SigmaWay Blog

The way technology is making a progress and competition is becoming tougher with increased uncertainty, big data and analytics tools have become important to your company. There is another matter that is also important - your customers. So, which will you give more importance? Your analytics tools or your customers? It is of no doubt that big data and analytics tools will give you hidden information that is not visible easily, by sifting through customer data. But, you have to remember one thing - analytics tools have no brains. It will never ever answer 'why' - well, that is the biggest answer for your business. The reason - analytics tools never understand your customers!

To attract customers to your shop, or to your website, you have to build an experience within them. Your marketing communication strategies will form that experience and reshape them. You have to address questions like what your customers want and why they want - in short, you have to understand their behavior. So, to excel in business, it is more important to understand your customers, not analytics tools.

How to understand your customers' behavior? Read them at: http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/05/21/beyond-analytics-understanding-humans-scaling-business/ .

For emerging markets, exploring data to predict trends is not an easy option, mostly because of less availability of data in new fields. However, organizations in the emerging markets have the option of gradual progress. They have to start with analysing small data and then there will be scope to move into big data in near future. Problems for companies trying to do business in these areas are limited access to information and appropriate analytic modelling techniques. Gartner reports that companies are predicting 40 to 60% of their growth in revenues will come from emerging markets over the next decade, and McKinsey & Company predicts that in 12 years, 57% of the nearly one billion households with earnings greater than $20,000 a year will live in the developing world. "Companies need analytics to cope with these new markets," said Richard Howells, vice president of Go to Market for SAP. To know about this aspect, please visit the following link: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/start-with-small-data-in-emerging-markets-to-get-to-big-data-analytics/#. 

The term big data refers to large amount of customer information gathered from social media, which helps companies to improve sales and services by analyzing those data. But unfortunately small businesses have limitations while analyzing big data. Also the huge volume of data may be confusing for small organization and some time they don't know where to begin. Social platform gathers information which can be important for organisations. Hence tools provided by Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, are a good start as they offer low start-up investment as per Evan Greenberg, CEO of marketing and communications firm Allscope Media. To read more about how big data can help businesses to think outside the box, follow Nicole Fallon's article in this link: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6190-smb-big-data-tips.html

Companies are using data analytics intensively and they should remember that to make money out of it and enjoy profits, they have to measure it.

At VentureBeat’s Databeat 2014, experts were of the opinion that companies are not using analytics to its full potential. Data scientists must be engaged with the organizational activities for providing support and insights, based on which the concerned employees can react. In the background are various social networks. By using the right social media tools, they can get a view about their operations from a real – time perspective. They can generate dashboards and graphs which will provide them valuable inputs in terms of revenues. Apart from this, it can be an effective marketing tool also.

All this will zero in the ultimate thing – increase the profitability. But, for implementing analytics, cultural change in the organization is also necessary.

Read at http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/19/some-simple-but-important-reminders-on-how-user-analytics-can-help-you-make-more-money/  to know what the experts told in the conference.

Today, every company is talking about Big Data, but there is also an important thing to consider - that is organizational culture. As high technology companies are embracing Big Data, the direct beneficiaries will be their IT professionals – who will have the opportunity to outshine themselves. Companies need to look for new generation talents who can handle latest challenges keeping in tune with the advancement of Big Data technologies.  With bright futures ahead, big data can make a scope in every aspect – be it scientific research, medical science, or any data driven industry, companies and their IT professionals can see a silver line. To see increased productivity and boost profitability, what is required is the right mix of big data tools, vendor support and IT talent team.

To know how organizations can earn the feather cap by using big data analytics tools, taking alongside the cultural change, read at http://midsizeinsider.com/en-us/article/big-data-analytics-success-through-cult .

To manage your sales upwards, you need to click your senses. Have you ever thought, that much talked Big Data is also a part of your ‘sense’?

The way big data and analytics are making a progress, especially in marketing and to increase sales, it can no longer be ignored. Your buyers are now more informed about your products and services and you have to dig in deeper to gain new insights about the mind and heart of your customers.

That’s where big data comes in effect. Lots of customer data are now available and without going hither and thither, you can mine for gold. Yes, gold – because customer data is like an asset to you depending on which you can gain that ‘new insight’ to keep yourself ahead of competition. Click on http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/233969  to view on how big data can raise your sales. Who may say, you may be the next beneficiary of leveraging the power of Big Data!

Giving constant connectivity to customers and ensuring customer satisfaction are two most important things for telecom companies. As an owner of telecom company, you have to ensure that customers lose their call to as minimum as possible to prevent business loss and inconvenience to them. 

