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23 / 06 / 2015

THE DATA ECONOMY

03

Data analytics defines

and decides business

Data analytics is not only labour-saving and cost efficient,

its predictive power can drive business forward

06

Even small
firms can
think big data

Small and mid-sized businesses are

catching up with bigger enterprises

08

How to make
data work for
your company

Sophisticated software is now discovering

insightful secrets for decision-makers

12

Its time to
switch on the
internet of things

Machines connected to the internet will

open up lucrative revenue streams

RACONTEUR | 23 / 06 / 2015

THE DATA ECONOMY | 03

raconteur.net

Data analytics defines

and decides business
It is not only labour-saving and cost efficient, the predictive power of data analytics
can drive business forward
OVERVIEW
CHARLES ORTON-JONES

arks & Spencer is a popular

place to work too popular, in fact. Each year the
company receives 225,000
applications for around 35,000 vacancies. The human resources team cant
sift through this volume by hand. Since
they refuse to dump half in the bin once
practised by a bank on the grounds that
No one wants to work with unlucky people the only way to do the job is use
data automation.
Candidates fill out an online form,
inputting qualifications and answering basic interview questions. Then a
data-analytics programme filters candidates into tiers of quality. The best
candidates are identified using a wide
combination of metrics depending on the
job. Human resources can then interview
the very best. The data-based method is
fast an interview can be booked within
35 minutes of starting the application.
The software used by M&S for the task is
run by WCN, a specialist in e-recruitment
software. WCN head of global sales Samir
Khelil says: The bespoke WCN system
allows M&S to have only two human
touch-points during the entire process,
posting the vacancy and meeting man-

agement for an assessment, saving both

time and money. Enabling M&S to keep
the candidate engaged throughout has
proved successful as its candidate experience is rated at an incredible 98 per cent.
The M&S story is just one of the extraordinary ways in which data is now dominating business processes. Scarcely a
single area of business is untouched.
Data analytics is used to stock supermarket shelves. Once upon a time a store
manager would look at cabbage sales and
make a guess at the number needed for
tomorrow. Today, algorithms examine
historic cabbage sales data going back
years. They factor in sales of other products, promotions, the weather, the day of
the week and dozens of other data sources. The result is a daily prediction for cabbages based on facts, not gut instinct.
Blue Yonder does the predictions for
the Otto supermarket chain in Germany. It makes five billion forecasts a year
for Otto, using 300 million records a
week and factoring in 200 variables
each time. The forecasts are fed into an
automatic ordering system, representing an incredible labour-saving
approach. Prediction accuracy
rose 40 per cent with Blue Yonders system, cutting overstocking by 20 per cent. Its a tough job to
do well. It should come as no surprise

RACONTEUR
Distributed in

All areas of commerce

will hinge on intelligent
use of data for those
who get stuck in, the
rewards are immense
The legal profession has been utterly
transformed by data analysis. A lucrative stream of
income was sifting through documents during litigation. A team of paralegals could take months to examine
tens of thousands of bits of paper. The
job might include listening to thousands
of hours of recorded telephone conver-

sations for snippets of dialogue. Agony

for the poor wretch assigned the task.

Today voice recognition software listens to the text, automatically identifying different speakers, highlighting key
sentences and even moments of anger.
The written documents are scanned
by e-disclosure software, which blasts
through the task in hours. The data-analytics approach saves cash, time and
the sanity of litigation lawyers.
It is simple to find equally productive examples in other fields. Theres a
great case study, which commuters will
love, on how Southern Railways is using
telemetry data crunched by analytics
firm Tessella to improve train performance, reducing delays by 63 per cent
and cancellations by 66 per cent.
What is perhaps more worthwhile
is asking why data analytics is still so
underused. A YouGov survey, commissioned by First Data Merchant Solutions, found that 42 per cent of small
and medium-sized companies go by
feel rather than using data analytics
to find out the preferences, requirements and dislikes of their shoppers.
Almost one fifth of those questioned
said they do their best to
use data to research customers, but find it difficult to
keep track.
There are two explanations. The first
is that many companies dont know

what software is on the market. This is

a pretty reasonable excuse. Its almost
impossible to gauge what services exist
or what the products do. For example,
did you know that Ordnance Survey
now gets only 5 per cent of its 144-million revenue from selling maps? The
rest comes from location-based services data provision to the private sector.
The OS invested 200 million in boosting its processing power. Not bad for
an institution founded in 1791 to help
guard the nation from Napoleon. Even
the OS admits its obsession with data
takes people by surprise.
The other factor is shyness. Its hard
to admit that youve fallen behind the
times and arent comfortable talking about predictive analytics. This is
absurd. As the data analytics firms will
tell you, it is their job to guide clients
through the tricky bits. Ask for help and
youll get it.
Data is clearly the future of business.
All areas of commerce will hinge on intelligent use of data for those who get
stuck in, the rewards are immense.
As Googles chief economist Hal
Varian says: I keep saying that the sexy
job in the next ten years will be statisticians. And Im not kidding. Hes right
and its vital British businesses are in
the vanguard.

LEO KING
Freelance journalist, formerly at
Computerworld UK
and IT Europa, he
contributes to the
Financial Times and
Forbes.

CHARLES
ORTON-JONES
Award-winning
journalist, he was
editor-at-large of
LondonlovesBusiness.
com and editor of
EuroBusiness.

CONTRIBUTORS

Publishing Manager
Josh Roberts

Head of Production
Natalia Rosek

Managing Editor
Peter Archer

Digital and
Social Manager
Rebecca McCormick

In association with

that Blue Yonder was founded by the

same academics who do the software
at the CERN Large Hadron Collider and
employs more than 80 PhDs, many of
whom worked on particle accelerators
such as CERN and Fermilab in Chicago.

Design
Alessandro Caire
Vjay Lad
Kellie Jerrard

HAZEL DAVIS
Freelance business writer, she
contributes to The
Times, Financial
Times, The Daily
Telegraph and The
Guardian.

DEREK DU PREEZ
Freelance writer,
he specialises in
enterprise software
and public-sector
IT, and contributes
to computing publications.

DAN MATTHEWS
Journalist and author
of The New Rules of
Business, he writes
for newspapers, magazines and websites
on a range of issues.

MARK SAMUELS
Former editor of
CIO Connect and
features editor
of Computing, he
specialises in IT
leadership issues.

Images supply by: Getty Images

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CULTURE

FINANCE

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04 | THE DATA ECONOMY

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23 / 06 / 2015 | RACONTEUR

Data power can drive

your organisation

RACONTEUR | 23 / 06 / 2015

BUYING IN TO DATA PROJECTS

Investing in big data is expensive and results
can take a long time to materialise. Selling
such projects to the board can be a tough
task for cost-conscious IT leaders.
Former Tullow chief information officer
Andrew Marks says technology chiefs must
focus on value. Rather than aiming to achieve
some sort of ephemeral and poorly articulated aim, Mr Marks says successful IT leaders
demonstrate clearly how a big data project
will help the business cut its costs.
He refers to the executive of a mining
company who asked a series of analyst firms
to come in and take a close look at the firms
data. The analysts were asked to return in a
months time and tell the chief information
officer something he did not already know. It
is that kind of evidence, says Mr Marks, which
will help IT leaders prove the value of data.
Dont go to the chief executive with some
sort of punt, he says. The business wont
be interested in running a big data project
for the sake of it. You need a strong case
around value. But to identify those sorts of
opportunities, youve really got to know your
business.
And when it comes to IT, no one knows the
power of big data better than the technology
chief, says Yodel chief information officer
Adam Gerrard. Be the initial sponsor yourself
do the sales pitch and explain the potential
business benefits, he says. Get everyone on
the same page by explaining the costs and
the potential paybacks.

