SigmaWay Blog

Savings account with online banks are useful for people who do not need a banking service frequently. The key benefits of an online bank are: i) It offers higher rates of interest than traditional banks because of its lower maintenance and running costs, ii) It takes lower fees for a service, for example discounting overdraft fees partially or even fully and also issuing free debit cards and allowing free online  payment of bills, iii) An online bank takes substantial time to transfer money to another bank's account. This is a blessing in disguise as savings accounts are meant for saving and online banks provide the incentive to save more and spend less. Online banks for these purposes are becoming extremely popular these days. Read more at:  http://www.savingsaccounts.com/articles/advantages-to-banking-online

The Automotive Mission Plan(AMP) of 2016-2026 aims at making India one of the three leading global automobile manufacturers. An annual revenue of $300 billion in 2026 is targeted. The AMP aims at contributing 13% to the GDP and a creation of 100 million additional jobs to name a few. Basic requirements to be met are safety, quality improvement and technological advancements. The Indian Government has already spent a bulk in this regard. Besides, a target of 7 million electric cars by 2020 with benefits for both consumers and manufacturers is set. Despite a large series of challenges, tax reforms in this sector by the government are a testimony to the fact that the mission is on the right track to be accomplished to a large extent. Read more at: http://www.forbesindia.com/blog/business-strategy/indian-automotive-industry-the-road-ahead/

Demonetization was a shock to the growing Indian economy. The effects of demonetization are steadily getting neutralized. With banks issuing more liquidity in the market,availability of cash has almost come back to that of the pre-demonetization era. Government online initiatives in the form of BHIM and Aadhar Payments have gained massive popularity and private companies like Paytm and Mobikwik have found grounds in the Indian online market post demonetization. A fully digitized economy is not feasible but the country has at least taken a huge step forward to be a digital-friendly economy and the government has to properly nurture the ongoing trend to materialize its motives. Read more at:http://www.indiainfoline.com/article/general-editors-choice/demonetisation-impact-as-the-effects-of-demonetisation-is-fading-govt-plans-to-nurture-a-digital-economy-117050800111_1.html

A company named ORS is offering to clear scrap and also paying one for this with just one click on the app. ORS (Old Raddi Sold) app allows customers to book for scrap to be cleared from their doorstep. There are different rates for different things like newspapers, carton, metal scraps, e-wastes, etc. The company earns by selling these things to different industrial leader who are in need of them for recycling and charges some commission from them. Awareness is the biggest challenge when dealing with waste management in such unorganized sectors. Currently the company is dealing with only dry wastes that too only in Bengaluru. But, with the help of BBMP it is trying to provide solutions for wet waste management and planning to move across India. Read more at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/296723

Database vendor choice is one of the factors affecting the cost of provision of data. Even when licensing pricing is unpredictable we need database pricing to be low and stable. The pricing model can be per storage/ per server or user based where users need to create their separate profiles. Another type of models is in which cost structure have an influence over architecture where customers are not able to get all the expected cloud features such as independently scaling computing and storage. Computing and storage should be priced independently. This works well in case of the seasonality of data where one only has to pay for what he uses. Read more at https://gigaom.com/2017/05/08/know-your-embedded-database-cost/

Marketing Managers requires excellent productivity tools for smooth functioning. The best productivity tools are Collaborative, Easy to use and Cloud-based. The article explains the 7 best productivity tools for marketing managers:

i. Trello

ii. Slack

iii. CoSchedule

iv. Quip

v. Github

vi. Waffle

vii. Mention

Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/7-excellent-productivity-tools-marketing-managers

For much of the past five decades, financial capital was considered a scarce resource. Today, however, capital is abundant and cheap, and the authors expect the same in another 20 years. Global financial assets have been growing faster than global GDP, and they explain why that trend is likely to continue. It is found that as the supply of capital has increased, the cost has plunged, making it possible for many large firms to borrow funds for next to nothing. Companies can no longer sustain competitive advantage simply by allocating capital skillfully. Now, business leaders need to lower hurdle rates and change their investment strategy, moving away from a few big bets and instead pursuing numerous small, varied growth opportunities. Organizations need to manage their work forces as carefully and rigorously as they manage their financial assets, unleashing and supporting the talent within their organizations. Read more at: https://hbr.org/2017/03/strategy-in-the-age-of-superabundant-capital

