Automation and Big Data Initiatives
概觀:
自助服務分析,,en,一段時間以來，軟件一直是軟件開發的趨勢之一,,en,金融服務和其他行業，軟件領域只是根據其獨特需求進行定制,,en,自助服務分析專門針對需要輕鬆操作數據和創建分析而不必依賴技術合格的數據人員（例如數據科學家）的業務用戶,,en,有這樣一種信念，即自助服務分析將減少對數據科學家的依賴,,en,還有一群專家認為，業務用戶手中分析的絕對傳遞可能會損害治理，並且業務用戶需要高質量的培訓,,en,兩種觀點都有實質性,,en,雖然自助服務分析市場的預測是積極的,,en software has been one of the trends in software development for some time. Conceptually, there is not much novelty about it, though. Self-service as a concept has already been applied to fast food joints, financial services and other industries and the software domain is just customizing it according to its unique needs. Self-service analytics is specifically aimed at business users who need to easily manipulate data and create analytics without having to depend on technically qualified data personnel such as data scientists. There is this belief that self-service analytics are going to reduce dependence on data scientists. There is also this group of experts that believe that the absolute passing of analytics in the hands of business users can compromise governance and business users need quality training. Both views have substance. While the forecasts on the self-service analytics market are positive, 培訓用戶正確使用該軟件非常重要,,en,商業用戶有很多學習此類軟件工具的範圍,,en,大數據和商業智能中的自助服務是什麼,,en,想想這個用例,,en,客戶或面向市場的人員極大地依賴數據來做出決策,,en,獲得定制的分析並不容易，因為數據量巨大並且來自多個來源,,en,它需要特定的技能來處理數據並以易於理解的格式生成分析數據,,en,和其他技術人員需要參與,,en,這就產生了很多問題,,en,技術人員和數據科學家的帶寬劃分,,en,對技術人員的過度依賴可能會延遲獲得分析結果，從而可能妨礙決策,,en. There is a lot of scope for business users to learn such software tools.
Also read – The Escalating Scope of Big Data Analytics
What is self-service in the context of big data and Business Intelligence (BI)?
Think of this use case: In an organization, the customer or market-facing personnel depend hugely on data to make decisions. 現在, obtaining customized analytics is not easy because the data volume is huge and comes from multiple sources, it takes specific skills to manipulate data and generate analytics in an understandable format. So, data scientists and other technical people need to be involved. This creates a lot of problems. For example, the bandwidth of the technical personnel and data scientists is divided, too much dependence on technical personnel may delay obtaining analytics which may hamper decision making. 通過授權業務用戶可以解決此問題,,en,業務用戶將具備操作數據和生成自定義報告的能力,,en,現在我們在談論自助服務,,en,大數據環境下的自助服務,,en,是業務用戶根據需求操縱和生成分析的能力,,en,業務用戶獨立生成報告，就像快餐店中的自助服務概念一樣,,en,在此類用戶可以生成報告之前,,en,數據必須收集,,en,處理並轉換為某種格式，這不是業務用戶的責任,,en,自助服務有很多優點和缺點,,en,但是現在市場上有很多針對企業用戶的自助服務產品,,en,這些產品具有某些共同點,,en. The business users will be equipped to manipulate data and generate custom reports. Now we are talking about self-service. Self-service in the context of big data and BI is the ability of business users to manipulate and generate analytics as per needs. Business users are independently generating reports just like the self-service concept in a fast food outlet. Of course, before such users can generate reports, the data have to be collected, processed and converted into a certain format which is not the responsibility of the business users. Self-service has many advantages as well as disadvantages. But a lot of self service products are now available in the market focused on the business users. These products have certain features in common: 直觀友好的用戶界面,,en,定制報告生成,,en,和業務術語,,en,假定此類產品具有內置功能，可以接受,,en,在不需要業務用戶參與的情況下挖掘和處理大數據,,en,您可以說自助服務軟件已經解決了通過減少,,en,但不能消除,,en,對技術人員的依賴,,en,根據Forrester Research Inc的諮詢公司,,en,生成報告和查詢的請求中的一部分應發送給BI團隊或IT部門,,en,自助服務的優勢,,en,可能已經很明顯了,,en,擁有自助服務軟件的主要優勢是它為業務用戶提供的獨立性,,en, customized report generation, and business terminologies. It is assumed that such products have built-in capabilities to accept, mine and process big data without requiring the business user’s participation. So, you can say that self-service software has addressed the use case of empowering business users by reducing (but not eliminating) the dependency on technical personnel. According to the Forrester Research Inc consultancy, only 20% of the requests to generate reports and queries should be sent to the BI team or the IT department.
Also read – Is big data influencing crowd funding industry?