Embedding a data culture and reassuring staff they are not

about to be replaced by a machine are prerequisites of creating
a data-driven organisation

DATA POWER

big data implementation at an investment bank. Operations staff at the

bank, who dealt with issues such as
t is easy to understand why some settlements, reconciliations and reemployees are suspicious of big porting, were concerned they were
data. While executives continue to about to be replaced by a management
hype the term to almost cacopho- information system.
The point to make is that technolnous levels, there is a dearth of evidence
to prove the business benefits of costly ogy should empower rather than retechnology implementations.
place people, says Mr Cooke, who is
Research by the Economist Intelli- also head of the data science practice at
gence Unit suggests many companies GFT. Rather than having to spend time
have invested significantly in gathering trawling through data to find the answer
vast amounts of data. Yet 57 per cent of to questions relating to trades, the opemployees believe their organisation erations staff at the bank can ask direct
does a poor job of
questions
through
capturing and disthe big data platform
and find immediate
seminating
imporanswers for the board
tant business data.
There is one problem
or the regulator.
To allay employit can be difficult to
Business
leaders,
ee fears and to help
find highly qualified
then, must demoncreate the informaanalytics experts
tion that can prostrate how big data
tools are not necesduce a competitive
advantage, business
sarily a like-for-like
leaders must focus on embedding replacement for staff. In fact, former
a data culture within the company. Tullow Oil chief information officer
But how can executives create a data- Andrew Marks says it is important to
recognise that the rise of big data does
driven organisation?
The answer, according to industry ex- not have to mean a set of long-standing
perts, is to find senior organisational job roles are on the way out.
Show me the examples where jobs
support for initiatives and to demonstrate the long-term value of an ini- have been destroyed as a result of using
tiative. The starting point must be to big data, he says. What will happen is
convince suspicious employees that big that we will all become better skilled at
data can have a positive impact on the using data and people will be employed
in different jobs. And there are already
nature of work.
Jon Cooke, a member of cross-indus- examples of where the use of big data is
try body the Data Innovation Working helping to push demand for people.
Industry evidence suggests Mr Marks
Group, was recently involved with a
MARK SAMUELS

is correct. Demand for big data specialists is set to rise 160 per cent between
2013 and 2020, according to The Tech
Partnership. The IT industry body estimates there will be around 56,000 job
opportunities a year for big data specialists by the end of the decade.
Companies are, therefore, making
more use of data and this trend is only
likely to continue. Take Abi Somorin,
senior IT manager at beachwear retailer Orlebar Brown, who says benchmarking data in terms of customer
trends and competitor sales can
be hugely valuable.
We need to be aware of how product lines perform, both by time of year
and across specific regions, he says.
Every part of our business, such as
sales, production and finance, will look
at that data in a slightly different way.
Theres an ever-changing demand for
analytics, and its something I must
always consider in terms of technology
and resources.
Smart business leaders, such as Mr
Somorin, recognise the importance of
big data and work hard to win the trust
of reticent employees. By employing
big data specialists, companies can gain
new insights that boost worker productivity. There is, however, one problem
it can be difficult to find highly qualified
analytics experts.
The CBI says 39 per cent of UK businesses are struggling to recruit staff
with the advanced science, technology,
engineering and maths (STEM) skills
they need. Consultants McKinsey predict a shortfall of between 140,000 and

raconteur.net

190,000 data scientists by 2018 in the

United States alone. Strahan Wilson,
chief financial officer of food retailer
EAT, says the skills gap is a real concern.
The skills for predictive forecasting
are very specific and very technical,
he says. We lack the skills in-house to
build the model and, even if we paid
someone to build it, we dont have the
skills to maintain it. But not only that,
we dont have the skills to manage someone with those abilities because they are
so specific.
Mr Wilson and his colleagues at EAT
chose to work with third-party specialist
Blue Yonder. He says it is important to
engage with partners who provide not
only the technology, but also take responsibility for delivering the skills necessary for data analytics to drive value.
Yodel chief information officer Adam
Gerrard, who is running his own internal big data project, also recognises
that outside help can prove crucial. He
started the initiative in summer 2014
and worked with external consultants
to help scan the market, evaluate the
technology and match IT systems with
business requirements.
You need to get the right people in
the room and find a blend of skills, says
Mr Gerrard. At Yodel, our approach has
been about getting people who understand why the business needs data and
finding experts with the skills to help us
make the most of that information.
The big data initiative at Yodel, which
makes use of Teradata software, has
simplified reporting processes across
the organisation. The technology helps
executives to make smarter decisions
through real-time data for key areas
such as revenue and finance.
After working with expert consultants
during the initial set-up phase, Mr Gerrard has developed an in-house team
of eight business intelligence experts
who have helped prove the benefits of
big data. It will now be much easier to
justify the funds to grow this team if the
rest of the organisation is keen to gain
further insight in other business areas,
he says.
Jim Anning, who is head of data
and analytics at British Gas Connect-

77%

of big data
jobs are
considered
hard to fill

Once you have helped other executives

to understand how big data projects work,
Mr Gerrard advises information chiefs to get
sponsorship from line-of-business leaders. A
marketing big data project should be sponsored by the chief marketing officer, just like
a finance initiative should be backed by the
chief financial officer.
Jim Anning, who is head of data and
analytics at British Gas Connected Homes,
recognises that to become a data-driven
organisation does take a leap of faith.
Companies need to start investing in
collecting and storing data, and building
the people capabilities to make sense of
the information, long before they know the
potential value.
Pushing this sort of project through a
traditional business-case process can be
tough, says Mr Anning, adding that the
adoption of an agile approach can help. We
used open-source tools, which didnt require
too much up-front cash investment, to start
demonstrating value. As we gained traction
and trust we began building out a more
robust data platform and investing in talent
to make the most of it.
He says British Gas took a far-sighted
approach with Connected Homes, setting up
a separate startup organisation within the
business and giving his team the freedom
to innovate. Theres a high level of buy-in
to what we are doing and its delivering
results, he concludes.

47%

seen as
very hard
to fill

Source: The Tech Partnership/SAS

47%

of chief
executives
think all
staff have
access to
the data
they need

27%

of
employees
agree

Source: Economist Intelligence Unit/Teradata

65%

of business leaders acknowledge they

are at risk of becoming uncompetitive
unless they embrace new data analytics
technologies
Source: Capgemini/EMC

ed Homes, is another executive who

has strived to prove the value of information. Connected Homes is a
specialist unit that has been set up
to investigate the use of big data and
smart technology.
Being able to gather, understand
and use data is central to the products and services we create, says Mr
Anning. The real prize is to be able to
use data in real time to feed algorithms
that directly impact the day-to-day
customer experience.
Connected Homes has built a team
focused on the competencies of analytics, data science, data engineering and
data operations. It requires significant
investment to develop such a team with
a broad range of specialisms. Yet Mr

Anning says he is lucky to work in an environment that welcomes, rather than

resists, data-driven thinking.
The real value comes from using the
data, at scale, to do things that have not
been done before. For example, we use
machine-learning to pick up patterns
that indicate a customers central heating boiler may be at risk of failing in the
near future, he says.
A connected boiler generates over
four million data points from its internal
sensors every year thats more than a
human could process. But using the
data-driven techniques at our disposal,
and our team of service advisers and
boiler engineers, we can provide a proactive service to customers. Its good for
them and its good for us.

