SigmaWay Blog

Big data may be defined as extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions. It can also help to improve the market and customer relations. By collecting data on your company, it is easier to know what the customer wants, the services they like and also helps in improving operations and make them more efficient and saves time and cost. Companies, big and small alike should find ways to mine all the information and use it to their advantage. For further information, please visit :

 http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/this-is-it/combine-big-data-and-your-business-75513

Social media posts have been successful in attracting mass tourists in photographic outdoor locations. However, extra attention from selfie -snapping tourists can be harmful to the places. More number of people visiting these locations is a good thing, but polluting the place is not. Similarly, some people tend to pick up rocks or flowers, hampering the beauty of the location. Non-awareness among some tourists creates a problem. Social media posts, however, have managed to create certain groups, which picks up trash from popular trails in weekends. Thus, social media is not all bad. Read more at: https://www.marketplace.org/2017/05/29/business/how-social-media-hurts-and-helps-great-outdoors

6 elements to get a thorough overview of the business. 1) Mission statement which gives the overview of the company it should be precise. 2)  marketplace opportunity which explains the market for the product, includes both qualitative and quantitative research. 3) Product/service information which takes an in-depth look at the product and service and how does it work explaining its key elements. 4) Sales plan where high level analysis of sales and marketplace takes place. Also showcases high level sales plan. 5) Funding decisions are composed of 3 components- idea/concept, team and ability, this is why it is crucial to compile a team. 6) Lastly, financials this tells the story of the growth of the business and is crucial most. These elements if conveyed effectively will help investors to build an effective plan that will make the business successful. Read more at: http://thedec.co/2017/01/6-key-elements-to-crafting-the-perfect-business-plan/

Digital Innovations have caused many companies to flourish and many companies to perish.eg; the newsprint industry. In fact, any industry can be disrupted by an innovation. Three important things that marketers generally overlook these days are: i) Getting up-to-date with the latest tech is not enough. You need to plan ahead. ii) Always stick to the business model instead of sticking to the mission. iii) Publishing frequency is no longer the key to keep busy the audiences. The best way to be ahead of the crowd is to publish something great that will really engage the customer. Read more at: http://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/tools-and-tips/three-key-things-marketers-overlook/

Personal Branding refers to establishing a specific image of yourself in the mind of an ideal client, so they can get to know, like and trust before they buy from you. This is very important because of too much competition. So, you need to create confidence that you can deliver on your promises. It creates your brand personality and culture, guiding you to make the right decisions about marketing, promotions, partnerships, sponsorships and which channels to use. Consistency on your promises is the key to create your brand a memorable brand. If you truly want to be identified and get respected, your personal brand should be created before you begin any sort of media, marketing, PR, promotion, book writing, speaking of a program. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/leadership/personal-branding-service-providers-01851797#Ksoh9ge8sO3Di4j6.97

The Big Data analytics remains a highly significant factor when there is a point of mobile marketing. Every business is aware of the role of mobile apps and big data analytics in establishing a brand image and marketing their products. The apps's anywhere-anytime nature helped the businesses acquire more insights on the user data based on input, usage patterns, and the user behavior. This huge reserve of mobile user data is used further for the purpose of optimizing the mobile user experiences, to drive as well as build the mobile traffic, to drive more user interaction and engagement and to push the business conversion. Some critical facets need to keep business in their mind: i) Data driven approach to marketing must be cross disciplinary. ii) focus must be on the right KPIs and importance must be given to insights between lines than just numbers. Read more at: http://analyticsindiamag.com/mobile-apps-leverage-big-data-drive-sales-marketing/

Organizations do the required amount of substitution between 'defensive' and 'offensive' uses of data and also between control and flexibility in its use. Defensive data is about minimizing downside risk. Activities include ensuring acceptance with regulations and using analytics to identify and uphold fraud. Defensive efforts are applied to ensure the integrity of data flowing through a company's internal systems. Data offense emphasizes on supporting business goals like increasing revenue, profitability, and customer satisfaction. It includes activities which produce customer insights & market data to support managerial decision making. Each strategy has its own working infrastructure. Elements of data strategy  that should be taken into account are: Data definitions, Data ownership, data access, data assessment. Read more at: https://thefinancialbrand.com/65419/data-strategy-playing-offense-defense/

