Initiatives

Industry growth to be transformed by digital

Chief executive officers (CEOs) have underlined that growth will be their top business priority for 2016, according to a recent survey by Gartner, Inc. The 2016 Gartner CEO and senior business executive survey found that despite indications that the global economy is struggling in early 2016, CEOs do not plan to significantly change their priorities. After growth (54 per cent), the second and third business priorities are customers (31 per cent) and workforce (27 per cent).

The Gartner CEO and senior business executive survey of 400 senior business leaders in user organizations worldwide was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2015, asking questions about 2016/2017. Most responding organizations were those with annual revenue of US$1 billion or more. The survey results show that while business conditions are challenging, CEOs remain confident enough to sanction strategic investments, particularly when it comes to digital business transformation.

‘The big rise of explicit mentions of the word “customer” was very noticeable in the results of this year’s survey’, said Mark Raskino, vice president (VP), and Gartner Fellow.

CEOs seem to be concerned about improving customer service, relationship and satisfaction levels. At the same time, CEOs have become much more concerned about employee issues than a couple of years ago. The emphasis is as much on benefits, retention and training of mainstream staff. It is not constrained only to senior grade ‘talent’ issues.

The rise in the number of CEOs heading up digital change is unsurprising given that half of the CEOs surveyed expect to see substantial digital transformation in their industries, or for their industries to be almost unrecognizable within five years. Examples of digital changes in industries include self-driving cars, the rise of blockchain in banking, the e-cigarette revolution in tobacco and the potential impact of Internet of Things (IoT)-fuelled data science in insurance.

The survey results also showed that CEOs appear to see digitalization as a positive force, not as a destructive one. Overall, they are very bullish about the effects of digital change on the gross (pretax) profitability of their businesses. Eighty-four per cent of CEOs said that they expect digital change to bring higher profit margins.

‘One explanation for CEOs’ optimistic attitude towards digital change may be because they can see how it helps with the product innovations that matter to customers’, said Mr Raskino.

We asked CEOs what proportion of the customer perceived value of products and services they think is digital. Thinking about the product features that customers are choosing and believe they are buying, CEOs said the value percentage is already 30 per cent on average, and will rise to 46 per cent by 2019.

Further information from: www.gartner.com.

Large-scale digital transformation: Innovation in a new era

Worldwide growth of the traditional information and communications technology (ICT) markets have gradually declined as 3rd Platform technologies (such as Cloud, Big Data/Analytics, Mobility and Social Business) have enabled the digital transformation of global businesses. This transformation, not surprisingly, has forced organizations to consider important issues such as reshaping client experiences, restructuring operation models, making efficient use of information and attracting the right skill sets in employees. Meanwhile, ICT manufacturers face many challenges including a softening macroeconomic environment, fierce market competition and more demanding user requirements for hardware, software and services.

During a recent 2016 ICT Market Trend Forum held in Shenzhen, analysts from leading information technology (IT) and data services research company IDC shared findings on these and other technology industry trends. The forum themed ‘Large-Scale Digital Transformation: Innovation Process in the New Era’, focused on business opportunities for all parts of the technology ecosystem – vendor, channel and enterprise buyer – in this time of high disruption.

The six key technologies relying on the 3rd Platform, or ‘innovation accelerators’, are focal points for mastery of 3rd Platform technologies, including:

IoT: The IoT extends intelligence to enhance the user experience. According to Vernon Turner, IDC Senior Vice President for Enterprise Systems: the key for success in the field of the IoT doesn’t lie in the scale of market opportunities, but in the matching degree between IT supplier solutions and the demands of the client. Can IT partners help clients transform into an information enterprise? Also, enterprises must face the impacts of the Internet of Things within the global market context.

In conclusion, Wu Lianfeng, Associate Vice President, Vertical Industry Research and Consulting, IDC China said:

Only when companies begin to understand key policies of governments, accumulate emerging technology capacities, integrate cross-disciplinary platform ecology, grasp users’ transformation requirements, deliver over-value product service, and redefine target industry and consumers with creative thinking, then the long-range goal of capturing business opportunities in the large-scale digital transformation era will become reality.

Further information from: www.idc.com

Data for social good: Helping non-profits enter the digital age

While governments and businesses have reaped big benefits from the revolution in big data and software analytics, non-profit organizations sometimes lag behind the public and private sectors when it comes to adopting advanced machine learning techniques. Gideon Mann, head of data science at Bloomberg is trying to close the technology gap and find ways for non-profits to collaborate with data scientists.

The aim, says Gideon, is to help non-profits to structure and analyse their data so they can draw insights from it and achieve greater impact. It’s an idea Gideon has championed with his work on the ‘Data for Good Exchange’, Bloomberg’s annual conference that explores how data science can help academia, industry, government and NGOs work better together to solve broader societal issues.

‘Our business is centred around how to gather, analyse, distribute, and store data – and we’ve been a strong partner in the communities we operate for a long time’, says Gideon. ‘So when we started the Data for Good Exchange, it fitted very nicely into the overall corporate agenda’.

It’s a rewarding effort, but it comes with unique challenges. One of the biggest is growing a data-driven culture in organizations that have not yet embraced the digital age.

Change may be gradual, but Gideon notes that there are already examples where non-profits are benefiting from data science. For instance, conservationists in Africa have piggybacked on research done by Tanya Berger-Wolf, a computer scientist at the University of Illinois, who found that zebras have unique stripe patterns akin to barcodes.

‘You can estimate the number of wild zebras by looking at the biomarkers on their skin’, Gideon says. ‘By looking at photos, you can get estimates about the size of the herds, and then you can do conservation plans’.

He also cited the experience of the fire department in post-Katrina, New Orleans, which had received a huge donation of smoke alarms from the Red Cross and the Louisiana State Fire Marshal. While the firefighters were eager to hand out the units, they were unsure where to allocate them. Between 2010 and 2014, structure fire led to 22 deaths in New Orleans. In all of those cases, no smoke alarms were present. Fire alarms could prevent many of these deaths.

Director of Performance and Accountability for New Orleans, Oliver Wise, helped address the problem by collaborating with a data analytics firm to build a predictive data model using public data that identified the areas of the city least likely to have working smoke alarms, yet most likely to sustain fire-related fatalities. The New Orleans Fire Department used this data to conduct a targeted door-to-door outreach program. In both cases, Gideon says, it was about applying ‘machine learning and data science to problems which are very practical, very immediate and make a concrete good’.

One challenge that both businesses and non-profits face is finding golden nuggets of information in a mountain of data. It’s especially hard for organizations that don’t have trained computer scientists. During a recent appearance at the Structure Data 2016 conference in San Francisco, for example, Gideon explained how Bloomberg can help UNICEF track the impact of commodity price fluctuations on the food supply chain in regional populations through tapping country-level statistics stored on Bloomberg terminals. Knowing ahead of time that there is a commodity shock that affects key resources can enable local organizations to anticipate and respond to a potential crisis.

‘Mozambique relies on wheat imports from Russia. If a fire decimates the Russia harvest and causes export controls that drive the price of wheat up 30%, there are going to be riots’, says Gideon.

For Gideon, it’s part of a dialogue he hopes Bloomberg will continue to foster between data scientists and non-profits, ‘so that if they have a question, they can at least start a conversation – and that can open the door to greater outcomes’, he says.

Further information from: www.bloomberg.com

Big Data and IoT to add £322 billion to UK economy

In a timely shot of economic optimism, newly published research suggests that wider adoption of both big data analytics and the IoT over the next four years will provide a welcome fillip for both the UK economy and the jobs market.

The research was carried out by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) on behalf of business analytics and business software provider SAS; the findings are based on 409 interviews with senior UK decision-makers, as well as official government data.

It suggests that IoT – the network of everyday items fitted with electronics to allow them to collect and exchange data – could create a £81.3 billion boost made up £72.5 billion of efficiency gains, innovation benefits of £4.5 billion and business creation benefits of £4.3 billion, plus 67,000 new jobs between 2015 and 2020.

Big data analytics could contribute a further £240.5 billion to the UK economy over the same period – via £220.4 billion in efficiency benefits, £12.4 billion in innovation benefits and £8.1 billion in business creation benefits plus 157,000 new jobs.

The latest study follows CEBR’s 2012 report on big data analytics adoption, which estimated the value of data equity at £12 billion, or 0.7 per cent of UK gross domestic product (GDP). The latest research projects the figure to increase to £46 billion, or 2.2 per cent of GDP, by 2020.

The estimates are based on the assumption that adoption rates for big data analytics rise from 56 per cent in 2015 to 67 per cent by 2020 and that IoT adoption increases from 30 per cent to 43 per cent over the same period.

Banking can lead

The UK telecoms industry currently leads, with the highest rates of big data analytics adoption and IoT adoption, at 67 per cent and 61 per cent, respectively. By 2020, the retail banking sector is expected to have taken the lead in big data analytics adoption at 81 per cent, with the telecoms sector still leading IoT adoption with a rate of 72 per cent. Healthcare is expected to be the sector that falls behind, with big data analytics adoption of 52 per cent and IoT adoption of only 26 per cent.

‘The news that UK retail banks are expected to be the biggest users of Big Data by 2020 shows that banks are now seriously looking to improve their customer service practices’, says Steve Edkins, CEO of data solutions specialist FusionExperience. ‘New entrants into the financial services sector, from challenger banks to established supermarket chains, have undoubtedly hastened this change in British retail banking strategy’.

Increased competition is forcing retail banks to unlock the power of their data in order to respond to consumer-driven changes in the market. Data is fast becoming the currency of financial service providers who need to understand customer behaviours and anticipate changes in the consumption of services.

However, complex legacy systems have stopped some bigger banks from capturing and understanding their data. These banks will need to make better use of growing data sets such as correspondence, loan facility letters, contracts and the diversity of customer interactions if they want to offer bespoke consumer products that will allow them to fend off their more agile competitors.

Potential to be exploited

However, the UK’s manufacturing sector is expected to enjoy the biggest economic benefit from big data, with an estimated £57 billion boost over the period to 2020. This reflects the diversity of manufacturing firms within the sector and the variety of areas in which big data and big data analytics have the potential for efficiency gains, such as improved supply chain management and enhanced customer intelligence.

CEBR asked survey participants about the efficiency, innovation and business creation gains they have already experienced following investment in IoT and big data and then factoring in projected adoption growth of the two technologies. A total of 93 per cent and 91 per cent of those who said they had already invested in big data and IoT, respectively, said it had reduced their costs.

‘Collecting and storing data is only the beginning. It is the application of analytics that allows the UK to harness the benefits of big data and the internet of things’, says CEBR CEO Graham Brough. ‘Our research finds that the majority of firms have implemented between one and three big data analytics solutions’.

However, the key is making sure those solutions are extracting maximum insight which is then turned into business actions. IoT is earlier in its life cycle, and will provide more data for analysis in areas that may be new to analytics, reinforcing the potential benefits to the UK economy.

