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Effective Ways to Prevent Data Breaches

Data Breach
Data breach prevention is going to be the need of the hour as cybercrime continues to grow. Cybercrime is a growing threat to businesses of all sizes. Due to this unprecedented time many companies shifted to work-from-home model. Statics show data breaches are on a rise and can have devastating long-term financial set-back or reputational repercussions to your organization.

As a result, businesses must ensure that their data is secure to avoid substantial loss or theft.

As data breaches happens in different ways, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all remedy. Security needs a multifaceted approach to be effective.

In this article we’ll find out different ways prevent data breaches.

Impact of a data breach on businesses

A data breach can destroy a business, especially for small and medium-sized businesses (SMB). Data is a valuable asset for any business especially, the data related to customers and payments. Cybercriminals find this data valuable. Lack of planning and security creates vulnerabilities for criminals to exploit.

It is estimated that 60% of small and medium-sized enterprises will close within six months after the attack. Larger businesses or agencies, on the other hand, will survive. Nevertheless, they too will suffer the consequences.

A data breach can impact businesses in the following ways;

Financial

Businesses must compensate for both immediate and hidden fines (fines, public relations, legal fees, and punitive regulatory measures) for a data breach. In addition, business needs to compensate customers, refund any stolen funds, and bear a share value loss. A smart organization will use this opportunity to develop data security and disaster recovery strategies, which entails financial investment.

Fines and fees – The PCI Security Standards Council may impose fines or penalties for a data breach. Both regulatory organisations and card network brands will have different fines.

Forensic investigations – Major consequences of a data breach include, the business that was attacked will be accountable to perform a forensic investigation to determine the causes of the data breach. These investigations are costly and often yield valuable evidence and insights to prevent future data breaches.

Future security costs – Victims of a data breach may have to bear costs of credit monitoring for customers whose data was compromised. This may also include the costs of identity theft repair, card replacement, and additional compliance requirements from the PCI.

Reputation

Having a good reputation is the most prized asset for any organization. As a business, one must constantly put effort into building and maintaining brand integrity. A single compromising episode like a data breach can trash the best of reputations. According to a PwC report, 85% of customers won't shop at a business if they have concerns about their security policies.

Customers value their privacy, and a data breach will be perceived as a lack of regard for their data and privacy. Furthermore, 46% of businesses reported that security breaches harmed their reputation and brand value.

Intellectual Property

The product blueprints, business strategies, and engineered solutions are some of your most valuable assets for any organization. Your trade secret gives you an added advantage over your competitors. Hence it needs to be protected as some may not hesitate to use breached intellectual property.

Other significant consequences of a data breach include;

  • A data breach can pit the CEO against the CISO
  • Poisoned search results on your corporate brand
  • Loss of sales after a data breach
  • Unexpected expenses
  • Less attractive to new employees, especially in tech positions
  • Legal penalties after a data breach

Understanding the aftermath of a data breach is an important step to safeguarding your business. The next step is to create an action plan is to protect what you've worked so hard on.

How does a Data breach happen?

Data breaches sometimes can be traced back to planned attacks. But, on the other hand, it can result from a simple oversight by individuals or flaws in the infrastructure.

Accidental Insider

For instance, an employee uses a co-worker's computer and reads files without proper approval or permission. However, the access is unintentional/accidental, and no personal information is revealed. The data was breached, however, because it was read by an unauthorised person.

Malicious Insider

This person deliberately accesses/shares data with the intent of causing harm to an individual or company. The malicious insider may have genuine authorization to use the data, but the intent is to use the info in nefarious ways.

Lost or Stolen Devices

Any laptop or external hard drive with important information on it that is not encrypted or unlocked goes missing.

Malicious Outside Criminals

These are hackers who attack several vectors to collect information from a network or an individual.

Global cost of data breach

According to the Ponemon Institute's Cost of a Data Breach Report, global data breaches cost $3.86 million on average in 2020. The amount in 2020 was somewhat lesser compared to 2019 when it hit $3.92M. The same report found that the average cost of a data breach in 2020 totaled $8.64M.

Ways to prevent a data breach

  • Conduct employee security awareness training
  • Control access to data sensibly
  • Update software regularly.
  • Require secure passwords and authentication
  • Simulate phishing attacks
  • Evaluate accounts
  • Limit access to your most valuable data.
  • Review your user account lifecycle processes
  • Insist on complex and unique passwords
  • Protect against authentication bypass
  • Store sensitive personal information securely and protect it during transmission
  • Consider implementing a secure SSO solution
  • Secure all endpoints
  • Segment your network and monitor who's trying to get in and out
  • Manage Vendors - Third-party vendors must comply.

Conclusion

Protecting against data breaches may appear to be a time-consuming procedure. You will be in a better position if you take an encrusted step to secure your data using various methods, policies, and procedures to ease security threats.

FAQ’s


How does a data breach impact an organization?

Depending upon the company and data type, the consequences may include destruction or corruption of databases, leaking of confidential information, the theft of intellectual property, and regulatory requirements to inform and possibly compensate those affected.

What is the most common data breach?

Hacking attacks are the most common cause of a data breach. However, it is often a weak or lost password that is the vulnerability that the opportunist hacker is exploiting.

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Big Data Management, Data Science, Big Data

