Blockchain Projects Ruling the Decentralized Economy- Guide

The rising profile of blockchain in academe

Blockchain has come a long way since it was described by Stuat Haber and W Scott Stornetta back in 1991. The technology has become one of the biggest innovations of the century and has given rise to various new possibilities in different sectors and industries. Say it fintech, retail, healthcare, enterprises, real estate, or supply chain.

A clear evidence of which is that today, almost every entrepreneur, digital marketer, and even blockchain development firm is showing an interest in learning the basics of blockchain technology and looking ahead to entering the space. And eventually, getting a slice of the market which is anticipated to be valued USD 39.7 Bn by the year 2025.

They have also begun looking into the latest blockchain trends and the best business models top players are working with.

However, most of them are missing one main point.

With the growing popularity of the technology, different ways to embrace it for business transformation are coming into the limelight and so, the kinds of blockchain projects; making everyone intrigued to know which of these types is destined to aid them in leading the digital environments in 2020. Something that you will come to know by the time you reach the end of this article.

So, shall we begin?

[Just in case you want to take a recap of the role of blockchain on the industries, check our blog on ‘the impact of blockchain on the economy’.]

Explained: The 5 Categories of Blockchain Projects 

1.  ‘Fear of Missing Out’ Blockchain Solutions

4 Most Exciting Blockchain Projects to Watch in 2020 – skalex.io

The first kind of blockchain solutions that are getting developed these days is FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

As depicted from the name, this type of projects are brought into life just to ensure that companies do not remain behind in the market. They have not held any meeting and discussed its role into their traditional business model and the possible outcomes they would derive from it in a particular time span. Or even looked into whether investing in blockchain app development is beneficial for them.

Rather, they have just taken this step just to show that they are innovative and work with the latest technology trends impacting the business world.

These kinds of projects, as you might have guessed so far, do not create much value for the business and remain a marketing act for the company. It just increases the chances of your target audience giving a second look to your business products/services or competitors fear of missing out and take the same step.

What’s more, the poorly planned blockchain projects might overburden the existing business ecosystem and demand additional costs. This can make leaders conclude that they ‘tried and failed’ blockchain or doubt on its future. Whereas, the only problem is that they kept on focusing and investing on the wrong use case of the technology.

2.  Opportunistic Solutions

The 5 Kinds of Blockchain Projects (and Which to Watch Out For)

The second category in which blockchain projects fall is Opportunistic solutions.

These types of blockchain solutions are devised to solve any known problem, especially related to record-keeping. They add value to the business, even when not being operational for a longer period of time.

The only problem associated with this project type is that one might lose control over data and contracts later.

When looking into the real-life examples of Opportunistic blockchain projects, the blockchain solution developed by the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) to regulate records from credit-default swaps is the right one to consider.

3.  Trojan Horse Projects

Transforming Food Supply chain with Blockchain and IoT - DreamzIoT

Trojan horse projects also landed into the list of type of blockchain business ideas gaining momentum this year.

These projects, just like trojan horses, are attractive, backed by respected brands and address the usual and wide-reaching problem in a particular industry. But, they demand users to share their sensitive information and transfer some control in such a way that results in market consolidation for the prime blockchain owner. So, it is required to invite different groups of people/ecosystems to participate in its processing.

A potential example of a trojan horse blockchain project is a food-tracking blockchain system. This system run by blockchain, unlike the traditional centralized ones, take comparatively less time and effort to determine the point at which the food items were adulterated/replaced, the people responsible for the same, and prevent it further. It enables users to access the records in real-time and prevent dozens of people from falling sick or suffer in other ways. But only when the participants are ready to share their personal information on the network.

These kinds of projects are quite effective. However, there’s a risk involved with considering these projects. They become reliant on the owner’s technology and locked in to the contract terms. But, with the passing time, they gain more control over the market because of having heaps of user data.

Also, the business currencies involved in the ecosystem where Trojan horse blockchain projects exist usually trade at a much higher risk level for the participating users.

4.  Evolutionary Blockchain Projects

UEFA Champions League | UEFA.com

Another type that business leaders focus upon is the evolutionary blockchain project.

As the name suggests, these projects evolve with time. They are designed to improve over time so as to employ tokens with decentralized governance.

One example of such kind of blockchain software/applications comes from UEFA – the central committee for European football. UEFA works with two Swiss technology companies, TIXnGO and SecuTix, to create an evolutionary blockchain platform that drives a more equitable and safer market for the sales of football tickets.

The blockchain-powered platform encourages ticket buyers to download the SecuTix and TIXnGO applications. Here, the tickets are tokenized so as to keep a real-time record of the ticket purchase and connect it to the ownership details.

In case someone wishes to give away their ticket to a friend or colleague, they can do it through the application, which then stores the record of the transfer in the blockchain ecosystem. And if they wish to send it to anyone in the open market, the SecuTix platform can help them by defining that markup resellers are empowered to charge. This, as a whole, ensures that no unreasonable pricing is being asked or illegal brokers come into play.

Besides, the secondary market for tokenized tickets could mature into a decentralized sales network with time, such that it brings all the second ticket sellers at the same place.

When compared to trojan horse blockchain projects, the business currencies in this type can trade at a comparatively low risk level for the participants.

5.  Blockchain-Native Solutions

Enjin | Blockchain Product Ecosystem

Last but not least, blockchain native solutions are also among the type of projects business leaders consider in 2020.

Designed by startups or extended teams of existing organizations, these projects are meant to bring forth a new market of opportunities or disrupt an existing ecosystem. They might begin with different perspectives and facilities, but are supposed to move in the direction of tokenization or decentralized governance with time.

When talking about blockchain-native project types, the two industries that come to the limelight are Education and Sports.

In the Education sector, these projects emerged as a non-profit digital education society where students and teachers from different parts of the world could come together and relish the perks of higher education without worrying about learning exchanges or payments. The best example of which is Woolf University, the one founded by a group of scholars from Cambridge and Oxford and known as the ‘decentralized Airbnb for degree courses’.

Likewise in the gaming sector, these projects enable users to create their own tokens to support their favorite games and players. A perfect example of which is Enjinn.

The Blockchain native solutions introduces new business approaches into the market but comes with major currency risks. Because of this, they are preferred only by those who wish to manage their own data and experiment with the concept of decentralization independently.

Now while the definition and approaches of the different kinds of blockchain projects might have helped you with understanding which one is the right pick for your business, you can reach our blockchain consultants to know further. Our team has years of experience in helping startups as well as established brands from different industries to determine the right way of integrating blockchain into their traditional system and reap higher benefits. And that too, without worrying about the hidden business and tech-based challenges.

Failure of On-Demand Platforms- Reason & Solution

Forecasting the future of your on demand service platform and importance of having a plan to scale it - Odtap

The glaring success of the on demand era has given birth to a school of thought among the tech community. They have started believing that following the uber business model and entering the on demand industry will be the only move that is keeping them from reaching complete success.

While it has worked for a number of businesses like GrubHub or Airbnb, the number of businesses that have failed are also extremely huge. In fact, if you sit down to make an excel sheet comparing the on demand services fail vs success ratio, you will find that the number of businesses that struggled to survive were more than those which didn’t.

But does this mean that you should give up hope on your on demand platforms’ business success and give up? Of course not. What it implies is that when you plan to succeed in the crowded on demand market, you should also factor in the reasons behind the application’s failure.

The intent of this article is to help with just that.

Table Of Content 

  1. Understanding Uber’s Success in the on demand sector
  2. The List of on demand Brands That Failed Miserably
  3. Reasons Behind on demand Business Failure
  4. How Can on demand Businesses Save Themselves From Shutting Down Prematurely?
  5. Conclusion

Understanding Uber’s Success in the on demand Sector

Uber Loses License to Operate in London - WSJ

When you dissect the on demand economy, you will find that it is mainly built on three building blocks: delivery immediacy, consumption passivity, and a fixed cost. Uber did not just ticked all the three boxes of the on demand business model, but also aced some other factors that helped it build a seamless ride booking user experience.

