The best smartphones available in the market today are those which address ones specific needs. The size, value, user-friendliness, functionality and performance are very important factor to consider before buying a phone. Every smartphone gives a number of benefits, capabilities and features to the end user. It is therefore very important that you choose a phone with the best features and that will give value for your money. If you can’t quite afford the phone you want there’s plenty of finance options to choose from including getting one on contract, or buying a phone on credit and using a sim-only contract.
There has been a remarkable progress in the smartphones and technologies. Based on reviews and research, the following are the top 3 smart phones available in the market out there:
1. Apple iPhone XS Max
This smartphone was unveiled recently at a great launch event by Apple in California. The iPhone Xs is selling at about £1,449 making it the most expensive iPhone to date. It has a 6.5 inch OLED screen, 3D-Touch and HDR hence the screen is very clear.This phone is also water resistant for a maximum depth of two meters and for a time not exceeding thirty minutes.It has a dual 12 MP telephoto and wide-angle cameras making it a powerful machine for photography video taking.
additionally, this Apple iPhone XS Max has the Face ID capability hence facilitating top security and privacy to its users.Finally, this product has a very remarkable feature which is wireless charging capability.
2. One Plus 6
One Plus 6 6.28-Inch 64 GB has quite an impressive display type. It has a 6.28 inch full HD display.
In regards to the camera resolution, this phone has a 16MP front camera and a 20MP dual main camera.It has an internal memory capacity of 64 GB and 6GB of Random Access Memory (RAM).
Also, this phone is Dual nano-SIM enabled and has Oxygen 5.1/Android 8.1 Oreo operating system.
This smartphone has a good delivery scope including a translucent case, display protection, safety information; quick start guide, sim ejection, power adapter and type-c cable.
3. Motorola Moto One
Motorola Moto One has a 5.9-inch and HD+ display, Android 8.1 operating system 64GB internal storage and 4GB Random Access Memory (RAM). It is also dual sim enabled.It has an amazing fast charging. It’s able to get up to six hours of power in merely twenty minutes of turbo-power charging.In terms of built-in security and Android updates, Motorola Moto One receives updates to the newest Android Operating System(OS) and gets ready with latest innovations.Additionally, this smartphone has the newest AI-powered innovations. This enables one to access voice-activated aid in the Google Assistant and to search what he/she sees with google lenses.
Conclusion
Choosing the best smart phone is not always an easy thing to do but with this guide, this has been made easy. it is my hope therefore that this guide will be of much help to you. Any of the above top 3 smart phones available out there can be utilized well for both personal use and business use. Either of them will be of benefit to you by providing you with business tools at any time, offering on-demand multimedia alternatives, organize your lifestyle and save time. Get yours today.
Hiring a professional photographer is the best way to capture impressive photos for your business – but it may not always be feasible. If you’re on a tight budget, you may not be able to afford the services of a photographer, but you will still need impressive business photos nonetheless.
The good news is that there is no reason why you can’t capture impressive photos yourself. Assuming you have a decent digital camera or smartphone, all you need to do is follow a few simple tips:
Make sure there is lots of soft light
Light will play an important part in how your photos turn out, and for business photos it is normally best if there is lots of light that is diffused so that it evenly illuminates the subject.
One good way to use natural light to snap impressive business photos is to position the subject near a large open window. Alternatively, you could look into rigging various types of DIY lighting solutions if you have the time and resources.
If you’re photographing outdoors, you may want to try to time your session to take place during the golden hour – i.e. the hour right after dawn, or right before sunset. The lighting conditions during that period are particularly good, and will help you snap really impressive photos.
Try to use the rule of thirds as a guide
To come up with business photos that have a better visual impact, you should try using the rule of thirds as a guide. It is easy enough to use, and you just need to turn on the grid feature on your camera and then line up the subject and other elements based on the gridlines and intersection points.
The rule of thirds will help you to place the subject slightly off-center and make it stand out more. On top of that, the other elements should be spaced out more evenly, making the photo look more balanced.
Get close or fill the frame
It can help to get close to the subject of your business photos, as it will reveal more details that may not have been visible otherwise. As a rule, you should always move yourself physically closer rather than using the ‘zoom’ feature – as it could affect the image quality.
In some cases, you may even want to fill the frame completely with the subject of your photo. The business photo that you end up with will look very interesting if you do, and it will make the subject the undivided focus of attention.
Be sure to snap lots of photos, and then go over them later. If you need you can use various tools to help you manage and organize your photos, such as Movavi Photo Manager for example.
By applying the tips listed above, you should notice a big improvement in the photos that you snap. Admittedly, they may not match the photos that a professional would be able to capture, but they should look good enough that you can use them for your business.
The more you practice using each tip and the more experience you acquire, the better you’ll get. That is the key to being able to capture truly impressive photos, and it could even turn into an enjoyable hobby for you to pursue.
In this generation where games are a common thing in our homes, it is very important that you get a high-quality sound system which will ensure that your gaming experience is just awesome. Some players operate with the best of the range gaming gadgets which is an affordable and accessible alternative to the high-class home speakers. The best gaming sound systems have the capacity to take one’s living room and make it an audio-visual space of virtual delights.
If you have been looking for gaming sound systems that will fully satisfy your needs, then look no further. Below are the best gaming sound systems in the market:
1. AVerMedia GS331 SonicBlast Gaming Soundbar
This powerful product comes with 2.0 Channel. It has a very superior configuration of sound for gaming. It delivers a 40 watt rich and lifelike surround sound which makes your room sound filled up. Also, it has three EQ Modes which optimize ones listening experience in music, movie and game.
Additionally, it has a wireless audio which enables you to stream music wireless from mobile gadgets via Bluetooth
2. Logitech Z906 5.1 Surround Sound Speaker System
This system has 5.1 digital surround sound therefore very good for a gamer. This makes you able to hear every detail in your DTS soundtracks and Dolby Digital soundtracks. It has a 165 Watt powered sub-woofer. It has THX-certified home theatre speakers which assures one of real cinema quality sounds. It does deliver a continuous 500 power watts, with the capability to deliver a maximum of 1000 Watts of power under specific circumstances. This produces a room-shaking and thunderous audio with a deep base. Also, it has a very flexible setup in that one can connect a maximum of 6 devices including game console, TV, music player, computer and more. Additionally, it has a wireless remote and a compact control console which enables you to personalise your surround sound instantly. This system operates with any gadget with either a digital coaxial input, six-channel direct, RCA, headphone jack (3.5mm) or optical inputs.
3. Yamaha YHT-4930UBL 5.1-Channel Home Theater
Yamaha YHT-4930UBL 5.1-Channel Home Theater comes with the 5.1-Channel compact Black-gloss speaker package. It has 6-1/2 100 watts powered subwoofer Also, it possesses the YPAO sound optimization which facilitates automatic speakers set up. This product comes with a 4K Ultra HD pass-through having HDCP 2.2 support. It is also Bluetooth enabled for music streaming wireless with compresses music-enhancer.
4. JBL Cinema 610 Advanced Home Theater Speaker System
This home theater speaker system is among the best gaming sound systems. It is very easy to install and comes with Voice-matched two-way satellite speakers. This system comes with 5.1 Channels. It has a good delivery package including brackets for wall-mounting. It also has sixty-watts, 8″ powered sub-woofer.
Conclusion
Gaming is a very important element in our lives. It is something that is enjoyed by many people including both adults and children. This is because it helps in refreshing our minds, especially after a tiresome work. A good gaming sound system is therefore key in making sure that you enjoy your play to the fullest. Now you know which system to buy.
What do the tech companies of today and digital-born organizations all have in common?
Yes, Amazon, Google, and Alibaba all had a keen understanding of the sheer power of digital technologies. Dig a bit deeper. Many of the digital companies of today disrupting legacy industries are based on platforms.
The success of these unicorn companies are based on some core elements: the technology platforms they’ve built, and perhaps more importantly, the innovative business models these platforms enable.
As digital businesses shift away from the traditional business models towards interconnected ecosystems, technology is responding in a similar manner by progressing from siloed technical infrastructure to an ecosystem of enabling platforms.
Platform Takes Center Stage
Digital is increasingly the agent of disruption to the old commercial order and in the hyper-competitive digital economy; enterprises that excel are those that are harnessing the power of platform economics. Google, Apple, Amazon, and Airbnb are all platform companies. In fact, in its 2018 report, Gartner ranks digitalized ecosystems among its top five trends. So, as emerging technologies continue to develop, they will require support from more dynamic ecosystems that are based on new business strategies and platform-based business models.
These platform-based business models are quickly becoming the foundation of business innovation, with emerging technologies providing the means to develop increased value and create new business models performing at optimal levels of efficiency.
While all of these companies have thrived, the challenge has been to define the platform. Third-party analysts give various descriptions of the platform. Traditional and ICT manufacturers have launched a variety of “platform” models, but the industry, as a whole, lacks a clear definition.
Huawei is positioned as the digital technologies enabler and initiator in the digital platform and uses its digital platform to support the partners’ platforms.
In an effort to define and enable a clearer model of successful transformation, Huawei Technologies recently presented the company’s “power of the platform” approach at Huawei Connect 2018 in Shanghai. Huawei’s new digital platform strategy will enable governments and enterprises to accelerate digital transformation and achieve new levels of innovation and growth.
The X Factor in Digital Platform
Digital transformation cannot be achieved with any one single technology, and the value of the cloud cannot be realized without other technologies. To capitalize on the value of the cloud, terminals need to collect vast amounts of data and utilize networks for transmission. For Huawei, it is this collaboration that is dependent on its cloud-pipes-devices collaboration ability. It also represents the company’s most powerful capability.
With the goal of offering customers a long-term strategy to accelerate digital transformation, Huawei offers a “Digital Platform + X + Ecosystem” approach. This unique method puts the digital platform as the foundation, with new capabilities (the “X”) such as AI, IoT, Big Data, security, ICP, and videos.
Lu Qi, President of the Marketing & Solution Sales Department of Huawei’s Enterprise Business Group, stated at the event that the company’s digital platform offers three core advantages. “It is full-stack, open, and supports enterprises across multiple industries; our digital platform can be used in a wide range of scenarios, as it supports both private cloud and public cloud.”
By incorporating their products and solutions with those from other providers, Huawei is actually able to create an open, win-win ecosystem that offers customers the freedom to use the best solutions for their unique requirements.
Huawei’s Digital Platform Enabling Growth
At Huawei Connect, Yan Lida, President of Huawei Enterprise Business Group, said: “Digital transformation is a complex process which requires a systematic approach and convergence of various technologies to integrate the physical and digital worlds. Huawei is committed to enabling our customers’ platform-based businesses with an ICT platform that allows partners to integrate industry-specific applications. In this way, Huawei’s platform serves as the ‘fertile soil,’ enabling the growth of the industry ecosystem, and promoting digital transformation of various industries with our ecosystem partners.”
Partnerships and Design Thinking
For several years, Huawei has been at the forefront of digital transformation. Huawei is committed to working with customers in the long term and takes a future-oriented approach to drive enterprise digital transformation through the power of the platform. So far, 211 of the Fortune Global 500 companies (including 48 Fortune Global 100 companies) have selected Huawei as their digital transformation partner. This list includes SAP, Accenture, Deutsche Telekom, Volkswagen, Oracle, Honeywell, GM, ABB, Intel, Sony, the Russian Federal Savings Bank, and more.
In the digital transformation journey, Huawei has embraced the vision that partnership and collaboration will be a bigger driving force than the technology itself. By partnering and guiding its customers in their digital transformation journeys, Huawei is strategically guiding each enterprise to their destination. The goal is to be connected, intelligent and cloud-based. Huawei is uniquely positioned to take enterprises on this journey because the company is able to provide a holistic suite of solutions from devices, to infrastructure, to services based in the cloud equipped with artificial intelligence capabilities.
Huawei teams up with customers and partners to create a vibrant ecosystem, meeting customers’ requirements in increasingly complex application scenarios, creating value for customers, and achieving a win-win situation for continuous growth.
Customer-Driven Digital Platform
Achieving positive digital experiences serve as the foundation for successful transformation. Customer experiences serve as the impetus for businesses to innovate, create and measure its overall digital platform strategy.
Designing a successful digital business needs to focus on innovating and attaining new business value, aimed at creating an optimal user experience. Consumers today, demand a faster, simpler, and enhanced digital experience that provides the best product and combines it with stellar service and most advanced technologies. These are all digital platforms that can provide enterprises for agile innovations.
Conclusion
In the next three decades, digitization will reshape every industry, and intelligence will have a profound impact on every enterprise. Digital transformation constantly impacts the way in which companies approach and operate their business. The speed and agility that attract many companies to shift towards digital platforms – which Huawei has done – have spawned new business models that have disrupted the way companies approach the consumer, delivering consistent value to the customer, inspiring enterprises to see beyond short-term gain, opting for long-term value.
In the coming years, the digital platform will continue to revolutionize traditional businesses models. While the digital platform model is still young, it is forcing enterprises to make strategic decisions that will undoubtedly impact the future success and viability of their business.
