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2022 March

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Smart analytics: How sales and marketing can drive growth?

 

Digital technologies, particularly Social, Cloud, Mobile, and Big Data, are transforming the industry and the way companies used to operate. These technologies are creating new business opportunities by launching new services and/or establishing new businesses by optimizing operations, reducing costs, improving services, and/or launching new services along with companies.

 

Smart analytics, the most hyped term of the past couple of years, is still a catchall term. The ever-increasing amount of data generates enormous challenges, but also generates significant business opportunities for sales and marketing professionals of all sizes of enterprises. You must have noticed that in today’s ever-changing world, unstructured data such as digital photos, videos, and other connected social media activities are growing much faster than structured data so we can say that data processing is no longer the sole domain of relational databases.

 

Therefore, an entirely new industry has formed around technologies in order to store, sort, organize, and analyze the large volume of data and give business insights. Companies such as Xorlogics helps business to provide them with high-quality software, manage and transform their data, thanks to their deep expertise and leading-edge technologies that they have established in the areas of technology and development.

 

Ok so enough with the history and technology lessons, let’s talk about what does #BigData & #smartanalytics has to offer and how they can change the field of sales and marketing. Well, in my humble opinion, in terms of needs addressed and core functionality, Big Data can be seen as an evolution of business analytics and can be used in customer relationships better than ever before. A survey by Skytree ran in January confirms that sales and marketing gained the most from Machine Learning and advanced analytics projects. Basically now instead of giving ads in magazines and newspapers, or billboards and reaching out to only a limited local audience, it is time to start thinking outside of the box. Big data and predictive analytics technologies represent the opportunity to turn the tables. In other words, sales and marketing can finally become more about facts, analytics, and math rather than only a magical feeling of rather it’ll work or not.

 

Here’s how I think Sales and Marketing are gaining profits and new business opportunities by the correct input of Big Data and Analytics.

 

Customer segmentation:    

By using correctly the analytic tools, one can segment the market into granular micro-segments and then offer personalized services and increase effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. Data analytical tools let you personalize marketing and campaigns, promotions and discounts, and customized goods and services. One can even get the prediction and advanced analytics of customers buying behavior at a nearly “personal” level

 

Social & mobile media real-time data analysis:     

Gathering and tracking real-time data from the Web allows adapting and evaluating business strategies and marketing champagnes that respond best to web-based consumers’ behavior and choices. Real-time sales data visualization technologies enable sales managers to adjust battlefields tactics based on live data feeds.

 

Product cross-selling:            

The best opportunity of cross-selling by using all the data that can be known about a customer, including the customer’s demographics, purchase history, preferences, real-time locations, and other facts to increase the average basket size.

 

Dynamic pricing:        

Increasing the level of granularity of data on pricing and sales – Pricing optimization leveraging demand-elasticity models based on analysis of historical sales to derive insights – Assessing and informing pricing decisions in near real-time. – Integrating promotions and pricing seamlessly, whether consumers are online, in-store, or browsing a catalog – Leveraging performance-based pricing plans and risk sharing schemes.

 

Location-based marketing and sales:          

The growing adoption of smartphones and other personal location data-enabled mobile devices to target consumers who are close to stores or already in them and let customers “check-in” in their favorite places. By geo-targeting mobile advertising, companies can create a multichannel experience to drive sales, customer satisfaction, and loyalty and create value from the use of personal location data.

 

Customer service:      

By developing product sensor data analysis for after-sales service, big data can be used to predict purchases, analyze customer behavior and better understand the people buying your product.

 

In conclusion, I’ll say that it’s true that large enterprises were the first ones to adopt BigData because their need to explore and gain insight from their enormous data is profound in comparison to a small business, however, if you delay a lot, you will be left alone far behind in this high-tech connected world. So more quickly you adapt changes to the tsunami of data and powerful business insights, the better impact your business can get!

How can your business benefit from automated business processes?

If you want to work efficiently and become competitive these days, you can’t avoid the topic of automation. The automation of processes in companies is now considered one of the key drivers of digital transformation. In leading companies, dealing with digital transformation, business strategy and IT are the top priorities. Dedicated business applications that automate tasks and processes are increasingly gaining importance in the entire process of digital transformation. Thanks to technology, processes that until recently were carried out slowly, manually, and with some failures, have now become automatic. It’s no longer challenging to digitize business processes with the help of today’s software, as they enable the CIO to better align IT with the organization’s business strategy. According to analysts from Gartner, for example, companies that work closely with the IT department can realize the benefits of IT projects 25 percent faster than their competitors.

