The Caribbean is still trying to keep up with global development trends, but that’s not to say that we are not making any successes.

Despite the downturn in many of our economies, and the high-debt in some cases, we’ve had new entrepreneurs launch businesses, and organisations make large investments in new infrastructure.

So interest and investments are there.

These are what I see as trends that you should look at for the year ahead. There’s a lot of hype behind these trends, so take them with a pinch of salt.

1. The continued exponential growth of the Internet of Things…

The Internet of Things (IoT) continues it’s hype and growth trend, and for good reason. The IoT offers some of the greatest opportunities at this time and has the power to impact chain management, energy management and personal healthcare.

The continually decreasing costs of electronic sensors and computing power, coupled with a rapidly expanding maker movement has added fuel to the growth.

My prediction is that the IoT will continue to grow, along with privacy and security concerns.

2. … followed by the continued growth of big data, data analytics and visualisation…

With the sheer amount of data being produced by normal business operations, the addition of the data from IoT will now pose a challenge on how that data can be used. This is where data analytics come into play, with a new position within the company called the data scientist, whose role will be to help make sense of all this data, which includes visualisation.

So far, businesses have not had much success getting returns from big data, nor are they implementing large scale deployments, but it has not stopped them from making investments in big data technologies.

My prediction is that businesses will continue to invest in big data, but still struggle to get returns from it. Data scientists are going to make a killing though.

3. … and adoption of reliable enterprise wireless networks

Too many organisations use consumer grade wireless access points (WAP) in their network to provide wireless access to users. These devices may have a lot of security weaknesses, and further, there may be no management capabilities built in. You can’t tell how the wireless network is performing, and worst, can’t tell if someone is trying to break in. The only indication that you have that something is wrong, is when users complain.

Many of the sensors used for the IoT requires wireless access, and organisations hoping to take advantage of those technologies now have to re-look at their wireless infrastructure and replace it with enterprise grade devices with centralised control and management, and far greater security features.

This is not to say that only if you have an IoT project at hand you should consider enterprise wireless networks. Unless you’re a home user, you should always consider enterprise wireless network infrastructure.

My prediction is that with the proliferation of mobile devices, and the IoT, you will find enterprises implementing enterprise wireless infrastructure.

4. Software defined everything

Software Defined Everything is really the virtualisation of hardware via software and includes Software Defined Networking (SDN), Software Defined Storage (SDS) and Software Defined Data Centre (SDDC). SDN is the main leader in this trend, with many competing technologies available. Commercialisation has already started with offerings available from leading vendors such as VMWare and Cisco.

My prediction is that businesses heavy in VMWare technologies may move to adopt SDS and SDDC, however, the current trend of few businesses adopting SDN will continue until a major standard emerges.

5. Automating the enterprise

This is not new, but new technologies are making it easier to automate processes and keep track of changes. Products such as Puppet and Chef, and programming capabilities built into virtualisation as VMWare has.

My prediction is that as more services are being brought online, IT departments will need to look for automation technologies to help manage the new services and infrastructure. IT staff will have to learn to write code and scripts, with some becoming increasingly fearful of automating themselves out of a job.

6. Greater adoption of cloud services and mobility

In the Caribbean, companies are slowly moving services into the cloud, but concerns about costs and reliability of Internet services pose challenges.

Microsoft has been generally successful with getting users of its office suite to move into the cloud, but I’m not exactly sure if the businesses are actually using the cloud services, or just taking advantage of the lower licensing costs. I’ve only come across one company utilising Microsoft’s Azure to run internal services.

That’s not to say that adoption is not coming. On the contrary, I’m seeing much more renewed interest in the cloud and expect more organisations to make the switch this year, especially to Microsoft Office 365.

With the growing adoption of cloud services, I predict that more mobile access will be requested by end users and management to allow them to work on the road. Meanwhile, data loss due to theft of mobile devices will increase.

7. Greater IT security within organisations

This is really a hope rather than a trend. With the rash of high profile hacking that took place last year (Sony, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Home Depot), many companies should take a deep look at their security processes and infrastructure.

But I don’t expect to see that in the Caribbean, because you don’t hear about any attempts or breaches in the Caribbean. While I may hear something from someone who knows someone, there is no requirement to report breaches, and the cybersecurity monitoring and response mechanisms are almost non-existent at this time.

My prediction is that organisations within the Caribbean will continue to take security for granted with one high profile attack happening this year to change things around.

More?

Do you think there are any trends that I missed in my list? Let me know in the comments section below.

I take this opportunity to wish you a happy and prosperous 2015. Be safe out there.

