For retailers big data is a key competitive advantage that can increase market share, boost thin margins, streamline operations and allow better targeting. A McKinsey study stated that, by using Big Data to the fullest, retailers stood to increase their operating margins by up to 60%. In a recent Wikibon.com article, big data expert Jeff Kelly explained that the retail industry is among the early adopters and innovative users of Big Data.

Here are a few use cases where Big Data can offer great value for retailers:

 Dynamic pricing. Retailers are using real-time data to dynamically price goods and services, or to generate special offers in response to their competition. They are leveraging competitor pricing, supply chain and inventory data, market data and social media to adjust prices in real time to maximize sales and beat their competition.

Advanced social intelligence. Retailers are building deep understanding of consumers and influencers related to demand and the customer decision journey. They are leveraging social media, tweets, likes, blog posts and product reviews to signal hot products, determine sentiment, predict demand, control inventories so items are not overstocked, better target offers and prevent product recalls.

Integrating Big Data from various sources in a timely manner will allow retailers to better compete, improve customer experience and make data-driven decisions that will determine their business trajectory. The ultimate value will be derived from marrying external big data, such as weather reports or competitors prices, to the internal data that retailers already collect, such as transactions and order history. This combination will reveal unique insights and “unknown unknowns” that when placed into the hands of pricing analysts, campaign managers or brand specialists, can guide agile decision making related to pricing strategies, inventory decisions, customer loyalty and product development.

If you are interested in learning more, check out our on-demand dynamic pricing webinar.

Authored by: Hila Segal, Director, Product Marketing

Business critical applications and data are spreading everywhere and anywhere, creating the biggest integration challenge in the history of data management.

The only scalable, standard way to integrate these application and data sources is by using APIs – typically as REST or SOAP web services.

This is why I believe that APIs are the future of connectivity for the Modern Enterprise.

This statement is strengthened by two recent acquisitions in the API industry.

This week, MuleSoft announced the acquisition of ProgrammableWeb – a merger of the two largest directories of available APIs today.

Last week, Intel announced the acquisition of API management vendor Mashery.

So APIs or no APIs is no longer the question!

But wait a minute, how can that be true?

• How do I connect to external data with no documented APIs?
• How do I connect to business partner portals with no APIs?
• How do I connect to my existing Web legacy apps without an API?

The answer is Synthetic APIs.

Synthetic APIs complete the API landscape. They do so by extending API functionality beyond the APIs listed in the MuleSoft-ProgrammableWeb API directory to every application or interface not currently supported by APIs.

Based on Big Data Integration technology from Kapow Software, Synthetic APIs morph any web-based data source, partner portal and web legacy app – basically any data or application you interact with on the web via your web browser- into a fully functional, standard and scalable API.

Now, you are ready to connect the Modern Enterprise without having to worry about the question, “APIs or no APIs?”

If you want to learn a lot more about Synthetic APIs, please watch my latest Synthetic API webinar.

It only takes 30 minutes.

Comments are welcome at mailto:Stefan.Andreasen@kapowsoftware.com

I recently presented at our Kapow.wow user summit about the three main use cases for Big Data: known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns (UU’s).

Donald Rumsfeld, while serving as United States Secretary of Defense in 2002 talked about this concept as the US government came to realize in the post 9/11 attack that they had very little data about the enemy. The known data (intelligence) was no longer enough as new sources of unknown information about unknown combatants was emerging.

In the business world, there is a paradigm shift from what is called the “data at rest” to “data in motion”. Data at rest is data about your business stored in physical databases and mainframes behind the firewall. It is what I call the comfort zone of the business aka known knowns, where decisions are made typically in hindsight based on historic data.

Data in motion is all the new types of digital data, constantly changing, external and unstructured.  This is where businesses are crossing the chasm into the known unknowns. They know their competitors are dynamically adjusting prices but don’t know when and to how much. They know their customers are talking about their brand but don’t know what they are saying. They know regulatory compliance requirements are changing but don’t know when and how frequently. These are the known unknowns and transitioning into decision making based on real Big Data insights.