Here are the two factors which added to the brand’s success, making it one of the most successful on-demand companies:

  • The company operates in populated urban cities where there’s enough liquidity for making the marketplace work.
  • The customer base were already very familiar with trusting a stranger to take them places. Thus, creating a trust in the market was never a problem.

The Uber model doesn’t care about the transaction’s intimacy aspect nor about the disintermediation challenges. Imagine once you on demand home service app users find a person they like for cleaning their house or planning their kids, how would you stop them from contacting those service providers directly, without going through your application? This disintermediation when continued can lead to greater burn, churn, and in some cases extinction of the business.

Since the Uber model didn’t include the need to care about intimacy, they could survive and grow on a much greater speed. But not every Uber-like story has a happy ending. There are a number of once top in the game on-demand platforms that have fallen owing to the on-demand challenges.

The List of on demand Brands That Failed Miserably 

1.  Happy Home Company 

The Happy Home Company | LinkedIn

Happy Home Company was a twist in the otherwise traditional home service market. The idea behind the brand was to offer users home maintenance plans which included recurring things that had to be kept in top working conditions. Inspite of bagging $7 million from investors, Happy Home’s founder wrote a shutdown letter which stated, “Ultimately we weren’t able to make the transition from a scrappy startup to self-sustaining company.”

2.  Pronto

Team Communication Software | Pronto works better

The business was set out for helping people get healthy meals faster. The UK based service had the work with the intent of connecting the users with chefs while enabling food delivery in under 20 minutes. It had every element to make it one of the most flourishing on demand delivery apps. Even though the idea sounded good to investors and adopters, the company couldn’t keep up with the promotion budgets of Uber and Deliveroo – one of the very commonly occurring on demand challenges.

3.  Workers On Call 

Why call centre workers love to use your name – and why it's really annoying

AI has changed the face of work, this is something that has been established over time. The Workers On Call services used AI systems for streamlining matching of employers with freelancers who needed jobs. The application that boasted of freelancers getting matched and started to work in under 30 minutes, although backed by a powerful vision, was a little ahead of its time. The brand even after raising $30K funding, signed off with a tersely message saying, “Bye Bye. Sorry Workers On Call is closed.”

4.  Homejoy 

Homejoy shuts down amid lawsuits over worker misclassification – The Mercury News

One of the textbook examples of failed the businesses is Homejoy. Started with $20,000 seed funding in 2000, the business became a big name in 2013 when it raised $38 Millions – making it one of the most successful on demand startups. But soon the customers started failing to convert past their first booking. In fact, only 15-20% people re-booked in a month. The numbers were simply not enough for the brand to survive. Add to this the legal battles against classification of workers a s independent contractors led to the business’s death in 2015.

[Further Read: Why Did HomeJoy Failed]

The truth of the hour that still remains is that even after these on demand platforms failure instances, the fact how the internet has trained consumers to get services in real-time is not stopping budding entrepreneurs from entering the on demand economy. But how can businesses ensure that they are not destined to become yet another name in the list?

While one way to get some satisfaction would be to partner with an on demand software development company that has worked with the inception of popular on demand businesses, it would also help to know the on demand services failure reasons that can lead to their failure.

Reasons Behind on demand Business Failure

1.  High Competition

Is competition in the workplace good or bad?

The upsurge of hyperlocal service demand has led to a rise in demand of on demand services attending to the complete needs of their customers. One way entrepreneurs are competing in the market is by lowering their service costs. This, in addition to the high operational costs of transportation, infrastructure, and labour has been keeping on demand startups from flourishing.

2.  Reluctance among Venture Capitalists 

Building Radar: Silicon Valley investor funds Bavarian technology start-up - Invest in Bavaria

With on demand failure stories shooting off the roof, investors have started becoming wary of where to put in their money. As it is, getting funded on your application has been a difficult process and when you add in the unsureties that the sector now comes with, the probability of raising money lowers even further.

VCs are now becoming all the more cynical about the startup’s longevity. Businesses that are promising a strong long-term vision with a cash flow picture backing it have become the only answer to the types of apps investors will be backing in 2020.

3.  Product Incompetence 

Article: Overcoming the Unconscious Incompetence Hurdle at Work — People Matters

If there is one event that follows every successful startup, it would be the fact that competitors are soon to follow. The value that your business once offered starts getting challenged and bettered by the competitors. This, in turn, is leading to the product becoming incompetent in the market, irrespective of the efforts that went behind on demand app development services.

Brands that are failing to keep up with the changes with timely pivots are soon finding themselves crawling out of the on demand space.

4.  Inefficient Resource Set 

Human Resource Insights #2: 4 Signs of Inefficient HR Departments | Credait

The lack of an experienced set of people can most often than not result in the failure of on demand companies. The same applies for the on demand industry. Irrespective of which on demand domain you pick, you will find that the ones that survived were known for their skilled workforce. A lacking on this front can lead to on demand business losing their worth in the industry and thus get closer to their demise.

5.  Not Being Able to Solve Real Problems 

6 Ways to Enhance Your Problem Solving Skills Effectively

A number of on demand companies that fail deal with band-aid type of problems in place of emergency room type problems that make the solution extremely non attractive to the end users. Example: For example, imagine an on demand car wash service. Just how frequently would users demand the service? But the expenses a business will have to make to keep it afloat would be huge. In short, the business neither ends up being cost-efficient nor effective.

6.  Under or Over Valuing Demand and Supply 

Demand And Supply Balance On The Scale. Business Concept Royalty Free Cliparts, Vectors, And Stock Illustration. Image 87121470.

The last in our list of reasons that tend to lead directly to business failure is under or over valuation of demand and supply that your on demand business would garner. Businesses, more often than not undervalue the demand that they would attract and thus plan low on supply. Likewise, they at times think too much of demand and end up with an underutilized supply of resources.

Now that we have enlisted the most common reasons behind an the app business failure, let us dive into the way outs – how can on demand businesses prevent this fate.

How Can On demand Businesses Save Themselves From Shutting Down Prematurely?

Market Expansion

A Complete Guide to Market Expansion Strategy – Welp Magazine

One of the biggest issues with today’s top-on-demand businesses is that they don’t expand from their existing markets. The entrepreneurs who are very new to the industry end up being limited to a pool of loyal customers and don’t think of expansion opportunities. The problem with this is that the moment a new competitor with deep pockets enters the market, the probability of them getting out of business increases.

Here’s a look into the expansion roadmap that we generally share with our clients when we assist them with on demand app development.

Make Your Customer Needs Your Bible 

Build Your Business on Faith: 55 Bible Verses About Business

In the fight between what you can offer and what your users need, your offerings should always prevail. Although it can be a sweet attraction to invest in tomorrow’s big need, it can be extremely unwise to let go of your customers’ present day needs.

The truth is that you will get a multitude of opportunities and time to pivot your startup. But what you won’t get is the current time and your users present day needs. Getting insights into this information is what a sound on demand mobile app development company can help you with.

Think of Being Monetarily Prepared First 

The matter of the modern day fact is that it is very difficult to get funding on an application. No matter how well propositioned your application is or how green your cash flow statement looks, there is zero guarantee of you getting funded.

The solution on this front can only be to look into alternate financing options and not remain limited to VCs.

Conclusion

The growing cases of on demand industry failures have led to the sector getting the image of being a house of card. The only way for entrepreneurs to enter and succeed in the domain would be to do extensive user research. One way we suggest to achieve this effortlessly can be through the mode of product design and development sprint – one of the key practices that on demand app developers follow.

Business Benefits and Services of Blockchain

Will 2020 Be The Year Cryptocurrency And Blockchain Becomes Operational?

The real-world applications of blockchain are expanding by the minute. But the resources and skill sets needed for developing blockchain applications and hosting them are neither cost effective nor popularly available. Is blockchain as a service for business the answer of how to make blockchain technology accessible to an audience?

In this article, we are going to look into the BaaS solution for business works, the benefits of blockchain as a service, and how to choose the best BaaS providers operative in the market today.

