SigmaWay Blog

Market Research explains what customers and target market participants are thinking, doing and why. But, the question is: is it worthwhile, or a waste of time and resources? Three reasons why Market Research is a waste of time and resources: First, we already know our customers, prospects, channel members, industry pundits and even competitors. Second, research is too vague and directional. Third, research is often flat wrong. These are the most prevalent or compelling reasons to doubt the efficacy of market research. But a question that arises is why does market research is favored, in spite of this well-deserved criticism? The answer is because some knowledge is better than none. Second is serendipity: the focus on the critical market assumptions supporting a decision break down into subtle sub-questions that get answered in unexpected and unanticipated ways, and are both exciting and useful. Any good research answers a lot of questions, but raises even more questions to be answered; some are answered in the process unexpectedly. Last reason is being wrong is career-threatening. Read more at: 

Strategic Focus report analyses drivers, current trends and inhibitors, outlines the evolution of BI technologies, identifies and assesses the best performing vendors in the market. The BI market is going through a transformational phase where vendors are looking to develop analytical tools for broader market usage and not just for power users. BI vendors are striving to enhance the functionality of their mobile. The top ten BI vendors constitute a significant share of the total market. The reasons to buy are: It helps the reader to understand the BI market landscape, drivers, the recent trends and inhibitors shaping the BI segment, provide an assessment of business intelligence vendors and their relative performance in the business intelligence market. The most exhaustive and up-to-date report providing revenue opportunity forecasts in the business intelligence market from 2014 to 2018 and extensive technology growth predictions based on adoption indicators, end-user technology demand, and macroeconomic factors. Read more at: 

There are two myths that need to be disproved about Marketing Research: Expensive and time intensive. The internet has two important sources of information: Firstly, the websites which companies, organizations and individuals have created to promote or communicate their products, services or views; secondly, user groups that are made up of people who have an interest in a particular industry or subject. A few tips work well for internet market research. One should draft a list of questions and ask the same questions of every customer, to obtain better comparisons and validate the data. There are many free online survey cloud options to collect information. One should look for a free package that provides a link to the survey which he can post the link on social networks and email out to the customer or subscriber base – ensuring to get a feedback from people. He may offer an incentive prize that will be appealing to the audience, if he wants to improve survey response rates. Read more at: 

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: 

Instead of conducting traditional in-person focus groups with these difficult to reach audiences, webcam-enabled online focus groups engage the audiences in real time group discussions. These tools have improved our ability to collect in-context consumer feedback and it is easy to conduct research with participants that are more difficult to recruit, widely geographically dispersed, or otherwise challenging to engage in research. Respondents seem to be more relaxed and are thus more open and willing to share their true thoughts, because they are participating from their natural home or work environment. Online focus groups participants seem willing to disagree with one another because there is not an in-person social pressure to conform to group opinions. Online focus groups also eliminates the need for research teams and clients to travel providing further benefits of convenience and travel cost savings. Read more at: 

A survey reveals that moving to a new home may damage more than your personal belongings and scars personal relationships. It is found that of those in a relationship, more than one third say moving has scarred their relationship due to decreased intimacy, increased fighting and financial strain. 46 percent of respondents say they disagreed over where to move and 42 percent say they fought over the reason for the move. Those with children say the stress hit the whole family with "choosing the right school" and "helping the kids find new friends". Nearly one in three respondents admitted they had "accidentally" lost one of their partner's prized possessions. More than half of the respondents said that today's neighbors are not as friendly as the neighbors they remember as a child because they "seem too busy" where nearly half of respondents also voted "meeting new neighbors" as a top three requirement to feeling comfortable and settled in a new home. Today's movers need a helping hand to feel comfortable and learn more about their brand new surroundings. Read more at:

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: 

