Is your Data Dashboard failing?
A data dashboard is a tool for information management and business intelligence (BI). By organising and displaying important information in an easy-to-understand format in a single location, data dashboards can interpret complicated metrics to help the audience understand the connection between the data story and the story’s hypothesis.
Dashboards are essential for businesses of all sizes. They enable stakeholders to visualise data on a single screen at a particular time (in most cases). The crucial point to be noted here is that they are being used to seek information at a given time.
Even during the pandemic, a good example is the John Hopkins Coronavirus Dashboard, which is the place to go for the status of cases worldwide. Unfortunately, though the dashboards can answer the question “how many new cases were there today in my country?”, you will not be able to find answers to questions like – when did social distancing measures start in my country/ county? How easily are tests available in my country?
Dashboards are not dead or in the later stages of life. But at the same time, the reality is that Dashboards are not driving adoption (the adoption rate is only 30%, as per a report by Gartner).
Despite the resurgence of solutions, such as BI tools, dashboards, and spreadsheets over the recent decades, businesses still cannot fully take advantage of the opportunities hidden in their data. And that is that many dashboards lack data with a contextual narrative.
The rate that businesses collect data today is phenomenal. You can now collect data on every aspect of your business.
You need to know how to communicate the story it tells in a clear, compelling manner—a skill called data storytelling.
What is data storytelling?
Data storytelling is the art of building a compelling narrative based on complex data and analytics that help tell your story and influence and inform a particular audience.
Uber is an excellent example of an eye-catching dashboard. Although the context is critical, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, this dashboard audience is the user and how it puts context to how many miles the user has travelled in 2017, 13,080 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
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Another example of a good company Dashboard, it displays data in a way that is accurate, logical, and easily digestible. And allows the audience to read the information in the order of preference and ideal combined elements to communicate insights through narrative, visuals and data.
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Three critical elements of data storytelling achieve this.
Through a structured approach, data storytelling and visualisation work together to communicate your insights through three essential elements: narrative, visuals, and data. As you create your data story, it is necessary to combine the following three elements to write a well-rounded of your theory and the resulting actions you’d like to see from users.
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Build your narrative
You need to use your data to support your insights as you tell your story. Help your audience understand your point of view by distilling complex information into informative insights. Your narrative and context will drive the linear nature of your data storytelling. -
Use visuals to enlighten.
Visuals can help educate the audience on your theory. When you connect the visual assets (charts, graphs, etc.) to your narrative, you engage the audience with otherwise hidden insights that provide the fundamental data to support your theory. Instead of presenting a single data insight to support your idea, it helps to show multiple pieces of data, both granular and high level, so that the audience can come to the same viewpoint from their prospect. -
Show data to support
Humans are not naturally attracted to analytics, especially those lacking contextualisation using augmented analytics. Your narrative offers enlightenment, supported by accurate data. Context and critique are integral to the complete interpretation of your narrative. Using business analytic tools to provide critical insights and understanding to your narrative can help provide the much-needed context throughout your data story.
By combining the three elements above, your data story will create an emotional response in your audience. Emotion plays a significant role in decision-making. And by linking the emotional context and complex data in your data storytelling, you can influence others. When these three key elements are successfully integrated, you have created a data story that can affect people and drive change.
How Industry 4.0 technologies are changing manufacturing
Industry 4.0 is revolutionising the way companies manufacture, improve and distribute their products. Manufacturers are integrating new technologies, including Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and analytics, and AI and machine learning, into their production facilities and operations.
These smart factories are equipped with advanced sensors, embedded software and robotics that collect and analyse data and allow for better decision-making. Even higher value is created when data from production operations is combined with operational data from ERP, supply chain, customer service and other enterprise systems to create whole new levels of visibility and insight from previously siloed information.
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These digital technologies lead to increased automation, predictive maintenance,
self-optimisation of process improvements and a new level of efficiencies and
responsiveness to customers not previously possible.
Developing smart factories provides an incredible opportunity for the manufacturing industry
to enter the fourth industrial revolution. Analysing the large amounts of big data collected
from sensors on the factory floor ensures real-time visibility of manufacturing assets
and can provide tools for performing predictive maintenance in order to minimise equipment downtime.
