People spend more time on the social media nowadays. So, marketers are targeting their customers on the social media platforms. As a result, organizations having a social media presence are generating greater ROI. Social Media is a new communication channel that presents the combination of communication and information. With the integration of powerful search engines, people use it as a source to search for information. Organizations can also check what people are saying about others. Marketing is about your presence at the place where your potential customers can be present. Salespeople are a source for news for their clients on these social networks. There has been a decrease in the budgets for marketing with the help of social media, without affecting the marketing strategies. Read more about this at: : https://www.siliconrepublic.com/business/2016/02/16/social-media-marketing-investing-roi-imi

Staying up to date with technology is essential. It can determine the success and failure of the business. Technology plays an important role in following ways –

·         Online Presence: Starting or running a business is simply not possible today without an online presence. An effective digital marketing strategy can help immensely in increasing brand awareness.

·         Marketing Strategies: To land more people on your website, you will need content marketing techniques and email outreach campaigns. Moreover a good PPC campaign can help in targeting the right customers without spending too much on marketing.

·         Stay up to date with available technology: Always be equipped with the latest hardware and software in the market to increase your speed and productivity.

·         Stay up to date with software solutions: Solution like cloud computing will save your data online which can be accessed from anywhere at any time.

Read the complete article here: : http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/marketing-strategies/improve-your-business-by-adapting-to-modern-technologies-71423

Digital Transformation has brought a lot of advantages as well as challenges. In the race where everyone is rushing to get digital, customer experience holds the highest priority. Digitization not only affects the internal working structure of the organization, but also affects the customers of the company. Digitization is taking place in every sector. So those who keep themselves isolated from this will be marginalized completely. With the expense of mobile technology, users are getting very comfortable with remote control. The daily access to the digital world has brought a huge change in the customer behavior, so the digital strategy of an organization must be comprehensive. To improve the customer experience, all the departments must be working together. Moreover more the digitization, higher the amount of data. Data must be from the various departments must be integrated through a good communication channel. Read more about it in the article written at: http://blogs.adobe.com/digitaleurope/digital-marketing/pac-study-customer-experience-in-the-digital-age/

From a consumer's perspective brand equity research, usually involves collecting data on consumer mindset. It measures of brand equity from the consumer through surveys. The data is used to assess the consumer’s perceptions towards the brand. From a firm’s perspective brand equity research involves the use of observed market data to assess the brand’s financial value to the firm.

The Net Promoter Score shows how much loyal are the customers. High score of NPS means the growth of the company and how the growth is achieved. Rating a company on the total value the company offers, compared to the total value offered by other suppliers of similar products/services, the Net Value Score is calculated. The benefits are -

1. It enables us to easily compare one company with another in a similar field.

2. NVS measures value and therefore is a good predictor of the likelihood of a company winning or losing market share.

3. Determining the Net Value Score is simple.

Read more about it in the article written by Julia Cupman (VP of B2B International) and Paul Hague (Director):

https://www.b2binternational.com/publications/brand-equity-research/

The stability of financial services in Asia is at stake because of the growing threat of cyber crime. The challenge is the high cost of defending mechanism against low cost cyber-attack ($1million/$1000). These attacks fuels the expansion of the cyber security market with a CAGR of 14.1%, which will be worth $33 million by 2019. Major drivers could be. 1. Financial gain through theft of money or information.  2. Politically motivated attack. And 3. Destructive attack to core business.  Unfortunately, financial sectors in the Middle East and Asia are mostly threatened by cyber threat. So to combat this crime, there must be a community defense model, i.e. sharing of cyber threat info among Financial institutions in an effort to identify and block attacks which are already initiated by US and European companies and followed by Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan & Australia. To read, follow:  http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1912324/asias-financial-services-industry-must-unite-against-threat

For every start-up, customer engagement and promoting their brand is a big challenge. So if your business is in the start-up stage, integration of social media in your CRM will give you enormous opportunities to grow your business.

Social media in CRM aka Social CRM on cloud gives an extra edge to your business as engaging with your target audience will be limitless and creating brand communities which helps in monitoring and analysing customer’s demands will be very easy.