Digital revenue set to surge

Gartner VP and analyst Debra Logan referred to the findings from the Gartner CIO Agenda Survey 2016 showing that private sector CIOs estimated that 37 per cent of their company’s revenue would come through digital sources in just five years. Public sector CIOs were even more bullish, expecting 77 per cent of their processes to be digital within five years.

‘Data is an appreciating asset that is poorly managed in most organizations because no one has top-level responsibility, and so information is often managed in silos by various business units’, said Ms Logan. ‘Organizations that seek to profit from data need specific functions, roles and responsibilities to manage that asset more coherently and deliver wider business value’.

Information leadership

The CDO role is not simply a technical role focused on governance. In fact, an important aspect of a successful CDO’s skills is keen business acumen that can demonstrate the value of information to various organizational stakeholders.

‘Digital leadership requires information leadership’, said Ms Logan.

If the CIO plans to lead digital initiatives at the board level – as many CEOs are expecting – it will involve a dramatic widening of traditional CIO responsibilities to manage data and information governance as well as using analytics in new ways to generate business value. Yet 40% of CIOs cite information and analytics as their biggest talent gap.

Value-generating opportunities are based increasingly on unstructured, harder-to-process information, such as multimedia and social data. ‘The pace of change in modern business makes traditional backward-looking reporting less and less valuable’, said Ms Logan. ‘The CDO will have the time and expertise to pioneer forward-looking predictive analytics, and the information governance that supports it, in a way that most CIOs cannot. A track record in successful change management initiatives will be an advantage’.

CIO and CDO must cooperate

Transferring processes, resources and responsibilities for information management and analytics to the CDO will free the CIO to ensure traditional IT operations continue to run smoothly. Concurrently, it will free time for the CDO to foster executive-level support for digital innovation.

‘It’s likely that many new CDOs will come from within the business, rather than being an external appointment’, said Ms Logan.

The CDO role needs to demonstrate they understand the business, and champion the role of data in improving specific business outcomes. Most successful new CDOs are acting as a business partner for the CIO, while taking on the growing burden of managing and monetizing data.

Asset managers drowning in data?

An independent survey conducted by the EIU and sponsored by Northern Trust has revealed that a flexible data strategy, governed by strong leadership, facilitates business decisions and helps asset managers capture more value from their data.

The survey, conducted across the US and Europe among more than 200 asset management and insurance company executives, highlighted that while managers have access to better tools and technologies to help them benefit from new sources of data, many struggle to make sense of the deluge of data they receive on a daily basis.

Only 13 per cent of respondents indicated they successfully capture the full value from all of their data. Nearly 30 per cent reported that the volume of data makes it difficult to determine what is useful.

‘This survey confirmed for us what we recognize as some of our clients’ biggest challenges,’ said Pete Cherecwich, Head of Corporate & Institutional Services at Northern Trust. ‘Whether they are looking for ways to manage their investment decisions, monitor their risks, or improve their reporting, they need to extract more value from their data to gain actionable insights.’

The EIU survey showed that executives who believe that their organization captures value from data ‘entirely’ or ‘fairly well’ twice as often (67 per cent vs. 33 per cent) also say that their data strategy is ‘mostly’ or ‘entirely’ flexible. Those organizations with ‘entirely’ or ‘mostly flexible’ data strategies more often reported monthly or quarterly assessments to review the effectiveness of their data strategies. The survey findings underscore the importance of a nimble approach to data management combined with strong executive leadership to prioritize goals. The data suggested that companies should set up a centralized leadership structure, orchestrated by an individual or team with a holistic overview of the company and a strong collaborative spirit, to leverage data more effectively.

‘We collaborate with many of our clients by providing meaningful data to help them focus on the direction of their core businesses,’ said Serge Boccassini, Global Product Solutions Manager at Northern Trust. ‘Developing a comprehensive and flexible data management strategy is essential for asset managers to succeed in a competitive marketplace.’

In addition to providing data management solutions, teams within Northern Trust’s Corporate & Institutional Services business unit share the latest research and thought leadership on data strategies with institutional clients.

The survey was conducted in the third quarter of 2015 with more than 200 asset management and insurance executives involved in decisions regarding data sourcing, management and strategy. Approximately half of those surveyed work for managers with assets over US$5 billion. Geographically, survey respondents were evenly split between the US and Europe. Five in-depth interviews were also conducted with industry experts and academics to complement the survey.

Further information and a copy of the white paper from: www.northerntrust.com.

Most stored data is either ‘dark’ or ‘ROT’

Information management company Veritas Technologies has released the results of its Global Databerg Report. The survey reveals that 52 per cent of all information currently stored and processed by organizations around the world is considered ‘dark’ data, whose value is unknown. Additionally, another 33 per cent of data is considered redundant, obsolete or trivial (ROT) and is known to be useless. If left untamed, business data will unnecessarily cost organizations around the world a cumulative $3.3 trillion to manage by the year 2020.

Organizations are creating and storing data at an ever-increasing rate due to a ‘data hoarding’ culture and an indifferent attitude to retention policy. This data could be anything from valuable business information to non-compliant information. The report reveals that IT leaders consider just 15 per cent of all stored data to be classified as business critical information. For the average mid-sized organization holding 1000TB of data, the cost to store their non-critical information is estimated at more than $650,000 annually.

‘Understanding and acknowledging that a data hoarding culture exists is a first step in addressing the problem’, said Ben Gibson, Chief Marketing Officer of Veritas.

More and more organizations are realizing it. The problem most face is they do not know what data to start with, what risk it may contain and where the value is discovered. Once they have visibility into that environment, they can make decisions faster, with more confidence, and bring in other business stakeholders to move forward with a well-conceived plan.