THE DATA ECONOMY | 05

06 | THE DATA ECONOMY

23 / 06 / 2015 | RACONTEUR

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RACONTEUR | 23 / 06 / 2015

TUESDAY 3 MARCH
2015ECONOMY
| RACONTEUR
THE DATA
| 07

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COMMERCIAL FEATURE
SME DATA REVOLUTION
HAZEL DAVIS

or too long big data has been

viewed as the preserve of large
corporations. But research from
Dell suggests that 96 per cent
of small and mid-sized businesses now
have a defined big data agenda.
In fact, big data could be the cheapest
way to tackle the big guys, says Bertie
Stephens. When e-tail giants are pouring billions into fulfilment networks,
logistics and technology, theres no logic
in trying to win on their turf. Big data is
the future of e-commerce because its
one of the few playing fields where small
merchants can thrive in a world dominated by multi-billion companies such as
Amazon and Alibaba.
Mr Stephens is founder and chief executive of Flubit.com, an online marketplace which generates competitive
offers based on interest in a designated
product, essentially diverting customers
away from Amazon back to small, independent retailers.
But a lot of people misunderstand big
data, he says: There is so much more data
being recorded than ever before. Before,
someone would walk into your store and
youd track 100 people glancing to the left
and youd use that data to put things to the
left. Its about taking the offline idea and
applying it to online.
Flubit employs six data analysts to
crunch the numbers, but a lot of SMEs
arent in that position. The key, Mr Stephens says, is to be the customer and
break the data into chunks. Much of this
can be got from Google Analytics if you
know what youre looking for, he says.
There are many tools out there, but its
how you use the data thats important.
Mr Stephens uses the analogy of the
Olympic cycling team. The way they got
better was to make each bit of bike 10 per
cent better and then go back and make
each bit 10 per cent better again. Thats
what you have to do using data in retail.
He is adamant that using data doesnt
mean stepping up the snooping. If you
come to our site, all you can do is ask for a
product. We use the data available about
the market to tailor the service for the user
at that moment. Its not about getting intrusive with the data; its about understanding
how the market is reacting, he says.
The data Flubit analyses then goes back
to its SME clients and makes life easier
for them. They, in turn, are able to sell
more to us, says Mr Stephens.
Beringer Tame is a Basingstoke-based
niche digital recruiter, specialising
in finding candidates for positions in
e-commerce and recruitment across
Europe. As the positions Beringer Tame
hires for are not incumbent, they require
complex algorithms in order to find the
right candidate. But the data this brings
up is people-focused, which needs to be
processed by recruiters. By developing
more precise, or more experimental algorithms, the company is able to achieve
new results.
Chief executive Patrick Tame says: Its
become impossible to avoid the personal
and professional profiles of candidates.
Almost everyone uses a CV-uploading
service or business and social networks,
creating a huge volume of data. Beringer
Tame, which employs two research analysts, has used these techniques for
ten years and we have collected a large
amount of historical data, which is unusual for a small business.
Its also important to recognise that big
data can only get you so far, Mr Tame says,

Smaller firms think big data

More small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are catching up with bigger businesses to make
data work for their company

COPY DATA
IS BIG DATAS
SMOKING GUN

IDC found that organisations have anywhere between 13 to 120

copies of data across all of their applications. Gaining visibility and
control over copy data is again paramount for CIOs looking to gain
operational efficiency and agility.

For years businesses have been told to collect as

much data as possible. Big data is the mantra. At
the same time, demanding regulations must be met
with rapid access to data, current and historical

at least in certain industries. Headhunt- sarily need armies of resources and we

ing is all about human relationships, and prove that by being commercially viable.
our core business is processing human It can be a challenge for a small business
and emotional data, which always eludes to stay on top of huge reams of informalarge search engines. Despite our strong tion so, says Mr Tame: It is key that the
history in research and analytics, our her- data algorithms produce is used smartly
and pointedly.
itage lies in a network
Lucky Voice, the UK
of talent across the
provider of interactive
sector, he says.
For the small business its karaoke services, has
Online and cloudabout not losing sight
adopted a data-driven
based platforms, such
approach to boost its
as Google Analytics,
ignore big data at your
business. The comKaggle, Swipley and
peril,
but
by
no
means
Tableau, mean SMEs
pany uses Tableaus
expect it to be panacea
can access data inanalytics tools to find
answers to everyday
sights without making
questions in real time.
huge capital investments. Mr Tame says: As a niche recruit- As a result, says managing director Nick
er, its important that we use data sets and Thistleton, the company has been able
pointed algorithms, but we dont neces- to grow its revenues, redeploying hard-

x2+

Uptake of big data analytics

is forecast to more than
double between 2012 and 2017
from 14% to 29% of UK firms
employing 100 or more staff
Source: SAS

pressed development resources away

from reporting into creating new karaoke
services and maximising revenue per
customer.
Mr Thistleton says: Adopting data
visualisation software has also helped
change the culture, enabling everyone
within the company to be more aware of
business performance.
Elsewhere meal delivery company
Hello Fresh might be all about old-school
values of cooking from scratch and eating
as a family, but its all done with the most
up-to-date technology. Hello Fresh uses
data to drive decision-making in all parts
of the company, from developing recipes
to scoring suppliers or measuring employee engagement.
In particular, we go to extreme lengths
to contextualise all parts of our customers
experience in data. As an online weekly
delivery service, it is then possible for us
quickly to isolate the impact of almost
all new customer-facing initiatives, says
chief executive Ed Boyes. This, he says,
has led to a culture of continuous improvement, where we are never satisfied
with the status quo.
Mr Boyes adds: Being data-driven
is a core tenet of our culture. For many
coming into the business, even the word
data can be intimidating so we coach
staff to understand that data is the tool by
which we can rapidly generate and measure improvement, which ultimately leads
to happier customers. This has resulted in
a more democratic decision-making environment, where anyone in the teams suggestion or opinion has equal merit when
rooted in data.
Hello Fresh co-founder Patrick Drake
agrees. Running a company without collecting and analysing data is tantamount

to driving with your eyes shut. Subtle variations in an advertising campaign do

we use a photograph of our recipe box or
a photograph of a couple enjoying their
dinner? can make a tangible difference
to the success of a campaign, he says.
Our recipes can be the difference between retaining and losing a new customer. Collecting and analysing data means
we can test ingredients, error rates and
even the colour of the buttons on our
website to improve our product constantly. Though data analysis doesnt exactly sound sexy, its the driver behind our
greatest innovations.
Nonetheless, allowing data to define an
SME is dangerous, says Mr Tame. Fundamentally, data is not as powerful, nor as
effective, as intuition or common sense.
While high-tech approaches undoubtedly
add value to the business, they can be a bit
of a rabbit hole and an expensive rabbit
hole at that, he says.
In the recruitment industry at least, Mr
Tame says: Data can be extraordinarily misleading and for this reason it will
never replace the traditional role of the
headhunter. This is partly because they
have no control of the data source. Large
companies pay huge sums of money to
dig up data that confirms their own business model.
Big data is very subjective, he says, concluding: What one person calls it, doesnt
cut it with another. For the small business
its about not losing sight ignore big data
at your peril, but by no means expect it to
be panacea.

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As terabytes turn into petabytes, the surge

in data quantities has sent costs spiralling. Even hard-drive makers are warning
the crunch point is only months away. At
this current rate of production, by 2016
the world will be producing more digital
information than it can easily store. By
2020, we can predict a minimum capacity
gap of over six zettabytes nearly double
all the data that was produced in 2013.
Just look at that mismatch between
data and storage. For reference, one
zettabyte would fill the storage on 34
billion smartphones.
Its worth looking at why the problem
exists: the proliferation of multiple data
copies. Consumers make many copies of
data on back-up drives, multiple devices
and cloud storage. Businesses are worse
because of the need to maintain copies
for application development, regulatory
compliance, business analytics and disaster protection. IDC reports 60 per cent
of all corporate disk storage is allocated to
copies of primary-source data.

Thinking of this size financially, Gartner

advise IT spend is between 1 and 7 per cent
of business revenue, depending on the industry, and that storage and data management
is on average 20 per cent of that figure. Its
clear to see how the FTSE 100 companies are
spending a huge amount on the proliferation
of copy data. Copies are increasing five times
faster than primary data and IDC currently
values the copy data market at $44 billion.
Typical companies now deal with ten to
one hundred and twenty duplicate copies
of data, meaning they are spending five
times more on the infrastructure management for the copies than on the original
data. Hardware, software, space, energy,
people and time its unsustainable, undesirable, but fortunately easily fixed.
Actifio is an expert in the data-management market, solving the entire problem
of data-bloating. With Actifio there is a
single version of the data, which is virtualised for all other requirements.
Companies such as VMware help servers perform more efficiently by using vir-

tualisation. Actifio is bringing the same

performance leap to data management,
cutting storage costs by 80 per cent. The
business case is so strong, Actifio was
valued at more than $1 billion when raising $100 million in Round D investment.

With Actifio there is a

single version of the data,
which is virtualised for all
other requirements

The main reason data gets copied is that

multiple business functions and regulators need access to it at the same time.
For example, product designers, test and
development teams, back-up administrators, finance departments, data-analytics
teams, marketing, sales and more all require data.