Here are the 5 benefits of having social CRM in your start-up -:

1.      Discover opportunities to engage with customers

2.      Monitor your notifications

3.      Real time updates in your customer contact records

4.      Integrate your marketing software and your contact records

5.      Share customer messages

To read visit on -: http://www.intellika.in/blogs/post/5-benefits-of-social-crm-for-startups

Today world is changing at a rapid speed. Technology is playing an important role. Agriculture technology is also advancing and promises to unleash its productivity. The combination of advanced mathematics, automation, advancements in sensor systems and next-generation plant breeding are setting the stage for the next Green Revolution, which is needed to ensure a better future. Next-generation farms are putting science and technology to work towards delivering a step change in yields and growing more from less. Here are the four most exciting developments in 2016.

1) The Mathematics revolution.

2) The Sensing Revolution.

3) Putting it together with automation.

4) Next generation plant breeding of corn.

Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gmoanswers/2016/01/26/four-technologies-that-will-usher-next-generation-farming/#3cfe147b69f5

The Six Sigma approach makes the work both flexible and focused. Six Sigma training helps entrepreneurs to assess process cycle of operations. The essential factor in entrepreneurship is that they are not afraid of taking risks. Six Sigma practices also help them in business planning. Entrepreneurs also realize that there is a need to move slowly and work on the service models for better consistency. Read more at: http://www.business.com/entrepreneurship/a-new-look-at-entrepreneurship-where-six-sigma-aligns-personality-with-process/

There is a significant shift that has happened in companies from waterfall methodology to agile methodology. Story cards are developed and bundled in milestones. Milestones are great in measuring the progress and determining the scope of the project. Milestones need not to be always set in a fixed time manner like monthly or quarterly. Often gaps are created in milestones to do other projects. A rhythm that can be set up for every Monday is a good option because it will help in getting small incremental changes that will help implementation team. But some point of time weekly cycle appears to be very fast. It is very necessary to determine that what is really feasible to achieve for the team. Read the full article here: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/original-thinking/how-fast-does-your-agile-sprint-71351

Very soon we will be able to connect all our electronic items at home and it will in turn improve our quality of life. It will also turn the business world upside down. DanRadak (Consultant), writes in his article about the new trends in the IOT and how it will affect business efficiency. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/hosting-facts/the-internet-of-things-new-trends-for-business-productivity-71405

Cloud marketing is influencing many industries including marketing. The banner ad and pop up you see online is stored in the cloud. But, marketing cloud also needs to upgrade itself in a few areas. They are – Security, Customer Satisfaction, New Technology, and many more. Read more at - http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/tech-advances-business/5-aspects-of-the-marketing-cloud-that-need-foolproofing-71413

The goal of marketing technology is to deliver "the right message to the right customer or audience at the right time," says Jake Sorofman, research vice president at Gartner. Marketing technology has evolved into a combination of complex software and data. Tools which are used today with marketing technology also create new complexities and difficulties. It can't solve the ad- waste dilemma. This means that the marketing team wastes billions of dollars on digital ads that no one sees. Marketing tech can't tell about the impact an advertisement had about the brand to the viewer. Read the complete article here: http://www.cio.com/article/3024934/marketing/how-and-why-marketing-tech-fails-to-deliver-on-its-promise.html

There is a lot of confusion building around marketing tech and ad tech. Are they same or different? There are minute differences between the two. Let's see what they are. Marketing technology comprises of tools that manage marketing processes, customer analytics, digital content and workflows. It covers all aspects of marketing, SEO, and even ad tech. It is basically the understanding the customer and optimizing data science around them. Programmatic buying and selling of advertisements are referred as ad tech. Both of these technologies also share many similarities. Read the complete article here:  http://www.itworld.com/article/3030325/marketing/what-the-hell-is-the-difference-between-ad-tech-and-marketing-tech.html

CRM software market is growing at an incredible rate. It is estimated that by 2017, the market will grow more than a $36 billion. So, this CRM market will see many providers who will want to improve the software's capabilities on a regular basis, and in turn, the organizations will keep pace with the industry trends. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/why-worry-about-crm-trends-71397

Some volunteers of a nonprofit volunteer outfit are going door to door in Odisha. They are collecting data about schools, health facilities, Panchayat, roads, etc. These data points are being analyzed by a not-for-profit development organization which will use this data and will draft a development plan for Member of Parliament. The idea is to filter the data into meaningful information which will help in reducing the gap between real needs and actions. Some big consultancies are also working together with politicians for the same purpose. Data analytics tools are used to determine demographic profiles and socioeconomic aims. Read the full article here: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2016-02-02/news/70283182_1_data-analytics-tools-prime-minister-narendra-modi

The breakthrough in the mobile innovations that is coming into industry holds many promises for the future of mobile healthcare solutions. The power of technology to monitor patients from distance improves health care in a way that is cost effective and beneficial. To implement such systems the need is to change the thinking of both doctors and the patients. Mobile Healthcare systems keep a constant vigilance on the patient and can collect important data. The data related to the blood pressure, sugar levels and various important factors can be analyzed to make the treatment better. This gives freedom to the patients to complete their works without being tense about their healthcare system. They can remotely access the same. There are projects which are working on mobile healthcare and they have offered promising results.  Read more at: http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/article/harnessing-power-mobile

Want to make your industry more tech oriented? Follow a well-planned strategy and nicely made roadmap. The financial services and the manufacturing industry are adapting technology in their work culture. But the scenario is not the same for natural products industry. The new technical platforms are very critical to the organization's growth. But those who are still not working to make their work easy using technology are at a big loss. To blend Information technology with your work, it is important to have a strategy and a roadmap. A strategy consists of analyzing the current state, benchmarking and collecting recommendations. Then an analysis of the vision and the goals of an organization is required. To make the workforce acquainted with tech, a plan is required. Upgradation can be done only after taking the estimation of budget. Then comes the role of the consultants, they recommend which software or hardware will be most suitable and at what place. To do the same IT people recommend a plan of how and what is required to be done. Read more about it at: http://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/articles/2016/01/information-technology-strategy-and-roadmap.aspx

With the expansion of Analytics, each sector is trying to utilize it to the fullest. By implementing analytics, the managers are able to identify the behaviors that lead to positive outcomes and also identify the problematic areas. Therefore, organizations must develop the best practices that can streamline the work. By applying this to the calls, customers can analyze the customer - agent interactions. So they can identify the most important factors and can even reduce the volume in maximum traffic hours. The advance speech analytics software not only means, evaluates and presents audio and textual data, but also collects information regarding reasons for calls, emotional nuances in a customer's voice and how well agents are addressing a customer's needs and expectations. This even helps them keep a check on their marketing strategies so that it can be altered for the better. These generate very meaningful insights for why a customer needs to contact the support centers and thus exposing the root cause. So this helps in decreasing the average call time and monitoring the resources spent. Read more at : http://customerthink.com/top-5-benefits-of-call-center-speech-analytics-why-your-call-centers-success-depends-on-speech-analytics-solutions/

Every human being is interested to know their chances of getting sick in the future. This is where artificial intelligence scientists steps in. With the combination of machine learning, natural language processing and text analytics scientists are working to find out some latest concepts and technologies in biomedicine. Each term is then given a score, which, based on the technology's analysis, identified its predicted rate of incline. So based on that, few predictions have been made for 2016.  To know more, follow: http://www.science20.com/news_articles/ai_may_tell_us_whats_going_to_be_big_in_science_this_year-165373

Enormous demand of Wi-Fi has led to transmission of billions of bytes of data every day. Researchers have predicted that by 2019 mobile devices will exchange 35 quintillion bytes of information every month. This is just for mobile devices, just consider computers, IOT devices and you can get an idea how much data will be transferred. But our traditional Wi-Fi can't handle this entire load. So scientists have discovered a new technology known as LiFi. It uses light as a means of data transmission. Using LiFi we can send 224 gigabits per second. They can be also used in healthcare facilities. The idea that light can pass through walls can increase security because one has to be physically present in the room to access the data. Read the full article here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/01/12/will-lifi-take-big-data-and-the-internet-of-things-to-a-new-level/#2bceb09c346f