Business Intelligence in a Nutshell

Overview

Intelligence means collection of information worth great values from raw data. This involves a series of processes, if the same happens in Business, that’s Business Intelligence often referred as BI. Though the definition seems simple, the process involved is huugeee! Not only Fortune companies but small and medium business companies (SMB) are also investing millions and millions of dollars in BI already and ready to invest more on Big Data (BI is Bruce Wayne whereas Big Data is Batman, more sophisticated and helpful at a larger scale for larger organizations)

Evolution: Necessity is the mother of Invention

Earlier when there were no computers, all transactions were documented manually in papers and notebooks. Government offices in many third world countries still use the same procedure. The files and documents are then stored in racks and shelves in a closed room (like a protected library) occupying more space. 

Once computers started evolving, these physical data became logical occupying much lesser PHYSICAL space. However the process of accumulation did not stop. Companies had to invest more and more in Infrastructure to store and maintain all these logical data getting accumulated. They started building Data Centers which happen to be much bigger that those closed rooms with racks.

When they started thinking “Is this worth investing?” BANG! Someone somewhere said “well, we can analyze these data and get valuable information which are hidden within.” Now to say the same using technical jargons (Hold your Breath)

"Data from different sources like ERP system, Payroll Systems, Operational devices and other Enterprise applications are extracted, sorted and Integrated to build a comprehensive Data Warehouse which in turn can be divided in to multiple Data Marts to perform data mining to analyze them, create custom reports and visualize the same as graphs, KPIs and scorecards in order to improve Business Results and empower better Decision Making."

Offff! That’s Business Intelligence!

However, BI did not suddenly appear as a single step, it evolved as shown below

Who and Why use BI?

Any company in any industry doing any kind of business can leverage BI in order to achieve one or more of the following:

• Make Data Useful
• Reduced Labor Costs (through effective automation)
• Decision making – Better and Faster
• Balance Business Objective vs Business Goal
• Gain Insight - Customer Behavior, Sales, Revenue etc
• Identify Opportunities
• Eliminate wastage

Major BI Providers

There are hundreds of companies providing solutions and services related to Business Intelligence. However the most predominant are

SAP and Oracle are used by Large and Mid sized Organizations whereas Microsoft is used by Small and Medium Business Organizations.

Internet's Future Without Net Neutrality

Internet is the engine that keeps the world running and it’s the service providers who keep the Internet running. There are several ways Internet service providers can manipulate user experience while using their service. Some of them include;

Data Discrimination: Providers ability to filter data (can be used both for good reasons and bad trading practices)

Bandwidth Throttling: The ability of the provider to alter end user’s bandwidth independent of any other factor

Net Bias: Differentiation of price and quality of similar content for different users

Deep Packet Inspection: Collect user data for statistical information with or without their knowledge

To make it simple, your internet service provider can and is completely controlling what sites you can access and how fast you can access them.

Have you ever experienced all other sites load faster except some of your favorite sites?

Have you ever experienced a similar site load at different speeds during day time and night?

Even before consuming 100% of you allotted data limit, had you been pushed to lower surfing speed?

If your answer is yes for any of these questions, there is for sure a 50% probability that you have experienced some of the black hat practices discussed above. You pay for the service itself and not for what sites you browse or stream from. It’s like our Electricity Board charging for power consumed every month under the condition that you should not use an air conditioner more than 3 hours a day or charging you extra in case you use the power for washing machine. You pay for the power itself not for what and how you use it.

Out of the all three participants

•  Website Owners
•  Internet Service Providers
• End-Users

Whom do you think has upper hand?

If this is not taken care, it will become a very usual concept in the future similar to DTH language packs. But why all of a sudden these terms are  getting viral in india? Airtel recently announced a plan named Airtel Zero which is creating all these buzz.

Internet users (Netizens) from all over India are against this. If you would like to be a part of this protest, visit http://www.netneutrality.in/ and click on the button “Submit the Response to TRAI” and follow the on screen instructions.

Use hashtags #NetNeutralityIndia and #SavetheInternet to post your messages in Facebook and Twitter. Happy browsing the Neutral Internet!!!

 Know more about #savetheinternet in this video....

