Though all forms of market intelligence are not helpful to track customer loyalty or his preferences, a centralized intelligence system can bring consumer behavior insights. Intelligence in a market or an army is comparable as in both the cases remote insights bring limited information whereas central intelligence provides a more vast and detailed picture. Having an updated CRM could help tailoring the messages sent to prospective customers and more personalization is possible. It would predict customers’ next move. Read more at : http://www.optimove.com/blog/centralized-intelligence-system-will-win-customer-loyalty-battle 

Banking is that sector of an economy which is very sensitive to changes in worldwide economics events, in a negative or positive way. International banks infuse the required capital and technology into a developing country’s financial system apart from risk sharing. But after 2007 subprime crisis international banks have received some criticism. Therefore some questions regarding trust issue, supervision of these banks by developing nations,  reduced access to SME’s and households and impact of digital technology on international banks have to be answered. Read more at https://blogs.worldbank.org/allaboutfinance/globalization-and-banking 

Earlier VR was within the realm of tech companies and start-ups but nowadays universities are adopting the same technology to teach students and conduct research on the subject. Academicians are engaged in finding the impact of this technology in our lives. VR has made classroom experience memorable with the availability of 360-degree cameras and cheap VR headsets. VR could change the behavior of society as well. Heat maps can be used to analyze the time spent looking at different areas in VR landscape. It is a boon in the field of psychology and journalism. While the students can choose their own experiences through VR field trips, professors have an effective way of teaching. Read more at https://readwrite.com/2017/07/06/universities-defining-future-virtual-reality-dl1/

Database vendor choice is one of the factors affecting the cost of provision of data. Even when licensing pricing is unpredictable we need database pricing to be low and stable. The pricing model can be per storage/ per server or user based where users need to create their separate profiles. Another type of models is in which cost structure have an influence over architecture where customers are not able to get all the expected cloud features such as independently scaling computing and storage. Computing and storage should be priced independently. This works well in case of the seasonality of data where one only has to pay for what he uses. Read more at https://gigaom.com/2017/05/08/know-your-embedded-database-cost/

Location data can be mingled with technology to better manage traffic issues, infrastructure as well as planning city development. CARTO a SaaS platform creates mapping tools that help governments and citizens take smart decisions. For example, in SanDiego, visualizations with the help of data assisted citizens to track the progress of their street repairs. In Finland, reindeers could be detected from reasonable radius which could avert their deaths by car. Similarly, location intelligence could be used for tree plantation in appropriate habitats. Businesses can decide on their investment strategies based on locations and planners could do predictive intelligence in handling traffic. Overall citizens should be a part of development. Read more at https://readwrite.com/2017/07/05/location-intelligence-key-citizen-centric-smart-cities-cl1/

Association with a brand or building relationships is all about how a consumer feels when he is having shopping experience. Emotion AI can be used to find out consumers emotions while shopping and interacting with them. Use of AI in retail stores has received positive responses worldwide. Emotion AI would be more consumer friendly and would add the much-needed personalization to better understand the customers. Opinion mining would help brands to grow and build trust. With the help of traditional methods of consumer feedback, emotion data can provide an overall understanding of consumers. Read more at: https://readwrite.com/2017/07/04/retailers-emotion-ai-online-store-dl1/

Internet of Things is creating a revolutionary technology space and the connected devices are producing an enormous amount of structured and unstructured data which can be analyzed to give insights. Retail stores can with the help of VLC technology store information about the customer and analytics can decipher his buying patterns. IoT connects everything in our daily lives from smart homes to transportation to health which generated huge data. Businesses are able to take timely decisions and can even predict events by analyzing data from IoT. They have gone from reactive to proactive. Read more at https://www.experfy.com/blog/integrating-iot-with-big-data-a-revolutionary-step

Businesses need to keep track with the dynamic environment, changing competitor strategies and its market share to stay ahead. But to do this companies hire analysts or redistribute work among the existing employees. This involves an additional money cost apart from the time taken to select appropriate employees. Also there involves dissemination of information after figuring out its format. Outsourcing a market intelligence service to MI provider such as Sigmaway LLC  would reduce effort and cost of the company where a skilled team of analysts are better able to monitor changing patterns. Read more at: http://www.shiftcentral.com/the-benefits-of-outsourcing-an-mi-service

The Reserve Bank of India has set up small and payments banks in India for fulfilling the aim of financial inclusion in India. Non-Banking Finance Companies, telephone companies, super-market chains and public-sector entities can set up payments banks. Small banks can be promoted by individuals with related experience or companies. NBFC’s and MFI’s can convert themselves into small banks. The main objective of small banks in providing credit to small farmers, micro industries or another unorganized sector. Payment banks provide small savings account and remittance services. These banks are not allowed to lend credit. Services by both these banks are restricted to neighbouring districts though later on they can expand their operations. Read more at: https://www.legistify.com/blogs/view_detail/606-small-payment-banks-future-of-local-banking

With the stress towards financial inclusion by the Indian Government and adoption of online banking and digital payments, a greater need to manage huge data arises which increase revenue and bank’s customers’. Data analytics can manage greater systematic risks. Also, effective engagement with customers is possible with technologies like chatbots. Innovations would attract new customers in a dynamic and competitive environment. Profiling as well as looking at the life cycle of each customer would create opportunities for more avenues of revenue and thereby minimizing risk of defaults. Getting a market overview by means of data analytics would help banks in deciding on their business strategies. Read more at: http://analyticsindiamag.com/data-analytics-expedite-financial-inclusion/

Today’s generation is health conscious and use wearable devices to track their fitness levels. This constantly generates data and we should be able to draw a comparison on different datasets or data collected from various devices. Lumo BodyTech, a fitness related tech company, created a platform (Lumo Motion) to analyse such data. People can monitor, regulate their health and get accurate advice. Lumo Back and Lumo Lift tracks the posture and combined data can be used to learn about the best posture. Even though the progress is limited but with growing number of products joining the platform, data is comparable from a wider range. Read more at: https://readwrite.com/2017/06/28/iot-will-let-you-understand-your-workout-data-better-hl1/

Social listening is all about searching the web for mentions and conversations that are of specific interest and analysing those to gain meaningful insights. Campuses use this marketing tool to create new programs, measure brand awareness etc. Data can be easily assessable and analysts with right sets of tools can analyse the trends. Research analysts at Brandwatch analysed conversations about college search to scrutinize the behaviour of students and parents on their concerns about colleges. They were able to get most frequent words used and also a word cloud showcasing sentiments. Social listening can be used in other areas of campus as well such as selecting academic programs and alumni relations. Read more at: http://www.carnegiecomm.com/blog/the-next-wave-of-market-intelligence-social-listening/

Competition today is much fiercer than competition in yesteryears. In such a world getting a comparative advantage of machine learning would be beneficial. Though in their initial phase data analytics and machine learning faced criticism, the development of data structures and more accessibility helped to minimize criticism. Data is the source of information and the mining right kind of data would lead to significant results. There are four elements of data management, namely hybrid data management, data governance, data science and data analytics. Linking all the departments of a company is necessary to ensure free flow of information and accessibility of data. Read more at: https://readwrite.com/2017/06/21/competitive-advantage-machine-learning-dl1/

After acquiring a customer, the goal of a company is consumer retention through various techniques, namely customer value maximization which would maximize the revenue for the company. Their main aim should be to increase the length of time period they remain loyal to business, frequency of transactions and monetary value of transactions. Maximum value is thus the product of all three. Main characteristics of customer value maximization are customer segmentation, predicting consumer behavior instead of just looking historical data, looking at customer lifetime value and dynamic segmentation. The marketer should know what actions to take on what customers at the right time. Read more at: http://www.optimove.com/blog/maximize-customer-value-smart-way 

LinkedIn is a tool that can be used to build relationships and grow businesses. Dux-Soup , a Chrome plug-in can be used to add tags and make notes and keep track of profiles visited daily. Nimble helps to save contact details on LinkedIn on Nimble account. LeadGrabber Pro is a tool used for web scraping all the information about the customer from LinkedIn and builds a list. Sales Navigator filters the leads that are specific to the industry of the marketer and saves the contact details in business accounts (ABM).These tools would enhance the experience with LinkedIn. Read more at: http://www.razorsocial.com/linkedin-tools/

Mobile phones act as a connecting device between two points of a transaction. One of the features that majority banks do not offer are cardless withdrawals from an ATM .Mobile banking apps can generate code to enable withdrawals and easy access. Mobile banking provides a platform to innovate and explore new sources of revenue by providing offers and services other than traditional ones such as exchange of foreign currencies. Shared finances is another area which can be easily dealt with by using mobile banking services such as splitting up a bill or making payments on another person's behalf. Read more at : http://blogs.forrester.com/peter_wannemacher/17-03-17-which_nifty_mobile_banking_features_is_your_app_missing

The present business environment is volatile and full of uncertainties. Therefore, a need arises to improve efficiency and profitability. Though many organizations rely on traditional techniques, predictive analytics is the new trend of managing risks and monitoring frauds which eliminates all the guesswork. Predictive analytics help us in reaching the source of fraudulent transactions and in dealing with future plausible attacks. Lack of corporate transparency and missing public trust should be dealt with by using advanced tools for managing huge data and ensuring accountability. Predictive analytics helps in building the customer profile to know his credibility which is useful for banks. Read more at : https://blogs.metricstream.com/ready-predictive-analytics-revolution/

A person holds “concentrated equity” when he owns a large portion of company’s stock in various forms such as Employee stock purchase plan, restrictive stock or incentive stock options  and he is an employee of that company. It is imperative to know what type of stock one owns and also its cost basis (cost of acquiring such stock) to know their tax liabilities such as capital gains tax. Each stock has different tax payment structure and liquidity. One also ought to know the key dates. By owning concentrated equity, we are exposed to concentrated risks as well as the opportunity to grow as and when the company grows.  Read more at: http://www.financeandflipflops.com/managing-concentrated-equity-in-company-stock-and-stock-options/

Open data is the data which is easily accessible and is in such a format which can be used by anyone.This data may or may not be free. This data can be made available through the API or pay per use models. This concept was initiated in the 1950’s when World Data Centre system was formed to enhance accessibility. Companies can, with the help of open data, develop applications and improve their products. Government can ensure transparency and efficient use of public money. Open data helps in decision making. The only concern being data security and privacy. Open data should be transferred within the legal boundaries after filtering, which data can be transferred and which cannot be. Read more at: http://analyticsindiamag.com/what-is-open-data-and-where-can-you-find-it/

Traditional methods of procurement of inputs like person hours, capacity and other components are ineffective and costly for the clients. According to output-based pricing model output is pre-determined by the vendor and he’s accountable for achieving that level. There has been reduction in checkout time as analytics solutions for optimization are available to the vendors. Vendors face the overall risk of an outcome and at the same time have a share in profitability. In India, due to unawareness of analytics, companies have not yet adopted the model. Companies in India are unwilling to buy analytics services. A more output based approach can cost-friendly. Read more at:http://analyticsindiamag.com/outcome-driven-pricing-model-analytics-really-work/