Table of Content

  1. What is Blockchain as a Service?
  2. How Does Blockchain as a Service Business Model Works?
  3. How Blockchain as a Service is Shaping Businesses?
  4. The Region Wise Adoption of Blockchain as a Service?
  5. The Top Blockchain as a Service Providers
  6. A Look Into Self-hosting Blockchain Applications

What is Blockchain as a Service?

What Is Blockchain as a Service and How Does It Benefit Enterprise?

For offering the benefits of blockchain based services to a wider audience, the technology has started being offered in the cloud as a service business model. On the operational front, it is more or less similar to the SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS models which enables using cloud-based apps and storage.

It allows businesses of all types and sizes to access blockchain based technologies without investing in the in-house development. The BaaS model enables companies to access the blockchain provider’s service wherein they can develop blockchain applications at minimal cost. This benefit is what has made it a key part of the blockchain technology trends.

The only limitation of the BaaS solution for business is that it asks for a certain level of centralization since the transactions have to be funneled through the host’s blockchain services. And because the answer to how blockchain is used in business lies at the center of decentralization, companies tend to be wary of its adoption.

Key takeaways:

  • Blockchain-as-a-Service is third party cloud infrastructure and management that businesses use for developing and managing blockchain applications.
  • It operates as a web host which runs an app’s backend.
  • BaaS acts as a catalyst which leads to widespread adoption of blockchain technology.

How Does Blockchain as a Service Business Model Works?

What is Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) in the Tech Industry? - GeeksforGeeks

Blockchain as a service business model describes the process through which third parties install, host, and maintain a blockchain network on the behalf of organizations. The service provider offers setting up of blockchain infrastructure and technology in return for fees.

In many ways, the role of blockchain as a service for business is similar to that of a web hosting provider. It enables customers to make use of the cloud based solutions for developing and hosting blockchain applications and smart contracts in the ecosystem managed by the provider.

Here is a visual showcasing the working of Hyperledger Cello Blockchain-as-a-Service, which is a BaaS-like blockchain module utility system and toolkit under the Hyperledger project.

The BaaS integration in traditional business provides support around allocation of resources, bandwidth management, data security features, and hosting requirements. The biggest impact of BaaS on business is that the enterprises can concentrate on their main business without thinking of the complexities around blockchain operation.

How Blockchain as a Service is Shaping Businesses

7 Ways to Embrace Blockchain for Business Transformation

Businesses and consumers are willing to adapt blockchain technology. But the operational overhead cost related to development, configuration, operation, and maintenance of infrastructure along with the technical issues act as a barrier. The advantages of blockchain for SMEs, no matter how massive, are very resource intensive and energy consuming – thus preventing the technology’s mass adoption.

Renting a blockchain infrastructure in BaaS allows businesses to acquire the skillset needed for operating the blockchain infrastructure. Additionally, the investment needed for entering the technology segment is also lowered, since the service agreement can be easily scaled up or even terminated within short notice.

It offers a way for businesses to stay at the edge of technology without any unnecessary risks.

BaaS for startups

The opportunities of BaaS for businesses, especially small businesses, is deemed ideal for organizations which outsource the technological aspects, and are not very hands-down involved with the blockchain’s working mechanism. It enables these firms to get the understanding of the technology without having to develop their proprietary blockchain.

The integration of BaaS solutions is being used by a number of industries for things like identity management, supply chain management, and payments. Blockchain development services are emerging as the ideal solution for a number of SME challenges like elimination of middlemen, lack of transparency, etc.

Use cases of Blockchain as a Service for business

  • Document tracking – Blockchain technology offers a distributed, immutable document tracking system. By keeping the documents on blockchain, all the participants are given equal access to the information. Additionally, blockchain technology is immutable, thus ensuring that the documents are secured.
  • Data storage – With the data stored in the decentralised blockchain, the amount of data loss risk is reduced by manifold. The regulated industries like healthcare, real estate, etc benefit a lot from this immutable, secure facility of data storage on blockchain.
  • Contract execution – Under the smart contracts service of blockchain, a platform is provided for the contract execution which promises high transparency levels. Its distributed nature implies that all the parties should be equally informed.

The benefits of Blockchain as a Service lies in the unraveling of the several use cases that are yet to be emerged. It offers enterprises an opportunity to work on those use cases without making any large term commitments. All they would have to do is partner with a blockchain service company and then fully embrace Blockchain’s capabilities.

Now that we have looked into how is blockchain as a service valuable for SMEs and enterprises, let us look into its regional adoption.

The Region Wise Adoption of Blockchain as a Service?

Blockchain-as-a-Service Market | 2020-2027 | Industry Report | Covid Insights

The impact of BaaS on business has led to a huge demand for the service – a sign of which can be seen in the fact how the BaaS market growth is poised to be USD 24.94 Bn by 2027.

The worldwide market of BaaS is big around the US, Mexico and Canada. One prime reason behind this is the presence of SMEs and large businesses operating in the US location along with a willingness to combine the technology with the public utilities services.

Europe has also been seen as the leading BaaS market. One of the major drivers of blockchain and BaaS adoption has been the government support from different countries.

The Asia Pacific (APAC) region is the third-most biggest market for the BaaS integration. Driven by the BaaS integration in traditional businesses and growing investment in Japan, China, and South Korea, the technology is poised to grow in the region.

To take the adoption of blockchain as a service for business further, a number of tech companies have emerged as BaaS providers. Here are a few of them:

The Top Blockchain as a Service Providers

Top Blockchain as a Service Providers

A Look Into the Alternative – Self-hosted Blockchain

Up until this point, we have looked in the BaaS ecosystem and how Blockchain as a Service is influencing the small business, in addition to the list of top providers. While it all suggests that it is a good option to go with this approach, businesses can in fact lose out on the essence of decentralization – the foundation of blockchain fundamentals.

So what is the alternative? The answer is Self-Hosted Blockchain.

When we talk about the Self-Hosted Blockchain app cost, the ownership amount tends to be a lot higher because of the startup costs, retirement costs, and operational costs. Moreover, the amount of developing and deploying a smart contract under this model can amount to up to hundred thousand dollars or more.

In contrast, a blockchain app hosted on cloud as a BaaS offering can be around $0.29 per allocated CPU hour. This means, businesses would only have to pay as they go and only for the service units used.

The costs of the BaaS model vary on factors such as number of concurrent transactions, transaction rate, and the payload size on transactions, etc.

Blockchain vs. Traditional Database: Make a Startup’s Choice

Blockchain vs Traditional Database – Neighbourhood

Blockchain Technology has witnessed phenomenal growth in the last few years and appears to stay on track in gaining enterprise adoption. But while it has covered an appreciable curve of general acceptance, it continues to baffle people conceptually.

Striking similarities between Blockchain and databases makes people wonder “is Blockchain just a database?” Yes, Blockchain is a database that comes with several distinguishable traits. These traits are what lead to the debate of Blockchains versus traditional databases.

Therefore, in this post, we would systematically approach the definitions, similarities, and differences between the two to enable a better understanding of the subject for entrepreneurs and startups looking to explore blockchain.

Table Of Content

  1. What is a Traditional Database?
  2. What is Blockchain?
  3. Defining Blockchain & Traditional Database
  4. Management of Traditional & Blockchain Database
  5. Reasons to Use a Traditional Database
  6. Reasons to Use Blockchain Technology
  7. Closing Thoughts

What is a Traditional Database?

Beyond PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) Blog Why New Database Technology Won't Solve PLM Problems? - Beyond PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) Blog

Data structures are defined as a storage format for efficient management of data. A traditional database is nothing but a data structure, that helps in storing and working with data. Each organization, from a startup to a Government entity, uses databases depending upon the scale and size of their operations. The aspect that makes databases utilitarian, is they allow users to fetch the data. In technical terms, this is referred to as requesting or querying data that is achieved by Structured Query Language, SQL.

The first-ever architecture of databases was based on a hierarchical style that made it possible to collect and store data. But that was just about it. As technology caught on with time, dragging the tide of businesses with it, data became complex. Likewise, analysts wanted databases to interoperate so they could draw better business conclusions. Thus, the database design shifted to a relational model. Today, all you need for an end-to-end data optimizing process is a Database Management System (DBMS).