Advantages of self service
As might already be obvious, the main advantage of having self service software is the independence it offers to the business users. 用戶無需依賴BI團隊或IT部門即可運行查詢或生成報告,,en,這也釋放了技術人員的精力來專注於其他重要任務,,en,由於業務用戶能夠獨立創建自定義報告和分析,,en,他們能夠發現見解並更快地做出重要決定,,en,根據詹姆斯·福斯特（James Foster）的說法,,en,東南亞地區按需解決方案和高性能計算總經理,,en,“因此,,en,在業務線中嵌入更多決策能力只是一件好事,,en,他說,,en,向自助服務的轉變也對IT產生了積極影響,,en. This also frees up the technical personnel to focus on other important assignments. Since the business users are able to independently create custom reports and analytics, they are able to find insights and take important decisions more quickly. According to James Foster, general manager of Southeast Asia for Solutions On Demand and high-performance computing at SAS, “As such, it can only be a good thing to have more decision-making capability embedded in the lines of business,” he said. “Plus, the shift to self-service also has a positive effect on IT, 讓他們有更多的策略思考能力，並專注於公司的增值活動，而不僅僅是“保持常亮”。,,en,自助服務的挑戰,,en,自助服務模型基於授權業務用戶查詢和生成分析的功能，而BI團隊和,,en,IT部門,,en,照顧後端系統和數據集成,,en,這種模式帶來了挑戰,,en,技術上,,en,將數據與,,en,BI系統,,bg,BI團隊難以交付一個,,en,企業系統的統一視圖,,en,第二個挑戰是關於數據治理,,en,使業務用戶在使用應用程序時完全自由，這充滿了風險,,en,可能導致重複的數據和報告,,en,查詢和請求激增，導致服務器崩潰,,en”
Also read – 探索大數據和自助服務分析,en
Challenges with self service
The self-service model is based on empowering the business users to query and generate analytics while the BI team and the IT department take care of the backend systems and data integration. The challenges arise from this model. Technically, it is a complex task to integrate data with the BI systems. BI teams struggle to deliver a single, unified view of enterprise system.
The second challenge is about data governance. Giving business users total freedom in using the applications is fraught with risks. For example, it can result in duplicate data and reports, spike in queries and requests that leads to server breakdown, 具有過時數據或結構的報告,,en,數據治理策略和用戶訪問之間需要保持平衡,,en,一些組織,,en,大或小,,en,通過採用自動化或自助服務軟件而受益,,en,這些公司削減了成本,,en,提高生產率並獲得更高的客戶滿意度,,en,第一種情況是Microsoft呼叫中心的情況,,en,Microsoft的內部服務台不僅支持,,en,承包商和客戶,,en,它想減少通話量,,en,它部署了幾種自助服務工具,,en,在線支持門戶,,en,並提供對知識庫文章的訪問,,en,微軟能夠減少通話,,en,以大約,,en,每次通話,,en,eVergance Partners LLC進行的研究,,en,一家管理諮詢公司表明，如果公司在線回答客戶問題,,en,那麼成本是,,en. 很明顯, there needs to be a balance between data governance policy and user access.
Must Read – Data Center Challenges with Big Data
實例探究
A number of organizations, big or small, have benefitted by adopting automation or self-service software. These companies have cut costs, improved productivity and clocked higher customer satisfaction. The first case was that of Microsoft call centers. The internal help desk at Microsoft supports more than 105,000, employees, vendors, contractors and clients. It wanted to reduce call volumes. So, it deployed several self-service tools, online support portal, and provided access to knowledge base articles. As a result, Microsoft was able to reduce calls by 15.4% at the rate of about $30 per call.
A research conducted by eVergance Partners LLC, a management consulting company shows that if a company responds to a customer question online, then the cost is 4 to 40 比通過呼叫中心回答問題的時間少,,en,如何從自助服務和自動化中獲得最大收益,,en,從行業的角度,,en,沒有回頭路了,,en,自助服務,,en,和自動化,,en,這些機會需要謹慎處理,,en,這裡有一些提示,,en,提供好,,en,給客戶的經驗,,en,如果您的客戶使用在線聊天,,en,網站資源而不是呼叫中心,,en,確保該過程無憂,,en,快速流暢,,en,如果客戶遇到不良經驗,,en,他們可能永遠不會回來,,en,培訓業務用戶以遵循最佳實踐使用應用程序,,en,應該對應用程序處理進行廣泛的培訓，並且應該在BI團隊和業務用戶之間明確職責分工,,en.
Also read – 大數據 (Hadoop的) as a service – How does it work?
How to get the best out of self service and automation?
First of all, from the perspective of the industry, there is no going back on self-service and automation. But, these opportunities need to be carefully approached. Here are a few tips:
- Provide good automation experience to your customers. For example, if your customers use online chatting, website resources instead of call center, make sure that the process is hassle-free, quick and smooth. If customers encounter poor experience, chances are that they may never return.
- Train the business users to use the applications in compliance with the best practices. There should be extensive training given on application handling and there should be clear division of responsibilities between the BI teams and the business users.
- 逐步構建自動化工具，並利用您的經驗進行改進,,en,根據艾倫·邦德（Allen Bonde）的說法,,en,高級副總裁,,en,戰略與營銷,,en,在eVergance,,en,“充分利用您在過去十年中積累的水暖技術。,,en,您可以做很多事情，例如工資業務流程,,en,人力資源自動化界面,,en,並向移動現場服務團隊發出呼叫調度請求,,en,但這並不能保證獲得或保留客戶,,en,Bonde添加,,en,“不要僅僅因為,,en,你建造它,,en,他們會來的。,,en,瀏覽大數據存檔文章,,en,瀏覽Analytics（分析）存檔文章,,en,在處理大數據的行業中，自助服務和自動化被認為是巨大的機遇,,en. According to Allen Bonde, senior vice president, strategy and marketing, at eVergance, “Take advantage of the plumbing that you have built up over the last decade.” There are a lot of things that you can do such as payroll business processes, automated interfaces for human resources, and call dispatch requests for mobile field service teams. That would not guarantee customer acquisition or retention though. Bonde adds, “Don’t assume that just because “you build it, they will come.”
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Summary
Self-service and automation in industries that deal with the big data are considered huge opportunities. 但, 公司在使用這些機會時需要小心，因為不小心執行可能會導致聲譽和客戶損失,,en,正確的培訓和明智的政策是前進的道路,,en,techalpine.com/exploring-automation-and-big-data-initiatives,,en. Proper training and intelligent policies are the way ahead.