Using high-tech IoT devices in smart factories leads to higher productivity and improved quality. Replacing manual inspection business models with AI-powered visual insights reduces manufacturing errors and saves money and time. With minimal investment, quality control personnel can set up a smartphone connected to the cloud to monitor manufacturing processes from virtually anywhere. By applying machine learning algorithms, manufacturers can detect errors immediately rather than at later stages when repair work is more expensive.
Industry 4.0 concepts and technologies can be applied across all types of industrial companies, including discrete and process manufacturing, as well as oil and gas, mining and other industrial segments.
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Read the blog post about Industry 4.0 and manufacturing
Is technology impacting our life for good or bad?
We are living in a high-tech world. Technology is constantly evolving, and in doing so, it consumes us more and more. Every new advancement intrigues us a little bit more, which can be seen as good or bad depending on how you view it. No matter your feelings regarding technology, it's easy to agree that it would be hard to live without it if it suddenly disappeared. This is because we rely on technology for communication, work, education, staying in touch, shopping and much more.
So what does that say about us? It isn't a bad thing, but it isn't necessarily a good thing either.
With the pandemic, our lives were radically changed in a very short time, and I have read many articles about how the Pandemic isolation is destroying our social skills. The pandemic only accelerated what has been happing over the last decade. Technological growth and the societal shift were significant. Many developments became so quickly ingrained in our daily lives. In the era of technologies, people are often losing social skills because of our addiction to phones, computers and social media, but is that true? Or are we socialising differently through zoom, skype or social platforms?
I'm sure that technologies are providing us with a way to improve ourselves and not lose something.
In 2022 we are living in a digital world, where we work from home, order our groceries online and can
pick them up or have them delivered to our home. This trend was already gaining traction even before
the pandemic, and many companies were already invested in their digital transformation pre-pandemic,
where a customer collects an item they have ordered online or as an order fulfilment platform for online sales.
The shift to online ordering has demanded the attention of virtually every retailer, including grocery operators.
As the volume of e-grocery continues to rise, grocers need to navigate these complexities and implement
successful Microfulfillment centres (MFCs).
The challenges grocers face as they evaluate their options for dealing with the rapid growth in e-grocery sales,
navigating the dynamic market, and changing consumer behaviours. For example, will consumers escape the
pandemic cocoon and want to go to stores or embrace online shopping?
The current thinking is Microfulfillment (MFC) is a strategy that uses Dark Stores. These small fulfilment centres (MFC) in retail spaces operate without customer interaction. For fulfilling customer orders from retail locations near the customer. Dense, scalable and flexible storage and picking solutions inside neighbourhood stores allow retailers to quickly fulfil customer orders while reducing final-mile costs and meeting customer demand for "right now" products.
There are a few different ways that Dark Stores could fulfil online orders. For example, they could deliver to customers directly, to local stores for customers to pick up, or have customers pick up orders curbside. A typical dark store for a grocery application could accommodate about $50 million in online sales, a 200 percent productivity improvement with manual picking and a 300 percent improvement with automation.
URBX Logistics, a Boston-based company, was founded by CEO Lincoln Cavalieri. It has a model that combines automated warehouses and pickup areas with a user-friendly space that is attracting a lot of interest. According to URBX, this vertical Microfulfillment center (MFC) format allows it to nestle in cities' limited and tight areas.
This could be the next evolution of grocery stores, as shopping malls went from shops in a complex to entertainment complexes with shops.
This model could be what the industry needs post covid and change how we see traditional grocery stores with automation and user-friendly space. For example, customers can place an order from the instore kiosk, mobile web browser, mobile app, or in-store whilst enjoying a coffee with friends or meeting a customer, maybe become a combination of shared office spaces.
It allows you to spend more time connecting, socialising, or working in an environment that is more like a coffee shop than a grocery store. You can also do your daily or weekly shopping and examine certain products whilst avoiding going around the long grocery store aisle. This system can pick 50 items in less than 2 minutes. You can choose to receive your products by picking them up in the store, and the system can have your order ready by the time you finish your coffee but can also do at-home delivery.
Store AI will be able to recommend products for recipe options based on products ordered or past order history. In addition, the in-store sample bar allows customers to try a recipe while socialising.
Recommend to read the acritical called WHEN URBX "LOGISTIFIES" CITIES!