One of the marketing questions is: "Is there a pattern to how best customers are acquired, and if so, how to repeat it?" If customers' interactions are tracked prior to their first purchase, and track which ones remain good customers and which ones we never see again, then we much more informed decisions can be made about spending precious customer acquisition marketing budget. Three things we should consider are:  Firstly whether you're an online-only or a multi-channel retailer, think about how to collect pre-purchase activity data, even if the data is anonymous. Secondly, think about how you can correlate this data with your customer purchase history. Thirdly, look for repeatable acquisition patterns among your customers, and don't forget to look at timing patterns as well as the usual sources and marketing types. Read more at: 

A research suggests that people still think charities are spending more than double the acceptable amount on administration costs also think only around a third of income is actually spent on the cause. People think charities spend 37% of their income on administration costs, more than twice the 15% they feel would be acceptable. The public overestimate how much is spent on fundraising and 'admin' and underestimate how much is spent on the cause. The public is much stricter than charities when it comes to defining spending on 'the cause'. To close the gap between public perception and charity reality, charities will have to work much harder if they are. Charities must start talking to donors, volunteers, public to help people understand not only what their money is being spent on, but also why it is money well spent. 65% people see a charity's chief executive as an admin cost and 45% think a director managing several medical research projects is admin, the same as paying volunteer expenses. Read more at: 

Big data is very much in rage these days and social media networks are some of the largest sources of big data. There are billions of posts, connections and shares which can be analyzed. Buried in this social data are insights that can help to progress advertising and give the aggressive edge. It can be expensive and take a lot of time to analyze social data.What are the benefits we are looking to achieve- Improving audience, positive feedback and praise, more engagement in conversations, better understanding of our target audience,converting people to customers and doing better than our competitors. Read more at: 

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/how-use-social-analytics-improve-your-performance

When one starts a new project that involves analyzing his company's data especially when the data is stored across functional areas, that person is in trouble. The data lake model helps in this case. To get access to data doesn't require an integration effort, because data is already there in the lake and one can apply MapReduce and other algorithms to use it. In the lake some data are unstructured or not structured by us for a given project. To construct a data lake one needs to learn some of the Hadoop stack such as Sqoop, Oozie and Flume. Next a data scientist should be found who understands Hadoop as well as business and the company’s business data in particular. Then one should start with basic cases and use simple and familiar tools like Tableau to make nice charts, graphics, and reports demonstrating that he can do something useful with the data. Next security up front should be considered, as well as who can access what data. Use of core Hadoop platform is beneficial. Apart from this one should keep in mind that lake security may have business unit implications and one should not have a lot of mini lakes i.e. data ponds that are separate and not equal. Read more at:http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/how-create-data-lake-fun-and-profit-246874?page=0,0

Nowadays a new set of tools is developed to help business users visualize data and interact with it in real time. One may think of mobile reporting as a good device for business but it is not good enough indeed and we need analytics tools too. Mobile analytics can be quite different from traditional business intelligence, in fact, and may even change the way you work with data comfortably behind the desk. Three basic aspects of mobile analytics are- For any application, the touch interface makes the difference between mobile and desktop environments. It encourages exploration. It is possible to make interactive areas large enough to touch through a mobile device. Mobile analytics also demands responsive interface design and the analysis must work across many devices. A responsive interface supports many form factors and one’s BI platform if designed for mobile ought to handle these scenarios generically. Mobile analytics also helps in speedy discovery and facilitates an interactive experience which is touch-enabled. These practices not only enable, but encourage exploration.

Read more at:http://www.infoworld.com/t/business-intelligence/getting-your-hands-data-mobile-analytics-246331?page=0,0

One can use the big data, available in hand, in a right or a wrong way. Here is the list of top 10 worst big data practices which one should try to avoid. First, though MongoDB has an aggregation platform, it is not good as an analytical system and thus should not be used as big data platform. Second, RDBMS schema is used as files by many which should be avoided too. Third, creating a series of data points. Fourth, failing to develop use cases. Fifth, over-dependence on Hive should be reduced as the whole point of big data is to expand beyond what one could do with one technology. Sixth, it's not right to treat HBase like an RDBMS. Seventh, trying to install Hadoop and all its moving parts on 100 nodes by hands is also a worst practice. Eighth, one should also avoid RAID/LVM/SAN/VM-ing one's data nodes. Ninth, instead of treating HDFS as just a file system one needs to think about how one is going to secure all of this and for whom. Finally, everyone is free but each one should have a plan. Read more at:http://analytics.theiegroup.com/article/53c925453723a81857000073/The-10-Worst-Big-Data-Practices-

