Category: Big Data

Open Banking – too exposed?

As a human race, we are constantly striving for easier ways of doing things: simpler, faster, and more practical. Thanks to better tech, you can now interact with people globally and instantly with the click of a few buttons.

Likewise, you can also physically move quickly due to advances in transportation technology. When it comes to the age-old practice of banking – the same is now happening.

Provided you have the necessities, a passport, residential address and a mobile phone, you can now open a bank account within minutes. This is brought about by a Fintech offering better known as Open Banking.

Open banking uses APIs that enable third-party developers to build applications and services around the financial institution.
Wikipedia

It is ultimately about giving you a better, secure, and flawless service experience. This comes with the opportunity to gain access to excellent financial products.

Online security expert and Chairwoman of Zortrex, Susan Brown reflects on the advent of the new offering:

“Just over a year ago when Open Banking came into the limelight for the Fintech world. CMA9 were effectively mandated to make their banking platform accessible for third party companies.”

A comprehensive global report commissioned by Accenture emphatically highlighted growth and talking points about the emerging industry in 2017.

MS Office package

This is all wonderful, innovative, and promotes transparency within the financial services market. There is only one drawback:

“Consumers really do not know what Open Banking means, there has been a lot published about the benefits that are to be had from Open Banking. At the same time, consumers have become very aware of the negative aspects around sharing their data.”

Scourge of hacks & breaches

Daily, you hear more and more about hacks, and data compromises. With the UK’s Lloyds Bank breach last year; the trust by its consumers to share their financial and personal information, some would say, is completely gone.

In addition, you go onto a site to review products and before you know it, you are bombarded with adverts on the products that you have been looking at elsewhere. This has led some consumers to abandon shopping carts and refrain from using online retailers.

If not adequately protected, the newly established Fintech system might suffer a similar data breaches.

Visa and Mastercard for one, are among the established firms threatened by Open (Mobile) Banking. And so, they should be according to Brown.

“As consumers knowledge grows about their data and the security around their financial data has not been secure as shown with the Marriott hack.”

Naturally, new systems pose a huge threat for banks. They become the digital gateway channel connection to the financial sector. This eliminates the direct relationship between consumers and banks.

This is not a bad thing as banks are overwhelmed and cannot always keep in touch with everyone.

An added layer of protection

The solution for failing global acceptance would be for a new Fintech company to gain the trust of its new customers. They would naturally also be able to chip away at the market share of other expensive financial institutions.

What you as a consumer know and want is privacy and security. Currently, only banks can make this happen – but at a high cost.

With a new digital tokenisation system like Zortrex vault, you can concurrently let your consumers reap the awards on their transactions.

They can as a result, gain redeemable tokens for patronising your services. This can occur while both you and your partners offer them products globally.

“Don’t be a gateway for the challenger banks be in control of your omni channel for your consumers,” Brown advises

Read more about Zortrex’s solution to privacy here.

This contains excerpts from Susan Brown about Open Banking initially published on her LinkedIn page.

15 April 2019
Sell easily with the aid of smart tech
Practical online software can – without a shadow of a doubt – help your business (large enterprise or Start-up) get on top of its operations.

The most common operational tasks most of us use are sales and customer support. Though very important they cannot, however, be used in isolation to other business processes.

There are also other ‘bits’ and ‘bobs’ that can be built-in or integrated to ensure that your business processes are fully automated. And automation saves you time and therefore, money!

Core operations that a good ERP can manage for your business are not limited to the following:
- Sales (the lifeblood of your business)
- Customer Support (now extended to Customer Engagement)
- Accounting and Finance (all your banking, invoicing, payments and taxation)
- Supply chain and logistics management (Cataloguing, Inventory, stock management, warehousing, storage and deliveries)
- Retail (B2B, eCommerce, Point of Sales)
- Human Resources (Staffing, holiday bookings, Salaries and wages, recruitment).
- Marketing (Branding, campaign management, targeted ads etc.)
Can you imagine these have been in use since the industrial revolution and the introduction of chain stores?

Trade with IQOption

ERP is the abbreviation for Enterprise Resource Planning and is basically the software your business uses on PCs/cashier systems, scanners, and all points of sale devices.

One of a kind

We identified and reviewed a specialized ERP called SmartSaleERP. It is an integrated tech platform targeted for retail business owners to help you get in control of your business.

Granted, there are hundreds of ERP solutions out there including those from known brands such as Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, Zoho etc.

A distinguishing feature on SmartSaleERP however, is the kind of technology they use over and above the traditional features and user interfaces (UI).

This ‘edge’ comes from the use of biometric and smartcard tech to provide you with a better customer/user experience. The sales experience can be derived from both the customer and the business side.

Read the full feature to find out more about this distinct ERP here.
2 April 2019
Get a vault for your data!

It’s not often that we readily endorse a product or company. However, when the nature of work they engage in is considered ground-breaking and has a positive impact on our lives – it most certainly warrants a mention.

The rationale for considering such tech-driven projects as highly significant is neither due to ‘gut feeling’. Nor that it is simply because it is fascinating and therefore must be an excellent product. This project actually has a value proposition for you!

We are indeed well into the information age and while we have written extensively about data, its importance to marketers, and its fragility when used and abused by unscrupulous third-parties for their financial gain.

The issue of data security is, however, quite a serious one. You just need to pay attention to the news to become even more aware.

Data breach incidents

In Europe, where security is supposedly more advanced, we have seen the likes of renowned airline British Airways, being hacked. Several hundreds of thousands of customers’ personal data compromised.

These were followed by hacks on other major airlines such as Cathay Pacific. Aside from airlines, other business outfits have suffered a similar fate.

The perpetrators are getting a lot more brazen and very recently, a cable car, used as public transport in Moscow was hacked. This left vulnerable passengers terrified and stuck high up in the air. And all this happened probably to the amusement of the pranksters (hackers).

Can you imagine the chaos and commotion that would be caused if their control systems of driverless cars were to be hacked?

The digital intrusion gets even more sophisticated...

This time affecting the very wealthy: private yachts are now being hacked and taken into the pirate waters, all via uniquely coded signals, reading data from their antennas!

Data security

On the issue of data security, you often hear about extra protection but not just anti-virus and anti-phishing software. The more secure and heavily encrypted Blockchain technology is, however, making waves in the digital sphere.

It is mainly for the escalation of its once shining star by-product designed for discreet transacting – Bitcoin.

Blockchain technology has also triggered several other technologies based on its digital cryptology technology. The aim is to ensure that your information is kept safe from prying eyes while stored, used, or transferred online.

Blockchain products such as cryptocurrencies, however, are not completely safe from hackers.

A solution

The company we chose to highlight uses a unique vault system and is called Zortrex. It has adopted one of such Blockchain technologies dubbed tokenization. It will be using it to ensure that your highly sensitive data online is kept safe.

“Our tokenised solution would have protected their customers’ personal identification information (PII) details. Instead the hackers ran off with the date of birth; passport numbers; financial data etc,” says Susan Brown, Chairperson of Zortrex – relating to the British Airways incident.

Tokenization is the process of converting rights to real-world assets into a digital token on a blockchain.

Brown’s background in data privacy systems as well as her devoted passion for the protection of PII, financial and healthcare data led her to start up and chair Zortrex.

The law on data

Thanks to new laws like the European GDPR law, which enforces the protection of data, breaches are now met with hefty financial penalties.

“Companies have disrespected your data for over 25 years, and if left unattended, there will be nothing left to protect,” Browns says.

Companies now have to think twice about getting your consent and how to use and share your data digitally. But is it enough? The simple answer is no.

The authorities just do not have the resources to investigate every complaint nor to actively enforce all data breaches.

We have ingeniously invented systems that automatically align with financial messaging, payments and securing information. All of which require data.

“However, we need to go a step further to secure all the PII details with tokenization. This is so that in the event of a hack, the cookies and trackers will only be following a ‘useless’ token will be no real identification on it,” Brown explains.

Zortrex would naturally like to tokenize all healthcare data. This way, vulnerable those of you living outside of major cities can also feel assured that your privacy is protected.

Using Blockchain

The application of the all-powerful blockchain is not limited to use in the financial sector and will be applied via the supply chain to all industries that deal with your data – especially the most sensitive ones.

A business angel or any investor for that matter looking to get onto the next best thing since Amazon would therefore be unwise to pass up the opportunity to back the Zortrex venture given its scope.

Furthermore, regulations are currently being implemented primarily in the pharmaceutical sector.

A tokenized supply chain such as what Zortrex offers would be ideal for this new law which is planned to be implemented by 2023. A judiciary blockchain, for instance, would allow the police to “talk” to the prison service. They, in turn, will communicate with the legal sector or public health institutions (NHS).

