How Mining Industry is adopting Digital Transformation

Digital Transformation is sweeping each industry around us. Those who embrace it and adopt the change will have multitudes of benefits.

The mining industry is by far still a very labor-intensive and costly affair. However, slowly they have started utilizing the digital technologies to reduce the costs, ensure workers safety and change the way they work.

The industry is facing increasing cost pressures. Digital transformation is likely to be on the agenda for miners. Digital technology can help literally at every stage of the mining process, from exploration, extraction, transportation to the processing of the ore and shipment.

In open-pit mines, self-driving trucks could be controlled by operations center miles away, reduce human cost as there are no frequent breaks, improve safety and increase efficiency as no human intervention is required on the site. GPS enabled systems will help supervisors to know where the trucks are and optimize their routes for optimal utilization.

Sensors on remote deep-sea oil wells cause warning signs to flash at the central control center when problems arise. 

In underground dangerous extraction zones like coalmines & chemical ore mines, remote-controlled equipment can reduce human factor involvement.  With data visualization, miners can create heat maps or 3d maps of the entire mine.

This heavy earthmoving machinery is very costly and any downtime affects the bottom line. Data collection and analysis allows understanding the health of the equipment and usage, which further helps in predictive maintenance, improving equipment reliability and reducing unplanned downtime.

With wearables, site employee’s safety is tracked from the central operation. IoT connected sensors detect dangerous levels of hazardous gas and give miners time to evacuate.

Rio Tinto is one of the companies introducing autonomous trucks and drilling rigs to its iron-ore operations in Western Australia.

Barrick Gold has deployed several such digital technologies including handheld tablets to help engineers monitor job orders in its Nevada gold mine.

Within the mining and metals industry, digitalization will be a force that changes the nature of companies and their interaction with employees, communities, government and the environment at every step of the value chain.

From mineral exploration and valuation, through mining, ore processing, and metals production, to downstream sales and distribution, digitization is helping workers make better, faster & safer decisions.

Internet of (Medical) things in Healthcare

Over the past few decades, we’ve gotten used to the Internet and cannot imagine our lives without it. Millennials and new age kids don’t even know what is life without being online.

With the disruption of Digital Transformation, Internet of Things have added lots of opportunities to business and consumers like us, equally.

IOT means connecting things, extracting data, storing, processing and analyzing in big data platforms and making decisions based on analytics. It helps in predicting certain outcomes thereby helping with taking preventive actions

The popularity of wearables, such as fitness trackers, blood glucose monitors and other connected medical devices, has taken healthcare by storm. Connected devices have become a prevalent phenomenon in the consumer space and have made their way into healthcare

Healthcare is fast adopting IoT & changing rapidly, as it reduces costs, boosts productivity, and improves quality. IoT can also boost patient engagement and satisfaction by allowing patients to spend more time interacting with their doctors.

There are a number of opportunities for the internet of things to make a difference in patients' lives. IoT-enabled devices capture and monitor relevant patient data and allow providers to gain insights without having to bring patients in for visits. Adding sensors to medicines or delivery mechanisms allows doctors to keep accurate track of whether patients are sticking to their treatment plan and avoid patient's readmission.

Patients are using these connected medical products to capture ECG readings, record medication levels, sense fall detection and act as telehealth units.

Diabetes self-management includes all sorts of gadgets and devices, which control glucose levels and remind patients to take their insulin dose. The newest wearables are even capable of delivering insulin on their own, according to health condition indicators. 

Remote patient monitoring is one of the most significant cost-reduction features of IoT in healthcare. Hospitals don’t have to worry about bed availability, and doctors or nurses can keep an eye on their patients remotely. At the same time, patients usually feel more relaxed at home and recover faster.

Smart beds are a convenient solution for patients who have trouble adjusting bed positions on their own. This kind of IoT tool can sense when the patient is trying to move on their own and it reacts by correcting the bed angle or adjusting pressure to make the person more comfortable. Additionally, this frees up nurses, who don’t have to be available all the time and can dedicate extra time to other duties. Many hospitals have already introduced smart beds in their rooms.

