SigmaWay Blog

Banking sector has embraced new technologies to provide better services to its tech savvy customers. Hare are 4 ways that illustrate how banks have adopted new technologies:

(i) Mobile apps: several banks and financial institutions have generated mobile apps that provides mobile payment services.

(ii) Wearable tech: A major section of consumers prefer using wearable devices to make payments. Keeping this in mind, banks have launched apps that are supported by wearable devices.

(iii) Social presence: Banks are going social with their presence in various social media and networking sites.

(iv) Financial gaming: Financial institutions are using gamification technology to attract customers. Several financial institutions have launched gaming platform where customers, on the basis of how often they visit the bank’s website, can earn points and win prizes. Read more at: http://www.cio.in/feature/how-big-banks-use-tech-to-attract-savvy-consumers#

In our daily life we came across new technologies and making our life simpler. Today people are enjoying benefits of internet in form of online shopping, easily sending emails and transactions with friends online. Data is collected on the bases of these activities and improvements are made according to people’s preferences and tastes. Data mining is the key to collect big data and most of the businesses are dealing with these data to provide good services to consumers. Both of the large and small organizations are using big data. Earlier big data was providing benefits to retail and sales industry but now it also giving advantages to learning and development industries. Big data is also beneficial for employee training and can improve performance of current employees. Transformation of training process from traditional to modern techniques there has been a significant improvement in employees’ performance. Employers can easily motivate and inspire their employees. After getting good output from employees, employer gives more importance and satisfaction to employees. So, big data help employers to better understand their employees. Big data help companies to understand people’s requirements and providing facilities according to their preference. It also came in a form of learning and development tool for businesses to improve the performance of employees. Read more at: http://www.smartdatacollective.com/briggpatten/331869/how-big-data-shaping-future-learning-and-development-industry

According to Adweek, "the millennial generation and its millennial mindset understand its powers as consumers, as workers and as future leaders". Seth Chatterley in his article on business2community.com discussed about the various techniques one needs to remember in case of marketing to millennials and they are as follows:

• Giving brands credit.
• Mobile technique.
• Blogs are trusted sources.
• Moving pictures.
• Apple devices.
• Offer them value.
• Ensure honesty in content and community.

Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/7-things-remember-marketing-millennials-01267636

The most important aspect of content fundamentals is really defining and understanding the importance of content marketing. There's a lot of noise about content marketing today. Content marketing is the process of creating valuable, relevant content to acquire, attract and engage the audience. It helps to induce interest in the business with the creation of new ideas. It also builds relationships and fosters conversations.

John W Hayes in his article on business2community.com presented the most frequently asked questions on content marketing and they are:

1. How do you balance thought leadership with giving too much information away for free?
2.  How do you persuade, cajole or bribe colleagues into providing the content you need?
3. What, and how, do you measure the success of content marketing?

 To know more about this study, please follow the link:  http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/top-content-marketing-faqs-01283052

Data provides valuable information to a firm to optimize its performance. Decision makers and strategists analyze data and take optimal decisions. Data analysis shows the firm its ongoing productivity and making predictions will lead to future growth. Employees also get benefit in terms of more productivity when they use data-driven tools providing more enhanced methods which they can use. Customer relations have been improved, as employees are more productive and can give more enhanced solutions to their customers. Analyzing the data collected from social media can determine how successful the conversations have been. This is possible just because of changing consumer behavior and innovations that lead to such change. Ideal business is one that reacts to social change. Analytical tools enhances culture among employees. More data is needed to improve customer service than before. Today there is a lot of pressure on employees as work is increasing with large data size. Here the data-driven technique  plays its role helping them to handle such pressure leading them to be more interactive and informative. Improvement in employee's performance will result in enhancement of sales process, training and innovation. This change will bring some excitement for employees, working with modern tools far better than those boring traditional tools. Building up the transparent system will bring good feedback from upper management for employees leading them to provide more optimal output. Read more at: http://www.smartdatacollective.com/daanpepijn/329438/data-changing-way-enterprises-optimize-employee-productivity

Data provides valuable information to a firm to optimize its performance. Decision makers and strategists analyze data and take optimal decisions. Data analysis shows the firm its ongoing productivity and making predictions will lead to future growth. Employees also get benefit in terms of more productivity when they use data-driven tools providing more enhanced methods which they can use. Customer relations have been improved, as employees are more productive and can give more enhanced solutions to their customers. Analyzing the data collected from social media can determine how successful the conversations have been. This is possible just because of changing consumer behavior and innovations that lead to such change. Ideal business is one that reacts to social change. Analytical tools enhances culture among employees. More data is needed to improve customer service than before. Today there is a lot of pressure on employees as work is increasing with large data size. Here the data-driven technique  plays its role helping them to handle such pressure leading them to be more interactive and informative. Improvement in employee's performance will result in enhancement of sales process, training and innovation. This change will bring some excitement for employees, working with modern tools far better than those boring traditional tools. Building up the transparent system will bring good feedback from upper management for employees leading them to provide more optimal output. Read more at:http://www.smartdatacollective.com/daanpepijn/329438/data-changing-way-enterprises-optimize-employee-productivity

Digital disruption, adopted by several agile institutions has serious impacts on their customers. They have been successful in creating winners and losers.

According to the author, six things to be kept in mind for disruption are:

1. Thing 1 and Thing 2 - The Internet of Things will get modified in the upcoming years thereby benefiting the customers.
2. You are what you wear - Nowadays, humans are becoming technological. Wearables benefit customers and brands with better products. 
3. Don't show me the money - Apple Pay helps the customers, banks and brands with better security and convenience.
4. Growing importance of phone - With the rising importance of mobile phones, brands are required to embrace a real-time mindset.
5. We're all publishers now - Social media directs the market forces.
6. Self -driving cars- Self-driving cars would reorganize roadway security.

Read more at: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/7830-let-s-get-disruptive-a-cmo-s-view-of-the-future

Increased life expectancy in the Asian region means plenty of business for insurers, with need for health insurance etc. Insurance premiums are growing faster than Europe and North America yet still largely it remains underinsured. Culture dictates that majority build up savings themselves rather than pay someone else to bear it. Innovative products are offered for specifically for Asian countries because of the demographic dividend. The growth of the insurance market is typically fuelled by innovative product design and population pressure. Many global insurance tycoons are joining hands with Asian tech firms, banks to launch their products in the large expanding markets.
To know more: http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21654086-insurers-asia-cauldron-innovation-also-competition-astounding?zid=300&ah=e7b9370e170850b88ef129fa625b13c4

Metrics are performance indicators for the markets. The rules in choosing the right metrics are:
1. Easy to use and understand
2. Easily replicated
3. Metrics should provide useful, actionable information that impacts the business.
With the availability of a wide variety of advanced analytics, it is easy to get sidetracked. Pressure to measure to many things makes it difficult o determine where to focus. Background data on customer is a useful metric. Effectiveness of targeting is related to marketers identifying customer personas. The right metrics such as calculating the potential lifetime values of various customers can help differentiate who is most likely to be profitable over the long term.
To know more: https://hbr.org/2015/07/identify-the-marketing-metrics-that-actually-matter

More often than not estimates, analytics, data-driven predictions seem confusing and overwhelming. But now the situation demands that benefits of data interpretation is vital. Statements such as data too difficult to access, understand or use are common and so are ignored while making business decisions. Fear of failure affects productivity and trying out new ideas. To dispel fear of data usage, managers need to promote better work ethic; data interpretation must start at the basic level with simple tools and incorporate the habit. To incorporate the total picture in a business decision, every perspective regarding data must be addressed.
To know more: https://hbr.org/2015/07/dispel-your-teams-fear-of-data

The Financial crisis in Greece has led to the worst economic meltdowns in modern times. The ripple effect is projected to hit the US shores as:
1. With plunging global markets, analysts claim that the situation in Greece could end the six-year bull market in the US. But this scare is pertinent if the crisis spread to other countries of the Euro zone too.
2. Since the Euro is plunging against the dollar, European holidays will become cheaper. Travel agencies are advertising deals on European vacations.
3. Mortgage rates are projected to be stagnant as it is closely follows the global markets.
To know more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/05/3-big-ways-the-crisis-in-greece-could-affect-americans-personally/

Each and every generation thrives on a different technology. The Millennial Media Report examines the relationship that the various generations share with technology and also the way they obtain information online. The report focuses on three age groups - Millennials (18 - 34), Generation X (35 - 54) and Baby Boomers (55+). With the rise of Smartphones, it has been observed that the Millennials have been discarding their desktop devices. Mostly, they access the internet through their phones. At present the trend is for screens sized between 5 - 6 inches. The rising popularity of mobile has huge ramifications across industries. The growing emphasis on mobile is likely to increase in the following days and the firms can develop by exploiting it.

To know more about this study, please follow the link: https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/the-millennial-media-report

Time and money are the two determining parameters for small businesses. Entrepreneurs often have to fulfil many roles and handle over some responsibilities in exchange for welcoming in others. HR tech lightens this burden. In small businesses, huge workloads are handled by a few individuals. Hence embracing technology is rewarding, using HR tech lessens time spent on administrative tasks and costs too. Small businesses look for technology which is cost effective, and can be applied by effective small teams. Data and records help in deciding the process confirmation, as successful projects must be repeated.HR technologies are the bridge of efficiency and cost reduction. To know more: http://www.business2community.com/small-business/why-are-more-small-businesses-turning-to-hr-tech-01272723

