SigmaWay Blog

Business intelligence provides you a greater customer insight and predictability on a product life cycle. But such digitalization has also some disputes as well. Most people around the world are tech savvy and surfing for a new product with better features. Analytics is growing at a fast pace and is creating a backlog. Day to day new product launch is providing zero visibility on upcoming product life cycle. Removing backlogs to smart productivity as per customer's likability is the new trend of business analytics. So there are challenges like cost, security and infrastructure, availability of skilled professionals. So overcoming challenges in BI and complete leverage on it is the new mantra for business empowerment.

To read, follow: http://www.business-standard.com/article/management/the-challenges-of-business-intelligence-116041000615_1.html

In this digital world at every touch point huge amount of data is being created in seconds that tells us about the needs & wants of consumer. The capability to extract valuable insights from the huge data poses a critical challenge for any modern organization. It has become an more & more important to efficiently & effectively ( both in terms time & labor) to  conduct data mining and extract valuable information out of big data to meet the strategic objective of an organization. In this paper MAS (multiple agent system) concept is being introduced to extract value data from CRM aspect. It also gives us a 3 point model to extract out potential valuable data to manage CRM optimally.Read full article at =_blankhttp://www.csroc.org.tw/journal/JOC26_4/JOC26-4-7.pdf

Retailers and most of the brick and mortar shops store their customer's data to understand their buying and transaction behavior. Some obscure data point that may help them become more knowledgeable about their customers. However, hidden from these in-store shopper analytics are all of the transactions their customers make outside their stores with competitors. In recent past, there are many switching of preference to online one. But this up growing online marketing basically picking the flaws of customers' real time analysis in case of brick and mortar shops. So it's high time to either integrate or dig into flawless marketing analytics.

To read, follow: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesinsights/2016/04/27/the-hidden-danger-in-brick-and-mortar-customer-files-amazon-prime-members/#69beabd83681

Every financial and social interaction includes credit information, current & past borrowing behaviors and the ups & downs of a company's cash flow. Nowadays, business owner obtains an alternative loan based on data stream which is easier. Lenders look at many things when assessing the total collection of data from a business:

• Marketing data

• Omni-channel content creation and 

• Social media activity, content, shares and interactions

These factors will help in creating opportunities for short term loans and other types of business lending. 

For more read the article written by Sean Mallon ( Blogger) : http://www.smartdatacollective.com/seanmallonbizdaquk/398935/can-big-data-help-your-business-get-funding

Previously, CRM was unable to provide insightful data on customer behavior. The Internet of Things (a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people that are provided with unique identifier) changed the scenario. The CRM providers have been inspired by IoT and they are successful to improve the customer relationship and meet customers' needs. This new trend is known as CRM of Things. It creates new marketing opportunities for businesses, and helps to improve customer service. Read more at written by Inside-CRM : http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/how-crm-can-benefit-from-the-internet-of-things-71582

The goal of customer-centric CRM is to improve customer value. Every customer is unique and their needs are also different. Organizations should customize their services and products according to customer needs, for gaining customer loyalty. A customer's contribution towards the net profit of a company determines the customer value. Customer loyalty is the most important thing for any company. Surveys will them to measure loyalty. Customer identification and prioritization is also important as it helps to identify customers that provide the most value. There should be well-planned strategies for customer acquisition and retention. Customer-centric CRM can improve revenue, decrease costs and enhance the customer experience of a company. For more read article written by Inside-CRM : http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/crm-and-the-concept-of-customer-centricity-71614

Some of the pros for executing data driven marketing efficiently are:-

1. Joint collaboration with IT department and marketing team is the key to achieve efficiency.

2. Hiring an industry analyst, professor or data scientist to review the data before publishing is necessary to check accuracy.

3. Planning the data collect and analysis before starting the project will help immensely.

4. It is important to focus on what the data means and what are its implications.

5. In order to increase exposures create strong relations with media and analyst (to find out what kind of data suits best for them) before publishing the data.

6. Company should decide whether they want to invest in product growth or data marketing.

7. If the company doesn't have data they don’t need to invest in costly data gathering procedures. Inexpensive tools are easily available.

To know more, read article by James A. Martin on the link : http://www.cio.com/article/3052442/marketing/how-to-do-data-driven-marketing-right.html?page=2

 Lee Sedol, The champion Go player, ranked 5th in the world, has beaten Google's AlphaGo artificial intelligence program in their fourth of five matches in Seoul, South Korea. AlphaGo is an ultra-complex abstract strategy game. This particular game requires a high level of human intuitions & higher perceptions and is slightly more difficult than chess. At the match when AlphaGo made a mistake, there was a question mark on its quick response ability.

Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2016/03/14/human-go-champion-beats-google-alphago-ai-fourth-match/#655b1699292e 

Instagram is a social platform that offers a great opportunity for content marketers to increase their impact. Instagram has an engagement ratio that is eight times the average of the other four social platforms. Instagram continues to expand its ad platform. Recently, it was found that the growth in the number of brands posting video content on Instagram has outpaced growth in the number of brands posting photos (139% versus 91%). The average number of Instagram pictures posted per brand increased by 11%, while the average number of Instagram videos posted per brand grew 29%.

To read more, follow: http://www.business2community.com/instagram/4-instagram-tips-conquer-recent-shifts-digital-marketing-01459035#MFZ8abxaaPP5AZlf.97

In today's world, digital marketing is important for any business. But there are some measure that can be taken to maximize your business. Some precautionary measures that can be taken are as follows. Identify target audience and segment your marketing techniques accordingly.

1.       Digital marketing relies on “tactics” and “techniques” rather than on strategies and goals.

2.       Mobile search optimization and web app development is the most important parameter.

3.       SEO is the key method of success but not everything

4.       Figure out what your audience wants, identify where they are, and adopt a strategy to reach them.

5.       Use all available social media platform to reach your customer.

6.       Keep a close look on your followers and pay attention to their demands and satisfaction.

7.       Content marketing should form the core of any digital marketing strategy and link building.

8.       Manage a proper funding for digital marketing and should evaluate the real time results.

To know more, read: http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2016/03/10/12-things-not-to-do-when-using-digital-marketing-in-2016/#68f176633ac2

Cover image courtesy: www.brickwin.com

Digital marketing needs continuous update. To sustain in this market, you need to channelize your business in complete digitalization. The main thing is to create an impression by launching an audio visual in the social networking site. Follow buzz marketing techniques to make it viral. Live streaming is the best way to gain market importance. With the rise of relationship marketing, there will be a rise in the cost of digital marketing. Marketing automation and virtual reality are the key process to enhance digital marketing. Moreover location search is gaining popularity than online presence.

To read, follow: http://www.forbes.com/sites/miketempleman/2016/03/08/your-guide-to-mobile-digital-marketing/#1de28212523c

Statistics is everything now days. We believe in numbers not in assumption. How digital marketing is so relevant these days and why can be answered by all these seven key statistical figures.

1. According to “Brandlive”, 44% out of 200 executives use live video streaming activities to generate leads. 25% of them has evidenced a progress.

2. The social network said 3 million businesses have now advertised on its platform, up from 2.5 million just six months ago. A year ago, Facebook had 2 million advertisers.

3. Internet connectivity in the smart phone section has increased by 200% in one year

4. BuzzFeed chief Jonah Peretti said the viral site now has 6 billion monthly content views, up from 100 million in 2012.

5. E reader market is streamline with fast pace of growth and apple finally joined the social media arena to increase brand salience

6. Lead generation techniques via digital media increased by 61%.

This all figures shows we are venturing into digital era.

To read, follow: To read, follow: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/9-interesting-digital-marketing-stats-past-week-169993

Nowadays, manufacturers are using technology to monitor parts and operations in order to reduce expenses which includes analytics. The result is, a continuous streaming analytics engine that provides automated alerts on the forecasted failures identified by the predictive models. From here, companies can schedule planned maintenance with a high confidence level. Predictive monitoring is particularly suited for critical machinery which is complicated to maintain in terms of labor costs, or machinery with components that are expensive or difficult to obtain quickly. Spare parts and components can be reduced because needs are predicted weeks to months in advance. Read more at :http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=279921

Artificial intelligence opened a new horizon to give reply to E-mail instantly. Reading long emails in a busy life is a tough. So an automated answering system can reply a mail by analyzing the tone of a particular mail. A particular word based sentiment analysis can be a useful tool to facilitate this process. Google has already started to offer 'robot email' AI in its Google Inbox online extension for Gmail. The new service is called the Smart Reply and it will help answer some of your emails for you. There are still some constraints. This automated system has some issues regarding long multi sentimental messages. These messages has to be replied manually. 