Massive amount of climate data waits to be  interpreted by the press, public agencies, and general public and the challenge lies in finding analytics software that is easy to use, and produces understandable results, and can handle the volumes of big data available. However, to get a handle on the sort of governmental data on climate and resources that often resides in generic comma-delimited files, Circle of Blue, who specializes in reports on the global competition for water, food, energy in a changing climate, uses QlikView Business Discovery Platform. Such visual analysis software helps users to view, explore, and interpret the data with little technical training. Circle of Blue hopes to make the public more informed about the vulnerability of water supplies in the era of climate change by merging technology with on-the-ground reporting and online networks. With the use of Qlik View platform, it becomes easier for them to deliver data to a wide range of people. QlikView dashboards work with the large data sets to produce sophisticated, engaging, and state-of-the-art graphics. The data can be scaled to compare local information with national and global trends and that information, in turn, can help in formming public policy discussions.

Read more at:http://tdwi.org/Articles/2014/07/08/Massive-Climate-Data-Awaits-Analysis.aspx?Page=1

According to research iOS users constitute the majority of the mobile commerce market across iOS, Android, Windows and Blackberry devices in UK. Apple's domination is even greater in case of tablet users, with iPad owners representing a higher proportion of the user base and also being more likely to shop. Apple's dominance is also for purchases made via apps. Windows users are also more regular shoppers than those on Android for both Surface tablet and Windows Phone users. The variety of purchase choices in the top five suggests that it is convenience rather than price that drives mobile purchases, as users are opting for high-value items such as hotels, train tickets and clothing alongside less expensive items. When it comes to location, mobile does not necessarily mean 'out and about' as 64% of mobile device owners say 'at home' is the primary place where their mobile website browsing takes place, and 80% for tablet browsing. The overriding lesson from the study is that commerce must be increasingly Omni channel in order to meet customer demand. Read more at:

Having the right market intelligence tools, talent and processes is the key to success. The programs help companies manage this increased uncertainty by taking a greater responsibility for strategic analysis. B2B brands achieve world class market intelligence in the following ways: Firstly, create external networks by identifying low value and time-consuming intelligence deliverables, encourage the involvement of investment relations teams in market intelligence, participate in market intelligence conferences and workshops Secondly, link to business strategy like conduct an intelligence needs survey and analysis to show how the market intelligence team can better support the business. Thirdly, become a trusted advisor. Fourthly, tackle sidetracking issues. Market intelligence needs to be put into the decision-making process in key areas such as innovation, strategy, sales and marketing. Read more at: 

Realizing the rising importance of social media in any business every brand needs fourteen tools to make things simpler. They are: 1. Visual Google analytics report: this app creates a custom infographic of the company’s website activity and performances from complicated Google data. It delivers straight to the company’s inbox- the reasons for its win so that it can improve next time. 2. TweetDeck: it is a twitter based management tool gives one an overall aspect of their profile and also customizes the display and reduces navigation problems.

3. HootSuite: this app allows to manage multiple social media profiles at the same time. It allows to delegate between responses to fans and followers and responses coordination of responses and potentially overlooking fans is not required. But it has a backdrop of not being able to make images appear.

4. Sprout Social: it cleans interface and a dashboard built around six tabs, namely home, messages, feeds, publishing, discovery and reports. It suggests people to follow and schedules updates in advance.

5. Crowdbooster: it streamlines and schedules posts for twitter and Facebook, reminds followers one has not responded to and lists recent influential followers. It also directs growth and engagement metrics.

