Big Data- Knowing what it is and how it can be used is not sufficient. To be successful, the need is to develop a strategy on how to optimize its use for your own advantage.

David A. Kelly, in his article in Q1 2015 issue of TeraData Magazine has compiled the views of three eminent researchers in this field - Vince Dell’Anno, David Stodder and Dan Vesset. They have suggested the following 3 best practices for developing big data strategies:

• View Big Data As A Valued Corporate Asset
• Foster A Culture Of Embracing Data
• Collect Diverse Data, Then Follow Up With Action

To understand them in detail, please visit the following link on forbes.com:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/teradata/2015/05/20/three-best-practices-for-executing-on-big-data-strategy/

“#”

Most of you must be familiar with this symbol – Hashtag. It is usually used to classify tweets. This classification is being used by banks to provide services these days in the form of Hashtag Banking.

“Hashtag banking or twitter banking is a method of providing banking services such as fund transfer, balance enquiry etc. as well as giving banking information using hashtag (#)”

The following article by Vivina Vishwanathan at livemint.com explains the concept of hashtag banking. In this article, she explains with an example that how # banking works. Since this is still in its initial stage, there are a lot of doubts regarding it like its safety, technical glitches etc.

Whatever its future, it will be decided on the basis of how banks develop this service and earn people’s trust regarding it.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.livemint.com/Money/PaklJWALLp7ttemZp9oleL/One-minute-guide-hashtag-banking.html

Over the past few years, the impact of globalization, amongst other things, has also been seen on Supply Chain. It’s not restricted to one place or country, rather, Supply Chain function has also spread its wings across countries. This change has affected the entire working of businesses. The change in supply chain has also affected the finance department of the firms. It has to adopt its practices to comply with these changes.

Now, a new era of supply chain is on its rise i.e. Digital Supply Networks. Be it the use of robots or 3-D printing, ‘digital’ is the key word.  Once again, its impact on the finance team is huge. This impact has been discussed by David Axson and Gary Hanifan in their article on IndustryWeek. They state the following 3 major effects:

• Release of working capital
• Improved forecasting
• New control philosophy

But the big question is- Are the CFOs and their finance teams ready for this?

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.industryweek.com/finance/finance-ready-demands-digital-supply-chains

With mobile usage growing at a tremendous rate for apps and social media, e-commerce companies have realized the importance of collaborating with the mobile platform rather than using just website interface. Social Collaboration has become the new trend. Retailers are now creating experiences for mobiles that add to the website experience.

Consumers are also getting the benefit of convenience. The concept of digital shopping is now becoming their habit. With m-commerce continuing to grow, retail businesses are now seeing a vision of golden age of e-commerce, where convenience and collaboration will play the key role.

To know more, please read this interesting article by Jack Lowinger, Founder and CEO of Cartonomy, at entrepreneur.com:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244208

In an environment where low interest rates are prevailing in US, investors are again facing the famous question of all times – Where to invest?

Here, an interesting option has now come to the rescue of investors that provides a part of the answer to the above question i.e. Mezzanine Debt in the Commercial Real Estate segment.

“Mezzanine debt is a fixed-income product that produces a consistent dividend yield and is secured by the borrower’s interest in the underlying property.”

As any other investment, mezzanine debt also has virtues as well as risks. Its virtues that have made it a favorable choice include:

• High single-digit to low double-digit coupons
• Backed by hard assets
• Occupies commercial real estate segment where individual investor is under-allocated
• Helps in diversification of portfolios
• There is transparency involved
• Demand for such high-yield subordinate loans is expected to increase
• Reduced lending by banks on commercial property

The risks that need to be considered before investing in this option include:

• Interest rate risk
• Downturn in real estate performance

Thus, mezzanine debt offers a great opportunity for investors as its demand is showing an increasing trend, but its pros and cons have to be kept in mind while making the investment decision.

To know more, please read this highly informative article by Bruce Batkin, CEO and co-founder of Terra Capital Partners, at fa-mag.com:

http://www.fa-mag.com/news/the-case-for-mezzanine-debt-21503.html?section=3

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

- John F. Kennedy

Change management is an important part of today’s business. Poor change management can lead to a loss of an important opportunity. This problem can be handled by equipping project managers with the skills and abilities to manage change. But are they ready for it?