Finance is a daunting subject for someone who is not a numbers person. But understanding concepts like EBITDA and net present value are important no matter where you sit on the org chart. Here are some strategies for boosting your financial acumen. Get acquainted with your company’s income statement. Reproduce the numbers in a spreadsheet then group them into categories of profit and loss. Your goal is to understand how much your company spends and where it makes money. Play with the numbers. Experiment with the figures on the balance sheet by going through a series of “what if” scenarios. What if prices were lower? What if revenue was higher? This exercise helps you internalize how financial models work. Find a financial mentor. Foster a relationship with a senior financial or operations manager who can teach you and answer your questions. This person can also serve as a sounding board for financial decisions you need to make. Read more at: https://hbr.org/2017/03/how-to-improve-your-finance-skills-even-if-you-hate-numbers

Location data can be mingled with technology to better manage traffic issues, infrastructure as well as planning city development. CARTO a SaaS platform creates mapping tools that help governments and citizens take smart decisions. For example, in SanDiego, visualizations with the help of data assisted citizens to track the progress of their street repairs. In Finland, reindeers could be detected from reasonable radius which could avert their deaths by car. Similarly, location intelligence could be used for tree plantation in appropriate habitats. Businesses can decide on their investment strategies based on locations and planners could do predictive intelligence in handling traffic. Overall citizens should be a part of development. Read more at https://readwrite.com/2017/07/05/location-intelligence-key-citizen-centric-smart-cities-cl1/

New leaders when inherit a group that is not enough hard working should take some time to listen and appreciate whatever the present situation is rather than imposing new norms to make their own mark. After assessing the situation, if the managers find the need for quick and fundamental change then they should address the problem systematically. The key to become an effective leader is to first get feedback from trusted sources. One should consult with his HR to ensure new standard doesn’t conflict with company policy. You can have a conversation with your peer managers and boss before addressing workgroup. While discussing business case the leader should be open to all ideas and shouldn’t come across as a resentful person. If any problem of transgression or insubordination arises, calmly and deliberately confront the behavior and impose appropriate consequences. Effective communication can raise the bar of your new team. Read more at https://hbr.org/2017/06/what-to-do-when-you-inherit-a-team-that-isnt-working-hard-enough

How can we use AI to better understand the future? What will our clients and the marketplace need and want one year, two years, five years from now?” This is a shift from analytics that automatically collect and analyze data from past interactions (buying behavior, customer service engagements, etc.) to leverage AI to provide solutions that address both current and future challenges. 

Now, instead of using chatbots and other AI tools as communication devices to interact with customers at various phases of their shopping and decision-making process, many companies are exploring how bots can collect and analyze customer needs and business data for solution development. 

Read more at : http://www.cio.com/article/3200667/artificial-intelligence/robots-are-not-coming-they-are-already-here.html

In today's dynamic marketplace, it has become necessary for businesses to be able to use data to identify challenges and meet them. So, to establish a data-driven culture that empowers employees with skills to use data for accurate decision making is important. Ways in which this transformation can be done are by establishing a clear vision by imparting knowledge about the use of data, ensuring easy and secure access to data, keeping the data organized, clean and up-to-date, creating agile multi-disciplinary teams, i.e. forming teams which have at least one member who's well experienced in data analytics, and lastly by developing reward mechanisms by sharing data successes to inspire others. Thus, analyzing the data in the right way and cultivating a data-driven culture is necessary to make accurate decisions. Read more at: http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/5-ways-businesses-can-cultivate-a-data-driven-culture

Association with a brand or building relationships is all about how a consumer feels when he is having shopping experience. Emotion AI can be used to find out consumers emotions while shopping and interacting with them. Use of AI in retail stores has received positive responses worldwide. Emotion AI would be more consumer friendly and would add the much-needed personalization to better understand the customers. Opinion mining would help brands to grow and build trust. With the help of traditional methods of consumer feedback, emotion data can provide an overall understanding of consumers. Read more at: https://readwrite.com/2017/07/04/retailers-emotion-ai-online-store-dl1/