Soft Skills in Data Science

Article | April 28, 2023

We live in a world convulsed by new technologies and we are witnessing how more and more processes are automated in order to be executed with the same skill or even with better results than if they were carried out by a human, all this in order to be more efficient and effective. In this context the world of work is becoming increasingly competitive, because to remain employable we need to learn to manage or find a way to adapt our knowledge and skills to new technologies. With the spread of e-learning platforms and the tutorials that we can find available on the internet, acquiring new knowledge is within everyone's reach. For this reason, it is necessary to differentiate ourselves in order to stand out from other professionals, who have the hard skills similar to ours and this is precisely where Soft Skills play a very important role. What are Soft Skills? Soft skills are actually a combination of individual social skills, communication skills, personality traits, attitudes, social intelligence and emotional intelligence. Which facilitate relationships with others, making us more effective when interacting with other people. We could say that Soft Skills are the human interface that allow us to adapt to different working environments and industries. They are powerful tools for personal and professional growth. Why are Soft Skills key in our professional growth? Nowadays, standing out in the world of work is getting increasingly difficult, regardless of whether you are part of a corporation or work independently, due to the great competition within the labor market. That is why we must develop certain skills and attitudes that help us to function properly and successfully meet professional demands. Soft Skills are the point of differentiation that allows us to be selected for a position. The reason is very simple, we could be applying for a position and competing with people that are equal or even more qualified than us at a technical level, but to achieve the collaborative objectives of the company, more is required than just the technical and rational part. Also the way of communicating, values, ethics, as well as personality traits are highly valued factors since they help to drive organizations through high-performance teams, guaranteeing the achievement of their objectives. The background of the Soft Skills that we have trained throughout our lives make us unique, because it is unlikely that two people have the same combination of Soft Skills and been trained in a similar way, and that makes us more competitive against certain job opportunities where perhaps many will have the same Hard Skills, but where our Soft Skills will be the ones that will make us stand out to continue advancing in our professional career. How to sharpen our Soft Skills? To perform in any job we necessarily need to interact with other people, even if we work independently or remotely, so we must have the necessary skills that allow us to connect successfully with our teammates and stakeholders. Starting from the fact that Soft Skills are human skills, we can say that we have them pre-installed and the way to start using them (installing them) is through the experiences we undergo every day. Imagine being able to communicate assertively in your work environment and in your personal life. Master the use of tools installed in you to improve your interpersonal relationships within your work teams and reduce conflict. This would allow you to foster a healthy working environment and be able to lead any team in any environment in a strategic and effective way. Think of Soft Skills as a set of Apps that are ready to be used (like a toolbox) and that according to the experiences that are presented in our personal and / or professional lives, we are going to choose to use these applications to achieve our goals. Every time we access one of these applications, we are giving it the opportunity to collect data that will allow it to personalize its insights according to our needs and to fine-tune its effectiveness each time we use it. One of the best ways to train our Soft Skills is by leaving our comfort zone, because that will allow us to 'install' more and more Soft Skills. Another way to refine our Soft Skills is by participating in activities that involve people we do not know and even better if we involve people from other cultures, because we will achieve a beneficial exchange of experiences and knowledge for both parties that will enrich and make the training of our Soft Skills even more valuable. Some examples of activities that will enhance your Soft Skills: • Participate in competitions (e.g. Hackathons) • Found or be a lead of a community that shares your interests, and organizes small or large projects. • Organize a study group aimed at carrying out a technical or business project in order to confront professionals from various fields or industries. • Find resources and experts to help you. There are Soft Skills trainers who know useful techniques and tips to develop/sharpen your skills. • Participate in volunteer activities. You will meet new people with whom to put your Soft Skills in action. These activities will train/sharpen your leadership skills, teamwork, delegation, interpersonal communication, persuasion, etc. These are skills that we do not have as much facility to train while we are students or when we have just started working after finishing our studies, and that are required in the labor market to continue climbing in our professional career. Why do Soft Skills matter in the Data Science universe? A consequence of the use of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science is that many of the jobs that we know today will be automated and this is a matter of concern for many professionals who see their careers are in danger, but the good news is that in the future many new jobs the Soft Skills will be the main protagonists, this is what John Thompson explains us in his book "Building Analytics Teams" In other words, it is precisely our human skills that will allow us to be more employable in the future, and they will be highly requested skills because according to what the experts envision which is, that the machines will not be able to match us in this field, and that is why training our Soft Skills becomes a priority because they will allow us to be the key players of the future. On the other hand, Data Science is an interdisciplinary field where Soft Skills such as cooperation and communication are essential to achieve the goals set. Denis Rothman, author of the book "Transformers for Natural Language Processing" in an interview that I conducted, mentioned that The Human Quality is the most important thing for him when choosing the members of his work team. These are some considerations to take into account to generate a culture of cooperation: • People work harder and need less supervision, when they themselves control their work and have more freedom to choose how to do it. When they work as a team, they show greater motivation, their sense of pride increases and productivity reaches higher levels. • Solid teams that seek quality and excellence correct themselves; that is, they identify problems and correct them very quickly. Thus, they gain work experience and increase their performance. • Forming a solid and efficient work team requires patience. You need to give them time to see your results. They will have to establish procedures to complete tasks, handle administrative functions and work together efficiently, they will even have to adapt to their own decisions and accept their consequences. • A manager or team leader must recognize the team building process without expecting immediate results. The group will have to go through a learning process and this will take longer in some groups than in others. Another key component to achieving high levels of cooperation is fluid communication among team members and stakeholders. For instance defining the communication channels and the contact points in the different teams involved, guarantees the constant flow of communication during the life cycle of a Data Science project. One of the most critical moments is the presentation of the results to the stakeholders. In some cases the results of a project are not taken into consideration not so much because the expected results are not achieved, but because the way in which these results are presented are not meaningful for the stakeholders, and this, in most cases, it is due to the existence of communication barriers that is a consequence of the use of a language (terminologies) used in the technical world but not in the business world. After taking a tour of the world of Soft Skills, we can conclude by saying that Soft Skills are like superpowers that are waiting for the opportunity to be put into action, to make you a superhero or superheroine. Keep climbing positions in your professional career depends on you, on how much you use these superpowers but above all on your skills to refine them and make them available to the work team of which you are part. Don't wait any longer and start discovering your potential, start training your Soft Skills! If you want to know more about Soft Skills, I invite you to visit The Soft Skills Show

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Business Intelligence, Big Data Management, Big Data

Business Intelligence VS Predictive Analytics: Key Differentiators

Article | April 27, 2023

Predictive analytics and business intelligence have become some of the most important tools for businesses because of their outstanding capabilities. Most people believe that predictive analytics is a part of business intelligence (BI), but that is not the case. If we look at the definition of business intelligence, we can argue that predictive analytics actually falls under the umbrella of BI, but that's not entirely true. While that definition is pretty much correct for both terms, if we dig down a little deeper, we will see that there are significant differences between business intelligence and predictive analytics in both practices as well as theories. Let’s drill down to understand the key differentiators between predictive analytics and business intelligence. Key Differentiators: Predictive Analytics VS BI BI seeks to answer queries like "what happens now" and "what is happening now," whereas predictive analytics tries to predict "what will happen" and provides a more practical method to assess information. Data Raw data is processed into insights for direct consumer use during the business intelligence process. With predictive analytics, unstructured data is turned into structured data that can be used to make predictions about the future. Decision Users can make decisions based on insights provided by business intelligence. Businesses can use predictive analytics to make decisions based on facts, data sets, and predictions. Purpose The objective of business intelligence tools is to equip users with information about their company's historical data performance. Predictive analytics utilizes forecasting techniques to help in the solving of complex business challenges. Methods Business intelligence uses data visualization, data mining, reporting, dashboards, OLAP, etc., with previous performance indicators. Predictive analytics predicts future occurrences and analyzes raw data patterns. Technologies Ad-hoc reporting technology, alerting technology, and other technologies are covered in business intelligence. Predictive analytics includes technologies such as predictive modeling, forecasting, etc. Use Predictive Analytics in Business Intelligence to Optimize Marketing Efforts Businesses now have a plethora of information about their customers’ and target audience's purchasing patterns and preferences, all thanks to business intelligence insights. With all of this information, predictive analytics can determine the possibility of a consumer purchasing a product, allowing businesses to target their marketing efforts on customers who are more likely to purchase their items. Businesses that employ predictive analytics and business intelligence solutions can constantly remain one step ahead of their competition. Summing Up At times, the sheer variety of tools available can be intimidating, and misinformation can sometimes hamper the selection process of technology. Business intelligence and predictive analytics are two of the most productive technologies in the market, but when combined, they can do wonders for businesses.

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Big Data Management, Data Science, Big Data

