Unknown to you, predictive analytics is a part of your daily life in many ways – in the search suggestions on your Google search, in the product suggestions you see on our page when you shop on Amazon, and even in your Gmail account that automatically detects and filters spam messages.

 

Healthcare, insurance, and banking are some of the more important areas where predictive analytics is being used in a big way. However, it is B2B marketers, 89% of them, who have embraced predictive analytics as an essential part of their business roadmap. By 2020, predictive analytics is expected to attract 40% of an organization’s net new investment in BI and analytics.

 

So why should entrepreneurs and businesses in India care?

 

Netflix analyzes millions of viewer data to predict which movies or shows would be most popular with their audience as well as to provide program recommendations to their customers.

 

Facebook uses customer data to predict product preferences, which it applies to its advertising activities. It uses Facebook interactions and ‘likes’ posted by its members to predict preference patterns among customers.

 

Predictive analytics has immense scope for utilization in a country like India, which has an economically disparate cross-section of consumers, as also in sectors riddled with high unpredictability like the oil and gas industry. 80% of CIOs belonging to the oil and natural gas industry feel that increasing their big data and analytical capability can optimize their businesses. Predictive analytics has helped such companies by predicting maintenance requirements of high-value machines and facilitating proactive maintenance.

 

More and more companies are trying to apply predictive analytics to their business to get a deeper understanding of customer relationships, build better products, and secure higher revenue. There is a great demand in the Indian market for analytics-driven tools and solutions that offer deeper data visualization and accelerate business decisions.

 

Predictive analytics help businesses improve their customer service and their branding, and market their products more effectively, besides improving employee relationships. Employee data can be analyzed to identify high-performing employees as well as employees who show signs of discontentment. While the organization can ensure that the former are suitably rewarded, managers can take timely steps to engage employees who are at risk of attrition, thereby increasing the average retention rate in the company.

 

The challenges of predictive analytics

 

Predictive analytics comes with its challenges – the first one is in identifying the areas within your business that can gain the most from predictive analytics. An organization needs to be clear on the problems that it seeks to solve using analytics, and the business goals it aims to achieve at the end of the process. Implementing any technology without a clear goal and direction can be risky.

 

Often, there is a clear disconnect between the CIO and the management within an organization in harnessing technology for business advancement; which can be a problem in applying predictive analytics. In a study, 60% of CIOs believed that analytics enable corporate strategists to make fact-based decisions. However, only 35% of the management agreed with this. To implement data analytics within an organization, you need specialized tools and solutions that can put a strain on your budget. The management needs to have a unified approach towards the rationale and objectives behind investing in this technology.

 

When done right, predictive analytics can give you deep customer and market insight, drive high operational efficiency, and enable fast and accurate decision-making. In short, it can be the game changer you seek to turn the market in your favor.

While we are still in the nascent stages of adoption, we believe the IoT opportunity for Industrials could amount to $2 trillion by 2020. The IoT has the potential to impact everything from new product opportunities, to shop floor optimization, to factory worker efficiency gains that will power top-line and bottom-line gains.” — Goldman Sachs, in its report The Internet of Things: The Next Mega-Trend

 

A smart refrigerator that reminds you to restock your pantry, and orders the everyday necessities from your nearby supermarket. A smart wearable for the elderly, which keeps them on track for their doctor’s appointments, refills their medications and pays heed to their vital health statistics.

 

The above examples may just be the most basic devices that can explain the functioning of IoT best. But the scope of this hugely connected technology lies way beyond these simple devices. Imagine all kinds of devices that can be powered by such smart functionalities—medical devices, motion-detecting security devices, GPS-based location systems, utility meters, toll meters, smoke detectors, and embedded systems! According to Gartner Inc, about 6.4 billion devices are already connected to the cloud of IoT. In the next four years, this number is expected to rise to 20.8 billion, and the market value of the IoT economy to 1.7 trillion dollars.

 

Why is IoT important for India?

 

The beauty of IoT is not that there will be enhanced connectivity. The real essence of this phenomenon lies in what we can use such connectivity for. From better civic facilities to proper transportation management, waste management, health service providers, road safety measures, agricultural management and power consumption, the possible outcomes are many.

 

There have been many examples of businesses and governments worldwide having turned their games around with an innovative inclusion of IoT to their arsenals. Take BMW, for instance. They reduced auto-warranty costs by 5 percent and reduced scrap rate of defective vehicles by 80 percent by only implementing predictive maintenance and quality control IoT. With smart IoT fixtures, Oslo city reduced their energy costs by 62 percent.

 

Such changes can be brought about in India, too. Given that we are the fastest growing IT market in the world and are expected to grow to a figure of at least $85 billion by 2019, India has the capability to embrace this wave of IoT. However, such an expansion would call for secure connections, reliable bandwidth and scalable technologies. The question is—are we ready for that?

 

The Indian government has been surprisingly proactive in this sphere, and has unveiled a plan of building 100 smart cities around the country and allocating over Rs 7000 crore to this project in last year’s budget. Understanding that the scope of IoT extends over key sectors like retail, IT, oil and gas, manufacturing, disaster management and healthcare among many others, the government has formed a Centre of Excellence on IoT with NASSCOM to help nurture and grow this ecosystem. These are positive steps towards turning India into a global digital powerhouse that Indian entrepreneurs and businesses dream of.