Three Important Big Data Hadoop Components

Go through the Presentation here to understand the Hadoop ecosystem and 3 important components (Flume, Pig and Sqoop)

Big data components - Introduction to Flume, Pig and Sqoop from Jeyamariappan Guru

No need to Earn Again if you have 20 Million INR in India

Some Surveys suggest that Humans spend almost 85% of their thinking time in assuming things that might not ever happen in their life time! (Source: Go Search Yourself) Well, that’s true… Have you ever thought any of the followings when you were sitting idle, while watching a movie, while riding or at least when you were in the bathroom?

What if a dinosaur appears all of a sudden in the real world?

What if there is a Zombie Apocalypse?

What if I get to see the real end of the world and I am one of the very few survivors?

What If the most beautiful girl in the office (School or College) comes and proposes?

What if I get supernatural powers like Jedi in the movie Star wars?

What if a group of terrorists suddenly show up in the School or Company you work and how would you save all?

And Finally….

What if I happen to get huge stack of money (like in a Full Truck or a Very big Bank Locker) so that I never have to work or earn again?

If you ever though about any of these questions, welcome to the club!

In this article, I would like to share one of my thoughts through which I’ve wasted several hours.

The last question in the above set of examples, to rephrase it

How much money one really needs to spend his entire lifetime without earning again?

And when I had a brainstorm (about something that might never happen) with my friends while boozing, the final decision to which all my friends agreed is INR 2 Crores, according to 20 Million INR .

Assumptions

Here are the assumptions;

1 – I am an Indian

2 – I don’t like to work again

3 – All that I am yearning for is an upper middle class life

4 – My IQ is equal to someone who passed a High School

5 – I’ve got 2 Crores from nowhere

  

Action Plan

The following considerations, you better understand if you are from India (Pricings, Banks Interests etc.)

For universal understanding, I haven’t mentioned the brands and organization’s names.

Out of 2 Crores I have, The First thing I am going to do is Spend 1 Crore for the most basic needs.

1.       An Individual House in a Metropolitan city - Starts from 45 lakhs in the outer skirts and the price increases as you move towards the heart of the city up to 2 Crores.

Now for an upper middle class family a 2BHK villa you can spend – 60 Lakhs (6 Million INR)

2.       A Car – Not a hatchback but a Sedan – 8 Lakhs (800 thousand INR)

3.       A Bike – Pretty decent bikes starts from 80 thousand INR – Let’s say I spend a Lakh

Now out of 1 Crore I’ve spent 69 Lakhs, remaining amount – 31 Lakhs.

4.       I would like to marry a girl and live happily ever after (another assumption)

Marriage Expenses – Bachelor’s Party, Engagement, Marriage and Reception – 8 Lakhs

5.       Let’s assume you spend 3 Lakhs to fill your family’s wardrobe with dresses and related accessories. Remaining amount – 20 Lakhs

6.       Indian women will always go crazy about gold ornaments – Bash! – 15 Lakhs for 60 Sovereigns

7.       What’s left out is 5 Lakhs and you are married with a Car, Bike and a Villa in a Metropolitan city

Offff!!! Half of the life is over or in other words “Life has just started!!”

What can you do with the remaining 1 Crore and 5 Lakhs and at least 50 years of remaining life with lots and lots of responsibilities in terms of family, friends and relatives?

This is the tricky part where you have to spend a little time researching about banks and interest rates they provide for fixed deposits!

Based on my research, the highest interest rate for Non - Senior Citizens trends from 9% to 11% for an investment of a minimum of 1 lakh INR up to 1 Crore INR over a period of 5 to 15 years.

Split the remaining 1 Crore and 5 Lakhs (10.5 Million)

1^st Part 50 Lakhs goes for the monthly expenses – Opt for Quarterly Payouts

Assuming 9.5% Interest – Yearly interest is 4.5 Lakhs – Monthly - 37500

2^nd Part 35 Lakhs goes for Children’s expenses (School, Puberty ceremonies, College etc.)

Opt for 5 years (Yearly Cumulative Interest) – Assuming 10% - Once in every 5 years – 20 Lakhs (Interest)

Calculate Here - http://www.moneycontrol.com/fixed-income/calculator/state-bank-of-india-sbi/fixed-deposit-calculator-SBI-BSB001.html

3^rd Part – 20 Lakhs – Save it For Emergency – Accidents, Medical Expenses etc.