Databases are no rocket science, in that they are simple tables. Tables are fields (columns) that contain the details regarding the nature of data. Rows are called records.

What is Blockchain? 

Blockchain solutions for supply chain sustainability

Blockchain is a decentral database that acts as a storage for chunks of bundled information called blocks. The reason the blocks are referred to as chains is that each block carries the hashed data of the block added to the ledger before it. This goes back to Genesis, the first-ever block that was mined for bitcoin. A hash is a code that encrypts the transactions in a given block. This code is, essentially, a pointer, a name of sorts, that uniquely identifies a block.

The bitcoin protocol makes it mandatory for every new block to contain the hash of the previous block plus the hash of the block that contains information for newly processed transactions.

But as any blockchain service providers would tell you, finding this new hash isn’t easy. Blockchain technology underpinning bitcoin adjusts hashing difficulty by calculating the total computing power of the network. The more miners there are, the harder it is to find a hash and vice versa. In return for validating blocks and helping run the Blockchain, miners are rewarded with bitcoin.

A. Defining Blockchain & Traditional Database

Defining the Traditional Database Architecture

Traditional databases are based on client-server architecture. Clients are end-users of the service that request access to a particular set of data. This request goes through a server that hosts the database. Open database connectivity is used to establish a communication line between clients and the database.

This line is further secured by the client software that is authenticated up ahead for access. In private databases, access is granted to only those who have valid login credentials and a password. An example could be confidential health records of a hospital. If a database is public and open for all, then a user account is not needed and the data can be accessed from a website. This, in turn, has played a huge role in Blockchain transforming the closed healthcare system.

Defining the Blockchain Architecture

Blockchain Technology has come off age and offers multiple architectural models such as permissioned, private, or hybrid blockchain.

Network nodes are the lifeline of Blockchain technology and they operate on a Peer-to-Peer, P2P, model. Each peer/node can correspond with a second node. There is no superiority or bias between 2 nodes in terms of responsibilities but yes, there could be a difference in total computing resources they possess. Peers of a network ensure the veracity of the Blockchain.

For the transactions to be manipulated either a 51% attack would need to happen (as mentioned above) or multiple peers would have to collude and accept blocks with falsified data. By architecture, Blockchain database technology protocols accept the longest-running, active chain. Therefore, its decentralized administration makes it safe and secure to be trusted and earns it extra points in the matchup of Blockchain vs distributed database.

B. Management of Traditional & Blockchain Database

Managing Traditional Database 

DBMS: An Intro to Database Management Systems – BMC Software | Blogs

Databases support CRUD operations i.e. you can create, read, update, and delete records. Database management is centralized and under the control of an administrator. This individual has the power to modify the database, potentially at will. Their key responsibility is to up the performance and lower database redundancy. As the database expands, so do the daily audits and the corresponding checklist of maintenance tasks.

To aid in this process, a primary administrator can divide his/her tasks and distribute work between multiple users, each assigned a minor task. This could be anything from data entry to modification.

Databases require backup storage as anything could go wrong. Data can be corrupt, servers could crash, and critical information could be lost. In such cases, the files are retrieved from backups. Backing up also allows archiving multiple versions of a database. As an example, consider an address change. Whereas you might contact relevant Government bodies to update “records” and issue you an ID reflecting the same, they will still save a copy of the last address, for record-keeping.

Managing Blockchain 

What Business Problems Do Blockchains Solve? | Formaspace

Blockchain technology decouples administration and divides it amongst all the nodes of the network that ensure it runs with their computing power. Each of the nodes stores a copy of the complete Blockchain. In wanting to change the contents of a block, its hash would have to be changed. Since Blockchain technology automatically revises the difficulty level for hashing a block, a tremendous amount of computing power would be required to change the hash of all the blocks. The only situation where that would be possible is a 51% attack, wherein the rogue actor has more computing power than the majority of the network.

As a result, Blockchain technology is proven to be immutable. Since records can’t be changed, this adds transparency to the architecture. They are also remarkably fault-tolerant as even when a few nodes (computers) are down, the rest of the nodes will ensure a 24/7 uptime.

Since no authoritarian permissions are needed to transact on a Blockchain, this makes them permissionless. Therefore, you can use Blockchain as a database but with the extra convenience of these features.

Reasons to Use a Traditional Database

1.  They are customizable

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In the Blockchain vs database debate, the latter wins hands down in terms of customizable options. Since traditional databases are administered centrally, permissions, privileges, and set-up requirements can be optimized. The relational architecture and backup practices pave the way for a database to be relocated anywhere. Developers can add plugins to the database and improve the front end for customer-centricity.

2.  They are Stable

Data governance and the importance in arguing with data | Qlik Blog

Traditional databases can tolerate high volumes of transactions per second as permissions are centralized and the controls to update data are in the hands of a few. Client-server architecture reduces the dependency on nodes that are substituted by standalone server centers.

Database administrators revert to sharding and shrinking to optimize the speed of the network. In the event of a power outage, downtime, or any other technical glitch resulting in data loss, the backup acts as a default option to reset the last version.

3.  They Deliver Speed

How to deliver speed without losing your customers | TechBeacon

The traditional database design has undergone a lot of upgrades over the years to suit faster delivery times and high-end analytical operations. Big data analytics is a case in point.

Where Does the Traditional Database Lags – Issues That Blockchain can Solve

1.  Ethical Issues

The same centralization of power that provides for the above-mentioned advantages could also be the straw that breaks the camels’ back. Critics of the system suggest moral issues with handing over the data into the hands of a single administrator. There is an ongoing war to monetize data in every which way possible.

An open market for selling data to third-party vendors already thrives. The Cambridge Analytica scandal was an eye-washing experience that brings to light what a centralized database with a single administrator, Facebook, could do.

2.  Contingencies

Considering the case of a single administrator on top of everyone else. What happens if this individual switches to another employer? Knowledge transfers take their jolly good time not to mention the confidentiality agreements. Resetting of passwords, and appointing new administrators is a task in itself. This recruitment is a huge pain in the neck for project stakeholders.

3.  IT issues

 

Every organization needs a database of some kind or the other. The fact that a company stores information in a database doesn’t signify that the database is safe. The entire IT infrastructure needs to be standardized. A single loophole, given the sophistication of hackers, could sabotage enterprise operations. Security analysts must install and operate effective layers to secure traditional databases.

Reasons to Use Blockchain Technology

1.  They are Fault Tolerant

Fault tolerance through optimal workload placement

When debating Blockchain vs database, the former wins comfortably in the department of system preservation. Blockchain technology is highly fault-tolerant. Its uptime is not reliant on a few server centers but hundreds and thousands of nodes that offer processing input to run the system.

In the scenario that a few nodes are turned off, the overall efficiency of the network would remain unchallenged.

2.  They are Secure 

How to secure your website and build trust with your customers - The Business Journals

Blockchain technology is one of the most secure infrastructural investments you can make today, especially when it comes to securing mobile apps using blockchain. Each node on the network is supposed to download a copy of the blockchain for validating new blocks. To change even a single block requires each node to update its copy which in turn requires a self-defeating amount of processing prowess for an adversarial power.

3.  They Offer Transparency

Confessions of a Scrum Master - Being Transparent with "No Offense Taken" — ClearlyAgile - Agile Transformation, Certified Training, DevOps, and Agile Software Development

Provided the Blockchain is public, you can view all the transactions that have ever been recorded on it by simply downloading a copy of the ledger. Unlike a bank, where all the transfers are hidden, Blockchain technology opens the door for critics to fact-check and follow the trail of money in dubious cases.

