Category Archives: Data Mining
3 Ways a Digital Business Can Get Customer Experience Right
Reading Time: 3 mins 30 sec.
There is a secret to success shared by top digital businesses today, and it has to do with providing a positive customer experience. Happy customers are loyal customers, and loyal customers are willing to pay more for better customer experience. But what about those companies that go above and beyond to provide an unmatched customer experience? What is their secret to success?
Read about three digital businesses that are thriving due to the customer experience they provide and to get a glimpse of their common secret to success.
Grupo Xcaret
Grupo Xcaret is a family and environmentally-friendly all-inclusive resort made up of theme parks, hotels, and restaurants. The company takes a holistic approach in providing great customer experiences by creating an integrated ecosystem behind the scenes.
With the all-inclusive approach, visitors can pay for their stay all at once, then move freely throughout the various parks and accommodations without having to stop to pay, weigh decisions on additional spending for food or entry fees, or be held up in unnecessary entrance lines. Their secret to success is….a data-sharing ecosystem makes this all possible; it connects Xcaret’s lodging, restaurant, and park application systems together, combining data to better serve its customers. By analyzing the data collected and predicting next steps, Grupo Xcaret provides its visitors timely, personalized offers that let them know their experience is important to the company.
Caesars Entertainment
Also in the business of entertaining, Caesars Entertainment knows how to provide a great customer experience. But what is their secret to success? Caesars has created advanced engagement models to give each customer a personalized experience, from check-in to restaurant and show deals, to suggestions for making the most of their time on the casino floor. This is possible because they store all of their data in a shared cloud, giving 360-degree access to customers on every Caesars property.
Aeroporti di Roma
Whether you’re heading to Mexico for an all-inclusive family vacation or jet-setting to Vegas or Dubai for a more adults-only adventure, those leaving from Rome’s Aeroporti di Roma will receive a premier customer experience as soon as they reach the airport.
Aeroporti di Roma found its secret to success by integrating its data ecosystem to improve the traveling experience for flyers. From flight reservations to shopping in the terminal to boarding the plane, data is captured and analyzed, giving the airport a holistic view of its passengers. Heat maps detect passenger flow and help the airport streamline the journey from check-in to boarding based on data patterns.
A Data Sharing Ecosystem: The Secret to Great Customer Experiences
Have you figured it out yet? The secret to customer experience success is through data sharing. It allows digital businesses to personalize each individual’s visit and unveils a more thorough understanding of customer preferences. It also increases cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.
All three of the companies mentioned rely on TIBCO to integrate their systems. To learn more about each business’s strategy, check out their case studies on our Customers’ page.
Connecting an enterprise is easier said than done, however. Integrating previously siloed data, sometimes bringing in outside data from partners or even rivals, requires careful consideration and coordination. But the end result helps digital businesses deliver an experience that only looks effortless to the customer.
For more on the importance of customer experience, specifically around airport strategies, read this piece by TIBCO exec/SVP Erich Gerber. If you’re interested in seeing how TIBCO can help you build a connected customer journey, learn more here.
How to Get the Most out of Python in Spotfire®
Reading Time: 3 min 30 secs.
For recent grads and new data scientists coming into the fold, Python has clearly become the most popular programming language of choice over the past 24 months. Considering its rate of growth and widespread usage, evidenced by the sheer count of mentions in Data Scientist job descriptions, we can say with a fair degree of confidence: there’s a strong likelihood that Python is here to stay. And, our customers are clamoring for it. Well, you asked and we listened. You can now write Python natively within TIBCO Spotfire®, without the need for other tools. Read on for more exciting developments of how you can get the most out of Python in Spotfire®.
Write and manage Python natively
With the same ease and convenience of writing R language functions and managing those packages, Spotfire® users will find the Python experience released in 10.7 similar to how stats and ML libraries may be leveraged to build data functions as the basis for exploratory analysis, dashboards, or advanced analytics applications. The Spotfire® Analyst client now comes with a bundled Python engine for adding or importing Python packages for use with Spotfire® data functions. Writing Python functions natively within Spotfire® blends a streamlined offering for visual and advanced analytics by:
- Eliminating barriers for sharing value with more stakeholders throughout the enterprise when relying upon several disparate tools, some open source
- Simplifying the high-cost of task switching across various tools; translating single data science projects across platforms requires heavy manual work involving duplicative efforts (similar to the classic inefficiencies of legacy BI – ETL workflows)
A streamlined data science workflow benefits the enterprise
By embedding models into visual analytics, data science is driving better decision frameworks for improved outcomes. This makes each side of the “barbell” in large organizations more efficient: enabling citizen data scientists to self-serve quickly and use apps with advanced analytics underpinning them—essentially running Python functions as an engine within dashboards—all while liberating data scientists from low value, time-consuming tasks.
Just as with the classic data preparation inefficiency of basic formatting tasks over actual analysis, these are wasteful activities for highly valuable, and expensive, data science resources. Furthermore, this duality also frees up Data Scientists to spend time modeling deeper analyses by running workflows created by TIBCO® Data Science. In this way, Spotfire® satisfies coders and non-coders alike, expanding the reach of data science across organizations by creating more advanced analytics applications.
