We all know that Big Data and Analytics help businesses a lot. Now let's take a shift. Big Data and Analytics also help in retaining nurses. Sounds interesting, right?

 Based in Dallas, Texas, Tenet Healthcare used Predictive Analytics to increase nurse retention rate. You know very well how much it costs to recruit new employees. Few years ago, American Organization of Nurse Executives estimated that in conservative approach, direct recruitment fees cost $10,000 to replace a nurse; and if you take indirect costs into account, the actual cost will mount to $42,000. This cost escalates to $64,000 for hiring specialty nurse. Now, just imagine, if your organization wrongly recruits a person, or if your employees leave your organization too early, how much more will it cost you, given that you give expensive training to them. In fact, Tenet observed that many high quality nurses were leaving them due to which they incurred considerable cost and also it caused inconvenience to patients and other staff members.

To mitigate this problem, they used Predictive Talent Analytics and Big Data. Tenet took an assessment test for their nurses creating behavioral DNA or a thumbprint which the software then matched with individuals’ performance data. From this, Tenet got an insight of a list of characters which are common to best performing nurses within each specialized category. So, you may be thinking what are the benefits they reaped from it? Read them at http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/analytics/nurse-retention-rate-improvement-secret-analytics/d/d-id/1234912  to know.

According to Forrester principal analyst Mike Gualtieri, "Hadoop is not big data. It's a big-data technology. You can break down the siloes but Hadoop is also a framework for processing the data". So, proper handling of big data is very essential for any company. Hadoop can help in explaining corporate data by managing it across clusters of commodity hardware. Research shows that many of the big companies using Hadoop. To know more on the advantages of Hadoop, follow the article by Toby Wolpe, senior reporter at ZDNet in London:

http://www.zdnet.com/hadoops-rise-why-you-dont-need-petabytes-for-a-big-data-opening-7000028282/

Teradata launched a technology called QueryGrid. It aims to extract analytical data from multiple systems storing, both big and little data. QueryGrid can bridge the division between data warehouses and big data. To know the model of QueryGrid, follow the article by Larry Dignan, Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet. - See more at:

http://www.zdnet.com/teradata-launches-querygrid-one-workflow-for-big-little-data-7000028044/

"This is the dirty secret of the analytics world - that there are so many errors" - Velamakanni, CEO, Fractal Analytics. Company politics, bad data and inefficient analysis are affecting many organizations, leading to some wrong conclusions. To know more about this aspect, follow the article by Toby Wolpe, senior reporter at ZDNet in London:

http://www.zdnet.com/lies-damned-lies-and-big-data-how-firms-get-analytics-wrong-and-how-to-get-it-right-7000023476/

Building a strong relationship with your customers is very important for your company to prosper because then only they will return to you and buy products or services from you time and again.

Earlier, what used to happen is that customers went to favorite retailer and the product they needed was made readily available in front of them – this happened because the retailer knew what type of product they wanted. Now there is a shift. People are going to supermarkets or even they are buying products online. Unlike the old days, where the retailer chatted with customers to know their likings, they do not chat with the owner – be it supermarkets or online shops. So, how, you as a shop owner or a retail owner must try to maintain strong relationship with your customers in order to attract them and make repeated purchases?

Thanks to Big Data, you can now again personalize your relationship with consumers and build strong bonding with them so that your customers buy more and more. But what are the ways to do so? Read them here: http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/21/5-ways-big-data-is-helping-companies-help-their-customers/.

When we talk about Big Data and the stuffs alike, we normally think of how it helps in running any business. But, hold on a second. Here, we will talk about something fundamental related to our society.

In order to drive a country economically forward, we need talented people, no matter whether the country is a developed country or a developing country. You know that talented people cannot be formed just like anything. For this, you have to invest in education and training. To end poverty, bridge the gap of economic inequality and rise on the economic ladder, we must find better ways to teach that are cheaper and can be applied on a vast scale – because, we are talking about a country. It is of no doubt that binding technology with education has proved fruitful tremendously; and now, with techniques of analyzing Big Data known to us, we can leverage the power of it for betterment of education. With the help of Big Data, teachers and companies can get several information about students’ learning patterns and depending on that, schools can design personalized instructions in a more sophisticated way.