The vast majority of business data sits below the waterline. Around the world, the Global Databerg Report found that on average 52 per cent of all stored data is dark. Dark data could either be ROT or valuable clean business data. The worst dark data offenders are Germany, Canada and Australia with respectively 66 per cent, 64 per cent and 62 per cent of their stored data defined as dark, leaving the US in a mid-range position with 54 per cent of their data being unknown. The highest proportion of clean and identified business critical data was found in China (25 per cent clean), Israel (24 per cent clean) and Brazil (22 per cent clean). But this still means that more than 75 per cent of all data they are storing is dark or has no value for the business.

There’s a serious fear of the delete key. ROT data has already been identified by organizations as ROT and provides little or no business value. But still 48 per cent of all stored data in Denmark, 44 per cent in the Netherlands and 43 per cent of all data in the United Arab Emirates (43 per cent) belongs to this category. In the USA, 30 per cent is ROT data.

The Race to the Cloud is feeding the Databerg. Cloud adoption and processing is set to increase by more than a third during 2016 to 46 per cent from 33 per cent, with Brazil and USA leading with an average of 61 per cent of data predicted to be in the cloud by the end of the year. Although the short-term driver is to reduce cost, there is increasing concern over lock-in costs in the future – pushing data to the cloud can just move the problem further away, adding to the dark, and unclassified dark data.

The consumerization of IT has blurred the lines for employees. Hitching a ride on corporate IT means businesses pay to store data that has no business value to them. On average, 26.5 per cent of employees store personal data on their work devices. Because so much is dark, IT cannot tell which data has business value and which is just ‘cat videos’.

More personal data than ever exists on corporate networks. Not understanding what is being stored on corporate resources is very risky and leaves no ‘plausible denials’ in the event of regulatory or criminal investigation. Over 25 per cent of employees store personal data on work devices ranging from personal, legal and identification documents (57 per cent), photos (57 per cent), music (47 per cent) down to video (33 per cent) and games (26 per cent). It may seem innocent at first, but many of these documents may trigger new data privacy rules in regional jurisdictions or potential copyright issues.

The study, conducted for Veritas by research firm Vanson Bourne, looks at how organizations across the globe (including the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific) store and manage their data, highlighting attitudes and behaviours that are fuelling an unprecedented data explosion.

Further information from: www.veritas.com

The Initiatives column in the March 2016 issue of Business Information Review covered a major report by the EIU which argued that companies are actively preparing to monetize their data. There is now further evidence of this in Gartner’s 2016 information strategy study.

Information strategy in 2016: Monetising assets

According to Gartner, during the next several years, leading organizations will begin monetizing their data directly, will have CDOs often hampered in various ways, and will focus information governance increasingly on the IoT, metadata and master data.

The key findings are:

Businesses that can monetize their information assets outstrip their rivals by using information to reinvent, digitalize or eliminate existing business processes and products.

The report argues that information leaders, such as CDOs, should:

Establish an information product function that directly monetizes data. Identify information assets that can be exchanged for mutual economic advantage.

The report states very clearly its strategic planning assumptions:

By 2020, 10 per cent of organizations will have a highly profitable business unit specifically for ‘productizing’ and commercializing their information assets.

Further information from: www.gartner.com

Denise Carter’s 2016 Business Information Survey, published in the March 2016 issue of Business Information Review, identified a range of important issues about the relationship between content buyers and sellers.

The ability to negotiate was seen [by respondents] as key to delivering effectively to the organization … Most senior [information] leaders were involved directly in negotiations to a greater or lesser extent … [The respondents] emphasized the shift from the business-to-customer relationship of previous years to the business-to-business relationships of today and tomorrow.

2016 Information prices outstrip IM budget growth

Research and advisory company Outsell, Inc. has announced publication of a new report, 2016 Information Pricing Study. Outsell’s research indicates planned price increases by content vendors will outstrip flat buyer budgets, leaving information managers with tough decisions and content sellers with a battle for market share.

Outsell’s study is the eighth annual report providing guidance on anticipated pricing changes for paid content. As content buyers and sellers prepare for the next round of contract renewals, the report provides helpful benchmarks to consider in making renewal and purchasing decisions. Drawing on data from Outsell’s annual Information Management Benchmarking survey, alongside qualitative research with vendors and buyers, the report tackles four main themes:

pricing benchmarks for 2016;

According to Jim Hydock, VP and lead analyst of Outsell’s Information Management service:

Libraries and information managers are facing tough choices – they will either have to leverage down content price increases through savvy negotiating, or trim content and service offerings. The trend of anaemic budget increases for libraries is short-sighted – in the long run, research and quality will suffer.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Given this prediction of a slight squeeze on budgets for 2016, information managers must anticipate having to negotiate prices downwards and/or cut some services. Once again they will be turning to their suite of information product evaluation tools to support their negotiations. Whilst the research indicates that information buyers are increasingly savvy in this regard, Outsell’s report recommends steps to help both buyers and sellers ease the decision-making process.

Further information from: www.outsellinc.com

Strategic role of IT in higher education

Factors such as rising costs, declining affordability, disruptive technologies and for-profit competitors mean that now is the time for institutions to grow the strategic role of IT to differentiate themselves in the market. Institutions cannot remain static and expect to survive; they must assess the changing environment and take timely action in collaboration with IT when required, according to analyst firm Ovum.

In the new 2016 Trends to Watch report on Education Technology, the independent technology analyst firm identifies a number of key trends that will impact the education technology market in 2016, including:

More thought will be given to how delivery models for teaching and learning will change.