Forensic evidence would in such instances be tokenized and kept secure (away from tampering) during legal hearings. In another practical scenario, Smart Contracts (which could replace some lawyers) can spark off legal aid assistance to you.

Your court cases will be heard quicker and be more efficient. Protection registers can also be guarded using tokenization – rendering them more secure.
Blockchain technology offers quality assurance making sure that no shortcuts are taken.
This will enable the monitoring and tracking if any of your data is shared with third parties once tokenized. The third-party apps would only gain access to your data once the trigger has been activated.

Like other pioneers and visionaries, Brown’s futuristic hope that every child being born will have their name, date of birth, blood type data being tokenized, might seem far-fetched.

Zortrex wants to use its technology to put the hackers out of business!

Tokenisation cannot be mathematically reversed and thus it will least it will keep the hackers busy for a while.

Scalability

For such high ambitions, the creators of Zortrex’s software have adequately ensured that the technology used is fully scalable. One stumbling block many Blockchain projects now face is what is referred to as scalability. This is the ability of a network or software to grow and manage increased usage.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum specifically – which is used to build a lot of Distributed Applications, however, have massive scalability issues.

The growth in demand for DApps is also crippling (slowing down) those systems. They need to investigate the incorporation of alternative technologies, upgrade or split their platforms to cope with such high demand.

Someone must take the first step in securing this data forever. You should be able to purchase what you want without being harassed by trackers and cookies.

The need for tokenization is endless and further, down the line, celebrities and government official’s PII can be secured by it to protect them from damaging schemes, ‘bad press’, and scandals.

In a previous blog, we “prophesized” that data is the new commodity – like gold or oil. However, the actual value with that data will lie in its privacy, the ability to store it securely and unlock it only with legal permission by its rightful owner.

19 March 2019
Get a vault for your data!

It’s not often that we readily endorse a product or company. However, when the type of work they engage in is considered groundbreaking – and one with the potential to have a massively, positive impact on our livelihoods, it most certainly warrants a mention.
The rationale for considering such tech-driven projects as highly significant is neither due to ‘gut feeling’ nor that it is cutting-edge/fascinating and therefore must be an excellent product – it actually has a value proposition for everyday people!
We are indeed well into the information age and while we have written extensively about data, its importance to marketers and its fragility when used and abused by unscrupulous third-parties for their financial gain, the issue of data security is quite a serious issue – we must just pay attention to the news to become even more aware.
In Europe, the where security is supposedly more advanced, we have seen the likes of renowned airline British Airways, being hacked – with several hundreds of thousands of customers’ personal data compromised. This was followed by hacks on other major airlines such as Cathay Pacific. Aside from airlines, other business outfits have suffered a similar fate.
The perpetrators are getting a lot more brazen and very recently, a cable car, used as public transport in Moscow was hacked, leaving vulnerable passengers terrified and stuck high up in the air – probably to the amusement of the pranksters (hackers). We all know about driverless buses and cars coming to the market soon.
Can you imagine the chaos and commotion that would be caused if their control systems were to be hacked? The hacks get even more sophisticated: this time, affecting the very wealthy – private yachts are being hacked and taken into the pirate waters, all via uniquely coded signals, reading data from their antennas!
On the issue of data security (with almost full anonymity); we have also heard about extra protection (and not just anti-virus and anti-phishing software) but the more secure and heavily encrypted Blockchain technology that is making waves in the digital sphere. Mainly for the escalation of its once shining star by-product designed for discreet transacting – the Bitcoin.
It has also triggered several other technologies based on its digital cryptology technology to ensure that information is kept safe from prying eyes while stored, used or transferred online.
The company we chose to highlight uses a unique vault system and is called Zortrex. It has adopted one of such Blockchain technologies dubbed tokenization – and will be using it to initially ensure that highly sensitive data online is kept safe.
“Our tokenised solution would have protected their customers’ personal identification information (PII) details, instead the hackers ran off with the date of birth, passport numbers, financial data etc,” says Susan Brown, Chairperson of Zortrex – relating to the British Airways incident.
“Tokenization is the process of converting rights to real-world assets into a digital token on a blockchain.”
The establishment of this start-up company was due to Brown’s background in data privacy systems as well as her devoted passion for the protection of PII and financial/healthcare data. In her view, companies have disrespected their customer data for over 25 years, and if left unattended, there will be nothing left to protect.
Thanks to new laws like the European GDPR law which is now imposing the data protection; data breaches and abuse of customer data is now met with hefty financial penalties. Companies now think twice about consent and how to use and share customer’s data digitally – but is it enough? The simple answer is a no. The authorities just do not have the resources to investigate every complaint nor to actively enforce all data breaches – yet.
“We have ingeniously invented systems that automatically align with financial messaging, payments and securing information, all of which require data. However, we should and need to go a step further to secure all the PII details with tokenisation so that in the event of a hack, the cookies and trackers will only be following a useless token as there is no real identification on it,” Brown explains.
Zortrex would naturally like to tokenise all healthcare data so that vulnerable people living outside of major cities can also feel assured that their privacy is protected. In a previous blog, we wrote about the new Internet of things (IoT). For all those devices being built for it, their IP addresses and the serial numbers can be tokenised to avoid the terrifying thought of the whole Internet being compromised.

