IT next the big benefits of big data analytics (june 2015)

THE BIGBENEFITS ANALYTICS With businesses already deriving big benefits out of their big data and analytics efforts, and many still figuring out the whys and wherefores of data science

THE BIG

BENEFITS

ANALYTICS With businesses already deriving big benefits out

of their big data and analytics efforts, and many still figuring out the whys and wherefores of data science, here is an account of the big picture of analytics in India and the innovative initiatives that

are helping companies save millions.

June 2015 | `100 | Volume 06 | issue 05 | A 9.9 Media Publication

www.itnext.com | facebook.com/t | @itnext_magazine

Rapid changes in the Indian

business environment are driving

new expectations—and demands—from

the IT department More and more business units are

keen to utilize the latest advances in technology to deliver new services to

customers, improve productivity and accountability, increase revenues,

boost customer satisfaction—or to keep up with competition

While budgets for many of these new initiatives are becoming

available, the big challenge for the IT department is to prepare the

infrastructure and processes to support these escalating enterprise

expectations And to deliver results quickly To do this, IT leaders will

need to hone a brand new set skills that will enable them successfully

drive digital innovation

At the top of the list is the ability to create and deploy mobile

enterprise applications The demand is being driven both by

employees and customers—and the urgency is real But, delivering

on mobility can be tricky—given the wide variety of hardware and

software platforms, security considerations, and the brisk evolution

of the mobile eco-system So, go out and learn more about the

technologies that enable the mobile revolution—and be prepared to

re-think your internal processes and systems

Closely linked to mobility is the delivery of user experience

Technology users now expect—and demand—great convenience and

ease of use They want systems that are intuitive and adaptive, and

have little patience for desktop screens that have been merely re-sized

for the mobile platform Responsive design is just not enough—users

expect true mobile apps To do this, you will need to work with

business units to re-design information flows, delivery mechanisms

and user interactions So, read up on user experience design

Next on the list is predictive analytics If you can find a way to

discover useful correlations from the vast amounts of data that

your organization has been collecting, your business users will be

delighted Even better, put the tool into their hands and train them to

use it Check out how big data technologies can help you do this

Finally, keep a close watch on how Internet of Things (IoT) is

evolving You may be able to deliver great value to the organization

by connecting and integrating information from a wide variety of

smart devices and sensors

Write in, and let us know how you are getting ready for digital business

R G I R I d h a R

“ IT leaders will need to hone a brand new set of skills that will enable them successfully drive digital innovation.”

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ContFor the l atest technology uPDates go to itnext.in ejune 2015 ntV o l u m e 0 6 | I s s u e 0 5

cover story

12 The Big Benefits of Big Data Analytics

An account of the big picture of analytics in India and the initiatives that are

helping companies save millions.

38 Disruption Is the New Normal | Attempting to apply

old-school approaches and invoke protectionist practices in today’s ever-changing business environment

is a recipe for disaster

strategy

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THE BIG

BENEFITS

OF BIG DATA

ANALYTICS

With businesses already deriving big benefits out

of their big data and analytics efforts, and many

still figuring out the whys and wherefores of data science, here is an account of the big picture of

analytics in India and the innovative initiatives that are helping companies save millions.

F O R T H E N E X T G E N E R AT I O N O F C I O s

June 2015 `100 | Volume 06|Issue 05 |A 9.9 Media Publication

www.itnext.com facebook.com/t | @itnext_magazine

15 Big Data Momentum Intensifies

Pulak Ghosh, an analytics expert who is currently in the panel of UN’s

big data group, talks about the current state of affairs as far as big data

adoption is concerned in India.

18 ‘Machine Learning Help Us Save Millions’

Navin Manaswi, a data scientist and a big data specialist with a U.S.-based

food company shares insights on how they leverage data science to forecast

Managing Director: Dr Pramath Raj Sinha Printer & Publisher: vikas Gupta chief operating officer - 9.9 tech: Krishna Kumar

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strategy

of aligning It and the

IT with the business isn’t really

a clear-cut business, IT or

management problem, it’s often

a feeling that people experience

strategy

directors asking questions about

security readiness, CIOs are under

pressure to assess their organization’s

ability to respond to threats

esDs

coNfereNce

rePort

ease resource management, and

ensure reliable service delivery

tecH INsIgHt

bet on mobile computing, these insights will help you

tecH INsIgHt

demands of the IoT environment, Huawei has extended its enterprise networking product line

tecH INsIgHt

Internet users and SMBs

22

Page

How cIos can ensure

Their IT Teams Are a Good Fit

reguLars

Editorial _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 01Opinion _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 04Indulge _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 40

PLEASE REcycLE ThIS MAGAzINE AND REMOvE INSERTS bEFORE REcycLING

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A good CEO must know the strengths of the CIO and he should not interfere with the decisions in his functional area

Anokhi Ada, Anmol Ghadi…

what is common to these time classics, apart from being musical superhits? They are all movies made by Mehboob Khan, with music com-

all-posed by Naushad Mehboob-Naushad

combina-tion is one of the most successful director-composer

associations in the history of Hindi cinema

Both Mehboob and Naushad were towering

figures in their own areas Mehboob was the first

showman; Naushad turned Hindi film music into

a genre by itself

But why am I getting into musicology here?

