Mu Sigma Inc, founded in 2004 is a leading provider of world’s largest analytics and decision science services. The firm,
headquartered in Chicago, IL offers services to more than 125 fortune 500 companies across the globe.

The decision science and big data analytics sector has been witnessing a set of trends predominantly in the areas of Internet of
Things, Machine Data Analytics and Trans- Firewall Analytics.

The Internet of Things and Machine Data analytics: The convergence of interconnected machine data with commercial data is the next frontier in this field. This applies to generated data such as RFID, telemetry data, weblogs, video data and network data. En route to this convergence, there should also be convergence of unstructured and structured data sources.

Trans-firewall Analytics: Organizations want to leverage data not only within their firewalls, but also outside their firewalls, which is referred to as "trans-firewall data." At present, there is an abundance of data outside the firewalls in the form of social media data, location data, weather data, aggregated transaction data, to name a few.
These varieties of data still are largely untapped.

Taking the Industry Forward

In the present times of continuous transformation, the industry is witnessing a shift from prevalence of knowledge-based economy to learning-based economy. Past-knowledge or experience has lost relevance, and effective learning has turned out to be the buzzword.
However, to enable effective learning, organizations need to separate the signals from the noise, by putting an interdisciplinary approach into operation. Nowadays, it is not only about ‘what you know’, but more about ‘what else you know’. For instance, today’s ideal marketer has to be a data scientist, the technology programmer should have a good understanding of aesthetics and design, and the mathematician needs to understand behavioral sciences apart from their respective fields.

The Current Challenges for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs need to develop a long-term vision, it might not necessarily be an easy journey, and your beliefs and convictions could be subjected to testing by multiple stakeholders like investors, employees, and customers. In this scenario, it is vital to have clarity on purpose and stick to the set goal with focus and perseverance. (As told to Anitha)