Unstructure Data !!!! How to Deal with it

 In any Organization 80% of Data is Unstructured.These data can come from Social Network,mobile Technology,emails,blogs etc. For a key organization it becomes very important to accelerate learning,

discovery and readiness to retrieve , process and store those data.

Challenge

This sort of Information is hard to track and analyze. We need a systematic way to :-

Discover-Automatically  identify and tag key attributes and entities within content.

Refine- Drill down based on key attributes ,entities and extracted dimension.

Visualize- Highlight Trends

Deliver-Support for broader delivery of information to other processes and applications using standards.

Data Mining of Unstructured Data

Data Mining of Unstructure Data is a 3-step Process.

Explore-Use a Combination of techniques to locate the relevant set of information from larger sets.

Understand- Discover what the Information contains.

Analyze- Take Combination of Structured and Unstructured Information and look for trends, patterns and relationships inherent in the data and use that to make better business decisions.

Some of the Data Mining Tools that can be utilized.

IBM Case Manager- a new software offering designed automate content-centric processes and manage unstructured content such as scanned images, electronic documents, web pages, video, email and text messages. integrates content and process management with advanced analytics, business rules, collaboration and social software.
Microsoft Data Mining- Applies to SQL Server 2005,SQL Server 2008. The Microsoft data mining tools leverage the strengths of Microsoft SQL Server data management software and the Microsoft Office system.
SAS Enterprise Miner- an integrated suite which provides a user-friendly GUI front-end to the SEMMA (Sample, Explore, Modify, Model, Assess) process.
Oracle Data Mining (ODM)-provides GUI, PL/SQL-interface, and Java-interface to Attribute Importance, Bayes Classification, Association Rules, Clustering, SVM, and more.

Risk Management Revealed

Risk Management is a process of identifying threats, that could severely impact a process or an organization on the whole and managing them. It is very essential for an organization to identify major risks and assess them in order of their criticality. Before doing any kind of assessment, let us try to understand the various kinds of risks that are present in the environment.

Political Risk- refers to a situation where a particular nation can suddenly change policies that may not be favorable for organizations to work properly.

Market Risk- is generally related to stock markets. It is defined as the fluctuation in the market price of the stocks. It is also called volatility. It is the basic reason for people to invest money in a particular stock. Since the stability of a stock will attract the investors, it is highly essential that the volatility of a particular stock needs to be maintained.

Foreign Exchange Risk- In present scenario where organizations are no more subjected to their own country but work globally. A slight change in the foreign exchange rates can worsen the situation.

Systematic Risk- can be caused by any specific events that may hamper the effectiveness

of the market. These events can be political, economical, an earthquake etc. It is almost impossible to protect against these types of risks.

Unsystematic Risk-This risk is specific to a particular group of organization. For ex- If the employees of a Steel Company go on strike. It will only affect that company.

Once the various types of risks are identified. The organization should follow a risk mitigation plan in order to minimize these risks. A Risk mitigation plan is a series of steps designed to eliminate the risk by taking necessary actions. This plan will clearly specify all kinds of risks that are to be dealt with and will have an action item for all of these.

A proper way of implementing a risk mitigation plan is by following a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) model. This process identifies the various action items and person responsible for performing those tasks. It makes easier for an organization to backtrack the various steps by contacting the corresponding person.

Risk mitigation strategies have to be part of the overall plan of a project and must be in the knowledge of all the persons associated with the project.

Risk is very much inevitable but by applying these strategies an organization can safeguard themselves from any future uncertainty.

Leadership Skills

Leaders are born not made is a very debatable topic these days.There are numerous example of leaders who had some distinct qualities right from birth and hence were looked upon as Leaders. On the other hand a different group of people have opinion

That some of the qualities can be inculcated in the people to make him a leader.

Whether a leader is born or made , he should have certain qualities which will clearly

distinguish him from the rest.There are some of the qualities which a Leader should Posses.

Honesty- A Leader should be very honest. An honest leader will be able to generate trust among the people and make them follow him.Within any circumstances he should be able to face the truth and accept them.

Motivation- A Leader is looked upon as a motivator. A guy who is very optimist and tries to motivate people to achieve their goals.He will always encourage people to fulfill

Their ambition. No matter what are the circumstances he will stand by them to motivate.

Dedication- A Leader will have followers , if and only if he is dedicated to his work.He will constantly work for the benefit of the organization as well as people.