The application of the all-powerful Blockchain is not limited to use in the financial sector and will be applied via the supply chain to all industries that deal with customer data – especially the most sensitive ones.

An angel investor or any investor for that matter looking to get onto the next best thing since Amazon would therefore be unwise to pass up the opportunity to back the Zortrex venture given its scope!

Furthermore, regulations are currently being implemented primarily in the pharmaceutical sector and a tokenised supply chain such as what Zortrex offers would be ideal for this new law which is planned to be implemented by 2023. A judiciary blockchain, for instance, would enable the police to “talk” to the prison service, who in turn, will communicate with the legal sector and public health institutions such as the UK’s NHS.

Forensic evidence would in such instances be tokenised and kept secure (away from tampering) during legal hearings. In another practical scenario, Smart Contracts (which are touted to replace lawyers) can spark off legal aid assistance, so that court cases can be heard quicker, more efficient than currently pertains. Protection registers can also be protected with tokenisation rendering it more secure.

Blockchain technology offers quality assurance with every process being undertaken making sure that no shortcuts happen; as the smart contracts trigger any possible malfeasance. This will enable the monitoring/tracking of any data sharing to third parties once it is tokenised. The third party apps would only gain access to the data once the trigger has been activated.

The company will be providing numerous business blockchain platforms; Asset Chain, Supply Chain, Accountancy Chain, Debt Chain, Life Cycle Management Chain, Outsourced Worker Chain; the list is endless, and all will be adequately secured.

Like other pioneers and visionaries, Brown’s futuristic hope that every child being born will have their name, date of birth, blood type data being tokenised, might seem farfetched – but may we remind you of the need for data protection taking into consideration the growth rate of massive data breaches.

Zortrex is aiming high and wants to use their technology to put the hackers out of business! Tokenisation cannot be mathematically reversed and thus it will least it will stop the hackers for a while.

Brown explains further that as they move with their education; other information can be added on to the token, as with all their healthcare; any allergies tokenised; what injections they have had right through their life cycle until the day no more data can be tokenised.

For such high ambitions, the creators of Zortrex’s software have adequately ensured that the technology used is fully scalable. One stumbling block many Blockchain projects now face is what is referred to as scalability – which in tech terms, is the ability of a network or software to grow and manage increased demand.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum specifically – which is used to build a lot of Distributed Applications, has massive scalability issues. The growth in demand for DApps is crippling those systems and they are having to investigate the incorporation of alternative technologies, upgrade or split their platforms and accompanying cryptocurrencies to cope with such high demand.

Someone must take the first step in securing this data forever. Citizens should be able to purchase what they want without being harassed by trackers and cookies. The need for tokenisation is endless and further, down the line, celebrities and government official’s PII can also be secured to protect them from damaging schemes, ‘bad press’ and scandals.

In another previous blog, we “prophesized” that data is the new commodity – like gold or oil. However, the actual value with that data will lie in its privacy, the ability to store it securely and unlock it only with legal permission by its rightful owner.

19 December 2018
Digital Dribs & DApps!

We have barely scratched the surface with the Internet (from the early eighties) and it is already seemingly being threatened with the competition. A possible replacement by a new phenomenon.

Well, for lack of a better word, “replaced” has connotations of a dying Internet. This is far from accurate. This new phenomenon – fostered by blockchain technology, will change the way we use and consume the Internet as a service.

So, what is this new Internet-like system creating waves online? And why is it making online marketers quiver at the prospect of them losing out on the exponential revenues they have previously enjoyed?

Well, without hyping it up any further, it is called Distributed Applications or ‘DApps’ for short.