Disclosure: The author is a Huawei Key Opinion Leader and has benefited from their products and services. The opinions of this article, however, are completely his own based on experience.
The term “smartphone” has become a misnomer. Today, our so-called phones are basically small computers that we can keep in our pockets. While we used to only use them to communicate with one another, the current abilities of the modern smartphone now allow it to be used as a legitimate road safety device. Thanks to our phones’ GPS capabilities, Internet connectivity, software adaptability, and the fact that nearly everyone with access to a vehicle is likely to have a smartphone, engineers have come up with various ways to use them for improving driver safety.
Fostering Safe Road Culture
Smartphones are notorious for distracting drivers on the road. However, a company called Cambridge Mobile Telematics has recently released an app that turns this idea on its head. DriveWell is designed to monitor driver behavior by measuring abrupt acceleration, sharp cornering, speeding, hard braking, and even how often a driver is distracted by their phone. The free app uses all the data it collects to generate a safety score for each user, compiled on competition leader boards to determine which drivers are the safest. The highest scorers are awarded with car insurance discounts and in some cases, even cash prizes.
Dashboard Navigation
The popular app Waze is more than just a device for calculating and plotting driving routes. It also comes with live warnings about nearby road accidents, or any incidents and obstructions that may get in the way of safe driving. By giving its users a way to avoid dangers and inconveniences on the road, Waze is a massive step towards road safety and traffic efficiency.
NHTSA Smartphone Driving Mode Guidelines
Recognizing the unique role of smartphones in modern vehicles, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA recently launched road safety guidelines for smartphone manufacturers. The Guardian has the scoop on the details of the voluntary guidelines. If manufacturers are so inclined, they can choose to update their phones with a “driving mode” that enables road-based applications while blocking ones that may distract from driving, like messaging and video apps. This means that drivers who need to glance at their phone from time to time for navigation purposes, won’t be distracted by their phone’s other notifications and features.
ELD Mandate
The US heavy trucking industry now uses smartphones to improve road safety through the ELD Mandate. Through the combined efforts of the government and the private sector, ELDs or Electronic Logging Devices are now mandatory for every commercial heavy truck operating in the U.S. An overview provided by Verizon Connect details the various safety and efficiency features offered by ELDs. First, the devices track driver hours to prevent over-driving. Second, the included driver monitoring technology helps drivers improve their braking and acceleration, allowing heavy trucks to save on gas as well as be driven more safely on the nation’s highways. Third, ELDs also come with field service and management software that allows operators to better plan out routes and assign the right people for the right jobs. And it’s all done through government-approved Internet-enabled devices, including certain smartphone models that can handle the specialized ELD software.
Diagnostic and Anti-Theft Apps
The same technology in your smartphone that is used for navigation can also be applied to fighting car theft by providing a live update of the vehicle’s status. Combined with your car’s on-board diagnostics or OBD computer, the app called CarLock can connect your phone to your car, and tell you everything you need to know. This includes your car’s current location, whether or not it’s moving, its battery life, mileage, previous routes, and when the alarm is triggered. It can even allow parents to monitor whether their teen is driving recklessly.
These new features are proof that even though smartphones are notoriously unsafe on the road, there are many ways to modify their use and allow them to contribute to driver safety instead.
The battery draining issue is one common problem that every user faces no matter if you are using a laptop, smartphone or any other device. While the device battery performance is significantly improved when it comes to today’s smartphone devices still they are not immune from draining issue completely. Here, we have discussed top 5 fixes to deal with fast battery draining issue on your Android device.
Restart Your Device
Try this simple yet one of the most effective steps to instantly fix the battery draining issue on your device. Here, rebooting your device will help you close all unnecessary background apps & services that are causing the battery drain. Further, it will also help you fix other issues to boost your device performance.
Use Built-In Battery Optimization Feature
Knowing the fact that you may perform numerous tasks simultaneously on your Android device that may affect your battery life, your device manufacturer has offered a built-in battery optimization feature. Using this feature, you can manage and optimize your battery usage by individual or all apps in one go. This effective feature helps you manage battery usage in an optimized manner by different apps by reducing their consumption. To access this feature on your device, go to Settings > Battery and here click on menu (three vertical dots) in the upper right corner.
Now select “Battery Optimization” option. It will open a new window, here select “All Apps” option from drop-down menu. It will help you optimize battery usage by different apps instantly. To manage battery usage by individual apps, you can sift through different apps under “App usage since full charge” option. Here, you can look for those apps that are consuming a lot of device battery and optimize them instantly. In addition to built-in battery optimization feature, you can also use best Android cleaner & optimization apps to boost your device and battery performance.
Force Problematic Apps to Stop
This is more intense step, but it can help you fix apps that are causing problem on your device. You can use this feature to block usage of any app temporarily. Here, swiping apps closed doesn’t save battery as they may run in the background continuously. To completely turn off any problem app, including its background services, you can consider using force stop option. It will work like a “hard reboot” for an app. To force stop any app on your device simply go to your device’s Settings App and select Apps & Notifications > App Info option. Here, you will find all apps on your device simply select the app that you want to force stop and press “Force Stop” button.
It will instantly stop that app from consuming any device resources. To start this stopped app, open it as usual. If the issue persists, you can uninstall and reinstall the app again. Remember, force stop option isn’t available for all apps and stopping essential apps or services could affect your device performance negatively. Or your device won’t work correctly.
Uninstall Problem App
This is another extreme step, but it will help you fix the battery draining problem effectively. When you have certain app/s on your device that is consuming lot of device resources including battery then you can consider it uninstalling & reinstalling it to fix the problem. To identify that app, you need to keep tab on app usage in real-time and battery draining percentage simultaneously. Once you identified the battery-hungry app/s, you can consider uninstalling them. To uninstall any app on your device, go to Settings > Apps & Notifications > App Info. Here, scroll down to find that app, select it and press on Uninstall button. Later, you can reinstall these apps from the Google Play Store. Remember, you may not uninstall pre-install apps. In that case, you can Disable them.
Update Software
If you are running your device on old software then there are high chances that it is the possible reason behind battery draining issue. Here, with each software update you not only get bug fixes, security patches and other security features but it also helps you improve your device’s overall performance. To update your device, you can install all the updates that your manufacturer sends you at regular intervals or you can do it manually. To update software manually, go to Settings > System > Software Update. Here, it will look for all available updates and help you install them.
While there is a long list of tips & tricks to help you improve your device battery performance here we have discussed 5 effective steps to do so. If you know more such fixes, then feel free to comment below.
Metadata: The battery draining issue is a common problem with any smartphone device including Android. Here, we have discussed ways to deal with this problem in an effective way to boost your device performance.
Technology has certainly changed the way we talk to and reach out to established and potential customers (and family and friends, of course). Sure, we can “talk” to them broadly when it comes to websites and social media—letting everyone in on events and news and important information. But email has replaced a lot of the one-on-one conversations we used to have on the phone or in person. And email has become a great way to introduce, or to re-introduce, oneself to those potential and established customers.
That’s why one of the worst feelings is when you reach out to someone and don’t hear anything back—just silence. There are lots of questions that probably race through your head. So what do you do—abandon email as communication the second time around? On the contrary: Sending a followup email is something you can and should do, and can do well. This graphic explains it.
Companies seeking to achieve digital transformation success must place the customer back at the center of their strategic efforts.
Digital transformation is no longer an option. Over the next three decades, digitization will reshape every industry and will have a direct impact on every global enterprise.
Today, enterprises view digital transformation as an indisputable imperative that is constantly disrupting existing business models in noticeable ways. In order to achieve digital success, the enterprise must harmoniously orchestrate their various technologies to work together and further drive innovation. Digital innovation has become an essential catalyst and a driving force of economic growth.
Digital transformation requires a massive undertaking, especially for larger, established companies. When executed properly, it has the potential for any business to be more aligned to meet its customer demands and increase the overall resilience of the enterprise. Embracing digital transformation at the enterprise level demands a strategic approach that factors in all of the goals, people, technologies and required integration to form a proper strategy.
Shifting the Digital Transformation Journey Back to the Customer
As enterprises are constantly striving to attain new business value, the speed of innovation is crucial.
Companies need to be swift, agile and leverage all aspects of technological innovation. A truly digital enterprise integrates emerging technologies as part of an overall strategic plan to be agile and enhance the business analytics of the enterprise. A digital enterprise relentlessly searches out, identifies and develops new digital business models, always ensuring that positive customer experiences are the foundation of digital innovation.
Designing a digital transformation framework for success is focused on innovation and attaining new business value, aimed at a creating an optimal user experience. To the point that the needs of the end-user need to be integrated into the service model. Consumers today, demand a faster, simpler, and enhanced digital experience that provides the best product and combines it with stellar service and most advanced technology.
Customers seek a deep experience far beyond the most basic product. They are eager to forge a connection with the brand, well before they even commit to buying anything. With the dynamics of businesses shifting back to customer experiences, it is imperative that brands identify every aspect of the consumer journey to meet customer’s expectations before enhancing their technological repertoire.
The Digital Mastermind: A Holistic Framework for Navigating the Digital Transformation Journey
For several years, Huawei has been at the forefront of digital transformation. In fact, 197 of the top Fortune 500 companies and 45 of the top 100 companies have chosen Huawei as their digital transformation partner. This list includes SAP, Accenture, Deutsche Telekom, Volkswagen, Oracle, Honeywell, GM, ABB, Intel, Sony, the Russian Federal Savings Bank and more.
How can a brand discover the customer’s expectations in order to adopt the correct technology? How can a company or enterprise plan their digital transformation strategy to ensure a positive customer experience?
In order to answer these questions, I reached out to Jonathan Hopkinson, Head of Analytics Solutions for Huawei’s Digital Transformation Practice Development, to answer several questions about the company’s new Digital Mastermind Playbook. Briefly, the playbook outlines and provides a logical framework that brings the best practices from different industries into one cohesive customer centric model.
When it comes to putting together a plan, the best method of planning out a successful digital transformation is to view it through customer journeys—that is, the sum of an individual’s interactions with a brand across all channels to accomplish a task.
How can a brand, enterprise stay focused and ground their transformation process to ensure that their efforts are effective?
A key component of the Digital Mastermind framework is to use Design Thinking techniques to unearth the true needs of the enterprise’s customers, and then construct customer journeys and supporting value streams to meet those needs or “Jobs to be done”. This process will reveal which customer journeys are the most important to address – there is not a one-size-fits-all answer. Transformation investments can then be targeted at delivering the higher priority customer journeys, which should then deliver value to the customer and hence to the enterprise – thereby delivering a quick and positive ROI. A quick return on investment is a key part of helping leadership keep faith in the transformation activity.
How important is the data of various tests and trials in the mapping out of a successful digital transformation? If so, what can of data sets should an enterprise be seeking? Data is crucial to track transformation progress. Digital Mastermind recommends that for each customer journey (and internal value stream) to be delivered, the key outcome and operational KPIs are determined, defined and tracked. “Outcome” KPIs are selected which show the business impact – these are items which have direct linkage to improved business performance. Operational KPIs may be less directly linked to business value, but nevertheless can track the operational improvements delivered by the transformation.
In fact, the Open ROADS Community has defined several hundred operational KPIs with a core of 20-30 most significant operational and Outcome KPIs. The specific KPIs to be tracked will vary with the digital maturity of the enterprise. For example, an enterprise which is just starting, may track the number of information elements which are digitised, rather than paper-based. A more developed enterprise may focus much more on time-to-market for new services.
With digital transformation being a buzzword today, how can companies strive to achieve such a critical milestone avoid the often siloed and compartmentalized corporate structure?
When constructing the “value streams” required to deliver the desired customer journeys, part of the process is to define the responsible functions/departments for each stage in the value stream, together with customer-centric outside-in KPIs which measure the performance of the overall journey. Having cross-domain KPIs, and tying employee and leadership incentives to these KPIs, is an effective way to remove silo’s, since co-operation becomes essential to achieving a healthy bonus.
Legacy Technologies vs Agile and Digitally Minded Disruption
Traditional industrial sectors continue to sustain their current business efforts by using existing legacy technologies embedded in their enterprise, it’s these sectors that are standing idle as new, agile, and digitally minded companies disrupt the entire industry.
With enterprises striving towards digital transformation, there is often a challenge that the brand’s legacy tech is operating in a methodical process, while the newer innovative model is to be agile and quick in response. How can an enterprise merge these two approaches to keep the transformation on course? The burden of legacy is usually the key item which prevents Digital Transformation from being successful, and often from even beginning. For example, The MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) has identified a number of different strategies to handle this.
In the extreme case, with a large legacy burden, it is often better to establish a completely new business using green-field operations, then gradually move customers over to the new business. A less-radical approach, where feasible, is to encapsulate legacy systems within APIs, and then gradually replace such systems with typically cloud-based, virtual, replacement functions. Again, there is not a one-size fits all approach, but the frameworks exist to guide the best approach.
Digital transformation is clearly not achievable if a company isn’t equipped with a guide or map. Understanding the customer experiences will drive the digital transformation efforts for any enterprise.
