The 10 Most Innovative Companies In Machine Learning 2019

Vol. 12| Issue 01 | 2019

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Editor’s Desk Is Franchise A Profitable Stroke of Business?

INNOVATIVE

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Securing Future Fibers of Future Rendering Solutions to Ever-changing Modern Connectivity

2019

Editor’s Desk Creating New Business Opportunities

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uture from here seems to be heading towards revolution, as machine learning is proving to be one of the most influential and powerful technologies in today’s world.

Machine learning has gained a lot traction these days, as it is driving exponential progress in improving systems.

Businesses are incorporating it to reduce costs, improve productivity, analyse large volumes of data, and increase customer satisfaction.

As per BCC research, the figures convey that the global machine learning market has totalled $1.4 billion in 2017.

Also, the study suggests that, it is estimated to top $8.8 billion by 2022, a jaw-dropping compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 43.6 percent. These figures show that how machine learning landscape is changing rapidly.

The need for Machine Learning is widely recognized.

Machine Learning algorithms can accurately define the content that should be used and create a personal communications calendar to get the best response from each customer.

Machine Learning is now considered as a subset of AI that allows computer algorithms to learn from data and information and perform predictive and prescriptive analytics. It is hard to ignore the global impact of machine learning because these systems can drastically change the way business is done across all industry sectors.

In finance sector, capital-market operators use machine learning and AI technology- blockchain to predict the

market and detect fraud. These technologies not only provide opportunities for newer business models but also makes their position stronger in the business-investment ecosystem.

Machine Learning

In real estate industry, the machine learning algorithms transform the static system into a live, interactive machine, which responds, approves, and recommends. Whereas in Healthcare industry, advanced machines work to deliver an accurate and timely diagnosis of patient conditions, while the doctors can work together to deliver improved outcomes. Similarly, today’s Database Administration is empowered with advanced tools so that they can make value-added contributions to their organizations rather than performing repetitive functions.

time for the businesses.

Solutions will bring the best

Today, machine learning and AI have been given the same importance as the discovery of electricity at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Taking this into consideration, businesses are incorporating machine learning into their processes and are delivering revolutionary solutions.

In order to acknowledge the significant contributions of businesses in the machine learning industry, Insights Success has enlisted “The 10 Most Innovative Companies in Machine Learning-2019”, which are offering advanced machine learning solutions to help businesses in solving key business challenges, enabling data-driven decision making, and creating innovative business models.

Also, make sure to scroll through the articles written by our editorial team and CXO standpoints of some of the leading industry experts to have a brief knowledge of the sector.

Let’s start reading!

Hitesh Dhamani

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iAge Technologies Turning Content into Action

CONTENTS Tangent Works Reducing Costs with Automatic Forecasting

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10 Knowledge Keys Which Should My Businesses Choose? CMMS Vs EAM ?

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Tech Outlook Fostering a Risk-based Company Culture

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Maestro’s Insights The Role of Consultants for Every Business Stage

Editor’s Desk Is Franchise A Profitable Stroke of Business?

Articles

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Editor’s VirtualChoice World Virtual Assistants Professional Assistance, Virtual Guidance

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Securing Future Fibers of Future Rendering Solutions to Ever-changing Modern Connectivity

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Managing Editor Anish Miller

Executive Editor

Assistant Editors

Sourabh More

Jenny Fernandes Hitesh Dhamani

Visualizer

Art & Design Director

Associate Designer

David King

Amol Kamble

Sanket Zirpe

Senior Sales Manager Co-designer

Co-designer Shweta Ambilwade

Business Development Manager

Kshitij S

Andy Mitter

Marketing Manager

Sales Executives

John Matthew

David, Kevin, Mark, Vishnu

Technical Head

Business Development Executives

Jacob Smile

Steve, Joe, Alan, Anup

Technical Specialist Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager Marry D'Souza

SME-SMO Executive Prashant Chevale

Research Analyst Frank Adams

Database Management Stella Andrew

Circulation Manager Robert Brown

Technology Consultant David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com December, 2019

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WHICH SHOULD MY BUSINESSES CHOOSE?

CMMS W

hen it comes to the right software for tracking your asset’s maintenance history, you have a few options ahead of you. There are several powerful tools across the board, however, the two most common you’ll encounter are a CMMS and an EAM. These programs are an essential piece for a growing business to track their maintenance and asset’s span, so choosing the correct one can mean all the difference for your business.

At its core, a CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) is a system used to track work orders, maintenance history, and preventive maintenance schedules for assets related to your businesses.

Maintenance teams use a CMMS to quickly discover everything about an asset, from where it is located to knowing who has work on it and when. This insight helps centralize all maintenance information in one system helping teams improve their productivity. A CMMS also helps streamline maintenance processes by providing visibility to all parties involved. Maintenance managers can view and track work order statuses assigned to technicians, as well as quickly notifying technicians of new tasks.

In contrast to the primary maintenance tracking a CMMS provides, an EAM’s (Enterprise Asset Management) primary function is to focus on up-time, planning, and asset workflow for all devices across a large-scale company. It is used to track every part of an asset’s life cycle, from procurement to disposal, combining both the features of a CMMS with powerful utilities covering accounting, asset’s cost and profits, and operations. With an EAM, your business can see exactly how much an asset both produces and costs, allowing you to make accurate projections while simultaneously seeing where certain assets need more focus to ensure profitability. Downtime, a dreaded occurrence on all high-value assets, can even be accurately tracked within the tools it provides.