Case studies
Various case studies show the impact Actifio can have on
enterprises. Take hospitality technology company
Newmarket International, based in Kingstonupon-Thames. It was struggling to move data
between its Portsmouth and Boston data
centres. Back-up involved IT staff putting
data on tape and removing the tape from
the building each night.
With 12 applications to support and
a move to cloud services for clients, it
opted for a 12-month proof-of-concept
trial with Actifio. The results: a 93 per
cent reduction in storage needs. Backup speed was improved from eight hours
to one hour and the data restored was
guaranteed to be no older than 30 minutes.
Under the previous system the data could
be up to 24 hours old. Copies for tests could be
made in hours, rather than days.

Newmarket Internationals Ken Wilson says: From a product

perspective, Actifio is easy to use, easy to set up and easy
to operate on a daily basis.
Audax, a premier investor in middle-market
companies from the financial services, were
handling extremely large data pools that
needed to be staged, shared, examined,
managed and protected. Audax needed
cost-effective flexibility, simplicity and
scale. The results: significant cost
reductions as much as 75 per cent over
five years.
Actifio is the first solution robust enough
to handle any type of data management
need, and elegant enough to allow the
business to define service level agreements,
then click auto-pilot and the technology just
works, says Erik Dubovik, Audax Groups vice
president of IT.

The old model is to make physical copies

of the original files and send them to every
party. It becomes a main activity of the IT
team to create, distribute and manage the
dozens of copies flying around the enterprise. Actifio cuts through this by creating
one single physical copy of the primary data
and offering instant access using virtualisation. Network strain is eliminated and IT
staff time managing the data is slashed,
freeing them to concentrate on more business-focused activities.
Actifio transforms data management
by applying data virtualisation. As a net
result, data recovery is faster and when
its complete you know youll have the
latest version. A further bonus is the
saving made in data-management licences. Companies pay for large numbers of
back-up agents, de-duplication software
and WAN (wide area network) optimisation tools. End the need to copy data and
you end the need for those licences.
For businesses of all sizes, agility is
the new objective when the discussion
around how to deal with data deluge
arises, whether that translates to time to
market, accelerated application development or faster decision-making. True
agility enables organisations to think
clearly, gain insight and draw informed
conclusions. Transforming physical data
to virtual data provides the power to move
quickly. Data virtualisation creates flexible
and agile infrastructure for the immediate
data access that is so central to exceptional business success.
Actifio was founded in 2009 by chief
executive Ash Ashutosh to crack the copy
data storage problem. The company now
helps customers in more than 36 countries. The goal was to help companies save
on storage, on computing equipment and
on software licences. The benefits have
stretched far beyond that. Actifio is set
to change the way companies of all sizes
think about managing their data.
For more details please visit
www.actifio.com
or contact info@actifio.com

POWERFUL BUSINESS IMPACT

From measuring in days to measuring

in seconds

65% lower storage

80% lower bandwidth
65% lower software cost

Application-centric, SLA-driven
One platform, all use cases
Full lifecycle of the data

08 | THE DATA ECONOMY

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THE DATA ECONOMY | 09

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How to make data work for your company

Increasingly sophisticated software is discovering more and more insightful secrets to enable impactful decision-making

NEXT GENERATION ANALYTICS

trains wheels, and can identify sections

of the track that require an upgrade.
In another example of the power of anets imagine youre going to a alytics, IBMs Watson system has been
birthday party. The person cel- designed to digest large amounts of
ebrating is a 40-year-old male unstructured data and rationalise it to
and he wants presents. Youve produce sophisticated conclusions. In
known this guy for a while and spent one famous case, the software ingested
time with him on a semi-regular basis, the whole of Wikipedia and used what it
so you know he likes DIY and table ten- learnt to outscore two world champinis. Hes also partial to a drop of sherry. on Jeopardy contestants.
He enjoys Will Smith films and he fanThese systems can process video,
audio, text and a variety of other data
cies Emily Blunt.
Equipped with this all information, sources to help solve a variety of probplus details such as his approximate lems, including medical diagnosis,
clothes size, whether he wears glasses detecting insider trading, forecasting
or not and if he likes going out or stay- sales, identifying crime via CCTV and
ing in, you are well placed to get him many others, says Charles Caldwell, a
something relevant that hell make use senior director at Logi Analytics.
Some of the work
of. He doesnt like
in this area definitely
scuba diving, so you
feels like something
dont buy a snorkel.
The next step is
out of science fiction
Simple.
or your favourite conThis, basically, is
automation, getting
analytics. It is the
spiracy theory. We
the software to collect
process of collecting
can already do some
the data, process it
data about a subject
amazing
things,
to help you make
he says. Target has
into intelligible chunks
better decisions. Bedeveloped an algoand then make small
cause Amazon wants
rithm that can preadjustments to business
to sell you stuff, it
dict with 85 per cent
makes a note of your
accuracy if a woman
operations
activity on the webis pregnant based
on her in-store pursite and it offers you
more stuff you might want to buy.
chases. Systems like Watson can read
Anyone who has a Netflix account, through medical documents and diagsearches with Google or dabbles with nose cancer as good as, or better than, a
Facebook will have experienced analyt- human doctor.
The central premise of good analytics
ics first hand, offering you films like the
ones youve watched before, presenting is to make evidence-based decisions
relevant search data or placing advertis- where before we relied on circumstaning for your particular demographic.
tial observations such as weve sold a
But analytics is more than just sell- lot of this stuff, people must like it. But
ing people stuff. There is a whole world thats just the beginning.
For a few years now software develof data out there just waiting to be
crunched for a better understanding of opers have been moving through the
the world we live in and the way things gears, starting with analytics that is dework.
scriptive (observing past trends), then
Japans bullet train system is a tech- predictive (making safer bets on the
nological marvel and a good example of future) and now prescriptive (machines
how analytics can make things better. telling us what is statistically the best
With a top speed of more than 180mph, course of action).
it is one of the safest and most efficient
transport systems ever created.
Its railways are intricately networked,
TOP THREE IMPACTS DATA WILL
using thousands of sensors to collect
petabytes worth of data, which are used HAVE IN YOUR ORGANISATION IN
to update train times and communicate THE NEXT FIVE YEARS
in real time any updates which may
affect the tightly run schedules, exImpacting customer
plains Bob Plumbridge, chief technolo1
relationships
gy officer, Europe, the Middle East and
DAN MATTHEWS

Africa, at Hitachi Data Systems.

Not only does this system enable
trains to run on time, in 2011 the system
was responsible for safely terminating
all the trains during the Japan earthquake and tsunami, saving hundreds of
thousands of lives.
Hitachi analytics helps to maintain
train and track integrity on the bullet
trains with its streaming data platform.
Sensors attached to the trains feedback
information about wear and tear on the

WHAT KINDS OF ANALYTICS DO YOU USE IN YOUR COMPANY TODAY? AND THREE YEARS FROM NOW?
USING TODAY AND WILL KEEP USING

PLANNING TO USE WITHIN NEXT THREE YEARS

NO PLANS

DONT KNOW

USING TODAY AND WILL KEEP USING

PLANNING TO USE WITHIN NEXT THREE YEARS

NO PLANS

DONT KNOW

70%

50%

of enterprise organisations already

deployed/plan to deploy data projects
compared with

100%

Structured/transational data
0

50%

56%

of small and medium-sized

businesses

100%
Demographic data

Time series analysis

ENTERPRISES AHEAD IN DATA INITIATIVES

Time series data

Number of employees

Operational intelligence
Geospatial/location data

Quality control monitoring

<1,000

Log data

Predictive analytics
Optimisation

Open source data

Risk analysis

Clickstream data from websites

Web log analytics

External web data

Fraud analytics

1,000+

We have already deployed/

implemented data projects

9% 16%

We are in the process of implementing

or pilot-testing data projects

12% 20%

We have plans to deploy projects over

the next 12 months

10% 10%

We are considering deploying or

implementing data projects within the
next 13-24 months

9% 12%

We are likely to implement big data

projects in the future but have no
specific time-frame in place

9% 12%

We have no plans to deploy or

implement big data projects

44% 30%

Internal text data

Geospatial or locational analysis

Mobile app data

Simulation

External social media text data

Social media analytics

Network analysis

Real-time streaming/event data

Prescriptive analytics

Machine-generated data and/or IoT

Text analytics

Audio data (call recordings)

Analysis in data streams

Video data (surveillance)

Link analysis

Source: TDWI Research, 2015

Source: TDWI Research, 2015

Voice analysis
Cognitive computing
Video analytics

WHO IN THE
ORGANISATION ANALYSES
DATA USING ADVANCED
ANALYTICS ?

