9 ways to get more value from business intelligence in 2018

1. Build real-time BI into your customer-facing services

Customers crave the latest information, especially for what they consider mission-critical systems and processes. So why not inject a little real-time BI into your services? Rackspace, a web hosting company, has done just that.

BI use is no longer limited to internal business users. In fact, BI data on systems is gradually becoming a vital part of the value proposition. If your IT unit has been looking for a way to add more value to the business, this Rackspace development suggests one approach. Build BI into customer-facing reports and products.

2. Bring unstructured data on board

For years, unstructured data was a lost cause. There was just no efficient way to go through this information, especially when structured customer and financial data was easy to use. Aflac, the insurance firm, has started a new program to extract this data.

3. Improve employee performance through BI

As a manager, it can often be difficult to decide which of your direct reports needs the most prompt help. Business intelligence tools can point you in the right direction, as Clearlink, a digital marketing and services firm, has found.

Better employee performance through BI also applies to the warehouse industry.This approach shows that business intelligence can be a proactive tool, rather than a historical record of past performance.

4. Cut time wasted on data gruntwork

At any large organization, the end of a quarter or month is marked by analysts grinding through Excel files. It is such a common practice that you may not think it is a problem. And the problem may be on the data collection and hygiene end. Thankfully, BI tools are arising to help with that. No more combing through Amazon.com for the publicly available data you need.

5. Improve customer service

In the online world, an angry customer does not stay quiet for long, a problem that can compound as it is amplified through social media. If customer dissatisfaction can be detected early through business intelligence, the problem can be addressed before it spreads widely.

When addressing service issues like warranty claims, be sure to consult with finance for cost-benefit analysis. Taking a short-term loss to make a customer happy may result in more orders in the future. IT can add value to these discussions by evaluating data quality and building easy-to-use BI tools for end users, especially those that may incorporate sentiment analysis of social media trends around your brand.

6. Predict new revenue streams

Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross became a quick best-seller among those interested in technology sales. Ross focuses on what salespeople and their managers can do to improve revenue predictability. IT can take a tip here and provide BI tools to aid in sales decisions such as which clients should be taken on.

7. Automate budgeting and forecasting

In financial management, moving away from spreadsheets to specialized tools can make a major difference.

“We were constantly using our rear-view mirror to make decisions about the future of the company,” says Christy Hrencher, director of marketing at Nextep. To solve this issue, Nextep turned to Adaptive Insights, a planning and budgeting tool. “Adaptive gave us the ability to involve the entire leadership team in the budgeting process. We now had a tool that gave everyone the ability to see where they stand against goals in real time. We’re no longer using spreadsheets, we’ve been able to automate our budgeting and forecasting process, and the data is available at any time.”

8. Embed BI into other platforms

Historically, BI tools required specialized expertise and applications. As a result, IT departments have traditionally owned responsibility for BI. That may be starting to change not only with self-service BI, but with the ability to embed BI directly into other platforms, as Clearlink’s use of Sisense shows.

With more BI work offloaded to lines of business, IT can add value by focusing on predictive analytics, which currently has few proven applications outside of sales and marketing. Alternatively, IT units may seek an internal consulting role where they help other business units find opportunities to use BI or embed BI capabilities more widely.

9. Shift the emphasis to analysis

In 2018, many professionals still have to spend a great deal of time on collecting data. For every hour spent on data collection, professionals have less capacity to extract insights. In the finance department, this data collection vs. analysis problem is particularly acute since finance must work under tight deadlines.

More info at http://www.asiarfid.com/blog/9-ways-to-get-more-value-from-business-intelligence-in-2018.html

What is a RFID blocking wallet?

But that doesn't mean you need one. RFID-blocking wallets are designed to help insulate you from a very particular brand of electronic pickpocketing, called RFID skimming. The concern is that some credit cards, passports, and driver's licenses now come with embedded radio frequency identification chips.

Is it necessary

Q: Are RFID blocking wallets worthwhile or are they just smoke and mirrors?

A: It’s not all smoke and mirrors. RFID is a real thing, and RFID-blocking wallets do block it—but the question is “does it matter”? We weren’t able to find any credible reports of actual, real-world RFID identity or credit card theft. It may be happening—it would be very hard to precisely identify if it were—but it’s certainly not widespread. It makes for a nifty demonstration by a hacker, butas Snopes notes, in 2010 the Identity Theft Resource Center had never seen a case—and it still doesn’t recommend RFID protection. Slate also notes that modern RFID chips generate single-use codes, and if your card is used fraudulently, your bank should back you up.

Plus, the majority of credit cards used in the USA don’t even have RFID chips. Chase Bank and Bank of America, for instance, don’t offer any RFID credit cards right now (at least that we could find). Most bank cards are now relying on chip-and-sign EMV technology, rather than just waving your card near a reader. Apple and Android do have their own popular wireless payment systems, but they wouldn’t be protected by an RFID blocking wallet anyway. It is worth noting, however, that if you get a Global Entry card, it comes in a foil-lined sleeve, which would suggest the government is at least a little worried about it.