 

Android or iOS: Mobile Platform App For Startups in 2021

Which Mobile Platform Should Startups Choose in 2021: Android Or iOS? - You Startups

Back in 2008, the iOS App Store was launched with 500 apps. Today that number has skyrocketed to 1.85 million apps that are available for users to download. Android users have a bigger app universe to browse from that consists of over 2.56 million apps available in the Google Play Store. It is safe to say that we are living in the digital era! To prove we are in the digital era, let’s recall the numbers. Did you know that the number of smartphone users worldwide surpasses 3.5 billion? As per the Statista- Smartphone User forecast, it is estimated to further grow by several hundred million in the next few years. There are 7.94 billion devices connected worldwide and this number is more than the number of people in the globe! Hence, there is no denying the fact that mobile applications are an integral part of our daily lives. Keeping the above data in mind, many entrepreneurs are planning to start a mobile app centered business. If you are amongst those businessmen who are looking forward to creating a mobile app, then the first question to address is – which is better among Android vs iOS development?In this article   you will walk through certain factors that will influence your choice, and embibe you with the iOS and Android App Development Platform.

Let’s get right to it.

Apple vs Android: Market Share

Innovative Mobile App Ideas for Successful Startups in 2020 [Updated for 2021]

According to Statista, in 2020 the market share of Android and iOS was 86.6% and 13.4% respectively and these numbers are expected to reach 87.1% for Android and 12.9% for iOS in 2023.

 

Looking into the above graph, you can conclude that Android is a clear winner in the mobile operating system market share worldwide and is expected to remain so in the years to come. It is so because the Android startup apps are the most adopted ones for almost every smartphone vendor other than Apple.

Also, Android is an open source platform that allows and makes it easy for mobile phone manufacturers to add their own look to the operating system.

Apple vs Android: App Downloads

According to Statista Market Forecast 2016–2021, there will be 196 billion annual downloads from Google Play store by 2021, all thanks to growing smartphone and app adoption worldwide.

While from the iOS store there will be 42 billion downloads. Android again wins when it comes to app downloads worldwide and it is expected to enormously grow in the years to come.

 

After reading all the above facts and data  it is highly advisable for you to  make yourself familiar with the process of startup app development.

We have curated a complete guide on apps for startups, with A to Z information about the process of getting your idea live on a mobile application. In this article, we will answer all the questions that every entrepreneur who is new to the app industry might have.

Which Is Better – iOS Or Android?

Android vs iOS development is a never ending debate between software developers. The quest to- Which platform should startups choose has no one word answer. There are solutions that depend on various factors that an entrepreneur should consider before making a decision.

Let’s go through all the factors one by one:

1. Demographics

There is no denying the fact that Android smartphones have a larger demographic than apple users.

Also, there is no denying the fact that Apple is considered a high end device in which users are willing to purchase apps. So, Apple users are generally found in prosperous parts of the world.

For example: The USA is considered among the highest revenue making countries, thus you will find a larger number of iOS users there.

As per the reports by Statista, currently there are more than 113 million iPhone users in the United States, accounting for about 47 percent of all smartphone users in the United States. So if you are targeting the western demographic, I suggest you to hire iphone app developers.

 

2. Fragmentation

In simple words, fragmentation refers to when users are running different versions of a mobile operating system and using different mobile hardware models or mobile devices.

We are aware that iOS devices and their release cycles are controlled by Apple alone. As a result, once a year Apple synchronizes iOS version releases with device releases. Hence, fragmentation issues are less.

However, when we talk about Android, fragmentation issues occur constantly, further making life of the android application developers difficult at the time of testing and quality control. Thus, Android fragmentation increases development cost and maintenance time.

3. Design and development

In terms of designing, Google Material Design has a greater influence on UI and UX. Mobile app developers feel that when it is about coding mobile apps then Swift is a much easier language to start as compared to Java.

However, design and development is one factor that depends less on the platform and more on the skills of your partnered mobile app development company. When you are linked with a brand that has it specialization in the development of both Apple and Android apps, it is of the least matter about which platform requires less developmental efforts as both are done within equal efforts.

Now that we are aware of the factors involved, let us discuss the reasons to go for android startup apps and iphone startup apps separately.

Why Choose Android Startup Apps?

A pop of color and more: updates to Android's brand

You should go with Android first if your audience is not concentrated on any one specific demographic or target audience. Also, if there are a good number of customization elements in your mobile app, go with Android.

Below are the advantages of using Android.

1. Greater user base

Majority of users globally use Android devices as compared to other devices, which gives you a large pool of potential users. Not having an android app for business means losing limitless opportunities and audiences for your product or services.

2. Open source platform

Android is an open-source platform which means Google doesn’t charge any fee for using this platform. Wherein, Google also provides Android app development tools and technology for free to the developers. Thus Android app cost is comparatively lesser than iOS app cost.

So, it is a cost-effective solution for your startup budget.

Hardware device manufacturers such as Samsung, Oppo, Xiaomi, etc., all use Android as their default OS.

3. Customizable apps

Android app development allows the app developers to customize the applications as per the business requirement. This means your business app development will get done with the right requirements and required flexibility which might not have been possible with any other platform. It is always a good idea to hire an android app development company that can help you with your startup app.

4. High ROI

The moment you publish your app on the store, you get a big pool of potential users that you can tap into. Since you have such a wide market to target, the return of investment on your android app would be instant and always on a higher end considering your Android app development cost.

5. Compatibility

One of the biggest advantages of choosing an android app over iOS is that there’s no restriction on devices that is to be used for building an android app. You can build an app on any device, be it Windows desktop, Mac, or the Linux system.

The fact that makes Android a go-to platform for all the sectors with interoperability needs is that it allows you to expand your brand across devices and systems .

We now understand the advantages of choosing android apps. Let’s dig deep and see what are the reasons to go for iOS app development for your startup.

Reasons To Choose iPhone Apps

You should place your startup’s first mobile app on iOS by investing in a sound reputed iOS app development company if you wish to come in the sight of the app store’s target demographics.

Let us discuss the advantages of choosing iOS apps for startups:

1. Security

Security is the utmost requirement for any business because sensitive enterprise data is lodged in apps. Android apps are a big risk when it comes to security while iPhone users are cushioned against hacking and malware. When you compare the iPhone vs Android on the basis of security, iPhone apps protect firmware and software through stringent security measures such as :

  • Integrated data handling systems
  • Measures to prevent duplication of data
  • Measures for loss of security by data encryption

 

2. Revenue

The ones that have a greater ROI than Android apps are the iPhone apps.. The best revenue generation opportunities that you can get from your iOS application development process, is to keep an eye on the mistakes, tips and tricks, and other related information would be a big advantage. You can look for iOS app development services that can help you with your vision.

3. Established customer base

The biggest USP of Apple is its established customer base. Apple is a pioneer in technology and applications. Apple has a well-established niche of its customer base that swear by Apple’s quality and performance and are loyal to the brand. That’s why it is said that once a smartphone user experiences the iOS platform, they will never be satisfied by any other OS and will stick to Apple. 

4. Low fragmentation and testing

As discussed earlier, Apple generally develops just one updation on its existing OS every year. Also, the number of Apple devices are lesser than Android-based ones. Thus, Android apps should be tested comprehensively to get its better functioning on all the versions of Android OS.

On the other hand, iPhone apps just have to meet testing criteria of its previous iOS versions. This constantly reduces testing time and guarantees a rapid time to market for its apps. This also results in saving apple app development cost.

Wrapping Up

After reading the write up you must have understood that there is no right or wrong answer, it all depends on your requirements. We have seen specific scenarios favouring the iOS platform and others suggesting us to go for Android.

By keeping all the above information in mind, you can contact a mobile app development company that will help you build your app without worrying about the operating system.

 

Emerging trends in Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing Growth Shows Promise in Education Sector

Barriers to enterprise adoption of cloud computing including security concerns and regulatory compliance continue to crumble. As new cloud computing capabilities mature, such as support for containers and serverless computing, multi-cloud environments are becoming the platform of choice for innovation and digital transformation.

