Business & Finance

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 09 nov 2014

Big data technologies and applications, like most other emerging technologies and trends, are evolving and companies are trying to adopt and search for the best options to stay ahead of others. Bill Loconzolo of Intuit opted for data lakes that can hold vast stores of data in their native format, while Dean Abbott of Smarter Remarketer advocated cloud. According to Mr. Loconzolo, 'In the past, emerging technologies might have taken years to mature. Now people iterate and drive solutions in a matter of months - or weeks.' Computerworld sought suggestions from IT practitioners and experts and came up with the following 8 important big data and analytics trends - (1) Big data analytics in the cloud (2) Hadoop: The new enterprise data operating system (3) Big data lakes (4) More predictive analytics (5) SQL on Hadoop: Faster, better (6) More, better NoSQL (7) Deep learning (8) In-memory analytics. Chris Curran of PwC suggests, 'You need a way to evaluate, prototype and eventually integrate some of these technologies into the business.' While Mark Beyer, an analyst at Gartner, says 'IT managers and implementers cannot use lack of maturity as an excuse to halt experimentation. IT needs to work with analysts to put a variable-speed throttle on these new high-powered tools.' Read on...

Computerworld: 8 big trends in big data analytics
Author: Robert L. Mitchell

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 08 nov 2014

Managers, in addition to their technical and job related specific skills, require ability to provide an enabling environment for their subordinates to realize their full potential. This is a challenging but achievable task. Jerry Osteryoung, consultant and Professor Emeritus at Florida State University, suggests managers to avoid the following 5 mistakes to become a strong and more effective manager - (1) Avoid the tendency to micromanage as it makes the staff to rebel (2) Failing to see the value and potential in each of their workers. Recognizing potential assists in motivating and rewarding them (3) Failing to appreciate their staff. Appreciation helps to keep them motivated and encouraged (4) Avoid becoming friends with your workers as it may be perceived as favoritism by others. But be friendly with all your staff (5) Failing to set a good example. Managers must always demonstrate the behavior they want their staff to emulate. Read on...

Tallahassee Democrat: Five common mistakes that managers make
Author: Jerry Osteryoung

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 08 nov 2014

Management and leadership expert, Ken Blanchard, while speaking to students at Armstrong State University on the concept of 'servant leadership' said, 'The big thing that's changed is that I think we've really moved from a philosophy of command and control as leadership - you know, my way or the highway - to much more of a partnership relationship. I think the young people have really pushed that.' As a consultant to Southwest Airline & its former CEO, Colleen Barrett, Mr. Blanchard observed servant leadership and corroborate a portion of their success to the way they value their customers and employees, key ingredients to servant leadership. While describing servant leadership he states, 'There are two parts of servant leadership, which I talk a lot about. One is the vision and direction and goals parts. You have to know where you're going ... that's the leadership part. The other part is if you don't have anything to serve - a vision, direction, goals - then the only thing to serve is yourself.' As an example of this he cited the widening gap between executive compensation and workers' salaries. Read on...

BusinessInSavannah.com: Management expert Ken Blanchard talks 'servant leadership' at Armstrong State University
Author: Julia Ritchey

