BIG DATA/small workforce

How the BIG DATA revolution is transforming the

dynamics of the workforce. Is your business ready?Ian Tomlin

Sponsored by :

What is ‘Big Data’ all about?

BIG DATA describes data sets with sizes beyond the ability of commonly used software tools to manage or make sense of. It’s the result of a proliferation in digital media, social networking, sensor networks, auto-ID and databases used to gather customer likes and behaviors.

People know that knowledge is power. So do businesses. So do governments.

According to IBM, 90% of the data in the world today was created in the last 2 years alone (wow).

But it doesn’t stop there!The explosion of data has led to innovations in technology to capture, hoard, assimilate, analyze and

act on lots of data from different places for the purpose of accelerating business innovation

CAPTURE

HOARD

ASSIMILATE

ANALYZE

ACT

For example: Sensor networks and telematics mean that vehicles can travel around road networks and drivers are automatically charged for their road usage. And: Today, online customers enter their own orders. At one time sales administrators would do this for them.

Hadoop is a new kind of data hoarding repository; a rapidly scalable filing system capable of managing vast amounts of structured and unstructured data. Just getting data into a relational database is time consuming and technically challenging - Hadoop make hoarding data easier!

Operational Analytics take over from where Business Intelligence (BI) left off. BI platforms organize data into structures that make it easier to source dashboards and reports people need. But they are expensive, difficult to change and normally harvest ‘known’ internal company structured data. The operational analytics world is more like exploring for oil: There’s no point spending money on infrastructure until you know you’ve struck oil! These new tools give people the ability to assimilate data and make sense of it – without buying BI platforms.

Generally called middleware, new technology platforms enable people to connect to data painlessly and mash it up. Companies like Encanvas, Tibco and others make it possible for data to be harvested from practically any data source (including sensors and telematics) without having to do any of the clever coding stuff. These platforms extract, transform, normalize and generally organize data so you don’t have to do it manually on a spreadsheet ;-) Assimilation technologies are SO powerful these days, often you don’t need to hoard data at all – you can just use the data you need, when you need it, and leave it where it is.

Once individuals realize they have an opportunity to improve their customer experience, sales approach, operational or financial systems this creates a demand for new software applications to turn BIG IDEAS into ways to accelerate business innovation. Systems like Encanvas remove 90% of the work needed to turn a big idea into better IT systems and processes. This places more resource focus on innovation and less cost and risk towards ‘putting good ideas into practice’.

Iterative, federated & democratized innovation

The old view of business innovation was that a small number of CxO roles

made decisions on ‘how to improve’. The pace of innovation and volume of

BIG DATA insights today requires organizations to employ and equip MORE

analysts to assimilate data from lots of places, uncover actionable insights

and make MORE decisions, MORE often across the business.

BIG DATA has transformed the nature of competition

In its report of the same name, McKinsey&Co

suggest that big data is - “The next frontier for

innovation, competition, and productivity.”

Business leaders today know their competitive advantage

depends on how quickly (and how well) they act on insights.

They need to support an end-to-end process of accelerated

innovation and answer three key questions (see right):

How do we

trial quickly?

How do we

learnquickly?

How do we

adapt quickly?

PeteThe Finishing Line

BIG DATA transforms ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN

The age-old perspective of organizational change was that companies moved from

ONE FROZEN STATE through a period of change to ANOTHER FROZEN STATE.

The agilization of the enterprise resulting from BIG DATA, and the

accelerated pace of business innovation it fosters, means that the design

of an organization remains in a state of perpetual transformation

Blue Ocean Strategies

How accelerated

business

innovation manifests

change

Customer Insights

Sales Engagement

Operating Behaviors

According to research conducted by the University of Texas,

Median ROIs from big data analytics are in the region of:

Customer Analytics 55%

Operational Analysis 277%

Financial Analysis 139%

Companies capture and assimilate all of the data they can glean about their customers to understand them better…

Realizing what customers like and how they prefer to be engaged, companies find better ways to sell their products and services…

Knowing what customers care about and how best to serve them enables businesses to adapt their internal processes to work better…

Business leaders enjoy a richer appreciation of markets, opportunities and threats that encourages entrepreneurial endeavor!

HOW does

BIG DATA

change the

More ‘Data’ Analysts

More data analysts are needed to make sense of actionable insights

and apply the learning lessons. Analysts will be more project-oriented

and will need to be expert in their subject matter like never before to

be able to ‘make-sense’ of data within the context of use.

MarketingResearch Manufacturing OperationsRetail Finance

More Managers

McKinsey estimates a shortfall of 1.5 million managers who have the skills

needed to use insights to drive decisions. This comes as no surprise as decisions

will be democratized down to departmental and functional heads with a

specific focus on how data drives behaviors and requirements in their discipline.

More Legal

Big data has big legal issues. Who owns the data? Who owns the

idea? Who owns the patent? We can expect the involvement of

legal counsel to cascade through the enterprise. Anticipate peaks in

demand when innovation occurs.

More On-Demand Domain Experts

The financial argument to employ ‘experts when they’re needed’ is compelling. Faced

with rapidly changing market pressures, sustaining a compact base of essential

workforce capability, enriched by on-demand expert talent, helps organizations to stay

competitive whilst having the resourcing profile to new opportunities as they emerge.

“Breaking jobs down into more specialized tasks will not only help companies economize on scarce talent but also make it possible to perform those tasks more efficiently and effectively..” Source: ‘Preparing for a new era of work’ McKinsey Global Institute

Fewer IT Programmers

Computer programming is on the slide. With platforms like Encanvas up to

90% of the programming overhead on software development projects is

removed. Applications are created in workshops using drag-and-drop tools.

