analytics Platform.
KNIME is indeed a fantastic brand with more than 1000 modules to facilitate the data scientists and analysts. It carries a myriad of instant examples of analyses, a comprehensive toolset and a range of algorithms for the users to choose from. It is a rather specified software that may not be easy to use for the beginners. However, for the data scientists and experts, mainly those willing to work on R, Python, or other predictive machine learning tools, KNIME is undoubtedly a convenient option, which also allows you to perform multivariate analysis and data mining.
The only limitation with KNIME is that it is difficult to be used by apprentices. Nevertheless, owing to its amazing features, this little restriction is negligible.
Pentaho is a designated Business Intelligence tool that combines analytics with data integration to create logical reports by visualizing the data. Owned by Hitachi, Pentaho is one of the most interactive Open-Source Business Intelligence software programs that offer a lot of BI options that satisfy your business needs and generate output in multiple formats, such as Excel, PDFs, and HTML.
This business suite is offered in two different editions. One of them is the Pentaho Enterprise Edition, which is a subscription-based program that features slightly more features than the other variant. Whereas, the other is the Pentaho Community Edition which is an open-source business intelligence software, featuring almost all necessary features and options you may require to create comprehensive analytical reports.
The prominent features of this software include,
Wondering how does this software carry out all these functions? Well, the Pentaho Community Edition is adorned with some fantastic tools that make this software a robust one. Here is a quick view of the portfolio of this BI program.
Although the Pentaho Community Edition features somewhat complex UI and programming tools, and the novices may find it difficult to work on. Nevertheless, if you have a coder with you, or know a bit about coding yourself, then this software program is indeed the best option for you since the range of customizability you get in return for a little coding is simply impressive. The software sports Pentaho’s CTools that let you create personalized dashboards and visualization in the reports by coding. If you get perplexed at any point while coding or you have any questions regarding the CTools options, the Pentaho’s community forum is a nice place to discuss.
6. SpagoBI
Developed by an Italian software services company, Open Source Competency Centre of Engineering Group, SpagoBI is one of the best choices as an Open-Source Business Intelligence Software for reporting, data mining, and charting. With a myriad of analytical functions, the software ensures to include advanced visualization in the reports.
Precisely, the key analytical features offered by SpagoBI include,
The most important module of this software is the SpagoBI Server which offers core analytical features. It has two conceptual models for analysis, both of which support different functionalities. These include the analytical model that fulfills the analytical requirements, and the behavioral model that moderates the end user roles for visualizing the data and all other documents.Moreover, this software is also equipped with various administration tools including, import/export tool, scheduler, menu management, user profile management system, monitoring and audit, graphical interfaces, and subscription management. Besides, the cross-platform services featured with this software allow you to perform analytical activities regarding all related domains.
7. ReportServer Community Edition
ReportServer is yet another free and Open-Source Business Intelligence software that requires you to have a background knowledge of coding to get maximum benefits from it. The best part which makes it distinct from the other open-source BI software programs is its support for unlimited users. It means you can add as many users here as you want, without worrying about any subscription plans. ReportServer can integrate various BI reporting tools to a single user-interface for convenience, while it also enables you to apply all analytical tools to the data. For instance, it can easily integrate with BIRT, JasperReports, and SAP Crystal reports.
Another prominent trait of this software is its feature of TeamSpaces that supports communication. It indeed is a feature missing in most of the other OSBI software programs. The other prominent features of this software include,
Besides, there is a dedicated community forum through which you can share your queries with others and get your problem solved.
Microsoft has set up a norm of producing user-friendly products, which remain convenient for amateurs and non-technical persons. Continuing the trend, it has launched an impressive open-source business intelligence suite known as ‘Power BI’. It is a cloud-based service that allows 1GB of data storage per user in the free version. Power BI refreshes once in a day, and if you have downloaded the dedicated Power BI app, you will be informed about the updates as well. However, you may not be able to carry out any analytical activities through the app.
The Microsoft Power BI is a simple and wonderful tool to help all those who are not aware of coding. Since you can enter all your data in sample English language, you are not required to make efforts to learn about coding and programming.
Power BI is truly an interactive tool that gets connected with online platforms to fetch the data for you. With the connectors and pre-installed dashboards, Power BI can analyze the data and present visually creative reports by connecting with Google Analytics, Salesforce, and other important software.
So, if you wish to get creative and informative reports of your data, but are unaware of coding and programming, then Microsoft Power BI is indeed your choice.
9. Seal Report
Continuing our list of free and open-source business intelligence software, we now talk about another excellent BI tool for creating impressive reports and dashboards. It is meant for the Microsoft .NET Framework written in C#. The main features of this interesting BI software are user-friendly dashboards and interactive reports. Concisely, the software sports the following distinct features.
All these features together create interactive reports, which are comprehensive as well as easy to understand, and are generated with minimum efforts.
10. RapidMiner
Although mentioned at the end of our list of best free and open-source business intelligence software, RapidMiner is among the leading OSBI tools in the market. It certainly sports all those features that are required by the data scientists for all the data mining and business analytics. It enables the user to perform all activities related to data modeling and preparation, and deployment within the same environment. The RapidMiner Community Edition is a free variant of the software that can easily be downloaded from the site.
The free version of RapidMiner is available for all three of its products – RapidMiner Server, RapidMiner Radoop and RapidMiner Studio. The RapidMiner Server gives you a storage capacity of about 2GB for free. The paid version of it has slightly more features which you can avail by paying a cost of $2500 per year. Presently, RapidMiner has earned the support of around 250,000 data scientists, which indeed depicts its usefulness and efficiency for data analytics.
Wrapping it up
The Open-Source Business Intelligence software range is undoubtedly helpful for the world community of data scientists and BI executives. All the software programs, including those discussed in this article, bear different features, and analytical tools. However, the primary focus of all these software tools remains the same, that is, to generate interactive data analysis reports for the users. Leveraging the robust features of these softwares is indeed the need of time for the businesses to flourish and sustain a stable position in the market.
Listed above are some of the best free OSBI software programs which are dominating the niche of Business Intelligence. If you are perplexed on choosing the best OSBI software for your business, our brief review might help you in making an appropriate selection.
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