Many brands consider social media and content marketing as two different fields with no relation at all. But, what they chose to forget is the fact that social media marketing cannot function without content. Their synergy leads to better engagement on social media and thus, better social media marketing campaigns.

Brett Relander, Founder of Launch & Hustle, in his article on entrepreneur.com gives three tips for bringing social media and content marketing together. They are:

1. A/B test content for effectiveness with your audience
2. Optimize content for specific social media networks
3. Tap your audience for ideas

To understand them in detail, visit the following link:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245306

The field of marketing has gone through many transitions- the Trade Era, the Production Era, the Sales Era, the Marketing Department Era, the Marketing Company Era and last era that was going on is – the Relationship Era. Now again, a transition is taking place and a new era of Experience Marketing has emerged.

This article by Carla Johnson, Founder, Type A Communications, at cmswire.com talks about the need for this type of marketing in this competitive world and how companies are adapting this to enhance customer experience.  

The example of Marriott, the brand that has launched an original content studio that creates content that informs, entertains and adds value to travel lifestyle consumers, shows how building audiences by creating differentiating experiences has now become an important part of marketing.

To summarize, this article emphasizes the need to make content creation a core function of the business and the foundation from which all experiences, across the company, are created.

Read more at:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/digital-marketing/experiences-the-7th-era-of-marketing-028978.php

E-Mail marketing has been into existence since long. On the other hand, social media marketing is doing wonders these days. What will happen if we combine these two mass marketing mediums?

The answer to this question is given in the following article by Thomas Miller at socialmediaweek.com. In this article, the author tells us the reasons why this integration is important and also suggests 8 ways to do so. Some of them are:

• Put social icons in your emails
• Create dedicated email campaign
• Add “Retweet This!” in your email

To know more, visit the following link:

http://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/04/8-skillful-ways-integrate-email-marketing-social-media/

According to Gideon Kimbrell (CEO of InList.com, Founder of Syragon), for developing a successful multi marketing strategy an organization need to follow some steps: • Take a decision with influencers or consultants who have experience. You can also choose social media influencers for posting information.
• Have complete knowledge about your customer’s behavior, which can be used in making marketing strategy and use CRM
• Business earns loyalty by engaging customers, so use high visibility placements.
• Asses your present and potential customers value.
For building a good marketing strategy, an organization needs to focus on the customer. Read more at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245360

Big Data as a Service (BDaaS) means outsourcing various big data functions to the cloud, which includes supply of data, analytical tools to interrogate and analysis the data. Advantages of outsourcing your analytical activities are:

·         Organizations can save money spent on components and infrastructure and time.

·         Storing large quantity of information requires an ongoing investment of time and resources.  But by using BDaaS, organizations can concentrate on business only.

·         When data is stored on a BDaaS service provider server they are responsible for it.

·         Pay only for services you use on the basis of time used or the cost of compliance and data protection.
Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/04/27/big-data-as-a-service-is-next-big-thing/

In today’s world, online presence of business is a must have factor for its success. For this, each business has multiple social media accounts. Management of these social media accounts and thus, social media campaigns by businesses requires alignment of people in correct positions, budget, time and the goals of the organization. This in turn, enhances the output as well as presence of the business.

This article by Linda Philips, social media strategist, on socialmediatoday.com lists out the following must have tools with their benefits that businesses must have to manage their social media accounts efficiently:

• Buffer
• Social Hunt
• BuzzSumo Alerts
• SumAll
• Social Count
• Social Oomph
• Postplanner

To know more, visit the following link:

http://bit.ly/1KmzSW6

There is devastation all around. People are dying, missing and injured. Telephone lines have crashed. This is what Nepal looks like since April 25, when a 7.9 magnitude earthquake had hit the country.

With almost no other means of communication with the outside world, Social Media, served as a lifeline in this tragic earthquake’s aftermath. It had enabled information sharing via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. This has helped people trapped there to get help and people elsewhere to know about the status of their near and dear ones. These websites are also helping to locate people via features like Facebook Safety Check and Google Person Finder.