But the most complicated of all are the unknown unknowns – what is under the surface in the form of a new competitor disrupting an industry (like Amazon or Apple) or changing market dynamics making companies obsolete. These require more predictive intelligence or foresight to identify and proactively react. Unknown unknowns can also be positive leading to major innovation. One example is the invention of post-it, created originally at the 3M labs as a strong adhesive that turned out weak and later repurposed for sticky notes, one of the most popular office products available.  Unearthing the UU’s is the competitive advantage opportunity for companies.

You have volatility built into your business – changing market conditions, new competitors entering the market, employees’ turnover, financial markets etc. The information you need is also constantly changing, in a variety of internal and external sources, multiple formats, structured and unstructured. At the end of the day, the combination of integrating the right data, the agility that you get it with and the ability to distribute it as Big Data insights directly to business users for decision making is going to determine your business trajectory.  Value creation is at the heart of this Big Data movement….

Authored by: John Yapaola, CEO of Kapow Software

We kicked off our KapowNow Webinar series back in November 2012 and we hope you’re enjoying them so far. We specifically designed this series so everyone can fit them into their busy schedules. They are short! In less than 30 minutes, this series will show you how to use the Kapow Enterprise 9.2 as the single application integration platform, solving disconnects across the organizations such as getting analysts their data, providing employees mobile access to legacy applications and eliminating manual process – just to name a few examples.

Our seventh webinar is coming up on Tuesday, April 9^th starting at 8:00am (PST). This webinar will demonstrate how “synthetic APIs” create efficiencies for organizations looking to harness the power of cloud, mobile and Big Data. Whether you need to automate business processes that involve multiple cloud apps, extract critical data or mobile-enable legacy applications – with “synthetic APIs” you are able to do it in 1/10th of the time. You won’t want to miss it!

Register today and reserve your seat.

Follow us on Twitter and use the #KapowNow

Authored by: DeAnne Simon, Online Marketing Manager

Today is an important milestone in our mission to make Big Data more available and consumable for business users. The shortage of data scientist skills is expected to grow requiring a different approach to turning Big Data into business value. An approach that puts the power of data into the hands of the knowledge workers in Finance, HR, Marketing, Sales – in a secure, agile and scalable way.

With this objective in mind, we are launching today the new version of our Big Data Integration platform, designed to enable companies of all sizes to build the information supply-chain by integrating critical data from disparate sources and delivering actionable insights to decision-makers across the organization.

Among the key highlights of the new release is the ability to distribute data through easily consumable applications called Kapow Kapplets™ available for discovery and consumption based on roles within the organization via an enterprise library offering called Kapow KappZone™.  KappZone offers a modern and intuitive user experience for business decision makers. Users can select relevant Kapplets that deliver data required for their jobs and install them in their private workspace called My KappZone, where they can manage and run their Kapplets on-demand.

Data today needs to be integrated from a wide variety of sources, from behind the firewall applications to external websites, social sites and partner applications. We’ve enhanced Kapplets so they can be composed to run multiple workflows in parallel for faster delivery of Big Data. We’ve also enhanced the ability to personalize Kapplets, enabling users to set default input parameters and schedule Kapplets to run so that timely information is delivered to the right employees at the right time for business agility.

Data also comes in various formats from more structured to unstructured and hard to mine data sets. We continue to enhance and expand our data acquisition capabilities to support the widest selection of Big Data types, leveraging our patent-pending Synthetic API technology for bi-directional, read and write functionality.

There are numerous ways that global business leaders can harness the power of the new Kapow Enterprise 9.2 Big Data Integration Platform. For example monitoring competitor pricing, increasing marketing ROI or generating more sales leads. The powerful, enterprise-grade software platform is now available for subscription. Contact us today to get started right away!