According to Mike DePrisco, Vice President for Academic and Educational Programs at PMI, “We’ve seen the losses shrink over the past nine years. Part of this is due to having more engaged sponsors for change initiatives, but it also has to do with learning leaders making sure project managers have better skills and strategies.”

For training the project managers in this, PMI relies on the PMI Talent Triangle which includes the following 3 elements that lead to their holistic development:

• Technical Project Management
• Leadership
• Strategic and Business Management

Besides these, Satish Subramanian, author of “Transforming Business with Program Management”, identifies lack of sustainable vision as a problem which change leaders face. For this, he has suggested few management tactics that learning leaders can apply with project managers in their change implementation plan. Some of them are:

• Articulate the plan
• Deliver the right training
• Get leadership on board

To know more, please read the following article by Kate Everson, Associate Editor at Chief Learning Officer, at clomedia.com:

http://www.clomedia.com/articles/6249-turn-project-managers-into-change-managers

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A’s) are an important part of the financial scenario. Every day, new deals are made across the globe and companies are brought together. But, the fact remains that only few such deals succeed. So, why do M&A’s happen? What are those special elements that differentiate the successful deals from the failed projects?

The answer to these questions is given in the following article at Investopedia.com, where Elvis Picardo, Vice President-Research and Portfolio Manager at Global Securities Corporation, Vancouver, explains why companies undertake M&A transactions; gives the reasons for their failures that are Integration risk, Overpayment and Culture Clash; states the impact of M&A on capital structure, financial position, market reaction and future growth; and finally, presents some examples of well-known M&A transactions.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/102914/how-mergers-and-acquisitions-can-affect-company.asp

A Financial model is a model that represents the financial operations or financial statements of a company in terms of its business parameters and forecasts future financial performance.

-NASDAQ

Financial modeling is one of the most used tools to supplement financial decisions. Be it, valuation of something as small as assets and liabilities of a business or something as large as the whole business itself or an altogether new business, financial modeling is an essential part.

Read the following article by Sui Chuan at ValueEdge to know more about the pros and cons of this holy grail of finance:

http://www.value-edge.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-financial-modelling/

The FICC (fixed income, currencies & commodities) trading business has seen its ups and down. It’s no longer as attractive as it used to be prior to the Global Recession of 2008. But, this does not mean that it has lost its charm. In first quarter of 2015, U.S. investment banks have seen a notable increase in the FICC trading revenues. These have shown a more than double increase than Q4, 2014 revenues. This increase can be attributed to the increase in debt and the removal of cap from Swiss Franc.

The following article at Forbes.com byTrefis Team reports the total as well as FICC revenues of five largest investment banks – Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and Citigroup. These figures show JPMorgan’s dominance in the FICC trading as it has highest revenues and lowest volatility. Apart from that Citigroup and Goldman Sachs are the only two other banks that rely more heavily on FICC trading revenues to drive their top line. But in terms of volatility of revenues, their coefficient of variation for FICC is almost twice as volatile as their equity trading revenues.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/05/14/q1-2015-u-s-investment-banking-round-up-ficc-trading/

Building customer loyalty in the insurance sector has always been a difficult task. But, now there’s some good news in this regard. According to Insurance India, an IMRB International study, ‘Customer loyalty in insurance market with respect to product and services has improved’. This change has been observed due to improvement in products and services like timeliness of the alerts/ reminders for premium due dates, timeliness of receiving the premium receipts for payments made etc. as well as due to customer driven reforms and guidelines set by IRDA.

Another important observation made in the study was the need for improvement in services of the agents, because as compared to bancassurance and other mediums, customers were found to have weaker perceptions and experiences about the companies where agents were involved.

Apart from this, the study also reported that there are 60% Truly Loyal customers and new customer loyalty was highest when insurance was purchased online.

To know more, please read the following article at business-standard.com which summarizes the study:

http://www.business-standard.com/article/finance/customer-loyalty-has-improved-in-insurance-imrb-international-study-115051300967_1.html

Cloud computing has become an essential element in the business setting. Still, there are a number of corporates, who stay away from it because lack of trust on cloud computing security. This has been caused by several myths and misconceptions.

Sue Poremba, Information Security Writer, in her article on Forbes, has tried to clear 7 misconceptions about security threats in cloud computing. They are:

• Misconception #1: The public cloud is more easily breached.
• Misconception #2: All cloud apps are created equal.
• Misconception #3: You can rely on the cloud service provider to protect your business.
• Misconception #4: The end user is powerless when it comes to securing the cloud.
• Misconception #5: The corporate network provides protection even when using cloud apps.
• Misconception #6: The real problems are the lack of security features, gotcha contracts, and no transparency.
• Misconception #7:  have strong authentication mechanisms broadly implemented.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sungardas/2015/05/12/7-common-misconceptions-about-security-threats-in-cloud-computing/

Businesses today are going through a fundamental change. Now IT sector has taken the center stage. It has become an essential part of all business processes. The state is such that all technology platforms and application architectures which were being used till now are becoming obsolete and there’s an urgent need to revamp them.

In their place, a new platform is emerging, called as The Third Platform or SMAC i.e.

• Social Media
• Mobile
• Analytics
• Cloud

According to IDC, the analyst firm that coined the Third Platform term, the platform will disrupt one-third of top incumbent firms in every industry.

Bernard Golden, Vice President, Strategy for ActiveState Software, in his article at informationweek.com has explained Third Platform innovation with the help of an example of Airbnb. He further explains that this isn’t a unique situation; every company has to work on this. For this, DevOps (integrating application development and operations, with automation throughout the application lifecycle) and PaaS (Platform as a Service) are coming into picture. They will help companies to deliver world-class applications with end-to-end automation.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.informationweek.com/interop/paas-devops-and-the-third-platform/d/d-id/1320114

Cloud Services is one of the fastest growing market segments. Be it SaaS, PaaS or IaaS, cloud solutions are offering a lucrative opportunity for growth and innovation. But, is innovation, just in the cloud service enough for customer satisfaction and retention? The answer to this question is NO. For, consistent growth, innovation in other aspects of the cloud business is also required. One of these aspects is the billing and pricing model.

Currently, many pricing models are there in existence, such as, Freemium, flat rate, subscriptions, perpetual , multi-tier packages based on functionality, per user per click and CPU power / storage used etc. And the billing models are in the form of monthly, quarterly, annual, pay as you go and pay for what you use models.

But, what these models lack is flexibility, especially in SaaS segment. This is because cloud vendors do not want to change their cash flow models from a big full pie at a time to pieces of the pie in installments i.e. by taking customer payments from fully up front license bills to smaller usage bills split down to monthly fees. Also, in flexible cloud billing and delivery, there are a lot of complexities involved like in telecom billing.

There is a need for innovation in this segment as this is what the customers desire. This need has been identified and successfully catered to by Kahootz, a British cloud collaboration vendor. More such initiatives, leading to greater transparency and comparability will be the future of cloud pricing and billing in years to come.

To know more, please read the following article by Ian Moyse, Board Member, Eurocloud UK and Governance Board Member, Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), at business2community.com:

http://www.business2community.com/cloud-computing/cloud-promised-world-utility-billing-01221718

Like in any other service, in SaaS also, customer service is the most important element. And this becomes even more important because SaaS customers are different. They not only need service at the point of sales, but also for the whole duration of use of the software. If satisfied, then only, will they renew the subscription, otherwise not.

Micah Solomon, Customer Service Consultant, in his article at Forbes, explains the importance of customer service in SaaS by taking an example of PayScale, a B2B SaaS company. According to Mike Metzger, CEO of PayScale, “The SaaS environment makes the threshold for satisfying experience higher. We’re always working on it.”

Micah has also shared few tips for a successful SAAS customer service. Some of them are:

• Hire the right people
• Carefully define and put into place customer interaction standards and guidelines.
• Beef up your self-service options.
• Always be there for them.

Follow these tips and boost up your customer service, because ‘customer relations’ is the key to a successful SaaS business.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2015/04/25/how-and-why-to-improve-customer-service-at-your-saas-company-starting-today/

Today’s era is Online Era. Online brands are emerging day in and day out. There’s a lot of competition in this sector with thousands of startups growing. Amidst this competition, how do you plan to make your brand stand out? The answer to this is an interactive User Experience via websites that are the face of these brands. Website user experience (UX) is important in forming brand perceptions. By tailoring this experience according to the needs of the customers, a brand can easily win their loyalty.

Greg Zapar, Director of User Experience at Wire Stone, in his article at cmswire.com has shared four key points to keep top-of-mind when optimizing your website’s UX to drive value for your customers. They are:

• Every Touchpoint Matters

• UX and Content are One
• Aim for the Middle
• Visualize Everything

To understand them in detail, please visit the following link:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/put-your-best-foot-forward-get-smart-about-user-experience-029130.php

“Thought Leadership is innovative thinking within a specific area of knowledge which helps shape the evolution of that field.”