But that also doesn’t mean RFID-blocking wallets are bad—if you find a wallet you like that has it, it doesn’t make it a worse wallet. I’m partial to Articulate Wallets, which have RFID blocking built in. But if you use a tap card to pay for public transit, like a Clipper or Oyster card, chances are it won’t work behind an RFID shield.

All of this is not to say credit card and identity theft aren’t an issue, but you’re far more likely to be affected by a card skimmer at an ATM, or a breach of a major retailer like Target or Sony. And you’re better served by keeping an eye on your monthly bank statements for odd activity—which is how I found someone buying grow lights from AliExpress with my credit card.

RFID blocking wallets, sleeves, and other products offer protection against RFID skimming. The problem isn't that these products don't work, it's that they're a solution to a problem that doesn't exist in the real world. RFID-related crime isn't only very unlikely, it's non-existent.

It happens every Christmas. My friends, knowing my long-time career in computer security, can’t wait to show me how smart they were for buying RFID wallets, purses, and even jeans and jackets. What they don’t know, unless they read this, is that it’s a complete waste of money.

More info at http://www.asiarfid.com/blog/what-is-a-rfid-blocking-wallet.html

What is BI? Business intelligence strategies and solutions

Business intelligence (BI) leverages software and services to transform data into actionable intelligence that informs an organization’s strategic and tactical business decisions. BI tools access and analyze data sets and present analytical findings in reports, summaries, dashboards, graphs, charts and maps to provide users with detailed intelligence about the state of the business.

How does BI differ from BA?

Business intelligence is also called descriptive analytics, in that it describes a past or current state. It doesn’t tell you what to do,it tells you what was and what is.

Compare that explanation of BI with the definition for business analytics (BA), a technology-aided process by which software analyzes data to predict what will happen (predictive analytics) or what could happen by taking a certain approach (prescriptive analytics). BA is also sometimes called advanced analytics.

How business intelligence works

Although business intelligence does not tell business users what to do or what will happen if they take a certain course, neither is BI only about generating reports. Rather, BI offers a way for people to examine data to understand trends and derive insights.

So many people in the business need data to do their jobs better. Business intelligence tools streamline the effort people need to search for, merge and query data to obtain information they need to make good business decisions.

For example, a company that wants to better manage its supply chain needs BI capabilities to determine where delays are happening and where variabilities exist within the shipping process. That company could also use its BI capabilities to discover which products are most commonly delayed or which modes of transportation are most often involved in delays.

Business intelligence in action

In the past, IT professionals had been the primary users of BI applications. However, BI tools have evolved to be more intuitive and user-friendly, enabling a large number of users across a variety of organizational domains to tap the tools.

There are two types of BI. The first is traditional or classic BI, where IT professionals use in-house transactional data to generate reports. The second is modern BI, where business users interact with agile, intuitive systems to analyze data more quickly.

The organizations generally opt for classic BI for certain types of reporting, such as regulatory or financial reports, where accuracy is paramount and the questions and data sets used are standard and predicable. Organizations typically use modern BI tools when business users need insight into quickly changing dynamics, such as marketing events, in which being fast is valued over getting the data 100 percent right.

But while solid business intelligence is essential to making strategic business decisions, many organizations struggle to implement effective BI strategies, thanks to poor data practices, tactical mistakes and more.

The value of business intelligence

Although much of today’s hype is around big data and advanced analytics (as well as the next step up: artificial intelligence and machine learning), BI is still relevant for multiple reasons.

First, experts say that many organizations still struggle with how to wrangle their data and leverage BI tools to their full potential. As a result, University of Dayton’s Gorman says most organizations tend to have pockets of BI capabilities rather than an enterprise-wide platform.

“You might have an executive dashboard that gives something like prices by region and another executive using a BI tool that gives vendor performance,” he says.

So these organizations remain focused on fine-tuning and then maximizing their BI initiatives before moving up to more advanced analytics capabilities.

Gorman says that’s one reason why the market for BI tools is still growing, as organizations continue to add capabilities in different functional areas to meet growing demand.

According to its Global Business Intelligence Market 2016-2020 report, published in January 2016, global technology research and advisory company Technavio forecast the global BI market to post a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 10 percent by 2020.

The research study says increasing adoption of data analytics, data availability and implementation of cloud BI as the three major factors driving the market.

Second, organizations will continue to need an accurate understanding of past events and current states. That’s why, experts say, that even as organizations increasingly use advanced analytics to forecast the future, they continue to invest in their BI operations.

“You need both, because you need to know what’s going on,” Howson says. “It doesn’t matter if I can predict the future if I don’t know what’s going on right now.”

More info at http://www.asiarfid.com/blog/what-is-bi-business-intelligence-strategies-and-solutions.html

RFID Tag With Anti-fake Function

RFID Tag With Anti-fake Function

13.56MHZ RFID Tag for Library Management

13.56MHZ RFID Tag for Library Management

What is an RFID in marketing?

Radio frequency identification, or RFID, is a new tracking technology that involves small tags that emit distinct signals. Retail business owners can use remote scanners to read RFID tags placed on individual products, enabling them to record a variety of information, including quantities of various stock items and their precise locations.

