SigmaWay Blog

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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

An ethics checklist along with a list of common unethical market research concerns that may arise during the research process are: Answering "yes" to any of the following questions could suggest that decision should be changed or more discussions should be conducted to ensure the business is making the most ethical decision. First, does my decision treat me, or my company, as an exception to the rule? Second, would my decision lose profits if customers were aware? Third, would I repel qualified job applicants by telling them about my decision? Fourth, does my decision meet other employee's opinions? Fifth, is my decision partial or biased? Sixth, does it divide the goals of the company? Seventh, will I have to pull rank to make others follow it? Eighth, would I prefer avoiding the consequences of this decision? Lastly, did I avoid any of the questions by telling myself that I can get away with it? Some biggest ethical concerns in market research are: First, conducting unnecessary research. Second, performing the wrong research will waste both time and money. Third, ignoring ongoing studies since Market research is constantly evolving. Fourth, Misuse of research according to licensing agreements which occurs because the user does not fully understand the limitations of the different license types.Read more about this at: 

Market research fits into the functionality and needs of each institutional department in the following ways: College and university libraries can benefit greatly by providing faculty, research departments and students with a database of diverse market research content. Students will have access to the same real-world business intelligence that professionals use on a daily basis, which allow them to produce higher-quality research projects. These students will be better prepared to enter the workforce after gaining a realistic and accurate insight into the world of market research. Business school classes also incorporate market research, and design assignments to reflect some of the research-based professional problems that students will encounter in business.  Students will begin to develop critical research skills, analytical thinking, and strategic planning. Utilizing a variety of published reports allows you to gain a comprehensive view based on numerous perspectives. Maintaining a database of diverse content across numerous industries is also beneficial for academic institutions.Read more at: 

The healthcare analytics market is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 25% over the forecast period 2014-2019. Increasing healthcare IT adoption, centralized healthcare mandates across the globe, emerging fields of predictive, prescriptive analysis and venture capital are the factors driving the market growth. Digitization of world commerce, the emergence of Big Data and increase in the number of advanced technologies are other growth providing factors. Factors hampering the growth of the healthcare analytics market include lack of skilled labor with analytical skills, data securing and patient data privacy. North America holds the largest share of healthcare analytics market driven by US centralized healthcare mandates such as Meaningful Use and The Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (PPACA). These initiatives assist to improve the acceptance of Electronic Health Records and Healthcare Information Exchange, thus improving the usage of analytics to influence the generated data. Read more at:

http://www.fortmilltimes.com/2014/07/21/3616557/research-and-markets-healthcare.html

Big data has a vital application in healthcare industry. Social media will increase communication between providers, patients and communities. This will not only work to globalize and democratize healthcare, but it is also a potentially important source of big data.  It will impact how these players engage with the healthcare ecosystem, especially when globalization, external data, regionalization, mobility and social networking are involved. The problem in healthcare isn't the lack of data but the lack of information that can be used to support decision-making, planning and strategy. In healthcare, big data challenges are compounded by the fragmentation and dispersion of data among the various stakeholders, including payers, data vendors, standards organizations, providers, labs, ancillary vendors, financial institutions and regulatory agencies. The entire healthcare system can realize benefits from democratizing big data access. Big data can make decision support simpler, faster and ultimately more accurate because rational decisions are based on higher volumes of data that are more current and relevant. Read more at:

There are four main stages of the product life cycle: Introduction, Growth, Maturity, and Decline. Some examples of the different types of marketing styles and research necessary for each stage are: First, Introducing a new product into the market is going to require knowing information on your competition, buyer behavior, and distribution channels. Second, Growth-You will need to recognize new or improved competitors, possibly consider expansion in production and markets, and figure out how to maintain a positive image to your consumers. Third, Maturity- When your product becomes you will need to research your competitors more than anything else so you can potentially obtain their customers. Fourth, Decline- If your product reaches the decline phase, you will need to work diligently to get as much profit out of sales as possible. As your product comes to a decline stage, you might also want to consider going back to the drawing board to get creative with new ways to change the product completely to revamp sales. Read more about this aspect at: 

When a company struggles with any one aspect of the business, recognizing the need for a change of direction can be referred to as pivoting. Many companies have used market research to successfully pivot. A list of examples when market analysis proves a business pivot would benefit your company: First, Product Pivot - The way you see your product can be very different from how it is perceived by the public, but seeing how others will use it can help broaden your own perspective. Second, Marketing Pivot - The way your product is presented to customers is crucial to whether or not they buy it. Third, Customer Pivot - Customer segmentation is a critical aspect of marketing for a company. Fourth, Technology Pivot – Due to the evolving tech world and the many start ups that have been born, ideas for apps and social media continue to appear. Fifth, Competitor Pivot - Researching competitors will allow you to determine what decisions you need to make to stay on top. 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: 

Internet forecaster Mary Meeker in her latest report includes that trading of sensors for phones, tablets, etc., have increased by 32 percent up to 8 billion in 2013. And mobile data traffic is rising at an annual rate of 81 percent. With the change from desktop to all things mobile, high-thinking marketers should be looking for ways to make use of all the untapped signals available to them. Marketers can carry the opportunity to discard a huge amount of deadweight from their activities by:

• Sourcing new leads.

