SigmaWay Blog

AI and machine learning is making progress and covering every sector possible, and this aspect has lead it to make advancements in the field of medical science as well. AI is now being used to detect which fertilized egg will lead to healthy babies in the process of in-vitro- fertilization. IVF in its initial days was highly dependent on the experience of the doctors and the embryologists for the detection and choosing of the correct eggs, but with time, this scenario has changed. Usage of AI in this field has lead to the elimination of the potential, human errors, accuracy in detection and speedy results. Scientists believe that instead of human looking at thousands of images, a piece of software looking at them could lead to an eventual learning and hence better predictions. TO READ MORE GO TO: 

http://analyticsindiamag.com/ai-steps-decide-embryo-will-result-ivf-success/ 

The world is entering the age of abundance, abundance of data. And with this, the age of intelligence is on its way. According to Eric Scht, the author of the original article, in today’s world, science and critical thinking really matter a lot. People are becoming wary of changes looking at the rate at which technological advancement is taking place. With the massive increase in data in almost every field, the need for artificial intelligence and machine learning is being felt in a broad range of sectors including farming, energy, fashion and healthcare. Read more at: https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2017/jun/22/alphabets-eric-schmidt-google-artificial-intelligence-viva-technology-mckinsey

An Investor always looking for innovative, cost-effective, tech- enabled modes of customer engagement and chatbot is perfect for that. It can potentially help customers better understanding Financial Services via interactive discussions on pricing, terms and conditions, etc. AI powered chatbots can give recommendations to users about the best financial services and opportunity analyzing user interaction and requirement data. Using chatbot we can ensure security of user data and cost benefit analysis of user data. So, it will be exciting to see more chatbot innovations in financial inclusion. Read more at:http://partners.wsj.com/metlife/multipliers/articles/talking-the-talk/#.WSLz8PPm2TE.mailto

Self-service analytics is an approach to data analytics that enables non-tech savvy users or business users to access data for more informed decision making.  For success in self-service analytics, employees should have the culture of using data to start, propagate or conclude every conversation. A few areas required to support this cultural change are, organizational readiness which will help in determining the type of self service tool required for the organization. Next is data readiness i.e. continuous feedback about data quality practices should be given. Third is data security readiness i.e. data security, compliance and data access should be carefully examined during making a transition to self-service analytics. Fourth is that users should be adaptable and willing to use new technology. And lastly, data shouldn’t be interpreted just by preparing charts instead it should be used to make theoretical interpretations. Read more at: https://www.blueoceanmi.com/blueblog/self-service-analytics-need-cultural-change/

Fitness trackers were believed to be the next big thing about consumer accessories after smartphones. As we all know, smartphones have a high range of capabilities that includes their competency to measure basic fitness parameters, like counting of steps, number of calories burnt etc. Several companies took advantage of this growing fitness consciousness by launching bands, watches and other wearable gadgets that in addition to tracking their basic parameters also track the critical measures in activities such as cycling, hiking and swimming. The market of these fitness trackers had seen massive growth until 2015. However, the growth reduced drastically in 2016. Based on this highly staggering drop in sales, analyst purchases downgraded their prediction for 2017. Read more at:  https://www.blueoceanmi.com/blueblog/fitness-trackers-market-analysis/

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

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

Optimization of CRM is highly correlated to the social media presence of a company. Customers frequently generate queries via social media. So there are some steps that can be followed to create a position in the customer's mind by establishing good connections between social media and CRM.

1. Right platform should be chosen.

2. Must have a dedicated human resource to handle the social media activity and patch them up with marketing team who handles CRM.

3. Instead of putting one liner FAQs, try to personally resolve critical issues in time.

4. If you have a different presence in multiple social media, then deploy time understanding the importance

5. Start listening your customers’ point of view about you and react proactively.

6. When you are segmenting your customer, you should be prepared for queries. Centralize them and solve them in real time

7. Reward your customer by discount offers, free e-books and promo offers.

To read, follow: https://www.cmscritic.com/10-steps-to-social-crm-success/

Any decision pertaining to designing products, environments and brand experience is closely connected to the use of colour because it depends on the buying behaviour of customers, brand perception, strategic differentiation, and user experience. But availability of information related to colour perception is limited. Organizations are using big data to analyse colour preference and perception which contains over a 100 years of data. They divided their study into four categories regarding colour data, analytic and insight:

1. Colour competitive intelligence is relevant for aggressive in brand competition.

2. Colour legal intelligence helps to identify the colour norms available to different countries.

3. Colour Research Intelligence collates colour studies that have been conducted over the past century, world-wide, about the industry and product segments.