A Complete Guide to Creating a Successful Business Intelligence (BI) Strategy

Article | May 16, 2023

In today's environment, running a business can be quite challenging. These ever-changing and dynamic obstacles can make you feel overwhelmed. Maintenance of operations is a time-consuming process that leaves little time for working on the insights needed to gain a competitive advantage. However, organizations of all sizes, particularly SMEs, require accurate and actionable data perspectives. The role of a business intelligence (BI) strategy is to make this data available, which necessitates a deliberate plan. The central goal of a business intelligence strategy is to use software and services to transform important data into actionable knowledge. This is very important as business intelligence revenue in software was projected to reach $23,258.94 million in 2021. BI tools give users access to analytical data, which includes reports, dashboards, maps, charts, and various other visual representations. Users can get detailed information regarding the state of the company. “BI is about providing the right data at the right time to the right people so that they can make the right decisions.” Nic Smith, Microsoft BI Solutions Marketing Business intelligence strategy includes: Performance management Predictive modeling Analytics Data mining Why Should Businesses Implement BI? A business intelligence strategy will allow you to address your data problems, such as clarity, scarcity, insights out of data, and requirements, create a unified system, and sustain it. You should consider implementing a BI strategy if your business faces the following issues: You generate a lot of data but don't know what to do with it Overstocking or understocking Wasted resources and time Loss of customers Underperforming employees Data-driven decisions can benefit your business by: Discovering problems and their solutions Analyzing competitors’ data Analyzing customer behavior Planning approach to increase profit Foreseeing trends Optimizing operations Tracking performance Tips to Create a Successful Business Intelligence Strategy Business intelligence tools and capabilities are designed to create quick and easy-to-understand portrayals of an organization's current state. Developing a strategy to deal with all of these tools and skills is an essential part of reaping the benefits of business intelligence. If you want to learn how to build a strong business intelligence strategy, keep reading. Understand and Assess the Present Status The first step in implementing a business intelligence strategy is to put together a team that is capable of analyzing and presenting the current state of the company's data. With a dedicated team in place, evaluating an organization's current situation entails thinking about the data collected and the technology used to manage it. Understanding the organization's structures and processes for mining and interpreting data is also critical. At this level, a BI team will seek to assess which data is the most valuable and which is irrelevant to the current operations. Have a Vision with a Purpose and Direction A vision is a combination of direction and purpose. Without a vision, there is no strategy. Instead, it presents itself in various critical decisions, such as where we collect our data and who will access the insights. The following should be explained in the vision statement: Who will be in charge of the business intelligence processes? What is the state of your BI strategy concerning the business and IT strategies? How will it provide help and solutions? What solutions do you want to deploy, and where do you propose them? What kind of infrastructure do you want to provide? Prioritize Initiative by Developing a BI Road Map The BI roadmap should provide deliverables at various execution levels and a timetable. On the roadmap, you should have all of the data you wish to organize and arrange, as well as the dates and deliverables for each activity. Define the Way How the Data Is Going to Be Shared Another thing to do before establishing a business intelligence strategy is to define the terms and meaning of BI with all of your stakeholders. Because many employees are involved in data processing, make sure that everyone is on the same page and understands the business intelligence development strategy. At this stage, you should answer all the possible questions from your stakeholders, and the way and process data will be shared with all of them. Must-have BI Strategy Documentation A BI strategy document's logic is that it will serve as a point of reference for the entire organization and will be used to communicate the strategy. The following sections should be in the document: Executive summary BI strategy alignment with corporate strategy Project scope and requirements BI governance team Alternatives Assessment Appendices Make Regular Reviews to Assess the Progress A review process is necessary for any effective business intelligence strategy. These review methods should evaluate lessons gained while also documenting and determining the value of the data to the company. A review process may consider the user's experience and the possibility of changing the business's KPIs year after year. In addition, it helps to understand the progress of the strategy and the benefits it has brought to the company. Summing Up Any business's growth requires a BI strategy as it gives you a competitive advantage. You need a solid strategy, planning, and analysis to enjoy the rewards. You can drown yourself in useless analytics if you don't have a structured roadmap in place. Therefore, staying on track and assessing your methods regularly are critical to reaping the benefits of a BI strategy. The abovementioned steps serve you as stepping stones in developing a successful BI strategy. Frequently Asked Questions What is Business intelligence? Business intelligence is how businesses use methods and technology to analyze both current and historical data. This is done to improve strategic decision-making and gain a competitive advantage. Which are some of the BI tools? Data mining, predictive modeling, and contextual dashboards or KPIs are the most popular and widely used BI tools. Which are some of the major benefits of business intelligence? The benefits of BI are speedy analysis, intuitive dashboards, data-driven business decisions, improved employee satisfaction, increased organizational efficiency, and many more.

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Performance Management

The Aftermath of the Great Resignation

Article | May 30, 2023

Many nations are staring down the barrel of economic recession. In the US, we’ve seen ‘rolling recessions’ since early 2022 as various sectors show significant signs of contracting. Despite the labor market remaining tighter than pre-pandemic levels, economists note that labor rates will continue to slow while the Federal Reserve noted tighter credit conditions that indicate a slowdown across the financial sector. According to the US Bureau of Labor, total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 517,000 in January, which was the largest increase in the last six months and almost triple economists’ projections. The number of employed persons changed little since early 2022, remaining at 5.7 million, respectively. However, unemployment fell to a 50+ year low of 3.4%, and wages increased by 0.3% for an average year-over-year rise of 4.4%. Reports show some signs of reduced tension in labor markets, with an average of 1.9 job openings for every unemployed person in the nation. Furthermore, the number of job openings increased by 6.7% to 11 million in December, indicating companies had even more unfilled positions than before. However, LinkedIn’s “labor market tightness” metric showed that the ratio of job openings to unemployed people is closer to 1-to-1 as recession fears continue shaping labor movements. Technology’s Ongoing Reshuffle Of the many sectors impacted by the ‘great reshuffle’, technology ended last year and began 2023 with industrywide downsizing. In total, more than 55,000 tech professional lost their jobs in January, while over 150,000 tech employees were downsized in 2022. Twitter has conducted rolling layoffs under Elon Musk’s ownership, reducing headcount by 75% since the platform’s IPO. Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirmed in a January blog that the company would be eliminating 5% of its workforce, impacting 10,000 employees. Google also saw significant layoffs across a variety of its subsidiaries and start-ups backed by its parent company, Alphabet. Both an India-based social media start-up backed by Google, as well as Alphabet’s robotics subsidiary Intrinsic AI reduced their workforces by 20% in January this year. Verily — a life sciences firm also owned by Alphabet — also downsized its workforce in January by 15% despite its recent raising of $1 billion in funding. Customer spend pull back and inflation rate are one of the primary drivers for the many layoffs that we see, more so in big tech. Self-reported layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi found 485 companies let more than 138,000 workers go so far in 2023. This is much higher than what we have seen during DotCom boom and in any of the the previous years. Reflect and Reconnect The ongoing changes we see in work environments mean business leaders must analyze their current systems and processes, ensuring there’s real clarity around people’s roles and responsibilities. Once there’s a clear understanding of organizational needs and capabilities, the view must sharpen on the individual employees, understanding their skills, experiences, and goals to ensure alignment between business and talent. This process of reflection and assessment also serves as a useful opportunity to connect directly with staff to openly discuss their values, challenges, and daily workflows. This helps determine how each role contributes to the greater company purpose, particularly in terms of eliminating silos and operational redundancies. Retain and Reassure A common mistake managers made in adapting to hybrid work was holding onto their same managerial approaches that simply don’t translate to hybrid or remote workspaces. Considering how rapidly things change, this type of inflexible leadership commonly leads to staff dissatisfaction, which could result in increased turnover and poorer performance. To ensure staff feels valued and a part of something bigger, learning and development need to be better tailored to learners’ experiences rather than learning outcomes, which promotes autonomy and self-determination around employees’ skill and career development. Regular communication with employees will help determine how their roles are evolving, ensuring you can address any uncertainty or confusion before it stems into discontent. This means actively listening to employees’ needs and actioning their feedback, which not only helps build a culture of open communication and trust but plays a pivotal role in improving internal processes. The increasing popularity of hybrid work has created an unhealthy hustle mentality and culture where people are ‘always on,’ always available, and never completely away from work. This must be replaced with more sustainable principles and practices whereby people feel personally motivated to go above and beyond rather than fearful of falling behind. This means embedding a larger purpose into work, giving people a reason (beyond salary) to love where they work. The key is helping employees believe in the company’s overarching vision. Staff who feel a part of the business are more likely to step up during challenging periods and feel more connected with others, which helps establish common goals alongside a greater sense of well-being and community. Employees everywhere face the prospect of national and global recession, which can motivate some to stay put while adding further economic pressure on employers to offer competitive salaries. Attracting and retaining top talent means remaining abreast of people’s needs and expectations – going beyond salary to deliver a reassuring employee experience complete with ongoing support, development, and career progression. Reskill and Redeploy Reskilling means integrating learning and development in an impactful way, understanding what motivates the individual, what skill or field of study interests them, and then offering the capacity to personalize their learning experience. Since people learn more when they see the value in what they’re learning, the onus is on employers to prioritize learning and development, ensuring it’s more than an optional service–learning must be an integral part of the business culture. After all, providing an online coaching service is nice but not entirely useful if people aren’t allocated time and support to leverage it. Digital learning has made education and training more accessible, convenient, and engaging than ever before. No university or course provider can offer the same personalization and flexibility we see in online learning. And consumers have come to expect seamless and customizable digital experiences with most of their service providers – including education and training. Furthermore, by addressing both individual and business needs, businesses can help fill talent gaps, future-proofing their workforce, and ensure the retention of top performers. Learning is a never-ending process that is about enriching people’s lives through the process, helping them discover solutions rather than giving them answers. We all learn and grow through different means, so learning should be as intuitive, engaging, and accessible as possible, integrating seamlessly into people’s daily workflows – ready to be deployed in a more streamlined and efficient workforce. LinkedIn’s ‘2022 Global Talent Trends’ noted that employees ranked ‘upskilling’ as a top five most valued priority when it comes to feeling secure and supported. Furthermore, 74% of people said they’re willing to learn new skills or retrain to remain employable, further demonstrating skill development’s role in attracting and retaining top talent. Reimagine and Recreate To stave off recession, organizations everywhere are cutting costs, and often it's payroll first that’s first assessed and restructured. While downsizing can be a quick fix for profitability, it’s a short-term solution that can create more costs in terms of lost talent, company culture, and organizational knowledge that departs with some legacy employees and isn’t subsequently passed onto new hires. When trying to reduce costs, it can often be helpful to enlist an outside auditor to find potential savings through recurring costs, such as software licenses, subscriptions, and utilities. A top-down and bottom-up assessment of costs and drivers can help organizations distinguish necessities from luxuries, eliminating any unnecessary costs that don’t deliver value to staff or customers. Rather than downsizing to reduce costs, it’s more strategic and long-term to try ‘rightsizing,’ i.e., reimagining your team to better meet company objectives and needs. This may involve letting some people go, hiring new talent, or shifting staff around to make better use of their capabilities. However, rightsizing is a continuous process rather than downsizing’s ‘one-hit’ solution. Rightsizing also means optimizing and streamlining processes by eliminating any duplication of work. Reducing redundancies of people and processes ensures an organization isn’t wasting time and resources on non-value-adding tasks. Instead, rightsizing ensures an organization has the structure and resources it needs to maximize potential and more effectively plan for uncertainty. Redefining Employee Experience Today’s workforces face several challenges, from impending recession to post-pandemic exhaustion and an increasingly competitive talent market. This means businesses place much greater focus on employee experience from end to end, understanding people’s needs from hire to retire. Business leaders must look beyond competitive salaries to provide a healthy work-life balance alongside engaging company culture and environment. Employee ‘satisfaction’ is no longer adequate; businesses must strive to address employee happiness and well-being, particularly as hybrid work blurs the line between ‘at home’ and ‘at work.’ Businesses unwilling or incapable of providing flexible work arrangements may find their employees taking part in the ‘quiet quitting’ movement whereby they do the bare minimum to ensure job security or even start ‘rage applying’ in reaction to demanding bosses, unreasonable deadlines, and rigid work arrangements. Employee experience has become paramount to how employers distinguish themselves from others. With businesses reimaging roles and responsibilities with the assistance of digital technology, it can be easy to lose sight of the team’s human nature. However, experience is a fundamentally human thing that requires human input and understanding. Any investment in intelligent technologies should first address a simple question – how will this improve the way users currently operate? We’re seeing drastic changes in how employees work, communicate, and connect with one another. This has brought their well-being and experience to the forefront, which means businesses must be more holistic in how they attract, retain, and upskill talent.