To know more about how these networking sites have come out as a savior, visit the following link at thehindu.com:

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/social-media-pitches-in-for-nepal-quake-aftermath/article7143425.ece

Procurement officer works in the field of purchasing and focus on reducing costs for purchased material and services and thus ensuring timely delivery of goods and services. But, now their role is becoming more complex. They need to guard the brand name, use sustainable business practices and find innovative ways to develop new products and services. They also need to adopt a holistic strategy. Procurement officers need to establish collaborative outsourcing and service acquisition models and also need to find & nurture the next generation. Read more at: http://www.industryweek.com/procurement/procurement-2025-10-challenges-will-transform-global-sourcing

Change management is a systematic approach while dealing with change, both from the perspective of an organization and on an individual level. For successful change management an organization needs the satisfaction of employees. According to Jeffrey Liker (President, Liker Lead Advisors), most of the organizations are looking for lean transformation and they are facing problem while transforming as they focus in reasoning process. Read more at: http://www.industryweek.com/change-management/change-management-and-lean-transformation

According to Sujan Patel (Contributor), companies before analyzing big data, must understand the company's goals and mission. In a survey by Price Waterhouse Cooper, only 44% of companies feel that they have the right talent to capitalize big data. When any company chooses tool for data analytics, focus should be on team needs and solution and the team must know how to use that tool. Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/sujanpatel/2015/04/22/how-fortune-500-companies-are-building-big-data-teams-and-how-startups-can-too/

According to Brian Sutter (Director of Marketing, Wasp Barcode), small business owner need to think strategically for long term survival. They should know how to use employee's time and skills effectively. Business should use CRM software for accessing customer data and analyze performance and business metrics for spotting pattern and trends. Small business owner need business intelligence tools for quick decision making, analyzing business opportunities and threats and improve management of the business. According to a recent report, 56% of small businesses plan to invest less than 3% of revenue on marketing. But, small organizations should use email marketing for maintaining long term relationship with customers. Read more at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245386

According to David Shulman (CEO of Digital Agency Organic Inc.), nurturing young talent is important. Young talent is important because the investment you make today will pay you in future. There should be a connection between all executives and employees. Juniors also should get a chance to work with senior staff. It's good to have a clear regulatory for employees, but the organization should promote and reward fresh and innovative ideas. Read more at:  http://adage.com/article/agency-viewpoint/effectively-manage-talent-life-cycle/298136/

According to Nicole Fallon (Assistant Editor of Business News Daily, there is a change in technological trends, health care and labor laws. According to Denise Lage (vice president of channel sales and strategic alliances at Condeco Software), generation Z doesn't want the distraction and value being productive and they are different from generation Y and cannot be treated same.  Further Claire Bissot (PHR and HR consulting manager at CBIZ) said that
“HR managers need to engage with staff not in paperwork, but also become real strategic thinkers”. Read more at: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7930-4-big-issues-affecting-tomorrow-s-workplace.html

Agile practices can help companies navigate in this dynamic global economic environment. However, only a few companies are adopting these practices to improve their supply-chain performance and their results show the benefits that they achieve from them.

According to a research conducted by McKinsey of over 250 global companies, across 5 industries, Companies with more agile supply-chain practices had service levels that were seven percentage points higher and inventory levels that were 23 days lower than their less agile peers did.  Those companies did well in areas such as demand forecasting, labor flexibility, and the optimal placement of inventory across distribution networks also.

An example of application of these agile practices is Amazon, which adjusts prices and inventory levels in real time in response to competitors’ moves, among other things.

To get more insights in this subject, read the following article by Raoul Dubeauclard, Kerstin Kubik, and Venu Nagali at mckinsey.com:

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/operations/how_agile_is_your_supply_chain

Insurance Fraud has become a matter of grave concern in Europe. According to Insurance Europe, the European (re)insurance federation, the total from all cases of fraud – both detected and undetected – amounts to 10 percent of overall claims expenditure in Europe.