The last decade was marked by the invasion of new data sources such as online clickstreams. Cloud-based analytics made low cost acquiring of massive amount of computing power at a short period of time possible. It is now common with the small companies as well. Many companies are using Hadoop-based data lakes to store a large amount of data till it is structured and analyzed. Hive and Python are mostly used for scripting, Spark for streaming data and R for statistics have gained popularity. Analytics has been integrated with the production applications. Thus, Analytic technologies have evolved over the years as more powerful and less expensive. Read more at https://hbr.org/2017/06/how-analytics-has-changed-in-the-last-10-years-and-how-its-stayed-the-same

Three principles of data science are: (i) the system built should perform well on future data sets and not just the current data set. Conclusions made on the basis of the current scenario are not always true for future cases, (ii) feature extraction is important, i.e. specifically finding the information that is required, by finding the correct elements, (iii) understanding and developing the correct model is the most important task. These are a few principle experiences which are not stated anywhere. Read more at: http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/three-things-about-data-science-you-won-t-find-in-the-books

With the increase in cyberattack throughout the world, it has become extremely necessary to install cybersecurity which uses digital technologies to protect company networks, computers and programs from unauthorized access and subsequent damage. With the market rapidly digitalizing itself, it is necessary for them to secure it. The focus must be on safeguarding the data spread across devices and cloud. There are different techniques used by hackers to attack the company’s data source, also there are ways to combat these attacks by network defense, mobile device protection, investment in securing IoT devices etc. Artificial Intelligence is used to learn new malware behaviors and correct them. Thus, cybersecurity is a key factor for every organization while digitalizing itself. Read more at: http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/cybersecurity-in-digital-age

Social Media is a powerful marketing tool. However, a social media marketing mess can turn out to be costly. Here are the top 7 tips avoid mistakes.

1. A little money should be spent to broaden social media reach and to target specific consumer groups.

2. Choosing the right social media platform is important. 

3. Know the target audience well.

4. Take expert help because attractive content is the key.

5. Potential prospects and existing customers should be given equal attention.

6. Focusing exclusively on sales promotion may not be useful.

7. Never ignore the customer feedbacks.

Read more at https://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/22846.aspx

Internet of Things is creating a revolutionary technology space and the connected devices are producing an enormous amount of structured and unstructured data which can be analyzed to give insights. Retail stores can with the help of VLC technology store information about the customer and analytics can decipher his buying patterns. IoT connects everything in our daily lives from smart homes to transportation to health which generated huge data. Businesses are able to take timely decisions and can even predict events by analyzing data from IoT. They have gone from reactive to proactive. Read more at https://www.experfy.com/blog/integrating-iot-with-big-data-a-revolutionary-step

Daily, new business starts-up but very few are successful.  The reason is that their focus is based on their idea and not their finances. So, lack of innovation, mismanagement of financial resources, failure to hire the right people, inability to access capital; inability to adapt to changing business environment and immigration policies gets included in the issues of start-up failure. These three strategic financial plans should be included by small businesses to fix failures. 1) Being acquainted with the business cash flow analysis. 2) Hiring a consultant for specific services. 3) Embracing strict financial discipline. 4) Using VPN and private internet connection to prevent any average hacker from attacking the data while using open Wi-Fi source. Read more at: http://newsvader.com/id/17256442225

At present, Cell phones are being considered obsolete and being replaced by Smartphones because smartphone is capable beyond the function of regular cell phones. Smartphones keep people occupied all the time. People who are shopping, or in bar or during work constantly keeps on checking their phone for Facebook, twitters or mails and continue replying. This is what the level of people obsessed and consumed with the smartphone. Recent study says that if one is sitting and working at desk, his eye and sub-conscious mind is looking to figure out some time for checking the phone updates and in this way, the work lacks focus. Read more at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/296562