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Big Data Management, Data Science, Big Data

Implementing Big Data and AI: Best Practices and Strategies for 2023

Article | April 28, 2023

We live in a world convulsed by new technologies and we are witnessing how more and more processes are automated in order to be executed with the same skill or even with better results than if they were carried out by a human, all this in order to be more efficient and effective. In this context the world of work is becoming increasingly competitive, because to remain employable we need to learn to manage or find a way to adapt our knowledge and skills to new technologies. With the spread of e-learning platforms and the tutorials that we can find available on the internet, acquiring new knowledge is within everyone's reach. For this reason, it is necessary to differentiate ourselves in order to stand out from other professionals, who have the hard skills similar to ours and this is precisely where Soft Skills play a very important role. What are Soft Skills? Soft skills are actually a combination of individual social skills, communication skills, personality traits, attitudes, social intelligence and emotional intelligence. Which facilitate relationships with others, making us more effective when interacting with other people. We could say that Soft Skills are the human interface that allow us to adapt to different working environments and industries. They are powerful tools for personal and professional growth. Why are Soft Skills key in our professional growth? Nowadays, standing out in the world of work is getting increasingly difficult, regardless of whether you are part of a corporation or work independently, due to the great competition within the labor market. That is why we must develop certain skills and attitudes that help us to function properly and successfully meet professional demands. Soft Skills are the point of differentiation that allows us to be selected for a position. The reason is very simple, we could be applying for a position and competing with people that are equal or even more qualified than us at a technical level, but to achieve the collaborative objectives of the company, more is required than just the technical and rational part. Also the way of communicating, values, ethics, as well as personality traits are highly valued factors since they help to drive organizations through high-performance teams, guaranteeing the achievement of their objectives. The background of the Soft Skills that we have trained throughout our lives make us unique, because it is unlikely that two people have the same combination of Soft Skills and been trained in a similar way, and that makes us more competitive against certain job opportunities where perhaps many will have the same Hard Skills, but where our Soft Skills will be the ones that will make us stand out to continue advancing in our professional career. How to sharpen our Soft Skills? To perform in any job we necessarily need to interact with other people, even if we work independently or remotely, so we must have the necessary skills that allow us to connect successfully with our teammates and stakeholders. Starting from the fact that Soft Skills are human skills, we can say that we have them pre-installed and the way to start using them (installing them) is through the experiences we undergo every day. Imagine being able to communicate assertively in your work environment and in your personal life. Master the use of tools installed in you to improve your interpersonal relationships within your work teams and reduce conflict. This would allow you to foster a healthy working environment and be able to lead any team in any environment in a strategic and effective way. Think of Soft Skills as a set of Apps that are ready to be used (like a toolbox) and that according to the experiences that are presented in our personal and / or professional lives, we are going to choose to use these applications to achieve our goals. Every time we access one of these applications, we are giving it the opportunity to collect data that will allow it to personalize its insights according to our needs and to fine-tune its effectiveness each time we use it. One of the best ways to train our Soft Skills is by leaving our comfort zone, because that will allow us to 'install' more and more Soft Skills. Another way to refine our Soft Skills is by participating in activities that involve people we do not know and even better if we involve people from other cultures, because we will achieve a beneficial exchange of experiences and knowledge for both parties that will enrich and make the training of our Soft Skills even more valuable. Some examples of activities that will enhance your Soft Skills: • Participate in competitions (e.g. Hackathons) • Found or be a lead of a community that shares your interests, and organizes small or large projects. • Organize a study group aimed at carrying out a technical or business project in order to confront professionals from various fields or industries. • Find resources and experts to help you. There are Soft Skills trainers who know useful techniques and tips to develop/sharpen your skills. • Participate in volunteer activities. You will meet new people with whom to put your Soft Skills in action. These activities will train/sharpen your leadership skills, teamwork, delegation, interpersonal communication, persuasion, etc. These are skills that we do not have as much facility to train while we are students or when we have just started working after finishing our studies, and that are required in the labor market to continue climbing in our professional career. Why do Soft Skills matter in the Data Science universe? A consequence of the use of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science is that many of the jobs that we know today will be automated and this is a matter of concern for many professionals who see their careers are in danger, but the good news is that in the future many new jobs the Soft Skills will be the main protagonists, this is what John Thompson explains us in his book "Building Analytics Teams" In other words, it is precisely our human skills that will allow us to be more employable in the future, and they will be highly requested skills because according to what the experts envision which is, that the machines will not be able to match us in this field, and that is why training our Soft Skills becomes a priority because they will allow us to be the key players of the future. On the other hand, Data Science is an interdisciplinary field where Soft Skills such as cooperation and communication are essential to achieve the goals set. Denis Rothman, author of the book "Transformers for Natural Language Processing" in an interview that I conducted, mentioned that The Human Quality is the most important thing for him when choosing the members of his work team. These are some considerations to take into account to generate a culture of cooperation: • People work harder and need less supervision, when they themselves control their work and have more freedom to choose how to do it. When they work as a team, they show greater motivation, their sense of pride increases and productivity reaches higher levels. • Solid teams that seek quality and excellence correct themselves; that is, they identify problems and correct them very quickly. Thus, they gain work experience and increase their performance. • Forming a solid and efficient work team requires patience. You need to give them time to see your results. They will have to establish procedures to complete tasks, handle administrative functions and work together efficiently, they will even have to adapt to their own decisions and accept their consequences. • A manager or team leader must recognize the team building process without expecting immediate results. The group will have to go through a learning process and this will take longer in some groups than in others. Another key component to achieving high levels of cooperation is fluid communication among team members and stakeholders. For instance defining the communication channels and the contact points in the different teams involved, guarantees the constant flow of communication during the life cycle of a Data Science project. One of the most critical moments is the presentation of the results to the stakeholders. In some cases the results of a project are not taken into consideration not so much because the expected results are not achieved, but because the way in which these results are presented are not meaningful for the stakeholders, and this, in most cases, it is due to the existence of communication barriers that is a consequence of the use of a language (terminologies) used in the technical world but not in the business world. After taking a tour of the world of Soft Skills, we can conclude by saying that Soft Skills are like superpowers that are waiting for the opportunity to be put into action, to make you a superhero or superheroine. Keep climbing positions in your professional career depends on you, on how much you use these superpowers but above all on your skills to refine them and make them available to the work team of which you are part. Don't wait any longer and start discovering your potential, start training your Soft Skills! If you want to know more about Soft Skills, I invite you to visit The Soft Skills Show

