Get your data ready for AI with IBM Could Private for Data  

At the Dot Group, we can’t stress enough about the importance of a robust information architecture in order to monetise your data. Artificial Intelligence enabled analytics can provide insights into customer behavior, business operations and offer a humongous opportunity for business to provide personalized/exceptional customer service, reduce the cost of operations and create offerings to beat competition. However, let’s not forget that AI and analytics are only as good the quality of your data.

Cognitive capabilities and hybrid cloud technology are playing an increasing part in how industries utilise their data. Discover how data management platforms are transforming customer care.

As customer expectations rise, so too is the awareness that companies need to meet rising expectations if they want to thrive in today’s marketplace. But while many businesses will admit to prioritising customer service, it can be difficult to make effective decisions in this area without the means of gathering and analysing the data needed to back them up.

The question that gets to the heart of this is: “Are you confident you know what you’ve got lurking around your networks, and where?” However, this risks oversimplifying what is an incredibly versatile business asset. Let’s examine where we are today, and why Discovery is a tool you should be relying on. So what are typical use cases for intelligent discovery software?                                      

How much confidence do you have that you know what’s lurking in the dark corners of your server room, or in that datacenter you only just realised you’re still paying for? What about sensitive data uploaded to a semi-public cloud that really the HR department should have stopped using several years ago? Efficiency savings, regulatory compliance and a tight security posture are all top priorities for any IT leader. But visibility underpins them all. 

Whether you’ve already got a DPO in place, or are still trying to find a candidate with suitable experience, an outsourced DPO-as-a-service is something many SMEs are turning to to fill gaps with parental leave or holiday cover, or in cases where organisations don’t require the services of a full-time professional. Let’s examine a couple of the key reasons people look at this option.

It seems to happen almost weekly nowadays: another massive brand hit by a data breach, with no real understanding of how or when it happened, or how many people are affected. The media - and the information management community - have been waiting for a GDPR test case since the legislation was first dreamt up. We sat down with Simon Parkinson, COO at Dot Group, to talk data maps, asset registers, subject access requests and other tricks that ought to go some way towards keeping you and your organisation out of the headlines!

Subject Access Requests, or SARs, may not be new - they came in under the Data Protection Act in 1998 - but the recently enforced GDPR goes some distance further, cutting the time given to respond to requests, doing away with application fees and famously, hiking fines up to 4% of turnover or €20 million, whichever is higher.

As the average organisation’s IT stack becomes more and more complex, well-delivered IT service management (ITSM) is increasingly mission critical to the business. ITSM gives an IT department a way to improve internal processes, address and understand the individual needs of different business units, provide more value to its customers, and ultimately move the organisation forward. It is usually the primary point of interaction between an IT department and the rest of an organisation, and as such is vital to get right. In this article, we’ll take a look at what’s coming round the corner in service management, and how you can benefit today.