As embedded analyses are widely shared and consumed through dashboards, this also prompts the savvy analyst or citizen data scientist to explore them or even customize completely new low-code custom apps through self-service analytics. It’s through the automation of these workflows that Spotfire® serves end-to-end analytics use cases across the enterprise.
[NOTE: Spotfire® 10.7 provides native Python support in Spotfire®. For those users on earlier versions of Spotfire®, there are still other options for using Python. For more info, visit our TIBCO Community resource]
All with the Appropriate Governance
All of this is made available while showing appropriate care and concern for governing which packages are used across an organization. Designs of a seamless, invisible workflow in Spotfire ensures that all Python users utilize the same packages and versions of packages. Administrators or superusers can control which packages and versions of packages are automatically available, providing the potential for embedding Python packages in Spotfire for individual or group-level access privileges.
This is your opportunity to deliver more business value to your stakeholders and expand the reach of data science across your organization with advanced analytics applications using Python. For more on how to get the most out of Python in Spotfire® 10.7, watch our On-demand Dr. Spotfire® session with TIBCO Data Scientist, Neil Kanungo. Also, check out additional resources on TIBCO Community for more information about how to use the new native Python Data functions in Spotfire®.
New Leadership Change Leads To Out-of-the-Box Thinking At Equifax
Reading Time: 2 mins 30 sec.
With new leadership changes comes uncertainty, ambiguity, and questions. Will the new regime carry on the same principles as the old guard? Will they place emphasis on the same values that both employees and customers know and love? These are all considerations that Equifax, a leading provider of financial insights, experienced when it recently underwent a leadership change.
This change for Equifax also came with a challenge: how to think outside the box to better support customers. The company has been known for supporting the financial future of individuals and organizations around the world with unique, trusted data and innovative analytics. So how was it going to move its legacy and reputation forward in this new leadership era?
After trying numerous tools that were hard to manage, learn, and create appealing data visualizations, the company looked to TIBCO Spotfire® analytics for its ability to make impactful visualizations that customers and employees alike could easily understand and touch. Implementing a data visualization tool enabled Equifax to transform in three ways: build new products to deliver insights, demonstrate value to potential clients, and report transparently on operations and finances.
As a result, Equifax saw a 75 percent time-to-market improvement rate, 20-30 requests per week for Spotfire® access, and steady annual revenue growth. In addition to these positive business outcomes, Equifax was able to provide more dynamic insights, which changed customer perceptions and supported the vision of being a trusted, customer-centric partner.
What’s more, teams within the company are now able to build customized visualizations of a client’s portfolio, showing their return on investment and the value they can expect in a way that is easy to consume and understand. Lastly, Equifax is able to use the massive amounts of data it collects for good, making it more accessible and understandable in order to help the credit invisible population–consumers with no credit data. Banks can now access alternative data other than credit to make lending decisions to those who need it.
Equifax’s new leadership team was successful in thinking outside of the box to innovate in order to help the credit invisible population while continuing its legacy of being a trusted, customer-centric partner.
Learn more about how Equifax transformed into a leading provider of insights for customers with the help of data visualization in our full success story.
Analytics Help Students Stand Out at the University of Houston
Reading Time: 2 minutes
With data at the center of the digital revolution of the energy industry, oil and gas companies have a great need for candidates ready to tackle data challenges from day one. Students with well-honed data and analytics skills are already a step ahead when going through the recruiting process. Yet, many universities struggle to provide adequate coursework covering these skills. It’s a gap that the University of Houston (UH), a leading research and academic institution located in the energy capital of the country, wasn’t satisfied leaving alone.
In fact, UH has started a new initiative to better prepare students for a career in one of the most data-rich industries, energy.
By equipping students with key data concepts and hands-on experience in data analytics, UH is better preparing them for the workforce of today and giving them the experience needed to stand out when applying for jobs.
Confident data analysis
Previously, UH had relied on Excel to teach statistical concepts, but this tool didn’t allow students to dig deeper into the data or tell a story around the data based on trends and patterns they uncovered.
By partnering with TIBCO Spotfire®, UH enables students to explore, wrangle, and manipulate data with confidence and ease—to better understand and communicate what they’ve found to others.
What’s more, professors are teaching students how to apply data to discussions around supply and demand and other current events affecting the oil and gas industry. Students are employing Spotfire® to generate visualizations and models about their observations of the market, providing in-depth analyses and predictions.
Sparking passion
Even more exciting than simply arming students with a valuable new skill, these projects are inspiring students to apply data analytics to their personal interests. In one such passion project, UH MBA student Zeinab Zamani created a dashboard of energy development in countries outside the U.S. to help identify possible lucrative investments for energy companies.
The purpose of education isn’t just to prepare the next generation of workers. But also to spark new interests and passions in students—to make them excited for the work they’ll be doing and further push the envelope of innovation. UH’s partnership with TIBCO accomplishes both.
Initiatives like this one have propelled UH’s Bauer MBA program to the 38th spot in a recent ranking by U.S. News & World Report of top MBA programs in the nation. To learn more about how UH is partnering with TIBCO to give students the hands-on skills they need to succeed, read the full case study.
Sisense for Cloud Data Teams: a Step Forward for Builders Everywhere
Sisense News is your home for corporate announcements, new Sisense features, product innovation, and everything we roll out to empower our users to get the most out of their data.
A vision for builders
Nearly eight years ago, I joined my friend and Periscope Data co-founder Tom O’Neill (now Sisense Chief Cloud Officer) on a journey to build an advanced analytics platform that empowered data teams to build amazing new things. Last May, that journey took a big leap forward with the decision to merge Periscope Data and Sisense. In the time since that announcement, our team has been working extremely hard to combine technologies, customer bases, and internal operations into a single organization that achieves the goal we set out to accomplish in 2012.
Recently, that merger matured to a point where we felt it necessary to change the way we talk about the products. Internally, we were no longer keeping Periscope Data and Sisense separate products in our long-term vision and we wanted to make the external conversations we were having consistent. Rather than building two separate data analytics platforms for two separate parts of the overall data analysis process, we are focusing on building a single data platform with tools optimized for every user.
To reinforce that cohesion, we renamed Periscope Data as Sisense for Cloud Data Teams. When we began setting important checkpoints for the progress of this merger, this change was always an important milestone. I’m proud to be able to say that we’ve officially achieved it.
Building a shared culture
To this point, the merger has been a success story. Part of that success is due to our incredible customer base, which has been eager to listen to the shared vision and work with us to make it a reality. The truth is that building an ambitious product like this requires equally ambitious customers who can be relied on to take our data analytics platform to new heights and provide feedback along the way. It is neither a nicety nor an oversimplification to say that we could not have done this without the brilliant data professionals who use Sisense every day.
At this time last year, Periscope Data and Sisense both had strong company cultures. Merging them together required shared focus and developing a new culture around that commonality. For us, that common goal was a dedication to customers. Sisense for Cloud Data Teams is a testament to how well the new culture has jelled around servicing our combined customer base.
While the two original products focused on different users and unique parts of the data analysis process, the end-to-end platform available today is the result of a shared passion for empowering customers to create value from data. There’s a lot of enthusiasm about the data platform we are building and how it will be used to help out customers move their organizations forward.
Rewarding our internal builders
Another big pillar of the culture at Sisense is a commitment to employee success. Independently, both Sisense and Periscope Data had made several “best places to work” lists before the merger, which is illustrative of the priority given to employee satisfaction. There’s no pressure to produce perfect results, we’ve built an atmosphere that encourages continual experimentation and rewards those who help others. We set high standards for our work, give employees the resources they need to hit their goals, and trust that they’ll succeed.
That attitude is a huge reason why Sisense for Cloud Data Teams is available today and why future innovations at Sisense will set new industry standards for data platform possibilities. Renaming a product is not a simple process. It’s one that takes cooperation from all parts of the organization.
While the announcement of Sisense for Cloud Data Teams is a big reason to celebrate, there’s an understanding around the company that we’re not just building a product, we’re building a culture. The success of one goes hand-in-hand with the success of the other.
Building for the future
The announcement of Sisense for Cloud Data Teams is a milestone commemorating our dedication to building tools for advanced data professionals. It’s an industry-leading tool that already plays a crucial role in the way the most advanced companies are analyzing data. The success of that product so far is the result of individual people — both customers and employees — who share a vision for the possibilities of data and work to achieve it.
Sisense for Cloud Data Teams is also the next step forward in the journey to empower data teams. It removes existing workflow barriers between data professionals and the rest of their teams, streamlining the path from actions to insights. This tool is a leap ahead for modern data teams. The unified team Sisense and Persicope Data tea is building something truly incredible.
Harry Glaser is the Chief Marketing Officer and General Manager of San Francisco at Sisense. He was the co-founder and CEO of Periscope Data, which merged with Sisense in May 2019. Prior to founding Periscope Data in 2012, Harry was a Product Lead at Google AdWords and graduated from the University of Rochester with a bachelor’s degree in computer science.
Just look at the Data: Roger Craig Should be in the Hall of Fame
Reading Time: 5 mins 30 sec.
Even the most well-trained eyes of lifelong talent scouts cannot equal the value of fact-based evidence and data-driven decisions. That’s why we’re amazed that former San Francisco 49ers running back Roger Craig is not yet enshrined in Canton, Ohio’s Pro Football Hall of Fame. No player not yet inducted enabled their team to succeed more so than Craig. His quantifiable production is in rarefied air—compared to both his contemporaries and current players, including Hall of Fame inductees.
Why Roger? Just look at the Data
Consider His Total Yardage
Craig changed what it means to be a running back. Before he joined the game, running backs primarily just ran the ball—Craig ran; he also received passes and he blocked with the offensive line. Craig was the first player in NFL history to run for 1,000 yards AND catch for 1,000 yards in the same season; only Marshall Faulk (1999) and Christian McCaffrey (2019), have accomplished this feat since Roger. By redefining the role of a running back, Craig put the 49ers offense first and his own stats second, proving himself to be a selfless and dedicated team player.
Craig’s rushing and receiving yards total 13,100 throughout his career, eclipsing the likes of all-time running backs Earl Campbell, Larry Csonka, Jim Taylor, and Gayle Sayers. Additionally, his yards from scrimmage are 1,979 yards greater than multi-Super Bowl-winning Terrell Davis’, when comparing the first seven years (regular season) of his career (note that Davis only played for seven seasons). Craig’s career receiving yardage total is only 550 yards shy of legendary wide receiver Lynn Swann, who was solely devoted to the passing game.
Performance in Championship Games
Craig helped his team get to the playoffs each of the 11 seasons in which he played (1983–1993), and is a three-time Super Bowl champion. He was the first running back to score three touchdowns in one Super Bowl game. A main cog and driver behind some of the widest margins of victory in Super Bowl history, Craig amassed 410 total yards and five touchdowns in the 1984, 1988, and 1989 season championship games alone.
Touchdowns Impacted More Wins, Bottom Line
Craig always prioritized teamwork and was a main contributor to his team’s successes. When he scored touchdowns, the results translated into more victories for his team at a greater frequency than current Hall of Fame running backs like Tony Dorsett, O.J. Simpson, Curtis Martin, and Floyd Little. Craig also had more career touchdowns (73) than “T.D.” himself, running back Terrell Davis (1995–2001)—the two athletes are tied at 65 when you consider Craig’s first seven seasons. Sure, Davis had 60 rushing touchdowns to Craig’s 49, but Craig had 16 from receiving—an impressive number for a running back.
Recognizing Roger’s Impact
Craig is a true pioneer, having changed the role of running back from one who primarily runs the ball to one who can run, catch, and block for his offense. His strategy and performance led to a number of notable recognitions, including:
- Associated Press’s NFL Offensive Player of the Year in 1988
- Sports Illustrated Player of the Year in 1988
- Four-time Pro Bowl athlete, named to All-Pro team in 1988
- First and only player selected for the Pro Bowl as a running back and a fullback
- Named to the All-Decade Team of the 1980s
Every running back from the All-Decade Teams of the 70s, 80s, and 90s has been inducted into the Hall of Fame aside from Craig. We believe 2020 should be the year Roger receives the nod, and this much-deserved recognition.
Then, why isn’t Roger already in the Hall of Fame?
Late to the SABR-minded sports stat party of the 21st century more frequently tied to baseball, football has long been a game cloaked and entrenched in its own unique brand of conventional wisdom: “establish the run”, “three yards and a cloud of dust”, “control the clock”, and “defense wins championships”. If these latter two examples are in fact true, it lends to acceptance of another sports cliche which has gained mass acceptance: “the best defense is a good offense”. No offense has transformed the professional game of football quite like the “West Coast Offense” of Bill Walsh’s 49ers, and without Craig that machine simply would have failed. Can you imagine The Beatles without the timing, rhythm, and harmonization of George Harrison?
So, whether it’s your gut feeling or fact-based, data-driven decision making, few are more deserving of enshrinement alongside the game’s all-time greats than Roger Craig.
We invite you to explore the data and analysis presented in this blog with TIBCO Spotfire. You can interact with the graphics, filter the data, and mark the visuals to analyze and compare all of the NFL players’ data.
Deriving Value from Data Lakes with AI
Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are the future of every industry, especially data and analytics. In Growing Up with AI, we help you keep up with all the ways this pioneering technology is changing the world.
Use AI to tackle huge datasets
Let’s talk about AI and machine learning (ML). Does your company actually have the tools and processes to use these innovations? Or do you just say that you have them? “AI-washing” is a disturbing trend among tech companies today, where they (correctly) ascertain that AI will be the deciding factor in the next generation of technologies, but don’t actually have the AI horsepower to back up their product, service, or claims. They slap a term like “AI-powered” or “AI-enhanced” to their offering and hope it’s enough to keep customers engaged.
“AI-washing” is a disturbing trend among tech companies today, where they slap AI language onto their product or service, but don’t actually have the AI horsepower to back up their claims.
However, half-measures just won’t cut it when it comes to handling huge datasets. Data is growing at a phenomenal rate and that’s not going to stop anytime soon. Many companies are already sitting on datasets so massive that it’s not possible for humans to deal with them unaided. AI and ML are the only ways to derive value from massive data lakes, cloud-native data warehouses, and other huge stores of information. This is both a daunting challenge and an inspiring opportunity, since effective use of AI and ML can cut through about 80% of data preparation (the annoying, routine stuff), leaving humans to handle the remaining 20%, the actual modeling and optimization.
Overcoming the obstacles between you and revenue
Once your data is prepared for analysis, the next question is: how else can AI help you? There’s a belief held by many in the AI and analytics worlds that the Holy Grail of data strategy is the ability to turn every question the business could ask (strategic, tactical, and operational) into requirements that an AI system can understand. Then the AI would go into the data, find the respective answers, and serve them up in easy-to-digest language that even a nontechnical team member can handle. This simple goal of “business questions to ML” would massively alter the business world, allowing users of any technical skill level to effortlessly draw deep insights out of their data. However, this sweeping paradigm shift will require the work of countless AI experts to tackle challenges that the industry simply hasn’t figured out yet.