Because I believe something that happened

between the two has valuable lessons for all of

us—in this case CIOs

This is the incident as described by Naushad

himself in an interview, which happened in the

beginning of their association

“When I recorded my first song for Mehboob’s

‘Anmol Ghadi’, he asked Noor Jehan to change a

note, add a stress there He was the boss The next

day I purposely went on to the sets while the song

was being filmed Mehboob welcomed me saying

‘Look at your song being shot!’ “May I see through

the camera?” I asked He allowed me

I peered through it and asked the people around

to move the table to the left, a chair to the right

Mahboob caught me by the ear and said, ‘Your job

is music, direction is my job’ I said that was the

very admission I wanted from him, that his job

Why are you being

What is worrying is that some CIOs have unwittingly started believing in this They are almost apologetic about the fact that they come from a technology background; they try to play

up their ‘business profiles’

Why is a CIO ashamed of his core function? I myself have argued so many times the need for

an understanding of business and appreciation of business outcomes expected from application of

IT No one can argue otherwise But that does not translate to being sorry about technology

Shyamanuja Das heads business research practice

at Juxt SmartMandate, an analytics and research firm based in Gurgaon

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was direction and not music Mehboob’s answer was clear from thereon — never to enter the music room again, and I did all the films unfettered.”

a pro respects a pro…

The CEO-CIO combination is much like a composer relationship At the end of the day, it is the CEO who is responsible to the shareholders just as the director is responsible for the film’s overall success In India, music plays an important role in that success

director-While it is director who explains the situation; the mood that he wants; the expression that he expects; sometimes even recommends the play-back artist; he has no business telling the com-poser to change a note here or use a dholak instead

of pakhawaj for the beats; certainly not in a manding tone The responsibility of producing a good tune is the composer’s

com-But why did Mehboob—known in the industry for his life-size ego—listen to a 27 year old? Reason No 1: his ego notwithstanding, he was a

The demands on the CIO to be

knowledgable about business is on the

rise That does not mean that the CIO

has to be ashamed about his tech core

competence and give it up completely.

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tecH trends | A mobile device emulator allows you to test the

respon-siveness and functionality of your app across platforms including iOS,

Android, and Windows without actually having the devices with you

native android emulator

Android SDK comes with a virtual mobile device emulator that allows

developers to test and run their apps without having a physical device It

5 Free Mobile Device

Emulators

comes with different configuration capabilities, thus allowing develop-ers to test their apps for different configuration of hardware capabili-ties and Android platforms

Jar of Beans android emulator

Jar of Beans is an Android emulator that runs on the Jelly Bean version

of the Android platform and is ported by Intel Hardware Acceler-ated Execution Manager (HAXM), for hardware acceleration and improved performance

sup-Bluestacks android emulator

Bluestacks is very much an Android app player that allows you to run Android apps on your Windows PC or Mac However, you can also link it with Eclipse

to test your apps Also you can install the apk file of your app and test it using this tool

WindoWs Phone emulator

The windows phone SDK comes with its own emulator that allows developers to test their apps on a virtual device The default memory allocated to the tool is 512 MB so that you can test your apps for lower memory phones available in the market

nokia s40 emulator

Nokia Asha SDK 1.2 comes with

an emulator for testing apps targeted for Nokia Asha 502 phones Emulator comes with full UI interaction, messaging features and network commu-nication features This emulator helps developers run and test their apps without having a physical device

With the usage

of web from smartphones and other smart devices escalating, it’s important to test run your apps on multi-ple platforms before you set off your journey

source: ey.com

cfo-cio: a Growing collaboration

Busines s

strategy insufficient understanding of it

issues among finance executives the absence of a clear set of key performance indicators (Kpls) that link financial performance and he it agenda processes and tools are incompatible

across the two functions lack of finance resources to dedicate to the it agenda our organisational structure prevents

this kind of collaboration

j u n e 2 0 1 5 | itnext

sony xPeria m4 aqua

The phone has the new ‘cap-less’ uSB port

for charging The micro-uSB charging slot

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is the uSP M4 Aqua is can

Hooq will be available in India from june for ` 199

a month

tecH tidins | Accoding to

Akamai, Q1 2015 set a new record

for the number of DDoS attacks

observed across the PLX routed

network a jump of more than

35 percent over the last quarter

Not only has the volume of

attacks increased, the profile has

also changed Last year, high

bandwidth and short duration

attacks were the norm But in Q1

2015, the typical DDoS attack was less

than 10 gigabits per second (Gbps),

and endured for just over 24 hours

There were eight mega-attacks in Q1,

each exceeding 100 Gbps

During the past year, DDoS

attack vectors have also shifted This

Significant Increase in DDoS

Attack Activity

and office devices—including routers, media servers, web cams, smart TVs and printers—

to allow them to discover each other on a network, establish communication and coordinate activities If left unsecured and/or misconfigured, these home-based, Internet-connected devices can be harnessed for use as reflectors