• Leveraging predictive lead scoring.

• Continuously personalizing.

The digital universe of data is growing largely and expected to reach 13 zettabytes by 2016. While out of 34 percent of the useful created data only 1 percent is being analyzed today. Today, companies must be thinking about gathering data and partnering with experts that have the machine learning capacity needed to enable truly data-driven marketing decisions.

  Read more at: 

http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Web-Exclusives/Viewpoints/The-Impact-of-the-Mobile-Boom-on-Data-Driven-Marketing-97796.aspx

Survey data tells that consumers regard their mobile phones as catalysts for productivity. Mobile tracking metrics reveals that consumers rarely ever conduct productivity-related tasks on their devices. A survey shows that consumers engage less frequently in productive behaviors than expected. Upon deeper reflection, consumers suggest that being productive on a mobile phone no longer means "getting things done" or, in the economic sense, measuring output in relation to input. Instead, being productive on a mobile phone really means being available or accessible. Having internet connectivity is equivalent with being productive, as consumers have the capacity to carry out an activity. It is found that although individuals might not be engaging in financial or retail transactional tasks frequently, consumers still expect their mobile phones to facilitate tasks that make their life easier. So, marketers should lend a keen eye to understanding consumers at a micro-level by which marketers can avoid common misconceptions about consumer behavior and motivations and instead build effective mobile engagement in the most relevant way. Read more about this at: 

According to a study nineteen percent of online Americans aged 15-to-54 is reached by social media at least once a day regarding prime-time TV. Sixteen percent of prime-time TV viewing occasions involve some interaction with social media. During nearly half of these occasions, the viewer is engaging with social media specifically about the show being viewed. Socially-connected TV viewing is most evident with new TV shows and sports programming. On 3.3% of viewing occasions; they're using Twitter on 11.4% of prime-time TV viewing occasions, viewers are using Facebook. On 3.8% of prime-time viewing occasions, viewers are using Facebook and 1.8% on twitter regarding the show they are watching - making them socially-connected viewers. Therefore, Facebook's socially-connected viewing occasions were 33 percent of its total TV viewing occasions while Twitter's were 55 percent. A key question is how social media usage relates to new viewing platforms and behaviors. The reason is that the majority of viewing remains live and on traditional TV sets but social media use has a stronger relationship with the newer platforms and behaviors. Social media influence is closely linked to viewing on non-traditional screens. Read more at: 

The problem that corporate decision makers face is not the lack of available data, but how readily that data can be accessed, understood and used. A BI system gives companies a really valuable insight into operational things. One must also navigate the market environment properly to operate a company perfectly looking at the internal metrics. Business Intelligence systems seem to see the Internet almost as an afterthought. BI has never made its way in any meaningful way to those that are looking at external data: The insights teams, strategy teams and tactical marketing teams. There's more good data out there than most people realize but the problem is discovery and access, not availability. Business Intelligence and Market Intelligence are about to meet up in a big and transformational way for both industries. BI will have to learn about the needs and desires of the world's marketing departments and Market Intelligence companies will have to learn how to deliver their data in a more useful way than they currently do. Read more at: 

Big Data is a buzzing concept nowadays. When all people around the world are reviewing, commenting, tweeting, blogging, clicking pictures all about the same movie over the Internet, it makes a data worth billions of bytes. This data spread across the Internet is called the Big Data. According to McKinsey a business using Big Data to the full could increase its operating margin by more than 60 percent. Internet has provided businesses with new and profound ways to improve productivity. Companies will benefit from Big Data if they are able to extract unknown patterns from the data and use them in remodeling business activities. According to Weatherhead  University Professor Gray King, there is a Big Data revolution which is the fact that now we can do something with the data. As Gary King said “The importance of Big Data lies in improved statistical and computational methods, not in the exponential growth of storage or even computational capacity”. Read more at:

http://www.informationweek.in/informationweek/perspective/297095/unmasking-gold-internet