6. Twitter showdown: it compares twitter accounts of two industries and compares two competitors by finding the follower to following ratio, level of tweet engagement, mentions per tweet, tweet timing etc.

7. Edgerank Checker: it helps to understand how followers interact with each post by assigning a score and makes recommendations to assist future posts. 8. Buffer: A useful tool for small businesses with less time and resource. It helps to schedule posts and makes sharing easier but is not applicable for monitoring discussions. 

9. SocialBro: it provides insight to analytics, suggestions for targeting and engagement and highlights the key influencers and competitors. 10. Postling: it tracks responses, brands and people. Every mention of one’s brand is tracked easily. 11. Tailwind: it tracks your company, product and competitors and most profitable activities.

12. Social Mention: it scrapes user generated content across internet, and recent relevant results and metrics.

13. Shoutlet: it helps companies to understand its market, grow on social database and supplies all customers and fans need. 14. Argyle Social: it establishes the most valuable content ensuring efforts and value to marketing strategies. Read more at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/231851

Relying on very basic customer information such as demographics to influence marketing campaigns and limited internal sources and fragmented marketing systems limits sending personalized mails to customers. For companies having multiple marketing agencies and technology partners demographics cannot alone give a complete view of audiences as it leaves other important information. Customer relationship management programs relies on basic data which excludes customer nuances and encourages the mentality that marketers own and drive customer conversation which is no longer true. Due to CRM programs customers put little effort in knowing their customers. On the other hand using resources which contains a vast array of information about the customers enables a better interaction between customers and the brand. Customer Managed Relationship is the better option over CRM these days. To achieve a personal connection with customers, marketers should follow three key rules, namely communication, consistency and trust. Witty comments, 24/7 service or multichannel experience, sending similar number of mails in similar language and color schemes in all channels, personal messages, giving consumers what they expect might do the trick.

Engaging with different channels to get a better understanding of customers and targeting customers specifically using CMR is important. Brands should use CMR based marketing strategy to consider customers purchase behavior and social engagement. Further brands can create rich, useful content to guide customers into repeat purchases. Customers now want to tell brands how to engage with them using necessary technology instead of brands driving into a conversation with customers. Thus all marketers have to listen and adapt.

Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/marketing/crm-dead-now-0947236#!bibims

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Social media changes and news are annoying, customs to conquer them. Here’s how:1. expand an incorporated marketing plan. Social media shouldn’t be our only online promotion conduit.  Balance our merge with actions such as electronic mail marketing, guest blogging or search engine marketing. Along with digital marketing, leverage conventional advertising approaches such as networking, product demos ,seminars, and tradeshows. 2. employ it as a produce catalogue. Utilize communal media to give clients an appropriate guide. As per  to  marketer, 37% of US buyers use societal media to explore brands or services that they're trading. This regards that clients be going on companies’ Facebook, Pinterest, or LinkedIn pages to study about the profit and features of their gifts and balance them with opposing brand. 3. Leverage to stay in regulars remind sets. 44% of Twitter users not at all tweet or most LinkedIn users don’t interrelate with brand on LinkedIn.

Read more at:http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/how-overcome-social-media%E2%80%99s-most-frustrating-challenges-1

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Big business is asked to solve social and environmental evils. As a result, a rising number of important companies are accepting the confront of sustainability gravely, not only to diminish their environmental footstep and reinforce their reputations but also to progress operations and financial performance. Many ecosystem challenges cross limitations and need changes beyond the capability of person companies or even of an manufacturing. In these cases, the best loom for commerce can be to associate up-with governments, shareholders, local society, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Such partnerships often go through good, bad, and sometimes unattractive.The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a company that sets principles for the fishing industry, move violently in its initial few time with high staff proceeds and unstable support. To understand how to make these collaborations work, Mckinsey had meeting  with many business, administration, and NGO leaders . Read more at:

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/sustainability/creating_partnerships_for_sustainability