The mathematical symbol for change is the Greek uppercase letter delta: \u0394. A quick observation reveals that it is an isosceles triangle, but also\u00a0an arrow pointing\u00a0in a specific direction. The concept of change permeates life, and so what is a metaphorical symbol for life is also true for business, as the Internet creates a constant state of change\u00a0that has grown some companies and killed others. The once-ubiquitous Blockbuster and Best Buy chains were eviscerated by on-line delivery and purchasing choices these companies could not adapt to quickly enough.<\/p>\n
The present and future of business is now digital business, which Gartner defines as business that\u00a0blurs\u00a0the digital and physical worlds\u00a0as\u00a0people, business, and things intertwine\u00a0and feedback to each other through technology:<\/p>\n This blur\u00a0also refers to a transitional fabric adjoining the physical and the intangible realms:<\/p>\n Innovation is the present and the future of all industries; our world is now one wherein even vending machines are becoming highly-technical information powerhouses. In the case of Tesla Motors, the entire concept of the automobile has been reconfigured and modernized, to the extent that the company describes its Model S as \u201ca very sophisticated computer on wheels.\u201d The model can\u00a0automatically download and install new features and safety enhancements via over-the-air software updates through a user’s home WiFi network. Such\u00a0updates range from installing automatic emergency braking features and notification of charging locations, to physically changing the clearance of the suspension to avoid collisions with debris at highway speed.<\/p>\n Market\u00a0Opportunity<\/strong><\/p>\n To illustrate the immensity of the opportunity for digital business, consider that\u00a0in 2009, there were 0.9 billion products incorporating an Internet of Things (IoT) design — where a\u00a0standard object has had some technological component added to it to enhance it through an exchange of information. An example is a smartphone application that automatically tracks a person\u2019s activity levels and communicates data with the person or another remote interface. In that same year, there were 1.6 billion personal communication devices.<\/p>\n By\u00a02020, estimates show the number of IoT devices should\u00a0surge to approximately 30 billion, and personal communication devices will rise to 7.3 billion. Seven\u00a0billion people will be actively using these technologies,\u00a0and\u00a0those\u00a0will meld analog and the digital technologies in ways never before possible.<\/p>\n Adoption Rates<\/strong><\/p>\n Currently, only 22% of organizations see themselves as digital businesses ready to leverage the big data being produced, according to Gartner. However,\u00a0\u201c64% of boards reported to Gartner that they already have a director with a digital business background.”\u00a0Despite 50% of global IT and business executives expecting to have some level of digital business transformation by the end of 2016, almost half their CIOs actually believe their organizations have the skills\u00a0to\u00a0embrace and capitalize on digital business\u00a0in the future. And the very idea of digital business is still\u00a0novel\u00a0to\u00a059% of them.<\/p>\n Fortunately, digital business is always new and malleable\u00a0as it\u00a0is ever evolving. If handled and implemented skillfully, rewards range from increased revenues to\u00a0market\u00a0advantages that competitors cannot match. The key is to remain\u00a0dynamic, i.e., able to change quickly to stay ahead, and thus produce a “digital deficit” for the competition. If the opportunity for digital business exists at your organization and you haven’t begun to address it, we suggest you start making changes now.<\/p>\n Recommendations<\/strong><\/p>\n Skillfully wielding digital business practices enables a business to serve clients more effectively, produce better results, and obtain real-time data to analyze, which ultimately lead to higher revenue flows, enhanced company awareness, and a\u00a0competitive edge. The examples below may be the best way to illustrate a strategy.<\/p>\n A European IT\u00a0solutions provider made\u00a0WiFi access points available to visitors of its client’s retail stores, since most customers have mobile phones automatically WiFi-enabled. Each access to the store’s network\u00a0would provide log (if not additional survey) data that could be extrapolated. At the minimum, the\u00a0retailer could know how many visitors entered each\u00a0store, the\u00a0aggregate of number and average duration of visits, and how many visitors were new versus\u00a0repeating. Contrast this with a store that does not have this knowledge; one\u00a0in the digital dark instead of being able to respond to the data and innovate in ways that provide better visitor experiences.<\/p>\n Insurance company “A” has access to data from policyholder\u00a0speedometer logs from which it can longitudinally analyze customer driving habits\u00a0to\u00a0provide customized rates and assess customers exhibiting safer speeds as\u00a0empirically lower risks.