Source: TDWI Research, 2015

9%
Other scientists

75%
Business analysts

56%
Data scientists,
statisticians and other
quantitative staff

23%
Operations
support

TOP THREE CHALLENGES

YOUR ORGANISATION
FACES IN IMPLEMENTING
DATA INITIATIVES

35%
Security concerns are
impacting our ability to
implement a wide-scale
big-data initiative

29%

11%
External partners

50%
Business users

Consolidation of
disparate data and being
able to use the resulting
data store are difficult

36%

Redefining product
development

32%
Executives
33%
Data miners

Changing the way we

organise operations
Source: Accenture 2014

WHAT KIND OF DATA DO YOU USE FOR ANALYTICS TODAY? AND THREE YEARS FROM NOW?

Source: DigitasLBi 2015

45%
IT

Source: TDWI Research, 2015

System barriers between

departments prevent
collection and correlation
of data for maximum
impacts

Source: GE Ideas Lab, August 2014

Modern solutions combine all

three kinds of analytics. They use machine-learning algorithms and advanced data science to arm business
leaders with insights, predictions and
recommendations. In turn, this leads
to better financial and workforce decision-making, says Annrai OToole,
chief technology officer, Europe at
Workday.
The next step in this chain is automation, getting the software to collect the
data, process it into intelligible chunks
and then make small adjustments to
business operations orders, marketing
collateral, store layouts, treatments and
so on to improve the status quo.
The future will be more automation.
Currently analytics can be used to test
different product options or provide
broad insights into users, says Mark
Robinson, chief executive of deltaDNA,
a predictive analytics platform used by
games developers.
This is great for optimisation, but
it still requires interpretation and
input from humans. In the future, machine-learning solutions should advance to make the human intervention
required more and more minimal.

Analytics will obviously become more

sophisticated as time ticks on, but it
will also be more widely available and
intelligible. Currently, people throughout an organisation understand, at a
simple level, that sifting data leads to
better decisions, but hand them a data
set and theyll give you an anxious, puzzled look.
Its why investment companies that
make instant decisions about where
to park their cash use MIT maths graduates, known as quants, and lightning-quick software to move a split
second before the market does.
The speed advantage is increasingly important in other areas of business
too, meaning we need information to be
accessible and actionable by non-Nobel
Prize winners.
Powerful analytics tools are needed
by data scientists to discover patterns in
data, explains Chris Nott, IBM chief technology officer for analytics, who oversees
the Watson programme. However, expectations have shifted as the world has
become always connected and socially
networked. Business users want access to
data to get insight themselves now.
Data is no longer going to be in one
place. A big driver for many organisations is building a richer and more complete view of customers and their activities. While much of this information
comes from an organisations existing
business systems, we are seeing a drive
to use more data sources, both internal
logs, records, documents and external,
such as social media.
This means that transactional customer data is being augmented with
insight from the interactions an organisation has with its customers, their attitudes, behaviours and preferences, and
in some cases, location. Of necessity
this data will be distributed. Therefore,
what is needed is governed provision of
and access to data from those sources.
A few obstacles stand in the way of analytics relentless march. Hitachis Mr
Plumbridge says the big two are todays
storage capabilities and public objections around privacy.
In a decades time, a laboratory investigating a cure for cancer may need
data pertaining to patients today. Yet
under data protection regulations, such
data should have been deleted after five
years, he says.
A geologist in 50 years time, seeking
to identify the causes of global warming, would find that large sets of critical
data had been deleted decades ago because there wasnt enough data storage
space to keep them all.
These sticky wickets notwithstanding, the scope of what we can achieve
through analytics will increase quickly in coming years. Organisations of
all sizes and all intentions will make
quicker, more impactful decisions constructed upon the secrets this software uncovers.

10 | THE DATA ECONOMY

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TUESDAY
3 MARCH 2015
RACONTEUR | 23
/ 06 / 2015

LOREM
IPSUM| |3
THE DATA
ECONOMY
11

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COMMERCIAL FEATURE

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

Case study

BIG DATA:
POWER IN NUMBERS?
John Watton, Europe, Middle East and Africa marketing director at Adobe,
explains the opportunities and pitfalls for marketers using data to perfect
personalisation

John Watton

ASOS

Marketing director EMEA at Adobe

Big data has disrupted the traditional marketing function, giving marketers access
to swathes of information at the touch of
a fingertip. When data is successfully analysed and measured, marketers can gain
insight on customer trends and behaviour
to deliver more personalised experiences.
This knowledge also allows them to be
taken more seriously at board level and
credibly steer business decisions.
Yet growing mountains of data from
customer interactions across multiple touch-points can be overwhelming.
We are no longer talking about gigabytes of data, but petabytes, exabytes
and zettabytes.
So how can marketers sift through the
data and turn it into actionable customer
intelligence? Enterprises are facing two
major challenges. The first is gathering
the structured information you have on
your customers from different areas of the
organisation, and making sure marketing,

sales and services interactions are not

delivering siloed, disconnected experiences. The second is managing the massive
amount of unstructured content, such as
social activity and engagement with third
parties, and using it to its full potential.

Modern marketers able to

complement their ability
to interpret data with
emotional intelligence will
be the ones to get the most
from analytics
Bringing together this structured and
unstructured data will create a complete,
contextual view of the customer, allowing
businesses to analyse valuable customer insight regardless of its source and

As an e-commerce company, ASOS does

not have the benefits of person-to-person
interaction in a retail setting or face-to-face
interaction with its customers.
However, with eight million active
customers and tens of millions of monthly
visits to its website and via its mobile apps,
ASOS has the ability to sift through large
volumes of data to look for clues they can
use to improve business.
Traditionally, their analysts pulled
data from an analytics tool and pieced it
together in a way that could be shared with
business stakeholders. But the tool wasnt
dynamic or reactive enough to support
ASOSs needs. Whats more, the large number of site visits and the variety of channels
and devices that customers use to interact
with the site made it a huge challenge to
draw actionable customer insights.
With increased automation, as well as
the ability of Adobe Analytics to run attribution and prediction reports, ASOS marketers now spend less time reacting and more
time predicting and planning for the future
as well as proactively solving problems.
Adobe Analytics shows cross-channel
views of customer interactions and supports
real-time actionability to influence outcomes.
Using this tool, businesses can monitor campaigns and promotions, optimise content and
connect digital channels to the business.
ASOS now uses Adobe Analytics to not
only gain insights after an interaction has

format. Yet this data is only useful to marketers if they are able to act on it in real
time, and respond to changing customer
needs and preferences to deliver a personalised experience.
At Adobe, we recently partnered with
Microsoft to make this easier for enterprises, enabling businesses to transform
fragmented interactions into a single,
unified customer experience. The partnership offers customers the ability to align
sales and marketing activities by tightly integrating audiences and their behaviours,
as well as combining web-behaviour data
with other aspects such as order history
and loyalty status to identify where a customer is in the sales cycle. This means the
right content can be delivered at the right
time, whether on a landing page, an e-mail
or as an alert through a mobile app.
Consumers tell us time and time again
they are happy to share their data if it results
in more consistent personal digital experi-

ences. For example, offers for restaurants

near their home or films based on what
theyve watched before. This is backed up by
research carried out by Adobe which found
that the vast majority of people in Europe
(88 per cent)1 want, or are open to, recommendations and personalised experiences
delivered to them in this way.
Personalisation can set brands apart
and is proven to boost sales, but data on
its own will not deliver the perfect brand
experience. Indeed, analytics will help to
identify targets and understand customers, but it only allows us to see clearly a
small portion of how consumers are really
responding. Often there is a lot more bubbling under the surface which needs to be
fully understood.