Today not only big companies are enjoying benefit of big data but also the small and medium sized companies are in the line. Many SME’s have become big data users. The size of data has categorized the type of data users. These are high data user, medium data user and small data user. While the high data users are more sophisticated in tools and more proficient in the storage and accessing of data, all of them share the same problem. Earlier SME’s were not able provide information to decision makers in a timely manner and they find difficulty in presenting and sharing information in proper formats. This problem led SME’s to access the big data technology which made it easier for them to present and share the information in easy to understand formats. Big data technology not only applies to private data but can also be applied to combination of private and public data. This is possible only due to the property of big data technology that it can handle both structured and semi structured data. Its design allows it to work on data stored on cloud and to deal with dynamic processing requirement. Big data technology is mature, flexible and affordable. It can alter the way of doing work with data, decision tools are easily accessible and information provided within the documents can have better view. When a company becomes large, its systems will become large, information and data become large leading to difficulties in handling them. Big data technology has provided a road to have more efficient systems and better techniques. Read more at:http://www.smartdatacollective.com/bruce-robbins/331325/how-business-users-will-benefit-joined-data

Like others, retailers also require advanced analytics to compete in the digitalized marketplace. With the expansion of Internet of Things (IoT), the effect of multichannel retailers will increase as they will start using advanced analytics. Advanced analytics, the analysis of data kinds using sophisticated quantitative methods that produce insights unlike the traditional approaches to business intelligence (BI).  These advanced analytics tools put information in the hands of business analysts and business users offering significant potential to create business value and competitive advantage. The need to improve real-time business decision-making will force retailers to acquire self-service and big data discovery capabilities. Read more at: http://www.analytics-magazine.org/special-articles/1352-retailers-need-advanced-analytics-to-compete-in-the-digitalized-marketplace

Business Intelligence gives business owners an outline of their performance, which is essential to gain important insights and plan for future growth of the company. Often business owners are caught up in dealing with day today operational problems that they forget to look at bigger picture and plan to remain ahead of the crowd. Paul Robertson, in a blogpost in Phocas advices that business intelligence tools are a must to make informed and accurate decision. He puts forth 5 indications that will help you identify if your business need to upgrade its BI:

• Your idea of business intelligence is a spreadsheet.

• Your business intelligence process is largely manual.

• It takes few days to draw insight from your data.

• You can’t perform in-depth analysis of your data.

• You don’t know how well your business is performing. 

If any of them is affirmative for you then it’s time for better BI. For more insights click on the link http://www.phocassoftware.com/5-Signs-Your-Company-Needs-Better-Business-Intelligence

While you sit reading this article, if you stretch your arms, you would have electronic help all around you. A smartphone which could pay your bills, plan your schedule and tell you it’s time for a meeting or showing you the nearest food joints when you are hungry. These interruptions imply that we are surviving on advanced, analytics driven machine intelligence. All this said, for machine intelligence to be more powerful, we should be ready to accept a higher level of intrusion. For example, a patient detected with a heart disease, his device could suggest him to take a nap or hit the gym, or could wake him up when he is feeling anxious or stressed. Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/teradata/2015/07/16/why-machine-learning-is-the-next-penicillin/

Flash vendors advocate the use of de-duplication and compression technologies combined with smaller space and lower power consumption. This means that when you buy 20 TB of raw flash capacity, the effective capacity is actually greater. But according to Michael Gunton, GM for Data Center Services, flash does not really reduce data footprints. Apparently data Scientists have seen trends of higher density infrastructure from the cloud providers. The benefits of consolidation are not apparent to ordinary business customers so they are not buying much flash to put in data centers. To know more, read: http://www.forbes.com/sites/justinwarren/2015/07/16/flash-not-reducing-data-center-footprints/

 After big data and internet of things, the new buzzword is the Analytics of things. Though on a similar note, we do not have an exact definition, we know what it means for the economy and the world, as a top strategic trend in technology. As better algorithms for IOT digital infrastructure are being built to index our world to every smaller level, connection based analytics can be used to better predict future conditions and prescribing future actions. AOT fuels the process as new devices are created, there is a potential for new analytics further leading to modification.  Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/teradata/2015/07/15/analytics-of-things-what-does-it-mean-and-where-is-it-taking-u

Lack of planning and special interest pressure among politicians resulted in failure of building the necessary infrastructure required for adequate water retention which lead to water crisis in the state of California. Governor Brown is trying to control who can use water and for what it can be used efficiently. Charging people for water won’t be of any help but through the use of technology things like underground leaks, non-revenue water loss can be identified specially by using the ‘Night-time Flow Analysis’ solution given from Esri. This analysis works by using an optimal time to analyse for leaks mostly at night when consumption is low comparatively. It is a configuration of ArcGIS platform which includes sample data. The accuracy of leak detection depends on customer’s pipe network. The solution responds in real time and is a freely available configuration used to observe base flow conditions and control water crisis.

Read more at: http://www.smartdatacollective.com/shawn-gordon/325636/where-did-all-water-go