In the past two years, many organizations have undergone a complete change in terms of their organizational structure. Disruptive innovations have led these changes. But, not all these changes have been successful. In fact, many organizations have even undergone through such drastic changes more than once in search of a perfect organizational structure.

But, why is this perfect organizational structure important and how can it be achieved? These questions have been answered by Steven Aronowitz, Aaron De Smet, and Deirdre McGinty in their article at McKinsey Insights. With their research, they have identified nine golden rules that must be followed for a successful organizational redesign. Some of them are:

• Focus first on the longer-term strategic aspirations
• Be structured about selecting the right blueprint
• Be rigorous about drafting in talent
• Establish metrics that measure short- and long-term success
• Manage the transitional risks

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/getting_organizational_redesign_right

The field of project management has evolved a lot over time. From the days of Egyptian pyramids to today where projects are remotely managed, a lot has changed.

During this period, three major project management methodologies have emerged. They are:

1. Waterfall
2. Agile
3. Scrum

Of these, agile methodologies are seen as the future of project management. This is because of the following advantages that this methodology provides:

• Faster ROI
• Lower risks
• More transparency
• Lower defect density
• Stronger and better visibility
• Higher customer satisfaction

With the increasing importance of project management, the demand for a successful project manager is expected to rise.

To know more about the future of project management and what is expected of a successful project manager, please read the following article by Jenny Beswick at business2community.com:

http://www.business2community.com/leadership/project-management-evolving-01237110

Every organization plans to launch new a product or service, but only few of them get success. The main reason for failure is they won't able to target the right customers or they won't able to explain their product or service to customers. Jennifer Lonoff Schiff (Business and technology writer and a contributor to CIO.com) talks about steps that can help you to reduce the risk of failure:

• Make sure the product or service works – before you start selling it.
• But don’t worry if your product isn’t absolutely perfect at the get-go.
• Create a dedicated landing page with an email opt-in.
• Build and/or join a community
• Cultivate influencers in your industry or niche.
• Ask people to spread the word – and give them free product or pay them to talk about it, if necessary.
• Notify top customers and followers in advance of your release.
• Use social media to get the word out.
• Advertise on Facebook.
Read more at: http://www.cio.com/article/2937141/startups/9-tips-for-launching-a-new-product-or-service.html

Currently consumers are distracted by visual storytelling which enables the marketers to cut through the clutter thereby engaging customers over a wide range of digital channels. Data visualization tools acts as a way for the marketing leaders to generate optimal results from their organization's visual storytelling. It helps the marketers to determine the types of media that generated the highest engagement levels with different customers. It further enables to spot key consumer trends by segments and to project the best media type which would generate desired results. The use of visual storytelling combined with visualization of data will continue to gain much more importance because it makes the visual story more realistic with more prospective customers.

Read more at: http://www.tibco.com/blog/2015/06/08/2015-the-year-of-visual-storytelling/

Content marketing involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers. This information can be presented in a variety of formats, including news, whitepapers, e-books, photos etc. It is hard, time consuming and expensive. Angela Hausman (marketing professor at Howard University) in her article in business2community.com, discussed about the steps to create a successful content marketing plan. They are:

• Start with goals.
• Audit existing content and determine where the holes are.
• Develop your business.
• Target customers.
• The Sales funnel.
• Understand your purpose.
• Develop an editorial calendar.
• Develop content.
• Promote your content.
• Measure.
• Optimize.
• Rinse, repeat.

To know more about the steps required for creating a successful content marketing plan, please follow the link: http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/12-steps-how-to-build-a-successful-content-marketing-plan-01 

Nowadays the basic motive is substantial growth of the app thereby providing value to the end user. This can be equally simple or difficult depending on the analytics and marketing platform one chooses.  However it might often seem that a system of point solutions offers the best of each system, although it limits our capability to: 

*  Create a new user acquisition strategy.

*  Collect the most accurate data about the users.

*   Use of analytics to drive marketing.

*  Track the success of app messaging.

*  Tackle issues such as user abandonment and churn ratios.