4. Colour listening intelligence signifies how much buzz about a particular colour is popular in the market.

These all studies benefit other companies by creating their own colour mix to attract new customers, branding and dictate consumer preference trends.

To read, follow: http://www.forbes.com/sites/michellegreenwald/2016/02/17/a-new-comprehensive-4-in-1-big-data-resource-to-aid-color-innovation/#6e729df04012

With the expansion of Analytics, each sector is trying to utilize it to the fullest. By implementing analytics, the managers are able to identify the behaviors that lead to positive outcomes and also identify the problematic areas. Therefore, organizations must develop the best practices that can streamline the work. By applying this to the calls, customers can analyze the customer - agent interactions. So they can identify the most important factors and can even reduce the volume in maximum traffic hours. The advance speech analytics software not only means, evaluates and presents audio and textual data, but also collects information regarding reasons for calls, emotional nuances in a customer's voice and how well agents are addressing a customer's needs and expectations. This even helps them keep a check on their marketing strategies so that it can be altered for the better. These generate very meaningful insights for why a customer needs to contact the support centers and thus exposing the root cause. So this helps in decreasing the average call time and monitoring the resources spent. Read more at : http://customerthink.com/top-5-benefits-of-call-center-speech-analytics-why-your-call-centers-success-depends-on-speech-analytics-solutions/

Gone are the days when the tiny pieces of paper were most essential parts of CRM. Automation has made it lot easier by keeping the data records. Sticky notes are quite prone to physical damage, leading to loss of critical information. Automated systems keep data records safe and highly organized. This way data can be efficiently sorted or searched. If you still continue to wholly rely on sticky notes, come out of the cocoon and take the benefits of technology. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/crm-and-the-death-of-the-sticky-note-70917

A customer visits your site or product, checks the available options and services offered. Then he decides to go along with you or not.  Good business policy is to give a personal touch to each customer so that they feel at home each time. But taking care of their needs at each step becomes a time taking process if done manually. On the other hand automation makes it more smooth and effective. If CRM is practiced along with automation, it sets everything into a correct perspective.

Read more about it in the article written by Inside-CRM at http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/five-ways-marketing-automation-and-crm-go-together-like-peanut-butter-and-jelly-70904

Market intelligence can be used to assist almost every decisions faced by a company. Market intelligence helps a company to increase revenue, profit or market share. Three basic steps on how to go about gathering market intelligence and what types of market intelligence will deliver useful insights are:§ Don’t reinvent the wheel –A huge amount of learning can be gathered using workshops specially if guided by skilled external moderator.
§ Choose your battleground – Clearly stating your key objective will help in your business plan and actions will be taken.
§ Don’t stop digging –It is not only important that market intelligence is acted upon when it is collected but also a constant feedback is needed. Read more at: https://www.b2binternational.com/publications/guide-to-market-intelligence/

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/

Even in this multichannel world, customers still prefer to call in and hence voice channel is critical to a business. These days’ businesses are coming to a standstill when it comes to listening to conversations that flow through their voice channel as they are stuck on sampling and high cost manual monitoring. A recent survey showed that it is important to link online marketing to offline sales.
Mining for the truths and hidden meanings from these conversations is crucial. Previously automatic data mining of the voice channel was unattainable. But now with conversation analysis it is possible. Being in the century of customers, the ability for the company representatives to understand the customer, be empathic and deliver fast solution is essential.
Thanks to conversational analysis or text mining, it is now possible to extract data from conversations, to automate and process this data in real-time and at scale. Thus listening to and analyzing conversations helps the representatives to build better relationships and in turn provide customers with the experience they expect.
Sigmaway provides text mining solutions for businesses. Contact us at contact@gosigmaway.com for a proof of concept.
Read more at: http://smartdatacollective.com/calljourney/304151/are-you-listening-your-conversations

In today's world, agriculture is not enough for farmers to sustain and to move on to the next level. Business-oriented agriculture should be encouraged. Without proper market intelligence, profit making is impractical. Farmers are not aware of the market demand and what consumers want. So, farmers and traders should work together to promote products required in the market and fix prices using technology in farming. A programme focusing on this issue was organized by National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation, Coimbatore, and Department of Horticulture, Madurai, under the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture. They are trying to identify the horticultural needs of farmers and bring out solutions. Read more at: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/market-intelligence-is-crucial-for-farmers/article6454553.ece

According to some people branding is equivalent to ranking but actually you can position yourself at different times in different markets as different things. Branding is a hard-core recognition factor. We are a generation and a nation wanting to be special. We want to be richer, more beautiful, better dressed, and more effortlessly gorgeous than any other generation that we know. Contrary to how many people think branding is not just a logo and brings with itself benefits of it. Branding your business ensures that consumers will know what you're about and so you are remembered. Secondly, people build close bonds with brand identities. Consumers want quality products that they can trust and you gain customer loyalty easily. While Internet branding offers huge opportunities for business, in order for it to be effective, one needs to attract and engage its customers and that is not easy on the Internet. Your Internet branding strategy should make your online brand noticeable and apparent. Think of the message you want to convey and the image you want to be formed and that is your brand. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/understanding-branding-importance-marketing-your-business

There are many CRM packages, the best ones linked to accounting software systems, that provide easy storage of customer and supplier information to answer the questions of who, what, how much, where and when your customer buys. Internet technology today has reduced costs and shortened time frames by using online surveys. A major criticism of internet surveys is that that they don't represent an accurate sample of the population and so a skilled marketing research person really adds value that is worth paying for. There are two tests for accuracy and soundness of the marketing research results: A skilled marketing research person ensures validity and reliability by accurately defining the problem to be solved; the correct questions to ask; and whether there are other cost-effective ways to get the result. After gathering the information from the correct primary sample; a skilled marketing research person adds value by being able to spot differences, draw conclusions and make recommendations.To know more, follow the link: 

Consultants and pharmaceutical companies alike control the market intelligence channels to better understand their target patient population. Big Data offers a lot of opportunities to optimize commercial strategies from helping to identify opportunities for new therapies to assessing the success of current products. Surveyed companies are using Big Data initiatives to better target products or to assess the performance of products already on the market. Pharmacy companies are more likely to focus Big Data initiatives on current products, mainly on the success of drugs on the market. Many surveyed consultant companies use Big Data to assist in developing new therapies compared to the pharmaceutical companies. As data become more useful and the benefits more obvious, the prevalence of Big Data-driven market intelligence initiatives will continue to increase. A decision on regulations guiding social media marketing in particular also help companies decide which market intelligence strategies to attack. From the earliest to latest stages of drug marketing, companies are working quickly to discover the opportunities posed by Big Data. Read more at: 

First leverage prospects' social media profile information. Second, get to know leads with landing page form data- Marketing collects all that information when they're generating leads for a reason -- it gives them insight into leads that lets them target, segment communications, and route leads to the appropriate salesperson. Third, track social media mentions- Social media monitoring is often looked at as a marketing function, but sales teams miss huge opportunities when they aren't actively tracking social media mentions. Fourth, use the best performing offers when prospecting and selling- It's not every business that can close a sale after just one conversion event; it's more common that a prospect reconverts time and again as their relationship with your company grows and they move further along in the sales process. Fifth, build an arsenal of your most powerful content- People buy from people they trust, so it's crucial that every salesperson establish them as a trusted resource when speaking with prospects. Sixth, jump on leads right when they come in- Quick lead follow-up is crucial for sales success. Seventh, prospect smarter, not harder- Collecting site information like company name, location, name, number of visits, and length of visit lets prospecting salespeople do some serious recon work before hopping on a call with a new prospect. Read more at: