by Huenei IT Services | Nov 20, 2023 | Infra
In a world full of information, organizations feed on data to make all kinds of decisions. Whether operational or strategic resolutions, decisions on logistics, marketing, or finance, data takes a crucial role in this process. The awareness and use of customer data management systems, management information systems, and big data is growing. But data management is not an easy task. Data is stored and manipulated in databases. We can understand that databases, then, represent a fundamental pillar for companies. A correctly-designed database offers customers admission to crucial information. By following the standards and best practices we’ll discuss in this article, you’ll be able to layout a database graph that works nicely and fits your organization’s needs.
What are the components of databases?
Databases are made up of different elements that give life to the interactions between data. We can identify three major components of a database:
1. On the one hand, tables represent a set of homogeneous data with a defined structure. Data is organized into fields (also known as columns) and records (also called rows). Having different tables within a database can be very useful since its correct administration helps to avoid data redundancy and to optimize processes.
2. As the second fundamental pillar of database management, we must mention the relationships between tables. These relationships are links to one or more tables from a field that they share. This field, generally called a key, can represent an identification that allows recognizing the specific record that each row represents. In this way, it is possible to combine different tables to take advantage of their interrelationships.
3. Last but not least, we have the normalization of databases. It is a necessary process for a database to be used optimally. Thanks to it, we can focus on avoiding data redundancy and guaranteeing their referential integrity. Normalization is the process that allows one table to communicate with another and for the data and information type to be compatible. It can also help us to interconnect different databases to take advantage of their joint management.
The interactions between the tables occur thanks to relational algebra. These are all the logical and mathematical operations that work at the back end of a database management system. It allows us to create a relationship between tables, allowing us to retrieve data efficiently.
Relational Schema and how to design databases.
A relational Schema is a graphical representation that allows a data architect to have a reliable idea of how the database must be organized. It is a super useful graphic in the process of planning the structure of a database. It is made up of the tables, the interactions between them, and the different keys that allow them to be used together.
To build a relational schema, we must indicate the following elements on the graph:
- Each table, represented as an individual rectangle. For example, a company might have one table with product information, one with customer information, one with production costs, one with sales costs, and one with sales information. These five tables could interact in a database.
- Each column of each table, which will be a line within each square. For example, in a table with product information, we might have the following columns: product ID, product name, product brand, product type, product color, and product size.
- The primary keys. This is a column (or set of columns) whose value exists and is unique for every record in a table. Surely, reading the concept of the primary key, you can imagine that a common example is the ID of a product or a customer.
- The foreign keys. These are columns that identify the relationship between tables. Generally, the primary key of one table is used as the foreign key of another. For example, a table with sales information can use the product ID column as a foreign key to look up product information in another table.
- The relationships between the columns, that tell you how much of the data from a foreign key field can be seen in the primary key column of the table that the data is related to.
- The types of relationships:
- One-to-many: one value from a column under a certain table can be found many times in a column from another table.
- One-to-one: each unique value of a column of a table can only appear once in a certain column of another table.
- Many-to-many: there is no restriction on the number of times the values can be repeated.
It seems very complicated, but with a little practice, a developer becomes adept at creating databases using this tool. At Huenei we always structure the databases of our projects using relational schemas, since they help us to enhance the operation of our software products.
As you can see, the correct management of these databases could allow a company to reduce the redundancy and inconsistency of data, reduce the difficulty for interested parties to access them, avoiding data isolation. Additionally, database administration focuses on correcting anomalies in concurrent access, reducing security problems, and also data integrity and consistency.
Relational schemas help software factories achieve smoother and more efficient development!
by Huenei IT Services | Nov 10, 2023 | Outsourcing, Software development
How to scale up your tech startup with software development outsourcing.
The continuous growth of your startup can be both exciting and scary at the same time. This is what all tech companies dream of, but growth does not come easy. If building a tech startup is tough, trying to scale it is even tougher. Startups can’t scale if they don’t get the skills they need.
If you want your business to grow, then you would probably need to grow the number of people working to deliver value to your customers. In the fast-paced world of technology, scaling up may seem like an easy task. You may think you just need to hire a few more developers or keep on adding new UI designers to your team. But scaling up can be a difficult endeavor, especially for startup companies. Let’s explore a better alternative: nearshore software development outsourcing.
Challenges when scaling a business
At Huenei, we worked with over 100 clients, who managed to achieve their desired results in terms of software product development, which helped them increase the value offered to their clients and, consequently, their economic benefit. Having worked with many different startups, we realized there were a lot of challenges when scaling a business. Here are some of the most common hurdles companies (especially startups) face:
- The opportunity cost of not devoting time to scaling your business.
- Not delegating, and leaving a small group of managers overwhelmed with work.