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 06 nov 2014

There are varied perspectives regarding the age at which entrepreneurs are most effective regarding their capabilities to generate breakthrough ideas and found successful companies. Famous Silicon Valley investor, Vinod Khosla says, 'People under 35 are the people who make change happen; people over 45 basically die in terms of new ideas.' Referring to the age of entrepreneurs whom venture capitalists fund, investor Paul Graham commented, 'The cutoff in investors' heads is 32; after 32, they start to be a little skeptical.' Considering the power of youth in entrepreneurship, Peter Thiel (Co-founder of PayPal), in 2010 even announced that he would pay US$ 100000 to college students to drop out and develop new technologies and pursue entrepreneurship. But Professor Vivek Wadhwa of Stanford University, based on his research argues that the younger age bias in entrepreneurship most often results in older entrepreneurs not getting much attention and funding, and consequently it is hurting venture-capital system as well as Silicon Valley. According to his research conducted in 2008 regarding successful technology firms that started in garage and reached a revenue of US$ 1 million, it was found that average and median age of their founders was 39. Twice as many were older than 50 as were younger than 25. And twice as many were older than 60 as were younger than 20. Dane Stangler, vice president of research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation, built on Dr. Wadhwa's research findings and found in every year from 1996 to 2013, Americans in the 55-to-64 age group started new businesses at a higher rate than those in their twenties and thirties. Dr. Wadhwa and his team's research further revealed that, work and industry experience, and management ability, are what makes entrepreneurs successful. These come with age and therefore immaturity & inexperience of youth is one reason venture capitalist's record of success is so dismal. There are numerous technology companies whose innovators, founders & executives disprove the notion that only young can effect change. Consider for example the case of Qualcomm that was founded by Irwin Jacobs when he was 52 and Andrew Viterbi, who was 50. Professor Benjamin F. Jones, an economist at Northwestern University, analyzed the backgrounds of Nobel Prize winners and other great achievers of the 20th century. He found that the average age at which Nobel laureates performed their prizewinning work and the average age at which inventors had their great achievement was 39. Young entrepreneurs do have an advantage regarding newer technologies like social media and app developing but the technology shifts that are happening will alter the entire entrepreneurial landscape in the coming years. Dr. Wadhwa concludes,'Several technologies - involving medicine, robotics, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, 3D printing and nanomaterials - are advancing at exponential rates and are converging. These advances are making it possible to solve the global problems of health, energy, education and hunger. These technologies will make it possible to create the next trillion-dollar industries and to better our lives. But they require knowledge of fields such as medicine, biotechnology, engineering and nanotechnology. They require experience, an understanding of the problems people face and cross-disciplinary skills. All of these come with age and experience, which the baby boomers have in abundance. That is why we need to get beyond the stereotypes and realize that baby boomers are going to better the world.' Read on...

The Washington Post: Why baby boomers are an important part of technology's future
Author: Vivek Wadhwa

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 oct 2014

According to 2014 KPMG Global Technology survey of 768 global technology business leaders, the three disruptive technologies - 3D Printing, Internet of Things (IoT) and Biotech/Healthcare IT - have the potential to shape the next three years. While commenting on prospects of these technologies in Ireland, Anna Scally, partner at KPMG Ireland, said 'The good news is that Ireland has big strengths and further potential in these areas.' Survey respondents consider the following as the top barriers to commercialize technology innovation - security (27%), technology complexity (22%) and customer adoption (21%). In the study, technology business leaders globally believed that retail/intelligent shopping (20%) has the greatest potential to generate revenue as a result of adoption of IoT. Moreover it also cited digital currencies like Bitcoin & Blockchain as emerging technologies that might impact specific sectors or industry in particular regions depending upon their adoption. According to Gary Matuszak, global chair of KPMG's Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice, 'The interplay of these emerging technologies is enabling new business models and fuelling innovation in many industries.' Read on...

Silicon Republic: Three disruptive technologies that will shape the next three years
Author: John Kennedy

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 29 oct 2014

The evolution of global society and growth of interdependent world has facilitated 'networked' approaches to public value and new models of global problem solving. Moreover digitization of society has transformed its capability to organize for innovation, creation of wealth and public value. In an interview, Don Tapscott, an innovation and technology thought leader, suggests four pillars of the society that rely on each other for success and survival - (1) Critical role of 'governments' in achieving security and prosperity, and achieving harmonization, fairness and justice (2) Most countries in the world have chosen the 'private sector and corporations' as the dominant institution for the creation of wealth (3) The 'civil society' has emerged as a new and critical pillar with not-for-profit sector becoming a massive part of the economy and providing employment to substantial population (4) Internet has empowered 'individual citizens' from every walk of life to have an extraordinary effect on achieving social change. Read on...

DonTapscott.com: The New Interdependence: Four Pillars of Society
Author: Don Tapscott