 

Not only the digitization of business processes is crucial for companies to ensure business continuity, reduce costs, increase profit margins and reduce errors or risks. Regardless of your industry, agility within your corporate structures gives you a decisive competitive advantage. It also fulfills users’ needs by providing around-the-clock availability, intuitive interfaces, real-time fulfillment, personalized treatment and zero errors.  Employee morale and creativity are also improved thanks to unstructured and inefficient processes reduction.

 

How can your business benefit from automated business processes

It makes sense for companies to automate their business processes when they realize that their costs are rising, the quality of service is declining and customers are becoming increasingly dissatisfied because customer service is not responding quickly enough. All these issues motivate companies to critically rethink their own business processes. A functioning workflow and smooth processes are among the most important growth factors of modern companies. Automation allows you to optimally use your time and money and thus fully exploit the potential of your company.

Top listed Threats & Risks to Cloud Services and how to avoid them?

Top listed Threats & Risks to Cloud Services and how to avoid them

Many businesses have already shifted their workloads to the cloud in an effort to increase efficiency and streamline workloads. According to the Flexera 2021 State of the Cloud Report, roughly 90% of enterprises anticipate cloud usage will expand even further as a result of COVID-19. Even though the cloud has a lot of benefits to offer, it’s very important to highlight all the risks involved. A lack of understanding of cloud vulnerabilities and misconfigurations of cloud security settings can easily lead to cloud data breaches, as the enormous amounts of data, that cloud servers host, make them an attractive target for hacker attacks. Threats to cloud environments are in many ways related to the threats via in-house enterprise networks.  Pierre Gronau, the cloud security expert, reveals twelve risks and expresses specific recommendations to minimize the risk of abuse and externally enforced data loss.

 

Data Breach

A company is responsible for the protection of its data. In the case of a data breach that has become public, preliminary investigations, lawsuits, legal disputes, and the resulting loss of revenue, as well as a sustained loss of reputation, are threatened. Therefore, when choosing the cloud provider, special attention must be paid to physical and digital security controls.

 

Insufficient identity, credential, and access management

Data breaches and other attacks often result from lax authentication, weak passwords, and poor key or certificate management. IT departments have to weigh the benefits and risks in a balancing act: on one hand, there is the efficiency of centralizing identity. On the other hand waits for the danger that such a valuable central directory, the repository, represents a worthwhile target. Businesses should rely on multifactor authentication such as time passwords, phone-based authentication, and SmartCard access protection for greater security.

 

Unsafe interfaces

IT teams use interfaces and APIs to manage and interact with cloud services. This includes services that provide cloud provisioning, management, and monitoring. These APIs and interfaces are typically the most exposed part of a system because they are usually openly accessible over the Internet. The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) recommends security-oriented code reviews and rigorous penetration testing. Useful in this context are API security components such as authentication, access control, and activity monitoring.

 

System vulnerabilities

Organizations share storage, databases, and other resources in the immediate locale area, creating new attack surfaces and the potential for exploitable errors. However, IT teams can ease attacks on such system vulnerabilities with basic IT processes. One of these processes is speedy fixing. Change-control processes that address emergency patches ensure that all corrective actions are properly documented and reviewed by technical teams. The optimal time window for this is four hours.

 

Account takeover

Phishing, fraud, and software exploits are still successful. Cloud services add a new dimension to these threats as attackers enforce damaging activity, manipulate transactions, and change data. To avoid this, companies should monitor all accounts, including service accounts, to trace each transaction back to its human owner. The key is to protect each account’s credentials from theft.

 

Malicious insiders

The insider threat has many faces: a current or former employee, a system administrator, contractor, or business partner. The range of malicious actions ranges from forced data abuse to data theft. We can say that the game publisher Zynga learned a lot via his previous experience. In November 2016, employees copied a large amount of player data from the company’s Google Drive account to a USB stick. Goal: They wanted to join the competition after leaving the company. Systems that depend solely on the security of the cloud service provider are at the greatest risk. Protection provides effective logging as well as monitoring and auditing of administrator activities. To minimize the burden of access, organizations should work with encryption processes and keys, as well as quantitatively minimize access to systems.

 

Advanced persistent threats

The CSA identifies advanced persistent threats (APTs) as parasitic forms of attack. APTs infiltrate systems and then secretly exfiltrate data and intellectual property for extended periods of time. Possible entry points include direct attacks, targeted e-mail fraud, spear phishing, and attacks via USB drivers. To be prepared, IT departments need to keep abreast of the latest attacks. In addition, regularly updated awareness programs ensure that users remain alert and less susceptible to letting a parasite into the web.