Navneet Johal, Research Analyst, Education Technology at Ovum and author of the report, said: ‘According to Ovum’s 2015/16 ICT Enterprise Insights survey, increasing revenue and budget growth, improving operational efficiency, and reducing operating expenditure will be the top three business challenges for institutions over the next year.’

Johal added: ‘It is unlikely that the higher education market will be substantially different in a year’s time, or even within the next few years. However, institutions must capitalize on change now, rather than being consumed by it later, to survive in the increasingly competitive higher education market.’

First of all, capitalizing on change requires institutions to adapt to the new normal – the non-traditional learner. ‘The demographics of the student population have changed. Therefore, institutions must dedicate the same amount of energy and resources to non-traditional programmes, including an institution-wide commitment to developing new academic programmes and creating better administrative structures for non-traditional students,’ asserted Johal.

The report also highlights that with increasing pressure to improve student retention and outcomes, institutions will become more sophisticated in how they think about the student experience. ‘Enterprise-wide deployments of constituent relationship management (CRM) systems and the overlapping of enterprise applications such as learning management systems (LMS) and student information systems (SIS) will grow to support student experience strategies,’ said Johal.

Additionally, the discussion about next-generation IT strategy will continue, with more institutions committing to cloud-hosted delivery and services. ‘Institutions need to focus on innovation to differentiate themselves in what is an increasingly competitive industry, and the IT department should be a key partner in driving this innovation. However, if the majority of the IT department’s time and budget is spent on maintenance of on-premise applications and services, this leaves little time for innovation. As a result, institutions will find it difficult to stay ahead of the curve,’ concluded Johal.

Further information from: www.ovum.com

Top 10 strategic technologies for higher education in 2016

Higher education leaders have shifted focus from reducing costs and driving efficiencies towards using technology to enhance competitive advantage and support emerging business models — and ultimately, the institution’s main missions of education and research, according to research from Gartner, Inc.

Jan-Martin Lowendahl, VP and analyst for Gartner said that for institutions to thrive in the increasingly competitive education ecosystem, they must become more innovative and it is often technology that will underpin that innovation.

‘Higher education is still mostly considered a conservative and slow-moving industry, with the majority of innovation coming from outside the traditional education IT organization, Mr Lowendahl said. ‘However, it is only a matter of time until all this innovation will impact the institution and, ultimately, the CIO’.

Worldwide, higher education sector spending is forecast to grow 1.2 per cent to reach US$38.2 billion in 2016, according to Gartner. Higher education institutions in Australia will spend A$1.7 billion on technology products and services in 2016, up 4 per cent from 2015. In New Zealand, technology spending in the higher education sector will total NZ$268 million in 2016, an increase of 4.1 per cent over 2015.

Gartner has identified the top 10 strategic technologies for the higher education sector in 2016 and provides recommendations to education CIOs and IT leaders regarding adoption and benefits. It is not a list of what education CIOs spend the most time or money on; rather it is a list of strategic technologies that Gartner recommends higher education CIOs should have a plan for in 2016.

Records and information managers must reinvent themselves

Records and information managers, the traditional guardians of corporate records, face pressure to reinvent themselves as analytical, security-conscious content professionals with an ability to think creatively and manage change, according to a new study by Iron Mountain and information industry association, AIIM.

By 2020, employers expect their records and information managers to be competent in risk management – with security and data privacy skills a priority for 50 per cent, content and information management across a wide range of formats and platforms (47 per cent), and data analytics (44 per cent). These findings echo the results of an in-depth study conducted in 2015 and suggest that the profession is becoming more technical and more closely aligned with data analysts and colleagues in the IT department. However, the report also reveals that these skills may not be enough on their own; employers want records and information professionals to identify new opportunities in organizational information and to be able to support colleagues through disruptive times of change, such as a merger, acquisition or divestiture.

The concern is that the study uncovers a marked mismatch between what employers expect and what their information professionals currently deliver.

In terms of softer skills, the greatest gap is seen in the ability to manage change. This is regarded as highly important by 70 per cent of employers, yet only half of records and information managers are confident that they possess this skill today.

Instead, information professionals value their expertise in training, with 56 per cent listing it as one of their key skills, corporate communications (47 per cent) and mentoring (52 per cent). Unfortunately, these matter significantly less to their employers. Just 21 per cent of leaders are concerned about communications skills, and a mere 12 per cent give any weight to mentoring capabilities.

On a positive note, there is near agreement on the most critical soft skill: the ability to think innovatively. This is desired by 72 per cent of employers and is offered by 62 per cent of records and information managers. Further, they both rank ‘relationship-building’ ability as equally important: 57 per cent of employers and 62 per cent of records and information managers consider this to be a priority skill.

Information managers are already using a wide range of professional development tools including online tools and independent training providers. What is clear is that most organizations are in no position to provide relevant, technical training to the required level.

Other technical IM capabilities that are going to be in demand include: data quality management and migration; information security and access control; content and records management; ECM/RM/DM (document management) systems knowledge.

‘Organizations the world over share common goals when it comes to managing information in an increasingly digital universe: they want to keep it secure and compliant while being able to analyse and extract its full value for business competitiveness and growth’, said Sue Trombley, managing director of thought leadership at Iron Mountain.

For the records and information managers at the heart of this, it’s no longer enough to be a competent records manager. It’s time for them to evolve into next-generation information professionals with stronger technical, analytical and management skills and the confidence to think, mediate and guide.

‘The more we talk to customers, our members and others, the more we realize that current record and information management roles and responsibilities may not be enough for what lies ahead’, said John Mancini, president and CEO of AIIM.

