SigmaWay Blog

Customers are the key to any business success. The more customers you have, the more revenue you generate. But the customers don't come on their own. They get attracted by an advertisement. The company targets them with marketing strategies. All the local marketing techniques like flyers and direct mail are still used. But since marketing is an enormous activity and has funds associated with it, we must track and analyze to its optimum level. Hence CRM comes to the rescue. They are - Use CRM to bring Analytics to Paper Marketing; to Automate Communications and Improve Response Time; to bring Social to a Local Business; to motivate the sales team. Read the complete article here: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/how-crm-software-can-maximize-your-local-marketing-73152

CRM or Customer Relationship Management industry is growing day by day which expected evaluation of $36.5 billion by 2017. More and more companies are using CRMs to harvest their data and increase their profits. Despite the growth, still some people make mistakes which cost them a fortune. So here are three blunders to avoid –

·         Ignoring Social Media Integration

·         Forgetting Mobile

·         Annoying Customers with Too Much Marketing Material

Read the complete article here: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/3-crm-blunders-you-need-to-avoid-73160

CRM or Customer Relationship Management System helps companies in building a healthy relationship with their clients. It increases company's productivity and profitability. Having the right set of technology not only benefits your business, but also smooth your relationship with your client. So these are few factors which must be kept in mind while looking for a customer Relationship Management system for your company- Focus, Host Infrastructure, Functionality, Your budget and Deployment. Read the complete article here: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/5-factors-to-consider-when-selecting-the-right-crm-solution-for-your-business-73169

Search engine optimization (SEO) is process through which web data is collected .Web design directly affects the efforts of SEO. Analytics evaluates whether these efforts are working or not. Some of the efforts by web design analytics that can robust the search engine performance is:

1. Site analytics tools give the insights about most popular content on the web site. Therefore, one can tailor the content according to the theme.

2. One of the crucial analytics related to the web design is how fast (speed) the page loads, Google will take in consideration the speed factor in ranking the page.

3. Accessibility of the site is also important.

4. The content of the site should be relevant, specific location key words must be used in order to attract more customers.

To know more read article by Vinod Jethwani : http://www.business2community.com/seo/streamlining-seo-efforts-using-web-design-analytics-01534695#kjhQ7oxU11kCZeWv.97

Today companies are gathering more and more data but are not certain of what to do with this data. For the last five years, companies are getting in to the big data practices in order to get competitive advantage. Big data is basically using analytical software to visualize unstructured data (data available to the public) and structured data (companies propriety information) .This visualization does wonders, it gives predictive sales figures, future prospective of the company and sales target .Gathering information is getting simpler with the emerging software & IoT; but sorting and filtering the huge pile of data is a complicated process.

According to a new report, an analyst spends about 50-90% of their time in just cleaning and filtering the raw data. Companies can solve this problem by improving the data software where data can have lower level of risk for data scientist and algorithms can help in data cleaning.

To know more: http://www.zdnet.com/article/big-datas-biggest-problem-its-too-hard-to-get-the-data-in/

The public is yet to discriminate the thin line between PR Campaigning and Advertising Campaigning. The difference lies in the face that advertising campaign is a first party approach while PR campaigning is a third party approach. When a television channel broadcasts a product or when you see any hoarding showing any product that is called advertising. On the other hand, when newspaper talks about a product, that's what is called PR campaigning. Advertising may sound to be a better way to promote your product, but in reality a person is more motivated and interested about it when he learns it from another person or newspaper, thus a strong relationship with a journalist can give you an upper hand in your campaigning. Celebrities endorsing a brand do help with advertising, but one must know remember that advertising is “paid visibility” while PR campaigning is “earned visibility”! Read more at: http://www.meltwater.com/au/blog/pr-campaign-vs-advertising-campaign-differences/

The Apple Pencil and the iPad pro can be the best sketchbook for one's creative expression when they are at its best, although some artists expect them to work a bit better. Apple pencil and iPad pro works great together, but the Bluetooth connection may not be as good as you might expect it to be. The Apple Pencil needs to restart if you restart your iPad pro as the pencil doesn’t hold power for too long. Sometimes the pencil needs the Apple Pencil Thunderbolt Adaptor to charge it for around ten minutes before normal charging. Read more about iPad Pro’s Apple Pencil on: http://www.computerworld.com/article/3072906/apple-ios/what-to-do-when-your-ipad-pro-s-apple-pencil-stops-working.html

Social media is important for any business. It can help be to connect with customers and drive conversion rates higher. Most customer relationship management tools are incorporating social selling into their platform. But, many companies are not aware of the importance of incorporating social media into their platform. This article will help you to know about the factors why CRMs need to take social leads seriously. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/4-reasons-crms-need-to-track-social-media-73172

Big data Analytic can give real time analysis of huge, complex and continuously increasing dataset. It can be applied to many Business operations .But companies do not use this potential of big data analytics to supply chain management. Company can control the inventory and other supply chain operations more efficiently with help of analytic .for instance, companies can use unstructured data set in the inventory, forecasting and transportation for analysis and new insights can be delivered, like forecasting next date for restocking in supply chain planning. For the last 2 years big data had been used in the supply chain management but there is still a long way to go.

To know more read article by Bernard Marr : http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/04/22/how-big-data-and-analytics-are-transforming-supply-chain-management

Companies are looking for talented personnel especially in the analytics and big data sector. According to a new report, start-ups are offering phenomenal packages to data scientists as they give them a competitive advantage. Indian start-ups are willing to pay around 10.8 lacks to a talented analyst. Although the global market has been very fluctuating for the past five years but the need for a specialist is growing with the emerging work in this sector. Demand has grown but the supply has failed to meet .An Experienced Analyst (minimum 5 years) demands 12.3 lac to companies. Kolkata in India holds maximum number of analysts or data scientists. The average package salary of an analyst professional is 9.36 lacks.