The basic things which can be done with Integrated App Analytics and Marketing are:

1. Sophisticated user attribution.

2. Personalized app marketing.

3. Remarketing to users outside of the app.

4. Omni-channel app marketing.

5.  Predicting churns.

Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/mobile-apps/5-things-you-can-only-do-with-integrated-app-analytics-marketing-01244986                                                                                                                     

Though underestimated at times, social media marketing is fast becoming a vital necessity for success of business. Due to complexity of the nature of data analysis and increasing number of social media platforms available, the task of adopting the best social strategy may appear confusing. For more productive use of social media for marketing, the author suggests the following: 1) Creating outstanding and attractive content like images, text documents, etc. 2) Adopting social marketing instead of impersonal digital marketing.  3) Developing two way communication channels with the customers.4) Doing proper research. 5) Monitoring social media 6) Being genuine Read more:-  http://www.business2community.com/social-media/key-to-mastering-social-media-marketing-01248568

Marketing has undergone transformation over years. Marketers can now measure every aspect of what customers do with a variety of metrics. Engaging with my audience to convert to sales is the key to marketing. While promoting products and services, marketers should be aware of how their brand is perceived by the audience which indicates how to communicate with them. Knowing how demographics react to different promotional strategies will help marketers formulate targeted marketing campaigns. Marketers should use social media to check what people are saying about a particular campaign and thus capture the customer sentiment. Thus the best marketing campaigns are those that are edgy and experimental. Read more about this article by Gabrielle Morse (Global Events Director) at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/the-4-golden-rules-for-collecting-marketing-data

The global consumer packaged goods sector is expected to double by 2025. This growth has especially been observed in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Along with growth, competition has also increased in these countries, which has led to companies looking for expansion avenues elsewhere.

An analysis by McKinsey has revealed three myths surrounding the growth in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) sector. They are:

• The United States isn’t a growth market
• It’s too late to enter China or India
• Emerging-market consumers don’t buy premium products

These myths need to be discarded as they are certainly not true. And for better growth opportunities in this sector, Rogerio Hirose, Renata Maia, Anne Martinez and Alexander Thiel, in their article at McKinsey Insights have listed out few questions that companies need to answer before entering new cities.

To know more about these myths and the above mentioned questions, please visit the following link:

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/consumer_and_retail/three_myths_about_growth_in_consumer_packaged_goods

The key to successful digital marketing lies in its content. Original, interesting and varied content will catch customer’s attention. Digital marketing campaigns should be both written and visual, rich in information, images, videos etc. One should keep an eye on metrics to make a note of most attracted posts so as to improve one’s content. As almost every individual now possesses a smartphone, marketers should make sure their advertisements are mobile friendly. Social media, with its rising popularity, can be used as a platform for marketing to specific demographics. Customer’s trust might show up the brand loyalty, increasing the chance of sharing and promoting their marketing on social platform. Read more about this interesting article by Maria Maguire (International Events Director) at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/5-ways-to-improve-your-digital-marketing

Content is king, when you try to get connected with the public. - Rachel Wolfson (Content Marketing Manager at Moogsoft). Content can help you in generating leads, increase ROI and brand awareness. One thing that distinguishes between good content marketers from exceptional one is the ability to notice their content. 5 keys takeaways as to how a content marketer can get their content noticed: • Start with a clear content marketing strategy.
• Understand your target audience.
• Practice the “3 C’s” – Create, Content, Consistently.
• Know how to correctly promote content via social media.
• Recognize the value in repurposing content.
Read more at http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/5-best-practices-ensure-content-gets-noticed-01251751#WdvE0oR3cCZs4h2p.99

According to Sushant Saini (An owner of Eyewear), branding is one of the most important functions of the marketing team. And to make branding effectiveness, marketing team need to connect with their target customers.  Essentials to make brand effective are:
• Story
• Content Marketing
• Brand association
• Creative communication
• Influential outreach
To know more about these essential, follow this link:  http://yourstory.com/2015/06/brand-building/

According to KC Claveria (Marketer from Vancouver, B.C.), if social media used rightly, can help you in maintaining better relationships with customers. According to the Mckinsey & Company report, “email conversion rates are 40times higher as compared to Facebook and Twitter combined.” This shows that for generating leads, email marketing is very important. Email marketing is better than other marketing channels because:
• With email, you’re reaching an audience that already knows you.
• There’s too much noise on social.
• People are more likely to see (and click on) your email.
• You get to say more on email.
Read more at http://www.business2community.com/email-marketing/why-email-marketing-beats-social-media-in-lead-generation-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-01246702#5FUji2OQheQ8LXzA.99

According to the Eyal Hilzenrat (Vice president of products and partnerships at YouAppi), mobile marketing is the future of marketing and installing the app is the beginning of this journey. And to the performance of your mobile marketing, use the Engagement metrics, Revenue metrics and Interest Metrics. KPI to mobile marketing are:
• Number of times the mobile app was accessed during the first 24 hours / first week (after installation)
• Permission granted to the app
• Time spent in-app
• Number of screens/pages accessed during in-app visit
• Number of subscriptions / registration
• Purchases
• Number of items placed in a shopping cart
• Number of articles read
• Number of pages visited
• Social Shares
• Retention rates
• Brand awareness
Read more at: http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/top-12-key-performance-indicators-for-maximizing-mobile-app-revenue/621659

Focused market research is imperative for building of brands and foundation for market research is laid down by market intelligence. In broad terms, market intelligence collates three types of information- business, market and competitive. For distribution of information, social media is playing a huge role. Thus integration of marketing intelligence with social media monitoring and digital space opens up many channels of opportunities to address specific business issues and enhance performance significantly. However, this requires intense understanding and customization of data. Also, digitization of field resources poses certain challenges. On a concluding note, the authors, Stephen Dale and Melissa Chue are of opinion that market intelligence should ultimately serve as be the backbone of any organization and more investment should be made to expand digital resources and data. Read more:- http://www.marketing-interactive.com/events/intelligence-bedrock-good-market-research/

The only possible way to ensure public safety and act against the financial ruin or loss of the company's reputation is to know how and when to respond. The timing of a crisis cannot be predicted with certainty but crisis management plays a crucial role to ensure that the company stands in the wake of an unexpected and unfortunate mishap.

Steps to be followed for management of crisis are :

• Messaging is a fickle art - A humble dosage of humanity and being transparent is the best policy. It is important to provide the information about the issue to the public in a polite manner.
• Restoring and rebuilding your reputation through media - Working with the media is the best way for restoring people's trust.

For further details on crisis management, please follow the link :

http://www.business2community.com/crisis-management/need-crisis-management-01239230 

Mobile is a much more personal, interactive, engaged platform than desktop, and should be used as such. - By Ari Brandt (CEO and co-founder of MediaBrix). In this competitive era, if a company won’t recognize the opportunity first, a chance of losing the games increases. And mobile phone is one of the biggest opportunities to maintain a close relationship with your customers. But most of the ad companies are failing to recognize the demands, challenges and opportunities of mobile phones. Rule to crack the opportunity of mobile phones:
• Leave old ad methods behind.
• Take advantage of unique mobile capabilities.
• Put the customers first.
• Leverage new measures of campaign success.
Read more at: http://mashable.com/2015/06/11/mobile-marketing-innovation/

Maximizing ROI has become the ultimate goal for Marketers. Increasing visibility, likes, followers and tweets seems to be the major indicators. Daniel Newman, author of The Millennial CEO and a Forbes contributor, in an article in Forbes term these indicators as vanity metrics which distract marketers from the actual story. Rather than measuring likes, focus should be on how many of the likes were converted into new customer and other measures which go beyond customer acquisition and sales that will help discern their real growth story. 

He lists out 7 things that marketers should measure: 

• Top of funnel conversions

• Engagement

• Customer satisfaction

• Customer Retention 

• Employee satisfaction 

• Employee retention 

• Attributable Revenue

For more on this, follow the link http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2015/05/12/7-things-marketers-should-measure-big-data-can-help/

Marketers need to think creatively for building an effective and creative campaign. On the other side, they have to give returns on investments. So, marketers are feeling stressed. To improve the performance of the marketers, they need to make standardization a priority across their organization. Standardization is an essential practice to improve the performances and gives long-term benefits. Scott Vaughan (CMO of Integrate) in his article at marketingland.com, discussed about five areas where marketers should start standardizing are:
• Process
• Data
• Key technology systems
• Metrics and Benchmarks
• Team Expectations
Read more at: http://marketingland.com/marketers-time-stop-standardize-130267

With increasing use of smart phones in today's life, most of the viewers are using smart phones for research and buying online. This is the biggest opportunity to the companies. Mobile is not just an e-commerce channel, but it can be used for building relationship with your customers. Brian Rigney (CEO at Zmags) in his article “Maximize Marketing Reach: A Glance at the Customer Is All You Get” at marketingland.com, discussed about four simple steps to deliver rich and creative campaigns at the right place and says, “52 percent of Web traffic to retail websites globally currently comes via smartphones and tablet devices.”  Steps are:
• Think for omni-channel and use holistic approach.
• Develop sites, offers and experiences in different ways to serve different channels.
• Create, adjust and preview the sites.
• Tap the knowledge base to understand what works for your organization.
To know more about these steps, follow this link: http://marketingland.com/reach-glance-get-often-small-window-130011