AI or Artificial Intelligence is the hottest sector in India with lots of innovation across sectors. With China is leaping ahead in the AI race on many levels (research papers, R&D, investment and even policies) India is only now waking up to the benefits of AI. If India wants to participate in the AI revolution, then it needs a policy that brings together Indian academicians, researchers, labs, private players and investors on the same platform. Read more at: http://analyticsindiamag.com/india-stand-ai-race-vis-vis-china-us-rest-world/

Nowadays, people are not interested to read huge paragraphs of text. Several researches have shown that Internet users have time to read at most 28% of the word displayed on a web page but most of them read only 20%. On the other hand, visual content has the power to hold the attention longer. If you are just browsing on the Internet as a casual user, not reading all the text wouldn't be a problem. But, when you have a responsibility to process information, things are not that simple. Reasons why the brain needs that kind of visualization: i) You need a visual tier to process large volumes of data. ii) Visual data trigger retentive processing. iii) Visual Data Brings Together All Aspects of Memory.    Visual data presentation relates these three memory functions. When we see the information presented in a visually-attractive way, it triggers our sensory memory and makes it easy for us to process it. Read more at: http://www.datavizualization.com/blog/why-your-brain-needs-data-visualization

In today’s business world, the CRM market is becoming specialized. It’s important for CRM developers or administrators to know the CRM vertical market because they will be able to work more efficiently with business users to implement needs changes, updates, maintenance, and security. The second advantage is that they will understand the business concerns quickly and know how to implement the emerging CRM features and tools to market specific use cases. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/the-case-for-vertical-market-crm-skill-sets-76611

The growing potential of big data should incorporate analytics into its strategy to make better and faster decisions. Businesses can use data and analytics to make better decisions by using granular data. New machine learning has a lot of applications and benefits. Systems enabled by machines can provide better benefits. The technologies could generate productivity gains and an improved quality of life, but they carry the risks associated. Industries are getting greatly influenced by data and analytics, and the effects will become more pronounced when it reaches the masses. Organizations that can harness these capabilities will be able to create significant value and differentiate themselves, whereas other people might not be happy with this. Read more at: http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/et-citings/managing-analytics/

A Mass based digital agency Stone Temple collected 5,000 questions to ask both Google Home and Amazon Alexa and discovered that Google Home answered more than three times the amount of questions compared to Amazon Echo (3,383 versus 1,030). Out of all the queries Google Home answered, 2.3 % of the queries it answered were incorrect versus 6.3 % of the Amazon Echo device. So, Google Home seems to be the smarter device. With access to Google's repository, this is often hardly shocking. Amazon Alexa performed well, while apparently not counting on Google for its answers. Read more at: http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-home-versus-amazon-alexa-which-one-is-smarter/

According to Nielson, today 65% of Americans use social networking sites on a regular basis and 66% of people trust online views of different people across the world. Social networking is generally used to do shopping and browsing about things. This article explores the three things that are used by the sales team for taking marketing decisions. They are: 1. To understand your audience: It helps us to know what is being preferred by the people in the market and what to be produced to increase the sales. Using social media gives us a picture in real time of the audiences you are reaching. 2. To spot Trends within Target Segments: It helps to analyze the market grip and strategies of the competing firms and products. 3. To determine the success of marketing campaigns: The data gathered by the social media and social networking sites can be used to analyze the success and failure rate of any of the marketing campaigns. Read more at: https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2017/32108/three-ways-your-marketing-team-needs-to-use-social-insights

These days ancient cities are being modernized by transforming the old technologies and introducing new techniques in an efficient way. This is not only limited to introducing new technologies, but using the old systems in a systematic and organized way, which makes the development and transition cheaper. For example, in Barcelona the old lamp posts are being used as the access points for Wi-Fi signals. Another instance is that previously the city of Barcelona had 108 bus routes which made the traffic and peoples' movement slow and to make it efficient now it has been divided into 28 different lines. So, ancient cities can be modernized just by incorporating the organized and redesigned framework. Read more at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/can-ancient-cities-become-smart