To know more: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/analytics-big-data-to-see-robust-hiring-high-pay-packets-report/articleshow/51105814.cms

The aviation sector is continuously facing cyber-threat. Hackers are targeting crucial infrastructural units and necessity services. The most alarming issues are a flight is not safe from the hacker's hands even when it is in the air. A recent report says a hacktivist easily hacked the on air entertainment system of a flight when it was on air and also take a control of the flight, which causes deviation from the actual course of flight and compelled it to fly sideways. Therefore, many experts believe that to hijack an aircraft one may not need to board on it, he/she can remotely access the unsecured Wi-Fi of the aircraft and take control of the cockpit. This irregularity is happening because the aviation security and network access is weak and the firewall standards are age old & hack able. So the transport safety department should take care of these cyber-attacks in the aviation section.

To read, follow: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/05/the_aviation_industry_is_starting_to_grapple_with_cybersecurity.html

Predictive analytics is one of the most useful tools to analyze customer behavior on a particular product or services. This process helps identify customers’ needs and also chalk out a correlation matrix which helps to understand the additional demands. Companies monitor interactions of their clients to predict attrition. Negative consumer sentiment in social media, looking out for issues on the retailer's online knowledge base, and repeat calls to contact center may indicate attrition. It facilitates the next best interaction, monitor transaction details and analyze fraudulent activities. Neither business operations, nor business analytics have the complete information to make data-driven decisions, hence there exist a gap between customer needs and Delivery Company. To overcome this, customer centric ideas have to be taken in consideration. Businesses need a continuous and well-defined program to measure data quality. Establishing data quality standards and monitoring data quality quotient in real-time makes predictive analytics reliable.

To read, follow: http://www.cmswire.com/analytics/what-customer-centric-predictive-analytics-looks-like/

Digital marketing is already skyrocketing worldwide. This up growing popularity in digital marketing is not only confided inside the business enterprise but also the job oriented learning process is also at a higher demand. Online certification training company Simplilearn has seen 7,000 people take its digital marketing course that was launched in 2014. Of that, 2,500 have come in just the past six months. Not only the online certification platforms but few business management courses including this digital marketing as one of their special papers. A Report says there will be 1.5 lakhs jobs opening between 2015 and 2016 and of this 55% of the demand comes just from the IT sector, while e-commerce and internet companies account for 10%. The ironical part is Indian market is only visualized a growth of 10%. Even large FMCG brands have joined e-commerce players in investing about 15-20% of their market budget towards the digital medium. Not only that these certification based learning process provides new entrepreneurs in this section and the figure is not very low, it’s around 25% of the total certified students on digital marketing.  

To read, follow: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Digital-marketing-certifications-go-hot/articleshow/52069003.cms

A successful business is no more only based on hard work but various other factors. One of them is the happy and satisfied employees. And the customer relationship management tool (CRM) can also improve employee's happiness. Well, happy employees are the productive employees. Employee with high job satisfaction and happy with his working environment will be more productive than the unhappy one. Reasons why CRM improves employee happiness: Reduced Stress through Up-to-Date Info; Collaborative Work Increases Happiness; Removal of Tedious Tasks; Out-of-Office CRM Access. Read the complete article here: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/how-crm-technology-makes-for-happier-employees-73170

Nowadays, content distribution is important for any business. Ashley Taylor Anderson (Director of Content), writes about some social marketing tactics for content distribution. These tactics are - 1. Post multiple times on your own social channels, 2. Include a click-to-tweet in your content, 3. Share content with mentioned or quoted people in your piece, 4. Repost on social syndicates like Medium and Pulse, and 5. Post to social forums and communities. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/5-social-marketing-tactics-content-distribution

Isabella Andersen (Content Writer), writes about some tips to optimize your website for conversions. But, before that we must know the definition of conversion rate. Conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who take a specific action, usually responding to your call to action (form fill, phone call, driving directions, purchase, etc.). The tips on how to improve your conversion rate are - 1. Have a strategy and a goal before you start building a page, 2. A/B test everything, 3. Optimize for mobile. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/technology-data/5-tips-optimizing-your-website-conversions

When scrum is new, everybody seems to enjoy it but after repeated routine of sprints, planning, and daily reviews it becomes in interesting and old. There are some early signs or indicators which can prevent this kind of situation:

1.       Repeated

2.       Unresolved issues in retrospectives

3.       Stories are not demonstrable;

4.       Unfinished stories are split and carried over the next sprint

5.       During sprint planning, tasks are assigned to team members

6.       Team members are not 100% on the project or are withdrawn from the project.

Read the complete article here: https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2016/may/when-scrum-becomes-stale-the-team-under-performs

Scum experts who have been working on scrum for a long time have found out where the true power of scrum lies. It lies in these 3 main things: Transparency: Scum enables the every team member to be involved in the project from starting, unlike other design models like a waterfall. This helps to keep the development of process and product transparent; Self- organization: Self organizing teams fives freedom and power to innovate; Trust: It is the most important and crucial factor. Trust between teammates that they are loyal to the product. Read the complete article here: https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2016/may/the-power-of-scrum

Many developers think that contracts are the concerns of only sales people and executives. But this is not the case.  Even a scrum team works under contracts. Contracts like DoR( Definition of Ready) and DoD (Definition of done) are the two contracts which every scrum team must have. DoR is an agreement between product owner and scrum team. DoD is a contract where the team must meet their requirements. It is also signed between PO and scrum team.  There can be many other contracts like Interteam contracts and organizational contracts. Read the complete article here: https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2016/may/contract-negotiations-in-a-scrum-team