Why Digital Transformations Fails

Organizations are all feeling the sudden and increased urgency of digital transformation.  But there’s still a lack of clarity on what digital transformation actually means.  Definitions vary widely between companies and within companies. Me thinking, when a term can be stretched to mean just about anything, it starts to mean nothing. Urgency without clarity can be a risky combination.

The biggest challenge in today’s world is the language related to digital transformation. The term has been co-opted by every IT marketing person selling anything from personality  to followers.

Around the world, organizations are spending about a trillion dollars a year on digital transformation. Seventy percent of those transformations fail. I believe that this is happening because language prevents business and public sector owners from setting the right end goal. It also prevents them from following a very disciplined approach to getting there.

A report last year from CompleteSpectrum showed a confusing mix of definitions of digital transformation from senior leaders.  These senior leaders only agreed on one thing — 94% reported that digital transformation was high on their list of priorities.  

I think it makes sense that digital transformation will vary for a bank versus a university versus a toothpaste brand, but it’s critical for teams within an organization to have clarity.

What i want to do is to be precise and talk about technology which is at the heart of digital transformation.  

How AI (Artificial Intelligence) is set to transform digital marketing this year

Digital marketing is an ever-changing landscape, thanks to the strides in digital technology. The prevalence of smartphones and tablets, along with internet penetration, have added more power to digital marketing. Going digital means using the entire gamut of technologies - from the use of artificial intelligence to wearables. It’s no longer just about having a website or email marketing.

As a brand, making an impact on every customer (internal or external), and opening up multiple channels of communication for customers is no more a luxury, but a necessity.

Businesses know that the present and future of marketing is undoubtedly digital. Millennials and Gen Z-ers are living in a digital age — using smart devices to work, party, commute, and play. In fact, the boundaries between what constitutes marketing and smart devices and technology are a blur, and the medium has become the message.

Bots for company

What trends should marketers be eyeing right now to get their message across? Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already become an intrinsic part of our lives without us paying too much attention to it. Google’s machine learning algorithms are at work when you search and get a satisfactory answer. Similarly, Facebook uses algorithms that learn from what we read or watch. There are intelligent tools that generate and curate content or provide an enhanced user experience on websites.

Programmatic advertising

Another area of significance for digital marketing is programmatic advertising. Programmatic advertising is essentially serving advertisements to targeted and specific users by using data. When AI is integrated into the process, programmatic ad placement can only get better. Natural language processing (NLP) has the potential to understand the message and real meaning of a specific piece of content and see how an ad can be an ideal match for that content.

Going personal

Observe how every trend is geared towards addressing the customer as if they are the only ones the brand is talking to. Personalised messaging is the biggest trend the digital marketing world is seeing and will see in the near future. This could be in the form of personalised notifications on apps, personalised emails, content, banners, etc. Just log into your groceries app or a video streaming service, and you will know all about personalisation. Your Netflix recommendations or follow suggestions on social media are also based on your own history and use patterns.

How To Choose The Right ERP Deployment Destination

Should you run your ERP system on-premise or in the cloud? Which approach is best for your business? If you’re tasked with formulating the IT strategy for your company, the advice on offer can seem conflicting and less than helpful.

Well, sorry to muddy the waters a bit more, but the truth is, it’s not a straightforward choice between cloud or on-premise deployment. There are numerous models, combinations, and hybrid solutions to consider. However, rest assured that your organization can find the right fit.

Over the coming weeks, i will be looking at the pros and cons of the available deployment approaches. Let’s start by looking at the three categories of deployment destination.

Public cloud

A public cloud service is potentially the most economical, because the service providers host many organizations on the same stack:

• Physical infrastructure (including utilities, security, and disaster recovery)
• Operating systems (OS)
• Database systems (DBMS)
• Application systems (the ERP application itself)

Although your data is kept separate, you share everything else with other customers.

Because your software vendor manages the infrastructure and application for you, you can get up and running quickly and scale up or down when needs change. With regular updates managed by the software provider, you can take advantage of the latest features and innovations without getting bogged down with maintenance. And with subscription-based licensing and no need to purchase hardware, this option requires minimal up-front investment and predictable costs that can usually be accounted for as an operating expense rather than a fixed asset.

Standardized ERP packages enable you to implement best-practice, streamlined processes across every business function, including finance, HR, customer relationship management, and supply chain logistics. As a result of all this, public cloud is often the best choice for startups, smaller companies, and subsidiaries.

The same standardization that drives down costs, however, also leads to less flexibility. Public cloud ERP will typically not allow modifications or support all industry-specific workflows or the varying processes of individual business units. Some organizations might not even be able to run ERP according to a standardized approach.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

Another option is to run ERP on an infrastructure provider such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, or Google Cloud Platform. They provide the physical infrastructure and leave the OS, DBMS, and ERP to you. In other words, you share the physical infrastructure running your applications, but your organization is the sole user of the database and ERP software. Essentially, you go public in one part and private in the other.