A brief history of Apps

Before we delve further into its meaning and use in the cyber world, perhaps some background context is required.

The way we use online or mobile applications software or “Apps” has changed how we consume products and services online. Companies jumped onto the bandwagon when they discovered that we mostly use Smartphones for the Internet.

App developers were then subsequently sought after to create mobile Apps for practically anything. What started as something mainly for gamers moved quickly onto applications for practically any commercial activity.

We now use Apps for our shopping; fitness; traveling; online bookings and banking. Developers now create customized software to help us with practically, anything.

In addition, we now have App stores for every significant tech provider – Microsoft, Google, and Apple to mention a few. This has naturally fattened the pockets of software companies and created an additional stream of income for them.

The ‘catch’ for using mobile apps is that even though it costs you nothing to download, using them still requires you to register with your personal details. You can also do this by linkingyour existing social media accounts.

The benefit to App providers

These Apps, which are integrated with social media services, create a data goldmine for marketers to study and track browsing habits. Through them, marketers can gain valuable insights into your interests and then customize their products/services to sell to you.

The impetus behind a distributed application system is that it serves to distribute plow some of the wealth garnered from your data via application providers back to you.

Data mining has become more lucrative and accessible because of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning. Do you ever notice how after browsing online or having a conversation or a chat application like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger? You go online later, and you see Ads displaying the items you discussed? Creepy isn’t it? Well, that is the future of Web 4.0 for you!

Staying ‘woke’

Luckily for us, there is a school of knowledgeable and security-conscious programmers who are not ‘giving in’. They help us understand how the Internet has become a cesspool for marketers to harvest our data. Social media platforms, search engine providers, and mobile application providers facilitate them immensely with this.

Image Courtesy of blockgeeks

Imagine getting paid to surf the web for hours. The way you get paid for taking on a survey, partaking in a social experiment, donating an organ or sperm?

This is the way distributed apps are touted to work. They reward you for the use of specific applications (in a peer-to-peer review setting) with cashable tokens. Seems only fair right?

Now you can imagine how companies like Cambridge Analytica would react to having to pay you for their use of your data. They would surely be reluctant and that’s why they preferred to work clandestinely. But if they could pay companies like Facebook for the use of data, why not pay us directly?

Early adoption

Joining the ‘DApps revolution’ is a no-brainer. Those at the forefront of building and supporting DApps will end up with a more substantial chunk of the market.

DApps primarily provide you with the use of payment systems. These are specifically known as Smart Contracts and Proof of Work systems.

There are currently also web-browsers (built as DApps on blockchain platforms such as Ethereum or EOS) that will reward you for merely using their DApps.

For instance, you are rewarded in cashable tokens to surf the net over applications like Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox.

It is only a matter of time that this form of Internet-browsing and use of applications becomes the norm.

The Internet revolutionized the way we communicate, socialize, learn, shop, and do business online. DApps however, will determine the way you get compensated for doing the things you love to do online.

11 December 2018
A digital address for everything

The ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) as the name suggests is basically connecting as many devices online for them to communicate with each other.

If you think that is a far-fetched concept it is nothing new. We have been using it since the advent of GSM, Infrared, GPS, GPRS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and other wireless connections.

To put the concept into further context, your Smartphone/watch, Bluetooth headset, wireless printer, or smart fridge are all components of the ‘Internet of Things’. They all require a sensor or chip to connect or collaborate with each other.

Origins

The term was supposedly coined about a decade ago. This when a company executive discussed an idea which sounded bizarrely unnecessary and over-futuristic at the time.

He advocated for the need for a chip for every electronic device. The initially requirement was for supply chain and automation in the retail industry.

Fast forward to today, and this has indeed come to fruition. We now have smart cars, smart homes and even tracking chips inserted into pets!

So, each component or part of the object is equipped with an individual chip (small processor) with a unique IP address.

The very same IP address used to identify your home modem or Office server.

IoT application

Why would you want that you might ask? Wouldn’t it be useful for devices and machines to work things out by themselves – to solve complex problems before you even become aware of them?

This is in fact how the devices communicate with the central server to relate pertinent information. An example is the use of fuzzy logic: to regulate the temperature in the fridge (to avoid food getting moldy).

It can be used, in addition, to check the amount of water used in a washing cycle in your washing machine.

Another practical use would be to check car tyres pressure and temperature (to avoid overheating and bursting).