At Boston Medical Center, IoT is everyday life:

·       Newborn babies are given wristbands, allowing a wireless network to locate them at any time.

·       They have installed wireless sensors in refrigerators, freezers and laboratories to ensure that blood samples, medications and other materials are kept at the proper temperatures.

·       Hospital has more than 600 infusion pumps which are IoT enabled. BMC staff members can now dispense and change medications automatically through the wireless network, rather than having to physically touch each pump to load it up or make changes.

At Florida Hospital, when patients go in for surgery, they're tagged with real-time location system (RTLS) badges that track their progress through from the pre-op room to the surgical suite to the recovery unit so relatives can track the patients from outside.

Philips GoSafe can be worn as a pendant and it helps to detect and alert falls in elderly people

There are few challenges as well in implementing IoT:

·       Data security & lack of standard security policy

·       Hospital’s internal system integration with IoT data

·       Further changes and improvements in IoT hardware

The Internet of these Medical Things is a game-changer as future will be connected, integrated & secure healthcare industry 

From Bullock Cart to Hyperloop – Digital Transformation of Travel

Remember when you were teenager and wanted to go on vacation with parents-you were asked to go to travel agent and get all the printed brochures of exotic locations?  

Then came the dot.com wave and online booking sites like Expedia, Travelocity, Makemytrip paved so much that took travel agencies out of equation.

We used to send holiday postcards to our friends and families back home, which are gone out of business due to social media postings on Facebook, Instagram.

Lonely Planet used to be the traveler’s bible, but now we go to tons of websites like TripAdvisor, Priceline which provide us with advice and reviews on hotels, tours and restaurants.

Now I am able to book my flight online, have my boarding pass on my phone, check in with machines, go through automated clearance gates and even validate my boarding pass to board the plane

The travel industry, like many others, is being disrupted by great ideas powered by digital technology and innovation.

Some of the digital innovations travel industry taken so far:

·     Online booking sites like Expedia, Travelocity, MakeMyTrip, Trivago

·     Mobile optimization with Wi-Fi enablement

·     Targeting and hyper-personalization with Big Data Analytics

·     Digital discounts on travel by Kayak, Tripadvisor

·     Smartphones for research vacations, deals, feedbacks

·     Wearables like Disney band for payments, room keys

·     Bluetooth beacons to guide travelers in the vicinity at airports

·     Virtual reality – see the places without even getting out of home

All such digital footprint of customers are collected and then analyzed by big data analytics to hyper personalized the experience.

With extensively networked digital properties and deep hooks into customer data collected via travel booking sites and social media channels, travel companies are delivering customized dream vacations according to the likes and preferences of today’s travelers.

Today’s trend is towards spending money on memories & experiences instead of material possessions.

Accordingly, travel companies are investing in their digital storefronts and omni-channels to keep today’s hyper-connected travelers snapping, sharing, researching and reviewing on the fly – leaving immense data footprints for marketers to leverage.

Bluesmart is a high-quality carry-on suitcase that you can control from your phone. From the app you can lock and unlock it, weigh it, track its location, be notified if you are leaving it behind and find out more about your travel habits.

Thomas Cook have introduced virtual reality experiences across select stores.

Digital disrupters like Airbnb have already put tremendous pressure on hotels.

Starwood Hotels have launched “Let’s chat”, enabling guests to communicate with its front desk associates via WhatsApp, Blackberry messenger or iPhone before or during their stay.

World has gone from Bullock Cart to Hyperloop today. The future will belong to those using data-based intelligence to offer better experiences, encourage exotic longer and more frequent stays, and build long-term loyalty.

Do you want to get on Digital bandwagon? 

All You Need To Know About Business Models in Digital Transformation

In very simple terms, the Business model is how you plan to make money from your business. 

A refined version is how you create and deliver value to customers. Your strategy tells you where you want to go and the business model tells you how you are going to do it.

In this time of industry 4.0 with Digital Transformation, businesses are getting disrupted faster than they get established. We all know what Apple did for music, Uber did for taxis and Airbnb did for hotels.

