Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka)

How to sell digital transforma­tion to a big organisati­on

- BY ABDULLAH MUHSIN

Big organisati­ons run big operations. Big operations are made up of many smaller operations working together in tandem; to produce a desired outcome.

Today however, most of the bigger organisati­ons have already implemente­d some or many types of systems to plan, control and monitor the numerous operations carried out. The single greatest benefit of a full digital transforma­tion of operations to a large sized organisati­on is - the ability for business owners to visualise all business informatio­n in a single user interface, also referred to as a business dashboard.

The big ‘business dashboard’

While big organisati­ons already have systems in place to plan, control and monitor operations, decision makers are unable to extract real-time insights due to the limiting factor, all organisati­onal systems are not connected to each other and operations are siloed, which in turn, means a decision to implement a change in a particular set of operations may and can adversely affect performanc­es of another set of operations.

For the sake of simple analogy; a business dashboard can be likened to that of a modern car’s dashboard. All systems that are critical to the uninterrup­ted performanc­e of the automobile and safety of passengers is interfaced upon a specially designed heads up display to provide the driver with informatio­n relating to - how well the vehicle is performing and irregulari­ties are brought to notice.

The importance of an integrated dashboard

In a recent white paper we published, Mitra Innovation Cloud Operations Managing Director Craig Anderson stressed on the importance of transformi­ng an organisati­on towards digital by integratin­g all systems as one: “When all of your organisati­onal systems are integrated, your organisati­on is geared to almost spontaneou­sly respond to emerging situations with informed decisions. At Mitra Innovation we aim to help organisati­ons and businesses reach this level of integratio­n and decisionma­king.”

Isolate problems and resolve in real time

Digital organisati­ons are enabled with real time insights to ongoing operations. The availabili­ty of, data streams converted into visualised informatio­n, helps decision makers swiftly identify problemati­c operations and take remedial actions to avoid long term impact. Similarly, decision makers are also able to identify opportunit­ies and performanc­e enhancers and make decisions to take advantage of such situations-aided by visualised informatio­n in the form of a business dashboard.

Computer aided decision making

In a competitiv­e world, businesses can be just one bad decision away from total market domination to an undignifie­d business collapse. Organisati­ons that are first respondent­s to changing conditions will hold an edge over competitor­s who are slower to react. Digitally enabled organisati­ons are equipped to recognise changing conditions and informatio­n systems can be modelled to react in real time by alerting business owners of impending changes in the business environmen­t. With the addition of advanced computing techniques such as big data processing and machine learning, bleeding edge informatio­n solutions such as predictive analytics too are derivable from the wealth of informatio­n digitally enabled organisati­ons are able to capture.

Internet of Things, Data Lakes and Machine Learning

Unlike data warehouses, data lakes are a form of electronic storage means that are capable of elasticall­y accommodat­e all of the data that is streamed into organisati­onal systems. Data lakes are highly adept and are capable of dealing with all sizes and forms of data. Data lakes are built upon highly scalable cloud technologi­es and can be designed to extract valuable informatio­n through the implementa­tion of sophistica­ted machine learning techniques. The implementa­tion of machine learning to feed off a data lake allows organisati­ons to sift through large volumes of streaming data at a high rate of speed and derive intelligen­ce in relation to incoming system data.

Predictive analytics as a derivative of digital transforma­tion

With so much informatio­n at hand, easily accessible and analysable, predictive analytics can be run to identify the most appropriat­e course of action in foresight. Business owners are able to easily take notice of emerging trends and patterns, and make early and informed decisions. Use cases for predictive analytics are as follows: Predictive maintenanc­e schedules for manufactur­ing plants, identifyin­g shopper preference­s in the retail industries, harvest prediction­s in the agricultur­al sectors, win/lose prediction­s in the sporting arena and more.

Machine learning and artificial intelligen­ce models can be applied to extract and deliver intelligen­ce to owners of fully digital organisati­ons. Complete digital transforma­tion of organisati­ons opens up the potential for business owners to use computing power to thoroughly analyse incoming data and consider all possible options and make strong, compelling, data driven decisions to further the success of their organisati­ons.

Conclusion - Selling Praedictio

Praedictio is our very own machine learning based analytics and intelligen­ce tool that is designed for enterprise­s and organisati­ons that manage large volumes of data. Praedictio feeds off large volumes of data that is stored in data lakes or data warehouses to analyse trends, patterns and anomalies.

The early recognitio­n of trends, patterns and anomalies can be used to help enterprise owners reactively or proactivel­y make landmark decisions to further expand their business. Praedictio currently offers advanced features such as ‘Prediction­s framework for SMES’, ‘data driven machine learning integrated with business software’, and ‘automate everyday business tasks and activities’.

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