Can you then imagine the number of chips that are required for the typical household? For the car, security alarm, fridge, microwave, tumble dryer, TVs, Radios, computers/tablets, lighting, and heating/cooling system? Each would require a unique IP address

IP address shortage

Talks about IoT highlighted the need for more IP addresses and a need to track or generate them. This as it is evident we are running out of ‘normal’ IP addresses known as IP4: 4 denotes the number of billion IP addresses available.

At the birth of the Internet age in the 1980s, no one ever envisioned a time when the world would need more than four million IP addresses. But with the need as mentioned above for the internet of things – that has come to pass.

Without getting too technical, the issue is being resolved with the development of a newer IP system known as the IP6.

The main difference between the two but it is merely that one is on 32-bit system while the newer on 128-bit and that influences merely the length of the addresses.

Again, the technicalities would only matter to the now growing IoT industry and would not affect us as individuals.

Practical uses of IOT

Large companies that need to manufacture a lot of parts for their devices would need to insert an IP address on each piece. From items as trivial as the car side-mirror; to more serious parts like the helmet of a sportsperson engaging in the heavy contact sport.

From an education perspective, the IoT can make learning a lot more fun for kids and young adults. Toy-maker Sphero, for example, has been long making wireless operated toys like its SPRK+(pictured).

The idea is to fuse physical (programmable) robotic toys with digital apps.

This would simultaneously provide entertainment experiences while inspiring tomorrow’s leaders in maths, engineering, and science.

There are discussions to extend this connectedness to human beings. Much like was prophesied in many sci-fi books and George Orwell’s 1984. If there was a ‘rise of the machines’, and Artificial Intelligence was to take over the control of all our devices, we would not stand a chance!

There are also a few new decentralized systems that are even advocating for a fragmented Internet for that very reason (security and privacy). This would enable you to control your little space within the “interconnected” web.

You can thus run a (private) local area network (LAN) within the Internet domain – if that makes any sense.

Blockchain advocates and companies like IOTA and Chinese-based Crypto-firm Tron are pushing the IoT narrative hard. They also want the decentralization of the whole Internet.

It is only a matter of time before this becomes the norm. Companies are now queuing to get the IP6s and have incorporated adding them to the manufacturing processes.

Once the security and privacy issues have been adequately planned and implemented. The pros of the full adoption of IoT will outweigh the cons.

22 November 2018
Business with brains!
We count on our intelligence to survive. Your IQ level or Emotional Intelligence (EQ) can help you with strategy and sharpen your life-skills. This goes some way in preventing the same fate as Dodo! On a more serious level, intelligence means gaining the upper hand in mostly military warfare; going into war to win against the enemy. Employing tactics as deployed by institutions such as the CIA, KGB, MI5 and Interpol etc. The strategy is to anticipate the next action or event (proactive) being fully prepared to appropriately counter/react to gain the upper hand.

Likewise, in the business environment, it is a crucial requirement to be strategic (SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) for the business’ success/survival.

It is no surprise, in today’s technological advancements, that there are tools available to draw up business plans, predict(forecast) both internal and external events affecting its operations – conveniently referred to as Business Intelligence (BI). The function of a business intelligence tool is to mainly assist with forecasting. After all, if you aren’t selling anything like a ‘for-profit’ business – you are out of business!

Using a good business intelligence tool can help accelerate and improve decision-making, optimizing internal business processes, increasing operational productivity and efficiency.

This, in turn, helps generate more revenue with the same resources and can provide a significant competitive advantage over your competitors. BI tools can also help companies identify market trends and spot business problems that need serious attention.

Business intelligence is a technology-driven process for analyzing data and presenting actionable information to help executives, managers and other corporate end users make informed business decisions.

There are a few BI tools out there, but the most usable and compatible ones are what you should be looking for. Compatibility is critical because to use these tools you need to analyse raw data!

Most people use MS Excel to store large (or small) transactions and datasets for sales, stock and other accounting-related reports. This data will need to be imported or accessed directly by the tool to generate real-time graphs, forecasts and reports. A good BI tool should make accessing and processing such raw data a breeze.

As a business intelligence tool user, the one that makes the most sense to use is a Microsoft-based tool called Power BI. This is the one we recommend because it also comes free with a subscription to Office 365 Proplus package (for the latest Office apps incl. Excel) for as little as 12 USD per month.

That means you can dive in straight from MS Excel without having to add-on or pay for another subscription to a third-party software. Naturally, the free version would be essential and there are two other levels which are paid for products designed for professionals ($10 per month) and developers (priced per node).