Microsoft is illuminating several places with big data and analytics offerings. In Finland, Microsoft along with CGI  developed a data driven smarter transit system, which saw Microsoft utilize the city's existing warehouse systems to create a cloud-based solution that could assemble and analyze travel data. Boston serves as another example where Microsoft is working to spread information about the variety of urban farming programs. Microsoft has also partnered with Athena Intelligence in developing the hill city of San Francisco. As a part of this, Microsoft is influencing Athena's data processing and visualization platform to gather valuable data about land, food, water, and energy.For further information.Read more at:

 http://analyticsindiamag.com/big-data-analytics-now-used-greening-planet/

Too much focus on revenue driving marketing tactics may lead one to overlook the bigger picture, that separates the best marketers from the mediocre ones. In this article, Anna Kayfitz(consultant for StrategicDB), discussed about quick and easy dashboards that measures the marketers against his competitors. First is website performance metrics. The important metrics in this regard are the average number of website visitors, bounce rate, site speed, etc. For instance, if your website has a high page-load time compared with your competitors, that will impact your page rankings, bounce rate, and overall customer satisfaction. Also the percentage of visitors coming from different regions are critical for the company plans to expand beyond its geographical presence. Mining for more data is the next important thing. Carrying out SEO/PPC research and using social media and PR effectively provide powerful insights. Lastly, It is advisable to do a competitive analysis prior to changing strategy, launching a new product, or making tactical plans for the next quarter or year. Read more at:

http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2016/29418/how-to-benchmark-your-marketing-performance-against-your-competitions

Marketing Cloud integration assimilates all aspects of marketing in support of a company's market goals.To begin with,security and privacy are the fundamental building blocks of trust between a company and its prospects, customers, partners, investors and employees.Next,finance and monetization are the next most important fundamental to the successful relationship between all stakeholders.Marketing collaboration and marketing analytics also are indespansable for the effeciency of the marketing cloud architecture.Web, Content Management Systems, CRM and eCommerce Platforms are core marketing platforms.Careful evaluation of current capabilities and a realistic assessment of available resources  helps in appropriate  selection of the systems needed to enhance and optimize each of these core platforms and marketing mix tools.In many cases,the task of assessing these capabilities is beyond the focus of many marketers and executives.IT management will be called upon in these instances to implement the integrations needed to optimize marketing cloud operations.Read more at : 

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/integrate-my-jde/marketing-cloud-integration-76575

Customer feedback from various online sites is important in decision-making for financial institutions especially banks. According to a survey, 87% American customers find reviewer star ratings very important. It is essential to track customer reviews for the success of a financial institution. Categorization of reviews according to various aspects of banking service delivery, such as mobile banking would create a direct impact on improving customer experience. According to a study by Harvard Business School, one star increase in rating would trigger a 9% revenue increment. Responding to reviews, appropriate action must be taken by someone in authority to increase the star rating. Read more at: https://thefinancialbrand.com/64557/social-media-reviews-customer-experience/

The8App Cloud provides individual users a daily stream of direct offers from brands that need to reward them for posting or sharing relevant content across their own social platforms.

Micro-influencers need to be rewarded for his or her interactions on social media and The8App allows users to legitimise their social influence by sharing brand campaigns.

Brands may love the chance to faucet into influencers so that they will incentivize social content on behalf of the brand.

Although the brand needs to "empower each individual with the tools to legitimise their social influence," blindly sharing ads across social feeds isn't correct.

Like affiliate selling revenue for the tip user, users may need to attend it slow till they will alone live off their social media activities from the app. Read more at :

http://www.zdnet.com/article/social-influencers-finally-have-the-chance-to-make-money-with-the8app/

Each and every sector of the economy is about personalized experiences. Business analytics and business intelligence is now a necessity. Data driven marketing strategies directly translate into conversions and revenues.  It is high time for the financial services industry to adopt the same.  The financial institutions are lagging in terms of consumer expectations and level of customization. Exclusive focus should be on their consumers and their specific needs.  In fact, successful implementation can add up to 14% to the annual revenue. Read more at: https://thefinancialbrand.com/65396/banking-data-analytics-marketing-personalization/