Digital is helping them to enhance their existing products and services and helping to launch new products and services.

Companies are using various business models to be successful:

• Freemium model: Basic products/services are provided free but users are charged for advanced features. E.g. Coursera, LinkedIn, Spotify, Dropbox, Skype
• Pay as you go or Subscription Model: Pay only for services which are used. E.g. Netflix, Kindle, New York Times, Safari Books online
• Customer experience model: provide the customer experience never before e.g. Tesla, Disney Land, Apple
• On-Demand model: provide customer service on demand with speed. E.g. Uber, cloud services from Amazon, Microsoft
• Marketplace model: provide a platform for buyer and seller interact with each other directly e.g. eBay, Alibaba
• Free model: provide the typical services to users free and sell their behavior data to different businesses e.g. Google, Facebook, PatientsLikeMe
• Crowd-sourcing model: receive money for an engaging crowd for a common goal, innovation, problem-solving. E.g. Kaggle, CrowdAnalytix
• Bundling model: selling similar products or services together. E.g. Microsoft Office        
• Gamification model: use of game like feature to simplify the interaction. E.g Mint.com, Khan Academy, Nike +

 

Some of the big companies moved on from their core business model and adapted to the change embracing digital to get closer to customers in real time and grow exponentially.

Nike had moved on from a sports apparel company to fitness driven personalized wearables like FuelBand manufacturer.

Amazon started in 1995 as an online bookstore but went on to become a leader in technologies like Cloud, Drones, web services. 

Philips started as Light Bulb Company and moved on to become the leader in healthcare equipment’s touching millions of people lives.

GE has moved forward from its core industrial products – from jet engines and gas turbines to CT/PET scanners, locomotives with sensors that monitor various parts of the machinery. They developed their own Predix IoT platform with advanced analytics to provide real-time information to improve efficiency, increase productivity, and schedule more effective preventive maintenance.

Apple adopted multiple models from PC manufacturer to selling online music, to subscription model of iCloud.

Changing the business model drastically may not work. Don’t try to boil the ocean but start with how you can deliver greater value to customers through digital technology.

Success in choosing one business model over another will depend on how well companies understand their customers’ needs. 

Ali Baba's magic - Open Sesame and Digital Transformation

Do you still remember our childhood story of Ali Baba and 40 thieves?

“Open Sesame” was the magical phrase that a poor woodcutter Ali Baba uttered, to open the door of a secret cave in which 40 thieves had hidden bags of gold and treasure. The power of his voice, and using the right words, gave him access to that fortune, and changed his life forever.

We are in the same cusp of open sesame to Digital Transformation and changing our lives. It’s a fact that our lives are becoming more digital. We buy, we work, we store information, and we even communicate with other people through media and digital platforms.

A laptop was not an item in my life until the age of 35, whereas for my daughters, they have always had a laptop in the house, and learned how to use it, earlier than me.

Whether we like it or not, digital transformation is creating a new era… changing how we do things, how we live … and we are already fully immersed into it. We have a great opportunity to be more effective, efficient, fast and agile.

We, as consumers expect ultra-connected experiences. Whether it’s in-store, on the web, using a mobile device or through wearables, we want every interaction to be simple, effortless, relevant and lightning fast.

The Internet of Things have already started changing our lives!! The connected car we use may know the temperature we like at home so adjust accordingly. The mobile app is connected with all Smart Home devices to alert us of anything suspicious happening while we are away. It can notify when we approach grocery store, of the items we need at home. With Drones, we can get a tour of properties listed so we can choose the right one.

To reach 50 million users, radio took 38 years, Google took 6 years, and Google+ needed just 88 days while Smartphone “Pokémon Go” game reached that count in just 19 days!!

Our lives have become a collection of mobile moments in which we pull out a mobile device as if it was a magic wand to get something done wherever and whenever we want. We use smartphones for more than just making phone calls. From online banking to posting family photos to social media, sending e-mails and text messages, searching for restaurants and booking movies.