The profession needs to adapt or face the risk of becoming obsolete, replaced by automated software or other roles such as data analysts and IT. We need to embrace change with high quality training and professional development, helping records and information managers to travel towards a deeper, richer and more varied career as an information professional.

Key findings

Most companies are worried about a looming skills gap. The vast majority (94 per cent) of executives cite a ‘moderate’ or ‘severe’ digital skills gap. Financial services and manufacturing had the largest enterprise-wide skills deficits, while healthcare and retail survey participants were concerned with department-specific shortages. The top reasons for the skills gap were, in order of consensus, insufficient supply of appropriate talent (49 per cent), internal opposition to creating new digital jobs (49 per cent) and lack of clarity over who is responsible for digital talent acquisition (45 per cent). Respondents also worry about digital workers’ lack of interest in their industry (37 per cent).

Cyber-security and web/mobile development are the most important digital competencies today. ‘Big data’ will top the list by 2018. Four out of 10 (41 per cent) respondents rank cyber-security and web/mobile development as the most important digital skills in their business today. Less importance is given to digital strategy (35 per cent) and ‘smart products’ (32 per cent). However, this pecking order looks set to change, with 43 per cent of executives believing that big data will be the top skillset in three years’ time. The shift towards big data was especially marked among manufacturing executives, as they try to excel in so-called Industry 4.0—the age of complex “cyber-physical” systems such as the IoT and smart products.

Half of the companies face internal push-back against the creation of new digital jobs. Internal opposition to creating new digital jobs is cited as a hiring obstacle by 49 per cent of respondents. Older workers are more resistant to digital transition than their younger colleagues, the survey shows: 80 per cent of companies face internal resistance to digital transition of processes and work among older members of the workforce. The top reasons for scepticism are confusion about digital technology and the skills it needs (cited by 53 per cent), budget (49 per cent), cultural factors (49 per cent) and lack of a proven business case (48 per cent).

‘Digital talent does not want to work for us’. Over one-third of companies (37 per cent) believe that digital workers have no desire to work in their industries. The problem was especially acute in retail, where 43 per cent subscribed to this view. Companies can take measures to address this challenge; however, 45 per cent have sought to improve perceptions of their company as an employer of digital talent, and one-third of executives have raised salaries for digital talent. The finance industry expects salaries to play the biggest role in recruitment going forward: 43 per cent of financial services companies expect to increase salaries for digital talent over the next three years, the highest proportion of the industry groups.

Companies are finding skills gap ‘workarounds’. Companies are seeking solutions beyond conventional hiring. Of all respondents, 55 per cent have embarked on digital training of existing staff, while 47 per cent of companies outsource digital functions. Healthcare companies are increasingly partnering with technology firms, and companies across the board are building cross-functional teams to integrate digital across the business. Companies are also looking externally, such as crowd-sourcing on social media for innovation ideas: 84 per cent said that they would use LinkedIn to crowd-source ideas and 40 per cent would use Twitter. Mergers, acquisitions and ‘acqui-hiring’ (buying out a company primarily for the skills and expertise of its staff, rather than for its products or services) will become more popular as a skills strategy going forward: 40 per cent of companies plan such measures by 2018, compared with 21 per cent at present. Lastly, companies are rethinking physical structures: 40 per cent of companies said that, as a result of the rise of remote working made possible by digital, they have a larger number of ‘spokes’ rather than ‘hubs’, while manufacturers and retailers are building more satellite offices near digital talent hubs.

Industries feel the skills gap differently: digital skills gaps vary considerably across industries, depending on how digital is reshaping their commercial landscape. Retailers are primarily concerned with smart-product development and web and mobile, as customers expect to research, view and buy goods on an array of platforms. Financial services firms, by contrast, are mainly worried about having adequate cyber-security skills to defend themselves against hackers, while manufacturers struggle with a big data skills gap as they try to produce efficiently in the Industry 4.0 era. Industry responses, therefore, must be tailored to the unique circumstances in each commercial sector.

Further information from: www.eiu.com.

Job prospects for data scientists

Global consultancy giant PwC will hire more than 1000 data scientists over the next 18–24 months to complement the 500 currently active in its international deals business. The multi-million dollar investment will fully embed data and data analytics into PwC’s $5 billion global deals operation. The move reflects increasing client demand for advanced data-driven insight to inform acquisition or divestment decision-making

Confirming the recruitment programme, John Dwyer, PwC’s global head of deals, said:

As the sophistication of investors and the availability of data grows, it’s critical that our professionals are supported by the latest technological advances. This additional investment will allow us to accelerate the development of our services and deliver transformational insights to our clients throughout the deal cycle.

The combination of technology and strategy will be key to how the deal landscape evolves in the next 10 years. The new data scientists will be hired across all major territories, with over 100 expected to be added in the UK.

Specialist recruiters have been engaged to look at a range of skills and industry backgrounds, including data engineers, statisticians and machine learning experts, who will be drawn from roles in analytics-intense sectors like technology, healthcare, and scientific academia.

The data science investment will enable a host of new services including:

targeting of acquisition and divestiture opportunities through the application of predictive analytics;

To drive this transformation, Henri Leveque, a senior partner in the US firm, was appointed head of data and analytics a year ago and has now been promoted to the global deals leadership team. Henri commented:

Relationships, experience and human judgement will remain important long into the future. However, the deep insights that can be driven through the sophisticated analysis of high-volume data are playing an increasingly vital part of deal execution.

Buyers now expect to understand risks and opportunities in far greater detail before making significant investment decisions. This investment in the best people and the right technologies reinforces our position as the leading global deals business.

