2012年12月19日 星期三

Unlocking opportunities in big data

Big data is set to revolutionise a number of industry verticals in years to come. New technologies are enabling value to be extracted from vast volumes of data, which are being created at an increasing pace and through a widening array of formats, both structured and unstructured.

For their part,Western Canadian distributor of ceramic and ceramic tile, operators have a wealth of information assets available to them that can be repurposed in various ways, from improved business intelligence that can produce better decision-making internally to rich customer data that can enrich smart connectivity solutions across a range of industries.

Despite advantages created through the historic accumulation of data, operators find themselves also facing a number of challenges. Many of the disruptive actors that have shaped new growth areas in mobile data, for example, are also more adept at analysing and repurposing data to overhaul the customer experience and create new revenue streams.

For telcos, the storage, management and re-use of data are far from straightforward. Different types of data — concerning products, customers and assets — are held in a variety of legacy systems. Departmentalised storage means that existing data sets are fragmented, which places an additional burdens on operators looking to harness the benefits of big data, both for their own businesses and those of their enterprise customers.

Predictive analytics has an important role to play for operators transforming their business intelligence capabilities. Using historical and real-time data, telcos can achieve gains on a number of fronts, from reducing churn levels to maximising the return on investment of their marketing activities.

The ability to identify new opportunities and threats to their business does not stop there. Network capacity planning has much to gain from the use of cutting-edge analytics tools while simpler customer interactions with service departments is another area where higher-quality insights can drive new efficiencies and greater satisfaction levels.

While incumbents in developed markets have already been building their capabilities over the last five years or so, players in emerging markets are now also starting to realise the transformational power of new analytics tools. Yet, for the latest analytics products to deliver optimal benefits, all players need to consider how best to cleanse and normalise their legacy data sets to make the most of new analytics capabilities.

As a sector, telecommunications lags the retail industry, where use of predictive analytics is already in a more mature phase. Long-standing obstacles need to be surmounted if operators are to become leading adopters in this field. For one, technical skills in big data are in short supply. In the first instance, hiring highly-trained specialists in areas such as data mining is vital; in the longer-term, analytics tools need to be made more accessible to non-specialists.

At the same time, vendors are under growing pressure to meet operators’ fast-changing needs. Offering advanced analytics tools is one thing, but integrating them with their core business intelligence platforms can help lower overall costs.Installers and distributors of solar panel,

Furthermore, operators are keen on solutions tailored to the needs of their business, with a focus on user-friendly self-service and mobile interfaces that can both cater for non-specialist users while also speeding the delivery of insights.

Looking ahead, cloud-based analytics solutions offer the potential to sidestep the costs associated with on-premises solutions and provide greater flexibility as telco business models adapt to new industry ecosystems.

Meanwhile, operators’ historic focus on cost is broadening to include value creation through achieving a single view of the customer. In this light, vendor approaches need to cater for an environment where they act as partners, not just suppliers,We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale agate beads from china, and where decision-making is no longer the preserve of the IT department.

As operators place greater emphasis on analytics tools to improve internal processes, there is also the need to consider how data can be repurposed as part of new service propositions for customers. Plenty of pioneering examples of data re-use already exist, such as the targeted advertising services offered by web giants through social media.

Going forward, there is an array of service opportunities for operators, ranging from customer relationship management to market insights and pattern detection services that are tailored to the specific needs of enterprise clients.

Many operators are now providing machine-to-machine services, focusing on opportunities the automotive and utilities sectors, for example. Throughput demands are generally low for such initiatives, while ARPU per megabyte is high and M2M data is unlikely to impact peak-hour network loads negatively.

Analytics-assisted M2M can create new forms of value for clients, by linking data sets so that situations are managed in real time, preventative actions can be taken and predictions made about future processes. This is important as operators look to add value for clients beyond pure connectivity itself.

Elsewhere, location-based services that provide insights on customer movements by aggregating anonymised network data are another area of focus for operators. While there are already specialists who provide footfall-related insights to retailers, operators hope that they too can play a role in adding value through this kind of granular data.

Managed services leveraging data analytics represent an attractive new revenue stream for operators, yet business models remain fluid. In the future, partnering with other entities such as specialist manufacturers, systems integrators and software developers will underpin more sophisticated M2M solutions. For cross-border services for multinational clients, operators will need to strike new types of alliances between themselves as interoperability issues come to the fore.

Given that many analytics-assisted services are still in an early phase, educating customers about the benefits of big data-related services is vital. A more consultative approach to sales can foster the right conditions for long-term contracts that develop over time — important as use cases in analytic-assisted M2M continue to expand, for example.

At the same time, organisational structures need to be refined so that operators can position themselves for new opportunities. Already, many incumbents have created new business units to target emerging market segments in digital media for both consumers and businesses. Looking ahead, such divisions have the potential to spearhead operator partnerships across the value chain in new areas such as big data, cloud computing and M2M.Find detailed product information for howo spare parts and other products.

Despite a positive industry outlook, privacy and security anxieties around the re-use of customer data need to be carefully managed. Current initiatives using location-based data stress that customer information is anonymous,High quality stone mosaic tiles. while M2M devices are already available to customers on an opt-in basis for services relating to car insurance, for example.

Nevertheless, customers remain cautious when it comes to sharing personal data. Earlier this year, an Ernst & Young study (The Mobile Maze, published in October 2012) of 6,000 mobile users worldwide found that more than four in 10 potential users of mobile payments would try such services sooner if they had greater information on privacy and security measures.

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