 

Data loss

Reports of persistent data loss due to cloud provider errors have become extremely rare. Hackers, however, are still showing off their active side by permanently deleting corporate and data center cloud data to damage the company’s reputation. Here cloud providers recommend the distribution of data and applications, daily backup, and offsite storage. Compliance policies often dictate how long companies need to retain audit records and other documents – the loss of this data can have serious regulatory consequences.

 

Insufficient due diligence

Organizations that use cloud services without fully understanding these and the associated risks must accept commercial, technical, legal, and compliance risks. If development teams are not familiar with cloud technologies, operational and architectural issues can arise. At this point, developers must conduct a comprehensive due diligence process to assess the risks associated with their cloud services. The duty of care in the cloud environment is always and especially valid for cloud migrations, consolidation, and outsourcing.

Abuse and harmful use of cloud services

 

Hackers can use cloud services to support their criminal activities. An example is the use of cloud computing resources to crack an encryption key and launch an attack. Other examples of abusive interns include DDOS attacks, spam messages, and malicious content hosting. Therefore, customers should check in advance if their cloud provider offers a misuse reporting mechanism. Even though customers are not direct prey to malicious activity, abuse can still lead to service availability and data loss issues.

 

DoS attacks

Harassment or blackmail-motivated DoS attacks have been around for years. They have gained in importance thanks to cloud computing and are affecting the availability of cloud services. Systems can slow down to a crawl or fail completely. The Australian Bureau of Statistics was also confronted with such a catastrophic failure in 2016 when the agency tried to complete the first national census online. Despite various system tests and stress tests, the census website crashed and went offline the night of the census. No Australian was able to complete his census form. According to CSA, cloud providers tend to handle DoS attacks better than their customers. Protected is anyone who has a plan to mitigate attacks before they occur. This is the only way for administrators to access essential resources when they need them.

 

Shared Technology Vulnerabilities

Vulnerabilities in a shared technology, including infrastructure, platform, and application, pose a significant threat to cloud computing. If a vulnerability occurs at one level, it affects everyone. If an integral component is compromised, it exposes the entire environment to potential injury. To prevent this, the CSA recommends a deep defense strategy which is known as multifactor authentication.

Data Management: Cost of poor data quality

Organizations are collecting and generating more information/data than ever before. This information/data is used in almost all activities of companies and constitutes the basis for decisions on multiple levels. But, simply having a lot of data does not make a business data-driven, because issues related to data quality maintenance are infecting numerous businesses. Companies are witnessing that not only the data is growing rapidly in scale & importance but also in complexity. The topic of data quality and what companies should do to ensure a good level of data is one of the biggest priorities within companies that are always being worked on. Since poor data quality affects, among other things, business processes, it can lead to wrong decisions and make it more difficult to comply with laws and guidelines (compliance).

 

Organizations around the world gather so much data that sometimes it’s impossible for them to differentiate the valuable and outdated or inaccurate data. Studies have also shown that the data stays stuck in different systems in inconsistent formats, which makes it unreliable or impossible to share with other team members. According to Gartner’s research, “the average financial cost of poor data quality on organizations is $9.7 million per year.” In other words, the cost of poor data quality is 15% to 25% of revenue.

MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT

Having quality data means getting the right answer to every question. This requires that data is constantly checked for errors, redundancy, and usability. In addition to avoiding errors and gaps, it is also about making data available to every concerning person in a uniform way and making it as easy to use as possible. Master data management (MDM) helps companies to ensure that their data is accurate, trustworthy, consistent, and shareable across the enterprise and value chain by enabling greater data transparency & empowering you to drive better decisions, experiences, and outcomes that benefit your business and your customers.

 

Basically, master data management creates added value on two levels: on the one hand in the administrative areas, for example through more efficient master data maintenance processes or also in IT projects; on the other hand, through increased transparency in the operational areas and thus improved controllability. The benefit in mastering data processes is reflected, among other things, in the reduced effort involved in searching for data, less internal coordination effort, and the fact that there is no duplication of work when changing data or making initial entries. Furthermore, clean master data forms the basis for scalable automation options and reduces the effort for migrations.

 

Mastering your data challenges also delivers a significant competitive advantage. And as the pace of innovation accelerates, the importance of mastering your data will only be beneficial for your business. The benefits of MDM in the administrative and operational areas as well as for compliance ultimately increase the competitiveness of companies. Last but not least, good data quality ensures the satisfaction of customers, suppliers, and employees.

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