There just aren’t enough AI and data science practitioners to go around to tackle this lofty goal. A recent Gartner report estimates that “by 2020, 50% of organizations will lack sufficient AI and data literacy skills to achieve business value.” Apply that metric to any other business-critical function. Can you imagine if 50% of companies didn’t have coders or sales reps or any of the other vital roles that keep the lights on? It’d be considered a crisis and an emergency. That’s the state of AI. Implementation of AI elements is expected to almost triple in the US while the overall supply of AI experts will stay significantly lower than demand.
Speaking of the demand, there’s another hurdle to AI success in the short-term. Business teams are looking for very specific tactical insights from their AI utilities (profitability, sustainability, brand, customers, etc.) compared to the Data Science/AI teams, which are more interested in strategic improvements including Natural Language Processing, computer vision, optical character recognition, and neural nets. Further complicating matters, research and development groups focus on bread-and-butter issues like scalability, security, reliability, and performance. Communication between these disparate teams, each with their own goals and desires, means that often novel AI solutions and applications are created and abandoned because stakeholders elsewhere in the company don’t understand the value they produce.
Get money out of your data
So where does this leave companies that want to survive and thrive in the coming AI apocalypse?
Most existing business models are somewhere in the “diminishing returns” region of the economic value curve (investing more resources while revenue stays flat). More and more funds are poured into R&D with no additional associated revenue coming in. The right data and analytics platform can help you bridge the gap between your current AI and analytics paradigm and where you want your company to be in the future.
Your platform should be able to effortlessly connect to numerous large datasets: cloud-native data warehouses and data lakes with millions or billions of rows. It should also be able to handle live datasets that constantly update and allow you to mash them up with cached data. If the system also allows for in-database preparation and materialized views that can be optimized for faster queries and lay the foundation for advanced analytics with Python and R, even better. All these utilities put powerful tools into the hands of data engineers to perform more complex analysis and use ML on huge datasets.
Whatever you want to do with AI and ML in the long term, the right analytics platform will be key to building it. It’s also a better way to monetize your data in the short term. It’s a win-win that more and more companies will rush to embrace as they undergo digital transformations and cloud migrations. It’s the future.
Inna Tokarev-Sela, Sisense’s Head of AI, has over 15 years’ experience in the tech industry. She spent the last decade at SAP, driving innovations in cloud architecture, in-memory products, and Machine Learning video analytics. A frequent speaker at industry events like IBC, NAB, WonderlandAI, and Media Festival, Inna holds a BS in Physics and Computer Science, an MBA, and an MS in Information Systems, having written her thesis on Neural Networks.
TIBCO Wants Everyone to be an Integrator
Reading Time: 4 minutes
At the recent Microsoft Ignite enterprise developer conference, CEO Satya Nadella stated that Microsoft wants “…every organization to be a digital software company.” Integration forms the foundation of every digital software company. And as a conference Platinum sponsor, TIBCO had the opportunity to speak to a large number of IT professionals about their integration challenges. A key need they communicated to us is that they wanted to enable people across their enterprise to create integrations themselves in a self-service environment so that they could connect everything across their business more rapidly. This need aligns perfectly with our strategy for integration at TIBCO: We want everybody in your company to be an integrator.
Empower everyone to integrate anything
In a previous blog, I outlined how TIBCO Cloud™ Integration empowers not only traditional integrators but also different roles outside of the IT department to participate in integration processes. It is a Platform-as-a-Service (iPaaS) designed with a variety of user experiences, each tailored to a different integration skill set and use case. This not only accelerates integrations but also leads to greater innovation from people in the business who have the best context for innovation opportunities. Further, by reducing IT backlog, it helps IT professionals focus more on providing integration expertise and best practices across the enterprise.
TIBCO Cloud Integration not only empowers diverse integrators, but we bring them together in a collaborative, governed environment where they can do really cool things together to create a truly differentiating digital platform for your business. With TIBCO Cloud Integration, for example, IT professionals and developers can focus on architecting a modern digital platform and developing transformative digital services, while business-oriented users can utilize them to design digital business scenarios – all within a single environment.
TIBCO Cloud™ Integration creates teams of integrators throughout the business
For example, at this year’s Microsoft Ignite conference, where we were a platinum sponsor, TIBCO showcased a powerful demo of digital transformation at work. The demo illustrated how developers and non-developers can work together seamlessly within TIBCO Cloud Integration to automate order processing and fulfillment.
The demo uses a fictitious awning company that offers a wide variety of fabrics and colors for their awnings, and they use a just-in-time manufacturing process to custom-build each awning to the exact specifications of their customers’ needs. Order details are captured within Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, which need to be sent immediately to the company’s manufacturing system. Thanks to TIBCO integration, this happens seamlessly and in real time.
At the same time, the awning manufacturer demo showcased an IoT scenario. Sensors embedded into the awnings are integrated using TIBCO technologies to provide customers with alerts on environmental conditions that may impact their awning or require action. For example, the customer could be alerted to close their awning when it is raining or when the sun sets for the evening.
As you can see through this demo, two different skill sets within and outside of the IT department can work together to build something that is really cool.
Choose the organizational structure that works best for you
TIBCO Cloud Integration allows you to create separately governed organizations for teams to work within. You can create organizations to model the integration lifecycle of individual integrations, such as for development, QA, and production. Or you can create organizations for different departments and teams across your organization, such as for HR, Marketing, and Product Development. You have the flexibility to choose the organizational structure in TIBCO Cloud Integration that works best for you.
And not only that, because all of the capabilities of TIBCO Cloud Integration are now available within Microsoft Azure as well as Amazon Web Services (AWS), you have the flexibility to choose where you develop and run your integration. TIBCO has a large number of available connectors that can integrate any type of information asset, including several for the Microsoft ecosystem
You can try TIBCO Cloud Integration for 30 days at no charge by registering for a trial edition, and turn everyone in your organization into an integrator today.
Periscope Data Expands to Israel, Empowering Data Teams with Powerful Tools
With data growing at a staggering rate, managing and structuring it is vital to your survival. In our Event Spotlight series, we cover the biggest industry events helping builders learn about the latest tech, trends, and people innovating in the space. In this piece, we detail the Israeli debut of Periscope Data.
Driving startup growth with the power of data
Growth. It’s the aspiration of every startup. The challenge is to do it right, and a crucial way to achieve it is with decisions based on data and analysis that drive measurable business results.
This was the key learning from the Sisense event heralding the launch of Periscope Data in Tel Aviv, Israel — the beating heart of the startup nation. We hosted over 150 people from more than 100 companies, who gathered to learn why data can supercharge their companies and how harnessing the huge power of data can take business from startup to unicorn.
An exciting slate of presentations took them on a journey from why to how they should use data analytics to optimize their operations successfully and maximize their business opportunities.
There are plenty of opportunities for startups, but huge challenges too, with more than 50 percent of US startups failing to last longer than four years. That’s why it has become increasingly vital for companies to leverage fresh data and deploy accurate analytics, so they can make smarter decisions that will enable them to prosper. Data teams have become the key to many organizations’ success, and the transformation of data into insights is now a critical business process, as Sisense Israel Sales Country Manager, Davidi Boyarksi, explained in his introduction.
Periscope Data provides the ideal platform for data teams to establish an effective analytics environment in the type of emerging companies that are so prevalent in Israel. It’s why Sisense, having merged with Periscope Data in May 2019, chose to host this event in Tel Aviv.
What VCs want from startups
The day’s first guest speaker, Itzik Parnafes, General Manager of global technology-focused VC investor Battery Ventures, set the scene, with an enlightening overview of the KPIs that VCs focus on during startup growth. He outlined how critical measurable results are to help VCs make major investment decisions — metrics such as revenue, net vs gross earnings, sales, costs and projections, and more. The importance of giving this information to VCs reinforces how significant a role data plays in measuring and predicting growth and enabling companies and investors to gain insights that drive growth.
The rise of the data team: from startup to unicorn
With Itzik’s wisdom fresh in everyone’s minds, Scott Castle, Sisense General Manager, Data Business, shared his view on the role of modern data teams. Scott whisked us through the history of business intelligence from its first definition in 1958 to the current rise of Big Data.
He talked through how the mind-blowing escalation of data and the drastic reduction in the cost of its storage has led to more complex, sophisticated uses of data and a shift in the way it’s managed and consumed. And he explained that the leap to visual-based data discovery put analytics in the hands of data experts working in different lines of business, rather than in IT, where bottlenecks could previously occur, and reporting could take much longer.
Scott outlined how this change has driven a shift in the role of data teams, who now occupy strategic business positions. These teams now play a far more significant part in shaping company strategy than ever before, because the opportunity of Big Data necessitated skilled data professionals not just to crunch the numbers but to find value in the information. Scott said:
Periscope Data’s mission is to turn data teams into super heroes because we see our role as unlocking the potential that data teams already have.
Scott Castle, Sisense General Manager, Data Business
And he emphasized why they should be treated differently. They’re no longer simply a repository for information. Instead they operate as an engine for transforming their organizations, using predictive technologies to answer business questions that shape decisions, roadmaps, and future strategies. He concluded that data teams can influence the transformation of startups into unicorns. A platform like Periscope Data is what makes this happen, by elevating data’s prominence and the role of data teams beyond merely a source of visual-based data discovery.
Responding to Scott’s presentation, attendees from AppsFlyer, Ziv Ben Naim, Client Services Analytics & Strategy Lead, and Maayan Dukas Kfir, Data Analyst had this to say:
It has been good to get aligned with what’s out there from a data team’s point of view. We really liked Scott’s story of the development of BI and Big Data and the vision he presented. It was interesting to get such a data orientated perspective, today, and as data specialists, it really resonated with us.