Conclusion

 Now you have a solid income of INR 37500 per month, once in every 5 years you will get 20 lakhs, you have 20 Lakhs for expensesin case of emergency. And

The Principal amount 35 lakhs you invested for your children remains untouched.

Isn’t that a happy upper middle class life without going to work?

A Foreign trip once in every 5 years, more money when you child gets into school or college or gets married. If they are willing to work and earn, it’s a double treat then…

Hmmmm…. If only I had those two Crore rupees… ;-) :-P

Or if you have 2 Crores dumped in a bank account, Put it to work....

Question here: “I always wonder what would those Politicians and Business Men do with 100s of Crores (Billions)?”

Education System in India

Introduction

India ranks second in population and seventh in terms of largest landscape. India is a land of diversity in terms of Languages, Religions and Castes. India is well known not just for its culture and tradition, but also for its intelligent yet cheap human resources. India’s recent Mangalyaan satellite launch is certainly a cherry on the cake. Leading IT giants such as Microsoft, Apple, IBM etc. always try to acquire more Indians as their employees, In fact NASA’s 36% of scientists are Indians (Source: Times of India). Education acts as a base for all these brilliancy. Education System in India, Is it good or bad? Let’s take a closer look.

Literacy in India

India has an average literacy rate of 74% compared to the world’s literacy rate of 84% (Source: Wikipedia).

Levels in Indian Education System

There are thousands of schools, colleges and universities offering several levels of education in India. Broadly all of the courses can be categorized under 6 levels as shown in the picture below;

Education Institutes in India

According to All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), there are close to 4600 approved institutes providing technical education as on July 2014 which includes engineering, Pharma, Architectural and other technical institutions.

Number of Graduates in India

During the year 2013 to 1014, close to 1.75 million undergraduates and half a million of post-graduates have completed their education in India. Apart from these graduates, there are also other non-technical institutes offering graduation to several millions across the country. Source: icec.co.in

Advantages in Indian Education System

Multiple choices

There are various types of curriculum and syllabus available in India’s education system such as Sate-Board, Matriculation and CBSE. Though there are differences in terms of complexity and quality, they are all limited up to higher secondary education. Parents can choose the best as per child’s knowledge.

Discipline Along with Education

In India, schools and colleges are not just a place to learn math and science, but also discipline and respect. Indian schools are well known for teaching excellent morals to children at a very tender age.

World class educational Institutes

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) is one of renowned institutes in the world, offering world class quality education. Getting into IIT involves incredible competition along with intelligence and dedication. Aspirants must get highest score possible in Join Entrance Examination (JEE) to get a seat in one of the 15 IITs located across several states in India.

In 2012 over 5 lakhs appeared for the exam whereas the total number of seats available were less than 10,000. It’s like 53 students competing for each seat. Source: Times of India

The reason for such competition is because of the quality of education and on-campus offers from Fortune 100 companies such as Samsung, Google, and Apple etc. At the end of the course itself these companies are ready to pay up to INR 73 lakhs per year ($137,000) for IIT students. Source: NDTV

Disadvantages in Indian Education System

Reservation System

Reservation Quotas in Indian education system acts a major hurdle for most of the aspiring students. Though many disputes are arising for the past 6 years. Indian Government is not ready to make any changes in terms of reservations.

Present caste-based reservation system of Union Government; Source: Wikipedia

Category as per Government of India	Reservation Percentage as per Government of India
Scheduled Castes (SC)	15%
Scheduled Tribes (ST)	7.50%
Other Backward Classes (OBC)	27%
Total constitutional reservation percentage	49.50%
General (Open to all including SC/ST and OBC)	50.50%

Cost of Education

Though the cost of education in comparatively less in government and aided schools and colleges, Private institutes charge way too high fee for students. One of the International Residential schools in Chennai, Tamilnadu charges from 3 lakhs to 4.75 lakhs a year from 2nd grade to 12th grade.