Cloud computing, a fundamental component of the digital trends affecting businesses today, will continue to grow in 2019, driven by these key trends:

Edge computing is on the rise

What is Edge Computing

The proliferation of IoT devices and the need for organizations to deliver near real-time services based on advanced data analytics is pushing the action out to the network edge. The explosion of data at multiple edge locations has profound implications for data management, hybrid cloud models and digital technologies such as machine learning and AI. Sending data collected at the edge back to a single public cloud or to an enterprise data center for processing is ineffective because companies need to be able to make fast decisions as close to the data sources as possible in order to minimize analytics latency.

Multi-cloud management becomes an imperative

Why Cloud is an essential foundation of successful digital transformation?

In an edge computing world, companies must embrace a multi-cloud strategy in which compute power and analytics capabilities exist in multiple locations but are managed seamlessly across the enterprise landscape so there is no interruption in producing the business results the company needs. Functions such as security, governance and auditing need to run across all platforms, but there are other operations that are better managed within individual clouds, so companies need to sort that out and draw clear lines.

Data management gains new importance

Data management made simple

As data becomes increasingly distributed due to the requirements of edge computing, data management across multiple clouds becomes critical. Companies need to understand where the data is located, who has access to it, and how it needs to be processed throughout the data lifecycle.

Regulatory compliance impacts infrastructure

New CISO first steps | Cloud Raxak

The full ramifications of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) will be felt in 2019 and are expected to have a significant impact on how companies handle and secure data that falls under regulatory scrutiny. This affects edge and cloud data and requires companies to re-think their data management and data control systems. However, the barriers to running highly regulated applications in the cloud are evaporating and many companies are finding they can meet even these tighter compliance and security standards in a multi-cloud environment. 

Data centers continue declines

Data Center as a Service” (DCaaS): The Future of Colocation

As more and more workloads move to the cloud — even crown-jewel, mission-critical applications such ERP software — the pressure builds to close enterprise data centers altogether.  There will always be some workloads that have to run in an on-premises environment. But companies can move those workloads to a co-location facility that features high-speed, low-latency connections to the cloud to maximize data integration, so companies can still shutter their data center without impacting the business. 

Modern operating platform adoption grows

Mature team structures - Cloud Adoption Framework | Microsoft Docs

Organizations that simply lifted and shifted existing applications to the cloud are now taking advantage of maturing approaches like serverless computing and containerization to re-factor their applications for a cloud-native environment. While there is still some apprehension as organizations try to figure out the best way to benefit from these new approaches, companies will see a real payoff in application optimization on these new platforms in 2019. 

DevOps and security merge

What's the foundation of DevOps success? 500 professionals gave us their take - Work Life by Atlassian

Increasingly, security best practices will be codified into the application development tooling pipeline. In a DevSecOps scenario, security is baked into the agile development process via automated systems. On the operations side, companies will benefit from the improved monitoring and increased visibility provided by cloud service companies. In fact, it is difficult to argue today that a small or mid-size company has better security than cloud providers who have made security a top priority. And third-party cloud-based providers will use machine learning to offer security services like threat detection-as-a-service.

High-performance computing moves to the cloud

Nissan Moves to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for High-Performance Computing

There have always been some specialized, high-performance applications that organizations were reluctant to run in the cloud. But cloud providers have built high-performance, GPU-based systems that are now allowing organizations to migrate niche, high-performance applications, thus making it easier to shutter their data centers.

 

Cloud computing was once associated with shadow IT or with apps that could be opportunistically migrated, but in 2019 we will see multi-cloud environments emerging as strategic platforms for driving innovation.

The Most Recent Website Development and Digital Marketing Trends

ETSOFT INDIA- Web Designing | Web Development | Mobile App Development | Digital Marketing Company : Etsoft.in

As the share of online shopping continues to grow, the amount companies spend on website development and digital marketing is increasing by around 30% year on year. Underlying this investment is the need to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market. Companies are using their marketing budgets in a range of ways, from mobile websites to augmented shopping experiences. Here, we’ll look at some of the hottest trends currently having an impact.

1. Data-informed strategies

Data informed research | Amanda Englert

Today, pretty much every major business decision makes use of data and this includes digital marketing plans. It is now commonplace for businesses to integrate market, competitor and customer data and use it to inform their marketing strategies, right down to how they design and manage their website. They use a wide range of data sources to achieve this, including data on online engagement, order fulfilment, purchase history and retail trends.

Integrating this data helps produce more innovative and highly targeted digital marketing strategies that are better able to achieve the specific goals of the organisation and which work best within its operational and financial constraints.

2. Mobile-first websites

Mobile First Web Design | Mobile First Websites

Mobile-first websites are those where the main focus is on the mobile user rather than the computer user. Although this is something which has been pushed by Google and could be of benefit in SERPS ranking, the main reason for building websites for mobile devices is that people are shifting more towards them. In the UK, we already spend twice as much time, per day, using a smartphone to search the web than we do a laptop. This has, unsurprisingly, led to significant growth in the amount we spend when using our phones.

As this trend is set to continue, companies are investing more and more into providing better mobile-friendly sites. It is no longer good enough to simply use a responsive theme if all it does is rejig the layout of a computer-based website for display on a mobile phone. Instead, developers are being asked to produce flatter websites where all elements are more mobile-friendly and which are optimised for quick loading, regardless of the type of internet connection being used. These sites are often single page (using scrolling instead of page to page navigation), have minimalistic, grid or card style designs and feature fewer images.

3. The customer-experience

What is Customer Experience: Strategy, Examples, Tips | Hotjar

Business has become increasingly focused on pleasing the customer over the last few years and this means looking after them at all stages of their dealings with you. To do this, you’ll need to provide personalised experiences that are engaging, simple and rewarding. And more than ever, you’ll need to do this in a way which they find ethical.

This means providing them with tailored content and products, giving them all the information they want in the most accessible of ways (think online chat, FAQs, knowledge bases, how-to videos, etc.) making purchasing and the delivery of goods as simple and convenient as possible (e.g. next day delivery, in-store collection, local pick up points) and rewarding them with customised offers, loyalty bonuses and the like.

4. Omnichannel marketing content

Omnichannel meaning: Definitions and examples of good and bad strategy

Content marketing has become an indispensable element of today’s successful digital marketing strategy. However, in the same way that customer choice has pushed for omnichannel shopping, content marketing strategies must also make use of the wide range of channels that audiences frequent. This means more than simply putting the same information on Facebook and Instagram, it requires a strategy that coordinates content in a way that is consistent, integrated and, above all, seamless across the devices and channels your customers like to use.

5. Building trust

10 steps to building trust that lasts - Nan S. Russell - Municipal World

Modern, highly literate consumers are far less taken in by advertising than they used to be. Every schoolchild is taught the techniques of writing persuasively and so understands the nuances of an advert. Today, therefore, ads are no longer taken at face value and customers are looking for additional social proof before they purchase. This comes in the form of recommendations or social likes by people they know, online customer reviews, independent professional reviews, influencer recommendations and products or services which are featured on reputable sites.

Rather than focus your marketing budget totally on promoting your own company directly to your audience, today, it is important to get others to promote you too. This means building partnerships with other customers, influencers and media organisations and enabling customer reviews about your products or about your business itself.

6. The rise of augmented reality

The Rise of Augmented Reality. The development of augmented reality… | by Vera Ortega and Leopold Gaebler | Medium

Augmented reality has been around for a few years and is beginning to take off in a big way. Essentially, it is a way to use digital technology to provide additional value to customers. For example, there are now apps or website platforms that let customers try products on before they make online purchases. One well-known UK optician has recently put augmented reality to good use by enabling customers to see what their spectacles will look like on their face. Before this, customers had to visit the shop before making a purchase decision, now they can do it online. Estate agents also use augmented reality to give home hunters a virtual tour of a house. No longer relying simply on photos, searchers are given a much-improved understanding of the home’s interior. In this way, those that do go for an on-site visit are already more inclined to put in an offer.

Conclusion

There are many factors influencing how businesses are updating their websites and digital marketing strategies, from advances in technology to shifting patterns in customers’ expectations and browsing behaviours. Hopefully, this post will have shown you what these influences are and the reasons why the trends mentioned here are having such an impact.