Digital transformation can be defined differently by stakeholders. Developing a new mobile app might fit one group’s definition, but an enterprise-wide effort to rebuild competitive advantages might also apply. While the presentation offers a detailed assessment of each brand, what do you think the core factors that make a successful digital transformation actually work?
I would not consider that a new mobile app in isolation constitutes a digital transformation. In fact, a piecemeal approach like that is primarily why such transformation efforts fail. The approach advocated by the Open ROADS Community is that Digital Transformation should be holistic, driven by a realistic business ambition which the enterprise is seeking to achieve.
This ambition should answer such questions as:- What business do you want to be in? What customers do you want to serve? and What are you going to offer them? There are many frameworks and consultancies out there to help companies determine this strategy and ambition. This can then determine the target for the Digital Transformation activity. Without a well-considered target, transformation investments risk becoming ad hoc, based on wishful thinking.
Because technology is so integrated in today’s business landscape, almost every business is a digital business to some extent. Old systems and processes have to be rethought, and new technologies have to be put in place in order for businesses to stay competitive within their industry. Companies are faced with many challenges as they navigate their way through this digital transformation. These hurdles can range from limited budgets for new technology to lack of the expertise or know-how required to roll out new digital initiatives. But the one challenge that is crucial to overcome is creating an effective digital strategy.
Strategy is what gives businesses the framework they need to effectively utilize the digital tools they have on hand. And without it, efforts and funds can go wasted.
With customers driving enterprises towards digital innovation, positive digital experiences become the foundation for successful transformation.
It is customer experiences that serves as the impetus for businesses to innovate, create and measure its overall digital strategy. Regardless of industry or business, the Digital Mastermind enables any enterprise to plan their customized transformation pathway and identify the required business capabilities that are predicated on consumer satisfaction and positive customer experiences.
Disclosure: The author is a Huawei Key Opinion Leader and has benefited from their products and services. The opinions of this article, however, are completely his own based on experience.
Back in the day, to advertise your new product, you would have to put up a billboard, or pay for a full-page ad in a major magazine. Then, in 1993, the first internet ad was created. Now the internet is filled with countless “billboards” — everything from a small travel blog with an ardent following to CNN Money is ready and willing to accept your dollars to display your ads. At the same time, advertisers are awash with user information, thanks to the ubiquity of cookies and big data. However, that treasure trove of insights is just noise unless it can be organized, analyzed, and used.
Marketers need specialized tools to make sense of it all. They require platforms that will help them get a grip on the massive amount of customer data available, so they can use that information to effectively advertise to the right audience for the right price.
These tools are known as data management platforms (DMPs), which organize huge amounts of information, and demand side platforms (DSPs), which analyze DMPs and use that information to bid on and place digital ads. DMPs and DSPs need each other to create a successful digital advertising ecosystem. That’s why it’s no surprise the latest innovation is DMP-DSP hybrid platforms.
Is a DMP-DSP hybrid the right call for your advertising department? Before you make that decision, you need to understand how DMPs and DSPs work. Then you can appreciate the unique benefits and drawbacks a DMP-DSP hybrid platform presents.
What is a data management platform?
For almost the entire history of the marketing profession, the biggest challenge advertisers faced was trying to collect information about their target audience. Then the internet and cookies (text files that let websites know you’ve visited before) happened. Now, sifting through audience data is like trying to drink from a firehose. Salesforce describes the challenge like this: “The people [whom advertisers] most care about are constantly investigating, considering, starting and stopping transactions. Further, those consumers leave a robust — but daunting — sea of clues and data signals in their wake across a dizzying array of platforms, channels, and devices.”
Making sense of this data is the challenge data management platforms are designed to solve. Jack Marshall defines DMPs in an article for Digiday as “a data warehouse. It’s a piece of software that sucks up, sorts, and houses information, then spits it out in a way that’s useful for marketers, publishers, and other businesses.”
In other words, DMPs collect the firehose of data and turn it into useful, understandable insights. DMPs can absorb your company’s data (known as first-party data), including survey responses, customer website activity (including actions like cart abandonment), and social media engagement. DMPs can then sync this information with second-party data from your partners, and third-party information from data suppliers.
With DMPs, your company can benefit from:
Advanced audience segmentation and analytics
Brand refinement
Website, social media, and app analytics
Content personalization
Price and inventory readjustments based on audience analytics
Overall, your DMP can provide you with a much greater and more nuanced understanding of your buyer personas, which can lead to stronger marketing. One of the most useful attributes of a DMP, however, is its ability to connect with and talk to a demand side platform. A DMP provides the information a DSP needs to make better advertising purchases on your behalf.
What is a demand side platform?
The internet is big: It is full of websites, e-zines, message boards, and social media hubs where your audience likes to hang out. A human can’t track down every single potential advertising platform, much less figure out the best ones to use to reach their ideal audience.
Enter the demand side platform. This software can do all of that work for you as long as it has enough useful information to work with. A DSP uses the information and insights from your DMP to bid on available digital media advertising slots on your behalf. The program uses real-time bidding (RTB) and connects to existing ad exchanges and supply side platforms (SSP). The good news is that you don’t need to know how all the internal mechanics work to use a DSP.
Once a DSP is in place and fueled by good information from a well-fed DMP, it will help you get your digital ads to the right people at the right place for the right amount of money. Best of all, this is all done automatically. A good DSP will also allow you to analyze your advertising results so you can tweak your advertising and get a bigger bang for your buck.
What is a DMP-DSP hybrid?
In a DMP-DSP hybrid, these platforms exist in a symbiotic relationship. One of the primary uses of a DMP is to feed its information to a DSP. This information allows a DSP to provide you with better-targeted ad buys. Without a DSP, a DMP would essentially be just a big repository of information. Without a DMP, a DSP would be flying blind as it tried to book digital ad placements.
When DMPs and DSPs were first introduced to the digital advertising landscape, they existed as separate platforms. Advertisers would have to purchase both a DMP and a DSP, then link them together. Recently, some DMP and DSP providers have started to offer DMP-DSP hybrid platforms. A hybrid can either be a DMP with DSP capabilities or a DSP with DMP capabilities.
Either way, a DMP-DSP hybrid works as both a DMP and a DSP platform. It absorbs and organizes information and uses that information to place digital ads on behalf of an advertiser. Before you go out shopping for a DMP-DSP hybrid, let’s look at some of its benefits and drawbacks.
Should you invest in a DMP-DSP hybrid?
The benefit of the DMP-DSP hybrid is obvious. Instead of owning two separate systems that have to talk to each other — which could lead to inefficiencies, miscommunication, and higher costs — a DMP-DSP hybrid is a single system. You only have to work with one vendor, and the system is more streamlined and synced than it would be with two separate systems.
Investing in a DMP-DSP hybrid may seem like a no-brainer, but there are notable drawbacks. Michael Sweeny of PIWIK Pro points out that within the hybrid model, “the DMP component is only useful in the context of media buying — it can’t be used for anything else (such as personalizing the content on a website).” Additionally, your hybrid vendor may be able to use your DMP information for its own purposes, which threatens your control over your own user information.
Choose the best option for you.
At the end of the day, use common sense. Do research on the available DMPs, DSPs, and hybrid options. Make sure you are clear on your goals, budget, and personal preferences. Carefully study the features of each available system and decide which setup works best for you. You may appreciate the simplicity of a DMP-DSP hybrid, or you may prefer a standalone DMP that gives you greater functionality and more control over your user data. Now that you know your options, you can make the best decision for your company.
There is so much competition in business today that if you are unable to adopt the best practices in marketing, you could simply sink in no time. The ability to adapt and manage change had always been remarkable for businesses, but it was never as much relevant as it is today. This is perhaps a reason for the popularity of digital signage’s that have become the essential tool in branding. Despite the traditional and online avenues of branding still doing good, digital signage’s have given marketers a shot in the arm as it enables them to take a direct approach to connecting brands with consumers. No matter how good your products or services might be, just upholding it in front of customers will do little good for your business. You have to connect the brand with customers to influence them in choosing it.
Digital signage’s are much more than the electronic restaurant menu board as it plays a major role in building brands and even go a few steps ahead to earn value for it. In simple words, if you are keen to acquire brand equity, you should know how to use digital signage’s to your advantage. The aim should be to build a cult following for your brand by projecting it as a concept that relates closely to people’s lifestyle and does not remain merely a product or service. If you look at some top brands like Google or Apple, you would realize how these brands have infiltrated into our lives and have become a part of it. When searching for anything, we tell people to ‘Google’ it as the brand has become synonymous with searches.
It’s a lifestyle and not a brand
To turn your brand into an extension of a lifestyle, you can use digital signage’s that help to display content that moves beyond product features. There is a certain freshness about digital signage’s. Its immersive qualities create closeness with customers that help to build an identity for your brand that is distinctly different and easily recognizable. The colors, the logo, the fonts and the design in presenting content has the marks of your brand that remains immersed in the content. Use of images and videos make the content more expressive. You can extend your brand messaging by using digital signage’s intelligently. Choose from various options ranging from interactive brand activation to attractive digital window displays. Providing various digital experiences to customers helps to drive home the brand message with ease.
In this article, we will focus on the various ways that digital signage’s can help you develop a cult following for your brand.
Tell your story
To touch the hearts of customers and bring bands closer to them, the lesser you speak directly about product features better it is. The idea behind the approach is to create a personalized experience with the brand first by convincing customers about the value they could derive from it. When customers become confident about the brand, they would automatically buy it. For creating a personalized experience, you have to tell a story about the brand that captures the imagination of customers. The digital signage is an excellent platform for telling stories.You can capitalize on its ability to engage and educate the customers and even influence their behavior and decision about buying by inspiring them.
Create customer engagement
When you can develop a cult following for your brand, it becomes easy to use digital signage’s for engaging closely with customers. The advantage of using digital signage’s is that it allows customers to interact with the brand by using the interactive features of touch screens. Several users can access information about the brand at the same time without causing any inconvenience to other users as you can set up several screens for displaying the content. By using advanced technology, it is possible to collect useful customer data from digital signage’s with face recognition features that not only recognizes customers but also collects various demographic data. You can use the data to sever more targeted content for better engagement.
Encourage sharing
Humans have the innate tendency to share experiences that excite them. Digital signage’s provide the opportunity of displaying high-quality content that attracts customers and encourages them to share it with others. Visual content, in particular, stimulates the brain faster and generates positive reactions that result in sharing of content. Word of mouth about the high-quality content would spread far and wide and you could experience more footfalls at the store. Soon you would find customers turning loyal to you.
While people might argue if digital signage’s are outstanding or not, there cannot be any debate about its ability to make you stand out from the crowd. It brings people closer to the brand and provides the opportunity of creating a lasting impact for your brand.
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Author Bio: Karen Anthony is a Business Tech Analyst. She has exploited the benefits of the electronic restaurant menu board as it plays a major role in building brands in the restaurant industry.
One of the most common occurrences in life is debt. Many people struggle to stay on top financially. Meanwhile, many often wonder what separates the few people who always manage to keep their cash flow strong.
Most debt comes down to one simple factor: The management of your finances. Correctly navigating the balance between your income and outgoings is often the difference between debt and prosperity.
This is because most loans or bills work through penalizing late or missed payments. This means debts can quickly mount up and become unmanageable.
Loans, bills and other expenses can often be overlooked or forgotten too. So, even if you had the money to pay them initially, they can quickly become too expensive.
A lot of people can be inefficient with their income too. Spending on unnecessary things or impulse buying can quickly leave you short on money. This creates the same problem as mounting debts.
So, the major factor in keeping you financially healthy is managing your money and bills. But, this is easier said than done. Most people are too busy to keep such a close eye on their finances. This is especially true for those who are already in debt and are trying to work their way out.
The best option for many of these individuals is simply to outsource their financial management to another person or organization. This will allow a tighter watch to be kept over your money without tying you up. But, many people are unaware of how to do this.
So, below, we put together five ways you can outsource your financial management to make your life easier and stay financially stable.
5 Ways To Outsource Your Financial Management
1. Financial management firms
Using financial management firms when outsourcing financial management is usually a practice done by businesses. But, some firms also offer a similar service for private individuals. Here, your expenses and income are taken care of by a company.
Your money is either used to pay bills and debts, saved, or provided to you for expenses. The two drawbacks to this are the cost of these firms and the loss of control over your money. But, it is one of the most effective ways of getting your finances under control.
2. Wage garnishment agreements
The use of lawyers to help with wage garnishment is a common occurrence for those already in debt. But, they can be as useful for those trying to avoid debt. Wage garnishment lawyer help draw up agreements to have your employer withhold a certain amount of your wages to pay debts.
This automatic form of payment is effortless and helps you pay your debts quicker to stop them building up. It’s also cheaper than the above option, as you only need to draw up an agreement once. Although you may need to pay again to end the agreement.
3. Use technology
The use of apps on your smartphone is an easy and very low-cost way of having your finances managed. While it’s not outsourcing the management completely, some apps offer analysis of your incomes and expenses. Others even offer a way to pay your bills automatically, so they don’t go unnoticed.
The only drawback here is the work you will need to do to set up the apps and review how they are working now and again.
4. Use an accountant
This is a scaled-down version of the first option and should be considered even if you are good at managing your finances yourself. An accountant can help you get a clear view of your income and outgoings and can help you manage your money better.
They may also help you save some money by showing some tax-efficient ways to spend or save your cash. They can also be hired as-needed for added efficiency.
5. A family member or close friend
This is one of the oldest ways of outsourcing your financial management. But, it is one of the riskiest. Giving financial control to a close friend or family member can help save you from impulse buying and unnecessary spending.
But, if there are conflict arises, related or unrelated, to finances, this can cause a strain on the relationship. So, this method merits careful thought and should only be considered by those who can’t choose any of the above options.
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Author Bio: Susan Ranford is an expert on career coaching, business advice, and workplace rights. She has written for New York Jobs, IAmWire, and ZipJob. In her blogging and writing, she seeks to shed light on issues related to employment, business, and finance to help others understand different industries and find the right job fit for them.
From the past 12 years, Amazon cloud services are offering prominent data and cloud computing solutions to companies that deal with large data. They assure accessibility to big data solutions to their customers for computing and analyzing data. AWS web services offer a wide range of efficiently distinguished tools that extends all the cloud computing need from the framework required for computing big data to analytics used for understanding those data. Additionally, AWS web services offer other actions and tools for managing big data. Let’s have a glance at some of the features of the most popular big data solutions offered by AWS. We will focus on the benefits of AWS for big data. An adequate understanding of the approach of AWS towards big data will leave an impact on the business of big data solutions in the future.
In this post, we discuss 6 big data solutions that are expected to boostl the Amazon web services in India.
Framework: The foremost crucial step in working with any data is to process it. To accomplish this, AWS offers managed and distributed frameworks for quick, cost-effective, and simple processing of copious data. The fact that AWS web services offer pay-as-you-go approach to the users that assists them to run a variety of frameworks as per their needs to process the data.
Storage and Databases: A substantial number of databases is required to store and process big data. It is crucial to prefer a scalable storage option in order to maintain the variations in cost-effectiveness. AWS web hosting services offer several database and storage options to meet the needs of the business’ data with all the flexibility to maintain broad capabilities of big data.
Intelligence: Big data is quintessentially present in the business intelligence of the gained data. Furthermore, the BI offers feasible insights to businesses to radically transform their landscapes. AWS web services platform provides the access to Amazon QuickSight (AQS) to its patrons. AQS serves as a business intelligence solution for big data, supporting business calculations, their market valuations, and rich visuals.
Data Warehousing: Another very prominent solution offered by Amazon cloud services is Amazon Redshift, a data warehouse to entirely organize, process, and manipulate the business data. Compared to the traditional data warehouse, Redshift is less expensive, easier to maintain and analyze a large amount of data. Users can obtain rapid responses by running queries on structured data using Redshift.
Serverless Compute: Handling servers is a thing of past. Nowadays, big data server compute is taken care by AWS Lambda, where the users are charged for when the code is running and compute is being utilized. This service is highly cost-effective and scalable when working with a vast amount of data.
Analytics: Big data analytics is a system involved in examining and processing the diverse and large amount of data. The big data analytical tool offered by AWS web services is used to concurrently load and process large data. The real-time analytical tools possess effective services, such as loading streaming data into AWS, running analytical queries and scaling them instantly. These tools also build custom apps directly in AWS to provide processed data.
Among all the options for big data solution, AWS web hosting is absolutely leading the charge as a big data solution provider. The most legitimate part of Amazon cloud services is that it comes down to the needs of the individual business and the kind of big data the business is working with.
Birthed in 1995, the concept of collaborative robots was part of a research project led by the General Motors Foundation. The foundation’s main aim was to create robots that were so safe they could work in collaboration with human beings. Now, about twenty three years later, cobots have not only found a place on the floors of numerous factories but are also a major trend in the world of robotics and technological developments of today. They are changing methods of operation especially in our automation, manufacturing and processing industries.
Out with the heavy and imposing traditional robots that stay locked in cages for our safety. It is time to pave way for collaborative robots. Cobots, unlike traditional robots are designed to work alongside humans, with them and not for them. However, even with their recent popularity, most people still don’t fully understand the difference between cobots and robots. Here are some of them.
Cobots have a partnership with human beings
Unlike traditional robots, cobots are designed to work collaboratively with humans just as the name suggests. With this new generation of robots you can say goodbye to cages or fences and hello to proper interaction.
Collaborative robots acts as assistants to human operators and are involved in targeted tasks that are sensitive and complex in nature and can’t be automated. In addition, cobots are well capable of learning. These robots have the ability to pick up objects and hand them over to humans in a more cooperative environment that is different from that of other industrial robots.
Cobots are teachable and flexible
Collaborative robots are quite easy to program. Some models of cobots are able to learn independently unlike traditional robot which need programming skills that are specialized. For instance, a technician can perform a movement with the arm of the robot thereafter, the robot can imitate and begin to reproduce automatically.
There are also other systems that can be given work instruction without the use of coding since they can simply take work instructions by the use of a graphic user interface. Therefore, employees can now flexibly program and reprogram collaborative robots and use them for a plethora of different tasks.
Cobots allow humans to concentrate on the core task of their business
Collaborative robots are tasked with the responsibility of safe handling tough, awkward or hot workpieces as well as low-added jobs in the workplace. For this reason, the human staff have all the time they need to focus on creating more added value to the business. This enables human intelligence to be refocused on other crucial aspect of the business and the chain of production.
Cobots are safe and they offer relief from risky tasks
Since collaborative robots can safely transfer dangerous bolting works, hot work pieces sharp or pointed objects, they get to fulfill tasks that would be naturally dangerous for humans. For this reason, there are far less accidents involved as compared to when the traditional industrial robots are involved.
Cobots are equipped with features that allow seamless collaboration between them and the human staff. Some models are equipped with detection sensor. This enable them to know where a human operator is at any given time. Some are also programmed to immediately stop working if the tasks they are performing poses any potential danger to a person near them. This eliminates the need for fences and cages.
Cobots can be used anywhere
Unlike traditional robots, collaborative robots can not only easy to program but they can also be moved and utilized at different points of the production chain. Most of them can be mounted on any surface either vertical, horizontal or on the ceiling. They are also light in terms of weight and can be moved from one place to another by just one person. This is not usually the case with traditional robots.
When deciding whether an industrial or collaborative robot is best suited for your business, there are many questions you need to ask yourself.
Augmented reality might be fun for now, but the technology has a serious future.
Virtual and augmented reality are growing technologies, and not just in the video game industry, where they are projected to make an annual revenue of $11.6 billion. From healthcare and real estate to live events and education, AR and VR are changing the way we live, work, and learn.
As Forbes journalist Charles Fink says “We’re still 5 to 10 years from everyone walking around with AR/VR devices, but the technology is accelerating at a huge pace.”
VR allows potential home buyers to tour properties through a headset before the property is even finished being built, while AR allows those building homes to look at what a certain type of cabinets would look like in their new homes before they are ever installed. The “Street Peak” realtor app lets users point their smartphone at a home and access all MLS information, a breakthrough in property data accessibility.
AR and VR are entering the retail space, giving brick-and-mortar shopping a run for its money with open-air pop-up stores where users can view products. Clothes shopping is less of a headache with the FX Mirror and Memory Mirror, AR mirrors that simulate what you would look like in an outfit. There are even nail polish manufacturers using AR to allow people to try on a shade before buying.
Healthcare is also being revolutionized by AR. With the help of products like Accuvein, doctors and nurses will be able to find veins and insert IVs on the first try, a task that medical professionals only get right 60% of the time.
Travel and leisure are also seeing surges of innovation with the rise of augmented reality technology. Google Expeditions bridges the gap between education and travel with virtual field trips to anywhere in the world without leaving the classroom. Travel apps like Wikitude are the future of vacation optimization, recommending the best spots to eat and stay.
Learn more about how augmented reality is reshaping industries with the infographic below, provided by Lumus.
When the blockchain concept started years back, without a shade of doubt a considerable amount of people was probably skeptical about how far it would go. Seeing where blockchain is now, and how it has swiftly and steadily taken a firm stand in the market world, it is safe to say that the only way forward is up.
You may wonder, what exactly is blockchain? We assure you that it is not at all an unfamiliar concept as in one way or the other, the majority of the world population have found themselves partakers of its implementations. BitFortune reveals just how popular the technology has already become across numerous industries. However, breaking it down to simple terms, blockchain is a system that enables decentralized transactions across p2p networks. Simply put, it is one of the next ‘huge things’.
Blockchain is currently where IT was over two decades ago and seeing what has become of the latter, it is only understandable that experts have such high hopes for the former. Blockchain is powerfully taking over the stock market, with recorded estimated value of $20B in 2014.
The merits of blockchain are limitless. From enhancing business performance by reducing costs and efficient maximization of time, to fraud reduction, security, transparency, assured privacy, impeccable record keeping and decentralization.
It is no wonder that about 16 industries are actively getting involved in the system, eagerly developing the technology daily. Even better is the fact that there are numerous benefits and implementations for each industry and smaller businesses are also starting to take part in this new movement.
The industries cut across a wide range, from the banking sector, to cyber security, networking, insurance, cloud technology, charity, health, energy, government, real estate and several others. Obviously, no one wants to be left behind. Perhaps this is one of the few cases where joining the band wagon could turn out to be a really good thing.
A top business school might provide an overview of management principles and training
about how to handle challenging situations. After you enter the real corporate world, however, you need to know more than just the basics if you expect to overcome difficult situations and achieve success.
Let’s take a look at the skills you must acquire if you want to stand out:
Effective Listening
You likely learned and practiced speaking skills during your MBA program, but the skill of listening is all too often overlooked. Contrary to popular belief, speaking and listening are of equal importance when it comes to effective communication. Because many managers fail to truly listen to their team, developing the skill of listening effectively will help you rise to the top.
Business Etiquette
Corporate executives have noticed that MBAs do not immediately adhere to business etiquette upon entering the workforce. They underestimate the importance of manners, personal appearance and interpersonal etiquette which makes MBA graduates seem too casual and entitled. If you want to climb the corporate ladder, you need to develop superior interpersonal skills that fall in line with corporate business etiquette.
Career Goals
After graduating from business school, you might be ready to take on the world and achieve success as quickly as possible. If you are rushing to hit a specific benchmark, the overall quality of your work will suffer as you constantly switch jobs looking for everything to click right away.
That’s why it’s important to stay focused on your goals and realize the amount of investment in time and effort required to achieve them. During the first few months of your new job, complete every task to the best of your ability and with enthusiasm. No task is below you or not worth your time if it supports your career goals.
Computer & Internet Literacy
Nowadays nearly all work is completed on a computer or over the internet and new employees are expected to know how to use technology. Employers often discover that MBAs might know the ins and outs of Microsoft PowerPoint, but fail to grasp the advanced capabilities of Excel. Likewise, MBA graduates know their way around Facebook and email applications, but need to improve their use of LinkedIn and search engines.
Teamwork
Out of the skills on this list, working on your teamwork abilities is arguably the most important. The corporate world is very competitive which tends to turn people into self-involved and overconfident employees. Invest yourself in team projects by successfully completing all tasks assignment to you and reporting back to your other team members.
Fortunately, you can get a boost from technology to improve your teamwork skills. Take advantage of business management software to collaborate and organize the final work product. You can also suggest other sales management tools to streamline order processes. When you lead your team to complete high quality work, senior management will truly be impressed.
Patience
If you can practice patience during your first few years with a company, you’ll be better off in the long run. Many MBAs sign on as management trainees only to later complain that they are really just in a continuation of business school. Bear in mind that you are now on salary so any learning you can do on the job is a bonus.
Resilience
A common mistake made by highly talented MBAs is to switch companies as soon as things get challenging. It’s easy for MBAs to boast about a competing job offer, but much harder to deal with the challenges present at their present company. You must prove your loyalty to the organization that hired you. Loyalty in this context is not about the number of years you’ve been employed, but the contributions you are making.
Humility
It might surprise you to learn that humility is one of the most sought after attributes in recent MBA graduates. While employers review potential MBA hires to find the best and brightest, many new employees make the mistake of appearing over-confident. Resist the urge to show off and instead be respectful of senior management and listen to what they have to say. Expressing ambivalence or resistance will get you nowhere, whereas humility will help you learn and improve.
Gratitude
We should all be aware of those who contributed to our success, including professors, mentors, colleagues, and family members. It is your responsibility to express gratitude to those that have helped you and remain in contact throughout your career.
Too often, MBAs forget about the people who assisted them when they achieve a bit of success. Being grateful says volumes about your character and is directly reflected in your professional attitude.
Individual Social Responsibility
Your business program likely discussed the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility, but you should also be practicing Individual Social Responsibility (ISR). Every corporate professional, as well as every citizen in general, should find ways to make their community better.