Gaming has remained the most targeted industry since Q2 2014, consistently being targeted in

35 percent of DDoS attacks The software and technology sector was the second most targeted industry in Q1 2015, with 25 percent of the attacks

Akamai’s latest Internet security report identifies new threats from IPv6

New research from F-Secure warns

of Growth in Extortion Malware The

company has witnessed SMS message

sending trojans and ransomware attacks

on Mobile Wallets and Virtual currencies

on rise in the H2, 2014 According to

the report, both Android & iOS have

experienced malwares which have tried

to attack the banking applications and

mobile wallets in H2, 2014.

around tHe World

Virtual currencies on Rise

steve Jobs (1955 –2011)

“That’s been one of my mantras —focus and simplicity Simple can

be harder than complex;

you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.”

quarter, Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) attacks accounted for more than 20 percent of the attack vectors, while SSDP attacks were not observed at all in Q1 or Q2 2014 SSDP comes enabled

by default on millions of home

quicK byte

micromax canvas doodle 4

The Canvas Doodle 4 has a 6-inch HD display with 720 x 1280 pixels resolution

The smartphone has a quad-core 1.3 GHz processor and runs Android

5.0 Lollipop It has an 8 MP rear camera, and is priced at

` 9,499

TeCH TIDInGS | Government IT spending

in India will reach $6.8 billion US dollars

in 2015, an increase of 5.7 percent over

2014, says Gartner

“IT services, which includes

consult-ing, implementation, IT outsourcing and

business process outsourcing,

will be the largest overall

spend-ing category throughout 2019

within the government sector,“

said Dr Anurag Gupta, research

vice president at Gartner

Inter-nal services IT spending will

increase 8.8 percent in 2015 to

reach $1.6 billion USD in 2015

Internal services refer to salaries and fits paid to the information services staff of

bene-an orgbene-anization The information services staff includes all company employees that plan, develop, implement and maintain information systems

Software spending will grow 10.2 percent in 2015 to reach $860 million USD, up from $781 million USD in

2014, led by growth in vertical cific software (software applications that are unique to a vertical industry

spe-These are stand-alone applications that are not modules or extensions of horizontal applications)

Leveraging its deep

relation-ships and expertise in the telecom

services industry, Huawei has

announced an APT security

solu-tion that aims to provide

compre-hensive protection to the cloud,

pipe, and devices The solution

combines Huawei’s FireHunter

security sandbox products, a

Cyber-security Intelligence System, and a

software firewall product Huawei

has also announced plans to form a

Cloud Clean Alliance that will

pro-vide real-time cleaning services for

denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks

Huawei’s FireHunter security

sandboxes are designed to detect

and defend against APT attacks

The devices are equipped with

reputation system and multilayer

inspection technology, and can

inspect over 180,000 files per day

The Huawei USG6000V series

of virtualized cross-platform

soft-ware firewalls integrate multiple

security functions including

tra-ditional firewall, VPN, intrusion

prevention, antivirus, DLP and

$6.8 Billion in 2015

Threats with a New Strategy

The devices are equipped with reputation system and multilayer inspection technology, and can inspect over 180,000 files per day

DDoS The software can can be ibly deployed on SDN switches and routers to provide security capabili-ties to network element devices The software firewall supports many popular virtual environments including VMware, KVM, XEN and UVP, as well as Netconf, REST-ful and OpenStack architectures

flex-It employs Intel’s latest Data Plane Development Kit using Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) tech-nology to deliver compresehnsive security for cloud environments, and the software pattern-matching engine is claimed to deliver up to 40 Gbps performance

From data center to boardroom, how

do you see the responsibilities of CSOs evolve?

CISO now shares common responsibility of all cyber crimes committed in his organi-sation For example, if an organisation is traced via its IP address for a cognizable offence and the organisation lacks reason-able security practices by not finding the right accused, the CISO is implicated as accused The dominant trend is to rely on security solutions vendors to shift the responsibility on the solution offered by vendor, which is a sad state Security needs holistic approach backed by strong man and machine policies

In the wake of IT Act 2000 & the panies Act 2013, has the rule of the game changed for CISOs?

Com-IT Act 2000 & the Companies Act 2013 have made the CISO as statutory designa-tion designation recognized by law that makes all organisations to hire CISO or designate one for them They have become important resource in organisation and security has become the board matter

What’s your advice for CSOs to have smooth sailing with regard to imple- mentation of best practices keeping in mind regulations, compliance, etc?

The CSOs should have compliance chart ready encompassing ISMS, IT Act, 2000, SEBI, Companies Act and other rules and regulations his organisation is subjected

to He needs to become “Security Hawk”

in the organisation because he has a legal responsibility and he is also responsible for the legal risk his organisation gets exposed

Till September 2014, 15k sites were reportedly hacked in the country; a majority of the cases have been filed under the IT Act What’s the message for the CSO from this?