Ziv Ben Naim, Client Services Analytics & Strategy Lead, AppsFlyer
Maayan Dukas Kfir, Data Analyst, AppsFlyer
The impact on customers
The impact of the changes in the data ecosystem has already taken effect in numerous startup customers in Silicon Valley, and Kyle Dempsey, Senior Sales Engineer at Sisense shared some great examples of how Periscope Data has helped them grow from infancy to unicorn. Quoting Keystone Research, he opened with the finding that:
Companies who use data effectively have 18% higher gross margins and 4% higher operating margins
Keystone Research
And he demonstrated how the Periscope Data platform overcomes the challenges of huge data volumes that can’t be easily modeled by traditional BI. Citing Tinder as a major example, Kyle explained how it constantly uses data to enhance users’ interactions and calibrate the user experience. No surprise then that Tinder beat Netflix to become the highest-earning non-game app on both Google Play Store and the Apple Store.
Similarly, Kyle outlined how Flexport, the world’s first international freight forwarder and customs brokerage built around an online dashboard, uses Periscope Data to analyze billions of records, and get answers in seconds. Periscope Data enables Flexport to investigate critical business issues, identify opportunities and recommend ways to streamline business and operational processes by providing the company with the fastest time to insight, and powerful capabilities to answer any business questions, whether they derive from BI reporting, advanced analytics, or data prep for machine learning. Kyle said:
We empower data analysts to create more business value than any other BI platform.
Kyle Dempsey, Senior Sales Engineer, Sisense
These customer examples demonstrated how impactful smart data management and analytics can be for every part of customer organizations, from data teams to marketing, sales, and beyond. Another of Kyle’s case studies reinforced this point: Oscar Health, a disruptor in the private health insurance sector. The company has integrated data analysis throughout its organization to power decision making. From a startup in 2012, it is now valued at $ 3.2 billion. A true unicorn.
Optimizing data pipelines: How Kongregate uses Periscope Data
All these presentations provided rich food for thought, but there was more to follow. We were delighted to welcome Max Murphy, Software Engineering Manager for one of our customers, Kongregate, a leading mobile and PC game developer, publisher, and web gaming portal.
Kongregate has been using Periscope Data since 2013. Max demonstrated how Periscope Data enabled Kongregate to replace its ETL (extract, transform, load) system and apply software development best practices from end to end. The key element was standardizing its data pipeline from event source to charts, enabling Kongregate to gather, manage, and analyze a larger volume of data from across all data sources.
Additionally, Max discussed how embedded analytics offers huge benefits both to the company and third-party developers with whom they partner. He explained:
The big piece is embedding analytics in the Kongregate platform so game developers can see the performance of their games
Max Murphy, Software Engineering Manager, Kongregate.
The easy set-up and access to embedded analytics enable them to measure KPIs, get game statistics, monetization and retention statistics that help them to optimize players’ experience, hone best practices and benchmarks, and maximize stickiness and profitability.
Diving deeper into the datasphere: Data lakes — best practices
The day’s journey from the “why” through the “how” of data analytics then continued. We dived deeper into the mechanics of building the most efficient data pipelines to access and deliver data for analysis, even with the challenges of Big Data.
Omid Vahdaty, CTO of Jutomate Ltd., shone the spotlight on best practices with data lakes. As a specialist in Big Data solution architecture and systems engineering, Omid shared lessons from his extensive experience designing systems in startup environments. He addressed the challenges presented by today’s huge volume of data that’s enabled by cloud storage services. This data is often complex and difficult to model, particularly when it can be stored in both transformed and raw, structured, and unstructured formats. Omid discussed how to build data pipelines using data lake technologies, including the architecture and the guidelines needed to build your own data lake, using leading cloud vendors.
And extending this deep dive, Kyle stepped up once more to walk everyone through the ways Periscope Data handles data. His comprehensive demo showed how the SQL, R, and Python languages can be utilized and can work together to enable data teams to optimize performance.
This particular capability caught the attention of Dror Katz, Lead Data Analyst at Toluna (market research company), who was at the launch. He said:
We wanted to get familiar with new technology. We were familiar with Sisense before this event. It has been great to learn what capabilities Periscope Data has in comparison to other BI platforms. What stood out was the integration with Python and the added value that Periscope Data can offer.
Dror Katz, Lead Data Analyst at Toluna
And his views were reiterated by the AppsFlyer team attending the event, who learned about Periscope Data for the first time, and as a result, felt that:
. . . now we know more about what tools we’re missing, specifically regarding the integration of Python, SQL and R, which we don’t have with our current tools.
Ziv Ben Naim, Client Services Analytics & Strategy Lead, AppsFlyer and Maayan Dukas Kfir, Data Analyst, AppsFlyer
How Namogoo built a data-driven culture with Periscope Data
Of course, seeing how Periscope Data works in practice adds more color to the theory. Our final guest, Ohad Greenshpan, Co-Founder and CTO of Namogoo, presented a fascinating case study. Namogoo is a SaaS company that helps online businesses prevent customer journey hijacking. Its technology detects and blocks unauthorized ads injected into consumer browsers that redirect website visitors to competitor products and promotions.