\u00a0Company “B”\u00a0relies only on\u00a0police records in assigning rates, and\u00a0will not up-rate a frequent speeder\u00a0fortunate enough not to get caught; but\u00a0would a\u00a0driver who carelessly sped once and got\u00a0caught. The higher rates company\u00a0B\u00a0issues to cover accidents caused by the few, at the expense of better drivers, puts that company at a ‘digital deficit’ with respect to good drivers who will patronize the now\u00a0smarter, fairer company A.\u00a0\u00a0B\u00a0failed to innovate, and will keep losing to competitors who do.<\/p>\n Of course, there are risks and security threats that must be addressed when implementing digital business practices. Consider the\u00a0loss of personal information (an unquestionably unpleasant incident), which is not as bad as breaching a power grid that results in an electrical outage, or,\u00a0self-driving cars forced into collisions. With big data comes big responsibility.<\/p>\n IRI Offering<\/strong><\/p>\n Opportunities in digital business\u00a0come from new opportunities like the ones above, as well as\u00a0the optimization of\u00a0existing business models\u00a0through\u00a0maximized information collection and use. That means being voracious about producing and consuming data sources, and being agile enough to turn that data into reliable and actionable information before your competition does. You need technology that is not only effective at both, but is also usable and affordable if you’re going to\u00a0be a digital business that\u00a0strikes first and stays\u00a0ahead.<\/p>\n Enter IRI Voracity<\/a>, a comprehensive data management platform designed to speed and simplify\u00a0the acquisition, transformation, exploitation, and curation of digital data throughout its life cycle, so that data-driven companies can become digital businesses.<\/p>\n Voracity\u00a0is a more efficient, and more\u00a0affordable, alternative to legacy\u00a0ETL platforms, disjointed specialty tools for data wrangling and analytics, and complex Apache projects.\u00a0With Voracity, you\u00a0need not work for\u00a0a Fortune 500 company to analyze and respond to data faster. It delivers the ability and agility necessary\u00a0to transform a company into a dynamic\u00a0competitor in a new world where the fastest adapters win.<\/p>\n Using either IRI\u00a0CoSort or\u00a0multiple Hadoop engines\u00a0(MapReduce, Spark, Storm, and Tez), Voracity closes\u00a0digital deficits by rapidly sifting and mining big data<\/a> on commodity hardware. It removes the data processing\u00a0overhead from databases, legacy ETL tools, ELT appliances, and BI layers so that data in structured, semi-structured, and unstructured sources<\/a> — including IoT<\/a> messages — can be accessed\u00a0and assessed\u00a0faster\u00a0and more reliably.<\/p>\n Functionally, Voracity is at once versatile and consolidating. Leveraging\u00a0CoSort’s one-pass-for-everything ‘SortCL<\/a>‘ data manipulation program, Voracity simultaneously cleanses, transforms, masks, remaps and reports on data\u00a0in the same job script and I\/O. SortCL job design, execution, and management are handled in Voracity’s\u00a0familiar Eclipse IDE, IRI Workbench<\/a>.\u00a0Also provided in the GUI are facilities\u00a0for\u00a0<\/span>data discovery, data unification (for DQ and MDM), ETL, metadata management,<\/span>\u00a0and analytics — either through<\/span>\u00a0in-memory\u00a0integration with <\/span>Splunk<\/a>\u00a0or KNIME<\/a>, or via prepared feeds for other BI tools.<\/span><\/p>\n Thus, <\/span>Voracity will support many of the\u00a0requirements\u00a0of the Gartner Information Capabilities Framework (ICF) and give\u00a0enterprises the ability\u00a0to optimize their digital business opportunities rapidly and affordability. One of\u00a0these requirements is the ability to accommodate\u00a0differential delivery modes (i.e., bulk-batch, real-time, virtual). Voracity supports\u00a0the\u00a0‘variable velocity’ of inbound data sources and the ability to generate persistent or federated targets. Another requirement is agile solution development, which Voracity\u00a0enables\u00a0through multiple job design, debugging, and deployment methodologies that make it easy for both IT and business users to create, test, modify, and re-use metadata, business rules, and project components.<\/p>\n The outcome of a single platform\u00a0approach addressing all these activities\u00a0in one\u00a0GUI also represents huge savings in learning and support in the long-term. And with\u00a0affordable subscription and perpetual-use licensing models, even SMBs can\u00a0leverage the latest technology and compete in the world of digital business on\u00a0a\u00a0newly level playing field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.\u201d -George Bernard Shaw The mathematical symbol for change is the Greek uppercase letter delta: \u0394. A quick observation reveals that it is an isosceles triangle, but also\u00a0an arrow pointing\u00a0in a specific direction. The concept of change permeates life, and so<\/p>\n
\nWhat is Digital Business?<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"DB_Entwine\"](\"http:\/\/www.iri.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/DB_Entwine.jpg\")
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