That means only a tiny amount of programming happens on software

development projects leading to almost no testing, tuning or re-working.

Fewer Admin Roles

Many activities that happen in business are wasteful. Some tasks require workers to check up to

6 different information sources before a decision can be made to ‘approve or disapprove’, to

‘act or do nothing’, to ‘book or not book’. Many of these obstacles are removed by big data

solutions. Sometimes systems will automatically find the answer, other times they will make it

simpler for workers to make a decision by summarizing all facts on the same page. In isolation

these iterative improvements are of minor consequence, but collectively they can boost

productivity by 20% to 40% resulting in big reductions in workforce capacity requirements.

“Nearly all high-skill interaction jobs include tasks that can be hived off to allow the best-paid workers to focus on the most value-creating activities.” Source: ‘Preparing for a new era of work’ McKinsey Global Institute

Fewer Permanent Staff

Seeking to minimize employer overheads, reduce risk and boost agility, large employers can

be expected to reduce permanent ‘heads’ and seek more expert talent from indirect sources.

This trend in employer behavior is matched by career preferences of data centric knowledge

experts who benefit from higher demand for their skills and the ability to enjoy a better work-

life balance. In the US where holiday entitlements can be as little as 10-days a year, it’s hardly

surprising people seek a more flexible working arrangement.

“In the USA, 45% of temporary employees work in management, in IT or technical occupations, or in health care, and contract work has grown four times faster than total employment over the past decade.” Source: ‘Preparing for a new era of work’ McKinsey Global Institute

Thank You.

Article Sponsors:

Workforce and Talent www.workspend.com

IT and Technology www.ustechsolutions.com

Ian Tomlin is a management consultant and

author. He's written several books and

hundreds of white papers and articles on

the subject of customer science,

organizational growth, technology and the

evolution of the workplace.

Books by Ian Tomlin:

Agilization – The regeneration of

competitiveness

Cloud Coffee House – The birth of cloud

social networking and death of the old

world corporation

SOS - Social Operation Systems – What

happens when BIG DATA and SOCIAL

NETWORKING transforms computing

What US Tech Solutions thinks…

If you like to discuss your requirements for the BIG DATA revolution and how we can assist your

business, please call us on +1 201 524 9600 or email me at james.lucier@ustechsolutions.com

BIG DATA means large employers will need to tool-up rapidly on analytical skills and reduce their footprint in professional areas like computer programming.

According to McKinsey Global Institute by 2018 the US will face a shortfall of close to 200,000 analysts capable of handling big data requirements.

In line with these predictions we expect to see a sharp decrease in head-count in traditional administrative and clerical areas while the customer contact areas (such as contact centers, receptions etc.) will need to be tooled up with a richer portfolioof skills. Intelligence of the enterprise and productivity will grow as head-count declines.

Ever business will face its own unique challenges – but common to all is the challenge of how to minimize employer overheads through the transition. Bluntly, it makes no sense moving forward to recruit permanent staff in ‘at-risk’ areas that will be impacted by the BIG DATA phenomenon only to create added transition hurdles. We would encourage employers to adopt a more balanced approach to their workforce profile, leaning more towards securing mid- to long-term professional talent through affordable and more agile indirect channels.

At US Tech Solutions we specialize in sourcing highly-capable technical and analytical talent. Our 2000 strong (and growing) team of superstars serve companies in a wide cross-section of industries and role disciplines. Achieving strong growth in an oversubscribed global recruitment industry, we example on a daily basis that it pays to source best-fit talent, when, where and how you need it through trusted indirect partnerships.

James LucierJames LucierV.P. WorkforceUSTech Solutions Inc.

Headquartered in New Jersey, USTech Solutions is a global talent company helping large employers to overcome the short-fall in Bug Data skills and install agility into workforce strategies.

The company operates dedicated recruiting teams for Creative, IT, Telecoms, Pharmaceuticals, Finance, Energy, Civil and Aeronautic Engineering sectors.

What Workspend thinks…

To review your options for talent supply-chain management and recruitment outsourcing visit our website at www.workspend.com

In an era of constant change, maintaining a static resource-pool is unsustainable. BIG DATA transforms businesses and repeatedly places demands on HR and procurement teams to re-model the talent-pool. Any notion that 100% of workforce talent can be sourced purely by internal recruitment resources, or that skills requirements can be met by re-skilling internal resources is at best unlikely.

According to the latest industry figures, the United States is moving to a position where 1 in 4 of the workforce will be sourced through indirect contracts by 2018; in part encouraged by the impact of BIG DATA.

The way talent supply-chain management has worked in the past can no longer sustain into the future. If employers are to rely more heavily on indirect talent sourcing channels, they need to adopt the same high standards of supplier governance, performance and cost control that exists with any other mission-critical procurement category.

At Workspend we supply talent-based operational analytics and vendor management systems that install appropriate supply-chain governance to the discipline of sourcing indirect talent. We also install outsourcing and managed services that mean employers don’t need to become expert recruiters themselves to access the exceptional talent that exists beyond the reach of internal recruitment teams. Let us help you to reduce costs and move your indirect sourcing governance to a new level.

ManojManoj AgarwalPresidentWorkspend Inc.

Workspend manages the work and controls your spend.

The company delivers Managed Services and Process Outsourcing services serving the talent sourcing and management needs of large employers.