Volunteering and giving back is something you can do today so don’t put it off until your retirement. Practicing ISR comes in many forms, including: restoration of public land, education for the underprivileged and support for the elderly.
Whether you’re fresh out of college or have been in the business world for awhile–these tips will never go out of style. If you keep these tips in mind you’re likely to be a successful business man or woman for years to come.
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Author Bio: Susan Ranford is an expert on career coaching, business advice, and workplace rights. She has written for New York Jobs, IAmWire, and ZipJob. In her blogging and writing, she seeks to shed light on issues related to employment, business, and finance to help others understand different industries and find the right job fit for them.
Cryptocurrency is everywhere. You’ve got people investing in various crypto assets, and more are being created on a regular basis.
However, how do you ensure that these assets are safe?
While hidden cameras or hidden spy cameras are highly effective in ensuring the safety of physical assets in your workplace and home, they really can’t do much in this case. To wit, consider the following tips and adhere to them:
Always keep your cryptocurrency information private
Are you the type to put a lot of information about yourself and what you do out there?
Then you might want to make an exception when it comes to your cryptocurrency.
Believe it or not, you actually become a target when you mention on any social media site at all that you invest and trade in cryptocurrency.
You might also want to stay away from public Wi-Fi networks as well. These networks provide gateways to your personal data, and it will be possible for malicious people to get their hands on some of your crypto assets that way. If you want to access your cryptocurrency account with the use of a public network, then the use of a VPN will definitely be recommended. A VPN will help to add information such as your location, name, and even your IP address (which, in turn, hides your device information)
Always use strong passwords
Yes, it might sound like a cliché. However, a lot of people tend to ignore this advice and just go about with passwords that are easily remembered. You’re actually hurting yourself and putting all your crypto assets in a lot of danger by doing this. Make sure that when it comes to your crypto accounts, your passwords are strong and it is something that can be guessed easily. Use a combination of uppercase letters, lower case letters, and numbers. You can even throw in some special characters in there as well.
Another thing about passwords is that you should really refrain from making use of a one-password-fits-all strategy. If a hacker is able to get their hands on this password, then it’s pretty much game over.
Spread your cryptocurrency across several wallets
This is another viable defense strategy. You want to ensure that your cryptocurrency is never all in one place, so try to spread them across several wallets. This basically means that you might want to have more than wallet, and if you’re the type of person who invests in more than one crypto asset, put each in a separate wallet.
Remember: Never use the same wallet password for all of them. Make your passwords long, complex, and different.
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Author Bio: Rachel Stinson has always had a knack for writing, food, fashion, and places. Blogging has combined all four for her with an added bonus of enthusiastic audiences. She expertly analyzes real estates, restaurants and camera stores with respect to pricing and people involved and can express her opinions in an unhesitant, engaging manner for all matters.
Despite email lists being an age-old technique, it is still one of best marketing assets that you have from a business perspective. In fact, almost59% of all B2B marketers state that this is their preferred method when it comes to developing interest, and fishing for leads.
But… it’s not that easy.
Out of the millions of email campaigns out there, the highest industry open rate is a mere 28%, the worst part about that? Only 5-percent of this 30% actually bothered to click on the links in the email (the place where the magic happens).
Woah…
Enough of the statistics! Let’s get into our tips to help you write emails that capture the attention span of potential leads and drive them down your sales funnel.
Your Subject Line Will Either Make Or Break Your Email Campaign
The attention span of your perfect customer is eight-seconds. That’s it. In this time, your email needs to stand out against the crowd in their inbox. It needs to create interest, and desire to open the email, and find out what all the buzz is about.
Subject lines need to be short, descriptive and to the point. Remember, what you can see on your computer – is not necessarily what you will be able to see on a smartphone (where majority of consumers spend their time).
Typically, you should aim to keep your subject lines under 50 characters. That’s the safe zone. Also – studies have shown that the subject line should only have the first letter of the first word capitalized. Leaving the rest lowercase actually has an impact on your open rate.
The Preheader Text – Furthering Your Net
The next thing you want to pay attention to is the first couple of lines in your email. This is also known as the preheader text. From an inbox standpoint, the first sentence (roughly 8-10 words) is shown right next to the subject line.
It is important that this matches your subject line, which will further the intrigue you create. Leading them down the yellow brick road to clicking your email and giving it a quick read.
Personalization Is The Way To Go
In the digital era, segregation is crazy. More people are spending their times feeling connected while being isolated in their home then actually going out and enjoying social experiences. This all leads to the craving to feel like they are a part of a community.
Which is why your email campaigns need to include some form of personalization.
For example, your lead generation tool should capture the email address, and at least the first-name of the individual signing up. This will mean you can send a nifty “Hey John Doe”, which consumers appreciate.
Another great idea.
Make use of your list segregation. This is a great way to not only lead your customers through the sales funnel. But also, to build brand trust, and create desire behind the product or service that you have on offer.
Send Through An Awesome Video To Improve Lead Conversion And Click Through Rates
You hear it all the time. Including images and videos in your email marketing campaigns is a big no-no.
Well, it’s partly true.
It all depends on the engagement that you have on your email lists. The reason why some consider this as a no-no is because these emails are more likely to end up in the spam folder. But if you have loyal subscribers that look out for your email on a regular basis – this is not a problem you need to worry about.
Which is where you can take full advantage of videos in your email to improve lead conversions. It could be anything really. For example, a cool animated video explaining exactly how your service works. There are companies that can help you record and send video, while minimizing the risk of ending up in the “no mans land” spam folder.
Be Consistent With Your Email Newsletters (Probably The Most Important Part)
Marketing in modern society is based on the AIDA principle. Which is essentially creating awareness of your brand, driving interest to your product/service, instilling a desire into potential customers, which then turns into an action when they purchase what you have on offer.
The entire ideology behind a marketing campaign is to take them from “being interested” to having enough “desire” to actually click through and pay you for your product/service.
But if they never know when to expect an email, you are losing half of your influence.
Which is why being consistent is super important. Now, we are not saying you need to worry about posting on a daily basis. But we would recommend having a specific day of the week, at roughly the same time when subscribers can expect your email.
Time Your Emails Properly
The next important part of getting your emails opened is the timing. Which still falls under the being consistent flag.
For example, if you have a blog that focuses on healthy recipes for breakfast. Sending a newsletter in the evening wouldn’t exactly help, now would it?
Make sure you know where the majority of your audience is, and what time best suits them for the type of content you will be sending their way. Keep these tips in mind and you’ll be sending better emails in no time.
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Author Bio: Susan Ranford is an expert on career coaching, business advice, and workplace rights. She has written for New York Jobs, IAmWire, and ZipJob. In her blogging and writing, she seeks to shed light on issues related to employment, business, and finance to help others understand different industries and find the right job fit for them.
Most retailers will have at the very least set up the main social media profiles. The problem is that not many people use their social media profiles effectively and they generally only update sporadically. This infographic from Colourfast will hopefully help as it looks at how retailers can use social media to boost in-store sales. The reality is that a well-managed social can help to drive your business forward so it really isn’t an area that should be ignored.
Communicating with your customers on social media has become just as important as over email or over the phone so it might be worth hiring a social media manager or at the very least have someone within the company who has experience with social media keeping them updated.
See the full infographic now to learn about how your store can use social media more effectively. Hopefully you will learn a few things from it.
Trucking businesses are necessary to the growth and stability of the US economy. However, right now, there’s a shortage of commercial trucks on the roads, and there has been for years. That shortage isn’t going to be solved anytime. That creates an excellent opportunity for anyone looking to get into the trucking business, all you need to do is get structured, hire a few drivers, and manage your equipment. The following tips will help you remain on the path to profitability.
Be Compliant and Do Your Research
ELD or “Electronic Logging Device.” Recently, it became legally necessary to have one of these installed in every single truck in the US that’s driving commercially. The idea is to prevent dangerous levels of stress and fatigue on truck drivers, creating hazardous health and road conditions. The reality is, much of the ELD technology available is sub-standard. Signals cut out. Companies refuse to do maintenance on their equipment, etc.
Always do your research on any ELD company. See if your drivers have worked with a particular technology before. There are a handful of top-tier companies out there, and they should be easy to find on forums. Be wary, however, of the handful of companies pouring most of their money into marketing their product, rather than developing it, hoping to sign small trucking companies into a contract.
Treat Your Drivers Well
Right now, there is adriver shortage in the trucking industry, and it’s not getting any better. The good news is, especially for new trucking companies, that driver shortage means that larger companies can’t fill as many orders, leaving plenty of shipments up for grabs.
However, this shortage can also make for an interesting hiring and turnover process. With sign-on bonuses at all-time highs, up to $8,000 with larger companies, how can a new, small business compete? Benefits. Very few trucking companies treat their truckers like actual employees, instead of trying to frame them as independent contractors.
Truckers, on the other hand, prefer to work with companies legitimately. They want to be part of a team. Whether you’re a new trucking company or you want to improve your current business, focus on what your drivers want. Ask them. Do they want higher per mile rates and are willing to take hazard loads? Do they want to stay local? Do they want to be home on weekends? If you lose your drivers, your business will suffer. Pay attention and respect them.
Prepare for the Future
The ELD rule “blindsided” many small and mid-size trucking companies, even though they were given ample warning. Once it went into effect, they realized that though they thought they had accurately been tracking times, their logs weren’t matching up to the numbers reported on ELDs. Why? The numbers had been changed, manually, or never recorded accurately in the first place. Now that the rule is in place, small companies are having to scramble to fix their businesses, all the while missing out new shipments and current contracts.
The lesson here? Pay attention to any new rules and technologies in your space. Don’t assume a new rule won’t affect your company. Keep accurate logs of everything, double check them, and make sure they match up to reality.
Grow Slowly
In the trucking industry, it can be incredibly tempting to add another truck to your fleet and realize, too late, that you just don’t have enough loads, consistently, to make it worthwhile. Make the most of what you have before you even think of expansion, even if it means turning away a job every once in a while. Remember, right now there are more jobs than trucks, but there are still more trucks than drivers.
You have options beyond trucks in the trucking industry, too. Vans, setups perfect for small and local runs, can also be ways to utilize new drivers and spaces between large loads (if you have any.) Short routes, especially if they’re time-critical, can also be much more profitable than large loads. If you already have the infrastructure in place, adding this type of service to your company’s offerings can set your services apart.
Contract with Local Businesses
Local businesses, factories, import and export, grocery and discount stores- if there isn’t a local trucking company near you, working with these businesses could be advantageous for both of you. By having your trucks nearby, you save these businesses on mileage costs overall.
Work with Owner-Operators
If you ever are considering expansion but don’t have the capacity, contracting out to a local owner-operator or two for a regular job is worth considering. Owner-operators have their trucks (though they typically borrow trailers from their employers) and will transport a load for a per-mile fee. They also cover all maintenance and truck-related costs themselves, out of this payment.
Anticipate and Plan for Expenses
You will have sudden, unexpected expenses if one of your trucks breaks down. It will happen. Further, adverse weather conditions, like snow, can be an unpredictable, sudden setback preventing trucks from returning or leaving until the roads are cleared. Before this happens, you need to have a plan in place to deal with a lack of cash.
There are two main ways to go about this. First, if you can see an upcoming expense you won’t be able to cover, like downtime during a snowstorm, you should be able to cut certain costs over a period. If this isn’t enough to close the gap, or you have a more immediate cash need, a loan is the way to go. In the trucking industry, title loans for commercial semi trucks will get you your money faster and get you back in business sooner.
Use the Right Tools
There are plenty of tools available to trucking companies, specifically, to help you manage your clients, load sizes, schedules, and cash flow. Find these tools and use them to optimize your business. Saving time on regular business expenses and clerical tasks can give you the opportunity to find new contracts or work on expanding your industry as a whole.
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Author Bio: Susan Ranford is an expert on career coaching, business advice, and workplace rights. She has written for New York Jobs, IAmWire, and ZipJob. In her blogging and writing, she seeks to shed light on issues related to employment, business, and finance to help others understand different industries and find the right job fit for them.
Taking on a home improvement project whatever the size is exciting but it can also be daunting, require research and/or hard work to get it completed. Sometimes depending on the size of the work, you might have to engage the services of contractors so it’s more work to source reliable people for that. Research is where everything starts when it comes to the project so that’s your first step. The guys at Senator Windows have put together this infographic which outlines some useful apps that you can download to your phone or tablet which might help you along the way of your home improvement project. Check it out below!
When you are an entrepreneur, it doesn’t matter if you are a baby boomer, a millennial or even a generation X. We all share that one common trait, we hate working for someone else. So, we work insane hours (that make our friends look at us in awe) to get a side business off the ground.
Trust has never been harder to earn from a business perspective.
So, there you have it. If you are not seeing the results you were hoping for from your business –
it’s probably because you need to start thinking outside the box.
Which is exactly what I want to help you with in this article. We include three tips to help you start off the right way straight from the word go.