We are alerted of our days’ appointments and meetings before even we had our breakfast. A weather app alerts us of the rain forecast. To make our commute pleasant, the built-in GPS in our car alerts us of upcoming traffic along the planned route and suggests an alternative route so we can get to work on time and keep our meetings.

All of us have become so health conscious with wearables like Apple watch & activity trackers like Fit bit and Jawbone and Google smart contact lenses etc. With wearables like Oculus Rift VR, we can enter into an exciting new realm of augmented reality, with an enhanced experience of what we see, hear and touch.

Big Data Analytics is an ideal entry point to get into digital transformation.  It is like turning the lights on in a dark room. Every interaction we have with businesses, point-of-sale transaction details, loyalty card information, surveys, and social media postings to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and more.. which provides deep insight into our behavior, attitudes, and opinions that businesses are leveraging to improve relationships with hyper-personalization.

Voila! Life is simplified …..

Was this all available to us 20 years before? Ali Baba’s “Open Sesame” was a story of childhood, but Digital Transformation is reality – and from now on nothing will be same again.

This is how Analytics is changing the game of Sports!!

Analytics and Big Data have disrupted many industries, and now they are on the edge of scoring major points in sports. Over the past few years, the world of sports has experienced an explosion in the use of analytics

Till few years back experience, gut feelings, and superstition have traditionally shaped the decision making process in sports.

It is first started with Oakland Athletics' General Manager, Billy Beane, who applied analytics for selecting right players. This was the first known use of statistics and data to make decisions in professional sports.

Today, every major professional sports team either has an analytics department or an analytics expert on staff.  From coaches and players to front offices and businesses, analytics can make a difference in scoring touchdowns, signing contracts or preventing injuries.

Big name organizations such as the Chicago Cubs, and Golden State Warriors are realizing that this is the future of sports and it is in their best interest to ride the wave while everyone else is trying to learn how to surf.

Golden State Warriors, have similarly used big data sets to help owners and coaches recruit players and execute game plans.

SportVu has six cameras installed in the NBA arenas to track the movements of every player on the court and the basketball 25 times per second. The data collected provides a plethora of innovative statistics based on speed, distance, player separation and ball possession to improve next games.

Adidas miCoach app works by having players attach a wearable device to their jerseys. Data from the device shows the coach who the top performers are and who needs rest. It also provides real-time stats on each player, such as speed, heart rate and acceleration.

Patriots developed a mobile app called Patriots Game Day Live, available to anyone attending a game at Gillette Stadium. With this app, they are trying to predict the wants and needs of fans, special content to be delivered, in-seat concession ordering and bathroom wait times.

FiveThirtyEight.com, provides details into more than just baseball coverage. It has over 20 journalists crunching numbers for fans to gain a better understanding of an upcoming game, series or season.

Motus’ new sleeves for tracking a pitcher’s throwing motion, measuring arm stress, speed and shoulder rotation. The advanced data generated from this increases a player’s health, performance and career. Experts can now predict with greater confidence if and when a pitcher with a certain throwing style will get injured.

In the recent Cricket world cup, every team had its own team of Data Analysts. They used various technologies like Cloud Platform and visualizations to predict scores, player performance, player profiles and more. Around 40 years’ worth of Cricket World Cup data is being mined to produce insights that enhances the viewer's experience. 

Analytics can advance the sports fans' experience as teams and ticket vendors compete with the at-home experience -- the better they know their fans, the better they can cater to them.

This collection of data is also used for internet ads, which can help with the expansion and growth of your organization through social media platforms or websites. 

• What would be the most profitable food served at the concession stand?
• What would be the best prices to sell game day tickets?
• Determine which player on the team is the most productive?
• Which players in the draft will become all-stars, and which ones will be considered role players?
• Understand the fans behavior at the stadium via their app and push relevant information accordingly.

In this Digital age, Analytics are the present and future of professional sports. Any team that does not apply them to the fullest is at a competitive disadvantage.