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 28 oct 2014

'Digital Natives' (or Generation Z), growing up with technologically intensive environment that includes social, mobile, cloud, multi-media technologies etc will be entering the workforce in the next decade. Unlike the Millennials (or Generation Y), who were raised in 1990's with dial-up networks and monophonic ringtones, Digital Natives are used to super-fast hardware and software readily available on screen. They are more entrepreneurial and probably lack the employer loyalty demonstrated by earlier generations. According to research by Sparks & Honey, people of this generation spend 41% of their free time with computers or mobile devices. So if these expectations are not met by their future employers they might take away their energy, enthusiasm and expertise to someone who does or they might just prefer to create their own start-up. According to Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding, self-reliance is another defining difference of the upcoming generation - 'While millennials seek mentors, Generation Z is more about helping themselves.' The Digital Natives (DN) will find the business environment with traditional hierarchical management models as stifling and affecting their creative abilities. With involvement of social media in recruitment process and companies creating 'employer brands' through sharing information about their culture, opportunities and how they treat their employees, the next generation will be more aware of their employers. If companies don't keep their promises, the DNs will not hesitate to switch loyalties. Moreover considering their obsession with social media and sharing opinions on it, they will also make sure that they publicly post negative opinions about a bad employer. As wikia.com study found that 55% of DNs use social networks primarily to share their opinions. The coming of DNs to the workforce will be an opportunity for employers to benefit from their strengths, but at the same time they need to make sure that they provide right combination of engagement strategies and technology tools for better employment experience and utilization of potential. Moreover companies have to invest in user-friendly mobile technologies and collaboration tools not only for the new generation but for all generation of employees to be more productive. Read on...

diginomica: Is your HR strategy ready for the Digital Natives?
Author: Andy Campbell

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 27 oct 2014

Technology is impacting human resources (HR) function of businesses in big way with the HR software space being a US$ 15 billion market. Innovations in HR technology is leading to investments from venture capital and private equity firms - top 50 HR technology deals this year were above US$ 560 million & top 50 learning and educational technology deals were over US$ 800 million. Some of the areas of interest for startups include social & referral recruiting, talent analytics, assessment science, online learning and mid-market core HR systems. Moreover new tools and applications are also being developed to help manage employee communications, engagement, recognition and workplace wellness. All these innovations and investments in HR technology are creating disruptions and shifts in this space and businesses can't ignore them. Ten significant disruptions are - (1) Shift from Systems of Record to Employee Systems of Engagement (2) Mobile is everything: Build mobile Apps not just 'mobile Versions' (3) Analytics-driven, science based solutions. Data analysis is now the solution, not the product (4) The science of leadership, assessment, and psychology evolves with Big Data (5) Sensing, crowdsourcing, and The Internet of Things. Systems become more real-time (6) Radical changes to recruiting as social and referral based recruiting becomes the norm (7) Dramatic changes to performance management and talent mobility. Agile, transparent practices are a new area of focus (8) Learning Management systems change and market expands (9) HRMS and Talent Management merge: ERP vendors catching up (10) Technology savvy vendors will likely outpace their peers. Read on...

Forbes: The Top 10 Disruptions In HR Technology: Ignore Them At Your Peril
Author: Josh Bersin

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 21 oct 2014

Professor Rita Gunther McGrath of Columbia University, explains that in situations where companies seem to be too generous to their customers, the real question should be whether the company is designed to serve multiple stakeholders (investors plus customers, suppliers, the community) well or whether we allow executives and owners to claim a disproportionate share of profits generated. She quotes the recent HBR article "Profits Without Prosperity" by Professor William Lazonick of University of Massachusetts Lowell, in which he argues that investors and executives have become 'takers' in their organizations rather than 'makers' who invest to fund future growth. According to her, 'It is nearly always profitable in the short-term to cut on quality, offer less service or otherwise extract greater profits from the same dollar of customer spending. But in the longer-term it can be very dangerous.' Read on...

RitaMcGrath.com: Pressuring customers for profits can be a loser in the long term
Author: Rita Gunther McGrath

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 20 oct 2014

The high startup failure rate is a common business knowledge and when Google is searched for the keyword phrase 'success rate startups', its very clear from some of the headlines that pop out - "The Venture Capital Secret: 3 Out of 4 Start-Ups Fail", "A Startup's Odds Of Success Are Very Low", "Why 90% of Startups Fail" etc. But this doesn't stop entrepreneurs from pursuing their visions and ideas, and according to the April 2014 Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, 0.28 percent of adults per month started a new business in 2013 in US. In addition to these basic requirements to start a business - hard work, a strong offering and a solid plan of action, Ron Yekutiel (Co-founder & CEO of Kaltura Inc) suggests 5Es of entrepreneurship that should be applied to provide a solid foundation to a new business - (1) Envision (Ideas, Opportunity, Plan) (2) Enlist (People, Human Resources) (3) Embark (Take Initiative) (4) Execute (Action, Manage) (5) Evolve (Embrace Change, Adapt). Read on...

Entrepreneur: The 5 Pillars, or 'Fingers,' of Successful Entrepreneurship
Author: Ron Yekutiel

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