Consumer Research

RFID tags carry unique product numbers. If consumers pay for goods with a credit, debit or shopper’s discount card, retailers can link the purchases to the recorded RFID data and use that marketing information to map out individual consumers’ movements through a store. This sort of data can help a retail store make improvements, for example, by helping to optimize a store’s layout to match typical consumer behaviors.

Inventory Tracking

Suppose a grocery store wants to inventory its goods. Manually scanning bar codes or counting products is resource-intensive: workers must move aisle to aisle, tabulating items individually. In contrast, RFID scanners can read tags as far away as 20 feet and record hundreds of tags per second, meaning employees can quickly scan shelves to record quantities and locations. Some stores find it cost-effective to install permanent RFID scanners to provide real-time monitoring of stock. The greater efficiency helps marketers ensure that products are always in sufficient supply to meet consumer demand.

Security

Shoplifting is a serious concern for retail store owners. One option is to direct staff to watch customers closely, but this approach has two major disadvantages: the extra work distracts staff from other responsibilities, and customers hate being watched. RFID technology offers an elegant solution: a remote scan of shoppers as they leave your store can reveal if they are leaving with stolen merchandise. As the cost of RFID technology decreases, this security solution becomes an increasingly cost-effective way of decreasing theft.

Considerations

Your customers might not like you scanning their shopping carts or persons remotely or that you can track their movements throughout a store. RFID technology is still in its growing stages at publication date, so it is not yet clear on which side of the fence consumer opinion will land. For now, retailers should recognize that privacy issues are a growing concern.

More info at http://www.asiarfid.com/blog/what-is-an-rfid-in-marketing.html

RFID Solution to Prevent Terrorism on Flights

Apr 27, 2018,Gate Gourmet Peru is deploying an RFID system at the Jorge Chávez International Airport, in Lima, intended to prevent knives from falling into the hands of potential terrorists. The ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) and Near Field Communication (NFC)-based cabinet solution, designed to manage the kitchen tools used during food preparation, tracks each knife used to prepare inflight meals.

The system consists of tags attached to the knives, seven RFID-enabled smart cabinets in which the knives are stored, and software that identifies each time a knife is removed and later returned, as well as by whom. The technology is provided by Radical Solutions. An NFC reader in the cabinet also confirms the identity of any individual who removes a knife.

Gate Gourmet occupies kitchen facilities inside the airport, in which knives and other instruments are used. Two such locations are the cold-cooking and pre-processing areas. In the cold-cooking area, staff members use knives to chop the ingredients of salads and light snacks. Additionally, in the pre-processing area, raw vegetables, meat and other products are cut for the cooking of in-flight meals.

Without the RFID cabinets, Samamé Jimenez says, Gate Gourmet had no automatic or reliable method of controlling the traceability of the knives. The company had no way of knowing who had possession of a knife at any given time, which meant that the cutlery could be misused.

The intelligent cabinet solution that was developed leverages a combination of UHF and NFC technologies, along with security camcorders and software that links the RFID read events via video. Radical Solutions built a prototype and tested it in the company's laboratory.

The cabinet consists of a built-in Hopeland Long Range UHF RFID reader with a Mojix Turbon antenna to interrogate an OPP IOT RFID tag attached to each knife. A Mifare 13.65 MHz reader from NXP Semiconductors interrogates Promag high-frequency (HF) RFID tags built into staff ID badges and is used to control who can access the cabinet. Radical Solutions software managing the data resides on a local server. 

Following prototyping, Gate Gourmet installed two cabinets in the airport's food-processing zone in January of this year, and the system was taken live in February. For the proof-of-concept, nine 10-inch knives were tracked in the pre-processing area, while five 10-inch knives and four bread knives were tracked as they were accessed and then returned from the cold-cooking section.

The team cut a slit into the handle of each knife to implant an RFID tag. The tags are encapsulated to protect them against water, dust or food. The installation team decided to embed the tags in the lower part of each handle, near the knife blade, so that they won't interfere with the ergonomics of knife use.

In addition, every staff member was provided with an NFC card to open and close the smart cabinet. Each time a Gate Gourmet employee collets a knife, he or she must use the NFC badge to prove his or her identity. The work must first tap the badge against the reader at the front of the door. The unique ID number encoded on the badge is captured by the reader and sent to the software, where the ID number is validated. If the user is authorized, the door locks release and that individual can then access the cabinet.

Personnel are permitted to remove only one knife at a time. Once a worker reaches in and removes a knife, the UHF antenna will no longer read that knife's tag ID, and the software is updated to indicate that the utensil has been removed. The action is then paired with the staff member's ID.

The system can not only issue alerts to management if an exception occurs (such as a knife not being removed within the expected span of time), but also create an historical record of how much a knife is used, for how long and by which employee. The data can also be used for analytics purposes, to help the company better manage its inventory of knives, understand their performance life and frequency of use, and thus make replacements only when necessary.

More info at http://www.asiarfid.com/blog/rfid-solution-to-prevent-terrorism-on-flights.html