Described as its most important analytics announcement in a decade, IBM has launched a set of cloud-based data analysis tools using its Watson artificial intelligence technology. The company's goal is to make data analytics - and business intelligence based on big data - more accessible to anyone in the enterprise who needs it.
Big data is a big buzzword in retail and while the term can be ambiguous, 92 percent of executives say they're satisfied with the results of big data applications within their organizations.
There will be over 20 million devices designed to automatically relay information over the internet by 2022, according to Machina Research. For most of these "things," traditional wireless internet networks will be a pretty poor choice.
A global company recently decided to do what many companies are doing: figure out how to turn big data into big profits. It put together a preliminary budget and a request for proposal that in effect asked vendors to take the data the company had and identify opportunities.
Few decisions have as much power to make or break a product's success and profitability as those around the sourcing of direct materials. The components, parts and assemblies that go into making products not only account for 70 percent of an average manufacturer's annual spend, they have a significant impact on such critical competitive factors as brand reputation, time to market and supply chain reliability.
Retailers generally have a reputation for being slow to embrace the latest innovations in technology. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the retail industry as a whole spends far less on technology than nearly all other service sectors.
The City of Madrid and IBM, through its subsidiary INSA, announced the largest environmental services management project in Spain, designed to improve city life for all of Madrid's 3 million citizens. Using IBM's Smarter Cities technology, this initiative will help improve the delivery and efficiency of city services and provide citizens new tools to interact and communicate with the city council.
Traditional retailers generate and capture a deluge of data - most notably, customer transaction histories that can reveal detailed product affinities and promotional and marketing response rates. Now the emergence of big data and advanced analytical tools and techniques can connect data with a larger context. Big data can explain the who, what, when, where, why, and how of retailing.