Original article: 7 IT Trends to expect for 2015

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I don’t consider big data the ‘new oil’, but it does have consequences – good and bad – for the future of society and business, so I thought I’d dedicate some time on the topic.

What is big data?

There is no standard definition of what big data is, but the general consensus is that big data should conform to the 3V’s:

• Volume – There is a large amount of information amounting to Terabytes, or Petabytes of data.
• Velocity – The data is not only coming in very quickly, but should also be processed very quickly too.
• Variety – the information is coming from several different data sources, often in differing formats.

There are other V’s that have been suggested, but these are the ones that I choose to stick with. It’s important to note, is that big data requires different tools than what has normally been used (such as relational databases) for analysis.

Big data has always been around, with companies having these large data warehouses and now wanted to figure out how to use them to their advantage. This is further complicated this time by the addition of new sources of data – mobile and smart devices.

The Opportunities

The greatest opportunity available from big data is possibility of solving many of the biggest problems we have in the world.

Present and historical medical data coupled with genome mapping can help us find solutions to diseases or genetic disorders. Environmental data can help us predict climate changes, and used to improve farming methods.

Businesses can use big data to help make better business decisions. Business may be better able to predict market conditions and how well a product is doing, and decide to scale up or scale down production. It may be able to find defects much faster within their production line. Big data has even helped make better hiring decisions.

Big data can help us fight crime by gathers intelligence and evidence against criminal activity. It may help us to also take a proactive approach to security threats by picking up trends that indicate illegal or terrorist activity.

At a social level, big data along with crowd sourcing can help solve everyday problems. Waze, for instance, uses data coming from thousands of mobile devices to better predict traffic and help choose the best driving routes.

The Threats

The main threat is privacy. Lots of these data are personally identifiable information (PII). While the data may not have your name exactly, with proper analytics, you can create an eerily accurate profile of someone with it.

When the NSA surveillance news was broken earlier this year, the NSA stated that only phone metadata was being recorded. Phone metadata has no names, but many people went on to show how that data can tell a lot more that you think.

Target was one of the first companies that used big data and data analytics for marketing; in particular, it used its data to determine if a customer was pregnant and then sent targeted marketing to that customer about baby products. There were many questions about ethics at that time, particularly, whether customers would be okay with Target knowing about their reproductive cycle. Nowadays, you can hardly find a large retailer not using any time of data analytics on their customer data.

And while Target and other retailers may have your data with your permission, what about cases where you have not explicitly given permission? Facebook’s tagging feature, for instance, allows a friend to either take a photo of you and tag you, or check in to a location, and tag you as being with them. While you may not even have your phone with you, your image, and location data is being stored and mined.

One of the greatest threats, which is now gaining greater recognition, is the threat of theft of data. Going back to Target, only this week, they announced that they were hacked, and that the accounts of about 40 million customers were compromised. While they concentrated on credit card information, who knows what else they got. What if this was a medical or insurance institution; would you be comfortable if your medical data was stolen?

The Verdict

Big data on its own is nothing; it’s what we do with it. We can use the data to help us solve the world’s problems, or use it instead to further greed and destruction. There are endless possibilities as to how big data can be used.

Considering the good that can come from analysing big data, it would be better to implement proper security and governance frameworks to ensure that only good things happen.

Original article: A look at the pros and cons of big data'">Big Data – Opportunities and Threats A look at the pros and cons of big data

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Both of those articles refer to the Gartner Hype Cycle (see image below), and more specifically to the ‘Trough of Disillusionment’, where “Interest wanes, as the technology fails to deliver on inflated expectations and promises”. And there is evidence that big data has indeed followed Gartner’s model, and is probably approaching the trough.

Now, a new Gartner report entitled “Big Data Adoption in 2013 Shows Substance Behind the Hype” says that 64% of organizations polled have invested or plan to invest in Big Data within the next two years. This is up from 58% last year.

Interestingly, 56% of those polled gave “Determining how to get value from big data” as one of their top three big data challenges. This says to me that businesses want big data, they just don’t know what to do with it.

I still consider big data to be a solution in search of a problem. Adopters have implemented big data analytics hoping for insights, but it’s hard to find something when you don’t know what you’re looking for. The thing is that right now, it’s hard to say what kind of insights big data can bring, and further, what returns would those insights bring. As more products come into the space to drive the prices down, it may then become feasible.

Big data may have real value for Geospatial purposes, or for analyzing large quantities of open data for research or government. But in business, I’m sceptical of its advantages. Business should do a proper ROI before making any investments and not follow the hype.