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Knowledge Keys

EAM

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About the Author Ryan Chan is CEO and Founder at UpKeep Maintenance Management.

He is a Chemical Engineer from UC Berkeley, was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 for Manufacturing in 2018 and is part of the Official Forbes Technology Council. Ryan started UpKeep out of passion and frustration by the lack of mobility in today’s maintenance management software. UpKeep has now been deployed to over 10,000 businesses and is a leader in mobile-first maintenance management software.

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December 2019 | 11

EAM software also adds the benefit of streamlined financial reports, allowing you to see a breakdown of all costs incurred by your appliances. These reports can be a blessing during an audit and allow your financial team an easy look at your current assets without having to train them in the full use of your EAM software. If you’re only using a CMMS software, integrations with accounting software may be limited. Most EAMs will automatically integrate with accounting software like QuickBooks, allowing the reports to be automatically generated and transferred at the push of a button.

CMMS and EAM sound quite similar, don’t they? While superficially they may appear to show the same function, the improvements of an EAM’s additional features on top of CMMS present an attractive option for businesses that have grown beyond one or two locations. How do you determine if you need a CMMS or an EAM software? Here are a few key questions to ask when determining which software is right for your business.

How large is your maintenance team?

If you are currently at a few locations with less than ten technicians on duty, a CMMS software is usually more than sufficient to track each of your asset’s maintenance history.

The proximity allows your maintenance team to easily see and track when assets are purchased or on the verge of breaking down, allowing a more hands-on approach to tracking their life cycle. You will also likely have no issue handling the financial aspect and budget tracking with your repairs until you begin to expand.

If you have a multitude of locations and a sizable team, the power of an EAM software allows your teams to see an eagle-eye view of all of your appliances without having to visit each location or contact that location’s supervisor for updates. Over all, if your maintenance teams are not split into more than a handful of locations while only having a maintenance team size of less than ten, the use of a CMMS would be more cost effective than transitioning to an EAM. Do you own and manage 500+ assets?

Eventually there comes a time when it becomes too time consuming for you to personally manage each asset over multiple programs. This tipping point can occur at various times in a business’s lifespan. Once you reach near the 500+ asset mark, you’re going to have more eyes on your assets than just your maintenance teams. Your financial team may be looking at an asset to determine if it’s still profitable, while your compliance team will be concerned with the asset’s safety through its lifespan.

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With an EAM, every team can take control of their particular specialty, from your finance and production teams to your maintenance and compliance team. An EAM allows them each to utilize their own workflow, optimizing the time spent scrutinizing your assets to look for cost savings and improvements. Your financial team, production team, and especially your compliance team all benefit from the EAM’s ability to segment specialized tools for their tasks, making the cost of the system and training much more efficient than each team doing it by hand.

So which should you choose for your business?

Despite the similarities of the products, the true difference between an EAM and a CMMS comes down to the scale of your business. While large businesses may find themselves in the position of an EAM suite being necessary, most small business owners can breathe easy knowing a CMMS will likely suit their needs just fine. Small businesses often can justify using multiple programs in conjunction with a CMMS to both save on budget, while the complexities of owning thousands of assets can make the EAM a must for management to have the all-in-one solution at their fingertips.

Moving from CMMS to EAM is not one to be undertaken lightly, but not as difficult as many business owners imagine. Owners will start to plan for the change when their assets begin to pass the thousand mark over multiple locations. Consult with your core team of your asset manager, maintenance manager, maintenance technician, and CMMS vendor to determine when the upgrade is optimal for your business and your future profits.

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iAge Technologies Turning Content into Action

Denis Uspenskiy, CTO; Artem Kukharenko, CEO; Tatyana Murzova, Vice-President

efore founding the organization, all the three leaders of iAge had worked in digital space for almost 15 years to create digital products that solve customers’ problems, and bring value to them. However, at one point, they had to admit: no matter how qualified the marketers of the team were, they were trying to bite more than they could chew.

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Solving Client’s Needs The needs of iAge’s clients are completely based on the necessity to increase the revenue through the usage of all content they have in the most effective way. In order to solve client’s needs, the organization has implemented the core product- XR, which is an AI- powered solution for e-mail marketing.

With projects so numerous, how would anyone ever manage to find enough human resources for each? How could one quickly and effectively solve issues and answer pressing questions like “What should we send our email subscribers? At what time? With what frequency?”

Moreover, they had collected a significant volume of subscriber data that humans could scarcely fathom.

According to iAge Technologies, AI strategies help define the content that has maximum click probability for a certain user and to use it for increasing engagement. By analyzing all uploaded content and the customers’ characteristics, ML algorithms can accurately define the content that should be used and create a personal communications calendar to get the best response from each customer. ML algorithms help to; Ÿ Select best content based on CTR analytics Ÿ Ensures high double opt-in rates and helps to build a loyal audience Ÿ Customize send times based on behavior patterns Ÿ Optimize promotional campaigns to ensure high CPM rates Ÿ Enable event-triggered email series based on user activity

Through trial and error, they realized that granular segmentation enables them to provide each subscriber with an offer so well-timed and appropriate that they are doubtful to refuse it. Relevant in every respect, such offers resonate with users and unfailingly stimulate an active response, which improves the overall campaign performance. They also realized that such a level of granularity could only be achieved by applying AI technologies to the email marketing efforts. AI does not need humans to decide which content suits each individual user best and how often it should be sent. It can do more than build email campaigns for each of the numerous audience segments - AI can develop and carry out personalized communications with individual subscribers, each with its own frequency and content. Eventually, this concept served as the decision to establish the company iAge Technologies, Inc in 2011.