Authored by: Karl Ederle, Kapow Software’s Chief Product Officer

The time has come. Our first-ever Kapow.Wow User Summit opens tomorrow for a two and a half jam-packed days of sessions, keynotes, demos and networking events at the Hotel Sofitel in Redwood City. Our very first customer Summit brings together users, key partners, our senior executives and Big Data industry experts who will explore all areas of Kapow Software solutions and their real-world applications in progressive businesses of all sorts.

We’re pleased to welcome some of our most innovative customers from around the world such as Click A Taxi, Deutsche Telekom, Jetsetter, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, Otto, PITT OHIO, Robert Half International, Siemens AG, Thomson Reuters, Trinity Logistics and more.

Our theme this year is Rapid Business Transformation and one key focus of the summit will be peer-to-peer presentations of interesting business use cases of Big Data integrations using Kapow Software to rapidly respond to market changes and competitor moves, transform industries, improve customer experience, protect brands and citizens, accelerate smart business decisions and foster a data-driven culture.

Kapow.wow kicks off with an opening reception on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, the opening keynote, “Creating WOW: Rapid Business Transformation,” will be presented by our CEO John Yapaola, followed by a keynote presentation by Mark Smith, CEO and Chief Research Officer of Ventana Research, titled “The Big Picture on Big Data for Business.”

On Thursday, new technology features will be unveiled on stage to help customers more rapidly harness data in motion across all channels and deliver key insights that drive business agility, arm the front line of business for success and add to the bottom line. Other summit presentations include sessions on “Products and Technology to Transform Your Business”, led by our CPO Karl Ederle and “Putting Big Data to Work: Real-World Big Data Use Cases”, led by our CTO Stefan Andreasen. On Thursday morning, industry analyst Dana Gardner will moderate a panel discussion, “Rethinking Big Data Integration with Synthetic APIs.”

The summit is an invaluable opportunity to learn how to turn hard-to-mine big data into actionable intelligence and new business opportunities.

The full Kapow.wow User Summit agenda is available here.

We look forward to seeing everyone there!

Authored by: Carol Kimura, Director, Corporate Marketing and Communications

Business leaders across the organization are now demanding more information in order to make better decisions. At the core of these initiatives are business objectives that support future growth.  As a continuation to my previous post, here are 5 additional uses case examples of turning data into business value:

Business leaders need data for better decision making

1)  Customer service: Valuable content available in collaborative apps, discussion groups, team sites, customer forums, partner portals and internal content management systems is critical in order to provide superior customer service. Offering service reps quick and simple access and the ability to search support information distributed across a variety of internal and external sources can significantly reduce response time and improve customer experience.

2)  IP protection: In the fight against software and movie piracy, companies can protect their intellectual property by identifying instances of copyright infringement, where the company’s products have been illegally copied and shared online. This enables organizations to detect and remove infringing content more rapidly and eliminate revenue losses.

3)  Marketing intelligence: Internal and external data can be used to track social media performance and measure the influence of marketing campaigns. How does the number of tweets or Facebook messages impact the conversations on these social channels? Do webinars result in any spikes in followers or YouTube views? By combining information from social networks, marketing automation tools, Google analytics and other sources, marketing executives can get a detailed insight into marketing effectiveness.

4)  Lead generation: Customers and prospects today are very active on social media. They follow you on Twitter and LinkedIn, like you on Facebook, comment on your blogs. At times when cost per lead is high and we are all trying to lower it, those who like us and follow us are hot leads. Collecting these leads and augmenting with information from CRM systems or LinkedIn for example can help expedite the conversion of these leads into real business.

5)  Competitive intelligence: Customer review sites, blogs, video and photo portals and other ecommerce sites offer valuable insights related to user experience, overall brand sentiment and competitive position in the market. Companies across industries from retail to media and entertainment, hospitality and telecommunications are turning to such data in order to reach higher levels of satisfaction with better and more targeted products and services.

What is your business objective? What critical data do you need for your business?