- Not having enough open headcount for hiring.
- Having the wrong focus.
- Not contracting the right service suppliers.
- Underestimating how much work and resources it would take to scale and to keep that growth going.
Hiring staff vs. outsourcing
If you concluded that you need to increase your work team to offer more value to more clients and achieve better business and economic results, you may be overwhelmed.
At first, hiring new collaborators could seem attractive. It is an alternative chosen by many organizations that are committed to building an internal team. On many occasions, this can bring very good results… But the main challenge that arises is the uncertainty regarding the way of working, the results to be achieved, and the associated costs.
On the one hand, when hiring new teams, people do not know each other and may need some time to start working together harmoniously. In addition, these teams will require constant attention and direction from your company’s management. Following this line, you do not know until you have gone through a couple of specific projects if the results will be optimal. Finally, the costs associated with hiring staff are often very high!
Let us share with you some great news: There’s a way to avoid wasting money and resources on developing in-house teams, so a startup can grow without huge investments. It’s more advantageous from a quality point of view, as well as taking into account the associated costs, to contract a company that takes care of development. If you own or work for a tech startup and you need to boost your operations and your services, you can contract nearshore development services. They will dramatically improve your value proposition and boost your strategy.
In today’s market, where outsourcing is so popular, the options and opportunities for tech startups planning to scale are unlike before.
Grow your business with nearshore software development outsourcing
So, you have a growing business, but how can you scale it up into something bigger? There are countless ways to scale up your company, including hiring personnel, partnering with other businesses, and contracting nearshore software development services.
Rapidly growing tech startups still face the same challenges as small ones: how can you grow on results without growing on costs? As a technology entrepreneur or businessperson, at some point, you will need to be able to scale up your team from a small one to a larger one.
As we have discussed above, outsourcing represents great opportunities and benefits for your company. First of all, your product’s development is performed by a team with extensive experience working on a variety of development projects. In addition, this team adapts its agile way of working to the structure, times, and preferences of your organization. Last but not least, you’ll get better, faster, and more cost-effective results than ever before. Why hire a whole team and grow your payroll when you can get better results with a more efficient investment?
In conclusion, it is important to grow your team to scale up your company, but hiring personnel does come at a cost. You will want to consider the tradeoffs and, most likely, conclude that contracting an outsourced service will offer you the same results (or even better ones), also allowing you to make your costs, your times, and your operations more efficient.
Now it is your turn to make a decision. Outsourcing may be the ideal option that your business needs to grow and scale in a hyper-competitive industry such as technology. Don’t let your business goals get away from you.
by Huenei IT Services | Nov 8, 2023 | Process & Management
Decision Making Model for IT Services
A business is determined and guided by the decisions we make and the ones we don’t make. We are faced with tons of decisions every day, although only a few of them are key for our company and end up impacting our business significantly. In order to seek the success of an organization, we need to leverage criteria and a decision-making model that allow us to be objective and decide based on the interests of the company.
But… What is decision making? It is the process of choosing a specific alternative from a more comprehensive set, based on the strategic analysis of information and the evaluation of alternative resolutions. In this sense, we compare different alternatives and courses of action to select the one that we project will translate into better results for the company, in search of organizational efficiency and effectiveness.
How are the decisions characterized?
First, we have to understand that there are times when we know the risk associated with a decision, while in other circumstances it is very difficult to estimate it. In this sense, we can speak of risk, uncertainty and ignorance kinds of decisions.
| Risk Decisions |
Uncertainty Decisions |
Ignorance Decisions |
| It is possible to calculate the risk associated with the decision. The event is known, as well as the chances of success. |
There is a risk but it is difficult to identify it. The event is known, but the probability of success is unknown. |
In this case chance is involved. These are unknown events and therefore unknown probabilities of success. |
Depending on their frequency, decisions are classified as scheduled and unscheduled. Scheduled decisions are those that we make frequently and that, therefore, represent repetitive decisions. To address them, it is advisable to develop rules, policies or procedures that speed up analysis and action. On the other hand, unscheduled decisions are one-off and non-recurring, which is why they are characterized by requiring a customized resolution. It is necessary to address them from more extensive and standardized decision-making processes.
As you may understand, we should try to minimize ignorance decisions. As for decisions that are characterized by being uncertain and unscheduled, we can standardize the process in the way that we will discuss below.
How to handle uncertain and unscheduled decisions.
The decision-making process always begins with a problem, which is understood as a situation in which the desired performance is different from the actual performance. It is relevant to have a complete and concrete definition of the situation, in order to understand our problem in a comprehensive way. In this sense, poorly posed problems are related to the waste of resources, the loss of opportunities and the application of wrong solutions.