In this case, your organization is responsible for software setup, maintenance, and updates. Why would you want to take on this work when there are vendors that will manage it for you? Because you have more control. For example, updates typically happen every quarter with public cloud ERP. This might seem like a good thing at first, but perhaps your organization cannot absorb such rapid change with ERP. Also, you might want to run industry solutions not available in the public cloud, or customize processes beyond what public cloud can support. Instead, you can manage the updates and customize processes according to specific business needs.

While it won’t be as economical as the public cloud, running ERP on IaaS allows you to commoditize infrastructure, yet maintain almost as much control as an on-premise deployment.

On-premise

If you want complete control, an on-premise deployment is for you: You’re in charge of managing your entire ERP environment from the physical layer on up. You can adapt the software as required to respond to the business, and customize it to fit processes intrinsic to your industry and business units.

With this more traditional approach, of course, the responsibility to deploy and maintain the software and IT infrastructure is up to you, with or without the help of a third-party systems integrator. And it is more difficult to scale the system up or down.

There’s another variation on this theme to keep in mind: using a hosted data center offered by a company like IBM or HP. With this, you outsource the physical layer to get capabilities beyond what your own IT team can provide, especially with disaster recovery. Many companies also offer various application management packages as well, to perform maintenance and upgrades with more efficiency than you could do on your own.

Keeping your options open

While it might indeed seem complicated, once you weigh the options and consult with your stakeholders, you can map the strategy that’s right for your organization. A way to simplify all this for ERP is to consider your choices over five major dimensions:

	Public Cloud	Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)	On-Premise/Hosted
Economics	Best	Better	Most costly
Business processes	Core processes, standardized	All processes	All processes
Customization	Within boundaries only	Open for ERP, within boundaries for infrastructure	Completely open
Maintenance	Done by vendor	Done by vendor and customer	Done by customer
Innovation pace	Quarterly updates, done by vendor	Annual updates, done by customer	Annual updates, done by customer

What’s right for one part of the business may not work for another. Many companies create a multi-tier environment, combining two or more deployment methods in a hybrid approach. For example, an organization might run subsidiaries on public cloud, but on-premise for headquarters.

What’s crucial is that the solutions work together. But beware: Many don’t.

Look for ERP that offers consistency in the code line, data model, and user experience, whether you choose cloud or on-premise. Your employees, whether based in an overseas subsidiary or the head office, should have the same user experience and be able to share information, run reports in the same format, and follow the same steps to complete tasks. This way, you can eliminate organizational silos and establish an integrated digital foundation for the future.

Here Are The 5 Microsoft Skills Data Analysts Need To Know

Microsoft programs are so commonplace in most business environments that sometimes being incredibly proficient in their use can be overlooked. Despite spending more time than you’d like to think about using Excel and Powerpoint, there are a ton of tips and tricks you’re likely not using yet. If you know how to dig deep into advanced functionalities with these programs, you'll vastly improve the way you do your work.

If you work with data regularly, you'll find the Microsoft Data Analysis Bundle incredibly helpful to your everyday workflow. And even if you don't crunch numbers for a living, being a data-driven employee and candidate only increases your value and employability. This shows you how to use Microsoft Power BI, Advanced Excel, Advanced VBA and Advanced Microsoft Access with total proficiency.

More specifically, these are a few of the skills to learn:

How to make your data interactive: Spreadsheets can do more than help you organize information. One of the best use cases of Advanced Excel is automating the development of advanced graphs, creating a visual that's powerful enough to be actionable from a business standpoint.

How to develop compelling data visuals: Data can tell a story and Microsoft Power BI gives you ways to present your data in compelling formats, performing complex data modeling relationships and generating dashboards that you can share with colleagues and clients.

How to automate complex tasks: We all have to do mundane, tedious tasks sometimes. With Advanced VBA, you can write and implement Excel events, which automates these tasks. It's also CPDUK-accredited, so it looks good on your resume (especially when you say you're a lifetime learner).

How to hone advanced techniques: Whether you have a basic knowledge of Microsoft programs or consider yourself a power user, there are ways to streamline your workflow and be more efficient with your time. Using Microsoft Access, you'll learn how to create and maintain macros and even discover advanced options for the use of forms.

How to solve complex problems: Whether you're a data analyst or just want to find ways to use data to do your job more efficiently, this bundle helps you find ways to use Excel to figure out answers to complex business problems, whatever they might be.

