The relationship between structured and unstructured data in real time can be analyzed by turning the structured and unstructured data (wide data) into fast data. Origin of a problem can be found by wide data. Quicker decision and analysis can be made by fast data. With the boom of Internet of Things (IoT), new challenges relating to the structured and unstructured data may arise. By turning wide data into fast data we will be able to retrieve massive amounts of data from various sources and then use them to identify and potentially assess their behavior in real-time.
Unstructured data can also be used to meet real-time data demands. When wide data is turned to fast data it opens doors to various opportunities.
Read more at: http://www.tibco.com/blog/2015/07/17/big-datas-companion-wide-data/

Companies are giving importance to their online presence. But, the online presence of any business must attract  prospective buyer. But, how a company communicates is important. Nowadays, marketers use different technologies like marketing automation, content management systems etc. to market themselves. But, still some marketing effort of some companies fails. Columnist Mary Wallace in her article writes about four of the biggest reasons why online presence is failing to drive sales. Read more at: http://marketingland.com/online-presence-failing-4-reasons-138017

Importance of data increases upon the usage of data. It is said that customer relationship management system is only as useful as the quality of the data it contains. Good data or high quality data can provide the most recent picture of a customer. In contrast, bad data i.e. data that are of low quality are incorrect or inconsistent. Good data is important for any company because it provides you with important information and you can use to personalize customer experience, improve customer satisfaction, and gain customer confidence, while bad data interfere with your ability to meet customer needs, therefore creating a divide between you and your customers. They are: decreased confidence; lost opportunities; and missing the big picture. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/3-ways-bad-data-hurt-customer-relationships-69607

Sometimes, marketers find it difficult to attract new customers. But, it is found that there are several ways to attract new customers with the help of CRM software. It is predicted that e-Commerce and CRM will be the fastest growing business applications in the next few years. The key is to maintain a balance between your budget and the need to reach to new customers. But as customer expectations rise, proper investments in CRM systems will help any business. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/updating-your-crm-system-to-maintain-and-gain-customers-69604

Predictive analytics make better use of data. Nowadays, predictive analytics using CRM data deal with anticipating customer behavior. Mobile CRM is playing an important role to deploy predictive analytics. If mobile CRM and predictive analytics are merged, it is required that the right information is sent to the mobile app. It is predicted that in the future, mobile CRM might include the apps that customers use on their mobile devices and it is also predicted that smart devices and mobile CRM apps could listen to conversations that salespeople have with customers, which will in turn produce a pop-up message to the salesperson to recommend a product based on that discussion. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/mobile-crm-considerations-with-predictive-analytics-69606

Authenticity is very important for any brand and it relates to how you are perceived, and how much t potential and existing consumers rust you. But, companies must have a definition for authentic brand. According to author Lucy Rendler-Kaplan, “an authentic brand is one that is relatable, doesn’t seem like a large corporate entity but does business on a personal level, and is one that I feel comfortable spending money on because I feel I can trust in the company and the people that make up the company.” She also suggests few strategies about how to measure where your brand stands. They are:  Don’t be afraid to show your brand’s personality; use images; keep scheduled posts to a minimum; be available; admit when you’re wrong; and tell true stories. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/lucyrk78/2015-08-13/7-ways-build-authentic-brand

According to a research, 60% of people interact with brands through social media. Social media is important nowadays as it is an effective sales tool. It is also an important channel for post-sales support. Hence, social CRM facilitates lead engagement across social channels. It also allows the sales team to track prior communication and follow up with additional information. It also helps in customer communication and also improves customer visibility. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/how-to-use-social-crm-for-sales-68572

Customer Relationship Management is important in any sales department. But, if CRM is integrated with predictive analytics, then it maximizes sales productivity. Predictive analytics take the help of big data to predict customer behavior and they take the help of historical trend to predict customer-specific behavior. It helps the sales department in providing the right customized content at the right time to push leads into conversion. In a nutshell, the sales team benefits from CRM integration by improving productivity and generating leads. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/are-you-coupling-predictive-analytics-with-your-crm-68571