Step One | The Most Important Step – Know Your Business
Here is a prime example, back in 2016 a young entrepreneur started a fitness blog. It all started on Instagram, and grew from there. But over time, the lack of vision, and the failure to launch a brand-image irreparably hurt the business.
This step may be common knowledge, but we cannot emphasize how important it is to know your business.
When you are working a full-time job, and trying to launch a business on the side – you will get distracted. You will lose focus.
Which is why the first thing you want to do is define your business. Ask yourself what is your vision? Where do you want the business to be in 5-years?
But the most important aspect of your written plan should be what problem do you solve for customers? What makes you unique over competitors, and why are potential customers interested in that?
Don’t Be Afraid To Think Outside The Box – Being Different Is A Good Thing
Here is a scary fact, over 543,000 businesses are started up MONTHLY in America. That’s right people just like you, looking to escape their mundane office jobs.
But it gets worse.
More than half of these businesses fail – every month.
Now there are tons of reasons why. From a lack of work ethic, right down to an unclear vision for the business. But another reason why businesses fail more than they succeed is because they forget in the business world – you want to stick out like a sore thumb.
You want to offer a unique angle to a service or product that your competitors are offering.
Whether it be through unique, high-quality social media content. Informative blog posts and podcasts, cut-edge discounts and specials… or if you really want to be unique, why not revolutionize your marketing campaign; personalize with customers and build trust by creating your own cards.
There are so many ways that you can differentiate yourself – it is important to take the time and put some thought into it. You’re trying to be better than the other businesses out there. Don’t think you can’t come up with the next big thing. Put some real thought into it and you’ll be surprised with the results.
Failure Is The Skipping Stone To Success
The biggest mistake you can make is to harbour jealousy when it comes to entrepreneurs who have made it in life.
“We all reap the seeds that we sow”
What you may forget is these individuals in the nice cars, with the dough to show off. The businesses that are considered pioneers in the industry; there is nothing different behind their business and yours.
These were not overnight success stories. You need to be prepared to fail. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, even Gary Vaynerchuk all hit their own stumbling blocks, and look where they are now.
Whether it’s as simple as a bad review from a new client, or a huge milestone falls for the roof – stay strong, and keep working. You will make it as long as you never lose sight of the end goal.
We all have those days. Where we think we are working hard. We seem to be super busy. But at the end of the day, we look back and think, “How did I waste so much time today.”
The problem is.
When you are trying to work 2-jobs at once, well… wasting time is not something you can afford. We all have the same minutes, hours, and seconds in a day – it’s a simple matter of how you invest them.
A great tip is to make use of organization tools, I personally love Trello, it keeps me on my game at all times.
If you really want to maximize your after-hour work productivity to exponentially grow your business, make use of a sweet little time productivity trick known as Pomodoro. Which essentially involves removing distractions for 25-minutes at a time, and focusing solely on work.
These tips will help you excel at your job. Keep these in mind – and think of new strategies to help you along the way. Your ideas will really help you and you’ll be thankful in the long run.
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Author Bio:
Susan Ranford is an expert on career coaching, business advice, and workplace rights. She has written for New York Jobs, IAmWire, and ZipJob. In her blogging and writing, she seeks to shed light on issues related to employment, business, and finance to help others understand different industries and find the right job fit for them.
Ever since the birth of digital files, data loss has been a consistent threat to all computer users regardless of operating systems and devices. Assuming you use your laptop to write and save important work-related files or documents, the problem instantly gets worse as you will have to redo everything again. Losing your favorite songs, movies, of personal photos does not seem like a big deal, but the disappearance of official documents will bring headache for sure. Despite the availability of numerous preventive software which may help avoid data loss from malware attacks or data theft, there are still three other baffling culprits to worry about: hardware damage, operating system failure, and user error.
Hardware Damage
When it comes to data loss due to hardware damage, users need to take a look at various components inside their laptops (or computers). The first component to check for damages is hard drive, the actual piece of hardware that functions as data storage device. It can be tricky since some damages are not visible from the outer casing as the real issue is possibly concealed underneath some metal plates. Another crucial component is the wiring, so make sure you don’t see any alarming situations such as frayed or cut cables; the odds are small for such damage since the laptop would refuse to start-up to begin with, and therefore it is impossible to tell if there is any missing data.
Recovery method:hard drive damage can be difficult to deal with. Recovering lost data may require you to connect the hard drive to another laptop and search for missing files using free data recovery software. In worst case scenario, the data is irrecoverable and the hard drive is no longer usable.
Operating System Failure
Operating system failure is another major and in fact frequent issue. Unwillingness to update and inclination to install software from suspicious websites can ruin the operating system to the point where it fails to read data properly. You can still turn on the laptop as usual, but compromised operating system may prevent you from accessing saved data in the hard drive.
Recovery method: Performing a fresh install takes a lot of time, especially since you must also install multiple programs in addition to the operating system itself. System recovery may help, but there is no guarantee the procedure is successfully executed in the end. As long as you saved your files to a different partition (not the partition where the failed operating system was installed), chances are the data is intact.
User Error
Even if your laptop is perfectly in working order, data loss can happen because of user errors. Accidental deletion or keystroke combinations may send unintentional commands to erase files. The previous two issues can happen partly due to user error as well.
Recovery method: You can download and install data recovery software free of charge, at least for first attempt. Run the software in accordance to the instruction, search for the missing files, and see if they are indeed recoverable. Make sure you download the software from reputable sources.
When it comes to managing a business, ensuring that your company retains a certain amount of profit margin ought to be among your top priorities. Of course, every business model is different and the level of profitability that you will achieve is largely dependent on the scale and structure of your operation. However that isn’t to say that business owners shouldn’t take every step possible to try and achieve the maximum profit levels that they can. This guide presents some suggested simple steps to improve profitability.
Sure you’ve worked on your branding, created an attractive website and developed a strong digital marketing strategybut improving profitability runs far deeper than just external promotions.
Make Clear, Actionable Goals for Your Profit Strategy
You will struggle to improve your business’s success and profits if you just try and proceed with the vague notion that you want to improve your profits but do not quantify your aims. Establish challenging, but realistic goals as to how much you wish to increase your profits by, and by which date. Once you have outlined this high level detail, you can work backwards, creating an action plan of what tasks you are going to undertake in order to work towards your profitability goals, and the deadlines for each task. Assign project groups to different parts of the plan, and hold review meetings at regular intervals to assess how you are progressing towards your goals.
Remove Unprofitable Products and Services From Your Offering
Not every product that you sell is going to fly off the shelves or be a cash cow. Of course, some products may see mediocre sales figures yet they are necessary in order to offer the full product range to customers and match the competitors offering. That’s understandable. However there may be products and services in your offering they are really struggling and which may even be losing money. Assess your range and cut out those items which are not performing.
For instance, you may offer a particular item to your customers, but the amount of sales the product sees is abysmal whereas the minimum order quantity is incredibly high and so you wind up losing money. Sometimes factors like this can slip through the cracks and that is why it is worthwhile to conduct a full range analysis.
Improve the Ways You Target Customers
Without customers, your business cannot exist. Without customers, you have no sales and therefore no profits and as such this is a critical piece of the pie. However, are you being strategic enough in your approach to customer outreach? Have you considered sending your potential clients video messages? This is something that will attract their attention and pique their interest.
Are you working hard to develop a strategic and smart action plan on specific demographics, or are you casting a wide net, sending salesmen out all over the place and hoping for the best? Not only does not having an effective outreach strategy affect your profits, it can also result in additional, unnecessary costs.
Assess Your Client Relations
If applicable, review the way in which you work with your clients and customers – particularly where payments are concerned. If you are operating a B2B business then you may find that some of the businesses that you work with engage in payment termsthat you are simply not happy about – i.e. they want to pay 30, 60 or 90 days after the receipt of goods.
Sure you don’t want to turn down customers and sales but this is no good for your cash flow and can result in wasted resources when your account is consistently chasing up payments. Insist upon the terms that you are comfortable with. For instance, consider requesting that customers pay 50% of the invoices due upfront. If they want your services, they will have to adapt accordingly.
Reduce Costs
Assess your outgoings and ensure that you are not overpaying in any particular area. This means assessing your overheads and ensuring that you are not paying for anything unnecessary, as well as reviewing your expenditure at the back end with your suppliers. Consider automating some of your processes to make your work day smoother. This includes, using e-procurement software to keep track of all purchases. Employing a strategic procurement team aids you in being certain that you are consistently getting the best value raw materials and supplies in the market.
If you haven’t assessed your supply base in a while then maybe it could be time. Perhaps you have been buying a material from one particular source for several years, however the Supplier’s competitor sells the same item for a fraction of the cost. Alternatively, perhaps you consume so much volume of an item that you are able to shift production overseas to a lower cost country and enjoy better economies of scale. You could improve your profit margins significantly by sourcing strategically.
Assess Your Processes and Workflows
You should always strive to run an efficient business, but when you’re busy, or your company is large scale, it is easy for things to fall through the cracks. This is why it is worth taking the time to sit down and analyze all of the processes and workflows within your business.
Could it be possible that there are steps within your processes that add costs but no value? Maybe some activities are completely unnecessary and there are savings to be achieved by cutting them out.
Ensure You Have an Excellent Customer Service Proposition
If you want to encourage repeat, long term custom then you need to ensure that buying from you is a painless, straightforward process for your customers. Consider using CRM software to ensure that management of your sales team and customers is organised and you have clear visibility on processed. Work hard to reduce barriers to entry and any headaches that may surround your company’s re-order processes. A happy customer is a loyal one.
Social media has completely turned our lives upside down. You can find there almost anything. Everything from funny dog memes to serious issues like the coverage of elections and more.
People spend more and more time on their social media pages. It is fun to be able to share something and get instant validation in the form of likes or shares. You see something you like, share it and get kudos from others in your circle.
It is something that is unique to social media and something that big brands are capitalizing on big time. And, who can blame them? Getting something to go viral means big bucks. Add in a “Buy” button enabling clients to buy instantly on that page and it’s as if you are printing money.
Take industry giant Nike Football, for example. With over 45 million followers, all that the company needs to do is to release the latest Nike promos or Nike vouchers on social media, build a little hype and watch the sales come in.
The benefit of enabling a “Buy” feature on social media is that it makes the process of buying just that little bit more effortless. Making buying easier for clients is something that was first proven to be successful by Amazon when it introduced the “one-click” buying software.
With 28.1 million followers on Facebook, it has become clear that even Amazon acknowledges the importance of social commerce. It is more than just the flavor of the month now and you ignore the concept at your own risk.
Would you like to know more about social commerce and social networks? We have summed up for you the highlights in the infographic below.
Netflix has taken over online streaming, but this didn’t happen over night and a lot of work has gone into making Netflix a well-oiled machine. This infographic from Frame Your TV looks at how Netflix has used big data to help drive their business forward.
Even when Netflix was still primarily a DVD-mailing business they launched a competition and offered $1 million to the group who came up with the most efficient algorithm for predicting how customers would like a movie based on previous movie ratings. Even though the winning algorithm has been revised since, the key elements remain the same.
Each time you put on Netflix it’s vital that you find something to watch quickly or you might go on to YouTube or download a movie instead. Netflix estimate that its algorithms save $1 billion a year in value from customer retention as we always find something to watch when we visit the site. Check out the full infographic now.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming ever more prevalent in day-to-day life, with countless new devices being interconnected every day. IoT is set to influence the manufacturing of hardware and software heavily, with mobile app developers among those who will probably need to amend existing practices to account for the growth of IoT.
This infographic from ERS IT Solutions predicts some of the ways in which IoT is likely to influence the development of mobile apps. We will probably see a lot more apps copying the premise of Hive, which allows users to control their home heating from their smartphone. Indeed, many new apps will be created with universal connectivity and adaptability at their core. Apps which cannot connect to smart objects could become obsolete.
Companies could soon seek specialist IoT app developers in favour of those who are adept across numerous platforms, so app developers could be left with little choice but to adapt and hone their skill sets. See what other ways IoT looks set to impact on app development in the infographic below.
Ever since drones came onto the big scenes, lots of people started wondering about their possible industrial applications. And it wasn’t long until first drones started replacing proper manpower. Nowadays, we are seeing highly innovative approaches to processes across many industries. These processes are now based around drones and mainly their ability to record footage from the air. Of course, their weightlifting ability is viable too, but i guess we’ll have to wait a bit longer for drone delivery systems as there’s a plethora of regulative issues at hand.
Today though, we won’t be focusing on all the possible industry applications of drones. Instead, we will be focusing on a single one that seems to have adopted the technology much earlier than others. As the title of this post suggest, I am referring to Real Estate Industry!
Real estate industry is flourishing
In 2015 there were several news reports showing off innovative real estate agents using drones to captivate potential clients’ imagination. Back then, the technology was a lot pricier than it is today, but it did not stop innovative folk from getting the best of it.
Today, the industry has had a complete overhaul with drones not being a sign of innovativity but competitiveness. We are seeing real estate agents being “forced” to use drones in order to stay competitive on the market. Why? Because everyone who wants to be somebody in the world of real estate is already using drones. Obviously, early adopters exploited drones from the start and earned extra profit with them. But, with the drone usage rapidly expanding across the globe, drones with cameras have become a must-have for serious real estate agents who want to achieve a competitive advantage over their peers. But how?
How are real estate agents using drones to get a competitive advantage?
– Creating the “WOW” factor
The main idea behind the use of drones in real estate industry is to create the WOW factor. Something that will amaze all potential clients and make your listing stand out from all others.
– Different shot perspective
Drones are able to provide their users with shots from a completely new aerial perspective. This allows real estate agents to take astonishing shots of the entire neighborhood as well as the whole property in a series of different angles.
– Displaying paths
With drones you can easily capture routes from nearby schools, parks and grocery stores straight to your property. This way your potential clients will get a better picture of your listing and know what they’re dealing with.
– Stabilized indoor scenes
In addition to outdoor scenes, drones can be used for indoor footage too. There’s no need to fly indoor – simply take it into your hands and walk through the house. Thanks to gimbals and other integrated anti-vibration solutions, your videos will look as if they were taken by a professional camera crew. That cannot be compared to smartphone footage most people use for their listings.
What are the best drones for getting into real estate business?
If you’re looking to become a real estate agent but you don’t know which drone to go for, here are the 2 best choices as far as price/performance is concerned. Keep in mind though – both of these drones offer similar video quality but are quite different in terms of general performance and size. X-Star Premium is a bulky drone that doesn’t agree to compromise while DJI Mavic Pro brings forth the best of both worlds – portability and performance. Let’s check them out and see what they are all about!
Autel Robotics X-Star Premium
If you’re looking for a DJI Phantom killer than Autel Robotics X-Star Premium is your number 1 choice. This gorgeous drone sports a bright orange body, crystal clear 4K camera with 3-axis gimbal and, quite frankly – performs great. We are talking about a long range drone here which can tackle routes of up to 2 kilometers away from its dedicated transmitter. Combine that with roughly 25 minutes of flight time and you will understand why X-Star Premium is one of the best real estate drones out there. Video quality is nothing short of brilliant and can be used for both indoor and outdoor scenes.
Autel Robotics X-Star Premium is very reliable too, with return to home feature, altitude hold and several smart flying features that will allow you to concentrate on getting the perfect shot of your property rather than actually manually controlling the drone. All in all, if you’re an up and coming real estate agent on the market for a professional grade, there’s no reason to avoid Autel Robotics X-Star Premium!
DJI Mavic Pro
Moving forward to the Mavic, the first notable thing is definitely the size difference. You see, DJI Mavic Pro is a miniature foldable drone that can easily fit into one’s backpack and doesn’t require additional cases for transport. It still preserves groundbreaking performance with amazing 7 kilometers of range and 27 minutes of airtime. That plus a brilliant 4K camera with 3-axis gimbal is basically what drives this birdie to perfection.
I should not forget about its features either. We are talking about a smart drone here which has all the latest technological feats you’d come to expect from a top flight drone. This includes a wide array of autonomous flight modes as well as gesture controls and obstacle avoidance. So, to conclude – if you want something that’s small, easy to carry around and has the performance and camera quality of a full sized drone, then DJI Mavic Pro is a no brainer!
Drones are being used in other industries too
– Filmmaking
You can find lots of videos online that have been created with drone footage. Huge AAA films are also being shot with drones on a large scale which hasn’t been a frequent occurrence up until lately.
– Music videos
With cinematic aerial footage and the ability to capture mesmerizing scenes, we are seeing a solid growth of drone-powered music videos. They still aren’t as popular as real estate drones but are still ranking pretty high on the list.
– Search and Rescue
Drones can be of great help when it comes to search and rescue missions. Just a couple of months ago, a woman got lost in a huge corn field. What would be a wild goose chase lasting several hours turned out to be a 20 minute job for a DJI Phantom.
– Surveillance
A lot of security and surveillance companies are actively using drones for their businesses. With the rapid advancements in available technology, surveillance drones are now bigger, equipped with night vision and thermal cameras, have more range and can fly for longer periods of time without being charged.
– Agriculture
Yup – innovative agricultural companies are also using drones to their advantage. Equipped with thermal cameras, these sophisticated aerial platforms can detect and identify crop problems. There are also the likes of DJI Agras which can fertilize crops with amazing efficiency and accuracy.
Conclusion
That’s it ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! We’ve reached the end of this highly informative article (don’t you agree?). I would like to thank you all for reading and wish you a pleasant day… and lots of success with your real estate business!
A good smartwatch should keep you connected, provide seamless notifications, and add a little something to your wardrobe. When taking a look at the solid options currently available on the market you will want to keep a few key functions in mind.
First and foremost, you’ll need to consider what brand of phone you have. Some smartwatches are made with proprietary software, like the Apple Watch, so they will only work with phones that match the software. The next thing you will want to consider is if you would prefer an emphasis on tech functionality, fashion, or are aiming for a mix of both.
You’ll want a high-quality touch screen that is responsive without too much effort. Having to jab at a touch screen will slow down your use and put a damper on the overall enjoyment of the watch. With the screen in mind you want to consider how the smart watch is navigated. The most popular options available will offer a variety of options including a main button, ancillary buttons, bezels, and dials.
A true smart watch will have cellular capabilities as well which means they should provide notifications for texts, calls, and applications. This also means you will want a reliable and well updated operating system. Your operating system will also determine the keyboard layout options for typing on your smart watch. Approach smart watch options with undisclosed or one-off propriety operation systems with caution. An additional factor to consider is if the watch will require a certain cellular service provider.
For a quick wrap up, here is a list of features to thoroughly vet when checking out your options:
Battery Life
Touchscreen
WiFi
Bluetooth
Applications
Some additional features you will want to explore further:
Many of you will be thinking about buying a smart speaker. You may have read articles and looked at prices, but you’re left a bit confused when one person says they prefer the Amazon Echo and says Google Home is superior. This infographic from Half Price takes you through how the two compare in different areas.
Let’s look at the voice assistant feature and according to the infographic the Echo wins because of an extremely comprehensive skills category. Skills are essentially smartphone apps and can help you do things like learn a new word.
However, for music and movie playback, it looks as if the Home is the clear winner. It allows you to listen to audio from Google Play Music and of course YouTube. You can also stream music and movies to the speaker or even connect to other speakers in the house if you’re using a Chromecast.
The reality is that both devices are always improving, and it will be interesting to see how they develop over the next few years. Find out more in the infographic.
Imagine, for a moment, some of the most famous business people of the recent age. Take Steve Jobs, now deceased, who was the face and genius behind Apple for decades. He was always, always in a black turtleneck and jeans whenever he was in the public eye—and when he was at work, too. The same with Mark Zuckerburg, genius behind Facebook. He’s always in jeans and a hoodie.
At first glance, it might seem like laziness or lack of caring in those decisions; after all, they’re super smart people who revolutionized the world. But there’s more to it than that. By choosing the same thing—by following the same routine—those tech giants eliminated the precious spare minutes that they might have needed to pick a work outfit. Rigorously following that routine gave them more mental space—and you can do the same thing. Use this graphic to find out how.
From all the game-changing technologies waiting for us just around the corner, AR and VR are possibly the most exciting. It would not be disproportionate stating these tools will change our everyday lives as drastically throughout the upcoming decade as smartphones did during the previous.
But what are we exactly looking at, and how exactly will these technologies add new and interesting layers to our modern lifestyles and interpersonal communication? Read on for an overview of the new and improved realities ahead.
AR and VR Explained in a Nutshell
To begin with, it might be worth to clarify how exactly AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) relate to one another. While they can often be complimentary, AR and VR are essentially going in different directions: AR involves adding layers of information to the real world, thus augmenting the scope of our perception. VR hinges on altogether conjuring immersive virtual worlds separate from physical reality, but possibly sourcing information from it.
We already have several useful apps drawing from AR technology, such as when you point to a monument to instantly see information about its origins or when you’re out trying to catch loveable pocket monsters on the go. An even better example would be the well-known Google Glass project, which ambitiously tried to provide a comprehensive framework for everyday AR that feeds us with useful and relevant information streams out of thin air.
When it comes to VR, it’s been a while since we’ve had virtual worlds where people can take up second lives and adopt fictional personae as well as chatting with real world acquaintances while exploring computer generated realities. But now we’re looking at the rise of new gadgets such as the Oculus Rift, Sony’s Project Morpheus, or HTC Hive – which allow us to fully immerse in such worlds. This is where things are really getting exciting, and the boundaries between real and virtual will gradually begin to blur!
How Smartphones Perfectly Bridge the Gap between AR and VR
At this point, you should be clear on our communication styles will shape up through the development of AR and VR. What might not yet be fully clear is why our smartphones hold such a tremendous potential of becoming universal portals between our augmented everyday realities and the ever refining virtual realities:
By design, smartphones already are the most logical tools to use for exploring augmented reality – thanks to their built-in cameras, absolute mobility, and widely prolific application ecosystems. With a little add-on, any smartphone can further evolve into a fully functional VR headset, thanks to its multi-core processing power and high-definition screen. This concept was beautifully demonstrated in the Google Cardboard project, and the upcoming commercial grade smartphone-to-headset devices will surely raise the bar to outstanding levels.
It shouldn’t take long until smartphones become so powerful they altogether make bulkier computers obsolete, and coupled with a VR extension they will deliver bigger, better and more immersive video experiences than any conventional display can possibly do, no matter how large or how pricey. These are very exciting times to live in, and we have much to look forward as our everyday realities become augmented and virtualized. Are you looking forward to an augmented virtual future?
Much has been written about the growing problem of the distracted employee who does not complete tasks in a time-effective or focused manner.
There are number of societal and workplace cultural factors at play, and the “problem” of employee distraction can also be reframed as an opportunity to improve employee engagement. For starters, let’s examine some of the reasons people get distracted in the workplace.
People get distracted because they feel bored, they feel disengaged…and often because internal workflow processes are cumbersome, burdensome, outdated, restrictive, inflexible, or otherwise simply do not fit the context they were designed for. They get distracted because their job requires too much multi-tasking, or because they are working longer hours and have external life concerns pressing on them.
Many are under-employed or focusing their time on tasks that others could do far more cost-effectively. Here are some tips for helping employees to sharpen their focus, and for using tech tool to reach performance and output goals.
Encourage them to “eat the frog”
Mark Twain famously said, “eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day.”
No matter how hard we try to distribute workloads so that our employees are focused on doing what they enjoy doing more often than not, at best we will only arrive at 80-90% (in a good environment). This means that 10-20% of the time, employees will necessarily be engaged in tasks that make them feel physically or emotionally drained.
These are your “eat the frog” tasks – and they different for every individual. Helping employees frame them this way brings a little levity to the situation – and research shows that people are less anxious and distracted when they get their frog-eating out of the way as the first task. They can then get down to the serious business of enjoying what they do for you.
Use process automation software to streamline work
It is highly likely that your employees are accessing some forms of software packages for e-mail, instant messaging, cloud sharing, calendars, to-do list, mind mapping, and other applications they can access from their desktop or phone. Many of these programs have built-in features that allow for prioritization of work.
More sophisticated versions of project management software, can even replicate high-level scheduling and work prioritization. There are also tools that replicate tasks specific to certain industries. There’s different software tools for invoicing, email marketing, data recovery and just about every other tedious task you can think of.
You should implement these if you have the bandwith. Your employees will be thankful.
Let them design the workflow
Many employees struggle with navigating business processes and systems that were designed for them to use – by someone who never did their job. Worse, they were not consulted in the design, or they inherited the system, or the process once worked but outlived its usefulness in its current form.
Tap into your greatest resource, and let your employees help you identify what should be fixed, and be part of the think tank that fixes it.
Let them switch between tasks to reduce fatigue
Mental, physical, and emotional fatigue are serious issues related to employee disengagement, stress, and burnout. There is evidence from the field of psychology that suggests that deliberate switching of tasks at a set time interval is a far superior strategy to randomly switching back and forth.
Your software platforms or other sophisticated tasklist apps can help you set intervals – 30 minutes on a critical report, 15 minutes to respond to urgent email, let phone go to voice and answer on the hour after a brief walk around the office. Then back to the report, and repeat until finished. Lacking an application, a phone alarm clock will suffice. Even better, if you have an employee assigned to a critical report, assign someone else to cover for them for their simpler tasks.
Otherwise, a person trying to write a report spends 2 minutes on the report, 5 minutes on a phone call, 15 minutes recovering their train of thought, 10 minutes on the report, 3 minutes on the phone, 10 minutes recovering train of thought, etc. Ask anyone who has ever written either a novel or a graduate thesis.
The first strategy may have the “disadvantage” of making people wait a half hour to have their phone call returned, but it will get returned. And the report will actually get written, too. Most importantly- the employee will feel in control of his or her situation and can calmly switch tasks, focusing on what is most important at the moment. Barring actual emergencies, which of course do happen, this is a far more productive strategy.