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Also, iAge Technologies provide fully-automated solutions for email marketing. It means that all parts- content creation, setting technical resources, content, delivery level, performance optimization are made on the side of XR algorithms. No more managers needed to do email marketing. Just set up posting and receive users’ returns.

The Forerunners Artem Kukharenko (CEO), Denis Uspenskiy (CTO) and

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AI-powered solution for email communication – algorithms decide what content should be sent, what is the best time for interaction and frequency for the user with LTV prediction

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Tatyana Murzova (Vice- President) of iAge Technologies chose digital technologies as their career path. Together with the team of iAge Technologies, Inc, they have integrated the philosophy of customer relationship and the expertise accumulated in the course of decade-long project work to create a technology solution that relies on AI strategies to organize customer communications in the 1:1 way.

As the CEO of iAge Technologies Inc., Artem oversees the company’s growth and optimizes all divisions of operation.

His bold ideas and proactive approach are the key boosters of the organization’s success.

INNOVATIVE

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Determining the priorities Transforming the priority question, once it is determined it uses different AI algorithms, including Random Forrest, SVM, etc. Ÿ Applying the function to find a solution that is the best match for the key metrics linked with the goal.Using the solution to create a personal communication strategy for each customer.

Making Solutions Resourceful In order to estimate the probability of the best opening time, as well as to determine the likelihood of action for each profile, XR uses the RandomForest statistical model. Data for that is prepared in a unique way, and various behavioral aggregates are collected and analyzed according to the raw log of profile actions. The received totals are then processed, cleaned, and noise sign gets removed. XR uses L1 Regularization to find the best features.

What’s in Store? iAge Technologies’ future aspirations are for each industry and territory to have an effective AI strategy for communication with subscribers to achieve the goal, including increasing revenue and decreasing the time for management. That’s why iAge explore user behaviors using machine learning technologies. After all, only ML allows determining each user the most effective sequence of communications. Based on this data, AI algorithms identify users by clusters and determine which communication strategy should be used to achieve the desired result.

In his role as the CTO, Denis’s key tasks include ensuring that all the systems are up and running smooth at all the times. And all the technologies developed at the organization are always at least a step ahead of the competition.

Lastly Tatyana’s chief role as the Vice President is to provide the much needed backbone for ever-growing performance and quality of all digital products of the company. She is a reasonable perfectionist, a strong leader and the driver of innovation and improvement.

Helping Machine Learning Industry Evolve As an organization, iAge Technology is working round the clock in order to implement AI for different verticals, including; financial services, banking, content marketing, e-commerce, automotive, dating, etc. to increase the results from email marketing. According to the company, it can be achieved by the creation of numerous hypotheses to train AI algorithms by educating the team of analytical specialists to; www.insightssuccess.com

December 2019 | 15

IS

FRANCHISE A PROFITABLE STROKE OF BUSINESS?

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echnology, technique—name it, the world has bestowed some remarkably adaptive implications and stimulated them into becoming a global brand. Yet, many organizations are striving to attain the full benefits of being a globally recognized brand. To stretch out confinements, various organizations often offer franchise licenses to franchise owners in potentially profitable regions for acquiring a better customer approach. Instead of starting from a scratch, an individual can purchase a franchise and start with a proven business model that has a more probability of achieving success.

With adequate management and guidance, one can easily flourish in the business world. Franchise business strikes down certain hardships and struggles that might be faced in the start-ups. Choosing franchise

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Editor’s Desk

businesses over a start-up could prove as a better idea, as it has more fruitful benefits that of any initial-staged businesses.

An Established Open System Unlike any start-ups, a franchise business allows an individual to carry out the operation directly from the established foundation. From brand cultivation and marketing to future plans and customer base, a new franchise owner is blessed with almost everything. An outlet of a franchise ensures the idea of following the similar business modules and operational methods can be more effective. And, implementing some new tweaks in such absolute aspects makes the task easier for a distributor.

In addition, it also allows professionals to overview the business reports and key performance indicators which aid www.insightssuccess.com

one to adapt and make appropriate business decisions. Besides, a strong support system is often a necessity rather than a want. It supports an individual in maintaining balance between both independent ideologies and the brand’s business modules. The support mostly includes the vast knowledge about the franchise and an expertise outlook on products. With such system, many new business personalities can perpetually sustain in the massive markets.

Less risk factor and Higher Success Rate One of the primary concern factor and the misconception in franchise business lies within the limitation of autonomy. Unlike individual enterprises, a franchise business might be facing some problems regarding receiving a full scale autonomy which can be overruled thereafter. It requires

compassion over choosing a franchise which is more suitable with a purchaser’s business ethics. This reduces the risk of being dominated by franchisors and other investor entities and helps in drafting own rules to follow on.