Authored by: Hila Segal, Director, Product Marketing

This is the classic question that IT has asked line of business (LOB) in order to plan their data integration priorities. This has been the only way to ensure IT would have the data ready when demand arrived.

Not only has this caused tremendous waste of IT resources in building interfaces with expensive SOA technologies for data that might never be needed, but in today’s fast-paced world, the question almost becomes absurd.

Who really knows what data they will need in 6 months?

The fastest growing source of data is web data; data in cloud apps, social media sites, partner portals, government portals and competitor sites. How can you possibly know exactly what will happen in the market in 6 months?  You cannot.

The move to the cloud has been a great IT infrastructure cost saver, and has delivered innovative business apps like SalesForce, SuccessFactors, Eloqua just to name a few, but this “application spread” has added to  the growing challenges of accessing data that is spreading everywhere.

This week I participated in a very interesting discussion on exactly this topic, “All-Access Pass: How to Get the Data You Need, Fast”, on the Information Management DM Radio.

Click on the link and register to hear DM Radio hosts Eric Kavanagh and Justin Kern as they interview Wayne Eckerson of the BI Leadership Forum, Gagan Mehra of Terracotta and myself around new integration technologies which can deliver on this question:

Can you plan for the data you will need tomorrow?

Yes that is possible!

Authored by: Stefan Andreasen, CTO and Co-Founder

We’re so excited to announce the KapowNow webinar series. This is not just another set of webinars. We’ve specifically designed them so everyone can fit them into their busy schedules. They are short! In less than 30 minutes, you can learn about application integration, process automation, rapid creation of business applications, Big Data, social media monitoring, mobile enablement and much more.

Watch live demos and get all the tips and tricks you need to make integration more stress free, your business users more empowered, your company more agile and innovative. This series will show you how to use Kapow Katalyst and Kapow Kapplets as the single application integration platform, solving disconnects across the organizations such as getting analysts their data, providing employees mobile access to legacy applications and eliminating manual process – just to name a few examples.

Register today and spread the word by tweeting and using the hashtag #kapownow.

By: Hila Segal, Director, Product Marketing

Informatica Roadshow Seattle, October

The theme of the roadshow is centered around solving the return on data equation which Informatica defines as the value of data divided by the cost of data:

Return on Data = Value on Data / Cost of Data

Specifically I am talking about how this applies to what is quickly becoming the most important and fastest growing data domain – “Big Interaction Data”. It is your customers’ blogs and tweets, your competitors pricing information and the data on your partners’ portals. It is unstructured, rapidly changing and provides unique insights that can turn your company into the market leader.

From being almost non-existing a few years back, Big Interaction Data is today growing explosively, with most of that happening on the internet and available as “Web Data”. My previous blog Dynamic pricing with automated competitive price monitoring provides a good example of how the use of Interaction Data can create huge differentiation, drive topline growth and turn companies into winners in their industry.

For many, understanding the huge importance of Big Interaction Data is just in its infancy, but I can assure you this is quickly changing. In my presentation, I give a few other examples of how companies leverage Interaction data. One example is about, Fiserv, a large financial services company who had to monitor point-in-time cash position across 300 partner banks for regulatory compliance. They had no other way of getting the data other than manually logging in to 300 portals and retrieving bank balances. Being able to get this type of data in an automated way was game changing for this organization. So as you can see Big Interaction Data is far more than just social media and provides significant value.

The other side of the equation is the “Cost of Data”. If the data is impossible to get, or very expensive to get, or cheap but out-of-date, then the return will be lower.

The most successful companies will be the ones that put data first, the most relevant data, and leverage technologies to get all that data at a low cost – in real-time.

Here is a snippet video of the presentation I gave in New York earlier this month:

On November 7th I will be presenting again in Atlanta, but you can also meet my colleagues at the San Francisco event on the same day. I will also be speaking in Dallas on November 13th if you happen to be in that area.

Come see me and let’s discuss the topic.

Stefan