Lots happened the past week in the social media, social business, big data and business intelligence world. Read below the most interesting happenings and developments that caught my particular attention. Jive Software expanding to Asia and Australia, why social business initiatives fail and the massive amount of money HP are investing in Big Data. What news did you find the most interesting?
Social media and social business
Why social business initiatives fail
Brian Clendenin writes on ITWorldCanada about the Cloud Matters Conference and why social business initiatives fail.
Social Business is a disruptive force and promises to engage employees and customers in more meaningful interactions than ever before. But to have a successful social initiative, your organization and leadership need to fully understand that it will take time and significant effort to achieve success.
Organizations of all sizes and complexity need to spend time assessing where a social initiative makes the most sense and clearly understand the purpose for each social initiative. Doing social for social’s sake will end in disappointment if not approached with strategic thought. According to Gartner Inc., 80 per cent of social business efforts will not achieve intended benefits through 2015.
Jim Love, CIO of IT World Canada and part-time professor at York University said:
“Most social initiatives are doomed. Rolling out a social initiative takes planning and thought, just like any marketing program. It takes hard work. I find it perplexing. Nobody would ever hold a conference for 500 people without weeks of planning, totally understanding the audience, thinking about the content and planning every aspect of the interaction. Yet they dive into social initiatives without even half the thought that they would give a live event. Like any social gathering or important event, we know that to sustain a conversation with a lot of people takes planning and a lot of effort. Social initiatives are no different.”
Jive Software expands to Austrialia and Asia
Jive Software, Inc., asocial business platform, announced the opening of new offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Australia; Hong Kong; and Singapore.
Jive’s expanded presence in Asia Pacific comes as more companies recognize how social business platforms can deliver real business value for their customers, partners and employees, including increasing workforce productivity up to 15 percent and increasing top-line growth by as much as 4 percent.
Jay Larson, Jive’s President of Worldwide Field Operations, said:
“Some of the most innovative companies across the world, including several in Australia and Asia, are transforming their businesses with Jive. Our products help customers, partners and employees access the information, expertise, and best practices they need to get work done in a better way. And don’t just take our word for it. Third-party research proves customers using Jive spend less time on email, in meetings and searching for information-ultimately increasing productivity by up to 15 percent. We’re excited about bringing the goodness of Jive to Australia and Asia.”
Big data
Torux Software get innovation voucher for Big Data Analytics for equity investments
Torux Software was awarded funding in the form of an Innovation Voucher by the Technology Strategy Board to work on Big Data Analytics for Equity Investments in cooperation with the Computer Science department of the University of Brighton, a major UK academic institution.
The Open Data Innovation Voucher awarded to Torux Software by the Technology Strategy Board “is available to support SMEs, entrepreneurs and early stage start-ups who see value in using open data to invent new propositions, develop ideas to proof of concept stage or innovate on existing products and services to find new value.”
Torux Software target is to use Big Data analytics to create innovative Equity Investment Strategies.
Thanos from Torux said:
“The currently inefficient use of Big Data for investment decisions, means use of our strategies will allow our clients to take advantage of information not ‘visible’ to their competitors”.
In 2013, HP will invest more than $1 billion in Big Data
Hewlett-Packard vowed to increase its overall R&D investment as part of its recovery plan, and big data software is one area that’s going to receive a significant boost. HP is planning to spend in the neighborhood of $1 billion this year on R&D and marketing for its big data software portfolio, HP Software chief George Kadifa told CRN in an interview prior to HP’s Global Partner Conference last month.
Around $800 million of that figure is earmarked for Vertica and Autonomy, with the remainder going to joint projects between HP Software and the storage team in HP’s Enterprise Group, according to Kadifa.
Kadifa said:
“We believe that’s a huge number, especially compared to our competition in the marketplace. That’s in addition to the $11 billion we spent on [acquiring] Autonomy and Vertica.”
Business intelligence
Gartner says Middle East and North Africa business intelligence software revenu to grow with double digits
The Middle East and North African (MENA) business intelligence (BI) software market is forecast to reach $182m in 2013, a 11% increase from 2012, according to Gartner, Inc. This forecast includes revenue for BI platforms, analytic applications and corporate performance management (CPM) software.
Gartner analysts are examining the key issues facing the BI market during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo.
Dan Sommer, principal research analyst at Gartner, said:
“With the increase in information generated, business models need reinvention, and it’s increasingly clear that mastering analytics on big data sets will be a key driver for the next economic cycle. There is still a lot of mileage in the market, but most of it will come from opportunities outside of the IT-department. In the near-term, areas such as in-memory, data discovery and off-the-shelf analytics from software and service providers will drive the trend of business-focussed buying. Longer term, mobility, cloud, social and information will be channels to help unlock a whole new set of users and use-cases.”
New Business Intelligence insights for financial services
Shrinking budgets, stringent regulations and a hyper-competitive market will lead to a continuously-growing need to quickly and accurately respond to changes and make decisions at every level within any organisation in the finance industry. Insight into the right data at the right time is essential for anyone who works with information. Thus business intelligence (BI) is more important than ever. Nevertheless, we are continuing to see a slow adoption rate of BI in Australia, which is directly impacting business efficiencies and productivity.
There are several key areas that businesses in the financial industry should address in order to firstly understand the relevance of BI, but secondly utilise its capabilities to maximise output and productivity. Read what Mark Sands’, regional director, QlikTech ANZ, insights are.
Cloud computing
BRIC countries still behind in Cloud Computing scorecard
Brazil, Russia, India and China still lag far behind developed countries in policies considered critical for the future of cloud computing, but each made some progress over the past year, a U.S. industry group said.
The Business Software Alliance, which represents U.S. industry heavyweights such as Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), said the BRIC nations all came in at the bottom half of 24 countries surveyed in its second annual cloud computing report.
Brazil moved from final position to 22nd with a tally of 44.1 out of a possible 100 points.
China, India and Russia each also rose two slots with scores of 51.5, 53.1 and 59.1, respectively.
Cloud computing refers to providing software, storage, computing power and other services to customers from remote data centers over the Web. Demand for cloud-based software is rising rapidly because the approach allows companies to start using new programs faster and at lower cost than traditional products that are installed at a customer’s own data center.
The 10 Best Countries for Cloud Computing
Japan, Australia and the United States take the lead as the countries with the most cloud-friendly policies and laws, a new study shows. The study, covering the technology environments of 24 nations, finds mixed progress.
The study, released by BSA-The Software Alliance, an industry group, finds that while many of the world’s biggest IT markets have stalled or slid backwards, others are embracing laws and regulations conducive to cloud innovation. The second annual “scorecard” also finds that policy fragmentation persists, as some countries, aiming to promote local cloud markets, adopt laws and regulations that inhibit cross-border data flows or skew international competition.
The BSA ranked nations on the basis of their support for data privacy; security; cybercrime prevention; intellectual property rights; free trade; industry-led standards; information technology readiness; and broadband deployments.
Gianluigi Cuccureddu is co-founder of Damarque, helping you to improve your commercial performance through better engagement with your employees, customers and strategic business partners.
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