Though a franchise comes with a wellestablished platform, it does require consistent efforts on bringing the organization upwards. According to various reports and facts, it has been also stated that the success rate of franchise business is quite higher than an independent entrepreneurial venture. As franchisees operate under a systematic business model, they get an indirect training in marketing as well as staff handling. With a large-scale marketing, the franchisees can promptly attain more customer attraction resulting into a higher growth rate.

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Instant Customer Access Customer engagement is one of the most crucial and difficult processes in a business to bear. To gain more number of customers, an organization has to invest their time and efforts on processing various marketing aspects.

In case of franchise business, the odds are quite similar but with fewer efforts.

As most of franchise brands have a national or a global recognition, franchisees are required to contribute into a “marketing budget” through which the parent companies could process out an extensive promotion campaigns. Meanwhile, franchisee can also start an independent campaign in order to gain instant customer engagement.

Below are some methods through which franchisees can uplift the business, independently.

Focusing on target audiences—instead of exaggerating over customer approaches, one can narrow down the target audiences to highly qualified prospects. It allows business owners to concentrate and come up with best prospects to deliver.

Return-policy—being the most traditional and effective way to attract customers, utilizing return-policies in franchise business will aid the franchisees to get better customer approach. Providing something in return and offering various schemes helps in creating an adverse marketing network.

How Franchise Business works?

Quite a few requirements are needed to be fulfilled by a prospective franchisee owner in order to get qualified for licensing the brand’s name. The qualification requirements significantly vary from one franchisor to other. It often includes maintaining a higher net worth and a good credit score for a larger initial investment. In addition, a franchisee must be having another source of income also an industry/management experience for guiding business effectively.

Subsequently considering all the factors, the franchisor determines whether the prospective owner is worthy enough to be qualified for the business or not.

A Franchise agreement includes certain sets of terms which are required to be followed by the franchisees. After being qualified, an individual signs an agreement where he/she has to pay a franchise-fee in order to acquire the license to use the brands name and its business processes. Simultaneously, the franchisor assists franchisees with allocation, supplier connections, storemanagement and staff training.

However, it also bestows various facets like specific tested operating system, with creative marketing strategies.

Initially, the opportunities of implanting reinvention in franchise business are narrowed down as the focus of a franchiser is on delivering a consistent experience across all the locations. A multiple franchised locations, a franchisee can easily attain increased purchasing power. Also, Franchise business allows business persons to be flexible to try new products or services in order to test in the real-time market scenario. Thus by considering above aspects, it can be concluded that the franchise business is most secure and best option to invest in.

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Fostering a Risk-based

connected approach, information lacks operational context and is inevitably segmented and looked at in silos, rather than holistically.

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For example, almost every department has some type of incident management capability, but most incidents are cross-functional in nature. This makes it difficult to resolve incidents where one department’s or group’s activities have upstream or downstream impacts, which are often unknown. This collateral damage is avoidable through enterprise risk management and is the way 100% of scandals waiting to happen are prevented.

It’s essential that everyone, not just risk managers, assimilate risk awareness into their job descriptions. That said, there are many factors that contribute to a healthy, risk-managing culture.

Any effective risk-based company culture is set by the “tone from the top.” Support from leadership teams makes it easier to engage front-line managers by providing context on how risks connect to strategic goals, as information moves across the organization. When information is pushed back up the chain, new insights from individuals in governance and operational roles are included. Providing this context ensures information is actionable, useful and understandable to everyone, including senior management.

n the see-through economy, the impact that new technologies like social media can have on a company’s reputation has empowered customers to demand transparency and accountability from businesses and other organizations. A recent study showed 81% of consumers would switch brands for ethical, social, or environmental reasons. This shift means PR departments can no longer control an organization’s image.

One of those factors is support from below; be it front-line employees or operational managers. I often stress that “front-line” employees (who are responsible for everyday activities) are a vital yet often overlooked resource for risk identification. A healthy company culture benefits from bottom-up involvement as well as top-down support.

A risk-based company culture builds value through its ability to achieve both top-down and bottom-up objectives.

This eliminates any misalignments between leadership’s goals and the knowledge of front-line employees, which is the primary cause of wasted resources, missed opportunities, and compliance problems. Without a

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To develop a risk-based company culture, companies should implement connected information collection and reporting systems. If you do not have ways to initiate a task that can be reassigned to the right individuals through predetermined workflows, you’re not able to ensure it gets addressed in the appropriate manner, or measure your progress against. The goal is to make it easier for different levels and silos in an organization to also escalate information appropriately, which encourages collaboration with fewer meetings.

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Tech Outlook

Steven Minsky CEO LogicManager

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Efficiency is created when these tasks are “risk-rated;” meaning prioritized on a common scale across levels and silos to determine which risks should get attention and follow-up first.

About the Author Steven Minsky is the CEO of LogicManager and author of the RIMS Risk Maturity Model. Steven is a patent author of risk and process management technology. He has 30 years of business and technology experience. Prior to LogicManager, he co-founded RulesPower. He holds MBA and MA degrees from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and The Joseph H. Lauder Institute of International Management.

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These connections make it possible for leadership groups to pull the information they need directly from front-line employees, and avoid blame for mistakes, negligence, and missed opportunities call these types of results surprises, and in business, all surprises are bad. A company’s best bet is to ensure quality information is delivered to the right people, at the right time, and with the proper context.