Further information from: www.pwc.com

Relationships between the IS and IT functions

Predicting the future always entails risk. But, according to Jinfo’s Director of Research Robin Neidorf, there’s one prediction with no risk involved: the future of information work requires deep collaboration between information services and IT experts.

Robin Neidorf said:

In nearly every research project Jinfo has undertaken for the past five years, a consistent challenge comes up as a barrier to innovation and progress: poor or non-existent relations between information services and information technology. We believe alignment between Information Services and IT is one of the most urgent issues for businesses to work on in 2016.

The report covers these actions:

day-to-day interactions with the helpdesk,

She added: ‘You may not be able to tackle all three levels, but you can start somewhere to improve the collaborative future.

What’s at stake?

Your own team’s resilience and relevance as information experts with valuable insight to support your organisation’s objectives.

The main findings and actions from this focus are:

Alignment with IT happens at every level – five things you can do to get there.

The ‘Strategic Alignment of IS and IT’ research focus is available at: www.jinfo.com.

New version of European Library Open Data launched

The European Library has announced that the fourth version of The European Library Open Dataset was released in April 2016. Continuing the growth from the previous version, it now contains over 109 million records from 31 different data providers, with over 5 billion Resource Description Framework (RDF) triplets (The RDF is a family of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specifications originally designed as a metadata data model). The European Library Open Dataset (ELOD) is one of the largest openly licensed bibliographic data sets in the world.

The European Library aims to promote the wider use and exposure of the collections it aggregates from its member libraries. With this purpose in mind, one of the API services provided by the European Library is to make available Linked Open Data.

The ELOD constitutes the subset of the European Library’s aggregated data that is made openly available by its partner libraries. The data is made available under open licensing terms, which allow the unrestricted use of the data for any purpose by anyone, including commercial use.

The Open Dataset was created to make available the open licensed collections of the European Library’s partners, and to promote the wider use and exposure of aggregated collections from member libraries. The Dataset is available under the CC0 (Creative Commons) 1.0 Universal license, allowing the unrestricted use of the data for any purpose by anyone, including commercial use, and is the largest CC0 bibliographic data set in the world. It is downloadable both as a combined data set from all providers and as individual data files for each collection.

Access to the data set

Two mechanisms are available for interacting or obtaining the data set. It can be obtained as bulk file downloadable files and according to the specifications of the W3C Linked Data Platform 1.0. Bulk files for all open data collections can be downloaded at the data sets page.

Data model and vocabularies

A complete description of the data model used for the data set can be found in the document: ‘Linked Data at The European Library: Data Model and Vocabularies’

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Datasets statistics:

Data providers	Countries collections		Records	RDF triples
31	24	222	109,925,537	5,232,446,699

Further information from: www.theeuropeanlibrary.org

Open Culture: free cultural and educational media on the web

Open Culture provides a wide range of free resources – audio books, online courses, certificate courses/ massive open online courses (MOOC), movies, languages, textbooks and ebooks. The nature of the resources range from the just released 450 downloadable art books from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to 150 free online business courses.

Open Culture brings together high-quality cultural and educational media for the worldwide lifelong learning community.

Web 2.0 has given us great amounts of intelligent audio and video. It’s all free. It’s all enriching. But it’s also scattered across the web, and not easy to find. Our whole mission is to centralize this content, curate it, and give you access to this high quality content whenever and wherever you want it.

Open Culture was founded in 2006. Dan Colman, the lead editor, is the director and associate dean of Stanford’s Continuing Studies Program. Before that, he served as the managing director of AllLearn, an e-learning consortium owned by Stanford, Oxford and Yale, and as the director of business development and editorial manager at About.com. The common thread running through his career is his interest in bringing relevant, perspective-changing information to large audiences, often with the help of the Internet.

This site is not associated with Stanford University. The ideas/views expressed belong to Dan, or others. But, in all cases, they are private ones.

Advertising is facilitated on Open Culture by the use of Google’s Adwords platform. This provides the ability to target the whole site or specific pages.

First and foremost, the MOOCs/online courses available via Open Culture sometimes offer students ‘statements of accomplishment’ or ‘certificates of completion’ if they successfully complete a given course. However, most traditional universities won’t give students credit for taking theses online courses, and students typically can’t use these courses as a way to satisfy requirements for a degree.

Further information from: www.openculture.com

United Nations iLibrary emerges as a major resource

The United Nations iLibrary is the first comprehensive global search, discovery and viewing source for digital content created by the United Nations. It provides librarians, information specialists, scholars, students, policymakers, influencers and the general public with a single digital destination for accessing publications, journals, data and series published by the United Nations Secretariat, and its funds and programmes.

The United Nations iLibrary is designed to offer an extensive list of features that deliver flexibility, speed and efficiency such as intuitive navigation, integrated search results, granular content, a citation tool, DOI identification and multilingual content.

Every year around 500 new titles are planned to be added, approximately 70 per cent of which are in English and cover the following topics:

Agriculture rural development and forestry;

United Nations Publications promotes the work and knowledge of the United Nations through marketing, sales and distribution of publications, data and merchandize. One of the purposes of the United Nations as reflected in its charter is to ‘achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.’

The United Nations employs a variety of subject matter experts who create knowledge products to advance these goals. These products include books, statistical databases and other digital resources comprising facts and expertise on international peace and security, human rights, gender issues, economic and social development, international trade, climate change, international law, governance, public health, transportation and statistics. Publications include time-sensitive reports that capture the state of the global economy and welfare of people and the planet. Scholars, information specialists, policymakers and influencers are primary audiences for the United Nations publications.