Digital Transformation will kill ERP

It is a strong statement but at this time nothing is more certain than change. When giant corporations are created from a basement in San Francisco or a student hall in Harvard, it is not hard to question the future of a software. If Digital Transformation can “disintegrate” enterprises why could not destroy a concept? 

Forget about ERP and the way we run enterprises for years, despite technological changes, everything is kept in a book. The book of transactions called general ledger. Payable, receivables, cash flow, fixed assets and purchasing.

Why? In a simple sentence? Because we need to know if we can take money home! And does not matter if is a small-one-owner or a large shared public company. It is the same. But if there is not a centralised book? We need to know if we can take the money home still. But if there is no money? 

It is a technology for a new generation of transactional applications that establishes trust, accountability and transparency while streamlining business processes.

It is a design pattern made famous by bitcoin the reason I used in this text but its application go far beyond. With it, we can re-imagine the world’s most fundamental business interactions and open the door to invent new styles of digital interactions.

It has the potential to vastly reduce the cost and complexity of cross-enterprise business processes. The distributed ledger makes it easier to create cost-efficient business networks where virtually anything of value can be tracked and traded—without requiring a central point of control.” 

Edge Computing vs. Cloud Computing: What’s the Difference?

You are likely hearing a new term now, edge computing. Technologists (and the press, let’s be honest) we to throw a word around before it is well-defined, and in that vacuum come a variety of guessed definitions, of varying accuracy.

The term cloud computing is now as firmly lodged in our technical lexicon as email and Internet, and the concept has taken firm hold in business as well. According to my observation “no cloud” policy will be as prevalent in business as a “no Internet” policy. Which is to say no one who wants to stay in business will be without one.

Edge computing is a term you are going to hear more of in the coming years because it precedes another term you will be hearing a lot, the Internet of Things (IoT). You see, the formally adopted definition of edge computing is a form of technology that is necessary to make the IoT work.

And again as a victim of the same, let me brand edge computing is a “mesh network of micro data centers that process or store critical data locally and push all received data to a central data center or cloud storage repository, in a footprint of less than 100 square feet.” I think I did not lose you.

Meet Edge Computing, processing data at the edge of the network  where it is taken in has a number of benefits, starting with reducing the latency and makes connected applications more responsive and robust. Some applications might need immediate response, such as a sensor for failing equipment or for detecting a break-in.

It also takes the computation load off the data center if data can be processed and reacted upon at the point of origin rather than making the round trip to and from the data center. So it reduces the burden on both the data center and the network.

You may hear edge computing referred to by other names than micro data centers. They include fog computing and cloudlets. Fog computing, or “fogging,” is a term used to described a decentralized computing infrastructure that extends the cloud to the edge of the network.

Cloudlets are mobility-enhanced micro data centers located at the edge of a network and serve the mobile or smart device portion of the network. They are designed to handle resource-intensive mobile apps and take the load off both the network and the central data center and keep computing close to the point of origin.

HADES (High-fidelity Adaptive Deception & Emulation System) an alternate reality that thwarts hackers by tricking them into believing attack worked

Cyberspace has become the new frontier for next-generation battle. As hackers launch more sophisticated attacks, security researchers are racing against time to develop effective cyber defences. Now, experts have developed a new system that could deter hackers like never before. HADES (High-fidelity Adaptive Deception & Emulation System) is the new next-gen cyber-defensive system – an "alternate reality" that has been designed to trick hackers into exposing their tools and techniques by making them believe that their attacks are progressing successfully.

HADES is the brainchild of security researchers at Sandia National Laboratories. It is essentially a system, which clones the targeted environment a hacker aims to breach. When an attack isdiscovered, instead of immediately cutting off a hacker's access into the system, the attacker is lured into HADES. The alternate reality provided by HADES allows the hacker is to carry out the attack, without alerting him/her about already having been detected.

HADES also provides security experts with a unique opportunity to analyse hackers' techniques and tools in real time.

"Deception is the future of cyber defense," security researcher Vince Urias, who along with his team, created HADES, said in a statement. "Simply kicking a hacker out is next-to-useless. The hacker has asymmetry on his side; we have to guard a hundred possible entry points and a hacker only needs to penetrate one to get in."

So, a hacker may report to his handler that he or she has cracked our system and will be sending back reports on what we're doing. Let's say they spent 12 months gathering info. When they realize we've altered their reality, they have to wonder: at what point did their target start using deception, at what point should they not trust the data? They may have received a year or so of false information before realizing something is wrong," Urias explains.

By the time the attackers eventually figures out that something is wrong, they would have already exposed their methods and tools. "Then he's like a goldfish fluttering in a bowl," Urias said , "He exposes his techniques and we see everything he does."

However, HADES has one disadvantage – the more complex the deceptive environment, the more CPU power and memory resources required to deploy the system.