In the present day and age, there is

an argument that many marketers are
becoming far too data devoted and are
not looking beyond the numbers in front
of them. A growing number in the profession do not just allow data to inform their
decisions, they allow data to make every
decision for them. Yet when it comes to
personalisation, in particular, poor judgment and ignoring the usual rules for
human engagement could mean they risk
coming across as creepy.
There is a fine line between using big
data to deliver targeted marketing messages and invading consumers privacy.
Over-familiarity can be a real turn off for
online consumers. As in the real world, one
persons friendly nature could be perceived

as over the top by another. Similar to when

you have an over-enthusiastic shop assistant following you around in-store, an intrusive brand online could lose your custom.
When using big data for personalisation, brands need to ensure they do not
misuse the information at their fingertips
and leave consumers feeling stalked or
that their personal space has been invaded. After all, this runs the risk of negatively
impacting the purchasing decision, which
goes against the original objective creating a loyal customer base.
Modern marketers able to complement
their ability to interpret data with emotional
intelligence will avoid this indiscretion and
will be the ones to get the most from analytics. To answer the questions big data

When using big data for

personalisation, brands
need to ensure they do not
misuse the information at
their fingertips and leave
consumers feeling stalked
or that their personal space
has been invaded

doesnt, marketers need to be analytical

and data driven, but also have a good
understanding of the brand, storytelling,
experiential marketing and the level of
familiarity consumers will be receptive to.
The ability to wear two hats is particularly important at a time when marketers
are moving beyond existing digital channels to include physical experiences in
the real world. Its an exciting time in the
profession with the arrival of personalised
experiences in shops, hotel rooms and
wearable devices.
The potential to trial new ways of engaging with customers is endless, but until there
is a history of data to show how consumers
typically behave in these new scenarios,
what they will be receptive to and what they

will find too much, marketers will need to

revert back to trusting their instinct. While
technology is available to begin the process
of measuring, analysing and improving
user-engagement in real time, marketers
should be thriving on the opportunity to use
their own judgment to get the balance right
across these new touch-points.
In the information age, brands are using
highly targeted, highly relevant content to
stand apart from the competition. If marketers can manage the juggling act of handling big data to get a single view of the
customer, acting on insights in real time
and looking beyond the numbers to the
bigger picture for how a customer wants
to engage with a brand, they will become
hugely valuable to the business.

occurred, but also to take action while a

customer is still engaging with the site. The
business now relies on analytics maturity
the ability to collect real-time data to help
it redefine the way it approaches marketing.
For ASOS, focusing on analytics maturity
has helped it better understand its customer and enable its analysts to maximise their
skill-set by freeing up time that can then
be spent on other projects. As a result of
enhancing its analytics capabilities, ASOS
now better understands its customers,
which in turn helps to improve key indicators, such as conversion rates and revenue.
David Williams, ASOS head of customer
intelligence, concludes: The main reason
for choosing Adobe was that we were very,
very impressed with the Adobe Analytics
capability to do segmentation, to do nearreal-time reporting, and to change the dimensions and measures that youre looking
at as youre actually building the reports.

Digital marketers are using Adobe Marketing Cloud to stay ahead. Find the latest insights, advice and discussions at
blogs.adobe.com/digitaleurope
Adobe Marketing Cloud is also on Twitter @adobemktgcloud
For more information on Adobe
Marketing Cloud, please visit:
adobe.com/uk/marketing
To find full details of the research which
found that the vast majority of people in
Europe want customisation of products,
please visit: www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pdfs/Click_Here_Regional_Comparisons.pdf

3 - half

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THE DATA ECONOMY | 13

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COMMERCIAL FEATURE

DONT LEAVE YOUR

DATABASE BEHIND

be left behind. Roll forward 20 years and

everyone has heard of IoT, but a lot of
people arent quite sure what it is. They
know in their heart that its going to be important, but they dont know what it means
to their industry and they dont want to be
left behind.
Despite this excitement and despite all
the noise about billions of connected devices and huge benefits to the bottom line,
adoption is still low. According to a recent
report by Accenture, which surveyed 1,400
global business leaders, 736 of whom were
chief executives, only 7 per cent had developed a comprehensive strategy with
investments to match.
And part of this is down to the level of
maturity in the technology stack, where
vendors are still themselves figuring out
what role they play in the market and how
they can develop kit, at pace, which allows
customers to take advantage of IoT.
Ben Salama, head of Accentures industrial IoT division, says that while the
technology required to roll out an IoT
deployment is currently on sale in the
market, the challenge for companies lies
in knitting all of these distinct pieces
together in a cohesive stack that makes
sense for each use case.
The complexity is in the creation of the
end-to-end solution. Can you go out and
buy a huge number of industrial quality
sensors? Yes. Can you connect those sensors to the internet? Yes. Can you extract
data from them? Yes. Can you store data
in the cloud? Yes. Can you report against
it, build dashboards, run analytics? Yes,
says Mr Salama.
At each step the technology exists. The
complexity lies in pulling that together
end-to-end. And its not helped by the huge
hype that is out there around IoT. People
want to connect every possible thing in
sight, but putting the technology together
and making it work is a challenge.
Equally, O2s digital director David
Plumb argues that vendors are currently
developing technologies and systems in
silos while they figure out their position
in the IoT market. In recent years we have

Continuous delivery brings big business benefits to application

development its time to give the database the same benefits, says
Simon Galbraith, chief executive and co-founder of Redgate

Simon Galbraith

Chief executive and co-founder

Microsofts recent announcement that can gain from continuous delivery, but
Windows 10 will be the last big-bang theyre seen as too risky to include in
release for the operating system was the process.
The result? Application development is
a surprise to many. But what on Earth
is going on? Why have they suddenly faster, smoother and more cost effective,
turned round and decided to upgrade while database development lags behind.
In fact, the DZone Guide to Continutheir software with a series of frequent
ous Delivery 2015 showed that while 61
updates instead?
The answer is a term not many chief exec- per cent of companies have already imutives will be familiar with, but an important plemented continuous delivery for their
applications, it falls to half that number
one nevertheless: continuous delivery.
Continuous delivery for software ap- when it comes to the database.
At Redgate, weve been working on a way
plications means that new features can
to resolve the issue
be released faster
with a Database Lifeand companies can
cycle Management
be more competitive.
(DLM) solution: one
Although it requires a
Clients such as Yorkshire
that brings all the
change in processes
Water are seeing a return
advantages of conand an investment in
on investment of 700
tinuous delivery to
the tools that make it
the database, while
possible, the return
per cent after investing in
protecting the data
on investment is high
continuous delivery for
at the same time.
and proven.
their databases
We have some
The 2014 State of
pedigree here. Our
DevOps Report from
tools are already
Puppet Labs found
that high-performing IT organisations that used in more than 90 per cent of Foruse practices such as continuous delivery tune 100 companies, and are trusted in
are twice as likely to exceed their profita- areas such as finance, healthcare and
bility, market share and productivity goals. manufacturing, where performance and
reliability are not optional.
Its working too. Clients such as YorkWHAT ABOUT THE DATABASE?
A stumbling block many organisations shire Water are seeing a return on investfind in their pursuit of continuous deliv- ment of 700 per cent after investing in
ery is the database. Databases hold continuous delivery for their databases.
Similarly, StateServ, a medical equipcritical information and their stability
is vital to the bottom line. Often theyre ment supplier with customers across the
tied into those same applications that United States, has adopted Redgates

Case study
Keeping data flowing for Yorkshire water
Yorkshire Water manage the collection,
treatment and distribution of water in Yorkshire,
supplying around 1.24 billion litres of drinking
water daily. At the same time they collect, treat
and dispose of about one billion litres of waste
water safely back into the environment.
As might be imagined, their applications and
databases are diverse and technically challenging, and deploying changes to the databases
used to be manual and time consuming. The company turned to Redgates database
development tools to automate the changes, saving time as well as avoiding errors.
Using SQL Source Control and SQL Compare, they achieved every aim. In 25 days, they
moved their first project from a manual deployment process to full automation and it now
takes half a day to start auto-deploying a new project.
As software development team leader Carl Davison says: Its now a minor overhead to
deploy. We predict the return on investment to be in the order of 700 per cent over the next
five years. We can deploy database changes as soon as the business needs them, without
delays or problems.

