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Automation technologies represent a fundamental aspect of any modern industry. The major types of industrial automation solutions, such as DCS, PLC, SCADA, and MES, are used on a large-scale in process and discrete industries.DCS technologie Awhile ago, I got an email from one of the "gurus" I follow and it shocked me. The gist of it was this person wanted to trade services for a household item.To say it floored me would be an understatement.What was worse was a few days later t

Big business is being taken for a very expensive ride. By whom?By each other. Confidence games are being perpetrated by Globalcorporations upon the only victims that can afford huge losses --other Global corporations.How do the crooks get away with this? I submit that it's becoming harder for them to do -- except with each other! Somehow the giantcorporations don't get that other giant corporations are scamming them out of huge amounts of cash for dubious deliverables.CRM (customer relationship management) software costs upwards of $325,000 with additional integration costs of up to $100,000 andaccording to a recent Interactive Week Magazine article,http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2777006,00.htmlthat expensive software is so effective that it triggered a directmail promotion from American Express to a heterosexual man, butthat promotion was targeted at gay men, lesbians and domesticpartners. His wife was as confused as he at the obvious blunder!That interesting vignette comes from the same article.Let's see now, I'm going to pay about a half million dollars sothat my company can offend and confuse my customers. Not a badinvestment! What this means to the consumer is that they mayreceive appropriate advertising and promotional material if thesoftware can draw logical conclusions based on past purchases,inquiries and page visits. A laudable goal if it worked perfectlybut it clearly does not!What it means in reality is that users of datamining software cansend innapropriate promotions to people that may be confused,may be offended and certainly annoyed by their material even whenit was requested, as it was in this case. You've taken a potentialsale and turned it into a blunder. What does that do for lifetimecustomer value? How about return on investment figures with that?I have a hosted application that can provide you incorrect andmixed-up customer data mining which cost only $60,000 yearly tohost for you! I'd sure like to see the ROI (Return on investment)generated by that chunk of change! I also have a bridge for sale.Is it any wonder that corporations are going bust? They're fallingfor scams that rip them off on a huge scale perpetrated by conartists offering data mining, knowledge management, CRM solutions.I'd like to offer up a scenario that might illustrate awful datamining results. I also like to suggest that this is probablyillustrative of why this expensive software might work but isinherently flawed in the conclusions it draws. I visit an online book seller to buy a cookbook for my nephew,who is considering attending a culinary college. The confirmationpage is prompted by the datamining software to display anadvertisement for a recipe site when the purchase is completed,I'm not interested in that so I jump to my favorites and clickon Yahoo, where I notice a banner ad for power tools and recallthat I need a new reversible drill to help repair my patio deck. I click on that banner ad to visit a hardware site and review theinformation on their available drills, then I realize I won't havetime for it to be delivered by tomorrow, which is the weekend andI want to complete those deck repairs before Monday. I'll run downto the hardware store for the drill purchase. But I fill out thecontest entry for the giant tool giveaway before I leave their website.I return to my online book seller the following week to look upa book my wife is interested in about flower gardening and buyit for her. Based on my previous purchase of the cookbook andcombined with this purchase the CRM software figures I enjoycooking and gardening and serves up an ad on the confirmationpage for a Martha Stewart video on vegetable gardening. I'm notinterested in that and jump over to Yahoo to look up the latestsports scores and I'm served an advertisement for barbecue grills.Perfect, I'll order that now and it will arrive by the timewe're ready to enjoy the newly repaired deck for the 4th of July.I click on the ad banner and complete the barbecue purchase. I'mlooking for a way to make the weekend perfect, so to I decide toorder flowers delivered to my wife. When I complete that purchase, I'm served an advertising bannerfor a newly released relationship book. I click on that bannerand end up back at the bookseller site. Their software sees areturn customer that is interested in cooking, flower gardeningand love. At the same time Yahoo sees a customer interested insports thrills, reversible drills and barbecue grills. Now both of those parties, the book seller and Yahoo, have adifferent picture of my surfing and buying habits.The book seller is incorrect because I haven't bought a singlebook that interests me. Yahoo has me pegged, but guess what? Theonly value they have gained is increased ad revenue, which onlybenefits companies that generate huge traffic and createunwavering visitor loyalty. What if I switch my home page to iWonfrom Yahoo?The return on investment is negligible unless the site enjoysrecord-setting traffic levels and commands complete customerloyalty. Who's buying this software? It's bought by globalcorporations. Who's selling? Really smart cookies. Article Tags: Book Seller