HADES has already allowed security experts to locate malware introduced into a system by an attacker and is capable of active attack. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is working with Sandia to deploy it.

The unique system may be helpful in barricading against threats, while simultaneously gathering information on adversaries.

Why the Anti-Bitcoin is Loved by Banks and Hated by The Internet

Ripple is revolutionizing international finance by making it possible to transfer money around the world within seconds. Ripple’s innovative use of blockchain technology has excited major financial institutions such as American Express and Standard Chartered. By bridging the gap between Bitcoin and traditional finance, Ripple has also become a figure of hate for many within the world of cryptocurrency. 

With all the hype surrounding cryptocurrencies these days, surprisingly little mainstream media attention has been focused on Ripple. This is despite Ripple having a market cap of almost $10 billion, making it the fourth largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum. Ripple’s market cap is more than double that of Dash and Litecoin and around four times larger than Monero and Neo.

Ripple is also much more stable than most cryptocurrencies. While it has seen some huge swings in its valuation, Ripple experiences far less volatility than almost any other cryptocurrency

Unlike most cryptocurrencies, Ripple has the backing of many major financial institutions. American Express is one its most recent supporters. Santander and Standard Chartered are two of many big banks who’ve been on board longer. But when Ripple is mentioned on cryptocurrency forums and in comment sections, it attracts stronger criticism than any other coin.

Creating the Internet of Value

Ripple’s connection to major financial institutions is part of the reason it’s hated by many in the cryptocurrency world. Many of Bitcoin’s early adopters are hardcore libertarians who see crypto as the ultimate escape from government and corporate control of financial markets. They see Ripple as an existential threat to everything that Bitcoin stands for.

But Bitcoin is no longer the rebellious outsider it was a few years ago. Until recently, Bitcoin’s primary function was facilitating sales of illegal goods on the dark net. Governments have since gotten a lot better at tracing Bitcoin payments. Cryptocurrencies such as Monero offer much stronger anonymity and are now much more likely to be used for transactions of questionable legality. Big money has already moved into cryptocurrency. This trend will only grow as Bitcoin futures begin trading on Wall Street.

Ripple isn’t an alternative to Bitcoin. Ripple is instead a tool that massively increases Bitcoin’s usefulness as a form of currency. It has been designed with the purpose of moving and converting money as easily and cheaply as possible. Its natural customers are therefore big banks.

A Bridge Between Blockchain and Fiat

In its earliest form, Ripple predates the creation of Bitcoin by several years. It was first conceived in 2004 by Ryan Fugger, a Canadian web developer with experience working for a local currency exchange. Early iterations of Ripple found little success, but the project and team expanded quickly once Bitcoin had shown the possibility of blockchain and distributed ledger technology to facilitate financial transactions.

While it operates on similar underlying principles to Bitcoin, Ripple was expressly intended to be different than Bitcoin in several important ways. Transactions on the Ripple network are verified by consensus in a similar way to Bitcoin’s proposed Segwit2x hard fork. Scarcity is built into Ripple in a way that is almost opposite to Bitcoin. Where Bitcoin is mined with increasing difficulty until 21 million coins are in circulation, Ripple was launched with all one hundred billion XRP in circulation. Every time a transaction is conducted, a small amount of XRP is destroyed forever.

The most important difference between Ripple and most alt-coins is that Ripple is intended to supplement rather than supplant Bitcoin. Ripple is designed to facilitate the transfer of any currency, from US Dollars and Euros to Bitcoin and Ethereum. It can even be used to transfer token-like items such as air miles. One of the biggest problems facing Bitcoin is a slowdown in transaction speeds as network activity increases. Ripple overcomes this problem by allowing instant transfer of Bitcoin over its network.

While much of the attention online focuses on Ripple’s connection to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Ripple’s effect on transfers of fiat currency is likely to be even more revolutionary. Bitcoin transfers are slow compared to other cryptocurrencies but they are lightening-quick compared to traditional international payments, which can take as much as a week to clear. Ripple reduces typical wait times of around four days to just four seconds.

The Future of International Finance

Ripple is at the forefront of technological development in the incredibly lucrative cross-border payment space. The deep connections between Ripple and major financial institutions mean it is likely to retain its enviable position as the bridge between the brave new world of cryptocurrencyand the staid old world of traditional finance.

Whenever cryptocurrency skeptics cast doubt on the long-term potential of something within the blockchain space, they typically point to a lack of real utility underlying the value of digital assets. However, it’s clear that central banks and major financial institutions recognize Ripple has incredible utility value. 

Ripple, therefore, has the potential to massively increase the ease and speed of global trade. Its connection to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies lends the space both utility and legitimacy. There is no longer any question of whether Ripple has the potential to shake up the world of finance. The only question is just how quickly the Ripple revolution is going to take place.