Social media marketing can be used to generate leads and drive growth. According to the author, to survive the present competition, most ecommerce owners influence their target audience through social media. Social media provides a global platform and an effective one. Successful marketing can be ensured by choosing target audience and then choosing social media sites accordingly. Effective content strategy and effectively managing customer service can go a long way. Starting a loyal community to the target audience is also important. Keeping the rivals one step behind requires engaging with potential customers, making social media marketing absolutely necessary. Read more at: http://socialbarrel.com/why-social-media-marketing-matters-in-ecommerce/110855/

We need social listening tools to execute a perfect strategy. Regular social media monitoring is not enough. A social listening tool that informs you whenever your company name is mentioned online and there are many such benefits. Top list of such tools: 1) Brand24: where you can view what people are posting about your company on social media in real-time. You can respond to these comments directly through the Brand24 dashboard. 2) Aware: This is a very effective social listening tool that lets you track real time updates on various websites and track keywords in any language.3) Mention: it too helps to keep track of what people are saying online. Mention provides detailed analytics to help you measure and analyze your results. This includes checking the sentiment impact. The data is presented in the form of easy to understand graphs. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/3-top-social-listening-tools-you-should-use

There are endless lists of applications that leverage networks’ data provide businesses with actionable business intelligence and qualified leads. In small and medium businesses, companies jump into social media through isolated initiatives that are not a part of consistent plan towards a given goal.

Moreover, maximum businesses use social media to amplify customer experiences with their products beyond the moment they’re being used.

The extent of how this is happening in specific businesses depends on the priority social networks have been given at strategic level and on the basis of teams, tools and processes that have been put in place to accomplish this.

This changes the way businesses connect with each other, just like social networks made for individuals before them.

Read more at : http://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/tools-and-tips/social-networking-tips/

Making social media contents attractive is a not a difficult task. It just requires certain techniques. According to the author, the headline and the first ten words are important. Quirky verbs, uncanny twists and surprising examples can do the trick. Keeping readers engaged after attracting their attention requires simple stories describing certain events that transform the protagonists of the stories. Another important factor is an implicit story structure. Specific details should be used to deliver the message. Authenticity and stories reflecting the vision of the company are the key elements to draw and sustain customer attention. Read more at : https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/273733

An ESOP (employment share ownership program) is an entity created by an employer to hold securities for the benefit if its employees. Here the employer sets up ESOP entity so that each company employee receives a membership share from the entity. The income earned from ESOPs has tax advantages as it falls under capital income. The ESOP scheme provides flexibility as it incorporates securities of parent company along with its employer securities. Although ESOP is a lucrative scheme for payments it has some pitfalls. Remuneration policy and contracts need to be framed.To ensure unwarranted discrimination or to avoid any restriction on the owners' decision-making rights. An ESOP is not an alternative channel for regular salary payments rather, it's a vehicle for payments of bonuses and other awards. Read more at https://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=43423 

Social media has brought revolution in the field of marketing and business. By incorporating social media into business, it helps marketers to keep up with users demand and continuously improving their enhancements and improvement to make their relevance in the marketing world. There are more than 2 billion advertisers who use Facebook as a media platform to market their business. Marketing through social media is much more cost effective as compared to traditional marketing models which requires a size able budget for printing brochures or hiring people. It also gives the brands an exposure to expand its fan base through regular interactions with followers and working on the feedback. Expansion of social networking in business gives opportunity to corporations of all sizes to build a strong network of loyal customers by providing efficient and cost -effective networking and communication. Read more at http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/3-awesome-reasons-why-businesses-need-social-media

Management's responsibility must be met instead of hierarchical reporting. Organization should be redefined and opportunities must be addressed. Most improvement opportunities are directly related to deficient business processes and organization silos. Without a strong business process structure, it is nearly impossible to improve performance. There are 12 Business Systems in any organization which are a collection of business processes that align to deliver the goals of the system. A business process transforms the input by value addition into the output. All business transactions take place through business processes that connect in a series to form Business Systems. We typically find somewhere between 8-16 business processes per Business System. A key to performance improvement is to tackle the silos created by traditional organization structures. Read more at: http://www.businessmapping.com/blog/eliminate-organization-silos/

Budapest-based Hungarian start-up UXstudio has created a chatbot called Nuru. The app can help smartphone users in Kenya and Ghana in four different ways: agriculture, classified ads, finances, and healthcare. Ghanan start-up Esoko offers text-based market price information for farmers, so they can sell their crops at a fair price. The Kenyan TotoHealth service helps women with text message notifications and advice during their pregnancy. Nuru will ask you whether you have seen a doctor and If you have not seen one, it can suggest doctors in your area. If the user asks for job suggestions, the app will list all the opportunities nearby.