Moreover Private schools and colleges in India keeps Increasing their fee by 8% to 14% every year source: Forbes

Competitive Pressure

Indian parents take education way to seriously. They often force their children to be the topper in the school and sometimes in the state! This creates unwanted pressure in children’s mind. Though a student scores 93%, he or she might still be worried because the first mark is 95%. This state however is slowly diminishing. It becomes a usual new every year students committing suicide because of scoring low marks in their exams. Last year, around 6 students committed suicide in the state of Tamilnadu, because of their failure in class 12th public exams. Source: Times of India 

Language Barrier

Though government schools offer education at low cost along with incentives such as free uniforms and food, the quality of education and resources are no match to private institutes. Moreover these government institutes offer education in rural languages and English is one among the subjects as a language; these children when they get into college, suffer a lot because of this language barrier. Though they are able to score well because of the hard work, they are still unable to clear interviews.

Conclusion

As every coin has two sides, there are both pros and cons in Indian Education System. However people have started realizing the true value of education. Parents are ready to spend as much as possible for their children’s education. Government is taking various steps possible to promote education. The reputation of Indian Human Resources in international IT sectors keeps increasing every year. It is assured that Indian is trending in the right direction in terms of education.

Top 10 Husband Moments

1. Whenever a fight gets started with your wife

2. When your friends call you for a Party

3. When she leaves out of town for few days

4. Those forgotten Birthdays and Anniversaries

5. The face you make when you are caught drunk

6. It's fun at the beginning, But slowly you can say only "Yes"

7. When she starts talking about her Family

8. Whenever she says that you stopped loving her!!

9. When she tries to talk with her eyes

10. When you forget the Birthday Present...

Gifs Source: www.giphy.com

Business Process Automation in a Nutshell

What is it?

It’s simple to understand the meaning, if you split up the words “Business” “Process” “Automation” if you automate any process in any business in such a way that it happens automatically without human intervention, that too with at most accuracy and optimal speed, that’s called as Business Process Automation (BPA)

Is there any examples?

I can think of hundreds of real time examples, let’s discuss a very simple example:

Example 1:

During those good old days, when we went to a hospital, there will usually be a Nurse standing right outside the Doctor’s room and she will have a notebook and a pen to write down the names of the patients in the order they come in, so that she can people inside in a first come first served basis.

Well! But what are the cons in this process?

·         She might miss a name while unable to manage the crowd

·         If her friends/relatives happen to come in, she might bypass some of the other patients who are already waiting to send her friends/relatives inside.

·         She might have to hit the restroom; meanwhile a couple of patients will walk-in directly, while others were still waiting for her to call them.  

·         She cannot do anything else (e.g. assist doctor) as she has to be there all the time!

·         The worst of all, Doctor has to pay her wages month on month for just this job L

But nowadays, BANG!!!

These “Token Machines” helped us to overcome all those cons mentioned above; it’s just one time expenditure. The only probable problem is if the machine malfunctions (very rare though). However, companies manufacturing these kinds of machines are ready to offer instant and free service during the first couple of years!

Example 2:

In one of the government sectors, where people submit their applications to get permits for their Cars, the application has to be reviewed by three different officers at grades ‘C’, ‘B’ and ‘A’.

Once the Officer at grade C reviews it, he will sign it and leave it on his table, the attender must carry the applications and place it on the table of Officer at grade B for his review, once it is done, the applications must be moved to the desk of Officer at grade A. Once all three of them sign-off an application, the Permit is granted for a Car.

What problems might arise here?

·         All of them, must work at same pace, if any one of them is not available on a particular day, the next day he has to sign-off lot many applications, whereas other two will be idle (considering Office at grade C is on leave)

·         The attender must be keen to move applications from one table to another table on-time

·         There is a possibility that the attender might move a wrong stack of applications

·         It’s a time consuming process to find who is accountable for a mistake (if happens)

Nowadays, we have this software to manage application cascading based on layered approach, if one officer approves, the application will be automatically moved to other Officer’s queue and also generates a reminder email to him. No need of this “Attender” guy at all.

These are the simplest BPAs that I can think of. Nowadays, there are millions of such machines have replaced humans, increasing productivity, offering 24*7 availability with improved speed and accuracy, other examples include:

Simpler Examples

·         ATMs

·         Metal detectors at airports

·         Automated Doors at Restaurants

·         Access Enabled Doors

·         Amazon drones!!

Complex Examples

·         Order Tracking Systems

·         ERP Suites

·         CRM Software

·         Payroll Processing Software

·         Content Management System

·         Data sharing software (e.g. SharePoint)

Think, I have missed anything? or need more clarification?, let me know in comments.