Let’s look at a practical example…
Suppose that a company is having problems in the IT area, because the team is having issues with development times, that is, the average development time of its projects is greater than the time stipulated and agreed with the interested areas. To define the problem more specifically, 80% of the projects in the last 6 months took 30% longer than stipulated.
The strategic impediment that this problem represents is that the company begins to present bottlenecks in important areas of its operations. Then, the strategy area of the company defines outsourcing the development service for the most important projects. The challenge now will be to determine which software development service provider will be the best for the job.
- Definition of the criteria to evaluate the alternatives. Criteria refers to the relevant aspects for making a certain decision in particular. When we identify a problem, we must identify the relevant criteria in order to solve it. Continuing with the previous example, the criteria defined are: Cost, Experience, Communication, and Customer reviews.
- Weighting of the criteria. When it comes to weighing, what we do is define which criteria are more important than others, since not all have the same relevance for the company. In this sense, we define a score for each criterion based on its relevance and strategic implication.
- Decision matrix. Finally, for each alternative, we value the criteria and multiply them by the weights. Below you can see a pretty clear example of a decision matrix being used.
Continuing with the previous case, the selected supplier would be Huenei’s Turnkey Projects, since it is the one that can achieve a higher general score, considering the decision criteria.
by Huenei IT Services | May 9, 2023 | Artificial Intelligence
Predictive analytics powered by artificial intelligence have immense potential to revolutionize healthcare and other industries.
By analyzing vast amounts of patient data, AI algorithms can identify individuals at risk for certain diseases and predict which treatments will be most effective for each patient. In this article, we explore how AI-enabled predictive analytics tools can help healthcare organizations achieve key objectives.
Detecting Diseases Earlier
One major healthcare goal is detecting diseases at the earliest stages when they are most treatable. AI predictive analytics support this mission by pinpointing patients likely to develop illnesses based on risk factors in their data. Doctors can then take preventative action with lifestyle changes or early interventions before diseases progress, improving outcomes.
Improving Patient Outcomes
Healthcare aims to enhance patient outcomes. AI predictive analytics support this by forecasting how patients will likely respond to different treatments. Doctors can then customize treatment plans to each patient’s predicted needs, boosting the chances of successful therapies.
Reducing Costs
Lowering healthcare expenses is a constant pursuit. AI predictive analytics curb costs by reducing ineffective therapies. Algorithms analyze patient data to determine optimal treatments, avoiding expensive trial-and-error approaches.
Enabling Personalized Medicine
Precision medicine is rising, with treatments tailored to individuals. AI predictive analytics are key, assessing genetics, lifestyles, and health histories to create personalized plans. This leads to more targeted, effective care.
Boosting Population Health
AI predictive analytics also identify health trends across populations by processing large datasets. Providers can then develop focused interventions to boost community-wide outcomes.
At Huenei, we specialize in ethical, privacy-focused AI development including predictive analytics. Our solutions enable organizations to leverage AI while protecting patient data through strong security policies. Contact us today to explore how our AI expertise can help your healthcare organization pursue vital goals.
by Huenei IT Services | May 6, 2023 | Artificial Intelligence
How can you make a Chat GPT integration with OpenAI models into a software development successfully?
Technology advances by leaps and bounds and provides us with more solutions and possibilities to explore in the world of development, which can take us to unimagined places. The need to be constantly at the forefront of this range of possibilities, leads us to be in training and learning 24/7, which allows us to incorporate new expertise to, for example, integrate OpenAI models within projects with cutting-edge technology, such as a Chat GPT integration.
In this blog post we want to share with you how together with one of our large clients we have managed to implement a concrete business case where we made a Chat GPT integration into a custom software solution.
The objective of the application is to provide a dynamic and flexible training platform for the sales force of a renowned pharmaceutical laboratory, with the ability to obtain online information without the need to perform previous data uploads, saving costs and time.
The software solution, beyond including standard user, group and profile administration functionalities, contains modules related to training management: roles, suggested exams per role, exam form and results tracking per exam, per role and per group.
The important innovation we achieved is the integration with Chat GPT combining two of its main functionalities: Information Search and Text Analysis.
After a series of concept tests carried out by our team of Prompt Engineers together with business specialists on the client’s side to refine the parameters that allow us to obtain information in an accurate, reliable and fair way in terms of the amount of bytes sent and received to optimize costs, we concluded the following:
- We use “Information Search” to obtain online information related to drug types, typical information contained in a drug package insert.
- We use “Text Analysis” to compare the text of the information obtained versus the text of the answer entered by the user and according to the % of accuracy obtained we give a score to his answer.
The sum of your scores will give you a final result that is recorded and will be part of your training record through integration with your LMS (Learn Management System).
The results are amazing with a tremendous positive impact for the client in terms of cost and time due to the high degree of automation of the process for training your sales force.
