Analytics and Internet of Things trends: Charlotte Analytics Frontiers event 2016
No one can deny that analytics is one of the most talked about topics nowadays. It affects all parts of society from small and large businesses to everyday people like you and me. The University of North Carolina at Charlotte organized the 2016 Analytics Frontiers event that occurred today which had some brilliant speakers that talked about the latest trends in Analytics including the role analytics play in the Internet of Things.
MIT research: Competitive advantage from analytics
MIT professors Dr. David Kiron and Dr. Sam Ransbothan talked about their research on how analytics can provide a competitive advantage and how that has changed in recent years. What they observed through their research is the fact that there are different segments of companies out there that are characterized based on how they use analytics to develop a competitive advantage in the marketplace. They range from Analytically Challenged, to Analytic Practicioners and Analytic Innovators. Innovators are businesses that have managed to engrain analytics excellence to such degree in their organizations that they’ve created a competitive advantage for themselves in the marketplace. A key trend that the researchers observed is the fact that reported benefits from analytics programs have declined in the past few years mainly due to the fact that many organizations now employ such programs, therefore making it difficult to achieve a competitive advantage from it above and beyond what your peers are seeing. So how can an organization gain such an advantage nowadays? Is it still possible? According to Dr. Kiron and Dr. Ransbothan’s research it is. They believe in 4 key areas of change that need to happen in an organization to achieve these advantages include:
- Use analytics throughout the organization. Research shows that an organization can benefit from its analytics programs at an exponential rate only if everyone is bought into them. From lower level managers to senior level executives.
- Blend analytics with intuition. There tends to be this false belief out there sometimes that analytics hold the keys the kingdom and cannot possibly be wrong. The reality though is that the best return a business can get is when it blends its talent’s business experience and institution with a strong analytics program.
- Plan to apply analytics to strategy. The best way to achieve analytics excellence is to engrain it into your corporate strategy in a transparent and public way. Bank of England for example showcases its key corporate strategic pillars with one of them being analytical excellence. It focuses all of its employees as well as investors on the fact that analytics is a focus for the organization and needs to tie into everything the bank does.
- Explore options with analytics. Innovators are more likely to have a spirit of discovery with their data. Not only do they use it for exploration but they also use it for exploitation (in a positive light). Successful businesses are able to discover new things by collecting and leveraging their Big Data to make smarter and faster decisions. One key implication is that
“you have to have a tolerance for failure”
pointed out Dr. Ransbothan. When you explore new territories with Big Data analytics, failure is inevitable; businesses can still learn from failure to improve their business intelligence and processes.
Internet of Things (IoT) and Analytics
Internet of Things is very closely tied to the Big Data paradigm that we have started facing. Data is expected to increase exponentially and so are location-aware devices connected to the Internet, producing even more of that data. According to an MIT study “0.5% of ALL data is currently analyzed”. Imagine the potential there is by increasing that percentage.
“IoT is the 4th industrial revolution”
Technologies such as cloud computing, Rasberry Pi’s, 3D printing etc. make building and scaling connected, IoT devices significantly cheaper and easier than ever before. 3D printing now enables everyday people to essentially ‘manufacture’ complex items in their homes. The ‘maker movement’ means that the power has shifted from manufacturing companies to the people, enabling them to make (almost) whatever they can imagine on their own. The IoT panelists at the Analytics Frontier event talked about how they have made connected devices of their own with simple material. Dan Thyer of Logical Advantage for example has created a connected shirt that lights up every time someone tweets at him or his company. Most of those “things” end up connected to the network and talk to other “things”, producing a mountain of data ready to be explored and exploited.
Although IoT may induce rapid innovation, there is a growing concern over data privacy and data security. How do we know what data is being collected on all these devices? Where is that data stored and how is it protected? Who can see that data and what can they do with it? How do businesses maintain compliance when they have hundreds of these “things” connected to the network?
As the IoT trend continues to grow, it will be interesting to see how these concerns evolve and how they are addressed by potentially new processes or technologies. The bottom line is that there will be plenty of data to go around and those that manage to leverage it.