For this, you have to analyze every moment and take preventive actions whenever any faults occur. It is necessary that you must have analytics tools for it. But, unlike in most business cases, you will not able to use traditional machine data analytics. It is of no doubt that you will get patterns and trends, and will be able to evaluate program performance and pinpoint defects – but all these after the fact. By that time, you may lose your customers and revenues costing millions!

What you should do is do a real time monitoring and real time analysis as well. Using ‘streaming big data analytics’, you will be able to collect and correlate streaming data at a customer’s specific location, cell site performance, call failure rates and event prevent momentary glitch before they turn up into a large scale event. Not only this, based on profile of your customers, you can prioritize their issues. All these will increase one of your important parameters – customer satisfaction.

Read more at: http://smartdatacollective.com/dale-skeen/199716/why-telcos-can-no-longer-rely-traditional-machine-data-analytics-deliver-high-qual  to know how streaming data analytics help telecom companies to monitor calls in real time and increase customer satisfaction.

As businesses are becoming tougher and becoming more competitive, usage of advanced analytics is on rise. With the help of it, companies have increased their marketing effectiveness and they are able to generate more revenue out of the cost spent.

But, one thing has to be accepted. Deploying analytics tools in an organization is not an easy task. One of the main concerns is scalability – whether analytics will be utilized on a large scale or a small scale, because, depending on that, cost will vary; and if you choose the wrong one, it will eat your revenue. Change in organizational culture is also noteworthy – those who are not yet oriented to analytics, may face difficulty in adopting the technology.  In spite of all these, analytics have proved to be tremendous successful for marketers. Given in the present dynamic situation, CEOs must learn to adopt analytics and should motivate his or her marketing organization to use. Click on http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesinsights/2014/05/19/an-advanced-marketing-analytics-cheat-sheet-for-ceos/?ss=business  to know the tips for CEOs.

Calpian Commerce (the U.S. payment processing division of Calpian), has launched the SecurePay Insights merchant analytics platform. It helps businesses to leverage value-added data and analytics to improve their businesses. Calpian Commerce's SecurePay Insights (powered by Womply, a San Francisco-based technology company) provides real-time vision into revenue, online reputation, social media performance and competitive intelligence on a web-based dashboard.

To read more, visit the following link:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/calpian-commerce-launches-securepay-insights-merchant-analytics-platform-powered-by-womply-2014-05-07?reflink=MW_news_stmp

Pitney Bowes Inc., provider of technology solutions for all size firms that help them to connect with customers to build loyalty and grow revenue, announced the launch of the Spectrum® Spatial platform. It’s a platform built on MapInfo technology that delivers advanced location intelligence that enable businesses to centrally manage and deliver location data. Companies can apply this technology across departments and applications to address diverse business challenges.

To read more, visit the following link: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/pitney-bowes-launches-new-location-intelligence-platform-to-connect-the-dots-between-data-and-geography-2014-05-08

Location analytics adoption rate is growing rapidly. It's fueled by various trends like: Exposure of geo-coding technology, increasing focus on regulatory requirements, market intelligence and competitive intelligence. Over 80% of all data contains a location component. Location intelligence is easily attained through utilizing Geographic Information System (GIS). Location Analytics helps to visualize & explore relationships within this data and uses the result in decision-making. Location analytics firms are focusing on packaged solutions that can be integrated into other solutions such as workforce management solutions and analytics software.

To read more, visit the following link:http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1905902 

New technologies are emerging and along with that various analytics tools are also developing. Unlike previously, where building predictive models would take as long as twelve months, it now takes only a day or a week, provided you have the right information in your hands.

 But, wait. Your task does not finish here. You have just built a predictive model. The main thing is how you implement it. Properly deploying your model must be made in a systematic approach, as otherwise, can take months. You have to keep in mind that you have to implement your model in the real world.

How to go about it? Read these tips: http://www.banktech.com/business-intelligence/5-tips-for-operationalizing-analytics/240168237 .

Business leaders have embraced big data like never before. They believe that big data will bring miracles and will bring fortunes to their company. But, take a note - everything is not done by big data. If you do nothing, and sit on high hopes that big data will solve all problems, then you are wrong - instead of simplifying, big data will make your tasks more complex.

One thing you have to remember is that, although usage of big data has spurted, there are several analytical softwares that can give valuable outputs like how to become more competitive in the market or how to deliver better products and services, but still human intervention is necessary. Unless and until you guide your big data, it will not help you.

So, do not get lost in the midst of big data and take the right path to realize its full value and potential. Here are the ways you can do so: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-things-you-shouldnt-expect-big-data-to-do/# .

As a service provider, it is true that if you see your customer churn rate is reducing, then you are satisfied the most. Reason? A small reduction in customer churn rate can improve your profitability by millions.

Studies reveal that if you acquire new customers, it can cost you up to more than five times than to satisfy and retain your existing customers. After all, your existing customers who are like gems to your company,  provide treasures – you can gain deeper insights that will enable you to render better customer service which will create a favorable impact on your revenues. 

For this, you have to study your customers’ behavior. In the past, when technology and data were limited, knowing their behaviors was difficult. But now, with a handful of technologies and big data, you can analyze their behavior easily – even to the extent like at what time do they leave for work, how long it takes them to reach there, etc. By leveraging big data analytics, you can extract information on different metrics, based on which you can fine tune your service offerings according to your customers’ willing.

Read more at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articles/how-big-data-smart-analytics-is-reducing-subscribers-churn/ericssonarticleshow/34166759.cms  to know how big data can help you to reduce your customer churn rate smartly.

Cloud computing enables companies to get agile, leverage infrastructure on demand, and run it like a utility. The cloud environment provides flexibility, scalability and continuous availability with expert services. Rapid prototyping and to solve business process through analysis can be easily done by having access to a cloud environment. While the benefits are many but, the public cloud does not fulfill the needs of individual organizations which need better privacy and data security. In public cloud, many clients can access virtualized services from the same pool of servers and resources, but in private cloud clients mainly access services from a distinct pool of physical computers. Nowadays many organizations opt for a middle way i.e. hybrid cloud solution to avoid disadvantages of private cloud. Please go through the link for more details: http://www.daywatcher.com/what-is-a-private-cloud/

It is of no doubt that Big Data is transforming businesses greatly. But, this advantage is compromising a big issue. Have you guessed it?

Well, as Big Data is growing day by day, privacy and legal concerns have cropped in. So, does that mean you will stop using Big Data? If you do, you will surely fall behind your competitors because this data is now a resource which any marketers can use to gain competitive advantage.

While handling Big Data, the fundamental thing you have to keep in mind is data anonymity that will help you to avoid and tackle privacy and legal problems with Big Data.

To manage risks associated with it, you can follow the guidelines from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) which includes a Code of Practice on Anonymisation. Kim Walker, partner at law firm Thomas Eggar LLP, talks about them here: http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Big-data-big-legal-trouble .

If you are a startup and you are worried about your success, then wait. Big Data is here for you to predict your success in business.

To be successful in business, a lot depends on your employees. You need to have the best talents and also ensure that your employee turnover is low. In an era, where you have technology in your hands, and you are surrounded with social networks, looking for right persons for your company and ensuring their satisfaction are not difficult tasks. Also, the good thing is, it is not always that you have to pay for expensive tests and assessments to analyze your employees’ data all the time.

Read more at: http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/05/02/use-big-data-predict-success-startup/  to know how big data can help you in getting the right employees, reduce employee turnover, thereby predicting success of your startup.

Previously, I wrote that before stepping into Big Data, you should set up your question first. Now, it’s time for you to get accustomed to it. Every one of us knows that Big Data is changing the world of business. It has reshaped the ways companies normally look for gaining customer insights and is also helping entrepreneurs. But, still there is an important question that needs to be answered. Let’s talk about it.

One of the main advantages of implementing Big Data is that it helps you to take smarter decisions about your product as you get to know lots of customer data. You have to remember that using Big Data should not be expensive.  So the mantra will be - minimum expenditure, maximum benefit. You may be thinking ‘how can it be done? It’s an impossible task!’ But the good news is that it can be done and yes, in a cheaper way. Interested to know? Know the inexpensive ways on how to manage huge data sets and get the maximum out of it here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/233280 .

A website is a container of various contents like product or services the organization offers, its mission, vision, values, contact centre etc. Nowadays no business can grow without a properly maintained website. That is where quality of website content comes into play. It is essential to regularly analyze performance of your website content to see what’s working and what hasn't hit the spot. Google analytics site content reports can help you to a great extent for this purpose. Information like which pages getting most of the views, time specific traffic generation, visitor location, entry and exit pages etc will help you to put your effort in a more systematic manner and eventually it will address your thirst for rising above the rest. Anna Lewis, Analyst, Google Analytics, speaks about the benefits of Google Analytics content reports and how it can help you with information on page views, unique page views, Avg. time on page, entrances, bounce rate, exit percentage, page value, content groupings, navigation summary, content drill down etc.

To read more, visit

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2340779/Google-Analytics-Content-Reports-Understanding-the-Key-Benefits