Big Data technologies can even be used in strengthening a country’s national educational system. In fact, The World Bank Group in association with its private sector lending arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) are presently working on this to support national educational systems. They recently launched an initiative named Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER), which collects and shares comparative data on educational policies and institutions from countries around the world. In private sector, Big Data can create favorable impact by collecting information about interactions between teachers and students and between students and learning systems. Spreading the light of education can become much easy with increasing a country’s literacy rate and educating poor students.

Read more at http://businessdayonline.com/2014/04/big-data-for-poor-students/#.U1SHFPmSxqI on how the power of Big Data and adaptive technologies can be utilized in fortifying education.

No matter, how modernized your IT systems are, but data loss is a major problem. And what will happen if you lose your big data?

More companies are keeping on using big data analytics to analyze real time data – and it has gone to such an extent that now, it is most important to your company. To prevent loss of your big data and to ensure that you are not ruined, it is vital that you should have a proper disaster recovery plan of Big Data. Unlike your conventional data, you cannot apply prevalent data recovery practices. You have to keep in mind that you are dealing with big data and so, you need to formulate your plans properly.

Mary Shacklett, president of technology research and market development firm Transworld Data, takes you through some guidelines. Read them at http://www.techrepublic.com/article/stop-procrastinating-formulate-a-big-data-disaster-recovery-plan-today/# .

The power of Big Data is used by many industries ranging from healthcare to finance and automobile manufacturer to government. But, a recent survey showed that the retail sector is not an ardent participant in using big data. Research by eCommera reveals that only 23% of UK retailers are able to interpret data quickly for making business decisions, 16% of them are confident about how to use this data to get a clear picture of their requirement and 50% said that they do not have correct business intelligence tools.

It is data, more appropriately Big Data, which will be the future driver in the retail sector. So, to be able to survive stiff competition, it is vital that you should properly use it and interpret it. The question is how will you progress? You will face challenges and you should overcome it.

So, what are they and how should you mitigate them? Caroline Baldwin from ComputerWeekly.com writes about them here:  http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240218550/Are-retailers-using-data-analytics-to-their-advantage. 

Much is being talked about how to protect our environment. But, have you ever thought that how Big Data can play a major role in it? Certainly not, right?

Well, let me tell you then – Big Data is the future for bringing an eco-friendly environment at a time when all of us are chanting the ‘Go Green’ mantra.  Due to its versatility, Big Data is necessary for various environmental needs. It can help in surveying a large area and can also assist you in monitoring a small city’s water supply. With Big Data enabling you to collect data having no limit, it can be implemented with rapidity and ease. As opposed to traditional ways where analyzing environmental data was a slow and laborious task, you can collect the same information much faster with Big Data leading to application of it in a shorter time.

By tackling the grievous environmental problems like deforestation, oil dumping and more, Big Data can help our environment to paint in green. Read at http://www.bigdata-startups.com/5-ways-big-data-protect-planet/ for more details on this.

Analyst, Gartner thinks that the growth in big data and its related technologies will increase the demand of Chief Data Officer (CDO) along with Chief Information Officer (CIO) by the end of the year 2014. 17% of organizations will hire CDO. Big data has made the role of CDO very significant and it is as important as the role of CIO. To know more on the importance of CDO in any organization, go through the following article written by Colin Barker, senior reporter at ZDNet in London:

http://www.zdnet.com/big-data-boom-leads-to-the-rise-of-the-chief-data-officer-7000025795/

Most companies are trying to figure out how to use big data more efficiently. They are also in search of the skills which can be helpful in extracting proper business insight from piles of data. A survey of senior managers revealed that along with technical skills, some other skills are also necessary. To know more about these skills, follow the article by Colin Barker, senior reporter at ZDNet in London:

http://www.zdnet.com/what-skills-do-companies-really-want-on-their-big-data-team-7000025945/

Guy Cuthbert, managing director at visual analytics firm Atheon Analytics, says that many of the firms selectively choose data to back up currently held views, which is just opinion based decision-making. The firms usually prefer to take decisions using untested opinions rather than data science. By applying data science, firms can deliver insights which are intrinsically more valuable than what they have today.To know more on data science, go through the article of Toby Wolpe, senior reporter at ZDNet in London:

http://www.zdnet.com/big-data-what-to-trust-data-science-or-the-bosss-sixth-sense-7000026550/

An article by David Linthicum, SVP at Cloud Technology Partners, talks about how Healthcare providers and payers utilize cloud platforms to store and access personnel records. He also spoke about the use of managed security services providers that will allow healthcare organizations to push some of the responsibilities to security experts.