India and Indian organisations are on stant radar of malicious attackers I advise that every large organisation or large group should have its own CERT This CERT can have parallel relationships with other CERTs across countries This brings better resilience to a scenario like “Zero Day Exploit” or mass “Cyber Attacks”

con-intervieW

AdV PRAShAnT MAli

Cyber Law & Cyber Security Expert

Software Spending will grow 10.2 percent

in 2015 to reach $860 million USd,

j u n e 2 0 1 5 | itnext

update

TeCH TIDInGS | Honeywell launched the

first digital dashboard designed to

proac-tively monitor, measure and manage cyber

security risk for control systems for

refin-eries, power plants and other automated

production sites throughout the world

that are at increasing risk of cyber attacks

The Honeywell Industrial Cyber Security

Risk Manager, is designed to simplify the

task of identifying areas of cyber security

risk, providing real-time visibility,

under-standing and decision support required

for action It monitors and measures cyber

security risk in multi-vendor industrial

environments

The threat of cyber attacks on industrial

targets is a major concern according to a

global survey on cyber security conducted

by Ipsos Public Affairs in September 2014

on behalf of Honeywell More than 5,000

adults in 10 countries were surveyed about the threat of cyber attacks on critical indus-tries in their countries Three quarters of respondents said they were fearful that cyber criminals could hack into and control major sectors and elements of the economy Two-thirds of those surveyed thought that the oil and gas, chemicals and power industries were particularly vulnerable to cyber attacks

Risk Manager uses advanced gies that translate complex cyber security indicators into clear measurements and key performance indicators (KPI), and provides essential information through an easy-to-use interface The intuitive work-flow allows users to create customized risk notification alerts and perform detailed threat and vulnerability analysis so they can focus on managing risks that are most important for reliable plant operations

accord-Internal services will achieve the highest growth rate amongst the spending categories with a

17 percent increase in 2015 to reach $297 million uSD Internal services refer to salaries and benefits paid to the information services staff of an organization The information services staff includes all company employees that plan, develop, implement and maintain information systems Software spending will grow 6.2 percent to reach $103 million uSD in 2015, up from $97 million

in 2014, led by growth in cal specific software (software applications that are unique to a vertical industry

verti-tecH trends

healthcare Providers in india

to spend us $1.2 Billion on it in 2015

The Honeywell solution is designed

to simplify the task of identifying areas of cyber security risk

‘Nasscom Cyber Security Task Force’ aims to make India the hub

for cyber security related research, training and products Led by

NIIT chairman Rajendra Pawar, the task force is going to form a

comprehensive cyber security plan within the next 12 weeks

neWS @

source: nasscom

Thanks to the changes that are sweeping the business landscape, enterprises were rediscovering new use cases for already

established technology tools Video conferencing, for example, is providing a whole new set of business values Judicious selection

of a partner is key to optimize that value creation

Vodafone Managed Video Conferencing:

Solutions for the New Era

powered by

Vodafone

collaboration Technologies that catalyze ration and enhance the quality of collaborative processes are now being looked at with new expectations

collabo-Video conferencing stands right on top of the list of such tools

To be sure, video conferencing is not new at all It has existed in large enterprises for long—as a replace-ment for travel The ROI for such systems were initially justified comparing the investment with cost incurred

on travel Those ROIs are still largely valid

But that is not the reason why businesses are ing at video conferencing with renewed interest From

look-a cost slook-ave, video conferencing hlook-as trlook-ansformed itself into a value creator in the new business regime

There are multiple ways businesses are using it to derive value Some of them are as follows

Improving efficiency: The traditional ROI justifier; by

reducing the requirement to travel, video ing not just saves on travel cost but also on travel time That contributes to enhanced efficiency in the organization

Real time collaborative processes: Whether it is

a product development or a classroom teaching; decision making or a professional discussion, video conferencing closes the distance gap between teams and individuals Verticals from health care to educa-tion; services to government have found their own

"From a cost save, video conferencing has transformed itself into a value creator in the new business regime."

Satish Mittal

Sr VP, Vodafone Business Services

1 1

j u n e 2 0 1 5 | itnext

innovative use cases The value derived from

these collaborations—not possible without the

technology—goes far beyond the cost savings

Why should the decision wait? This is a fairly

new application of video conferencing Mobile

has revolutionized the way businesses work

With connectivity and power coming to mobile

devices such as phones and tablets, one is never

too far from one’s colleagues, partners, clients

or vendors So, why should a decision wait?

Increasingly, there is expectation that users

should be able to smoothly join a video

confer-encing from device of his choice A hassle free

mobile video conferencing capability is

increas-ingly becoming important while choosing video

conferencing applications and vendors

Just hanging out: However strange it may sound,

a few knowledge enterprises are now having

video conference just to keep each other abreast

of what is happening, in what is called no-agenda meetings

VCs, law firms and other such professional firms where

indi-vidual teams by and large work on their own, are using video

conferencing to share knowledge Needless to say, no

organi-zation would do these meetings if travel were required!

Choosing a Solution

Changes in technology and business environment have

made enterprises look for hassle free management and

investment protection while choosing a technology solution

It is no surprise many of them are choosing managed video

conferencing solutions

While investment protection and easier manageability come

naturally with managed services, choosing a right partner for

managed services is a little different from choosing a traditional

product vendor Product features keep changing frequently but

a partner without the requisite “services” experience creates

problems in the long run This has resulted in many businesses

turning to their trusted telecom partners

There are questions that need to be answered before

embark-ing on a video conferencembark-ing journey For example, how will the

video conferencing be used in the enterprise? Is it for specific

applications or enterprise-wide? What will be the usage volume?

Will it be used simultaneously by many groups? What kind of

information would be exchanged? How to plan for bandwidth

based on estimated usage? Will the meetings be required to be

recorded? How will video be integrated with other

communica-tions tools/devices in the enterprise?

Once the answers to these basic questions are obtained, the

actual solution has to be decided based on careful evaluation of

some basic as well as newer expectations

Here are some of the more sought-after features being looked

for in a video conferencing system

Smooth experience: Today’s consumer technologies—led by

Apple—have thrived by creating better than expected

experi-ence No user is going to compromise on quality of experiexperi-ence

Vodafone managed video conferencing solution provided full high-definition (HD) video quality for near real experience

Heterogeneous network connectivity: Video conferencing

has to work in all types of network—be it corporate protocal label switchng (MPLS) virtual private netwrk(VPN)

multi-or a public Internet multi-or a small integrated services fmulti-or digial netwrok (ISDN) connection in a branch office The Vodafone video conferencing solution is network agnostic

Anytime, Anywhere connectivity: In the age of bring your

own device (BYOD), one of the most important user demands for any enterprise application is accessible from mobile phones and tablets As many are now using video conferencing to do on-demand instant meetings to speed up decision making, mobile connectivity is a must Video conferencing solution from Vodafone

is device agnostic and supports all major mobile devices

Easy manageability: One of the nightmarish experiences of

the old-age video conferencing is managing the meetings and application Vodafone managed video conferencing solution provides web self-care portal for scheduling and reporting

Recording for non-participants and analysis: Recording is

becoming another much sought after feature Vodafone video conferencing solution incorporates features for on-demand recording

Of course, the managed services model allows the users to avail of pay per port as they grow and protects investments Vodafone, with its years of experience as a service provider, understands delivery side issues very well It also understands the new needs arising out of demand for mobile access

As sweeping changes happen in business and technology environments, enterprises have to keep pace And that should reflect in their choosing a technology solution As the technol-ogy strategy of businesses moves more towards buying technol-ogy as services, those with experience of delivering high quality services would be natural allies

cover story | Big data & analytics`

By Mastufa ahmed

Design by Haridas Balan | Illustration by Peterson PJ

With businesses already deriving big benefits

out of their big data and analytics efforts,

and many still figuring out the whys and

wherefores of data science, here is an

account of the big picture of analytics in

India and the innovative initiatives that are

helping companies save millions.

THE BIG BENEFITS

OF BIG DATA

ANALYTICS

INSIDE

15 | Big Data Momentum Intensifies

18 | ‘Machine Learning Helps Us Save Millons’

1 3

j u n e 2 0 1 5 | itnext

cover story | BIg Data & anaLytIcS

today with several big initiatives taken by Indian businesses delivering results already Among those who’re reaping the benefits from their data-driven efforts include banks and ecommerce companies Etailing players who were in the league of early adopters have transitioned from just analyzing customer sentiments to betting on data and analytics to a deeper level to leapfrog to the next level FlipKart’s analytics report, for instance, is being leveraged by over 200 decision makers on a daily basis So are Amazon and Snapdeal

Coming to large banks, analytics have proven

to be a crucial ingredient of success with banks like ICICI, CITI, having their own analytics wings comprising of data scientists and statisticians

Quality of data makes the case for the banking industry to invest on big data and analytics The largest commercial bank of India, State Bank of India has recently started a vertical on analytics with a group of experts comprising of statisticians, banking professionals and computer scientists to develop advanced analytics methods This new data-driven

business model gave them an impetus to their initiatives

of doing more business with the existing customers Analytics transcends beyond the walls of business verticals in terms of its use case scenario The biggest election victory, in over three decades, for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) resulted from the process of capturing and analyzing humongous data Auto makers such as Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki India, and even Hero MotoCorp are all in the process

of sieving through data pools amassed through customer interactions to rev up their decision making and advance efficiency of selling more vehicles Adoption of analytics is also picking up in Indian healthcare Fortis and Apollo are some of the healthcare providers that bet on analytics Apollo Hospital seeks consultations on project basis in areas like resource optimization, dashboard analysis and segmentation of patients A fresh new concept called

‘health eCommerce’ starts gaining traction recently

We spoke with the Pulak Ghosh, a big data and analytics expert who is a professor in IIM-B in the Quantitative Methods and Information Systems area Ghosh is also a member of United Nations’ big data group and he lectured extensively on how business can benefit from data-driven efforts.This month cover story gives you a big picture

of big data and analytics in India, how it all started and what is the current level of adoption This is

an in-depth analysis of why and how analytics is set to gain momentum with an exponential rate soon This also features in some of the top issues and challenges facing data science including the dearth of professionals

So, if you are seriously contemplating over betting on your stored customer data pool, this piece will provide you some insights on how you can leverage the same Navin Manaswi, a data scientist and a big data specialist shares how General Mills, a multinational food companies in India, saves millions of dollars using machine learning algorithms

Navin discloses how they leverage data science practices to forecast demands of products and save money The data wizard also gives some advice for IT managers on how to identify strengths and limitations of all popular machine learning algorithms and do classification, clustering, prediction, associate mining, optimization and mathematical modeling, to be able to help business leaders take better decisions

Snapdeal deploys Big Data for better consumer experience they have

moved their systems from Relational Database Management System to

a real time In-memory noSQLDB with Big Data capabilities to empower

the Snapdeal portal with scale, speed and real time information the other

technology that has been implemented at Snapdeal is the recommendation

engine; the Big Data element of the engine provides intelligent

recommen-dations to the frequent visitor

‑Vishal Chadha, Vice President, Market Development, Snapdeal

the recent mobile-first move of the ecommerce giant FlipKart is an

experi-ment underpinned by insights from the data they gather everyday Seventy

per cent of FlipKart’s traffic comes from the mobile app Plus, app can

serve users’ request better than mobile sites So, if the top priority of the

company is to add on to the user experience and grow their business, then

the top driver for them to enable this change is analytics

‑Ravi Vijayaraghavan, VP- analytics, FlipKart

Why e-commerce companies

deploy big data solutions

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How do you see big data and analytics initiatives being embraced by businesses?

While the potential benefits of Big Data are real and significant, and some initial successes have already been achieved, there remain many technical challenges that must be addressed to fully realize this potential Big data is supposed to be a

$25 billion industry and India has the great opportunity to take a large share from it However, Big data is in a nascent stage in general and more so in India and many believe that this technology

is about large volume of data While this

is true and has always been there, what compounds its intricacy is the nature of data which is mostly ‘unstructured’ The real value of big data is combining off-line (structured) and on-line (unstructured) and making the inference real-time

Firms in India are yet to combine the two in this real-time fashion Either they are doing analytics on the massive data or they are doing analytics on social media data (mostly very simple negative-positive sentiment analytics only), but separately While some start-ups are moving in this direction, the wave is yet

to become a tide Heterogeneity, scale, timeliness, complexity, and privacy problems with Big Data impede progress

at all phases of the pipeline that can create value from data In India, analytics is mostly service based and very few are product-embedded Companies here are weighing in its benefits while many eTailers are already storing data to underpin their likely future initiatives They may not be cashing in on the data insights yet, but this is what big data tackling warrants to start with, and then move onto advanced analytics initiatives

Big Data

MoMentuM

intensifies

Pulak Ghosh, an analytics expert who

is currently in the panel of un’s big

data group, talks about the current

state of affairs as far as big data

adoption is concerned in india.

By Mastufa Ahmed

cover story | BIg Data & anaLytIcS

What are major drivers of big data and analytics and who’re the frontrunners in india?

Let’s understand the growth pattern in India’s big data and analytics ventures When I came back to India back in 2009, after having a decade-long stint in United States as a data scientist in health care and biostatistics, there was almost nothing on data analytics It was mostly data analysis! Use of data based analysis in healthcare and clinical trial was almost non-existent and nowhere comparable to the western market

However, some movement started happening in the banking sector Post 2008, banks started realizing the potential of the humongous customer data they already had stored This eventually led them doing more business with the existing customers by betting

on customer preferences and addressing their pain points Banks did move fast also because they always had quality data! The new data-driven business model gave them a fillip to their new initiatives of doing more business with the on-board customers, given that

banking data is more reliable than the data from other business verticals such as retail So, it wasn’t unless the year 2010/11, when some frontrunners like ICICI Bank, and HDFC Bank jumped onto the bandwagon

on a serious note State Bank of India started investing

on Big data analytics heavily

The next big player for use of big data analytic are e-commerce companies such as FlipKart, Amazon, etc

They are mostly using unstructured and structured

data in a combined way For example, e-commerce companies also need to develop algorithm for cross-sell /up-sale However, with nearly 1.5 lakh product on display how does one develop the algorithm in real-time Added with that, the problem of sparseness in the data because not every product get sold frequently and there is an inherent minimum time before a customer buys the same product again!