A bad CRM can affect the sales team in many ways. If there is no co-operation between sales and IT departments, it may affect CRM deployment. Poor vendor selection is another reason for CRM failure. If the CRM selected doesn’t work in accordance to the existing sales pipeline, then it may lead to productivity loss. Lack of training resources is another reason for failure in CRM deployment. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/5-ways-a-bad-crm-trips-up-your-sales-team-68540

Social media advertising helps businesses to find new clients. It is estimated that the revenue of social media advertising revenue would reach to $8.4 billion in 2015. Social media advertising targets relevant users before they even begin their search. Every business house uses online advertising, but, after the decline of banner ad, they are searching for alternatives. Nowadays, paid search is gaining importance. Advertisers look up to social networks because of advanced targeting option reliable conversion tracking, and prevalence of mobile devices. Advanced targeting include: Interest targeting, Behavioral or Connection targeting, Custom targeting, and Lookalike targeting. Read more at: http://marketingland.com/social-media-advertising-set-explode-next-3-years-121691

Animated GIFs or Reaction GIFs are gaining popularity nowadays. Animated GIFs are used to express an emotional reaction to something very specific. If any business or brand share animated GIFs that do not belong to you, can create some copyright issues. Alison Zeringue (Team Manager at Search Influence), writes in her article how to use GIFs in Social Media Marketing. They are: 1. Adding personality to your brand can help customers; 2. using animated GIFs in social posting or your website’s blog posts can make your content more viral; 3. Companies can use animated GIFs to highlight the main feature of a company’s products; 4. Animated GIFs can help others understand what it’s like to work with you. Read more at: http://marketingland.com/animate-social-media-marketing-gifs-127152

Paid social advertising is important for any business in today’s world. Paid social channel is worth investing nowadays as it helps in targeting, attractive ad types which includes video ads, better conversion tracking, more flexible bidding, and retargeting. Columnist Scott Rayden in his article writes all about paid social advertising. Read more at: http://marketingland.com/7-things-cmos-need-know-paid-social-137014

Optimization has played an important role in corporate world enabling executives and managers in making best decisions. Using optimization technology and techniques has made day to day business issues easier. Optimization came into play since 20th century with the help of digital computers. Linear programming was the first optimization method used. It enabled analysts to achieve best possible outcome in a given situation. Computing capabilities became affordable enabling companies to use more complex algorithms to handle more ever difficult optimization problem. Optimization analytics is popular among businesses giving them potential to improve performance and create competitive advantage.  Read more at:http://www.smartdatacollective.com/robert-kugel/336864/optimization-analytics-comes-mass-market

Need for Chief Data Officer (CDO) in boardrooms has increased now days. Importance of CDO is same as that of big data in companies, as a person in charge of data team. There has been increase in number of companies who are employing CDOs. At present 43% of executives reported that their firm had appointed CDO, while two years back it was only about 19%. During financial crises in 2008 many companies lost their significant amount of money after their data had been shown completely wrong. That gives rise to Chief Data Officer, a person that can be held responsible for validity of data. He can protect businesses from loss due to crises and also to help appease law makers who were going to require change within reporting and storage of data.  Read more at:

https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/the-evolution-in-the-cdo-role

Nowadays, the only goal of any inbound strategy is to educate the consumers with relevant information. But, the challenge is to figure out how to create content which will be interesting to target audiences. An inbound marketing content to be successful must speak about what the target audience likes the most. Social monitoring also helps companies to create more customers. Columnist John Donnelly III, writes in his article about three ways that social media analytics can transform boring inbound campaign into the dynamic, lead-generating tool. Read more at: http://marketingland.com/social-media-insights-goldmine-inbound-marketers-131015