How hybrid cloud helps businesses to be more productive

The two most well-known types of cloud computing are the public cloud and the private cloud.

A public cloud is one that is entirely operated by a third party. Your data is stored away in a remote server, and all software and hardware necessary for the operation are handled and owned by the provider.

While the architecture of a private cloud may not be worlds apart from its public counterpart, the main difference is that the server is reserved exclusively for your business. The data centre may be on location at your business or kept by the provider.

Both iterations have their own advantages and limitations – however, providers have recognised there is demand for a combination of these traits. This is where the hybrid cloud comes into play. A hybrid cloud gives you the best of both the public and the private cloud worlds due to interlinking technology that allows transfer of data and applications between both types of servers, maximizing flexibility, scalable elasticity and methods of deployment.

Working with two interconnected servers – one public and one private – provides more than the simple ability to parse data out into different servers. It gives you the scalable elasticity and management efficiency of the public one combined with the speed, customisation, and on top of all, the security of the private one. Then, it’s just a matter of choosing which server is better suited for a particular task.

However, that doesn’t mean you’re stuck with a fixed choice. Cloud bursting allows for data to be moved around across servers, especially when a spike in demand requires you to move it to a public one.

At a time when modern business ethics and expectations don’t allow for internet connection failure as a justifiable excuse, unhindered access to data allowing for business continuity is a crucial factor. This doesn’t mean that you’ll have a contingency plan in case of server failures; it simply means the ability to continue doing work even during an unprecedented disaster with no down time. By replicating data from primary servers onto a secondary remote one, such business-crippling issues can be nipped without missing a beat.

Cost is another factor many businesses take into consideration. Owning a private data centre implies capital expenditure for hardware, staffing, power, research, installation, upkeep, and maintenance, and all of this for equipment that will eventually become obsolete and need replacement.

The issue of costs extends itself to concept testing, as a hybrid cloud environment allows for prototyping and testing before actual deployment.

Scaling resources is also an area for which hybrid cloud services can cut down on costs, while also increasing efficiency and the need to make predictions amidst fluctuating variables. When workloads require customised formatting and scalability of resources, hybrid clouding ratchets these settings up or down depending on the business demands, optimising the workload environment accordingly.

With hybrid cloud technology rising in popularity, both the businesses adopting this technology and the providers are turning more towards an OpEx (operating expense) funding model instead of a CapEx (capital expense) one. By opting for a SaaS (Solution as a Service) vendor such as BMIT, businesses have the option to scale the level of functionality in accordance with company growth rate, without having to invest more time and money in restructuring data management methods.

Speed of connectivity is one more key player, and business continuity mentioned earlier is but one reason. Time taken to connect with subject markets is also reduced, making it easier for your business to release tailor-made products or campaigns into the right channels in double time. Taking things one step back, even prototyping and testing we’ve touched upon earlier get an extra gear. Spinning up the right environment for application or product-testing becomes a reality thanks to hybrid cloud technology. All of this can otherwise be bogged down by unreliable public internet connections that act temperamental without forewarning.

Let’s suppose that despite the attractive features hybrid cloud technology offers, you still lean towards the public cloud option. So, which public cloud is best? How do you handle network security and resilience, and what’s the best way to configure your setup? In addition to offering a locally-hosted public cloud set-up, BMIT also offers an alternative platform designed to cater for specialised needs called multicloud connect.

Multicloud connect serves as a liaison between your business and a cluster of major public clouds, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and many more, connecting you to all of them simultaneously. It does this by running your data through BMIT’s own secure private network. It also takes care of all setup, configuration, and after-services you may require down the road. This implies improved performance, enhanced security, and lower latency thanks to the direct private connection.

We’ve only skimmed the surface of what hybrid cloud as well as multicloud connect technologies are bringing to the field of data storage and management. There is very little doubt that bespoke technologies are rising in popularity amongst businesses, and this along with individual business needs is undoubtedly nudging service providers such as BMIT to optimise and stay on top of things.

And now that you are more aware of what’s out there, it’s worth reiterating our earlier question: which cloud technology is best for you and your business?

Are you making the most of cloud for your digital transformation?

The key to capitalizing on cloud is to stop talking tech and demonstrate the business value for your organization.

People adopt cloud for reasons like efficiency and velocity, but they need to focus on the capability it can bring to your organization. It has features and functions that the organization may not have on premise and would otherwise take a significant investment to achieve.

Cloud is the hottest technology trend. However, cloud computing services related to the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence rated lower in terms of the perceived return on investment.

IT Teams should develop a matrix showing how cloud services could be used to benefit the business. As well, a non-technical storyboard on how technology could improve a ‘day-in-the life’ of the company can show concrete benefits to business leaders.