A Risk-Based Approach Adds Value Many CEOs and board members have expressed concern that placing so much emphasis on implementing and sustaining a risk-based culture may increase costs or existing staff burdens.

In reality, organizations with sustainable, risk-based cultures (and effective risk management programs) have been proven to experience a 25% increase in market value on average, when compared to businesses competitors without mature ERM programs.

A risk-based company culture shouldn’t stifle anything.

Rather, risk-based concepts like regular risk assessments should enable innovation as they can better align a company’s goals to its risk management processes and overall culture. Regular risk assessments enable innovation because key risks are identified proactively, allowing them to be properly mitigated. This results in more streamlined processes and better use of resources.

There is a simple way to measure a company’s focus on its risk-based culture. Look up the customer complaints, budget variances, revenue goal achievement, stock price fluctuations, customer satisfaction reports, health and safety records, qualified audit reports, and regulatory inquiries.

Customer satisfaction and investor returns are higher when a company performs well across these categories and emphasizes the measurement of its risk culture.

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Securing Future

Fibers of

Future

Rendering Solutions to Ever-changing Modern Connectivity

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emember the old days when listening to the sound of a dialup internet for 15 minutes to connect was a sweet torture, or feeling of finally getting something to load was rejoicing. Those good bygone days of dawdling internet are a part of memory books now. Imagining such situation in recent times would fetch nothing but volumes of frustration. In this era of lightning speed where world has contracted on tips of human fingers, fast is not enough nor acceptable when you are dealing with hundreds of applications and tons of data.

Internet has come a long way since its introduction in the form of ‘network of networks’ back in 90’s for research purpose to business and commerce, driving the world economy. Many attempts from voice only network, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System to the recent one Long Term Evolution (LTE), were performed mainly working on the parameters such as speed and amount of data it can handle. Electric cables, co-axial cables have done a good job for broadband and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL).

However they possess limitations in the form data leakages, lower speed and lower bandwidth.

Driven by rising demand of modern industrial and residential purposes, technocrats have come up with a solution which is not only meeting modern day’s requirements but also

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proving to be future inspiring. Fiber internet or optical fiber communication as they mention it has a very high speed of up to the order of 1000 Mbps or 1 Gbps. Comparatively, its conventional counterpart Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) broadband which typically has speeds in the range of 30 Mbps hardly ever.

Thus, fiber internet can truly deliver expectations of contemporary digital world. Therefore, here presenting insights of fiber internet you need to know before experiencing this digital revolution.

What is fiber optic internet actually?

In the optical fiber communication system, data is transferred in the form of light through fibers made of glass unlike conventional data communication systems where electric signals are the medium of data transfer.

A scientific concept named Total Internal Reflection (TIR) is employed in which data in the form of light emitted by a source falls on core of the wire and total internal reflection paired with its covering or cladding help to propagate information through the glass fibers. Naturally, very fewer losses are involved in light transmission as energy is delivered in packet configuration. Also transfer speed is astonishingly higher due to the fastest carrier in the form of light.

Is it really worth the hype?

A project where Google has poured $28 billion may or may not underline

its importance to you. But facts and comparison with existing data transmission systems will surely support the claim of why fiber internet is the fastest and the most reliable.

Speed is one of the distinguished aspects of fiber optic internet as it decisively surpasses existing communication channels with its unmatched superiority. From a layman’s point of view, a video with a size of 30 MB merely takes 0.2 seconds which would have taken a long 13 seconds on a conventional broadband connection. Imagine your important work data being transferred in the blink of an eye enhancing your proficiency.

Data leakage during transmission is one of the major concerns as it proportionately affects reliability of the network. Nowadays, data security has become the prime shift since breaching transmitted information can adversely disturb the dynamics of any institution, be it finance or defence.

Inherently benefited with its light form transmission, fiber optic internet provides extremely higher bandwidth which no other cable-based data transmission medium can offer.

Negligible loss of power over long distance and resistance to Electromagnetic interference also makes it an ideal tool for vastly spread geographical territories and lightning climatic conditions too.

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Challenges Equipped with various amazing features, fiber internet must be the most favourite choice of customers.

Indeed, it is. But that doesn’t make it invincible. There are certain hurdles in its path restricting it from widely accepted, covering greater parts of the world.

Cost is always the main obstacle when it comes to universal acceptance of any nascent idea. Undoubtedly, fiber optic internet is a revolutionary step in Internet Service Provider market. But its higher cost is forcing people to stay hooked to their conventional data transmission system. A normal broadband plan costs up to $20/month for a 20 Mbps connection which rises to $50/month for a lowest fiber connection with speed of the order 100 Mbps. Evidently, amount of data and

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speed it offers is 5 times more but from a non-techy person’s perspective, price overpowers the perks. Involvement of many telecom companies may help to bring down its cost benefiting consumers in the end.

One of the main reasons of fiber internet not penetrating remote parts of geography lies with its complex infrastructure. Laying fiber cables is a time consuming and a task to be done under technical expertise since bending radius can initiate data leakages.

Business providers seeking opportunities can give solution to this problem which in turn will drop down the costs involved.