Key Concept Extraction from NLP Anthology (Part 2)

Automated Keyword Extraction from Articles using NLP | by Sowmya Vivek | Analytics Vidhya | Medium

Key Concept Extraction: Intelligent Audio Transcript Analytics Extracting Key Phrases for Scaling Industrial NLP Applications

The COVID‐19 pandemic that hit us last year brought a massive cultural shift, causing millions of people across the world to switch to remote work environments overnight and use various collaboration tools and business applications to overcome communication barriers.

However, this generates humongous amounts of data in audio format. Converting this data to text format provides a massive opportunity for businesses to distill meaningful insights.

One of the essential steps for an in-depth analysis of voice data is ‘Key Concept Extraction,’ which determines the business calls’ main topics. Once the identification is accurately completed, it leads to many downstream applications.

One way to extract key concepts is to use Topic Modelling, which is an unsupervised machine learning technique that clusters words into topics by detecting patterns and recurring words. However, it cannot guarantee precise results and may present many transcription errors when converting audio to text.

Let’s glance at the existing toolkits that can be used for topic modelling.

Some Selected Topic Modelling (TM) Toolkits

  • Stanford TMT : It is designed to help social scientists or researchers analyze massive datasets with a significant textual component and monitor word usage.

Stanford Topic Modeling Toolbox

  • VISTopic : It is a hierarchical visual analytics system for analyzing extensive text collections using hierarchical latent tree models.

VISTopic: A visual analytics system for making sense of large document collections using hierarchical topic modeling - ScienceDirect

  • MALLET : It is a Java-based package that includes sophisticated tools for document classification, NLP, TM, information extraction, and clustering for analyzing large amounts of unlabelled text.

MALLET homepage

  • FiveFilters : It is a free software solution that builds a list of the most relevant terms from any given text in JSON format.

fivefilters (FiveFilters.org) · GitHub

  • Gensim : It is an open-source TM toolkit implemented in Python that leverages unstructured digital texts, data streams, and incremental algorithms to extract semantic topics from documents automatically.

GitHub - RaRe-Technologies/gensim: Topic Modelling for Humans

Anteelo’s AI Center of Excellence (AI CoE)

Our AI CoE team has developed a custom solution for key concept extraction that addresses the challenges we discussed above. The whole pipeline can be broken down into four stages, which follow the “high recall to high precision” system design using a combination of rules and state-of-the-art language models like BERT.

Pipeline:

Intro to Automatic Keyphrase Extraction

1) Phrase extraction : The pipeline starts with basic text pre-processing, eliminating redundancies, lowercasing texts, and so on. Next, use specific rules to extract meaningful phrases from the texts.

2) Noise removal: This stage of the pipeline uses the above-extracted phrases to remove noisy phrases based on signals mentioned below:

  • Named Entity Recognition (NER): Certain NER such as quantity, time, and location type that are most likely to be noise for the given task are dropped from the set of phrases.
  • Stop-words: Dynamically generated list of stop words and phrases obtained from casual talk removal [refer to the first blog of the series for details regarding casual talk removal (CTR) module] are used to identify noisy phrases.
  • IDF: IDF values of phrases are used to remove common recurring phrases, which are part of the usual greetings in an audio call.

3) Phrase normalization: After removing the noise, the pipeline proceeds to combine semantically and syntactically similar phrases. To learn phrase embedding, the module uses state-of-the-art BERT language model and domain trained word embeddings. For example, “Price Efficiency Across Enterprise” and “Business-Venture Cost Optimization” will be clubbed together by this pipeline as they essentially mean the same.

4) Phrase ranking: This is the last and final stage of the pipeline, which ranks the final set of phrases using various metadata such as frequency, number of similar phrases, and linguistic POS patterns. These metadata signals are not comprehensive, and other signals may be added based on any additional data present.

The realities of retailers in a COVID-19 world

Covid-19: Pandemic forcing smaller retailers to adopt O2O, social commerce

The Coronavirus outbreak seems to be having an unprecedented effect globally. While brave health workers are confronting the fatal virus head on, business leaders from several service providers are playing an important role in the background. In addition to medicine and healthcare, basic food items are essential. Retailers are working round the clock to ensure that they can deliver essential items in a timely manner. While some retailers are better prepared than the others, most retail management teams are facing a few looming challenges:

Challenges faced by the retailers

2021 Retail Industry Outlook | Deloitte US

  • Logistics disruption caused by city closures due to quarantine process. Employees are unable to come to work due to illness and/or regulatory advisory
  • Supply crunch due to closing of factories. It started with the production break in China. However, the demand for certain categories surged due to panic purchase
  • Lack of E-commerce readiness for retailers.  Many retailers are not e-commerce ready and are not able to deal with the scale where almost all purchases are expected to happen online.

Lessons from the past

Although the Coronavirus outbreak is unprecedented and the impact is on a different scale, we may still learn a few lessons from the recovery pattern of the previous two epidemics and two natural disasters, such as, the SARS outbreak in China in 2003, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011 and the MERS outbreak in South Korea in 2015.

The magnitude of the impact of these events were varied, however, there were similarities with respect to the demand fluctuation patterns during and post crisis for the following three distinct class of products:

  • Staples, fresh food, and other essentials – the demand was very high during crisis and slowly stabilized post crisis
  • Healthcare essentials, disinfectant, hand sanitizers, cleaning products – the demand spiked during crisis and dropped sharply post crisis
  • Clothing, cosmetics, toys – these discretionary spends seemed to dip significantly during the crisis and spiked immediately after the crisis, due to the pent-up demand. The stabilization was gradual.

Retailers can take a lead in helping the community face the crisis and, in the process, build a stronger, long-lasting brand. For example, certain retailers deepened their trust with the consumers by rapidly resuming operations, staying at the forefront during the crisis and demonstrating their commitment towards the community. A case in point is the retail brand Costco , Costco has kept their stores open to supplying food and essential resources to the community. Similarly, Walmart has opened their parking lots for Coronavirus test centers. Walmart is working with restaurants and hospitality groups to hire people who are facing layoffs and furloughs. GameStop implemented changes to their retail operations so that they can continue to provide essential products to their customers that allow them to stay connected and enable better experience while working remotely.

Another long-term change in consumers’ preference was observed with respect to their food habits and lifestyle changes. A large segment of the consumers seemed to prefer fresh healthy food at a convenient price point. Thus, food safety, compliance and brand building were important for retailers to earn consumers’ loyalty.

How can retailers be better prepared

Reports indicate that the online sales increased between 200% -650% YOY in China during end of Jan to Mid Feb in grocery, fresh vegetables, and disinfectant categories.

Retailers need to energize the e-commerce arm and be ready to cater to higher demands.

Overcome supply-chain obstacles

5 Obstacles To Avoid When Synchronizing Your Supply Chain

A significant portion of supplies of consumer products come from China. Some factories in China and other South East Asian markets are partially operational or not operational. In addition, there are government regulations imposed on movement and some cities have been quarantined causing huge transportation disruption. Some of this supply chain impact is inescapable. It may help if retailers assess this challenge by category of products and take necessary steps.

For example,

  •  Monitor the inventory situations at zip code/store/fulfillment centers constantly
  •  Redirect inventory to the worst hit locations
  • Impose restrictions on allowable transaction limits
  • Explore additional suppliers and consider reviewing the existing supplier capacity especially the local ones. These considerations may benefit long-term post crisis period as well
  • For consumer products such as electronics items, inform the consumers about the delay. This may help earn consumers’ trust rather than missing promised date. AliExpress did this prudently to manage consumers expectation

Rebuild AI

How AI and Data Science Can Help Rebuild Lost Treasures Like Notre Dame

The trends and patterns have shifted for some of the key business metrics such as sales, demand, inventory, cost, supply and logistics etc. This means that the decision engines and the AI systems have not observed this trend-shift in the current data before. Hence, their effectiveness will soon be impacted. The AI algorithm should be revisited to account for the new trend.