In the mid-1980s some of the big companies were trying to bring video telephone technology in the market but it was a big flop with the consumers. The market did not want video phones even though the technology existed. Today's banks have something at their disposal that the telecoms of the 1980s did not: big data and pervasive computing. The financial services industry is trying to create personalized banking so that it would use the right IT solutions and it would allow for robust predictive analytics- in order to use the banking features that will satisfy their customers and improve the bottom-line. The challenge is to understand how to have their data at their disposal into value. Stepping outside traditional platforms will help banks realize that they need to reevaluate self-service and customer engagement in this completely new environment. Banks need to make sure that they have a strategy around all self-service devices. Customers are ready to connect to banks over smart phones and tablets, from any location and at any time. For that to happen banks must use their customer feedbacks. Read more at:

http://www.informationweek.in/informationweek/news-analysis/297141/master-branch-online-platform-transformation

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Both data collection and use of social media API can help  the business in making elegant marketing imminent. An API is a program interface used by hunt engine optimization specialist to assess and arrest vital data applicable and hence improves their marketing strategies in the digital industry. As an application, the API helps digital marketers form their own web requests that will be well-suited to a certain website that will let for the faultless flow of data collection on these sites. A social media API permits commerce to simply collect social data across the social sites.Read more at:

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/data-collection-strategy-expand-digital-marketing-insights

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 Social media marketers have invested a huge contract of time, force and attempt in creating completely crafted tweets to followers -to spread knowledge and share substance related to their brand. Recently, however, a Gallup Poll revealed that a majority of Americans believe social media have no effect at all on their purchasing decisions. According to a survey, 62% of public in the U.S. e.g.Facebook and Twitter, do not have any influence on their choice to buy goods and services. Only 30% said social media have some influence and a much smaller 5% said they have a great deal of influence. Nielsen data showed that 92% of people trust recommendations from their networks, posts shared after associations with a brand in the form of social word of mouth. This doesn't mean that these people are easily control and falling victim to marketer's "set-ups.Read more at:

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/grea Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 t-debate-how-does-social-word-mouth-influence-purchasing-decisions

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 E-commerce businesses are switching to social media, but the fact that online trade experts are debating the impact of social media on ecommerce sales. The most important impact social media can have on ecommerce is to build faith and generate leads. In 2013, 75% of sales produced from social media come from Facebook, Twitter, making them the top 2 networks public use to discover products to buy. When we consider that U.S. customers are anticipated to expend an  $327 billion online in 2016, it is simple to observe why one must spend in social media. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/rise-social-media-ecommerce-infographic

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/rise-social-media-ecommerce-infographic

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Social analytics is now well thought-out to be an element of trade aptitude approach where statistical data is composed, analyzed and utilized in anticipating consumer behavior. The logical consequences impending from the social data used help business to turn into more approachable to the altering desires of their clients and market industry trend. It is also employ by online shoppers to analyze and examine the marketing strategies of their competitors. The exercise of analytics has happen to be an important instrument for businesses in accepting the collection of significant data that is obtainable to progress their market competition. Analyzing shared data can be very difficult when made physically. Use of an analytics tool can make the progression smarter, organized and can arrest main metrics that would be hard through human involvement. The Google Analytics is the accepted tool used by online marketers in calculating social metrics and signals.

. Read more at:

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/analytics-strategies-measure-social-signals

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The company's mobility tools was revealed at AWS Summit 2014 is tainted by Amazon Cognito, an individuality and data harmonization tool. Cognito allows developers to generate requests that authenticate consumers through community login sources. Other products in AWS mobility store include Mobile Analytics, a way for developers to collect and analyze app handling with reports delivered within an hour of data being sent to the application. While AWS is considered the leader in communications as a service, it is far from a domestic name in mobile app development. Amazon also debuted the Mobile Software Development Kit (SDK), which permits Apple iOS, Google Android and Fire OS developers to contact Cognito and Mobile Analytics, along with Simple Storage Service and DynamoDB. Amazon Simple Notification Service was enhanced as well, with the capability to fling announcements to iOS, Android and Kindle Fire devices. So, it assists Amazon to play pleasant with developers.. Read more at:

http://searchaws.techtarget.com/news/2240224295/AWS-mobility-swings-for-the-fences-only-gets-to-first-base?track=NL-1839&ad=894899&asrc=EM_NLN_31820948&uid=15754525&utm_medium=EM&utm_source=NLN&utm_campaign=20140721_What+do+you+know+about+the+cloud+and+SOA%3F_msargent

According to McKinsey reports the research & consulting industry is at the bottom of the list in comparison with other industries when it comes to economic mobility. Previously it took well over a decade for companies to realize that they no longer needed to build their factories near water, still considering water to be their prime source of power but now such similar slow response cannot be afforded with the speed of environmental change being far higher today than at the time electricity was invented.  The 4 possible strategic directions that the industry would take over the next years, adjusting itself to the conditions of today’s economy are: First, Lifting on DIY tools, driven by speed and tech infrastructure. Second, Making sense from ever bigger data, driven by size and tech infrastructure. Third bypass the rational brain, driven by methodology. Fourth tap into consumer collaboration, driven by trust, diversity, innovation and creativity. Read more at: