Data is an omnipresent element within every organization. Data comes in from customers, employees, third-parties, or other external sources. It is up to each company to find ways on how to handle rapidly growing data and put it to good use. Smart businesses are already looking into ways how this data can address numerous issues within the organization and outside it, as well as how to differentiate themselves from the competition.

Some challenges arise when it comes to leveraging this information. With the many technological advancements over the past two decades, the amount of information coming in is growing at an almost exponential rate. What's more, most of this data is unstructured.

Structured data is much easier to handle. Businesses use it every day by making use of relational databases or by creating spreadsheets in Excel, to give a couple of examples. When this happens, various patterns emerge and can be easily identified.

The biggest issue in this context, however, is with unstructured data. It can come from numerous sources such as social media, emails, documents, blogs, videos, images, etc., and represent ample opportunities for businesses to grow and optimize their operations.

Unfortunately, however, unstructured data makes it much more difficult to gain any easy or straightforward insight by using conventional systems. What's more, much of the data that's generated nowadays is unstructured, making it vital for businesses to find ways on how to properly leverage it.

Cloud Migration

First things, first. With the overwhelming amount of data coming in on a daily basis, storing it on-site can become quite costly. On the one hand, having this data on-site can result in an over-provision, leading to further unnecessary costs. On the other hand, it can take a lot on onsite real-estate.

But by migrating your application and database to the cloud, none of the problems mentioned above will be an issue. With public cloud vendors such as AWS and Microsoft, you can pay as you go, meaning that you will have access to a much higher degree of flexibility and scalability than otherwise. In addition, keep in mind that a cloud provider will become an extension of your IT team once you've made the transition. And let's not forget that storing your data in the cloud also implies less real-estate expense.

Cognitive Computing

Cognitive computing (CC) refers to various technology platforms that make use of artificial intelligence (AI) and signal processing. These platforms also make use of machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), reasoning, speech recognition, human-computer interaction, dialog generation, among other such technologies.

CC can analyze unstructured data, interpret it, and generate insights based on all possible decisions using evidential support. These systems can be adaptive, meaning that they can learn as the information changes. They can also be interactive, seamlessly communicating with users as well as other devices and cloud services. And they can be contextual, in that they can understand, identify, and extract various contextual elements, from multiple sources and different sensory inputs such as visual, auditory, gestural, etc.

In short, cognitive computing will help businesses understand and structure disorderly data to put it to good use and get ahead of the competition.

Conclusion

Big data can offer plenty of opportunities for growth and profitability, but it can also pose a severe challenge if not leveraged correctly. For more information on the topic of data management and other related issues, visit our website or contact us directly.

 

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New Azure services help more people realize the possibilities of big data

By T. K. “Ranga” Rengarajan as written on blogs.microsoft.com
This week in San Jose thousands of people are at Strata + Hadoop World to explore the technology and business of big data. As part of our participation in the conference, we are pleased to announce new and enhanced Microsoft data services: a preview of Azure HDInsight running on Linux, the general availability of Storm on HDInsight, the general availability of Azure Machine Learning, and the availability of Informatica technology on Azure.
These new services are part of our continued investment in a broad portfolio of solutions to unlock insights from data. They can help businesses dramatically improve their performance, enable governments to better serve their citizenry, or accelerate new advancements in science. Our goal is to make big data technology simpler and more accessible to the greatest number of people possible: big data pros, data scientists and app developers, but also everyday businesspeople and IT managers. Azure is at the center of our strategy, offering customers scale, simplicity and great economics. And we’re embracing open technologies, so people can use the tools, languages and platforms of their choice to pull the maximum value from their data.
Simply put, we want to bring big data to the mainstream.
Azure HDInsight, our Apache Hadoop-based service in the cloud, is a prime example. It makes it easy for customers to crunch petabytes of all types of data with fast, cost-effective scale on demand, as well as programming extensions so developers can use their favorite languages. Customers like Virginia Tech, Chr. Hanson, Mediatonic and many others are using it to find important data insights. And, today, we are announcing that customers can run HDInsight on Ubuntu clusters (the leading scale-out Linux), in addition to Windows, with simple deployment, a managed service level agreement and full technical support. This is particularly compelling for people that already use Hadoop on Linux on-premises like on Hortonworks Data Platform, because they can use common Linux tools, documentation, and templates and extend their deployment to Azure with hybrid cloud connections.

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Storm for Azure HDInsight, generally available today, is another example of making big data simpler and more accessible. Storm is an open source stream analytics platform that can process millions of data “events” in real time as they are generated by sensors and devices. Using Storm with HDInsight, customers can deploy and manage applications for real-time analytics and Internet-of-Things scenarios in a few minutes with just a few clicks. Linkury is using HDInsight with Storm for its online monetization services, for example. We are also making Storm available for both .NET and Java and the ability to develop, deploy, and debug real-time Storm applications directly in Visual Studio. That helps developers to be productive in the environments they know best.
You can read this blog to learn about these and other updates we’re making to HDInsight to make Hadoop simpler and easier to use on Azure.
Azure Machine Learning, also generally available today, further demonstrates our commitment to help more people and organizations use the cloud to unlock the possibilities of data. It is a first-of-its-kind, managed cloud service for advanced analytics that makes it dramatically simpler for businesses to predict future trends with data. In mere hours, developers and data scientists can build and deploy apps to improve customer experiences, predict and prevent system failures, enhance operational efficiencies, uncover new technical insights, or a universe of other benefits. Such advanced analytics normally take weeks or months and require extensive investment in people, hardware and software to manage big data. Also, now developers – even those without data science training – can use the Machine Learning Marketplace to find APIs and finished services, such as recommendations, anomaly detection and forecasting, in order to deploy solutions quickly. Already customers like Pier 1, Carnegie Mellon, eSmart Systems, Mendeley and ThyssenKrupp are finding value in their data with Azure Machine Learning.

Azure Machine Learning reflects our support for open source. The Python programming language is a first class citizen in Azure Machine Learning Studio, along with R, the popular language of statisticians. New breakthrough algorithms, such as “Learning with Counts,” now allow customers to learn from terabytes of data. A new community gallery allows data scientists to share experiments via Twitter and LinkedIn, too. You can read more about these innovations and how customers are using Azure Machine Learning in this blog post.
Another key part of our strategy is to offer customers a wide range of partner solutions that build on and extend the benefits of Azure data services. Today, data integration leader Informatica is joining the growing ecosystem of partners in the Azure Marketplace. The Informatica Cloud agent is now available in Linux and Windows virtual machines on Azure. That will enable enterprise customers to create data pipelines from both on-premises systems and the cloud to Azure data services such as Azure HDInsight, Azure Machine Learning, Azure Data Factory and others, for management and analysis.
The value provided by our data services multiplies when customers use them together. A case in point is Ziosk, maker of the world’s first ordering, entertainment and pay-at-the table tablet. They are using Azure HDInsight, Azure Machine Learning, our Power BI analytics service and other Microsoft technologies to help restaurant chains like Chili’s drive guest satisfaction, frequency and advocacy with data from tabletop devices in 1,400 locations.
This week the big data world is focused on Strata + Hadoop World, a great event for the industry and community. It’s exciting to consider the new ideas and innovations happening around the world every day with data. Here at Microsoft, we’re thrilled to be part of it and to fuel that innovation with data solutions that give customers simple but powerful capabilities, using their choice of tools and platforms in the cloud.

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Analytics 50: How big data innovators reap results

Five winners of the 2016 CIO.com and Drexel University Analytics 50 awards share details of their projects, lessons learned and advice.

By Thor Olavsrud as written on cio.com

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Data and analytics are reshaping organizations and business processes, giving organizations the capability to interrogate internal and external data to better understand their customers and drive transformative efficiencies.
Worldwide revenues for big data and business analytics clocked in at nearly $122 billion in 2015 and will grow to $187 billion in 2019, according to a five-year forecast from research firm IDC.
“Organizations able to take advantage of the new generation of business analytics solutions can leverage digital transformation to adapt to disruptive changes and create competitive differentiation in their markets,” said IDC analyst Dan Vesset in a statement issued in conjunction with the release of IDC’s Worldwide Semiannual Big Data and Analytics Spending Guide earlier this year. “These organizations don’t just automate existing processes — they treat data as they would any valued asset by using a focused approach to extracting and developing the value of information.”
Additionally, a recent Forrester Research study, commissioned by the global data and analytics team at KPMG, found that 50 percent of businesses now use data and analytics tools to analyze their existing customers, while 48 percent use them to find new customers and 47 percent use them to develop new products and services.
The picture isn’t entirely rosy, however. That same Forrester study found that many organizations are struggling to adjust their cultures to a world in which data and analytics play a central role, and many business executives mistrust the insights generated by data and analytics.
Other organizations, however, have taken naturally to data and analytics and are using new tools to better understand customers, develop new products and optimize business processes.
To honor those organizations, CIO.com and Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business recently announced the first Analytics 50 awards. The winners represent a broad spectrum of industries, from pharmaceuticals and healthcare to sports and media.

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To distinguish Grant Thornton International Ltd (GTIL) from its larger competitors, its member firms must maintain closer relationships with—and deliver personalized attention to—their clients. The independent member firms of GTIL are deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM to facilitate collaboration around sales, marketing, and customer service. The solution has driven an increase in the number and size of sales wins, while helping the firms offer better value to clients and maintain consistency in a complex environment.

In an industry that has long been dominated by the Big Four, the Grant Thornton organization is under constant pressure to differentiate itself from its larger, better-known competitors. To do this, Grant Thornton member firms, which operate in more than 130 countries, offer their clients something the competition cannot: personalized service and closer relationships.

“We are not, nor do we want to be, the biggest accounting organization,” explains Rick Stow, head of Client Relationship Management. “We compete with four much larger firms, so we differentiate by having closer relationships to earn credibility and increase value. We choose to be much more connected to our clients. We need to have a good presence in our local markets if we're going to compete.”

Grant Thornton LLP, which operates in more than 56 offices in the United States, maintained various customer management solutions (including SalesLogix); they lacked visibility into contacts, accounts, and influencers across all employees and practice areas. This sometimes led to duplication of effort and missed opportunities. Further, because account teams were not aware of all interactions with a specific customer, it was difficult to gauge the strength or extent of the relationship. With no way to identify opportunities for cross-selling services, the member firms’ ability to grow the business was limited.

With a single standardized solution, Grant Thornton LLP aims to ensure that the firm—rather than individual employees—maintains the relationship with each contact.

Going mobile

Grant Thornton member firms in the United States, Canada, and Germany currently use Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and on-premises for sales force automation, marketing management, and comprehensive account planning functionality built using the xRM extensibility capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics. In addition, two add-on solutions augment Grant Thornton LLP’s account and customer data with third-party research, including data from InsideView and LinkedIn. Future plans include adding social listening capabilities that will capture additional information from public sources.

The upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 will also allow Grant Thornton LLP to fully exploit the mobile capabilities of the Microsoft Dynamics solution. Today, a handful of people access the system on Windows 8 Surface devices, but because most employees spend a majority of their time outside the office, making functionality available on virtually any device or platform will be key to successful, widespread adoption.

“More and more people are asking for a true ‘app’ experience,” explains Stow. “One of the most appealing aspects of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is the ability to deliver the same experience across multiple platforms. Whether you’re opening a form from within Outlook, from a browser, or on a mobile device, you have access to the information and full functionality.”

Fostering collaboration

Finding ways to foster collaboration among accounting and advisory professionals is key to Grant Thornton LLP’s continued success. “Relationships are everything,” says Stow. “So people are very protective of their relationships. But to understand the full scope of a client relationship, we need to overcome that individual mindset and find ways to collaborate effectively.”

In addition to establishing Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a standardized solution for CRM, Grant Thornton LLP has found that other technologies have been key to helping employees share information and work better together across member firms. A large-scale SharePoint deployment includes more than 50,000 unique sites where employees share documents and collaborate on accounts and initiatives. Communications and enterprise social media tools, including Lync and Yammer, provide voice, instant messaging and conferencing capabilities — and connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to facilitate communication around client and account activities.

As a result, the employees in Grant Thornton LLP can depend on one another and deliver more comprehensive service to clients. “It’s not just about using the technology,” says Stow. “Our workforce today is more connected — and more productive. People see the interactions and work more efficiently, and that ultimately allows us to serve our clients better.”

Enhancing sales processes

Microsoft Dynamics provides Grant Thornton LLP with a process-driven CRM solution that accommodates different sales processes and regional requirements. For existing accounts, the connection capabilities of the solution allow each member firm to build virtual account teams that include all employees and partners involved in a particular relationship, who can collaborate on a plan to nurture and proactively drive the relationship forward.

Using the collected data in the CRM solution, account managers see strengths, weaknesses, and threats related to a particular relationship or opportunity. They identify competitors that might be serving the client — in addition to potential partners in other advisory roles who might influence sales — and collaboratively develop a plan to pursue the opportunity.

Since deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Grant Thornton LLP has experienced a 450 percent jump in the number of opportunities it is tracking, a 36 percent increase in average win value, and a 700 percent rise in the number of contacts in the system. In addition, by tracking employee behaviors in the system, Grant Thornton LLP correlates factors such as sales activities and frequency of client contacts to win rate and revenue generation so as to further refine the sales process through insights.

Delivering better client service

Stow is quick to point out that the benefits of the CRM solution extend beyond sales. “Our goal for the solution is not to push additional services on our clients, but to better serve our clients,” he says. “The enhanced planning and collaboration tools enable us to respond to clients more effectively and in a more timely fashion.”

In particular, he points to the ability to conduct proactive planning using custom account plans developed in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The tool helps Grant Thornton LLP identify priority accounts and includes a complete history of account activity and plans for nurture or contact efforts. Connections to partners and other service providers enable Grant Thornton LLP to identify partners who might enhance the value proposition through collaboration.

Using data to drive value

The value proposition of Grant Thornton LLP is also enhanced by the analytical capabilities of the CRM solution. Using CRM in conjunction with business intelligence tools such as Power BI, Grant Thornton LLP can identify trends or issues affecting a particular class or segment of clients and then reach out proactively to other clients in that segment to address these issues.

The development of new services is also driven by analytics, which provide insights into client demand based on service line, service type, revenue, and other factors — which makes their very smart people even smarter from a sales, marketing, and business development standpoint.

“The solution enables us to be much more focused,” says Stow. “We can use data to make data-driven decisions and communicate to our teams using actual data. Everyone here is very smart, but the additional insights — based on a single shared version of the truth — make us all smarter.”

Read customer success stories to learn how Managed Solution helps businesses implement technology productivity solutions.

For information on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, please call us at 800-257-0691.

VIDEO: David McCandless, renowned data journalist and speaker, uses the world’s data to create powerful and provocative data visualizations and stories with Office.

survey managed solution

PTI presents this executive summary that outlines the results of the State of City and County IT 2015: The IT Organization and Operations national survey.
In August, 2015 local government technology executives representing cities and counties of all sizes were asked to respond to the survey.

Highlights from the 2015 survey:

  • 47% of the IT executives who responded to the survey stated that their local government IT department budgets will remain the same over the next year.
  • How much value does "Big Data" have for local government operations? 31% of survey participants responded that Big Data would become increasingly important (up from 27% in 2014 and 18% in 2013).
  • New to the survey in 2015 - Cloud Adoption - where 69% of all respondents stated that the cloud is important to their disaster recovery and COOP operations.
( Download the Survey Report )
Source: http://www.pti.org

Tech trends that will enable “what’s next” for cities

Microsoft CityNext puts a city’s people first, harnessing their ideas, energy, and expertise to create more sustainable and safer place to live, with access to citizen-centric services and quality healthcare and education. Microsoft CityNext solutions, alliances and programs can help governments, businesses, and citizens shape the future of their regions, cities and municipalities. Microsoft is uniquely equipped to enable this approach. No other company offers as broad a portfolio of secure, consumer-to-business software, devices, and services; as diverse a network of global partners to implement it all; and as extensive a history of successful education and social programs. In combination, all of this helps cities imagine and realize what’s next for their people.

While many cities are already well on their way toward modernizing their technology infrastructures, they will continue to face growing challenges as migration trends rise and citizen demands for public safety and other services increase. Microsoft CityNext is the bridge to help them meet these challenges in a phased approach, now and into the future.
Working together, Microsoft and our partners can provide cities with highly integrated solutions that will focus the most important technology trends — cloud, Big Data, mobile, and social — on their most pressing issues.

About Pinterest

Pinterest is no stranger to rapid growth, expanding from 50,000 users to 17 million in 9 months. Now at 48 million users, Pinterest was able to scale its business because it was built on Amazon Web Services (AWS). With a company of fewer than 12 employees, Pinterest didn’t want to dedicate staff time to managing a data center. Instead, Pinterest uses AWS to manage a high-performance social application that stores more than 8 billion objects and 400 terabytes of data in the AWS Cloud using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and 225,000 instance hours a month with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).

Read more customer success stories or search by industry to learn how Managed Solution helps businesses implement technology productivity solutions.

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