Intelligent – A Leader should be very intelligent. He should be able to make quality judgements and take decisions on the sport.His intelligence will be put to test when an organization is not performing well and his people are not happy.

Planner- Well Planned approach will minimize the effort of a task . A leader should have a clear cut  approach of driving the people and organization to achieve their goals.It is his

Planning that will set the foundation for people.

Calm and Composed- Finally a Leader needs to be very calm and composed. He should not panic in crisis situation.He should always be able to find solution to get everybody out of the difficult situation.

This is just the tip of iceberg. Apart from these a leader should have a good personality,effective communication skill,self control ,courageous . Some of these qualities are inborn and some can be developed over a period of time through experience.

I hope this will help us to give an insight about the qualities a leader must possess.

Globalization

Thomas L Friedman in his book ‘The World is Flat’ stated that Globalization is a process of  the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets. It is marked with the rise of International Business. Countries are looking for better opportunities to make optimum usage the raw material, goods and human resources. The whole world is sub divided into developing and developed nation. The Developed nations are characterized by latest technology and large amount of Federal Reserve. On the other hand developing nations are characterized by a growing economy with large amount of intellectual human resources. The amalgamation of these two kinds of nations has given rise to globalization. Countries like USA, UK can outsource cheap labour from the developing countries like India, China to increase the profitability of an organization. On the other hand countries like India, China can take advantage of this situation by providing cheap labour and generating extra revenue for the country. The nations have become open to all kinds of Foreign Direct Investment thereby indicating that any third party organization can enter into the country and expand their product to a broader range of people. The two most prominent pro-globalization organizations are the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Economic Forum.

The World Trade Organization was set up to formulate a set of rules to govern global trade and capital flows through the process of member consensus, and to supervise their member countries to ensure that the rules are being followed. The World Economic Forum acts as a powerful networking forum for many of the world's business and government. According to economists, a lot of changes are brought by globalization.

Improvement of International Trade- Because of globalization, many nations have involved themselves into an agreement of exchanging goods and services, thereby resulting in enhanced International Trade.

Technological Progress-Because of the need to compete and be competitive globally, governments have upgraded their level of technology.

 Multinational Companies- Many Companies are trying to expand their business in other countries and are hence termed as Multinational Company. The company has a head Office in the base country that controls all the offices across the world.

World Bank-The World Bank has been established to provide the necessary funds to organization and countries in order to successfully execute business.

Availability of Human Resources across Countries-Globalization allows countries to source their manpower in countries with cheap labor.

Corporate Social Responsibility

The founder of world famous conglomerate TATA group of Industries Mr. J R D Tata said ‘We should give back more to the society than what we have taken from them’. This is termed as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).CSR covers the responsibilities corporations have to the societies within which

they are based and operate. Companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys,

Wipro are great examples of organization that are socially responsible and making profits.

Corporate and social responsibility can be understood in terms of corporate responsibility, but with greater stress laid upon the obligations a company has to the community, particularly with respect to charitable activities and environmental stewardship. Additionally, the community expects the business to preserve the environment and to make the community a better place to live and to work through charitable activities. "Socially responsible business practices strengthen corporate accountability, respecting ethical values and in the interests of all stakeholders. Responsible business practices respect and preserve the natural environment. This helps to improve the quality and opportunities of life, empower people and invest in communities where a business operates."

A business organization should be socially responsible in view of the following reasons.

Reciprocate - A business organization is part and parcel of the society. The customers, the employees, the suppliers and the Government are the other constituents of the society. As the business is dependent on its customers, the employees, the suppliers and the Government, it also has the responsibility to work for the interest of these various groups.

Loyalty- A business should not work for the benefit of the owners/shareholders alone. The participation of the employees, the customers, the suppliers and the Government in the activities of a business is more than the participation of the owners. The business, therefore, has the primary duty to serve these different groups apart from satisfying the owners.

Compensate adverse effects- The activities of a business do have certain adverse effects on the society. There may be air as well as noise pollution due to industrial activity in a particular place. Improper treatment of wastes and effluents may, sometimes, produce foul smell that people living nearby cannot bear. There is also scope for water contamination. The business, therefore, has the responsibility to adequately compensate the society for all these adverse effects.

Behave as a good citizen:  Like any individual who is expected to behave as a good citizen by obeying the laws of the country, the business as a corporate citizen also has to abide by the laws of the nation. The businessman shall pay his tax dues promptly and shall avoid doing anything that is forbidden by law.

Healthy competition atmosphere- The competition among businessmen, belonging to the same trade or industry should be healthy. No business should adopt unfair means.

Conflict Management

A conflict arises when two or more than two people have different set of opinion about a particular subject. In the present scenario where organizations are highly cross cultural, a conflict is bound to happen. Although conflicts reduce the effectiveness of work but sometimes it can be very useful. It helps to address specific problems and issues. It helps people to participate and put across their points. Conflict when properly managed can prove very helpful for the team. On the other hand if it is not properly managed, it can be a problem and can hinder the growth of an organization.

It can reduce the productivity of an organization. The Employees will have a low morale and hence cause inappropriate behaviour.Some of the major reasons for a conflict to arise can be:-

Improper Communication-Any new decision, organizational change and announcement should be properly communicated to all the employees. Since most of the employees are not involved in decision making, they tend to loose the trust for management.

Inefficient Leadership-At any level of organization, the leaders should be highly efficient, consistent and informed. Any kind of uncertainty will lead to confusion among the employees and will result in conflict.

Personal Relationship- This is one of the major reason for causing a conflict in the organization. The conflicting values among managers and employees tend to create difference of opinion in the team.

Some of the key methods to minimize a conflict situation can be summarized as:-

Building Relationship with the employees- It is the duty of a manager to build a healthy relationship with all the employees. He should make sure that he meets with all the employees at least once in a month. A manager should give freedom to the employee to talk about his accomplishment, any kind of challenges and issues he is facing in his work.

This will give the employee a sense of trust and comfort.

Clear definition of roles- In a team most of the conflict arises because the roles are not clearly defined. An employee is not sure of his / her responsibilities. In the end if there is any kind of failure in the team, all the employees tend to blame each other for their mistakes. A proper definition of roles and responsibility will help the manager to define task and assign it to his sub-ordinates. This will help him to clear any kind of doubt among the employees.

Training- Training is one of the most important method of minimizing conflicts. Proper training should be provided for Interpersonal Communication, Delegation etc.This will ensure that an employee has a clear vision of all the communication to be provided to its peers.

Although we can avoid a conflict but the best way to overcome is to handle these with proper attention rather than running away from them.

Kaizen

In today’s business scenario where organizations have become very competitive, efforts are being made to perform continuous improvement. Continuous Improvement or ‘KAIZEN’ is a term defined by W.Edwards Deming and refers to general process of improvement covering all the areas. The efforts are being made to improve products, services and process. The most commonly used model in Continuous Improvement is called as PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) Cycle. It is a four step quality cycle.

Plan-Identify the pain areas of business. After the pain areas are identified, plan for a change.

Do- Before implementing any big change in any process, a pilot needs to be done. The pilot will give an overview of its impact on any other systems.

Check-Collect all the data and analyze the information received from the data. This process will help us understand, whether the change made a big difference or not.

Act-Once the pilot is successful, it should be implemented on a full scale. The result should be assessed continuously to see whether the targets are achieved or not.

Before Performing Continuous Improvement a thorough study of business process flow and outlying events needs to be done. This preliminary review will help to drive quality and cost benefits. This will result in increasing profitability and simultaneously minimizing the risk associated to it.

The Continuous Improvement model (KAIZEN) is a Japanese concept of management.

It involves removal of three MUs. The three MU stands for Muda (Waste),Muri (Strain)

and Mura( Discrepancy).These MUs need to be removed at all levels of Product, Services

and Process. Removal of these wastes will result in improved process efficiency, thereby increasing the productivity of an organization. Unlike Western Management which treat employees as numbers to be crunched for maximum efficiency, KAIZEN takes the opposite outlook, proposing essentially that a happy employee is a productive employee.

The best thing about kaizen is that it does not rely on expensive innovative solutions. Just the opposite is true. The core principal of kaizen is to make small, immediate improvements in the processes and standards of the workplace. But not just one improvement – looking for ways to make small improvements should be part of everyone’s job, every day of the week. And after a period of time, all of these small improvement will add up to better working conditions, a higher degree of safety, more efficiency and ultimately, greater profits. It relies on long-term, long lasting and non-dramatic changes. “Small steps done many times” is the method that they rely on. It is a group effort – everyone is involved and contributing.  It requires a small investment of money, but a large investment in effort, cooperation and training. If done correctly, the results are often amazing.