Application continuous delivery

6%
33%

61%

Database continuous delivery

21%

30%

57%

Implemented
Want to implement
No plans
Source: DZone Guide to Continuous Delivery 2015

SQL Source Control and SQL Compare to

reduce the time it takes to release new
versions of its website by 50 per cent.
Property services provider Move
With Us has also adopted these tools to
reduce the cost of releasing database
updates by 97 per cent. As Anthony Hall,
IT operations manager, says: We spend
less time deploying and more time developing better software, which keeps us
ahead of our competitors. It results in a
product that more closely matches what
the customer wants, at a cheaper price.
That equals happy customers, a happier
development team and bigger profits for
the company.
I love comments like that. It demonstrates that all the effort weve put into
developing our tools and the DLM process to go with it is paying off. Not for us
for our clients.
By aligning the continuous delivery
of the application with the continuous
delivery of the database, a company will
inevitably see increased productivity, reduced risk and higher quality end-products. This suddenly means that your
technology becomes a strategic advantage, as opposed to an unpredictable
risk, and can be used to deliver real financial benefits to the business.
Redgate Software, Newnham House,
Cambridge Business Park,
Cambridge, CB4 0WZ
Visit www.red-gate.com
Follow @redgate

Nows the time

to switch on
the internet of
things...
Machines connected to the internet and
talking to each other is a seismic development
which promises to open up lucrative revenue
streams, but adoption remains low
INTERNET OF THINGS
DEREK DU PREEZ

t is estimated that the internet of

things (IoT) represents a total of
$14.4 trillion in value to companies
and industries across the globe over
the next decade. Its thought that by using sensors to connect all the physical
things around us to the internet, a whole
new pile of data will be made available to
analyse, identify efficiencies and create
new revenue streams.
For example, a manufacturer may suffer
tens of thousands of pounds in losses every
time they experience some downtime or if
there is a fault with their machinery. Now
imagine that same manufacturer could
equip all of their machines and assets with
sensors connected to the internet, which
spoke to one another and monitored the
factorys performance on a real-time basis.
This may allow the company to not only be
alerted when the machines are down and
where the problems lie, but it may even be
able to predict an issue before it happens.
Or suppose youre a company that
traditionally sells printers to large businesses. Typically you would spend two
to three years developing a new product,
putting it into production, distributing it
to resellers and hopefully making a profit
from those sales.
Once that product is on the market, you
move on to developing the next one. But
what if you could equip your printers with

sensors that constantly delivered you information on their performance and informed you of their use in real-time? This
could then allow that printing business
to create a whole new division that sold
printing as a service, which charges
customers for their actual use, delivers
alerts when things go wrong and provides on-site maintenance.
There are endless possibilities and it has
been estimated that by 2025 the companies which have rolled out best-in-class
IoT deployments will be up to 10 per cent
more profitable than the laggards. There is
an obvious opportunity for companies to
be developing IoT strategies and allocating
resources for projects.
And the potential has permeated the
C-Suite with executives wanting to know
how they can take advantage of their own
connected network of things. Andy
Stanford-Clark, a master inventor and
one of the leads of IBMs IoT division, says
he hasnt seen businesses get this excited
about a technology since the internet first
started to develop.
We are seeing huge interest from almost
every industry you could name, asking
what is IoT and how does it relate to us? I
often make the analogy when 20 years ago,
and the internet was young, and people
had a feeling that this was going to be big
and important, but they werent quite sure
how yet, he says.
They werent quite sure what it meant
to their industry, but they didnt want to

CASE STUDIES
WALGREENS
Retailers rely on multiple
systems to make up their
store experiences, all of which
use power. Alongside direct
electricity used to power
items in-store, energy can be
used by systems such as air
conditioning, water, heating,
lighting and refrigeration.
Getting a full picture of how
much power is used by each of

these networks can be difficult

without accurate sensor data.
US retailer Walgreens
implemented an internet of
things solution with supplier
Riptide IO to collect data from
the networks that were in
place across 5,000 locations.
By collecting data from each
store environment, the retailer
gets a better picture of energy
consumption within each one,

as well as being able to use

analytics to compare stores
against each other.
The sensor data is stored
within a NoSQL database
cluster from DataStax. Based
on the combination of sensor
data and analytics, the implementation is estimated to have
saved the firm around $14
million on its power bills in the
first year.

NEW YORK AIR BRAKE

The $60-billion US rail freight
industry is using Splunk
software to capture a variety
of sensor data right off the
rails which is being analysed
in real time. By listening to the
remote sensors installed on
each freight train, New York
Air Brake, a manufacturer of
air brake and train control
systems, can analyse train per-

formance and fuel efficiency,

while ensuring that trains are
running to time.
Insights from this data allow
New York Air Brake to make
informed and critically safe
decisions. This might range
from warning a driver to back
off the throttle 5 per cent
to increase fuel efficiency
or alerting an engineer that
gravitational forces threaten to

create a dangerous situation a

few miles down the track.
Using Splunk to analyse
sensor data from thousands of
trains has allowed New York
Air Brake to save the US rail
industry $1 billion in fuel costs,
equating to 250 million acres
of forestry in carbon dioxide
emissions.

COSWORTH
Cosworth manufactures low-volume, high-value engines and
parts for some of the worlds
premium automotive brands,
such as McLaren. The company
has created an intelligent manufacturing process using sensor
data, automated robots and
smart simulations.
It has networked all its machines so they can talk to each

other and recognise the products

loaded in them, allowing the machinery to download the appropriate instructions and request the
necessary tools for production.
The production line then doesnt
have to focus on building one
engine for one customer before
moving on to the next; it can work
on multiple products at the same
time, maximising efficiency.
This is to be enhanced through

Cosworths collaboration with

smart systems provider Flexeye
and Cranfield University, who are
to create simulations to model
the behaviour of the production
line and define the optimal route
for a particular product to take.
With every product, machine,
robot and tool connected to the
network, Cosworth will be able to
validate suggestions made by the
simulations in real time.

$14.4trn

worldwide value of the internet of

things over the next decade
Source: Cisco

seen a huge number of vendors, both en- tomer feedback, see what people think.
terprise providers and smaller startups, Be very agile in the way you iterate on the
create their own unique hardware and design to come up with a solution that
software platforms in an attempt to gain solves a problem. When you hit that sweet
market share early on. But it is when all spot, roll it out on a wider basis.
Macario Namie, vice president of stratthese systems can talk to each other, according to Mr Plumb, that we will see IoT egy at Jasper, an IoT platform company
truly take off.
valued at $1 billion, agrees. He says most
Some of the technology is relatively companies that begin an IoT deployment
new, so it takes time to mature and people are doing it to drive efficiencies in their
are taking some level of risk, he says. But business by, for example, the smarter
at the same time you need interoperable monitoring of their assets. However, once
standards. So if Apple
they have achieved this,
kits are doing one
those companies also
thing and Googles
then start to look at how
are doing another,
they can use all their
People want to connect
and another vendor
IoT data to start offering
every possible thing in
is also over there
new services to customsight, but putting the
doing its own thing,
ers, in turn creating new
and these things
revenue streams.
technology together
arent talking to each
Mr Namie says beand
making
it
work
is
other, thats a probcause of this it is best to
a challenge
start on a small scale, as
lem. The standards
the transition from ofneed to evolve so that
we have interoperafering products to offerbility. Unless this happens you cant make ing wrap-around services is a huge cultural
those leaps in improvement.
shift for any business.
However, despite these challenges, given
Where we sit in Silicon Valley, theres
that the research suggests the companies a culture of starting small, getting out
which get ahead of the curve and figure out into market quickly and then iterating
what IoT means to them will be the ones fast. We generally advise that. Most commaking bigger profits, there is an incentive panies that have been in the business of
to get a business case together and secure selling products, physical products in
funding for IoT.
particular, often dont realise that the
IBMs Mr Stanford-Clark suggests that shift to selling a service is a pretty radithe best way to get going with IoT and cal one. Its a very different business and
the best strategy for getting buy-in from most companies dont appreciate how
the wider business is to start small, prove different it can be, he says.
the projects worth and then scale up. He
The expectations of the customer are
argues that this is a better approach than very different and the product manufacgoing all-in with a huge investment that turer now has a responsibility as a service
has the potential to fail and consequently provider they have to manage the serlimit future possibilities.
vice experience constantly and its a dyThe first thing to do is have an IoT namic environment.
strategy. Where do you want to go? Where
We advise companies that are new to
are the places it can add most value? this to get something out in market on a
Rather than doing IoT for the sake of it, much more manageable scale and learn
figure out where it is going to bring the learn quickly. Start with one market, one
most value to your customers or the ser- product line. Understand the nuances,
then expand it to other geographies and
vices you offer, he says.
But start small, start with a pilot project, product lines.
to first of all get peoples heads around
what the art of the possible is for IoT. Get
Share this article or infographic
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14 | THE DATA ECONOMY

23 / 06 / 2015 | RACONTEUR

raconteur.net

RACONTEUR | 23 / 06 / 2015

OPINION

Data infrastructure is as important as our

physical infrastructure so how should it
be governed?