The third segment where I see more and more use

of analytics is in retail and FMCG

What’s the current level of adoption of data-driven initiatives across businesses?

Appreciation of analytics is gaining momentum with

an exponential rate! Already convinced players like, banks, e-commerce companies are taking the analytics expertise to the next level While, Citi, HSBC, HDFC, ICICI and Axis bank has now a dedicated team to look at problems using advanced analytics, the largest commercial bank of India, State Bank of India has started a vertical on analytics with balanced group

comprising of several statisticians, banking professionals and computer scientist to develop advanced analytics methods Coming to retail, Amazon and FlipKart started betting

on their data following the early success stories scripted by the banks Snapdeal has also started on analytics recently

More and more firms are today convinced that there is a great deal

of competitive advantage in taking decision which is supported by findings through analytics Some

of the new players in this league are Madura Fashion, ITC, Marico, Spencer to name a few

Bangalore today has some 500+ analytics firms, while 80% of Indian firms are not yet over to analytics Apart from retail and banking, analytics adoption in healthcare is also picking up in India Fortis and Apollo are some of the healthcare providers that bet on analytics Apollo Hospital seeks consultations on project basis in areas like resource optimization, dashboard analysis and segmentation of patients A fresh new concept called

‘health eCommerce’ starts gaining traction recently Former CEO of iGate Phaneesh Murthy is launching

an online healthcare marketplace

Another area which is being leveraged by almost all firms having a presence across social platforms

is ‘social media analytics’ This move transcends

The Big Data Analysis Pipeline Major steps in

analy-sis of big data are shown in the flow at top Below it

are big data needs that make these tasks challenging

Overall system

Source: www.purdue.edu

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the borders of business verticals where product

companies keep a tab on users’ sentiments and

feedbacks Today customers’ sentiment analysis

is one of the most common modus operandi for

companies to gauze their product strengths and

weaknesses which many are working upon

india would see a huge demand for data

experts in coming days How do we get

the manpower given that we don’t have

interdisciplinary course available in india?

This is a genuine problem Those who understand

business are not comfortable with programming or

for that matter visualisation tools In other words, a

programmer may not find statistics intriguing and

hence this gives rise to another problem of hiring

multiple people one for statistics and one for

programming, and so on Additionally, we don’t have

enough number of statisticians in India Having said,

things are changing and I hope soon we would see

interdisciplinary courses starting off across institutes

What steps, best practices, and how-tos

do you suggest for those seriously

pondering over leveraging analytics for

business gains?

There are three pillars of analytics Technology, data

science and business insight This is a team work In

the technology domain, knowledge of mapR, Hadoop,

etc play a major role While in data science two main

divisions are statistics and machine learning This

is where the maximum job are created and will have

more and more demand This is also the hard one to

get a grasp over Third one is the business insight

Often analytics does not bring the desired fruit

because of lack of business insight

By business insight I do not mean business

communication, but asking the right question

More often asking the right question needs great

deal of business insight and half of the advantage of

analytics lies in asking what to be solved and half is

how to solve

In statistics one has to understand that a lot of

existing predictive models usually won’t work in a

big data framework A very simple example is, ‘is

“mean” still a summary measure for a 40 million

transactional data?’ Does random sampling still

work, as doing random sampling for a large data will

have higher chance of having multimode? Similar is

the case of machine learning Usually, ML tools are

not very robust and with slight change of variables,

the entire results can change So how one can develop

more robust algorithms? These are some, among

many, issues that analytics industry is struggling due

to the lack of academic and industry collaboration!

Could you cite a few innovative driven initiatives being undertaken by indian businesses?

data-Well, one of the first things that come to my mind is the use of data analytics in the recently concluded National election campaign of the BJP! Bigbasket.com

is working on an innovative idea of creating a digital smart basket which will be individualistic and will help the shoppers online to shop more effectively

HDFC bank is using analytics to get a complete 360 degree view of customer State Bank of India is using

a very innovative algorithm combining both online (social media, blog) and offline (customer level) data

to come up with a recommender system on time to send promotion Gitanjali Group, the global integrated diamond and Jewellery manufacturer and retailer, uses Visual Analytics to explore and analyse business data such as supply chain and profitability metrics

real-if Booz Allen, KPMG, Apple, Wallmart, terradata, netflix, intel, Dell are the top hirers for data scientists in US, who all do you think would be the top hirers of data wizards in india?

Banks (both private and public) including Citi, HDFC, ICICI, and SBI E-commerce companies including FlipKart, Amazon and Snapdeal Master Card and American Express Retail firms like future group and shoppers Stop, etc

What do you do in the Un’s big data group?