 Overcome technology challenges

Top Technology Challenges Small Businesses need to Overcome

Most retailers believe that they are equipped with adequate technology to deal with sudden surge in volume. They must validate this understanding by analyzing click-steam data, audits/logs, and call center data to identify technology challenges faced by the visitors and put systematic fixes to drive better experience through-out the purchase journey.

 Follow ethical business practices

Turning An Unethical Business Into An Ethical One » The Culture Supplier

The e-commerce marketplaces allow third-party sellers to sell products. Some of these sellers may spike up the price to make money during this crisis. We have read in the news that 2-ounce hand sanitizers from a well-known national brand was being sold for $400 and masks’ prices were up by 10 times. In the process, the consumers build negative sentiment towards the brand and retailers. Retailers and brands should monitor the prices of their products frequently and take necessary actions against the violators.

Additionally, there are duplicate product “counterfeit” in the market presented as the national brands. The description, texts and images look very similar to the original products. It’s been reported that searches for keywords related to Coronavirus, COVID-19 have increased several thousand percent in giant ecommerce brands on the search engines. This is triggering inappropriate listing of product claiming health benefits and misleading consumers. Retailers and Brands must track inappropriate listings and de-list them as soon as possible.

 Hire additional resource

Weighing Internal vs. External Hires

Retailers need to plan of on-boarding additional resources to enable omni-channel functions. There will be operational challenges that can be dealt with by additional resources in the short-term. For example, calling specific consumer segment that is less used to using technology will help the community, and drive online adoption further. Similarly, manual processes can augment short-term systematic delivery or pick-up challenges. Amazon has announced hiring of additional 100,000 employees, while Walmart is in the process of hiring 150,000 associates.

The loyalty and brand value can be re-established during extreme social stress.  Consumers want the essential products whenever they want at a fair price. And they want to trust the retailers they buy from and product brand they choose to buy. While retailers have been in the forefront helping the communities fight this pandemic, they should focus on building a stronger brand that will ensure sustainable growth once the crisis is over.

Take a first look at the Spark 3.0 Performance Improvements on Databricks

Spark 3.0 is now available in Databricks | element61

On June 18, 2020, Databricks announced the support of Apache Spark 3.0.0 release as part of the new Databricks Runtime 7.0. Interestingly, this year marks Apache Spark’s 10th anniversary as an open-source project. The continued adoption for data processing and ML makes Spark an essential component of any mature data and analytics platform. Spark 3.0.0 release includes 3,400+ patches, designed to bring major improvements in Python and SQL capabilities. Many of our clients are not only keen on utilizing the performance improvements in the latest version of Spark, but also expanding Spark usage for data exploration, discovery, mining, and data processing by different data users.

Key improvements in Spark 3.0.0 that we evaluated:

  • Spark-SQL & Spark Core:
  1. Adaptive Query Optimization
  2. Dynamic Partition Pruning
  3. Join Hints
  4. ANSI SQL Standard Compliance Experimental Mode
  • Python:
  1. Performance improvements for Pandas & Koalas
  2. Python type hints
  3. Addition to Pandas UDF
  4. Bettered Python error handling

SQL Engine Improvements:

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As a developer, I wish the Spark engine was more efficient with:

  • Optimizing the shuffle partitions on its own
  • Choosing the best join strategy
  • Optimizing the skew in joins

As a data architect, I spend considerable time optimizing the issues above as it involves conducting tests on different data volumes and settling on the most optimal solution. Developers have options to optimize by:

  • Reducing shuffle through coalesce or better data distribution
  • Better memory management by specifying the optimum number of executors
  • Improving garbage collection
  • Opting to use join hints to influence the optimizer when the compiler is unable to make a better choice

But, it’s always a daunting task to choose the correct shuffle partitions on varying production data volumes, handle the join performance bottlenecks induced by data skewness, or choosing the right dataset to be broadcasted before the join. Even after many tests, one can’t be sure about the performance as data volumes change over time, and data processing jobs take time, which results in missing the SLAs in Production. Even with optimal design and build combined with multiple test cycles, performance problems may come up in Production workloads, which significantly reduces the overall confidence among IT and the business community.

Spark 3.0.0 has the solutions to many of these issues, courtesy of the Adaptive Query Execution (AQE), dynamic partition pruning, and extending join hint framework. Over the years, Databricks has discovered that over 90% of Spark API calls use DataFrame, Dataset, and SQL APIs along with other libraries optimized by the SQL optimizer. It means that even Python and Scala developers route most of their work through the Spark SQL engine. Hence, it was imperative to improve the SQL Engine and, thus, the 46% focus, as seen in the figure above.

We did a benchmark on a 500GB dataset with AQE, and dynamic partition pruning enabled on 5+1 node Spark cluster with 168GB RAM total. It resulted in a 20% performance improvement of a ‘Filter-Join-GroupBy using four datasets’ and a 50% performance improvement on ‘Cross Join-GroupBy-OrderBy using three datasets.’ On average, we saw an improvement of 1.2x – 1.5x with AQE enabled. A summary of the TPC-DS benchmark for the 3TB dataset can be found here:

Advanced Query Engine

This framework dramatically improves performance and simplifies query tuning by generating a better execution plan at runtime, even if the initial plan is suboptimal due to the loss/inaccuracy of data statistics. Three major contributors to this are:

  • dynamic coalescing shuffle partitions
  • dynamically switching join strategies
  • dynamically optimizing skew joins

Dynamic Partition Pruning

Trino | 11: Dynamic filtering and dynamic partition pruning

Pruning helps the optimizer avoid reading the files (in partitions) that cannot contain the data your transformation is looking for. This optimization framework automatically comes into action when the optimizer cannot identify the partitions that could have skipped at compile time. This works at both the logical and physical plan levels.

Python Related Improvements

Cool New Features in Python 3.8 – Real Python

After SQL, Python is the most commonly used language in Databricks notebooks, and hence it is the focus of Spark 3.0 too. Many Python developers rely on Pandas API for data analysis, but the pain point of Pandas is that it is limited to single-node processing. Spark has been focusing on the Koalas framework, which is an implementation of Pandas API on Spark that can gel well with big data in distributed environments. At present, Koalas covers 80% of the Pandas API. While Koalas is gaining traction, PySpark has also been a hot choice amongst the Python community developers.

Spark 3.0 brings several performance improvements in PySpark, namely –

  1. Pandas APIs with type hints – Introduction of new Python UDF Interface, which takes the help of Python type hints to increase the UDF usage among developers. These are executed by Apache Arrow to facilitate the data exchange between the JVM and Python driver/executor with near-zero (de)serialization cost
  2. Addition to Pandas UDFs and functions API – The release brings two major additions: Iterator UDFs and Map functions, which will help with data prefetching and expensive initialization
  3. Error Handling – This was always the developer town’s talk because of the poor and unfriendly exceptions and stack trace. Spark has taken a major leap to simplify the PySpark exceptions, hide unnecessary stack trace, and make them more Pythonic.

Below are some notable changes being introduced as part of Spark3.0 –

  1. Java 8 prior to version 8u92 support, Python 2 and Python 3 prior to version 3.6 support, and R prior to version 3.4 support is deprecated as of Spark 3.0.0.
  2. Deprecating MLLib – based on RDD, not data frames.
  3. Deep learning capability – Allows Spark to take advantage of GPU hardware if it is available. It also allows TensorFlow on top of Spark to take advantage of GPU hardware.
  4. Better Kubernetes integration – introduces new shuffle service for Spark on Kubernetes that will allow dynamic scale up and down.
  5. Support for binary files – loads the whole binary file into a binary file of a data frame, useful for image processing.
  6. For graph processing, SparkGraph(Morpheus), not GraphX, is the way of the future.
  7. Support for delta lake out of the box and can be used just as it is used, for example, with parquet.

All in all, Databricks fully adopting Spark 3.0.0 helps developers, data analysts, and data scientists through the significant enhancements to SQL and Python. The introduction of Structured Streaming Web UI will help track the aggregated metrics and detailed statistics about the streaming jobs. Significant Spark-SQL performance improvements and ANSI SQL capabilities accelerate the time to insights and improve adoption among the advanced analytics users in any enterprise.

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