Some other perks include the following:
- It is cloud-based which means you can use it on mobile apps – practical for users who are always on the move.
- Great visual dashboards to make complex data look comfortable on the eye and allow one to make quick and sensible decisions.
- Connect it easily to other database-driven applications such as Insightly, ClickDimensions, GoogleAnalytics, Dynamics 365 and let#s not mention the advent and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
- Sharing and publishing data easily: It is convenient to have an arsenal of data and professionally created graphs and reports. However, without the ability to inform others about the outcomes, it would be futile. Fortunately, the real-time sharing functionality allows for all stakeholders to ‘get the 411’ on trends and forecasts and anything that can impact business operations.
For a Power BI consumer, the five “building blocks” are: visualizations, dashboards, reports, apps, and datasets – sometimes referred to as Power BI content. The content exists in workspaces. You can have several workspaces for different facets of the business to keep it all organized – just like in a factory or real office setting.

A typical Power BI workflow involves all these building blocks and will give the user the ability to visualise the inner workings of a business mostly from a financial viewpoint. So this would be a tool typically used by those in the financial sector – but also by account managers in businesses.

From a personal trading and investment analysis perspective, a BI tool could be the difference between reaping massive or incremental profits based on the real-time trends; following past movements of a stock or Cryptocurrency or making losses because you did not anticipate a dip or market crash. Most of the trading platforms have their own mathematically derived intelligence tools called indicators – but that’s another whole new ball game altogether. A dedicated BI tool, however, will serve you well in your immediate line of work and operations.

So, if you haven’t thought of a business intelligence tool yet, now is the time to do so! It can be the difference between tagging along, falling behind your competitors – or leading the pack with great insights and business intel. Be the business James Bond/the General who goes to war to win and get ahead of the game – whatever it is that you play!
1 November 2018
Run your business with brains!
We count on our intelligence to survive. Your IQ level or Emotional Intelligence (EQ) can help you with strategy and sharpen your life-skills. This goes some way in preventing the same fate as Dodo!

On a more serious level, intelligence means gaining the upper hand in mostly military warfare. It is like going into war to win against the enemy.
Employing tactics by institutions such as the CIA, KGB, MI5, and Interpol, etc. would help you anticipate the next action to take to mitigate costs (casualties).

Likewise, in the business environment, it is a crucial requirement to be strategic for the business’ survival.

It is no surprise, in today’s technological advancements, that there are tools available to draw up business plans, and predict events affecting its operations. This is conveniently referred to as Business Intelligence (BI).

The purpose of BI

The function of a business intelligence tool is to mainly assist with forecasting. After all, if you aren’t selling anything like a ‘for-profit’ business – you are out of business!

Using a good business intelligence tool can help accelerate and improve decision-making. It also helps with optimizing internal business processes, increasing productivity and efficiency.

This, in turn, helps generate more revenue with the same resources and can provide a significant competitive advantage over your competitors. BI tools can also help companies identify market trends and spot business problems that need serious attention.

Business intelligence is a technology-driven process for analyzing data. It presents actionable information to help executives, managers, and other corporate end-users make informed business decisions.

There are a few BI tools out there, but the most usable and compatible ones are what you should be looking for. Compatibility is critical because to use these tools you need to analyze raw data!

Most people use MS Excel to store large (or small) transactions and datasets for sales, stock, and other accounting-related reports. This data will need to be imported or accessed directly by the tool to generate real-time graphs, forecasts, and reports.

A good BI tool should make accessing and processing such raw data a breeze.

As a business intelligence tool user, the one that makes the most sense to use is a Microsoft-based tool called Power BI. This is the one we recommend. It also comes free with a subscription to Office 365 Proplus package (latest Office apps), for as little as 12 USD per month.

That means you can dive in straight from MS Excel without having to add-on or pay for another subscription to third-party software.
Naturally, the free version would only allow the basics. There are two other levels which are paid for products designed for professionals ($10 per month) and developers (per node).

Some other perks include the following:
- It is cloud-based which means you can use it on mobile apps – practical for those who are always on the move.
- Great visual dashboards to make complex data look comfortable on the eye and allows you to make quick and sensible decisions.
- Connect it easily to other database-driven applications such as Insightly, ClickDimensions, GoogleAnalytics, Dynamics 365 . Let’s not mention the advent and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
- Sharing and publishing data easily. It is convenient to have an arsenal of data and professionally created graphs and reports. However, without the ability to inform others about the outcomes, it would be futile.
- Fortunately, the real-time sharing functionality allows for you and all your stakeholders to ‘get the 411’ on trends and forecasts.
Some BI terminology

For a Power BI consumer, the five “building blocks” are: visualizations, dashboards, reports, apps, and datasets.