He explained how Namogoo has used Periscope Data to grow its business and develop a data-driven culture at the company. Using the platform has empowered its teams to identify opportunities and take ownership of developing strategies informed by insights. Ohad explained that it has helped them discover things that they never even thought about, which has beneficially influenced decisions. He articulated the biggest benefit of all in one of his closing remarks:
The power of Periscope is in its simplicity.
Ohad Greenshpan, Co-Founder and CTO of Namogoo
Making an impression
Our launch of Periscope Data in Israel clearly left a positive impression. Dan Postar, CEO, Business Wise Solutions (Big Data and analytics consultancy), who already knows Sisense, said:
I think Periscope Data is a great addition to the Sisense capabilities. It was great to get an introduction to Periscope’s capabilities and an overview of what we can get from the Sisense suite.
Dan Postar, CEO, Business Wise Solutions
The event demonstrated that advanced BI and analytics are invaluable for startups facing intensified challenges from an environment that’s increasingly competitive and rich with data. Managing data so that organizations can more confidently make smart decisions is fast becoming a prerequisite for growth.
Periscope Data is perfectly designed to help dynamic startups and fast-growing companies achieve this. It adds to the armory of innovations that gives Sisense the capability to support organizations at every stage of growth, from startups to enterprise to OEM.
We’re excited to have launched Periscope Data into this fertile market, and we look forward to the opportunity to help accelerate the growth of many fantastic businesses.
Adam Murray’s early career PR started in London, then moved on to New York and Tel Aviv. He’s spent the last ten years working with tech companies like Amdocs, Gilat Satellite Systems, and Allot Communications. He holds a Ph.D. in English Literature and when he’s not spending time with his wife and son, he’s preoccupied with his beloved football team, Tottenham Hotspur.
5 Most Popular Blogs of 2019
Reading Time: 4 mins 30 sec.
As the year comes to a close, we wanted to share with you the top blogs that piqued our readers’ interest in 2019. After 200 blog posts chock full of insights, tips, and tricks garnered from our incredible developer community, partners, and customers, our posts covered a wide range of topics; from how you can use AI to augment your analytics, to the top 5 things to know about event-driven APIs and Apache Kafka are pushing the envelope for real-time architecture and the many benefits of data management including how it can give you a comprehensive, 360-degree view of your data from all your disparate data sources. Here are the five most popular blog posts in 2018.
1. Recognizing Innovation Everywhere: The TIBCO NOW Global Tour 2019 Customer Trailblazer Awards
Our customers are constantly paving the road to digital transformation. And nothing makes us prouder than to brag about how we help them grow their businesses and innovate. At our final TIBCO NOW annual event in London, we recognized our customers Siemens Mobility, Campari Group, Three UK, and Renault for being pioneers, transformers, visionaries, and making an impact in each of their respective industries. TIBCO is proud to work with industry leaders pushing the boundaries of innovation to achieve digital transformation. Interested in who the trailblazers were in your region? Here are the winners for the Americas and APJ.
2. If SAP Runs your Business, TIBCO Connects your Digital Business—Certifiably
Your SAP implementation maintains not only your vital business processes but also your core business data used by those processes. With full connectivity provided through TIBCO Cloud™ Integration, you can create a single source of business truth in your organization by keeping all business systems in sync with your SAP implementation automatically. In this blog, learn how to break down information silos and make sure your SAP data is complete, accurate, and timely throughout your enterprise. You might also be interested in this blog about how to choose the right integration solution or this blog about strategically using integration as a weapon for innovation.
3. Exploring NYC Traffic Accidents with Spotfire
In December, at Forrester’s inaugural Data Strategy & Insights event we did a live demo using the all-new TIBCO® Spotfire X to explore important correlations between NYC traffic accidents. Spotfire now uses machine learning and AI to help users discover insights more quickly and easily and that was made clear in the cool demo. Imagine what you could do with all that power behind your analytics?
4. Four Steps Forward into the Future of Augmented Analytics: Recapping Spotfire 10.3
At TIBCO, we listen to what our users ask for and deliver on those requests. This year, Spotfire added some pretty ground-breaking, revolutionary capabilities that set it apart from your average analytics tool. Spotfire now boasts: AI-powered geoanalytics, added data connectivity for Snowflake and more, building better user experience, and simplified data wrangling. It’s all you could want and more.
5. TIBCO and Ping Identity Team Up to Deliver Advanced API Security to Customers
This year TIBCO announced a new partnership with Ping Identity, to provide cutting-edge API security solutions to customers. This collaboration helps enterprises improve security measures, keep sensitive data private, and remain compliant with data privacy regulations. TIBCO Cloud™ Mashery®, a cloud-native API management platform with advanced API security features, will be integrated with Ping Identity’s PingIntelligence, an AI-driven API security platform. Use the power of artificial intelligence to prevent and deal with cyberthreats automatically.
We’ve got tons of new tech trends, tips and tricks for you in 2019. Stay tuned for more on how we can empower your business, delight your customers, and solve your toughest business challenges in 2020!