Future Lightning fast connectivity is modern transient world’s necessity. People will try to fulfil this need using current

broadband options or in the form of wireless communication. But both the options have limitations over their upper scalability. Therefore fiber optic internet becoming mass connectivity mode is not a distant dream. Already people are seeking trade opportunities by facilitating trenching services which is the primary requirement of optic network infrastructure.

The communities which are good at adjusting their sails according to direction of the wind are the ones who thrive in this dynamic world. Google has already boarded the ship. Sooner or later, more will join to explore this new dimension of modern connectivity. So next time if you’re wondering what to do about your sluggish internet connection, don’t forget about the wonders fiber internet can do.

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Tangent Works Reducing Costs with Automatic Forecasting Henk De Metsenaere Co-founder & Chairman of the board

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here’s a lot of buzz about AI these days, and technologies like Deep Natural Networks (DNN) or Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) are often mentioned in the news. While these techniques are great for image classification and speech recognition applications, they don't work very well on time-series data that is the basis for trendline forecasting, anomaly detection, and predictive maintenance. Traditional reactive and fixedschedule approaches to maintenance and quality control are no longer yielding significant improvements, and companies must adopt AI technologies in order to get to the next level. Most companies lack the much needed resources and expertise to tackle the problem, so it often takes a back seat to firefighting activities. That’s where Tangent Works really shines. The company’s solutions can analyze historical data from equipment and sensors to spot anomalies and cause-effect relationships that can be used to optimize maintenance cycles and avoid unplanned downtime.

Predictive models Tangent Works was founded in 2014 by a team of data scientists and mathematicians who believed in the power of predictive modeling for optimizing operations and reducing costs, but found that the existing methods were far too complex for broad adoption. The company is focused on developing a technology that automates the process to create predictive models for forecasting and anomaly detection. The company’s InstantML technology creates a model in seconds based on target and predictor series with one pass through the data. With RTInstantML (Real-Time Instant ML), TangentWorks goes one step further. The speed of the model generation process allows them to model/predict in one go. Building and refining accurate

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predictive models was a laborious, iterative task that required a combination of a domain and data science expertise and weeks/months of effort.

TIM, Tangent Information Modeler, is a predictive modeling engine that automates the forecasting and anomaly detection processes by analyzing time-series data and generating accurate models on the patterns it detects. In just few minutes TIM creates a predictive model ready for validation and deployment. It automates the model generation process so one can create and update predictive models without being an AI expert. It automatically creates predictive models for each asset, customer or group of customers that can accurately forecast consumption for the days/weeks/months ahead. It provides traders with an accurate predictive model and an understanding of the dynamics of price variability.

Use of Massive Computing Resources The need for automated Machine Learning solutions is widely recognized. Big players have to build Auto ML functionalities. They do this by using massive computing resources to calculate many potential models and later select the most performing ones. This strategy works partially. It reduces engineering time, but it remains an engineering task. For large scale consumption meaning areas that need a lot of individual models, the required computing resources and engineering time form a burden.

Tangent took another mathematical approach to the problem. It makes that the company construct the features and the models from the ground up resulting in fast model generation with limited computing resources. This allows for large scale automatic time series forecasting and anomaly detection. www.insightssuccess.com

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We bring ML in a time series context from the expert corner to the business user.

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Integrate cutting-edge Capabilities Tangent’s goal is to complement the existing data science platforms and make them better, faster, cheaper, and with more impact on time series data. To achieve that goal, the company partners with organizations like Microsoft, Alertyx to integrate its cutting edge capabilities so that its clients can benefit from the company’s research. Years of research have created the TIM engine based on a blend of various technologies, including Information Criteria / Geometry.

Many companies offer AUTOML capabilities to support the model generation engineering process. These tools/platforms allow you to build, tune, compare models, test the models, deploy the selected model as an API to production. AUTOML offers a step forward but it remains time-consuming expertise intensive and thus less scalable.

Sharp and Visionary Leader Henk De Metsenaere is the Co-founder of the company.

His engineering background was complemented with a degree in economics. That made him worked in technical commercial jobs. The larger part of his career he worked as a regional sales and marketing director for SAP, a global software company. In that role, he learned that technology and sometimes interesting concepts only get adopted when they become digestible for larger audiences. He felt there was a gap between the hype around machine learning and the reality in companies that want to implement these ideas.

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there, fear for jobs, rumors on lack of quality. The same things happened in the car industry. ‘But just as modern cars are better and more engineers work in the industry than ever before, also the objections in the current ML market are not real. It is just the scale that will change.

Quality is there, people will continue to work in this industry only what they do will be different but will allow for mass consumption of these wonderful ideas’.- asserts Henk Performing Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics Machine Learning is not new. Many concepts were developed in the 40-50’s of the last century. After the AI winter of the 1970s, back-propagation as a mechanism to efficiently train neural networks gave rise to new cases.

Machine Learning is now a subset of AI that allows computer algorithms to learn from data and information and perform predictive and prescriptive analytics. A wide variety of modeling techniques are available. The algorithms/models need a careful selection of data to be used as well as proper feature engineering. This still makes it a hard task to do.

Future with Machine Learning The future of machine learning will depend on the degree that companies can scale available resources so the concepts can be implemented easier and with more results.

