One thousand three hundred students from every corner of the United States flocked to Pasadena, California, to talk about businesses they had set up. This is not an influx of young entrepreneurs and new startups in the world, as the businesses are completely virtual. Therefore, their products and services are not real and only virtual money is exchanged.

Organised by Virtual Enterprises International, the conference resembled a trade show, housing numerous virtual businesses offering products such as communications technology or food. The New York City-based group says it helps high school students learn modern business skills such as problem solving, communication and technology. The group stated that the project was inspired by the European tradition of apprenticeships in which students learn from people already working in a business or trade.

During the event, students from Miguel Contreras Business and Tourism School in Los Angeles tried to get customers for their virtual business, Big City Tours. The creators, who got some help from their teacher Darrel Iki, said that their business stands out for providing virtual tours to different parts of Los Angeles, providing customers with a a great guide to the city’s ethnic heritage, take them to see high-end fashion or visit stores.

Meanwhile, students from Century High School in Santa Ana, California, were selling a translation device designed for travellers. According to students and teachers, the experience of creating a business feels very realistic. Students start with a business plan, then they establish a hierarchy and, according to Iki, they learn to work together, having a common goal in a potentially successful business.

Nick Chapman, president and national program director for Virtual Enterprises International, said that students soon realise that operating a business takes a lot of effort and time. They’re running meetings, they’re networking, they’re meeting with professionals, they’re working with mentors, all of the things that are really going to set them apart when they get into college and then move on into their careers, he stated.

Chapman also said that Virtual Enterprise International program welcomes 13,000 students each year. Students seem quite content with this experience and have declared that working on creating their own business will help them in the future when they enter the real world.

One of the students from Century High School, Miguel Santin, stated that while creating this company, it takes strong communication skills to run a company. He also said that he now understands the pressure of running a company. Working in a virtual company called Taste of the World, he was tasked with overseeing employment and digital media for the virtual company.This virtual company was conceived as a subscription service and it sends samples to customers through the mail.

One of the students from Century High School, Miguel Santin, stated that while creating this company, it takes strong communication skills to run a company. He also said that he now understands the pressure of running a company. Working in a virtual company called Taste of the World, he was tasked with overseeing employment and digital media for the virtual company.This virtual company was conceived as a subscription service and it sends samples to customers through the mail.

You really need to be hands on with your employees and make sure you guys have strong communication. Otherwise the company just won’t prosper as much as you would expect.

Teacher Alan Gerston, who helped set up Taste of the World, explained, You sign up for three months, six months, a year, and you receive a snack box with trinkets and information about the company every single month throughout your subscription time.

You would pay within our virtual economy, Gerston said, using virtual money in a web-based simulated bank system, he explained. All the kids in the program have bank accounts…so when they buy something, we give them a receipt, he added.

Stephen Jarvis, from the Elizabeth Learning Centre in Cudahy, California, told VOA that there is a lot to learn. He added, It isn’t just selling something. It’s all the things that go on behind the scenes – creating documents, figuring out if you’re making money or losing money.

Catalina Garcia, a senior who received financial assistance to become a doctor, is a student entrepreneur with the Big City Tours project, and she admitted, It’s helped me a lot because when I was trying to get the scholarship, I went to the interviews, and being in this company has helped me really prepare my presentation skills and be able to talk to other people.

Despite of what she does in the future and even though she will become a doctor rather than an entrepreneur, Garcia is sure that the skills she has gained creating the virtual project will help her in the future.

Digital transformation is the change associated with the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, deeply changing how it operates and delivers value to customers. What it means by transformation is that digital adoption enables new types of innovation and creativity in a certain domain, rather than simply enhancing and supporting traditional methods. According to author Greg Verdino, digital transformation closes the gap between what digital customers already expect and what analog businesses actually deliver.

Digital transformation also entails a cultural change, requiring organisations to constantly challenge the status quo, experience, and get comfortable with failure. Sometimes this means steering the boat away from long-standing business process that companies were built upon to try new practices that are still being tested. Therefore, digital transformation entails questioning traditional methods in favour to new revolutionary practices.

Whether a business is small or a leading corporate, digital transformation (DT) is essential for its survival this day and age. Every study, keynote, panel discussion and report related to how businesses can remain competitive and relevant as the world becomes increasingly digital agrees with this statement, that digital transformation is vital for a business to stay afloat.

Why is digital transformation important?

The most important reason for a business to undergo digital transformation is to survive in the current market. In a contributed article for The Guardian, Howard King said, Businesses don’t transform by choice because it is expensive and risky. Businesses go through transformation when they have failed to evolve,

Meanwhile, CIO of Vanguard, points out, Just look at the S&P 500. In 1958, U.S. corporations remained on that index for an average of 61 years, according to the American Enterprise Foundation. By 2011, it was 18 years. Today, companies are being replaced on the S&P approximately every two weeks. Technology has driven this shift, and companies that want to succeed must understand how to merge technology with strategy.