By Guillaume RIO
https://www.echangeur.fr/en/inspiration/technological-analyses/when-urbx-logistifies-cities/
Managing Projects in Today's Hybrid World!
Are Hybrid teams the future and the present? And if so, what are the challenges?
Is traditional project management processes and tools still relevant in today's Hybrid world?
What's the best new approach needed to support better cross-team collaboration in the hybrid environment?
I learned that communication was always key to successful project management throughout my working life.
And through my working career, I have been dropped into fire-fight projects, and the main contributor was outdated or ill-suited processes that hindered cross-team collaboration.
How Leaders Should Approach Today's New Hybrid Workforce | CCL
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Is your Data Secure?
Digital transformation is becoming visible in every aspect of our lives, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality (AR), and artificial intelligence (AI).
And more of our online data is stored on cloud storage systems. But unfortunately, these are large centralized databases.
This leaves data vulnerable to privacy breaches. Blockchain makes data safer by removing failure points. It will also create even more cost-effective storage options.
However, blockchain technology is a significant innovation enabler in various industries besides the finance sector.
Transforming work through augmented reality (AR)
I always have been a nerd when it comes to tech. In 2010, I used photoshop to combine computer-generated 3D designs with site photos to give customers a vision of their project when completed; I wish AR were around then for the nerd project manager.
In mid-2019, before coronavirus, AI, Industry 4.0, and augmented reality (AR) were the trends and many companies embarked on digital transformation.
AI is already replacing workers for menial tasks and repetitive work and
making significant advances, allowing the workers to concentrate on the
more 'human aspects'- relationship building, collaboration with clients
and businesses alike; augmented reality AR was making significant
advances in the gaming industry. We are on the 4th industrial revolution,
and it's shaped to be even more transformational than the previous
ones with intelligent, interconnected machines and intelligent automation.
The past two years amid a global pandemic have accelerated digital
transformation and consumer behaviour in ways few experts anticipated.
Its transparent companies that were already invested in the digital transformation journey were able to adapt quickly and effectively thrived during the pandemic. These companies were digital service providers, and those with products primarily through online channels – experienced rapid growth.
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Covid has changed the way we think about work in many significant ways, and Remote or Hybrid working became the new norm and is here to stay. Many companies see the benefits of remote working. Also, employees have adapted that swapping a long, dull daily commute is time spent more productively. Advanced processes and tools are needed, and AR can be the technology that brings Digital transformation into a visual world. However, not all industries can work remotely, and a good example is Manufacturing and Logistics.
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The Business and consumer survey by the European Commission in 2021, Oct. reported that about one-quarter of manufacturing and services businesses reported a lack of workers as a factor limiting production in January, the highest proportion since data was first available in 1982.
Automation, in other words, is considered a pivotal solution to alleviate labour shortage, with Robots filling the skilled labour gap directly or Robots empowering and improving the remaining worker force. Artificial intelligence (AI) has brought innovations in every industry, including manufacturing. For example, machine vision and computers that can see and recognise objects have vast applications in manufacturing and logistics. Language processing is also making significant advances, so machines can understand our voices and speak back to us in different languages.
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So why is AR relevant? First, the partnership between AR and AI is likely to impact businesses and customer experience profoundly. AI is the heart of the AR platform. AI enables AR to have a multidimensional interaction with the physical environment.
Alamira Jouman Hajjar wrote an article titled 13+ AI Applications & Use Cases in Augmented Reality in 2022 (aimultiple.com); she showed good examples of AI applications in augmented reality.
Bernard Marr, a world-renowned futurist, influencer, and thought leader in business and technology, has excellent insight into technology trends. For example, I like how he explains augmented reality (AR) and the new buzzword Metaverse.
With the introduction of ARkit from Apple and Arcore from Google in 2017 and Facebook in 2021 announced plans to turn Facebook into a virtual world, these platforms make it easier for developers to develop augmented reality apps not just limited to social media change our businesses.
Image, children having classes in the metaverse or executives and managers can simultaneously walk through their production facility and pull up data on their glasses—metaverse meetings with 3D presentations, where you can walk around your project or new product. Transport to a facility on the other side of the world. Likewise, project managers will be able to walk through a construction site and see a digital version of the project or area.
Augmented reality (AR) is not new, but with the advance of new applications, the possibilities are limitless and are at the reach of any business size.
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