My role is three fold: I lend my expertise to the development of guidelines and practices that mitigates risks associated with privacy in Big Data, while preserving utility for global development To contribute on how Big data analytics can be used for responsible social value creation and participating

in an ongoing privacy dialogue, providing feedback

on proposed approaches and engaging in a privacy outreach campaign

More and more firms today are convinced that there is a great deal

of competitive advantage in taking decision supported by analytics.

cover story | xxpensation sURVeY

‘Machine Learning heLPs

us saVe MiLLions’

Navin Manaswi, a data scientist and

a big data specialist with General

Mills a U.S.-based food company,

shares insights on how they leverage data science to forecast

Indian Big Data market would touch $

1 billion by 2015 from nearly $ 0.2 lion in 2011 and global Big Data market would grow at the same rate and touch nearly $ 25 billion by 2015, according

bil-to NASSCOM and CRISIL In only a few big companies, big data analytics is being applied to understand, help and lure customers and to maximize the revenue while others are just storing Big Data in Data Warehouse and trying

to create some basic reports

Gradually, e-commerce, munication, giant retailers, media, oil-exploration and mobile tech busi-ness entities are recruiting data sci-ence professionals and that too, with hefty packages that indicate the boom

telecom-of data science and big data analytics

What are some of the top trends currently in the big data and analytics domain?

Leveraging machine learning rithms and graph theory: Data scientists leverage machine learning to predict and strategise to get a compact and clear picture of the future business trends by using past data Every business stake-holder including manager, executive, investor is interested in finding weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly forecasts

algo-in aggregate and detailed form algo-in tabular or/and graphical analysis so that they can optimize their resources and save millions of dollars

cross-Using R/Python programming languages: Every bit of data science including machine learning, data visu-alization, data manipulation, and web based and interactive visualization is done on R or python, mostly Industry verticals including finance, telecom-munications use R or python

Working on distributed computing including Hadoop clusters: With the

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emergence of Internet of Things, mobile devices and

the increasing interaction among these, data size and

its analysis are increasing more than exponentially So

the need of faster real- time analytics and large mobile

data storage has been increasing exponentially

Using Tableau/Spotfire/Qlikview and D3 for

visu-alization: All industry verticals need to analyze

inter-dependencies and complex relationships between

indicators including KPIs by using lucid and powerful

visualization capabilities including network graphs,

tree-maps, surface and contour plots and hexbin plots

What are your prime responsibilities in

General Mills as a (supply chain) data

scientist?

Forecasting demands of products each week

accu-rately is the most important job of Supply Chain

Management Understanding the linear or nonlinear

relationships between different KPIs (key

perfor-mance indicators) to get the best possible insights

is the second most important job

Understanding the customers,

sup-pliers based on data and then

classi-fication or clustering them is another

important job Here analysts use R

and python languages for doing

pre-dictive analytics and optimization

How do these initiatives

translate in terms of

adding to the business?

We try and solve business

prob-lems more accurately with help of

machine learning Having solved it

and built the confidence of

stake-holders, our team has started new

projects on prediction,

classifica-tion, clustering and optimization

All these initiatives have helped

our company save millions of

dollars with the help of accurate

prediction of demands and

under-standing of complex relationship

between different KPIs Please note

that one percent accuracy improvement in demand

forecasting translates to huge savings for a

com-pany Plus, minimization of the production cost and

transportation cost also brings in a lot of savings in

supply chain management

Data science being in the nascent stage

in india yet, what all challenges do you

face today?

Data format and management are not consistent

throughout the system The main challenge lies

in making it consistent and clean before applying various modeling and optimization techniques In addition, we need to be ready to know the business more holistically and more deeply before we start working on any project

Can you share some insights on the tools that you use?

Time series clustering helps us cluster products based on various parameters Bayesian networks and markov models help us get big insights out of data pool (Bayesian networks is a statistical model that represents a set of random variables and their dependencies via a directed acyclic graph For example, Bayesian network could represent the relationships between diseases and symptoms

Markov model is a random probability pattern describing a sequence of possible events in which the probability of each event depends only on the state attained in the previous event.) Understanding

the delivery networks through graph theory also helps us reduce transportation cost significantly

What’s your advice for it Managers on how to leverage analytics tools?

IT Managers are supposed to be aware of strengths and limitations of all popular machine learning algo-rithms and should be thinking where they can do classification, clustering, prediction , associate min-ing, optimization and mathematical modeling, so as

to help business leaders take better decisions

Data Science challenges

T Ei n s i g h tCHNOLOGY

5 Ways mobile applications are extremely vulnerable and least secured

Unlike web applications where the rity is implemented at the server level, for mobile apps the security is installed

secu-in the device that could be neered and exploited

As a lot of sensitive data resides on the device, the same can be easily extracted

by using the right tools Reverse engineered apps on open-source platforms can be repackaged with malicious code and redistributed There is minimal or no control over using enterprise apps on jail-broken /rooted devices

Mobile apps are often used in less

“I admire people who are very successful But if that success has been achieved through too much ruthlessness, then

I may admire that person, but I can’t respect him.”

‑Ratan Tata

Ex-chairman of Tata Group

in an interview with iT next, hTc Global

Services’ Practice head –Mobile coe, Venkat

Alagarsamy shares these tips that can help

tackle your sensitive data

by Mastufa ahMed