The IDC research FutureScape: Worldwide Digital Transformation 2018 Predictions stated, By the end of 2019, digital transformation (DX) spending will reach $1.7 trillion worldwide, a 42 percent increase from 2017. This won’t be that easy, however, as IDC’s predictions for CIOs in 2018 report, Through 2019, dragged down by conflicting digital transformation imperatives, ineffective technology innovation, cloud infrastructure transition, and underfunded end-of-life core systems, 75 percent of CIOs and their enterprises will fail to meet all their digital objectives.

What drives digital transformation?

Technology is the main factor propelling digital transformation forward. However, this process also involves ridding the company of outdated processes and legacy technology. In the healthcare industry, for instance, in spite of the popularity of mobile devices among healthcare providers, close to 80 percent of clinicians continue to use hospital-provided pages and 49 percent of those clinicians report they receive patient care-related messages most commonly by pager.

According to research from Forrester, CIOs spend two thirds of their budgets on existing IT concerns, while only one third goes to new projects and innovation. For businesses to evolve this day and age, they must adopt technologies that allow them to boost efficiency. Automation technologies may also enable IT organisations to gain speed and reduce technical debt.

HR and business leaders plea for digital inclusivity

The controversy that has stemmed from Facebook mishandling personal data over the past few years has prompted HR and business leaders to plea organisations to ensure the digital revolution is both inclusive and ethical.

After revelations concerning the alleged misuse of up to 30 million individuals’ profiles fuelled an ongoing debate about digitalisation, CIPD chief executive Peter Cheese we are witnessing a fourth industrial revolution that brought with it new responsibilities. He added he things Facebook personal data issue has triggered a moment that made us realise we need to read the T&Cs and know what’s what.

According to Cheese, there is a large number of the global population are playing out their whole lives on social media without thinking about the consequences. Regulation has a role to play but it will never solve the problem on its own, he added.

Chief executive of Business in the Community said, My plea for digital inclusivity is that we should all fervently pursue humanity in the face of advancing technology.

Cheese agreed that the digital revolution has changed many jobs and stripped the humanity our of business. He said, I strongly believe that we can design jobs that make the best of things for people… that we can upskill and reskill them so that people don’t get excluded.

Whether a business organisation is just starting out or it is already a multinational, it needs valuable data and insights to make the most of its resources and operate strategically. Big Data plays a crucial role for a business to understand its target audience, customers preferences, and even anticipate their needs. For Big Data to help business organisations achieve these goals, it needs to be effectively presented and properly analysed.

What is Big Data?

Now that we now it is important for business organisations and how it can help companies achieve their goals, you might be wondering what big data is. Looking at it simplistically, Big Data is a combination of all the processes and tools used to managing large data sets. Big Data analytics in based on examining vast amounts of data to reveal hidden patterns, correlations and other insights.

The Big Data concept is possible thanks to technology, which enables organisations to analyse their data and get answers from it almost immediately. This process was much slower and less efficient with more traditional business intelligence solutions.

The Big Data concept was conceived due to the need to understand trends, preferences and patterns in the enormous database generated when people interact with different systems and each other. Therefore, Big Data allows business organisations to use analytics to figure out the most valuable customers. It also enables businesses to create new experiences, service and products.

Evolution Big Data analytics

Big Data has become increasingly popular during the past few years. It has become imperative for organisations to understand that they need to capture all the data that streams into their businesses in order to apply analytics and get significant value from it.

The concept of Big Data has been around for years, dating back to the 1950s - decades before anyone used the term big data - businesses were using basic analytics - which consisted of numbers in a spreadsheet that were analyzed manually - to reveal insights and trends.

The novelty of Big Data is that it brings speed, accuracy and efficiency to the table.While in the past a business would have gathered information, run analytics and unearthed information that could be useful for future decisiones, nwo that business can identify insights for immediate decisions. Big Data allows business to work faster and stay agile, which makes them more competitive in this day and age.

The importance of Big Data analytics

Big Data analytics has been vital for many leading companies to outperform the competition as it helps organisations harness their data and use it to identify new opportunities. In this day and age, the data generated is so vast that it needs an automated program to be able to process it effectively. Many organisations, whether they are new entrants or leading companies, depend on data-driven strategies to compete, capture and innovate. From It to healthcare, organisations in many industries are using Big Data to help them achieve their goals.

As Big Data analytics enables organisations to render their data useful and employ it to identify new opportunities, that leads to smarter business moves, more efficient operations, higher profits and happier customers.