With tons of data available with marketers to measure the impact of their business, one thing that need to be kept in mind is not to get entangled in measuring everything. Measuring something that does not have the capability to influence your corporate strategy isn’t a good idea. Knowing what your business is trying to achieve and then deciding on marketing metrics is foremost.  Steve Robins, principal of Solution Marketing Strategy, in an article in TechTarget provides the following points of advice to detangle your metrics:
• Separating strategic KPI’s from nonstrategic metrics
• What to measure?
• Operationalizing KPI’s
• Metrics predict the future
• Finally, looking at best practices
For more insights into this piece follow the link:  : http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/feature/Dont-get-tangled-in-marketing-metrics?utm_medium=EM&asrc=EM_NLN_45313060&utm_campaign=20150716_Spend%20management:%20Were%20SAP%27s%20procurement%20acquisitions%20really%20worth%20$15%20billion?_jbiscobing&utm_source=NLN&track=NL-1815&ad=901719&src=901719

Decisions on cloud use and spending involves various business units like engineering team, operations, finance etc. Key to cost cloud cost management is to make all the teams accountable for cloud expenditure. This can be done by putting data in hands of people, enacting policies and evangelizing best practices and finally incentivizing good spending behavior and habits. Michelle Boisvert, executive site editor for searchAWS.com in an article talks about cost conscious culture for managing AWS costs. She further talks about the 5 stages of cost management:
• Create visibility into cloud costs.
• Focus on allocating costs so you know who is responsible for what in the AWS bill.
• Promote efficient behavior to drive down the AWS bill.
• Implement cost saving methods
• Focus on unit cost, not overall cost to understand savings.
For more on this follow the link:  http://searchaws.techtarget.com/news/4500249787/AWS-cloud-cost-management-The-buck-stops-with-you?utm_medium=EM&asrc=EM_NLN_45439492&utm_campaign=20150720_NoSQL%20cloud%20database%20service%20targets%20developers_msargent&utm_source=NLN&track=NL-1839&src=901868

People are increasingly using mobile devices to interact through mobile browsers and apps. As a result mobile analytics is occupying an important position in the analytics world. Jeremy Levy, CEO of Indicative and previously co-founder of Xtify and Meetmoi, in a special guest feature in Inside Big data talks about how mobile analytics is changing and how to navigate in the changed scenario. He believes that the changes in the field of mobile analytics are driven primarily by three factors- access to attribution data, deeplinking and new platforms for some of the largest players in mobile. Again there are 3 factors that will define the success in the changed scenario- 

• Clean attribution

• Tracking deeplinks properly 

• Finally, flexible analytics tools

For more on this hit the link http://insidebigdata.com/2015/07/17/thriving-in-the-new-mobile-analytics-ecosystem/

Big Data appears to be the solution of every problem, especially when it comes to IT. But, one thing we often forget is that the big repository of data is useful only when one is able to generate actionable insights from it. Otherwise, it’s just another stack of data. With organizations becoming increasingly dependent on technology for every aspect of business operations, IT enterprises are finding themselves locked with big data with no useful insights. Raja Mukerji, president of ExtraHop, in an article in Inside Big data talks about IT operation analytics as the most viable solution to this problem and how it has emerged as a framework for a horizontal approach to Big Data in IT. He believes that ITOA will help release useful insights form IT Big data and the horizontal, silo buster approach will transform IT from a mere support system into a strategic business driver. For more on this piece follow the link http://insidebigdata.com/2015/07/18/taking-a-horizontal-approach-to-big-data-for-better-it-and-business-outcomes/

Internet of Things has become the second name for futuristic technology and advancement. Automotive sector has always been the first to absorb sophistication. With increasing propagation of embedded in-vehicle connectivity and smartphone integration platform, connecting automotive technology with phones, watches and computers will be a rage. Connected cars, as we might call them, will be extremely helpful in combating traffic congestion, reducing fuel consumption and road accidents. But, with this huge opportunity comes challenges like affordability, threats like malware, odometer fraud, hacking etc. Todd Franks in a blogpost in CloudTweaks believes that connected cars will definitely be the future of automobile industry. For more insight please click the link http://cloudtweaks.com/2015/07/connected-cars-the-challenges-and-benefits/