For content marketers, thought leadership is about setting an example in their industry through original content that informs and delights. According to Dorie Clark, “Thought leadership is necessary because it gives people a clear reason to choose you over the competition.”

Nate Birt, Deputy Managing Editor at Top Producer Magazine, in his article at entrepreneur.com, has described five fundamental ways in which content marketers can command thought leadership. They are:

1. Create deep content on mission-critical subjects.

2. Invite users to exclusive beta testing of a new service.

3. Engage with real-time video using Periscope.

4. Start a cross-platform hashtag campaign.

5. Write news releases.

Using these ideas can help a brand to be at the top in its customer’s mind. To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246056

According to Gartner’s report, “CRM will be at the heart of digital initiatives in coming years as enterprises look to create more targeted interactions in a multichannel environment.”

And the basis for these initiatives will be Internet of Things (IoT) because IoT is not only affecting the way people interact with objects and things but also the way customers interact with brands. In this IoT era, marketers have several new options for enhancing customer service as well as experience. Some of them are:

• Real time marketing promotions
• On-demand pricing
• Next-generation customer service
• In-store experiences
• Extensive use of wearable devices
• The self-marketing products

For these initiatives, a sophisticated set of CRM tools like Parature, Geotoko and Aislelabs are also available.

In the nutshell, to deal with today’s digitally empowered customers, organizations are realizing the need to change their focus from products to services.

To know more, please read the following article by Frank Palermo, Senior Vice President, Virtusa, at cmswire.com:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/internet-of-things/a-new-frontier-for-crm-the-internet-of-things-029120.php

“Data is the new oil”

This comparison of big data with oil has always been there, ever since big data came into limelight. It is considered that like oil, the more you extract from big data, the more you benefit.

Now look at this new statement:

“Data is the new soil”

This statement reflects the growth in the field of big data. From being used only for extracting information, it is now being used to explore new avenues. Big Data is now being used as a raw material from which new ideas can be generated and further processed into new products and services. Many examples of this were given at Sapphire Now, SAP’s annual user conference, where innovators demonstrated various fields in which they have started using big data sets to create unique products. Some of them are:

• Handle the short and medium term challenges that climate change creates
• Help “local spaces” understand what mobile customers want
• Provide shoppers with a contextual in-store experience
• Help companies create solutions and discover things like energy and profit leaks, make predictable promotions based on clustered buyer preferences

Thus, big data is now providing a new range of solutions to make our lives easier as well as better. To know more, read the following article by Virginia Backaitis, Senior Partner at Brilliant Leap, at cmswire.com:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/big-data/is-data-the-new-soil-sapphirenow-029124.php

People are always going to go shopping. A lot of our effort is just: 'How do we make the retail experience a great one?'

-Philip Green

The basic ingredient for success in a retail business is a magnificent customer experience. And, in today’s world, where technology has become an important part of our existence, then why not should we use its power in retail? That’s the next milestone that needs to be achieved i.e. to make retail more technology oriented and thus, customer friendly.

The following article at business-reporter.co.uk, lists out 5 technologies that will change the customer experience in retail. They are:

1. Projection
2. Touch Screens
3. Augmented Reality
4. Nighttime Displays
5. Robots

To know more about them in detail and how they have been actually brought into use by various retail stores, please visit the following link:

http://business-reporter.co.uk/2015/04/28/5-technologies-set-to-change-customer-experience-in-retail/

Agile represents a group of software engineering methodologies which promise to deliver increased productivity, quality and project success rate overall in software development projects. Now, the scope of agile methodologies has increase more than just software development. They are increasingly being used in aviation, construction, pharmaceuticals, defence and the financial sector. This methodology divides the project in parts and focuses on each part rather than one single deadline.

According to Steve Messenger, Chairman of Agile standards body DSDM, “Agile takes a more fundamental approach to problems, enabling you to move forward with versions as you go along. Rather than try to design everything upfront, your experience and knowledge will increase as you go.”

This article by Tim Adler at business-reporter.co.uk explains in detail about agile methodology, compares it with previous technologies- Prince 2 and Waterfall Technologies. It also talks about an upcoming methodology – Prince 2 Agile.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://business-reporter.co.uk/2015/04/28/project-management-why-it-pays-to-be-agile/