Companies use Big Data for many reasons. First of all, they use it to reduce costs when it comes to storing large amounts of data and identifying more efficient ways of doing business. With the speed of Hadoop and in-memory analytics along with the ability to analyze new sources of data, Big Data allows businesses to analyze information immediately and make decisions accordingly. Lastly, Big Data is important to find out customers’ needs through analytics enabling organisations to create products and devise services to satisfy customers’ needs.

Who is using Big Data?

Different type of organisations, across many industries, rely on Big Data to make quick, agile decisions and stay competitive. Here are some of the organisations that use Big Data analytics:

The leisure and travel industry depends on customers’ satisfaction to succeed. That is where Big Data comes to play an important role in this type of organisations’ operations. Companies in this industry, like hotels and casinos, have a short window of opportunity to turn things around when a customer experience goes south, before they start complaining online and damaging the organisation’s reputation, deterring others from using its services. Big Data gives these business the ability to gather customer data, analyse it and identify potential problems before it damages the organisation.

Big Data also allows the healthcare industry to effectively manage large amounts information such as patient records, health plans, insurance information and others. With this ability to analyse large amounts of information, healthcare providers can provide diagnoses or treatment options faster.

An industry survey shows that Scottish business remain optimistic in the face of a fragile economy. This analysis was carried out by the Scottish Chambers of Commerce’s Quarterly Economic Indicator. According to the study, optimism continued to improve during the third quarter of 2017.

The survey was conducted between August 21 and September 14 2017 to which 384 firms responded.

Optimism was higher year on year in certain industries, such as construction, financial and business services, manufacturing and tourism.

The survey, which is a collaboration with the Fraser of Allander Institute, shows that Scottish businesses remain resilient in the face of uncertainty. The study also shows a fragile Scottish economy that continues to grow at below trend levels.

Professor Graeme Roy, of the Institute, however, warned record high employment levels are also causing recruitment difficulties, dampened growth and increased costs.

In a foreword to the report, he said: In such uncertain times, it is even more important that businesses focus on the long-term drivers of growth that they can control - including innovation, investing in productivity improvements, and developing the skills of their workforce.

The weak pound’s effect on foreign holidays lead to tourism being a leading performer over the third quarter of 2017. Meanwhile, retail and wholesale sector continued to decline, which caused alarm in the field. Sales revenue and cash flow continued to decline along with employment trends. Profitability and capacity also declined.

Despite an increase in customer numbers, SCC’s quarterly economic indicator suggested tourism sales revenue fell across the board for the second consecutive quarter. Not only sales revenue fell across the board for the second consecutive quarter, but also investment and employment declined over the quarter.

Therefore, it’s important to have a strong performance in the fourth quarter pre-Christmas period.

The construction sector also gave a poor performance, with optimism falling to its lowest level since the third quarter of 2014. However, in spite of the information gathered by the survey, a quarter of the construction firms who responded said they were hiring staff, although they continued to face recruitment difficulties.

Domestic orders and sales revenues were flat, while firms said their performance had been improved by strong export sales. The manufacturing sector, alternatively, reported booming optimism after a mixed year in 2016.

Anderson Strathern director Neil Amner, also chairman of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce Economic Advisory Group, said: The results in our third quarterly economic indicator of 2017 point to a broadly positive picture for Scottish business.

However, the retail sector in particular continues to show decreasing sales, in addition to cashflow and profitability challenges.

This continues on from our findings in the second quarter which highlighted persistent issues in the retail sector. Levels of inflation have continued to impact on real terms wage growth, which has maintained pressure on household budgets and translated into recurrent challenges for this sector.

The report found broad optimism across Scottish business, especially in the financial and business services sector which displayed strong, positive results. Accordingly, sales and profitability were at their highest levels for several years.

Therefore, the survey is very optimistic, with third quarter optimism levels higher than figures recorded across Q3 2015 and Q3 2016.

Mr Amner added: For many of our industries, recruitment difficulties continue to sit above the long term trend levels, exacerbated by the record high employment figures.

Concerns continue to be raised by our members when it comes to seasonal workers and the attractiveness of the UK to EEA migrants during the uncertainty surrounding the Brexit negotiation process.

Furthermore, members in more traditional industries have highlighted issues in attracting younger workers.

Businesses in sectors such as manufacturing must do more to re-imagine their workplaces to attract future talent, by focusing on increasing autonomy and flexibility in their working practices.

He said that the political situation with Brexit, a general election and moves for a second Scottish independence referendum were creating uncertainty.

He added: "As we approach a general election, we expect the political parties to pledge targeted tax cuts, potentially including a temporary cut in VAT, in order to bolster consumer demand."

Scottish Chambers of Commerce (SCC) found profitability and cash flow continued to be challenging and pressure on prices was high.