The initial founders wanted to simplify the use of machine learning (ML) models in a business environment. The company brings ML in a time series context from the expert corner to the business user. This results higher adoption rates of promising ML ideas in operational business scenarios. The company found that time series modeling is quite complicated but if solved it can add a lot of value to a wide variety of challenges. The outcome is TIM, Tangent Information Modeller - A modeling engine reducing hours and days of costly engineering, into seconds of computing time.

For Henk, the future of machine learning is all about mass scaling in many areas of the business and operations. Just as first cars were produced one by one and then later got produced on automated lines to fulfill the mass mobility need, Henk believes that the same is happening with Machine Learning. All the initial objections of experts are

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very business owner and executive comes to the realization and fear that they don’t know what they don’t know at some point in the game. To leap beyond this fundamental hurdle, wise leaders lean on experts to help fill in the gap.

Experts such as CPAs, attorneys, bankers, mentors, and consultants are routinely sought by successful business owners for guidance, advice, and support that can be promptly made effective. Gaps in business are essentially analyzed to determine the best, quickest, simplest, or most cost-effective solution, which is then developed and finally implemented by consultants in various niches every minute of the day.

Consulting is a big industry for a reason. Businesses have a high risk of failure. Failure is easy, and failure is hard. With the assistance of a consultant, businesses have a much better chance of survival. Let’s take a look at how consulting can work at every stage of a company.

Start-up / Pre-revenue This stage of a business is filled with passion and dreams. The owner is typically a technician within the industry breaking free from the constraints of their boss or is a dreamer of great things in general. Problems arise when the many components of running a business the right way interfere and bog down this solopreneur. Seemingly simple, but highly important, responsibilities such as accounting, operations, and marketing can quickly overwhelm and lead to failure.

Bringing in a consultant at this stage or prior to start up can save the solopreneur from a tremendous amount of stress. The consultant can walk the owner through the hurdles of business with ease and experience. Establishing systems, creating procedures, and building plans for sales and marketing will prepare the busy start-up for successful growth through to the small business phase.

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Maestro’s Insights

About the Author April Salsbury, MBA is the owner of Salsbury & Co., a business management consulting firm. After growing an organization from 15 employees to 100 employees and seven locations, including international distribution and working in legislation for industry oversight and accreditation, she believed her experience as a CEO and a “builder” could help small business owners avoid certain hurdles and gain valuable insight. www.insightssuccess.com

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Mom & Pop Shop Mom & Pop Shops are what we refer to small businesses with 1-25 employees. This may be a small generational business or a growing start-up that is hiring friends and family to help get the job done. One day, the goals become too large and the owners take on more than they can handle in an effort to grow. What these owners don’t realize is that they need to have defined systems in place, along with communication, leadership, and a growth plan to move beyond Mom & Pop Shop status to Small Business status without suffering collapse.

Small Business The small business typically has 1-100 employees which may also include many family and friends. Some systems are in place, yet there lacks organization and communication leading the owner down a path of “too many chiefs” or not enough oversight. At this stage, business owners may discover they have a lot of people doing the same thing, no formal processes and a lot of fires to put out. Stress once again takes hold of the business owner in a way that may make them question closing shop and going back into the workforce.

Consulting at these stages require in-depth analysis of where the company currently exists on the spectrum and identifying gaps in the foundation of the organizational structure. Analysis will require a look at financial performance, operations workflow and processes, systems integration and utilization, human resources suite of knowledge and procedures, centralized standard operating procedures, marketing plans and strategy, and more.

Analyzing each component of the business will bring to light top layer and secondary issues that the consultant will prioritize to match urgency and effective organizational modeling for proper implementation. Business owners should expect this process to take some time, but in the end the business will operate like a well-oiled machine ready for growth.

999 employees) and of the Enterprise size (1,000+ employees) have established policies and procedures, human resources, systems integration with maximized utilization, and have a plan to move forward. These areas will experience ongoing expansion enhancement over time.

Mid-size companies will start to departmentalize and create an executive team for improved oversight and strategy development. Problems Mid-size companies face are keeping everyone working toward the same goal, communication, effective leadership and management development, mergers and acquisitions, continuous improvement of systems and operational workflow and recruiting for longevity all while staying on top of their next strategic move and pacing change. Enterprises continue to refine and silo roles within the company; however they experience many of the same issues a mid-size company does.

At Mid-size and Enterprise level, Consultants are brought into a company on a project basis and will be focused on a niche of service. This is when the: Branding Consultant is brought in to develop a brand or revitalize a brand for a segment of the business; Lean Specialists are brought in to examine one segment of the manufacturing process; System Analyst is brought in to create functional APIs to connect the 25 software programs used by the company to prevent errors and reduce time wasted on duplicating entries; and possibly, Coaches are brought in to develop a mid-level management team.

There is a need and a place for Consultants at every stage of business, even before the first signs of failure. Bringing a Consultant into the company earlier in the process will make the transition to the next big step easier and the longterm outcome of the business much better. Although business owners may have a difficult time justifying the cost of consulting, especially if funds are limited, the desired end result has greater potential to be realized in a shorter timeframe. Companies that have successfully worked with consultants see the value of their work in the overall success of the business and often retain consultants for future projects.