The content exists in workspaces. You can have several workspaces for different facets of the business to keep it all organized – just like in a factory or real office setting.

A typical Power BI workflow involves all these building blocks and will give you the ability to visualise the inner workings of a business.
So this would be a tool typically used by those in the financial sector – but also by account managers in businesses.

Another practical use

From a personal trading and investment analysis perspective, a BI tool could be the difference between you reaping massive or tiny profits.

With it, you can follow past movements of a stock or Cryptocurrency or making losses because you did not anticipate a dip or market crash.
Most of the trading platforms have their own mathematically derived intelligence tools called indicators.

But that’s another whole new ball game altogether. A good BI tool, however, will serve you well in your immediate line of work and operations.

So, if you haven’t thought of a business intelligence tool yet, now is the time to do so.

Be the business James Bond or the General who goes to war to win. Get ahead of the game – whatever it is that you play!
1 November 2018
Get more organised digitally!

One often hears the phrase “technology is your friend” To what extent the friendliness/support is, in being a most effective “companion” to assist you to cope with your daily activities or business plans depends on how you embrace it.

Read more via Get more organised digitally!

28 October 2018
Vocations of the Future

There is a lot of banter, which is backed up by well-research papers on how Automation and Robotics (powered by AI) will replace manufacturing jobs.

Blue-collar jobs are not the only ones however, that face imminent and progressive extinction.

A recent survey report conducted by the World Economic Forum predicts futuristic trends affecting certain jobs in the modern workplace.

Robert Solow predicted decades ago, in his Solow-Swan model, a massive driving force of global growth: technology.

And the evidence is prevalent with the likes of Apple, Google, and Amazon championing stock markets with Billion-dollar market capitalizations. They also create an abundance of jobs globally.

Disruptive technological advances such as AI (Artificial Intelligence); the ubiquitous high-speed mobile Internet (5G); widespread adoption of big data analytics; cloud technology; and the recent Blockchain technology will be the drivers of this job evolution.

Based on the report, by 2022, this job evolution will be firmly in place as it has already.

In a matter of just 4 years, we could have a situation where jobs such as postal service clerks, data entry clerks, and bean-counters (accountants and auditors) would be made redundant.

Impact on services

Software like Microsoft’s Dynamics 365, aims to remove ‘silos’ within customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) processes.

The latter takes over (fully automates) back-office operations such as stock-taking and supply chain management.

Such tasks will be performed via software, reducing the need for more human supervision. Consequently, the focus would be more on managerial roles.

In the sales and customer service realm, technologies like Microsoft’s AI will provide automated insights to guide employees on improving customer experiences.

Furthermore, it may lower support costs by using virtual agents or Chatbots to eliminate in-house AI experts and those writing code. This will result in more redundancies!

On a positive note, newer and more exciting jobs such as data analysts, machine learning and AI specialists, digital transformation experts and in general information system services will be on the rise – up to 135 million globally, according to the Report.

The fields to benefit directly from new technologies would be information technology; information security; innovation; customer services and risk management (financial services).

Impact on finance

Another group of professionals whose nature of work will be affected due to the advent of ‘disruptive technology‘ is financial middlemen. Likewise, smaller banks and money transfer institutions.

Decentralized systems were primarily put in place to eradicate exorbitant fees associated with transferring money across borders.

Cutting them out completely undoubtedly renders them redundant. It is therefore pertinent for them to innovate their products in order to open up sufficient job position.

Read more about the effect of Cryptocurrencies on the banking sector here

Recently, Malta’s finance minister whilst in a private interview during a Blockchain Conference, echoed this. He said that the advent of cryptocurrency has changed financial middlemen into traditional “photo developers”.

“I can see this, just like in photography when you could tell that […] those who process the photos will lose their jobs; a lot of financial intermediaries will be facing the chop in the not too distant future,” says Edward Scicluna.

The good news for governments will be that the trend shows that the jobs created will surpass those lost.

Be proactive and skill yourself accordingly or get the right personnel who can quickly adopt some of the mentioned skills so that you do not fall behind!

7 October 2018

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