To know more about security concerns in healthcare follow http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/blog-hub/2014/apr/11/healthcare-cloud-security-now-and-into-the-future/

Nucleus Research, a global provider of investigative and case-based technology researcher, finds in a study that leading vendors are giving importance to core Human Resources (HR), talent management and workforce management (WFM) functions and putting them onto a single platform. In this study Nucleus Research also finds that vendors are linking HCM with Big Data analytics and business intelligence (BI) to integrate functionality across the core competencies of HCM. To make data more accessible, they are integrating their data sets to compile analytics into common dashboards.

To know more, follow the following link: http://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwgeeks/article/Nucleus-Research-Value-Matrix-Finds-Competition-Intensifying-for-Human-Capital-Management-Vendors-as-they-Race-to-Deliver-Integrated-End-to-End-HCM-Platforms-20140410#.U0pYYFWSyZY 

For the long term purpose, Predictive analytics will be very significant for healthcare organizations and providers. With the advancement in technology and complexity in healthcare sector, predictive analytics must be implemented as it will make the work easier and reliable for the providers.
In order to avoid risk and uncertainty and for taking quick decision,
predictive analytics will be of a great substitute to a traditional business intelligence practices.

Please go through the link for more details: http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/patimes/what-can-predictive-analytics-do-for-healthcare-reform/

Big data is playing a key role in healthcare and several health institutes are seeking a solution that could bring the very latest drug interaction data right to patients’ bedside. Data analytics helps to analyze massive data volumes and conduct multiple drug studies, test and apply brand-new algorithms to quickly identify drug risk warning signals.

To read cases on how data analytics enhance healthcare follow http://bigdataanalyticsnews.com/10-big-data-analytics-use-cases-healthcare/

According to a recent EY (formerly Ernst & Young) survey, very few Indian companies use ‘forensic data analytics’. Seventy-two per cent of the 500-odd companies surveyed believe Big Data has the potential to mitigate frauds. However, only seven per cent are aware of specific Big Data technologies and only two per cent are using such technologies. There are 2 basic reasons behind the sceptical mindset among Indian companies about using big data to detect frauds. First is shortage of big data skilled workers & second is their reluctance to invest in these technologies.

To know more, visit the following link:

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/smartbuy/why-we-arent-using-data-analytics-to-detect-fraud/article5897189.ece

Tired of hearing about Big Data? Accept it or not, you have to get used to it. Hundreds of companies are ready to offer impressive remuneration to hire people with quantitative skills. Ms. Linda Burtch, with her 3 decades of experience in recruitment, has tracked the rising demand for workers who can understand and manipulate data. In a recent interview, Chicago-based Ms. Burch talked about what companies want, how midcareer professionals can compete and why workers who are left behind could face a "permanent pink slip."

To read more, visit the following link:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304819004579489541746990638?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304819004579489541746990638.html

Big Data! While you are reading the two words and also this blog, you may be not aware that you already have Big Data right in front of you.

Many small businesses think Big Data to be very expensive to analyze. But, let me tell you one thing – we are analyzing Big Data freely for years! Sounds unbelievable right? Okay, so here’s the thing.

Nowadays, social media has become a great means of communication for every business. Many of them have their page on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, profiles on Twitter, etc. The social media platform can provide valuable insights about their products or services and also about their target customers. With low investments, you can get to know your customers’ behavior, know their demographics and much more. But seeing large volumes of data can make you puzzled.

Nicole Fallon from Business News Daily writes about some tips to get you started. Read them at http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6190-smb-big-data-tips.html