If indeed big data is following Gartner’s Hype Cycle, then we are already sliding into the trough of disillusionment: we have activity beyond early adopters, and negative press. Next is supposed to come some failures, so look out for that.

Original article: Yes, it probably is.'">Is Big Data being over-hyped? Yes, it probably is.

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I’ve come up with eight technologies that we should continue to monitor and consider how you can use them in your business.

1. Cloud Services (SAAS and PAAS)

What is it?

Cloud computing is a model whereby you may make on-demand access to computer resources and services. There are three models of cloud computing, Software-as-a-Service (SAAS), Platform-As-A-Service (PAAS) and Infrastructure-As-A-Service (IAAS). I will go into more detail about cloud computing in a later article.

Why is it important?

Cloud Services has the potential to save businesses on infrastructure costs and simplify administration.

By cloud services I am referring specifically to SAAS and PAAS. I know that cloud services is not new, but it continues to have a serious impact on how businesses are run, and the direction that software vendors are now going. Almost all vendors are now offering some type of SAAS package – even Microsoft has embraced SAAS with their new Office 15. I see some impact of IAAS on voice and video services.

What should your business do?

Take some time to evaluate your current infrastructure and determine whether there are gains to be made by moving to cloud services. All costs should be considered as businesses often do not consider the price of changing providers.

Understand privacy and security issues as many of the cloud services are hosted in the United States and falls under their jurisdiction. One of the major concerns with Caribbean businesses on cloud services has been on how secure is their data.

2. Big Data and Data Analytics

What is it?

Big Data is the term given to vast amounts of data that companies may have amassed through the years. This data may be based on sales, marketing, production or customer behaviour. Data analytics is the process of going through that data to gain valuable insights for future decisions.

Why is it important?

Coming on the tails of Cloud Computing, Big Data and Data Analytics have become buzz words with many large enterprises, mainly because cloud computing allowed the analysis of these large amounts of data. Analysing data is not something new, as companies large and small have used historical data to determine trends. Big Data is used to find insights that never existed before. For example, historical analysis might show that sales are seasonal and when is the best time to bring out a new product. Big data may show who the most likely people to buy a product are, when the most likely time they will buy the product is, and how you can encourage them to buy your product.

What should your business do?

Start pulling your data sources together. In the Caribbean, we don’t have as much data as other parts of the world, as we do not have as large a market and we haven’t been collecting data as much or as long as we should. If you aren’t collecting data, then you should start. Just be wary of collecting customer’s data without their consent, especially if you plan to give that data to another party.

Understand the options for analysing data and have an idea of what kind of insight you are looking for. It’s no use crunching a whole bunch of data hoping to find something; there is a scientific method of analysing data by coming up with a hypothesis then testing it.

If you plan to analyse data then get a statistician or data analyst on board who understands how to do the type of analytics required. Do not think that the IT department has those set of skills, as they generally do not.

3. Truly “Personal” Computing

What is it?

The personal computer is meant for use by individuals. By “personal” computing I mean that computers become more customised to the individual user offering services and information suitable to that person.

Why is it important?

People want information quickly, but not just any information, the right information. But each person is unique and this involves an individual allowing a huge amount of personal information to be gathered so that trends can be analysed for better guesses later on. Google Now is one service that is making some serious headway with this.

What should your business do?

As people become more expectant of real-time, accurate information, your business will also need to be able to meet such needs. Consider portals that users can connect to that provide information on orders, queries and billing so that there is less hassle. Ensure that this system is secure to limit the risk of malicious attacks.

Collect data on customers for analysis so that you can be better equipped with information more suited to the individual rather than your entire market, even if you have them categorised by groups.

4. Smartphones

What is it?

Smartphones are feature-rich mobile phones, typically running a mobile operating system that allows the installation and running of third-party applications, so that they may be used, almost, as a personal computer.

Why is it important?

The numbers of smartphone purchases are steadily increasing as the number of non-smartphone (called feature phones) are steadily decreasing. As smartphones become cheaper, almost everyone will have one, and, coupled with higher and cheaper data rates by service providers, will allow users to have on-the-go access to information, both work and personal. The number of applications available for smartphones now range from games, to social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc), to cloud-based services.

Customers and consumers can use smartphones to research products in the store and get feedback and reviews from friends or strangers. More users are using their smartphones for general purpose web-browsing and e-mail access rather than desktops.

Employees can now use smartphones to connect to company applications to perform business tasks, such as sales order generation or invoicing, in real-time. As more employees are coming in with their own smartphone into the workplace, the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) movement will become more important. I’ll speak more on BYOD in a later article.

