A few years ago, the ability to capture and manipulate data was an exciting possibility. Organizations often pulled information from databases, which they would then export into Excel to manipulate and analyze. Today, however, static reporting is no longer enough. Recently there has been a shift in Information Technology from traditional Business Intelligence (BI), where reports are static, to data discovery, where the reports are focused on users, and are dynamic and easy to use.

As Joseph Tis, Senior Vice President, explains, 2013 was an important year for the Sierra Gorda open pit copper mine project. “In February of last year the project budget, valued at $4,000 million was updated. In the months that followed the project went on to complete a consolidated advance of 52.9 percent, reaching 91.2 percent in February 2014.”

The name José Luis Alberto Muñoz Marín is one that is revered in Puerto Rico. Born in February 1898, he was a poet, journalist, politician and statesman, and to this day remains regarded as both the “Father of Modern Puerto Rico” and the “Architect of the Commonwealth”. In 1948 Marín became the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico and went on to spearhead an administration that would become lauded internationally for engineering significant economic, political and social reforms that immensely benefited the territory.

Since founding IOS 22 years ago at Chicoutimi in Québec, Réjean Girard has seen no fewer than four recessions and it's an achievement in itself that, as a service provider to the notoriously cyclic mining industry, the firm has managed to grow through each of them. It has forged a reputation well beyond Québec and Canada as an efficient and innovative operator.

Founded in 2005, its focus being to provide clients with management consulting and IT solutions, CONCIEL has expanded over the subsequent years to become a business tasked with solving its customers’ mission-critical problems through the innovative application of technology and expertise.

The artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector is a catch all classification for a diverse group of people who employ low-tech methods, with little in the way of equipment and no supervision, to extract metals – mainly gold.

It is almost impossible to avoid the messages about the importance of innovation that dominate business magazines, web sites, and conferences. At a most recent Annual Meeting of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, innovation joined “Big Data” and channel disruption as the three themes cited by CEOs, CMOs, and academic experts as most critical to the future success of business-to-business manufacturing firms. That emphasis is nothing new.

The agreement to join forces and respectively reshape their businesses will also see the two firms combining their consumer health units. Novartis will acquire GSK's cancer drugs business for $16 billion and sell its vaccines division, excluding the flu unit, to GSK for $7.1 billion.

In a separate deal, Novartis has agreed to sell its animal health division to Lilly for nearly $5.4bn. The firm said the moves would help it to focus on its key businesses.

The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Vince Cable has his sights set on what he calls 'the darker side of capitalism'. He has announced his intention to create a new public register of company ownership that will reveal the ultimate owners of UK companies, thus making it harder for firms to evade tax or funnel corrupt funds.