According to McKinsey, common pitfalls in Fraud Management are:

• Not in the focus of top management
• Limited importance of fraud in operational claims processing
• Insufficient specialization
• Hardly any modern investigation methods
• IT systems that are obsolete or have not been maintained

Insurance companies need to act fast to realize this untapped potential from optimized fraud management as well as to reduce a potential competitive disadvantage compared to other insurers. This can be done in two stages:

1. Putting fraud management on a more professional footing
2. Rallying forces to fight organized fraud

The insurance industry, as a whole, needs to tackle these fraudsters for the interest of all market participants. To know more, read the following article by Thomas Kuhnt, Johannes-Tobias Lorenz, and Michael Müssig at mckinsey.com:

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/financial_services/claims_management_taking_a_determined_stand_against_insurance_fraud

“Augmented reality is an environment in which elements are supplemented by computer-based sensory input.” This technology has now made a comeback and is gaining popularity in many fields. Its new uses are now being explored in strategy, analytics, retail, marketing etc. as it gives the users an experience of how a real world item may look in a particular situation. Ferrari’s Virtual Showroom application is an example of how AR enhances customer’s experience.

This technology can also be seen as a follow-up of following trends which the world is experiencing:

• Mobile Devices
• Internet of Things
• Cloud Computing

Thus, Augmented Reality is now emerging as a useful tool to connect with customers. To know more, read the following article by Pierre DeBois, Founder and Chief Digital Marketing Strategist, Zimana, at cmswire.com

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/analytics/the-latest-reality-on-augmented-reality-028928.php

In the period of 1997-2000, Internet companies had become the favorites of investors. Despite incurring losses, they were highly valued because of their wide scope. This was the dot-com bubble and it burst on 6 April, 2000 with NASDAQ suffering an over $1 trillion loss in market value.

Now, 15 years later, a similar scenario is forming again. This time, it is not just in US, but also in Asia’s third largest economy, India. Tech investors, all over the world are queuing up to invest in Indian e-commerce firms. At the same time, NASDAQ also climbed above 5000 points for the first time since the Dot-Com boom. Rising valuations, massive losses and ambitious promises of future growth are some of the other similarities that can be drawn.

The following article by Shrutika Verma and Mihir Dalar at livemint.com, talks about the e-commerce frenzy in India today and draws its parallels with the Dot-Com Bubble. This article also cautions that this e-commerce boom should not meet the same fate.

Read more at:

http://www.livemint.com/Companies/PKYPXSiOwle8hOkgUi8mpL/Indias-ecommerce-frenzy.html

According to Rick Frascona (senior content manager with MadValorem), digital marketing is one of the parts of real estate marketing strategy. Event-driven marketing and predictive analytics can lower costs of direct mail marketing. A Real estate agent can find customers who have a maximum probability of buying or selling houses with the help of predictive analytics.  According to the National Association of Realtors, 92% of homebuyers in 2014 used the internet to search for homes. Read more at: http://www.inman.com/2015/04/21/can-predictive-analytics-breathe-new-life-into-direct-mail-marketing/

According to McNett (CMRP, Life Cycle Engineering), KPI (key performance indicators) should contain objectives, source, performance criteria and action plan to be effective. KPI helps managers to evaluate a company's performance and spot weak points which need manager's attention. According to Michael Porter (strategy professor at the Harvard Business School), KPI should be related to organizational goals and strategy, so that an organization can have a sustainable growth. Strategic asset management plans help to convert organizational goals into asset management objectives. Asset management functions support the company's goals and objectives. So, KPI helps to achieve organizational asset management objectives. Performance and evaluation of assets not only include technical performance, but also the performance of the physical asset portfolio. Read more at: http://www.industryweek.com/maintenance/monitoring-asset-management-strategy-execution-kpis

Lean Six Sigma eliminates waste of physical resources, time, effort and talent, while assuring quality in production and organizational processes. Research has shown that firms that successfully implement Six Sigma perform better in virtually every business category, including return on sales, return on investment, employment growth, and share price increase.

To know more, read the following article at isixsigma.com, which lists out 8 steps that should be followed to implement “Lean Six Sigma” in an organization:

http://www.isixsigma.com/implementation/success-factors/8-steps-successful-lean-six-sigma-implementation/