Digital Transformation helping Smart Cities flourish

A smart city is simply a community that harnesses digital technologies, such as Internet of Things, Big Data Analytics, Mobility, Drones & Wearables to improve the quality of life of people, optimize available resources such as electricity, roads and water in economically sustainable manner, and reduce environmental pollution. 

They are run just like businesses to with smart and user friendly services.

In smart city, IT is the major factor and the basis for providing essential services to residents. Smart Cities depend on data available to them from all the above technological advances to enhance the quality and performance of their services.

Smart Cities integrate and analyze massive amounts of data to anticipate, mitigate, and even prevent many problems. This data is leveraged, for example, to intelligently reroute traffic and reduce accidents, identify crime hot spots and target resources for crime reduction, and connect citizens at work or out on the town.

Younger people expect to have the city in their pocket — to find a cab, locate the next bus, find a nearby restaurant or event, report a pothole or broken streetlight, apply for their driver's license, or tweet to their government representatives. They want consistent, personal service via their smart device.

Here is what future smart city can give you:

• Smart Traffic: Connected car sensors collect valuable real time data about traffic density and report it the control center, allowing to adjust traffic light sequences intelligently, as well as apply manual corrections whenever necessary.
• Smart Parking: Integrated with municipal Buses and private car owners, to build a highly efficient parking system.
• Smart Energy: Automatic lighting control, may vary from obvious night-time auto activation to dimming based on crowd density and weather conditions. Every home will have a smart meter to control the power usage and report in real time.
• Smart Buildings: Facilities including power management, lighting, physical security, fire safety and IT infrastructure.
• Smart Safety: Firefighters wearing sensors that let them know if the CO₂ in a building has reached lethal levels. Grid of connected CCTV cameras to ensure public safety. Air quality sensors detect pollution peak and warns people who are subject to allergies through their smartphones.
• Smart Charging: There are charging stations by the side of each road for electric vehicles, drivers can pay by flashing their wallet or even contact less payment.
• Smart Advertising: Personalized digital signs for people passing by.
• Smart Water System: IoT sensor enabled water systems which measure the flow, pressure, level and chemical content of the water to improve quality and usability
• Smart Views: Use of augmented and virtual reality to help people indoor and outdoor navigation.
• Smart Access: Users can open car doors or office doors by just touch of finger or even with IoT enabled sensors ensuring doors are opened when users are approaching
• Smart Commute: Connected cars and trains giving personal entertainment based on Big data Analytics insights.
• Smart Planet: Special lanes for bicycles for health conscious commuters helping zero carbon footprint

New York, London, Paris, Columbus Ohio, Dubai & Barcelona are the examples of smart cities around the world.

Smart Cities bring multiple rewards like better control of public spending, more engaged citizens in local development, improved performance of public transportation systems, lighter traffic and a reduced carbon footprint.

Smart Cities innovations have come a long way. All these digital technologies are future. Someday will come, to make Captain Kirk’s “Beam us up scotty” catchphrase true.

A to Z of Digital Transformation

Today every part of the business is subject to new expectations, competitors, channels, threats, and opportunities. Every business has the potential to be a digital business.  

Businesses that digitally transform will be able to connect more closely with customers, speed up the pace of innovation and, as a result, claim a greater share of profit in their sectors. Today digitally transformed companies have an edge; tomorrow, only digital businesses will succeed.

Here is my version of A-Z of Digital Transformation.

Artificial Intelligence: AI is the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior. BMW, Tesla, Google are using AI for self-driving cars. AI should be used to solve real-world tough problems like climate modeling to disease analysis and betterment of humanity

Big Data: This serves as a foundational backbone for digital transformation. Hyper-personalization and real-time recommendations based on the geo-location of the customers will be the key to success. Big Data Analytics is driving force for action.

Customer Centricity: The most important theme of digital transformation is it should be customer focused with a consistent, enjoyable and very personal experience to customers.

Disruption: Digital has disrupted many businesses so far who did not take it seriously like Blockbuster, Kodak, Borders and brought new leaders on the horizon like Airbnb, Uber, Netflix, Spotify.

Employee-driven: Digital Transformation will be successful only when employees are involved, educated and empowered to enhance the customer experience.

Fail Fast: Digital is all about deploying quick PoCs and check the outcome. If it does not work then drop the concept/idea and move on to a new one. Be prepared to change the pace or direction as necessary.

Growth Hacking: Focuses on building products that fit the market needs, with a viral push to market with a very simple idea & all the digital tools like email, tweets, blogs. Zynga used FB alerts and online adverts while DropBox offered extra storage space for referring friends for growth.

Hyper-personalization: Use of browsing histories, past purchases, social media data, and internal customer data to provide more personalized and targeted products, services, and content. It is about being relevant at the right place and the right time to the right person.

Internet of things: All the businesses are aiming at reaching their Customers anywhere, anytime, any platform with any device.  All such smart devices or physical objects that are connected to the internet, are continuously emitting data and communicating with each other. IoT based real-time predictive maintenance in manufacturing is becoming important to save costs and downtime.

Journey Maps: Creating customer journey maps is the prime and initial milestone for digital transformation where you understand the pitfalls and pain points with every touch point you have with customers. Once they are in place then plan with most impacting problems.

KNN: K nearest neighbor algorithm in Machine Learning used for classification problems based on distance or similarity between data points.

Leadership Support: Without actual drive from CEO and Board members, digital will not move further as it involves cultural business transformation.

Mobile First: Today we live in “always on, always connected” world, and use mobile for almost everything. We spend more time on mobile than any other digital channel. Start your digital implementation with mobile first in mind. More than half of the world population is on mobile now and

NFC: Near Field Communication used for a contactless, WiFi-style technology that could already be in your smartphone. A few years from now your credit cards, bus pass, train tickets, loyalty cards for high street coffee shops will be gone due to digital transformation and you only carry your phone.

Omni-Channel: It is about true continuity of customer’s experience even when they flip channels to complete a single transaction. Disney, Virgin Atlantic, Starbucks are great examples of Omni-Channel digital transformation.

Prioritize: Spend where you’ll make the biggest difference for the business. Small and quick successes will be drivers for digital transformation.

Quality: Quality of data collected by all the channels is extremely important in digital transformation for generating meaningful insights. Garbage in, Garbage Out still remains valid in the digital age.

Robotics: Robots are machines with programmed movements that allow them to move in certain directions or sequences. Artificial intelligence has given robots more ability to process information and to learn.

Sentiment Analytics: Sentiment analysis is all about helping companies gain better insights into their customers, and helping them to bridge the gap between insight and action by analyzing positive and negative sentiments.

Talent: To deliver on the digital transformation, organization have to get the right talent. As Jim Collins said in his book “Good to Great”, get the right people in the bus put them in right sits and then decide where the bus will go.

User Experience: This is extremely important considering the focus on the customer. Use of responsive web designs to adjust to any screen sizes with ease, make the website accessible on any platform, intuitive and pleasant to use is the key.

Virtual Reality: Virtual Reality is making a lot of impact on the world we live in today. Everything that we know about our reality comes by way of our 5 senses – Sight, Sound, Smell, Touch & Taste. Today Real Estate, Travel companies are coming up with VR gadgets to give the feel of virtual walks of houses or destinations like Eiffel tower / or Grand Canyon experience on your living room couch.

Wearables: They come in various forms, like smart watches, health trackers, Google Glass, interactive clothing, gesture controllers and the list goes on. Sooner or later, all of us are identified by the data we generate, and wearables represent a quantum leap in the type and quantity of data collected — which is both an interesting and a scary proposition

Xamarin: A modern programming language for iOS, Android & Windows mobile platforms.

Yarn: The earlier map-reduce has undergone a complete overhaul and now called yarn that allows multiple data processing engines such as interactive SQL, real-time streaming, data science and batch processing to handle data stored in a single platform.

ZooKeeper: ZooKeeper is a Hadoop centralized service for maintaining configuration information, naming, providing distributed synchronization, and providing group services.

Digital Transformation brings changes in product creation and delivery, changes in IT infrastructure, changes in the consumption and payment methods to ‘go digital’.