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Business Intelligence, Big Data Management, Big Data

Big Data in Healthcare: Improving Patient Outcomes

Article | April 27, 2023

Predictive analytics and business intelligence have become some of the most important tools for businesses because of their outstanding capabilities. Most people believe that predictive analytics is a part of business intelligence (BI), but that is not the case. If we look at the definition of business intelligence, we can argue that predictive analytics actually falls under the umbrella of BI, but that's not entirely true. While that definition is pretty much correct for both terms, if we dig down a little deeper, we will see that there are significant differences between business intelligence and predictive analytics in both practices as well as theories. Let’s drill down to understand the key differentiators between predictive analytics and business intelligence. Key Differentiators: Predictive Analytics VS BI BI seeks to answer queries like "what happens now" and "what is happening now," whereas predictive analytics tries to predict "what will happen" and provides a more practical method to assess information. Data Raw data is processed into insights for direct consumer use during the business intelligence process. With predictive analytics, unstructured data is turned into structured data that can be used to make predictions about the future. Decision Users can make decisions based on insights provided by business intelligence. Businesses can use predictive analytics to make decisions based on facts, data sets, and predictions. Purpose The objective of business intelligence tools is to equip users with information about their company's historical data performance. Predictive analytics utilizes forecasting techniques to help in the solving of complex business challenges. Methods Business intelligence uses data visualization, data mining, reporting, dashboards, OLAP, etc., with previous performance indicators. Predictive analytics predicts future occurrences and analyzes raw data patterns. Technologies Ad-hoc reporting technology, alerting technology, and other technologies are covered in business intelligence. Predictive analytics includes technologies such as predictive modeling, forecasting, etc. Use Predictive Analytics in Business Intelligence to Optimize Marketing Efforts Businesses now have a plethora of information about their customers’ and target audience's purchasing patterns and preferences, all thanks to business intelligence insights. With all of this information, predictive analytics can determine the possibility of a consumer purchasing a product, allowing businesses to target their marketing efforts on customers who are more likely to purchase their items. Businesses that employ predictive analytics and business intelligence solutions can constantly remain one step ahead of their competition. Summing Up At times, the sheer variety of tools available can be intimidating, and misinformation can sometimes hamper the selection process of technology. Business intelligence and predictive analytics are two of the most productive technologies in the market, but when combined, they can do wonders for businesses.

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Big Data Management, Data Science, Big Data

The Future of Big Data: Trends and Innovations for 2023 and Beyond

Article | May 16, 2023

In today's environment, running a business can be quite challenging. These ever-changing and dynamic obstacles can make you feel overwhelmed. Maintenance of operations is a time-consuming process that leaves little time for working on the insights needed to gain a competitive advantage. However, organizations of all sizes, particularly SMEs, require accurate and actionable data perspectives. The role of a business intelligence (BI) strategy is to make this data available, which necessitates a deliberate plan. The central goal of a business intelligence strategy is to use software and services to transform important data into actionable knowledge. This is very important as business intelligence revenue in software was projected to reach $23,258.94 million in 2021. BI tools give users access to analytical data, which includes reports, dashboards, maps, charts, and various other visual representations. Users can get detailed information regarding the state of the company. “BI is about providing the right data at the right time to the right people so that they can make the right decisions.” Nic Smith, Microsoft BI Solutions Marketing Business intelligence strategy includes: Performance management Predictive modeling Analytics Data mining Why Should Businesses Implement BI? A business intelligence strategy will allow you to address your data problems, such as clarity, scarcity, insights out of data, and requirements, create a unified system, and sustain it. You should consider implementing a BI strategy if your business faces the following issues: You generate a lot of data but don't know what to do with it Overstocking or understocking Wasted resources and time Loss of customers Underperforming employees Data-driven decisions can benefit your business by: Discovering problems and their solutions Analyzing competitors’ data Analyzing customer behavior Planning approach to increase profit Foreseeing trends Optimizing operations Tracking performance Tips to Create a Successful Business Intelligence Strategy Business intelligence tools and capabilities are designed to create quick and easy-to-understand portrayals of an organization's current state. Developing a strategy to deal with all of these tools and skills is an essential part of reaping the benefits of business intelligence. If you want to learn how to build a strong business intelligence strategy, keep reading. Understand and Assess the Present Status The first step in implementing a business intelligence strategy is to put together a team that is capable of analyzing and presenting the current state of the company's data. With a dedicated team in place, evaluating an organization's current situation entails thinking about the data collected and the technology used to manage it. Understanding the organization's structures and processes for mining and interpreting data is also critical. At this level, a BI team will seek to assess which data is the most valuable and which is irrelevant to the current operations. Have a Vision with a Purpose and Direction A vision is a combination of direction and purpose. Without a vision, there is no strategy. Instead, it presents itself in various critical decisions, such as where we collect our data and who will access the insights. The following should be explained in the vision statement: Who will be in charge of the business intelligence processes? What is the state of your BI strategy concerning the business and IT strategies? How will it provide help and solutions? What solutions do you want to deploy, and where do you propose them? What kind of infrastructure do you want to provide? Prioritize Initiative by Developing a BI Road Map The BI roadmap should provide deliverables at various execution levels and a timetable. On the roadmap, you should have all of the data you wish to organize and arrange, as well as the dates and deliverables for each activity. Define the Way How the Data Is Going to Be Shared Another thing to do before establishing a business intelligence strategy is to define the terms and meaning of BI with all of your stakeholders. Because many employees are involved in data processing, make sure that everyone is on the same page and understands the business intelligence development strategy. At this stage, you should answer all the possible questions from your stakeholders, and the way and process data will be shared with all of them. Must-have BI Strategy Documentation A BI strategy document's logic is that it will serve as a point of reference for the entire organization and will be used to communicate the strategy. The following sections should be in the document: Executive summary BI strategy alignment with corporate strategy Project scope and requirements BI governance team Alternatives Assessment Appendices Make Regular Reviews to Assess the Progress A review process is necessary for any effective business intelligence strategy. These review methods should evaluate lessons gained while also documenting and determining the value of the data to the company. A review process may consider the user's experience and the possibility of changing the business's KPIs year after year. In addition, it helps to understand the progress of the strategy and the benefits it has brought to the company. Summing Up Any business's growth requires a BI strategy as it gives you a competitive advantage. You need a solid strategy, planning, and analysis to enjoy the rewards. You can drown yourself in useless analytics if you don't have a structured roadmap in place. Therefore, staying on track and assessing your methods regularly are critical to reaping the benefits of a BI strategy. The abovementioned steps serve you as stepping stones in developing a successful BI strategy. Frequently Asked Questions What is Business intelligence? Business intelligence is how businesses use methods and technology to analyze both current and historical data. This is done to improve strategic decision-making and gain a competitive advantage. Which are some of the BI tools? Data mining, predictive modeling, and contextual dashboards or KPIs are the most popular and widely used BI tools. Which are some of the major benefits of business intelligence? The benefits of BI are speedy analysis, intuitive dashboards, data-driven business decisions, improved employee satisfaction, increased organizational efficiency, and many more.