After being cautious of big data for several years, the marketing and advertising technology sector is adopting it cautiously nowadays. Big data analytics has emerged to be a handy tool for these sectors as it allows a more sophisticated analysis of things to get deeper insights into a consumer's behaviour pattern.  The data is gathered using consumer’s digital footprints like googling and facebook liking etc. Then, this information is used by companies to identify the behaviour of the existing online users to offer them the best targeted deals and services which are specially tailored for them. Therefore, this allows the marketing and advertising sector to create more focused, targeted and, effective campaigns by saving money, targeting the right consumers for the right products and increasing the rate of conversion of the deals offered. Read more at:https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/293678

With the increasing availability of data in the present digital age, a new science of opinion mining is emerging. It is based upon the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to mine public opinion for sentiments as well as the topics driving that sentiment. This can be carried out in two ways: the first one involves the exclusive use of AI to structure the data, while the second one involves the use of AI along with processing of data through a team of people to verify the data for sentiment and the topics driving the sentiment, since AI could struggle to understand the nuances of human emotions. So, the field of data mining can be used by governments, global organisations, media and businesses to shape their strategies efficiently and, measure the public’s/consumer’s satisfaction of their policies, products, services and brands.Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/big-data/opinion-mining-future-data-analytics-01849821#SoExOgmWJWYF7RIM.97

International money transfer service TransferWise has introduced a new Facebook Messenger bot which allows customers to send money and create rate alerts directly from within Facebook Messenger. An automated customer service bot guides users through money transfers, which can be made from the U.S., Europe, Australia, and Canada. You can also set up rate alerts through Messenger, meaning you'll receive a daily update on the rates between your preferred currencies. It will notify you when the foreign exchange rate you are interested in reaches a certain level. Read more at: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20170225/business/170229808/

Advanced data resources like big data analytics is required by every business. Major areas of sales and marketing getting help from big analytics are customer analytics, operational analytics, product innovation, etc. Relation between big data and mobility allows mutual growth. Mobile apps promotes growth of big data. Apps have all the materials to steer marketing initiatives. Reserve of mobile user data is used to optimize a variety of things. Data driven insights play a major role in mobile marketing. Specific user data along with location data allows more personalization in marketing. High volumes of data is giving more control to analytics and real-time analytics can provide more advantages. Most businesses use data driven marketing approach. Big data pushes the benefits of mobility with advanced approaches. Read more at: http://analyticsindiamag.com/mobile-apps-leverage-big-data-drive-sales-marketing/

The cost of acquiring customer base is very high in the first 12-24 months of business incorporation because we do not know the  characteristics of our target group .This is why Cost to Income Ratio (CIR) is high. To lower CIR we need to collect transactional data, website data and logistics data. Having the data for 8-12 months we can understand the characteristics of existing customers by building up a model and selecting significant variables having an impact. Running a classification algorithm would fine-tune our target group. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) depicts the quality of customers. Customers with higher CLV would help business to grow.Read more at: http://analyticsindiamag.com/optimize-digital-marketing-spends-drives-traffic-ecommerce-site/

Managing people can turn out to be more important than managing money for the companies. Human capital is measured by time, energy and talent of the workforce. Statistics say that only about 15% of the workforce of a company makes a difference. Finding and retaining this 15% is a difficult task. Mostly, it has been observed that abundant financial capital is carefully managed but scarce human capital is not managed properly. This trend has to be altered to achieve success. Read more at: https://hbr.org/2017/05/what-if-companies-managed-people-as-carefully-as-they-manage-money

Blending GST with a clearly articulated manufacturing strategy would attract global investments, create jobs and there cannot be a better time to start the Make in India program. The GST rate has been reduced by 10% for most of the industrial products. Lower taxes, simplified tax structure, seamless tax credit facility and technology driven easy tax compliance system offered by GST will promote the manufacturing sector. Concentration should be on the following manufacturing Categories: semiconductor making equipment (SME) which is at the heart of most import products/ sectors today; manufacturing of specialty materials, nanotechnology, integrated circuits, etc.; manufacturing of computer, TV, mobile phone and other electronic and telecom equipment and producing skill- and labor-intensive products like auto components, furniture, apparel etc. Read more at: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/how-to-combine-gst-with-a-sharp-make-in-india-strategy-to-convert-india-into-a-global-manufacturing-hub/