Here is a practice that has seen massive success in Cloud Computing. The Azure cloud services deliver business value.

Simplify backup & disaster recovery

Traditional backup solutions are resource intensive and complex so it means that important data that should be backed up may not actually be backed up.

With Azure Backup, the infrastructure and management is handled by Microsoft. All the company has to do is set up its backup policies. Backup servers can be deployed on-site or in the cloud to support hybrid or on-premises environments. Similarly, if an organization has an existing backup solution, it can continue to leverage that investment by using the Azure Vault for storage to take advantage of the flexibility and cost savings of cloud.

To protect against disasters, Azure Site Recovery automatically replicates an organization’s virtual machines. If disaster strikes, services can be quickly restored according to a predetermined plan. Organizations only pay for the storage, a license per protected workload and compute time used during the disaster. From a business perspective, “it allows for huge cost savings for disaster recovery because you no longer have to run another hot data centre.” It also makes disaster recovery more feasible for smaller businesses that otherwise might not have that capability.

Automate your infrastructure

Over time, there is often some tinkering with the settings on infrastructure components like virtual machines and load balancers, resulting in configuration drift. When the configuration of every component becomes unique, it’s more time consuming to manage and more likely to cause errors.

The answer is infrastructure as code. It uses stored definition files or templates to automatically provision and manage the infrastructure. It protects against misconfiguration or tinkering by monitoring the settings with alerts about changes, and can even revert things back to the original state. It’s more predictable and avoids manual errors.

It sounds technical but it can have a big impact on business transformation. By giving an organization the ability to automatically spin up services in a reliable and consistent way, they can respond faster to customer needs.

IoT Platform Market To Grow in the Coming Years.

The global Internet of Things (ToT) platform market is moderately competitive. With a handful number of players, the market is still said to be in its nascent stage. Analysts anticipate that the competition is likely to intensity in the coming years due to increasing investment in research and development and introduction of intellectual property such as patents. Some of the leading players in the global market are Microsoft Corporation, Google Inc., PTC Inc., and IBM Corporation.

Demand for Better Connectivity Opens Up Tremendous Opportunities for Global IoT Platform Market

The growing demand for internet and seamless connectivity has been driving the global IoT platform market in recent years. The market’s growth has also been supported by the improved connection speed over the last few years. Today, IoT platforms have become an integral part of the industrial as well as domestic setups. Improved accessibility to information and actions through cloud has accelerated the uptake of IoT platform over the years. The biggest advantage of cloud is that data can be accessed from anywhere and at any time.

 Furthermore, the fact that it requires minimal investment is likely to propel market’s growth in the coming years. The decreasing cost of internet has made it affordable to many. This trend has especially supported the rise of the global IoT platform market.

The growing penetration of mobile phones and various other PDAs have also made a fair contribution to the soaring revenue of the global IoT platform market. These devices have enabled greater flexibility while controlling other devices on the IoT platform. Features such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and infrared have enabled an inherent connectivity for smartphones and other PDAs. Owing to these reasons, IoT platforms have been able to penetrate at a rapid rate in recent years. The terrific advancement in production of IoT sensors, their increasing affordability, and their optimum size are also expected to support market growth in the coming years.

Threat of Cyber-attacks Dampens Market Spirit

Despite the advantage of using IoT platform, the global market continues to face certain challenges such as the high possibility of losing data to cyber-attack. The growing concerns about software, network, or encryption are expected to restrain the growth of the overall market in the coming years. The lack of awareness about IoT platforms, especially in the developing regions, is also expected to dampen the spirit of the market in the near future.

The IoT Platform market has been segmented as below:

The IoT Platform Market, By Deployment

• On-Premise
• Cloud

The IoT Platform Market, By Application

• Inventory Management
• Human Capital Management
• Customer Service
• Enterprise Performance Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Infrastructure Management
• Other (Security, Asset Performance Management)

The IoT Platform by Industry

• Retail
• Healthcare
• BFSI
• Oil and Gas
• Transportation and Logistics
• Manufacturing
• Government and Defense
• Energy
• Other (Education, Hospitality)

The Boy Genius Behind the $28.5 Billion Cryptocurrency Ethereum

Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin

There are tons of twentysomething entrepreneurs all over the world, undoubtedly coding up the Next Big Thing this very moment.

And then there's Vitalik Buterin.

Unlike most men his age -- or any age, for that matter -- Buterin, 23, has invented a new kind of money, called Ethereum. It's currently worth $28.5 billion in total, growing all the time (with the occasional plunge to keep things interesting). Ethereum is a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, made up of digital tokens called ether. As with all cryptocurrencies, people are primarily using it as a speculative investment asset.

For the crypto-impaired, Buterin's invention differs from Bitcoin in a few key ways. For starters, Ethereum acts as a decentralized computing system for all kinds of applications, allowing key data to be recorded on the blockchain. (The point of using a blockchain instead of a normal database is that no one can unilaterally make changes; consensus has to be established across the entire network.) Ethereum's existence is largely responsible for the recent surge of ICOs, some of which have raised hundreds of millions of dollars.

Unlike the creator of Bitcoin -- who was an unknown person or group of people going by the name Satoshi Nakamoto -- Buterin is very much present. He attends conferences and maintains a lively Twitter presence.

Not that Buterin isn't enigmatic and eccentric in his own right. Word on the street is that Buterin is the kind of prolific traveler who is barely able to spend time at home. (His Twitter bio lists his location as "Earth." @VitalikButerin) He has dual reputations for being a very, very smart guy, especially when it comes to math, and simultaneously an odd duck. He likes cat purses and unicorn sweaters, for instance.

The next generation of Radio-Frequency Identification ( RFID) technology

Asset management is one of the key applications, Users want to control their assets, keep track of where they are, and reduce shrink of assets and the inventory they're associated with. RFID may have finally found its niche where supply chain operations are concerned. Rather than simply tracking inventory, it can be put to higher uses, like serving as the enabling technology for sophisticated data collection initiatives

Companies looking to track supply chain assets had just two options when it came to RFID tags.

The first option was the passive RFID tag, with passive RFID tags users need an infrastructure of readers and software to gather the information encoded in the tags. That's because passive tags lack an internal power source and cannot transmit a signal. In order to collect the tags' data, users must scan them with a handheld reader within a 10-foot range or pass them through a fixed-read zone like a tollbooth portal.

Option two was the active RFID tag, which contain their own power supply, are capable of transmitting signals that can be read from as far as 50 to 100 feet away. Those signals can be detected by stationary readers with overlapping coverage areas, then triangulated to pin down the tag's location.

Now, a third option is emerging, that combines some of the best features of active and passive tags. Known as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), the technology was originally developed for smartphones, so the signal can be read by consumer devices that run on the iOS and Android operating systems.

The standard was first deployed for "location-aware services," such as retail applications in which tags affixed to store shelves beam discount offers to the smartphones of passing shoppers. But BLE tags have since been ruggedized to meet industrial standards for shock, temperature, vibration, and battery life. And since they communicate on the common wireless standard used in consumer mobile devices, they require far less infrastructure investment than other tracking technologies do.

Interest in RFID and BLE is particularly strong among retail industry distribution operations that are struggling to fill e-commerce orders within ever-tighter time windows.

For these types of facilities, asset tracking is mainly a matter of ensuring that workers can lay their hands on the warehouse tools and equipment they need in their daily operations—items that can be easily misplaced when running at full steam. A shortage of even the most basic totes, carts, or pallets can throw a wrench in the works of a fast-paced e-commerce fulfillment operation. With its low tag costs, passive RFID offers users a way to improve the tracking of those basic assets.

In contrast, active RFID is a better match for a facility that's looking to track moving assets both inside the facility and out in the yard. This is great for classic warehouse applications where real-time location is a step up from the level of visibility you have with warehouse management systems, which only know the last location you scanned.

In response to the growing interest in RFID-enabled asset tracking, some vendors are shifting their focus from ways of making tags cheaper to ways of making tags smarter. That is, they're manufacturing tags that are capable of determining much more about each asset than just its location. As part of that effort, RFID suppliers have begun outfitting their tags with sensors, software, microprocessors, and batteries.

Typically deployed on large assets like lift trucks, intermodal containers, trailers, chassis, and rental cars, these tags can bypass handheld readers, beaming data directly back to a central network via Wi-Fi, cellular network, or satellite signal. In line with the growing popularity of the Internet of Things, this method tracks asset data through a tag-to-system model instead of the standard tag-to-reader approach.

Among other data, these long-range tags can collect information on odometer mileage, fleet usage, dwell time, and transit time for moving assets such as forklifts and chassis. By graphing the results and comparing the statistics with industry benchmarks, users can analyze the data with an eye toward eliminating extraneous vehicles, scheduling needed maintenance, and identifying savings opportunities.

Why Artificial Intelligence is here to Stay

Becoming a cloud-centric technology company is a given nowadays for companies that consider themselves future-ready. The question is hence, not whether a company is operating in the cloud, but what level of sophistication they have reached in their cloud endeavors. This is because the cloud is being enriched by incorporating other emerging technologies, especially machine learning. There is no doubt that contemporary cloud networks will be more intelligent than ever. And companies must harness the power of the intelligent cloud to realize value.

Machine intelligence or artificial intelligence (AI) is one emerging technology in the enterprise space. Research-centric organizations are exploring ways and means to monetize it and add incremental value to businesses. The machines’ self-learning capabilities open up new avenues for customer engagement, sales lead generation, operational efficiency and so on. A potent combination is seen in the confluence of machine learning with cloud computing, both deriving from each other to help organizations develop a competitive edge across functions. Some AI applications that help us in day to day corporate operations include the following areas:

 Business Intelligence: Machine learning is a useful input for BI, and bringing machine learning closer to enterprise data warehouse will help data-backed decision-making. These AI-driven insights will add value across functions such as CRM, ERP, SCM, MRP, HR, sales, and finance. Companies are foregoing traditional enterprise platforms and embracing these.

Internet of Things (IoT): The IoT revolution is taking a new turn towards data-driven cloud platforms, where machine learning capabilities help make sense of the massive amounts of data. For example, machine learning will find extensive application in Industrial IoT, wherein predictive maintenance is an important use case. The idea is to use Multiple Machine Learning algorithms in parallel to create the best intelligence capabilities for smart industries. Microsoft Azure IoT Suite and IBM Watson IoT are the two dominant solutions in this field.

Personal Assistants: With advanced machine learning capabilities, voice-based personal assistants are set to become more powerful than ever. These are equipped with the intelligence to learn quickly and effectively from past interactions, tracking usage trends and thereby offering a customized experience to the user. Some of the popular examples of AI-based personal assistants are Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, Google Assistant, and Microsoft Cortana.

Cognitive computing: This field involves adding sensory capabilities to intelligent systems i.e. the ability to see, listen, talk, and take decisions and so on. The basis for this is a number of hi-tech arenas such as natural language processing, face detection, visual recognition, text to speech, speech to text, video analytics, language translation, sentiment analysis etc. The basis for all these capabilities is machine learning (ML). Developers build cognitive APIs to create these man-to-machine interactions. Current market examples include Amazon AI, IBM Watson, Google Cloud and Microsoft Cognitive API.

Bots-as-a-Service: Move over mobile engagement, businesses are now turning to interactive bots to engage with customers. The conversational experience is delivered by a machine learning-driven API which allows them to learn from previous interactions and respond effectively. What’s more, today’s bots are available across a wide range of platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Slack. The next best thing is their being available as a service. Market offerings that exist today are API.ai, IBM Watson Botkit and Microsoft Azure bot.

The future of banking and cyber security

The Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) has introduced a new product (CBA Loop) that targets young urban professionals who want to bank on the go while on their smartphone or computer. The account can be opened from an app, Android at the moment, and on the web.

Kenyan banks have been increasingly creating digital products geared at getting customers who do not want to visit bank branches and CBA are taking the same route. CBA is not new to digital finance products as they partnered with Safaricom to launch M-Pesa and thereafter launched the mobile digital loan product, M-shwari.

Somewhere else you do not needing your debit card to get cash is the way of the future. Or was it Bitcoin ATMs that were the way of the future? Hmm. We forgot. Either way, the future is totally here and it's totally cardless. " Instead of the old fashioned insert-a-card-into-the-machine routine, customers can use the Wells Fargo app to generate an eight-digit code. That code, plus a customer's PIN number, will allow the withdraw of cash.

Security certainly was a big aspect of the cardless feature and the two-step identification helps reduce the risk of fraud. Thanks to Wells Fargo the San Francisco-based company is giving its account holders a way to access their money at 13,000 Wells Fargo ATMs across the U.S. without the use of a physical ATM card. When can this be deployed in Africa? I really cant wait for the same.

Earlier in 2016 when Banks were continually taking steps to enhance security, Wells Fargo just took a big leap forward by announcing that they will start using a new biometric technology called eyeprint authentication from tech startup. The technology creates a digital map of a person's eye through a smartphone camera by analyzing unique details such as blood vessels. A user then logs in by holding the camera up to his or her eye, and the software matches their eye to the stored blueprint.

This comes when a hacking group known as "Turkish Crime Family" is threatening to wipe the devices of millions of iPhone users unless Apple pays them a hefty ransom. The hackers say that they have access to hundreds of millions of email addresses of people who use @icloud and @me domains, and they even allegedly uploaded a video on YouTube that shows them breaking into some users' accounts.

In Kenya we recently have faced such cyber crimes targeting government institutions and private firms but with the current technology threats, no firm is immune from the coming disruption and every company must have a strategy to harness the powerful advantages of the new fintech revolution.

Users are not save either, but to protect against these type of attacks, I always recommend that users always use strong passwords, not use those same passwords across sites, and turn on two-factor authentication. It's a good idea to make sure that your passwords are always unique and random, and that you have a different password for every site or app. It can be a pain to manage all those different passwords, but it's also extremely important to keep your online identity safe.