What should your business do?

Start by developing a mobile strategy from both the corporate side and the consumer side. By mobile strategy, I mean how your business is going to position itself to take advantage of the advances in mobile.

Understand the risks of mobile, particularly with company data on mobile devices; mobile devices are lost regularly and the data on the devices are usually more valuable than the device itself.

5. Augmented Reality and Location-Based Services

What is it?

AR is the enhancement of the visualisation of the physical environment with computer generated information. An example of this is the Google Project Glass concept.

LBS is specific services that is offered based on your location. An example of this is performing a search on Google for restaurants – a search while you are in Trinidad will bring up Trinidadian restaurants, while a search if you are in Barbados will bring up Bajan restaurants.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Location-Based Services (LBS) are two different applications, but the business potential are similar. LBS is available now, while AR is still under development, but I believe that AR will make some rapid leaps this year.

Why is it important?

AR and LBS will allow businesses to offer more relevant information to consumers, and combined with data analytics, can offer valuable insight into your customers’ behaviours.

What should your business do?

How you use AR and LBS will depend on your mobile and marketing strategy. Using LBS, you can develop a mobile application that notifies a user of a sale on a particular item when they are close to a store, for example, and then use AR to help that user navigate your store. Remember that AR is a developing technology, while LBS is currently in use.

6. The Internet of Things and Pervasive Computing

What is it?

The Internet of Things (IOT) and Pervasive Computing envisions a world where everything is connected in some way to an “Internet”; Internet is in quotes, because that Internet may not be the Internet we now know. This technology will allow us to communicate with everyday devices such as clothing and refrigerators, to the machinery in the manufacturing plants.

Why is it important?

Pervasive computing can open the market to new products using old products. For example, Nike created it’s Nike+ series of products that allows consumers to gather biometric information while at play to help them measure and improve their performance.

Businesses can use the IOT to gather information from the plant to make more timely business decisions such as supply chain management and enterprise resource planning.

What should your business do?

Start thinking inside the box, where you look at your current products and determine if there are advantages to the consumer of connecting your product to the internet.

Review your current plant infrastructure and determine if you can benefit from more real-time information of how they are being used.

Also be cognisant of data security when connecting devices to networks, so ensure that access to these devices are protected.

7. 3D Printing

What is it?

3D printing is a process for making 3-dimensional objects from computer generated designs. The process is currently performed by using a layering or additive method by laying material upon each other until the object is completed. The majority of 3D printers create plastic objects, but there are some that create metal ones.

Why is it important?

3D printers have been around for some time, but now have become much more affordable; even domestic printers are available for hobbyists.

These printers allow manufacturers to create rapid prototypes, allowing them to test designs before moving them to more permanent lines. Because the cost of prototyping is less, designers can be more open to trying new and creative designs that may have been previously cost prohibitive.

The printers also allow for rapid manufacturing where small quantities of parts might be required for a small order. Manufacturers will not need to adjust a line just to create those parts.

What should your business do?

If you are a manufacturer, explore your design process and determine if there are opportunities for rapid prototyping and whether 3D printing can help improve your time-to-market of new products.

8. New and Improved Human-Machine Interfaces

What is it?

A human-machine interface is the process by which humans interact with a machine or a computer (sometimes called a human-computer interface). This interface is mostly known as the keyboard and monitor, but can also be the control screens of process plants, or the touch screens of phones.

Why is it important?

After many years of interacting with computers by keyboard and mouse, technology has improved where voice commands are more reliable, and gesture controls are more capable. Not only do these new interfaces allow you to improve the speed of computerised processes, but it’s also very cool.

Apple’s Siri generated a lot of interest when Apple introduced it back in 2010; although it has not quite lived up to the hype, it opened ourselves to a new way of interacting with our mobile devices.

Microsoft’s Kinect system, while originally developed for it’s Xbox gaming system immediately found favour with hacking enthusiasts who used it to create gesture controls for computer applications including educational and medical uses.

What should your business do?

As always, peruse the technology landscape and see what improvements are available to allow you to improve your business processes.

Don’t be afraid of being innovative and try to develop new ways of using these technologies in your current processes to improve usability.

Conclusion

So there they are, my predictions of the eight technology trends that will likely have a great impact on Caribbean businesses, and well, all businesses in general.

What do you think? Is there any technology that you think that I should have mentioned? Or do you think that I am wrong with my current predictions? Chime in below.

Original article: and what should your business do about them.'">8 Tech Trends for Businesses to Watch for in 2013 and what should your business do about them.

©2025 Interxect Services Limited. All Rights Reserved.