To read, follow: http://www.forbes.com/sites/adrianbridgwater/2016/02/18/can-artificial-intelligence-answer-our-email/#4e1fd3197bc2

Google has developed a new artificial intelligence system which can recognize the geo-location of a picture. It can also identify a particular monument and area by using sophisticated mapping techniques. This will not only improve an intelligent image search, but also provide a more accurate mapping facility. The system doesn’t exactly spit out GPS coordinates. Instead the team divided the globe into about 26,000 squares of differing sizes based on how many photos from the data set were taken in the area. Huge image search and detailed mapping system is space consuming and particularly troublesome for smaller devices like smartphones and tabs which have space constraints. In order to minimize these issues they are trying to compress huge data within 377mb only.

To know more, follow: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2016/02/25/this-google-a-i-can-figure-out-where-that-photo-was-taken/#1bff3c4e34f7

Retailers need to connect, track and collect data from assets and customer shopping patterns. Business intelligence tools have become must-have resources. Now firms became more proficient in modern analytics management, including the front-end requirements for data preparation. The retail industry has not incorporated analytics on a large-scale, and many of the entities have deployed the technology are still in the early stages of use. The starting point for retailers is market basket analysis, which is heavily dependent on third-party data. Retailers are also reported-dependent than other industries. By first getting data preparation and initial archival-related strategies right, retailers can better position themselves for long-term success with their analytics investments. For more read the article written by Jon Pilkington (Chief Product Officer, Datawatch Corp.) at :

http://risnews.edgl.com/retail-news/Retail%E2%80%99s-Latest-Ventures-are-Rooted-in-Analytics104638

Analytics help retailers move to a unified commerce experience and allow for more targeted, cost-effective marketing. Advanced analytics is used for the optimization of merchandise planning. Real-time analytics is integrated with customer and product information across all channels. Retailers have the ability to use science and algorithms to optimize pricing strategies to reduce markdowns, improve demand forecasting to optimize inventory, localize assortments and optimize space planning. Advances in software and the occurrence of cloud-based solutions enable retailers to think about accelerating their upgrade/replacement cycles. It will help limit overstocking and discounting. With real-time analytics, retailers can market to consumers on a 1:1 basis based on customer context. Retailers have the ability to know what customers have in their closet, purchase behavior and preferences. For more, read the article written by Forrest Cardamenis : 

http://www.luxurydaily.com/analytics-offer-solutions-to-merchandising-and-marketing-problems-brp/

Customer service is the most effective part of any company. It not only helps to improve customer retention rate, but also helps to understand new market trends. Big data analytics and business intelligence play a crucial role here. Simple web crawling into a social site helps to understand the on-going sentiment and current market trend. Different social responses, video hits, ads and newsletters help to optimize the search results. In other word this process facilitates smother recommendation system and customer centred predictive modelling. To make a better prediction we can use –

1. Connectors help to integrate diverse data sets in different formats

2. Lightweight search facilitates even non-technical data analysis

3. Queries optimizes the search dynamics

4. Enterprise search also scores with its semantic search, which means that the context is recognized and included in the analysis and structuring of the data.

Using all these parameters business enterprises can design a better profitability model.

To read, follow: http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/Data-Matters/2016/02/search-driven-business-intelligence-intelligence-for-a-customer-centric-business-world.html

Few news organizations have developed "editorial analytics" approaches that move beyond the generic use. They develop a customized approach to analytics aligned with the specific editorial priorities. Editorial analytics differ from generic approaches in three ways.

First, editorial analytics are customized to the specific editorial priorities and organizational imperatives of a given organization. 

Second, editorial analytics are used to inform both short-term day-to-day decisions and long-term strategic development. 

Third, editorial analytics are always evolving to keep pace with a changing media environment. 

Editorial analytics represent a significant improvement in news organizations’ capacity to understand the media environment in which they operate. It also helps journalists to reach people.

For more read the article written by:  Federica Cherubini (Italian journalist and editorial researcher based in London) AND Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (director of research at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism) at:

http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/02/the-next-step-moving-from-generic-analytics-to-editorial-analytics/

Silent customers create major risks to companies. They don't express their dissatisfaction. Companies can avoid these issues through the proper use of technology with predictive analytics.  Predictive analytics can stop the silent customer attrition by identifying four ways to retain customers:

1. Recognize customers who make a detailed analysis before they determine.

2. Determine the most effective actions to reduce the attrition

3. Distinguish between the best time, message, and channel to reach the customer.

4. Identify the full path to retention rather than one single action.

Companies that adopt predictive analytics to identify who is likely to leave and determine the best plan of action to stop attrition.

For more read :

http://www.information-management.com/news/big-data-analytics/using-predictive-analytics-to-stop-silent-customer-churn-10028295-1.html