An ever-strengthening desire for more data is leaving some

businesses with a confused outlook so integrating information
is vital to solve the problem
LEO KING

ompanies are drowning in data

and most have only a partial
view into their own operations.
But integrating information
into clearly defined formats of files and
layout gives businesses the ability to
understand their processes and make informed decisions.
Organisations are realising the urgency
of using integration and access software
defined by analyst house IDC as enabling the access, blending and movement
of data among multiple sources and by
next year global spending is set to hit $6
billion (3.9 billion).
Companies have many sources and
different funnels of information listed in
multiple formats, says Alys Woodward,
IDC research director, adding that this
has to be addressed.

Businesses have to
create an integrated
view, otherwise its not
clear how well they
are performing, how to
mitigate risks and how
to enable people to
collaborate

Philip Howard, research director at

Bloor, adds: Data integration is like a
road that connects two cities. If you need
two applications to work, they must be
able to communicate.
In one classic form of integration, a
company may pull together information
on customers, a pipeline of sales, product
types and stock availability. If informa-

tion is kept in standard formats, collation

is easier, but the growing complexity of
data is quickly putting companies on the
back foot.
Businesses have to create an integrated view, otherwise its not clear how well
they are performing, how to mitigate
risks and how to enable people to collaborate, explains Ted Friedman, a vice
president at Gartner.
Many firms begin on the integration
path by writing their own code. As the
scale of the task becomes apparent, they
turn to more advanced tools that graphically illustrate and automate data.
Regulated industries, such as financial
services and health, tend to be ahead of
the curve in using data integration tools,
Ms Woodward argues, because of the
requirement to demonstrate what they
are doing. Telecoms and retail, facing
vast volumes of data, have also taken
large strides.
One company to have pulled together
its many sources of information is large
US hospital alliance Premier. Keith Figlioli, senior vice president, says that given
the prevailing shift to payment based
on quality and efficiency, its 3,400 hospital members have to analyse complex
financial, operational and clinical data
quickly.
The alliance developed a single platform for near-real-time information, processing 3,000 data transactions a second.
We now have the ability to take data
from any of our providers transactional
source systems and use it to provide truly
integrated analytics, Mr Figlioli says.
In the UK, car manufacturer Honda
had a serious challenge as its 200 dealers
used myriad management systems and
file formats. It drew together and formatted the information so that it could
better understand customers and sales,
and predict part requirements.
Many businesses tend to favour a tool
called ETL (extract, transform and load).

COLUMN

Who owns our data

infrastructure?

Solving business
data overload
INTEGRATION

THE DATA ECONOMY | 15

raconteur.net

GAVIN STARKS
Chief executive, Open Data Institute

It enables the process of selectively pulling from various databases, transforming the data into a common format and
merging it. The operation is usually run
in batches.
More recent systems also help companies manage the different interfaces
between applications and visually map
integration from a source database
to the target. Equally, new technology can take unconnected data and
learn relationships.
As the technology develops, so does
the severity of the problem it has to
tackle. The somewhat encouraged
growth in unstructured information, as
companies build huge lakes of data,

leaves them with a repository of files

that are rarely formatted or linkable.
This leads to serious accuracy concerns, according to Gartners Mr Friedman. Companies need to look beyond
the plumbing and think about the quality of what travels through those pipes,
he says.
Focused investment in information
governance and quality is the answer.
Having more technology to help the process around data governance and master
data management is the key, says Mr
Figlioli. The messy data in the healthcare industry, he explains, is prompting
large governance investment.
Another challenge is the struggle to

www.etlfactory.com

analyse the data quickly. There is a

growing appetite for real-time information, particularly when a customer
is on the phone or a website needs to
create a recommendation. Correctly
assembled data, combined with predictive analytics, are crucial.
The situation is further complicated by the growth in cloud computing,
which has led to data being held outside company walls. IDCs Ms Woodward warns: Companies need to understand it may cost them to access the
data layer from the cloud provider; or
worse, they may not be able to access
it at all.
The expansion in connected home,
business and city devices as part of the
internet of things is leading to a large
amount of extra data being located in
many places. It will hugely ramp up
the sort of technology required, says
Bloors Mr Howard, and many of the
connected devices have their own
format for information.
As the challenges increase, companies must invest in both experienced
management and advanced technology if they are to pull together all their
data for quickly actionable decisions.

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A
robust
Half use open data
data
inmade open by
other businessfrastructure
will
reduce
friction
es. Embracing
in the economy,
this culture
increase interof
sharing,
both formalo p e r a b i l i t y,
collaboration,
ly and inforefficiency
and
mally, helps
productivity in
grow sectors
public and private
and, if harsectors, nationally
nessed using the
and
internationally.
power of the web,
The right data environcan enable peer supment will benefit everyone, but
port to influence returns radiwe are yet to have a truly open cally for everyone, improving opdebate about its benefits and erations, customer interactions,
risks.
supply chain efficiencies, and the
The internet has connected quality of products and services.
us in ways we couldnt have imBut this is not just about govagined. Countries can respond ernment or business. We need to
quickly to its citizens needs, discuss who owns our data infrabusinesses target resources and structure, what roles the public
compete in global markets, and and private sectors should have,
communities share ideas.
and what role we as citizens play.
Like our transHow might it
be governed
port and energy
and what are
infrastructures,
the social conmany
groups
We need to discuss
have convened
tracts between
who owns our data
to create the web
each of its
infrastructure, what
of data. Some
users,
given
see data as a
that the web is
roles the public and
new raw materialready global
private sectors should
and our data is
al, fuelling ecohave, and what role we
already almost
nomic
growth
as citizens play
entirely
priand
improved
services; others
vatised, often
see it as a means
by companies
of building trust in transparent outside of our borders?
governments; and some see the
Equally, organisations have to
impact of the web over the next 25 be a credible, authoritative and
years dwarfing its impact during sustainable source of the data
the past quarter of a century.
they manage. They need to act
Governments, businesses and responsibly and responsively to
communities plan our essential user-needs, and be transparent
physical infrastructure, and we about their sources and manageshould treat data as a core asset. ment. And, organisations that
As our physical and digital worlds use data must be able to adapt
combine, we need to plan our to shifting political, competitive
data infrastructure not just for a and social contexts. It is far more
healthy digital economy, but as efficient for organisations to
part of a healthy country. If we design for open systems first and
want the UK to be brilliant at apply restrictions, than to design
the internet as Baroness Martha closed systems and worry about
Lane-Fox, co-founder of Lastmin- secure integration later.
Last month, at the International
ute.com, recently called for, we
must look at data literacy as part Open Data Conference in Ottawa,
we initiated a global discussion
of our future.
Diverse businesses already use to prompt governments and oropen data from both public and ganisations to engage in this
private sectors. Our research critical topic.
recently polled 270 open data
Its time we took our data
businesses in the UK, with a infrastructure as sericombined turnover of 92 bil- ously as our physical inlion and 500,000 employees. frastructure.

What if your data...

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And let your data speak for itself.

Epimorphics Ltd.
E:sales@epimorphics.com
W:www.epimorphics.com
T:01275 399069