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Performance Management

The Aftermath of the Great Resignation

Article | May 30, 2023

Many nations are staring down the barrel of economic recession. In the US, we’ve seen ‘rolling recessions’ since early 2022 as various sectors show significant signs of contracting. Despite the labor market remaining tighter than pre-pandemic levels, economists note that labor rates will continue to slow while the Federal Reserve noted tighter credit conditions that indicate a slowdown across the financial sector. According to the US Bureau of Labor, total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 517,000 in January, which was the largest increase in the last six months and almost triple economists’ projections. The number of employed persons changed little since early 2022, remaining at 5.7 million, respectively. However, unemployment fell to a 50+ year low of 3.4%, and wages increased by 0.3% for an average year-over-year rise of 4.4%. Reports show some signs of reduced tension in labor markets, with an average of 1.9 job openings for every unemployed person in the nation. Furthermore, the number of job openings increased by 6.7% to 11 million in December, indicating companies had even more unfilled positions than before. However, LinkedIn’s “labor market tightness” metric showed that the ratio of job openings to unemployed people is closer to 1-to-1 as recession fears continue shaping labor movements. Technology’s Ongoing Reshuffle Of the many sectors impacted by the ‘great reshuffle’, technology ended last year and began 2023 with industrywide downsizing. In total, more than 55,000 tech professional lost their jobs in January, while over 150,000 tech employees were downsized in 2022. Twitter has conducted rolling layoffs under Elon Musk’s ownership, reducing headcount by 75% since the platform’s IPO. Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirmed in a January blog that the company would be eliminating 5% of its workforce, impacting 10,000 employees. Google also saw significant layoffs across a variety of its subsidiaries and start-ups backed by its parent company, Alphabet. Both an India-based social media start-up backed by Google, as well as Alphabet’s robotics subsidiary Intrinsic AI reduced their workforces by 20% in January this year. Verily — a life sciences firm also owned by Alphabet — also downsized its workforce in January by 15% despite its recent raising of $1 billion in funding. Customer spend pull back and inflation rate are one of the primary drivers for the many layoffs that we see, more so in big tech. Self-reported layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi found 485 companies let more than 138,000 workers go so far in 2023. This is much higher than what we have seen during DotCom boom and in any of the the previous years. Reflect and Reconnect The ongoing changes we see in work environments mean business leaders must analyze their current systems and processes, ensuring there’s real clarity around people’s roles and responsibilities. Once there’s a clear understanding of organizational needs and capabilities, the view must sharpen on the individual employees, understanding their skills, experiences, and goals to ensure alignment between business and talent. This process of reflection and assessment also serves as a useful opportunity to connect directly with staff to openly discuss their values, challenges, and daily workflows. This helps determine how each role contributes to the greater company purpose, particularly in terms of eliminating silos and operational redundancies. Retain and Reassure A common mistake managers made in adapting to hybrid work was holding onto their same managerial approaches that simply don’t translate to hybrid or remote workspaces. Considering how rapidly things change, this type of inflexible leadership commonly leads to staff dissatisfaction, which could result in increased turnover and poorer performance. To ensure staff feels valued and a part of something bigger, learning and development need to be better tailored to learners’ experiences rather than learning outcomes, which promotes autonomy and self-determination around employees’ skill and career development. Regular communication with employees will help determine how their roles are evolving, ensuring you can address any uncertainty or confusion before it stems into discontent. This means actively listening to employees’ needs and actioning their feedback, which not only helps build a culture of open communication and trust but plays a pivotal role in improving internal processes. The increasing popularity of hybrid work has created an unhealthy hustle mentality and culture where people are ‘always on,’ always available, and never completely away from work. This must be replaced with more sustainable principles and practices whereby people feel personally motivated to go above and beyond rather than fearful of falling behind. This means embedding a larger purpose into work, giving people a reason (beyond salary) to love where they work. The key is helping employees believe in the company’s overarching vision. Staff who feel a part of the business are more likely to step up during challenging periods and feel more connected with others, which helps establish common goals alongside a greater sense of well-being and community. Employees everywhere face the prospect of national and global recession, which can motivate some to stay put while adding further economic pressure on employers to offer competitive salaries. Attracting and retaining top talent means remaining abreast of people’s needs and expectations – going beyond salary to deliver a reassuring employee experience complete with ongoing support, development, and career progression. Reskill and Redeploy Reskilling means integrating learning and development in an impactful way, understanding what motivates the individual, what skill or field of study interests them, and then offering the capacity to personalize their learning experience. Since people learn more when they see the value in what they’re learning, the onus is on employers to prioritize learning and development, ensuring it’s more than an optional service–learning must be an integral part of the business culture. After all, providing an online coaching service is nice but not entirely useful if people aren’t allocated time and support to leverage it. Digital learning has made education and training more accessible, convenient, and engaging than ever before. No university or course provider can offer the same personalization and flexibility we see in online learning. And consumers have come to expect seamless and customizable digital experiences with most of their service providers – including education and training. Furthermore, by addressing both individual and business needs, businesses can help fill talent gaps, future-proofing their workforce, and ensure the retention of top performers. Learning is a never-ending process that is about enriching people’s lives through the process, helping them discover solutions rather than giving them answers. We all learn and grow through different means, so learning should be as intuitive, engaging, and accessible as possible, integrating seamlessly into people’s daily workflows – ready to be deployed in a more streamlined and efficient workforce. LinkedIn’s ‘2022 Global Talent Trends’ noted that employees ranked ‘upskilling’ as a top five most valued priority when it comes to feeling secure and supported. Furthermore, 74% of people said they’re willing to learn new skills or retrain to remain employable, further demonstrating skill development’s role in attracting and retaining top talent. Reimagine and Recreate To stave off recession, organizations everywhere are cutting costs, and often it's payroll first that’s first assessed and restructured. While downsizing can be a quick fix for profitability, it’s a short-term solution that can create more costs in terms of lost talent, company culture, and organizational knowledge that departs with some legacy employees and isn’t subsequently passed onto new hires. When trying to reduce costs, it can often be helpful to enlist an outside auditor to find potential savings through recurring costs, such as software licenses, subscriptions, and utilities. A top-down and bottom-up assessment of costs and drivers can help organizations distinguish necessities from luxuries, eliminating any unnecessary costs that don’t deliver value to staff or customers. Rather than downsizing to reduce costs, it’s more strategic and long-term to try ‘rightsizing,’ i.e., reimagining your team to better meet company objectives and needs. This may involve letting some people go, hiring new talent, or shifting staff around to make better use of their capabilities. However, rightsizing is a continuous process rather than downsizing’s ‘one-hit’ solution. Rightsizing also means optimizing and streamlining processes by eliminating any duplication of work. Reducing redundancies of people and processes ensures an organization isn’t wasting time and resources on non-value-adding tasks. Instead, rightsizing ensures an organization has the structure and resources it needs to maximize potential and more effectively plan for uncertainty. Redefining Employee Experience Today’s workforces face several challenges, from impending recession to post-pandemic exhaustion and an increasingly competitive talent market. This means businesses place much greater focus on employee experience from end to end, understanding people’s needs from hire to retire. Business leaders must look beyond competitive salaries to provide a healthy work-life balance alongside engaging company culture and environment. Employee ‘satisfaction’ is no longer adequate; businesses must strive to address employee happiness and well-being, particularly as hybrid work blurs the line between ‘at home’ and ‘at work.’ Businesses unwilling or incapable of providing flexible work arrangements may find their employees taking part in the ‘quiet quitting’ movement whereby they do the bare minimum to ensure job security or even start ‘rage applying’ in reaction to demanding bosses, unreasonable deadlines, and rigid work arrangements. Employee experience has become paramount to how employers distinguish themselves from others. With businesses reimaging roles and responsibilities with the assistance of digital technology, it can be easy to lose sight of the team’s human nature. However, experience is a fundamentally human thing that requires human input and understanding. Any investment in intelligent technologies should first address a simple question – how will this improve the way users currently operate? We’re seeing drastic changes in how employees work, communicate, and connect with one another. This has brought their well-being and experience to the forefront, which means businesses must be more holistic in how they attract, retain, and upskill talent.

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Airbyte Racks Up Awards from InfoWorld, BigDATAwire, Built In; Builds Largest and Fastest-Growing User Community

Airbyte | January 30, 2024

Airbyte, creators of the leading open-source data movement infrastructure, today announced a series of accomplishments and awards reinforcing its standing as the largest and fastest-growing data movement community. With a focus on innovation, community engagement, and performance enhancement, Airbyte continues to revolutionize the way data is handled and processed across industries. “Airbyte proudly stands as the front-runner in the data movement landscape with the largest community of more than 5,000 daily users and over 125,000 deployments, with monthly data synchronizations of over 2 petabytes,” said Michel Tricot, co-founder and CEO, Airbyte. “This unparalleled growth is a testament to Airbyte's widespread adoption by users and the trust placed in its capabilities.” The Airbyte community has more than 800 code contributors and 12,000 stars on GitHub. Recently, the company held its second annual virtual conference called move(data), which attracted over 5,000 attendees. Airbyte was named an InfoWorld Technology of the Year Award finalist: Data Management – Integration (in October) for cutting-edge products that are changing how IT organizations work and how companies do business. And, at the start of this year, was named to the Built In 2024 Best Places To Work Award in San Francisco – Best Startups to Work For, recognizing the company's commitment to fostering a positive work environment, remote and flexible work opportunities, and programs for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Today, the company received the BigDATAwire Readers/Editors Choice Award – Big Data and AI Startup, which recognizes companies and products that have made a difference. Other key milestones in 2023 include the following. Availability of more than 350 data connectors, making Airbyte the platform with the most connectors in the industry. The company aims to increase that to 500 high-quality connectors supported by the end of this year. More than 2,000 custom connectors were created with the Airbyte No-Code Connector Builder, which enables data connectors to be made in minutes. Significant performance improvement with database replication speed increased by 10 times to support larger datasets. Added support for five vector databases, in addition to unstructured data sources, as the first company to build a bridge between data movement platforms and artificial intelligence (AI). Looking ahead, Airbyte will introduce data lakehouse destinations, as well as a new Publish feature to push data to API destinations. About Airbyte Airbyte is the open-source data movement infrastructure leader running in the safety of your cloud and syncing data from applications, APIs, and databases to data warehouses, lakes, and other destinations. Airbyte offers four products: Airbyte Open Source, Airbyte Self-Managed, Airbyte Cloud, and Powered by Airbyte. Airbyte was co-founded by Michel Tricot (former director of engineering and head of integrations at Liveramp and RideOS) and John Lafleur (serial entrepreneur of dev tools and B2B). The company is headquartered in San Francisco with a distributed team around the world. To learn more, visit airbyte.com.

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Big Data Management

The Modern Data Company Recognized in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Data Integration

The Modern Data Company | January 23, 2024

The Modern Data Company, recognized for its expertise in developing and managing advanced data products, is delighted to announce its distinction as an honorable mention in Gartner's 'Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools,' powered by our leading product, DataOS. “This accolade underscores our commitment to productizing data and revolutionizing data management technologies. Our focus extends beyond traditional data management, guiding companies on their journey to effectively utilize data, realize tangible ROI on their data investments, and harness advanced technologies such as AI, ML, and Large Language Models (LLMs). This recognition is a testament to Modern Data’s alignment with the latest industry trends and our dedication to setting new standards in data integration and utilization.” – Srujan Akula, CEO of The Modern Data Company The inclusion in the Gartner report highlights The Modern Data Company's pivotal role in shaping the future of data integration. Our innovative approach, embodied in DataOS, enables businesses to navigate the complexities of data management, transforming data into a strategic asset. By simplifying data access and integration, we empower organizations to unlock the full potential of their data, driving insights and innovation without disruption. "Modern Data's recognition as an Honorable Mention in the Gartner MQ for Data Integration is a testament to the transformative impact their solutions have on businesses like ours. DataOS has been pivotal in allowing us to integrate multiple data sources, enabling our teams to have access to the data needed to make data driven decisions." – Emma Spight, SVP Technology, MIND 24-7 The Modern Data Company simplifies how organizations manage, access, and interact with data using its DataOS (data operating system) that unifies data silos, at scale. It provides ontology support, graph modeling, and a virtual data tier (e.g. a customer 360 model). From a technical point of view, it closes the gap from conceptual to physical data model. Users can define conceptually what they want and its software traverses and integrates data. DataOS provides a structured, repeatable approach to data integration that enhances agility and ensures high-quality outputs. This shift from traditional pipeline management to data products allows for more efficient data operations, as each 'product' is designed with a specific purpose and standardized interfaces, ensuring consistency across different uses and applications. With DataOS, businesses can expect a transformative impact on their data strategies, marked by increased efficiency and a robust framework for handling complex data ecosystems, allowing for more and faster iterations of conceptual models. About The Modern Data Company The Modern Data Company, with its flagship product DataOS, revolutionizes the creation of data products. DataOS® is engineered to build and manage comprehensive data products to foster data mesh adoption, propelling organizations towards a data-driven future. DataOS directly addresses key AI/ML and LLM challenges: ensuring quality data, scaling computational resources, and integrating seamlessly into business processes. In our commitment to provide open systems, we have created an open data developer platform specification that is gaining wide industry support.

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Big Data Management

data.world Integrates with Snowflake Data Quality Metrics to Bolster Data Trust

data.world | January 24, 2024

data.world, the data catalog platform company, today announced an integration with Snowflake, the Data Cloud company, that brings new data quality metrics and measurement capabilities to enterprises. The data.world Snowflake Collector now empowers enterprise data teams to measure data quality across their organization on-demand, unifying data quality and analytics. Customers can now achieve greater trust in their data quality and downstream analytics to support mission-critical applications, confident data-driven decision-making, and AI initiatives. Data quality remains one of the top concerns for chief data officers and a critical barrier to creating a data-driven culture. Traditionally, data quality assurance has relied on manual oversight – a process that’s tedious and fraught with inefficacy. The data.world Data Catalog Platform now delivers Snowflake data quality metrics directly to customers, streamlining quality assurance timelines and accelerating data-first initiatives. Data consumers can access contextual information in the catalog or directly within tools such as Tableau and PowerBI via Hoots – data.world’s embedded trust badges – that broadcast data health status and catalog context, bolstering transparency and trust. Additionally, teams can link certification and DataOps workflows to Snowflake's data quality metrics to automate manual workflows and quality alerts. Backed by a knowledge graph architecture, data.world provides greater insight into data quality scores via intelligence on data provenance, usage, and context – all of which support DataOps and governance workflows. “Data trust is increasingly crucial to every facet of business and data teams are struggling to verify the quality of their data, facing increased scrutiny from developers and decision-makers alike on the downstream impacts of their work, including analytics – and soon enough, AI applications,” said Jeff Hollan, Director, Product Management at Snowflake. “Our collaboration with data.world enables data teams and decision-makers to verify and trust their data’s quality to use in mission-critical applications and analytics across their business.” “High-quality data has always been a priority among enterprise data teams and decision-makers. As enterprise AI ambitions grow, the number one priority is ensuring the data powering generative AI is clean, consistent, and contextual,” said Bryon Jacob, CTO at data.world. “Alongside Snowflake, we’re taking steps to ensure data scientists, analysts, and leaders can confidently feed AI and analytics applications data that delivers high-quality insights, and supports the type of decision-making that drives their business forward.” The integration builds on the robust collaboration between data.world and Snowflake. Most recently, the companies announced an exclusive offering for joint customers, streamlining adoption timelines and offering a new attractive price point. The data.world's knowledge graph-powered data catalog already offers unique benefits for Snowflake customers, including support for Snowpark. This offering is now available to all data.world enterprise customers using the Snowflake Collector, as well as customers taking advantage of the Snowflake-only offering. To learn more about the data quality integration or the data.world data catalog platform, visit data.world. About data.world data.world is the data catalog platform built for your AI future. Its cloud-native SaaS (software-as-a-service) platform combines a consumer-grade user experience with a powerful Knowledge Graph to deliver enhanced data discovery, agile data governance, and actionable insights. data.world is a Certified B Corporation and public benefit corporation and home to the world’s largest collaborative open data community with more than two million members, including ninety percent of the Fortune 500. Our company has 76 patents and has been named one of Austin’s Best Places to Work seven years in a row.

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Big Data

Airbyte Racks Up Awards from InfoWorld, BigDATAwire, Built In; Builds Largest and Fastest-Growing User Community

Airbyte | January 30, 2024

Airbyte, creators of the leading open-source data movement infrastructure, today announced a series of accomplishments and awards reinforcing its standing as the largest and fastest-growing data movement community. With a focus on innovation, community engagement, and performance enhancement, Airbyte continues to revolutionize the way data is handled and processed across industries. “Airbyte proudly stands as the front-runner in the data movement landscape with the largest community of more than 5,000 daily users and over 125,000 deployments, with monthly data synchronizations of over 2 petabytes,” said Michel Tricot, co-founder and CEO, Airbyte. “This unparalleled growth is a testament to Airbyte's widespread adoption by users and the trust placed in its capabilities.” The Airbyte community has more than 800 code contributors and 12,000 stars on GitHub. Recently, the company held its second annual virtual conference called move(data), which attracted over 5,000 attendees. Airbyte was named an InfoWorld Technology of the Year Award finalist: Data Management – Integration (in October) for cutting-edge products that are changing how IT organizations work and how companies do business. And, at the start of this year, was named to the Built In 2024 Best Places To Work Award in San Francisco – Best Startups to Work For, recognizing the company's commitment to fostering a positive work environment, remote and flexible work opportunities, and programs for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Today, the company received the BigDATAwire Readers/Editors Choice Award – Big Data and AI Startup, which recognizes companies and products that have made a difference. Other key milestones in 2023 include the following. Availability of more than 350 data connectors, making Airbyte the platform with the most connectors in the industry. The company aims to increase that to 500 high-quality connectors supported by the end of this year. More than 2,000 custom connectors were created with the Airbyte No-Code Connector Builder, which enables data connectors to be made in minutes. Significant performance improvement with database replication speed increased by 10 times to support larger datasets. Added support for five vector databases, in addition to unstructured data sources, as the first company to build a bridge between data movement platforms and artificial intelligence (AI). Looking ahead, Airbyte will introduce data lakehouse destinations, as well as a new Publish feature to push data to API destinations. About Airbyte Airbyte is the open-source data movement infrastructure leader running in the safety of your cloud and syncing data from applications, APIs, and databases to data warehouses, lakes, and other destinations. Airbyte offers four products: Airbyte Open Source, Airbyte Self-Managed, Airbyte Cloud, and Powered by Airbyte. Airbyte was co-founded by Michel Tricot (former director of engineering and head of integrations at Liveramp and RideOS) and John Lafleur (serial entrepreneur of dev tools and B2B). The company is headquartered in San Francisco with a distributed team around the world. To learn more, visit airbyte.com.

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Big Data Management

The Modern Data Company Recognized in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Data Integration

The Modern Data Company | January 23, 2024

The Modern Data Company, recognized for its expertise in developing and managing advanced data products, is delighted to announce its distinction as an honorable mention in Gartner's 'Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools,' powered by our leading product, DataOS. “This accolade underscores our commitment to productizing data and revolutionizing data management technologies. Our focus extends beyond traditional data management, guiding companies on their journey to effectively utilize data, realize tangible ROI on their data investments, and harness advanced technologies such as AI, ML, and Large Language Models (LLMs). This recognition is a testament to Modern Data’s alignment with the latest industry trends and our dedication to setting new standards in data integration and utilization.” – Srujan Akula, CEO of The Modern Data Company The inclusion in the Gartner report highlights The Modern Data Company's pivotal role in shaping the future of data integration. Our innovative approach, embodied in DataOS, enables businesses to navigate the complexities of data management, transforming data into a strategic asset. By simplifying data access and integration, we empower organizations to unlock the full potential of their data, driving insights and innovation without disruption. "Modern Data's recognition as an Honorable Mention in the Gartner MQ for Data Integration is a testament to the transformative impact their solutions have on businesses like ours. DataOS has been pivotal in allowing us to integrate multiple data sources, enabling our teams to have access to the data needed to make data driven decisions." – Emma Spight, SVP Technology, MIND 24-7 The Modern Data Company simplifies how organizations manage, access, and interact with data using its DataOS (data operating system) that unifies data silos, at scale. It provides ontology support, graph modeling, and a virtual data tier (e.g. a customer 360 model). From a technical point of view, it closes the gap from conceptual to physical data model. Users can define conceptually what they want and its software traverses and integrates data. DataOS provides a structured, repeatable approach to data integration that enhances agility and ensures high-quality outputs. This shift from traditional pipeline management to data products allows for more efficient data operations, as each 'product' is designed with a specific purpose and standardized interfaces, ensuring consistency across different uses and applications. With DataOS, businesses can expect a transformative impact on their data strategies, marked by increased efficiency and a robust framework for handling complex data ecosystems, allowing for more and faster iterations of conceptual models. About The Modern Data Company The Modern Data Company, with its flagship product DataOS, revolutionizes the creation of data products. DataOS® is engineered to build and manage comprehensive data products to foster data mesh adoption, propelling organizations towards a data-driven future. DataOS directly addresses key AI/ML and LLM challenges: ensuring quality data, scaling computational resources, and integrating seamlessly into business processes. In our commitment to provide open systems, we have created an open data developer platform specification that is gaining wide industry support.

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Big Data Management

data.world Integrates with Snowflake Data Quality Metrics to Bolster Data Trust

data.world | January 24, 2024

data.world, the data catalog platform company, today announced an integration with Snowflake, the Data Cloud company, that brings new data quality metrics and measurement capabilities to enterprises. The data.world Snowflake Collector now empowers enterprise data teams to measure data quality across their organization on-demand, unifying data quality and analytics. Customers can now achieve greater trust in their data quality and downstream analytics to support mission-critical applications, confident data-driven decision-making, and AI initiatives. Data quality remains one of the top concerns for chief data officers and a critical barrier to creating a data-driven culture. Traditionally, data quality assurance has relied on manual oversight – a process that’s tedious and fraught with inefficacy. The data.world Data Catalog Platform now delivers Snowflake data quality metrics directly to customers, streamlining quality assurance timelines and accelerating data-first initiatives. Data consumers can access contextual information in the catalog or directly within tools such as Tableau and PowerBI via Hoots – data.world’s embedded trust badges – that broadcast data health status and catalog context, bolstering transparency and trust. Additionally, teams can link certification and DataOps workflows to Snowflake's data quality metrics to automate manual workflows and quality alerts. Backed by a knowledge graph architecture, data.world provides greater insight into data quality scores via intelligence on data provenance, usage, and context – all of which support DataOps and governance workflows. “Data trust is increasingly crucial to every facet of business and data teams are struggling to verify the quality of their data, facing increased scrutiny from developers and decision-makers alike on the downstream impacts of their work, including analytics – and soon enough, AI applications,” said Jeff Hollan, Director, Product Management at Snowflake. “Our collaboration with data.world enables data teams and decision-makers to verify and trust their data’s quality to use in mission-critical applications and analytics across their business.” “High-quality data has always been a priority among enterprise data teams and decision-makers. As enterprise AI ambitions grow, the number one priority is ensuring the data powering generative AI is clean, consistent, and contextual,” said Bryon Jacob, CTO at data.world. “Alongside Snowflake, we’re taking steps to ensure data scientists, analysts, and leaders can confidently feed AI and analytics applications data that delivers high-quality insights, and supports the type of decision-making that drives their business forward.” The integration builds on the robust collaboration between data.world and Snowflake. Most recently, the companies announced an exclusive offering for joint customers, streamlining adoption timelines and offering a new attractive price point. The data.world's knowledge graph-powered data catalog already offers unique benefits for Snowflake customers, including support for Snowpark. This offering is now available to all data.world enterprise customers using the Snowflake Collector, as well as customers taking advantage of the Snowflake-only offering. To learn more about the data quality integration or the data.world data catalog platform, visit data.world. About data.world data.world is the data catalog platform built for your AI future. Its cloud-native SaaS (software-as-a-service) platform combines a consumer-grade user experience with a powerful Knowledge Graph to deliver enhanced data discovery, agile data governance, and actionable insights. data.world is a Certified B Corporation and public benefit corporation and home to the world’s largest collaborative open data community with more than two million members, including ninety percent of the Fortune 500. Our company has 76 patents and has been named one of Austin’s Best Places to Work seven years in a row.

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