 

What is the role of IT in India in the IoT wave?

 

In my opinion, the three sectors that will drive this IoT wave are the government, the industry and the IT or tech startup sector. The Economic Times predicted recently that 43 per cent of the IT budgets of firms will now be pumped into IoT projects and solutions by 2020.

 

Using IoT technologies, the Indian IT sector is changing the way in which businesses create value for their customers. With IoT, businesses can boost their operations, reduce costs and enhance the experience they provide customers with. They can become leaders and change agents of industry transformation, update their institutional expertise and work towards sustainable growth. I am thrilled that the IT sector is at the forefront of such a revolutionary transformation.

 

What are the challenges India needs to tackle to take advantage of the IoT wave?

 

According to India Internet of Things Market Forecast & opportunities, 2020, the IoT market in India is projected to grow at a compound average growth rate of over 28% till 2020. As tech solutions providers, I think it is our responsibility to educate our clients on the benefits of IoT and help them deal with their fears over security and privacy concerns.

 

Currently, the rate of IoT adoption in India is limited to few verticals like FMCG, healthcare and energy, among others, for a variety of reasons. Unreliable internet connectivity tops the list of challenges, closely followed by limiting prices of IoT devices, lack of global vendors and an unsuitable or underdeveloped infrastructure to support the huge amounts of data and traffic expected to flow through these smart grids. If we can join our efforts to deal with these challenges, India will soon be able to reap the benefits of the IoT revolution.

 

So, back to the question we began with: Is India ready to jump on the IoT bandwagon? Given its software prowess, India has the ability to lead this digital revolution worldwide. All that is required is the creation of a healthy ecosystem of the government, industry, start-ups and academia to drive this change.

 

It is time to put our seat belts on!

A start-up is like a tight-knit family. Teams are usually small, with little or no hierarchy and the setup is almost always informal. In such a situation, even one employee quitting the start-up can be a huge blow. The simple reason is the personal and professional impact. As you grow, the impact is not as bad as one employee leaving a 5-10-person team. But, people have to move on and they will, and as a start-up owner, you may have to take this blow many a time in your entrepreneurial life.

 

At Suyati, we have been lucky to be blessed with very low attrition rates, but that doesn’t mean that our employees don’t leave. Some of them have to move on because of inevitable personal or professional reasons. But whether you are a start-up or a corporate giant, every time an employee leaves, it has the ability to reduce productivity, affect resource planning, and upset client delivery.

 

So while it is not an ideal situation for any company, here are FIVE things you can do to handle it as quickly and efficiently as possible.

 

1. We don’t take it personally

For those who sow the seeds, a start-up is always their baby. But it’s unfair to expect every employee to feel the same way. Yes, we hire our employees for their passion for the cause we are working towards; but we also hire them because they are talented, ambitious and competent professionals.

 

So when an employee quits, we don’t take it personally. Instead, we respect their personal decision of wishing to hone themselves professionally in some other direction. It’s important for those running a start-up to understand that employees will grow out of the start-up at some point and be ready for other challenges.

 

2. We find out why

Start-ups have an advantage over bigger firms—communication channels are simple and open, making it easier to find out why an employee is leaving. We always make it a point to find out why he/she chose to make this decision. Is it something we can rectify? Is it a raise or a change in title they are looking for? Is there a problem in the office culture? We try our best to rectify or improve any such conditions for our employees.

 

But sometimes, the employees really just want to move on. They just want a change of scene. If that is the reason, the right thing to do is to let them find their own way, ease the process of leaving, and encourage them to stay in touch.

 

3. We involve them in hiring and training

If the decision is final, the next step is to take full support from the employee who is leaving by involving them in the recruitment and training process for their replacement. We make sure that they share all important information with the newcomer so that the transition between employees becomes as smooth as possible.

 

4. We keep in touch

This is also crucial, especially when you work out of a start-up environment. The world is a small place, so we work on ensuring that an employee’s tenure ends on a positive note. Recently, we met the HR manager of a huge IT firm in Trivandrum who couldn’t stop talking about the “positive view and attachment” that our ex-employees have for Suyati. It was a proud moment for us and it encouraged us to reinforce our method of handling even the most difficult situations with a smile on our faces.

 

Professional connections should always be maintained because one cannot predict how they can come around to help, sometimes unexpectedly, at a future stage. Some of our ex-employees have come back to work for us, while some have become our advocates, and help us by referring candidates and client leads occasionally.

 

5. We have a system in place – for business process and employee retention

Despite our best efforts some employees still move on. We have put a system in place to protect Suyati from such sudden blows:

 

• No one employee holds the key to all crucial processes or information. We distribute responsibilities among the team without concentrating it on specific individuals.

 

• We encourage the documentation of all key information of the firm. Managers must have a clear blue-print for key processes within their departments and know how to navigate important software that their team uses.

 

• Most importantly, we go great lengths to keep our team happy and engaged by introducing fun activities at work to unwind. Every employee is a part of the family and is treated as a valuable member. This, along with clear communication channels and transparency in our actions, help in employee retention.

 

Saying goodbye to your employees with a smile is the result of a positive work atmosphere where you are committed to give your team the best work environment and the most opportunities to grow.