Since chatbots work like the current services already in use in Africa, the technology can streamline solving day-to-day problems and make information more accessible for users. Read more at : http://www.zdnet.com/article/nuru-ai-chatbot-helps-to-solve-day-to-day-problems-in-africa/

A virtual private network (VPN) is a network that is constructed using public wires - usually the Internet - to connect to a private network, such as a company's internal network. There are several ways how business benefits from VPN implementation. First, regarding defense against malware, a VPN can be installed in unprotected office devices to keep the communications private, secured and anonymous, i.e. it improves security. The VPN service enables role-based access to data, meaning, it enables one to limit sensitive data flow to only the authorized personnel. Third VPN helps to go anonymous online so that internet censorship can be bypassed and foreign contents can be accessed. The anonymity quotient also means a robust wall against the hackers as no longer they would be able to track the actual IP. Fourth, a VPN can remote access to vital data this way, one can assure the smooth reach to mission-critical business data. And finally, VPN services assure low maintenance costs post implementation. Although there is no dearth of VPN service providers today, yet not all would be perfectly compatible. Read more at: http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/how-does-vpn-can-help-your-business

Data Lake helps data scientists by reducing their time taken to gather data and start their real work of data analysis. Copying data physically to one centralized environment may be problematic because storing big data can be costly, copying of data can be prohibited. Metadata describing the data is commonly not copied along with the data and therefore not available to the data scientists. Also, technical and organizational management of a data lake is required. Since data scientists ask for easy and quick data access, a more practical solution to it is a logical data lake. A logical data lake, hides where the data is physically stored and whether it has been copied or not. Logical data lakes can be developed with data virtualization servers such as the Denodo Platform. While, copying and physically storing the data twice is the default approach for the physical data lake, it's optional for the logical data lake. It offers access to data without copying if required and to copy data when needed.  Thus, logical data lake is a better solution for data scientists. Read more at: http://www.datavirtualizationblog.com/data-scientists-physical-data-lakes/

Data visualization refers to the techniques used to communicate data or information by encoding it as visual objects (e.g., points, lines or bars) contained in graphics. Visualization of data helps in finding specific information, like tracing data correlations by presenting the data in graphic form, and noticing how one set of data influences another. Also, by live interaction with data one can spot the changes in the data as it happens and get a predictive analysis. Data visualization enables one to not only see the information, but also to know the reasons behind it. With predictive analysis, the behavior of the trends in the future can be predicted. Thus, data visualization tools have become a necessity in modern data analysis. Read more at: http://www.datavizualization.com/blog/the-top-5-benefits-of-using-data-visualization

Enterprising value(EV) is a better measure of a firm's real market value than market capitalization as it takes debts and cash reserves into account. Market capitalization does not give a clear idea of the amount an investor needs to buy a firm. If a firm has cash reserves, the buyer is incurring lesser costs than the amount he is paying and it is opposite when the firm has debts. EV is the sum of a firm's market capitalization and its net debt. The drawback of EV is that it does not consider the interest costs and income over time. So EBIT is necessary despite the fact that EV gives a rough idea of the true value of a firm. Read more at: http://value-picks.blogspot.in/2017/05/using-enterprise-value-to-compare.html?m=1

According to the author, there has been an increase in global workforce turnovers. Recruiting and retaining skilled employees with high potential is a challenge nowadays. According to statistics, about 87% of the companies are considering redesigning their talent management programs. The best human capital management programs are strategy driven and try to accommodate the following trends. 1. Widespread globalised population. 2. Shifting Demographics. 3. Increased burdens on HRs, which can be relieved by integrating systems and functions .4. Increasing compliance requirements. 5. Increased cost, which may arise due to inability to acquire and retain key talent. Read more at https://www.adp.com/spark/articles/5-trends-that-will-redefine-human-capital-management-7-205