May 20198 IN MY V EWEMERGENCE OF COGNITIVE ENTERPRISESBY AARON TAN, HEAD OF DATA & ANALYTICS, SGXWith the explosion of data, businesses have vast amounts of information to process, and it becomes a challenge to fully leverage the value contained within. Enterprises that are able to harness big data for powering cognitive technologies will become smarter and more data-driven. These Cognitive Enterprises - the ones that use Big Data as eyes and ears into the world - will be able to optimize processes, discover new business opportunities and delight customers.You might ask - What is a Cognitive Enterprise? I define it as an organization that embeds cognitive technologies (like robotic process automation, natural language processing, machine learning, and computer vision) in its day-to-day operations. Cognitive technologies achieve goals by performing or augmenting tasks that traditionally require human intelligence.The Journey from Traditional to CognitiveHow do companies become a Cognitive Enterprise? To answer that, let us first understand the different stages an organization can go through.Traditional Enterprises are defined by manual processes and data siloes. Even though termed "traditional", many such enterprises do exist today. These organizations maintain legacy systems, which are function-centric, rather than customer-focused. Automation is minimal, if not non-existent, and the data silos make it difficult to implement straight-through processing.Automated Enterprises are organizations in which data silos are slightly more broken down, and there are localized data warehouses and lakes. Digitization of data enables basic automation and basic descriptive analytics. For traditional enterprises to get to this stage, the main challenge is not technology, but rather process re-engineering. Getting people to do their jobs in a different manner involves much persuasion, especially when the benefits are more global than localized.Cognitive Enterprises are able to integrate cognitive technologies like machine learning and RPA (robotic process automation) into their operational platforms. Largely driven by enhanced data and analytics capabilities through big data platforms, these enterprises are capable of predictive analytics that help drive decision making. These create a customer-centric and digitally- transformed business.Aaron Tan
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