Automation and Orchestration for the 21st Century IT Organization

By Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning No Comments

20th Century IT Practices Are No Longer Sufficient

The information technology that fuels the digital economy is energizing the modern enterprise and redefining how companies manage their businesses. Forced to move at hyper speed, many businesses are scrambling to keep pace with constant relentless change and struggling to confront an unfamiliar technology landscape and new complex decisions for which there are no precedents.

Everything is Hyper Connected

Hyper-connectivity between people, processes, data, and things (as in “the Internet of Things”) is challenging traditional data management practices and processes. Once siloed by lines of business, data repositories are being connected and aggregated, and integrated business platforms share data across different enterprise business functions and multiple user groups.

Rich Decision-Making Context

Forward-looking organizations are deploying data analytic tools and experimenting with machine learning technologies in a quest to turn vast amounts of data collected from across the enterprise and the extended supply chain into insights that drive better business outcomes. But aggregating and synthesizing information from multitude of data repositories that employ inconsistent semantic models is no small feat. is challenging existing IT systems and tools. Furthermore, the growth in connected communities of information producers and consumers raise ongoing concerns about data security, privacy and ownership. Read More

Pandora's Box (Bezt (Etam Cru), 2011)

Artificial Intelligence and Real Bias

By Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning 3 Comments

Is There a Need to Regulate Machine-Learning Algorithms?

We live in a world that is increasingly shaped by machine intelligence. Conversational bots, artificial-intelligent-based automatons, self-learning software and other seemingly intelligent systems appear to be in cars, businesses and in our homes.

Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence and virtually limitless availability of cloud-based storage and computing bandwidth, it is inevitable that computer algorithms will be used extensively throughout our economy and society and will have an increasingly far-reaching impact on all aspects of our everyday lives, from basic assistive tasks to complete decision authority in education, healthcare, finance, and employment.

But as Pamela McCorduck observed, no novel science or technology of such magnitude arrives without disadvantages, even perils. The more sophisticated and powerful artificial intelligence algorithms become, the more reason to pay attention to the risks associated with the design and operation of these algorithms, and to curtail errors and biases from the outset. Read More

Campbell's Soup I Full Suite (Andy Warhol, 1968)

SAP Hybris: IoT and Machine Learning in The Retail Supply Chain

By Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Internet of Things (IoT) One Comment

The World is Drowning in Data

The business world is drowning in data. And much of this data is generated, consumed, and managed by SAP enterprise software systems.

At the recent SAP Hybris Global Summit in Barcelona, SAP described how 76% of enterprise data worldwide flows through data pipes and databases managed by SAP enterprise software systems. According to SAP, its top 10 customers drive more revenue from these data systems than IBM and Oracle Demantra software combined

One of the clichés often heard in big data analytics conferences is “data is the new fuel of the enterprise” (although I don’t think I heard it said in Barcelona). But how, exactly, can organizations handle the torrent of data from the vast array of new and traditional sources remains a challenge. How to convert voluminous structured and unstructured data into business fuel that drives high-fidelity decisions and better business outcomes is quite murky and elusive.

SAP Hybris believes it has the answer. Read More

Ranking The PLM Vendors

By PLM 4 Comments

Aras PLM is Challenging the Hegemony of Established PLM Software Vendors

A recent Forrester Wave Report, ranking product lifecycle management (PLM) vendors for discrete product manufacturers. As is typically the response to this type of analyst reports, the report generated multiple responses from participating vendors and industry analysts.

I always find analyst reports such as Forrester’s Wave, Gartner’s Magic Quadrant and IDC’s Marketscape, interesting, but difficult to decipher and reconcile, especially when they include rankings based on vague and highly subjective metrics such as “vision” and “cool.” Read More

Claude Monet Lisant (Pierre-August Renoir, 1872)

Billionaires Do Not Read the News

By Automotive 2 Comments

New Dyson Electric Car Will Feature ‘Some’ Autonomous Technology

According to an article in Auto Express, famed vacuum cleaner manufacturer Dyson will build an extended-range electric car. Sir James Dyson confirmed that he is investing two billion pounds in the electric car venture in 2020 at a new campus on an abandoned World War Two airfield in Wiltshire. The new car will use Dyson’s solid-state battery technology and will feature ‘some’ autonomous technology.

Dyson told Auto Express that he has had a vision for an electric car for almost 20 years, and that his company will “go it alone” on developing the new vehicle, because he sees nothing that existing car manufacturers could bring to the process.

Sounds familiar?

Do Billionaires Not Read the News?

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