These publications are available online in the single research repository. Content is organized by series title, publication year and alphabetically; and search and discovery of complete publications or their components – chapters and articles – is available. The content is accessible in different formats – PDF and READ – to meet users’ needs, whether for reading on a mobile device, sharing with peers via social networks or integrating content in a report.

As of February 2016, the content items include 782 ebook titles, 11,960 chapters and 170 series.

The iLibrary offers wide-ranging research and knowledge to a variety of audiences:

universities and research organisations;

Access to the United Nations iLibrary is offered via an annual subscription. The benefits of subscription include: (i) registration to manage institution-wide access via IP authentication and/or username/password login; (ii) unlimited number of concurrent institutional users; (iii) perpetual access to subscribed content and (iv) subscription support features such as COUNTER-compliant usage statistics and bibliographic records in MARC21 XML format.

Further information from: www.un-ilibrary.org

EDRM’s new e-discovery reference model chart

Since 2005 the e-discovery community has relied on Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) for leadership, standards, best practices, tools, guides and test data sets to improve electronic discovery and information governance. Member individuals, law firms, corporations and government organisations actively contribute to the direction of EDRM. The organisation has just announced the release of its first edition of the EDRM diagram in poster format.

Since its original creation in 2006, the now iconic EDRM diagram has been downloaded from the EDRM website thousands of times, and referenced throughout the industry in media articles, blogs and e-discovery training materials.

The purpose of the new printable poster is to serve as an educational piece and a reference chart for law firms, corporations and service and software providers involved in the e-discovery process.

‘The updated diagram includes the detailed Information Governance Reference Model (IGRM) to the left of the EDRM diagram, giving a more holistic view of the relationship between information governance and e-discovery’, says co-founder George Socha. ‘In addition, each phase of the EDRM includes a brief description of the processes and activities taking place in that phase. As a 24″ × 36″ wall chart, I expect it will be a useful tool in meeting rooms, training sessions and processing labs’.

‘Co-founder Tom Gelbmann and I want to take this opportunity to mark the 10-year anniversary of the initial release of the EDRM diagram’, Socha remarks, ‘and to thank all EDRM sponsors, members and working group members who have contributed to the significant growth and continued success of EDRM standards and frameworks, education programs and resources’.

The poster is available in a full-color, print-ready PDF file, downloadable free of charge from the EDRM website at EDRM.net.

Further information from: www.edrm.net

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‘FreePint’ is dead! long live ‘Jinfo’!

The very well-known information, technology and research company FreePint is now called Jinfo. Founder William Hann said:

We’ve increasingly found that a name incorporating ‘free’ and ‘pint’ was a barrier to spreading the word about a service that supports the strategic role of information through research-based insight on sources, technology and value and delivers that insight through a paid subscription covering content, community and consulting.

The company emphasizes that nothing else has changed and that this is purely a name change. Everything else about the current service – research areas, subscription levels, pricing – stays the same. The FreePint Newsletter is now the Jinfo Newsletter and is the principal way to stay informed about the company’s latest research and resources.

Will Hann concluded: ‘Thank you for your continued support and encouragement as we strive to continually innovate in our research and offerings around the importance and value of information’.

Further information from: www.jinfo.com

The wall street journal on Facebook Messenger

Readers can now access The Wall Street Journal’s daily information digests, breaking news and live markets data via Facebook Messenger.

‘We are excited to experiment with Facebook in shaping this new mobile experience, which allows us to share a sample of the Journal’s award-winning reporting with people on Messenger. We look forward to spending the next few weeks and months working with, and learning from users, as we continue building an interactive and engaging Journal experience on Messenger’, said Katie Vanneck-Smith, Dow Jones, Chief Customer Officer and Global Managing Director, International.

FT wins digital innovation and business journalism awards

The Financial Times won the award for digital innovation 2016 Press Awards and FT correspondent Richard Milne was named business and finance journalist of the year. FT weekend magazine was highly commended in the Supplement of the Year category.

The FT won the digital innovation award for Sarah O’Connor’s (@sarahoconnor) unique Wearables at Work project, which combined traditional reporting, a Facebook group, feedback from readers and interactive features, its When Rates Rise interactive project and its Big Game, Big Money film, an investigation of the billion-dollar illegal poaching trade.

The judges said that the FT gave a ‘holistic approach’ to ‘an engaging project on wearable technology’. FT news editor Alec Russell saluted the team-work that underpinned the FT’s awards. ‘Most of us at heart are lone wolves, but this award as much as any other is a reminder of how if we hunt as a pack we can be much more powerful’, he told the ceremony.

Milne (@rmilneNordic) who was named business and finance journalist of the year for his coverage of the VW scandal, said he was ‘very happy’ to receive the award and thanked FT editors Lionel Barber, Roula Khalaf, Alec Russell and Brooke Masters for allowing him to pursue the story.

The judges commented that Milne ‘truly got under the skin of VW and showed how it went wrong’, producing a ‘thoroughly exhaustive and clear investigation into one of the biggest business stories of the year’.

FT editor Lionel Barber said: ‘These awards recognize a dynamic younger generation of journalists at the FT. It is a great testament to our enterprising and innovative culture, and to the exceptional talent and expertise of our editorial team. Richard is richly deserving of this prize for his scrupulous reporting of Volkswagen, exhibiting the very best of deep, investigative journalism.’

FT’s political columnist Janan Ganesh, Middle East correspondent Erika Solomon, defence and security editor Sam Jones and hedge fund correspondent Miles Johnson were all shortlisted for awards.

The Press Awards celebrate the best of British journalism and are organized on behalf of the industry by the Society of Editors.

Further information from: www.pressawards.org.uk