Mid-size Business & Enterprise The Mid-size Business has successfully identified the needs of a growing business. Most companies of this size (101-

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Assistants Professional Assistance, Virtual Guidance

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owadays, we all are becoming more engage and busy in our day-to-day life due to professional commitments or personal life. In such a situation, we always find ways to make our life simple and easy. Every human on this planet feels lazy at certain situations where he/she wants to make his/her work or task easier.

Thus, there are various innovations which are carried out with these technologies. Those are intensively working upon such tools which can execute to minimize human efficiency and saves time.

According to the well-known French author Jules Renard, “Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.”

To reduce this, there are some virtual inventions that create an easy way to implement our work. One such major device which is widely used is known as Virtual Assistant generally abbreviated as VA or Virtual Office Assistant. It is a unique self-employed device which provides assistance to clients remotely. It is a highly skilled device that recreates overall verbal communication stronger. VA helps its users to access data and information through voice assistance with its unique approach to signify various fundamental activities.

Hence, VA exclusively synchronizes human voice instructions to manage various human actions such as music playback via voice, emails, to-do lists, and calendars with verbal commands. Its invention has created a reforming approach for doing our day to day task easier. The qualities

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that make virtual assistant a power tool is its exceptional programming and strong process execution.

Various Forms of Virtual Assistants In the global market, there are many technology giants that have introduced their own virtual assistant (VA) devices are as follows, Amazon Alexa majorly known as Alexa is a virtual assistant device developed by Amazon. It has two devices which reflect its VA properties such as Amazon Echo and Amazon Echo Dot Smart Speakers.

Alexa helps you to check the weather, latest news, connect to music and listen to your favorite song on command as its special features. Siri by Apple is one of the unique virtual assistant devices introduced in 2011. Siri answers all the questions and updates you with sports news as well. Siri also uses to set alarm, timer, and scheduling daily task manually. With voice request, Siri can help you to send text or place call just by voice. Siri is exclusively available on Apple devices like iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple watches etc.

Cortana is a Microsoft device, known as its digital assistant who is designed to learn from your command and respond to the queries.

It is very similar to Apple and other VA device which can track tasks, manage your calendar or follow your commands etc. Cortana works on following Microsoft devices, including Windows phones and operating systems. Google Assistant a product by Google which is highly

known for its accessibility. It is easily available on various devices like your phone, speaker, watch, TV, or in your car. It connects smoothly with any device and gives an active response. Google Assistant is available on Google Play Store and iTunes App store.

Last but not the least; we have Bixby a smart virtual assistant by Samsung.

It is one of the most featured and unique virtual assistant device used globally. It has a unique feature that represents your music choices and voice commands to identify landmarks and other visuals by taking a photo. Bixby can translate many foreign languages and transform them in an easy manner. It also recommends you about businesses, restaurants to create reminders and manage your schedule. Bixby is exclusively available on Samsung devices like Galaxy S series and Note 9.

Role of Virtual Assistants Followed with its overall introduction and functionalities, the core part that highly approachable about virtual assistant is its features and roles like, 1. Responsiveness: A virtual assistant is mainly known for its extreme responsive nature and fundamental structure. The ultimate role of any virtual assistant is to follow the commands and execute the process accordingly. In any organization, the basic role is to follow the commands and provide suitable information at the earliest like, quick response to the e-mails, requests, and voice commands.

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2. Discretion: Discretion is nothing but the quality of behaving or speaking in such a way as to avoid causing offense or revealing confidential information. Hence, the virtual assistant helps individuals and organization to avoid conflict between confidential information and relieving information.

Planning and Organizing: Finally, planning and organizing is another topmost virtual assistant feature. It prominently works to track and analysis top-level view of daily tasks and helps to create effective plans and methods to meet business goals.

Promising Future

3.Accuracy: Accuracy is very important and essential.

Human make mistakes and it will happen but to avoid mistakes and false we need perfect and accurate work.

Hence, virtual assistant provides accuracy that plays a crucial role when commands are given to it for execution.

4. Multi-tasking: Probably one of the important feature of virtual assistant it its capability to do multiple jobs at the same time. A virtual assistant can hold many commands and actions with respect to multiple users and keep them moving correctly. It benefits organization with efficiency, good scheduling, and perfect duty.

As we mentioned earlier, how virtual assistant is important in our day-to-day life or in an organization process. In businesses, the virtual assistant helps organizations to grow fast and efficiently. Virtual Assistants are independent experts, who work for its users from a remote location. With specific skills, a virtual assistant can perform multiple tasks at the same time and work on various projects simultaneously.

Hence, a virtual assistant is becoming one of the major parts of organizations overall process and structure for opting better growth and their future endeavors. In addition, it signifies importance it in our day-to-day lives and helps us to make our daily task easier.

How Virtual Assistant aids Organizations Today, almost every organization is working on its core competencies to grow rapidly in the market with effective speed and market response. Hence, they are building its capabilities with the help of a virtual assistant which are as follows, Email Management: A good virtual assistant will always offer email or inbox management services.

Virtual assistant organizes various email skills such as managing emails into manageable folders, incoming emails notifications, prioritizing a list of senders etc.

Better virtual assistant supports organization for superior productivity.

Marketing Responsibilities: One of the top feature of virtual assistant, in which it handles various marketing tasks easily, timely and precisely. There are some of the respective tasks on which virtual assistant works such as, website landing page, blog posts, graphic design, and social media marketing etc. It also helps the organization more effectively and precisely.

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