Let them have unstructured downtime
Employees are people, too. They need time to disengage, and recharge. Instead of policing internet usage for example, allow them to take a few minutes to watch a [suitable for work] video that will brighten their mood. Or take a walk with a camera. Or go to the gym at an odd hour. Or grab a cappuccino with their coworker to run an idea by them. You get the idea.
Unstructured downtime is not just good for business, it is good for human beings, too. Remember that employees only function well when they are healthy. Mental health matters for that, too. You need to give employees time to decompress to cut down on stress and anxiety, otherwise you lose them to mental health disability or another company.
Encourage employee collaboration
Allow employees to offer their expertise to others, and seek others to help think or work through something that is tricky stuck, innovative, boring, or otherwise perfectly suited to collaborative endeavors. Also ditch the “only work within your job description” mentality.
You might be surprised what someone whose hobby is photography, or video game design, or calligraphy- might contribute to your corporate culture and customer service. Providing good communication platforms for employees to find and share with each other is an instant productivity booster.
Encourage process feedback
Many times, something is not working for an employee – but the supervisor does not know about it because the employee does not feel encouraged to speak up about it. Or the supervisor does not communicate it to management. Or management does not take action, etc. Creating a culture conducive to process feedback is an effective way to improve employee focus – because those daily frustrations add up.
An employee is likely to continue giving his or her best if their concerns are listened to, acknowledged, and, most importantly, addressed. An easy way to facilitate this type of feedback is to build it into your business process management software function.
Your company’s brand is a work in progress, so it’s important to always look for ways you can improve it. Whether you are refining your messaging, choosing a consistent color scheme, or finding your voice on social media, strengthening your brand is an ongoing project that happens on- and offline.
How to Strengthen Your Brand Online
Learning the most effective ways to do both can help you build a stronger brand for your company overall, which can help you keep your customers coming back while reach out to new ones. Here are a few tips to help you build up your brand online:
1. Blog Frequently
Blogging is crucial for any business seeking to reach new customers online. A well-maintained blog can keep your business at the top of search engines, which makes it easier for potential customers who need the services you offer to find you.
Focus on creating high-quality, engaging and relevant content for your target audience, and add new content regularly. Consider guest blogging on related sites, or extending such an invitation from your site to industry professionals. Your blogs can showcase your expertise to potential customers and could help them decide to seek out your services.
2. Create a Social Media Presence
Social media offers businesses a simple, effective, and low-cost means to stay in touch with their current customers and to reach new ones. Create profiles on the sites most likely to be used by potential customers, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn.
You’ll be able to easily share content, post updates about your business, or address complaints as they arise. This can help to build a strong connection between your business and its customers, since they will be able to interact with your business directly and can see that their concerns matter to it.
3. Share Testimonials
A glowing testimonial from a previous customer can provide dividends for your business for years to come, especially if they are famous or well-known in your industry. Many customers determine where they will make a purchase from based on online reviews, and a collection of testimonials could help to win their business.
A testimonial provides your business with social proof and gives potential customers a chance to learn about your services and expertise from people just like them. Ask some of your customers who were especially satisfied to leave you a review, and consider posting them on a special section of your website.
4. Find Your Personality
Consumers today are more likely to frequent a business that has a recognizable personality than one which has a bland or generic voice. It may take some time, but finding your business’s unique voice can help you better connect with customers and provide them with a personalized experience.
Every business is different and will have its own way of appealing to its buyer personas. Take some time to experiment and create a unified voice for all of your communications which speaks to the customers you are trying to attract.
Whether you opt for a snarky, social-media savvy persona perfect for reaching millennials or a more reserved, sophisticated persona which can connect with professionals getting ready for retirement, finding the right voice for your company is crucial to building a successful brand.
How to Strengthen Your Brand Offline
While making effective use of the Internet is crucial to the success of any business, keeping your brand strong offline is just as important. Whether through stunningly designed business cards, elaborate print collateral or full production television commercials, brand strengthening happens at all levels:
5. Define Your Brand (in Opposition to Competitors)
What makes your brand different, or better, from your competitors? If you don’t know this, your customers won’t either. Placing this front and center in any marketing campaign can help you easily distinguish your business. This can also provide inspiration for your marketing efforts.
You’ll be able to highlight some quality of your business which is superior to your competitors, and can inform potential customers of what you have to offer, especially if you are new to the market. Buyers could immediately take an interest in your business and see what you have to offer.
6. Keep Fonts, Colors and Logos Consistent
Your customers need to be able to quickly identify your business from your competitors. The last thing you should do is confuse them with multiple color schemes, too many fonts, or chaotic logos.
Choosing a consistent font, color scheme and logo can help to make your brand more recognizable to customers and can make your own marketing efforts easier. You’ll have fewer moving parts to keep track of and can better build campaigns around a definite aesthetic, feeling or lifestyle, which itself can serve as inspiration for future campaigns.
7. Create Your Niche
Part of what makes a marketing campaign a success is its specificity. Focusing your marketing efforts on baby boomers getting ready for retirement isn’t nearly as effective as focusing on professionals with advanced degrees in the same age group who require financial consulting services to prepare for retirement in the next ten years.
Limitations can prove to be powerful aids when it comes to finding clients, as you’ll be able to automatically filter out many people who won’t be interested in your services, and can instead focus on the handful who are actively looking for your services.
8. Set Deadlines
You could have an endless well of ideas for your marketing campaign, but if none of them come to fruiting, they won’t be worth anything. You can easily spend too much time modifying your original idea to try to cover too many angles at once, and come up with a campaign that lacks a clear focus and which is ineffective at reaching any particular audience.
Setting a deadline can help you focus your efforts on a handful of ideas without losing control of them.
Building your brand is a long-term project, and it’s not uncommon for companies to change their brand multiple times. Don’t be afraid to experiment in order to find the brand that best suits your business, but always make sure each element contributes to a complete experience for your customers.
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With over 18 years in business, Silkcards specializes in unique and beautiful print that reflects a brand’s image and makes a positive first impression.
More and more often we find ourselves thinking about where we saved a specific file or folder. After all, between the PC, laptop, smartphone, tablet, and so many other gadgets, it’s easy to forget. However, even though this might be a pain, the truth is that the worst thing that can happen is that you figure out where you saved that file or folder and when you try to access it, it’s just not there. So, what happened to this file or folder? You just need it back at all costs.
The truth is that when you’re using a PC or a Mac, the first thing you need to do is to open the Recycle Bin or the Trash, respectively. And now, you suddenly discover that it’s not there. Your work is all gone. So, don’t get in despair right away. There are always solutions, and one of the best software to recover deleted files is EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free.
Simply put, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free is a very easy to use free data recovery software that helps you retrieve all those deleted files from different drives. You can now recover deleted files from your PC, Mac, laptop, but also from your SD cards, USB, digital camera, among so many others. And for free.
In order to recover deleted files, the first thing that you need to do is to install EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free on your computer or Mac. They have a different version for each operating system, which is really great. So, just download the free data recovery software, install it, and run it.
The first thing that you’ll be asked to do is to select where you lost your data. In case it was on your laptop, just click the Local Disk. In case you can’t find it on a USB drive or an SD card, just make sure that you already have it connected to your computer and that you select it. Then, just press Quick Scan. This feature will probably allow you to recover deleted files. However, in case it doesn’t, you still have the option to use the Deep Scan. However, please notice that this will take a lot longer. Even though, you can always pause it and resume later.
One of the best things about the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free is the fact that you can easily import and export the scanning results.
At last, when you get a list with all the files and folders that this free data recovery software was able to find, you can simply move them to your hard drive again. One thing that might be useful is to preview them before you recover them to make sure they are the files and folders that you’re looking for.
As you can see, there is nothing to be afraid of when you just notice that you deleted some files or folders by mistake or that you lost them when you needed to format your computer or laptop. With EaseUS EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free, you will be able to recover deleted files with ease. In addition, this free data recovery system works very well for both Windows and Mac operating systems.
Yan Lida, President of Huawei Enterprise Business, Huawei Connect 2017 (credit: Huawei)
We live in an era of unprecedented technological innovation.
According to Forrester Research, only 12% of the Fortune 500 companies from 1955 remain Fortune 500 companies today.
Why?
Most likely because, as Forrester research discovered, only 27% of businesses have a coherent digital transformation strategy for creating customer value in place. Yet, many companies are placing digital transformation at the center of their strategies through 2020.
Over the last few years, digital transformation has become an industry megatrend. Legacy enterprises are forced to embrace this critical shift out of fear of becoming obsolete.
Innovation and growth are no longer optional to the enterprise.
Today, enterprises use ICT technology to improve working efficiency, create business innovations, and provide better customer service.
For many of these Fortune 500 companies, the challenge is to develop new business models that increase connection and engagement. What’s needed is a digital transformation platform that connects intelligence, data, and devices, enabling them to increase engagement with partners and develop applications that foster innovation.
Cloud computing, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and other new technologies are driving the human society into the smart era. The most striking feature of a smart society is the connection and fusion of the physical world and the digital world. The problems of the physical world are now being solved by the digital world.
As enterprises are constantly striving to attain new business value, the speed of innovation is crucial.
Companies need to be swift, agile and leverage all aspects of technological innovation. A truly digital enterprise uses emerging technologies as a strategic effort to go leaner, focus on agile business processes and enhance the business analytics of the enterprise. A digital enterprise relentlessly searches out, identifies and develops new digital business models, always ensuring that customers and employees are at the center of its innovation.
Digital Transformation
Digital innovation has become an essential catalyst and a driving force of economic growth. It’s a journey, not a sprint.
Designing a digital transformation framework for success is focused on innovation and attaining new business value, aimed at a creating an optimal user experience. To the point that the needs of the end-user need to be integrated into the service model. Consumers today, demand a faster, simpler, and enhanced digital experience that provides the best product and combines it with stellar service and most advanced technology.
The Digital Transformation Journey for Enterprises
Digital transformation is a massive undertaking, especially for larger, established companies. When done right, it will result in a business that is more aligned with customer demands and resilient in the fast-moving digital future.
Embracing digital transformation at the enterprise level requires a strategic approach that factors in all of the goals, people, technologies and required integration to form a proper strategy.
Digital Transformation, Disrupt and Innovate
A core function of any business is to continually advance and improve its operations, products, and services. Enterprises that adhere to a digital transformation framework are not only focused on improving, they are the key drivers of innovation and disruption. Equipped with disruptive and innovative strategies, these companies can compete in today’s fast-paced market that is being driven by consumer demands, new technologies, and new business models.
Why Embark in Digital Transformation?
Many legacy enterprises have built their business on certain methods of operation. It is these operating systems that have enabled the company to prosper and survive until today. The digital realities of today, however, are forcing these companies to reconsider and reimagine the fundamental systems that have been the keys to their success. The technological environment is changing, highlighting how ill-equipped these companies are to adapt and change.
Speed is essential in digital transformation.
While the speed of digital transformation may vary with industry, stagnation is the antithesis of the digital mindset. A company maintaining a static mindset in the digital era is paving their path to failure.
With external pressures – customer demands, emerging technologies, lean startups and disruptive business models- pushing the business towards innovation, the classic methods of operation are no longer delivering the expected results. As the impetus for change increases the need to design a strategic path towards digital transformation becomes inevitable.
While many companies may opt to slowly tweak specific inefficiencies, a true digital transformation requires a revolutionary approach. An all-encompassing digital revolution can revitalize an enterprise and pave the road to future success.
A digital transformation framework will guide the leaders and direct the business towards a path of progress. Businesses need to be in a state of constant evolution. Building a momentum and a rhythm reflects a shift in the mindset. It is a sign of a new reality and creates a paradigm shift for the entire industry.
Breaking the Silos
Digital transformation with its customer-centric marketing and business processes requires the ability to work across business verticals and silos. In fact, digital transformation focuses on cross-vertical collaboration, restructuring the organization to create methods that break down the silos. In a digitally focused enterprise, the goal is to encourage cross-department interface and to create an environment that is fertile for consumer-focused innovation.
Huawei: Strategic Digital Transformation Partner
Huawei Connect, Shanghai 2017
Over the past six years, Huawei has quickly developed into a global leading digital transformation facilitators. The rapidly changing digital landscape has enabled Huawei to take advantage of the new realities by providing new ICT solutions to customers, creating best practices for digital transformation, public safety, finance, electricity, transportation, education, and media.
Before enterprises choose an appropriate digital transformation strategy, IT and CT are now converging and transforming enterprises. There is no single technology alone capable to execute the digital transformation.
What is different about Huawei’s ecosystem?
Yan Lida, Enterprise Business Group, Huawei Connect 2017 (credit: Huawei)
During my experience at Huawei Connect 2017, I was able to learn about some of the company’s strategies and gain insights into how Huawei is developing this platform and ecosystem.
During his keynote speech, Yan Lida, President of Huawei Enterprise Business, highlighted Huawei’s ecosystem that is based on three primary characteristics:
Huawei wants to become the customers’ most trusted partner. Huawei’s commercial model chooses to rely on the monetization of technology and services; it does not monetize user data. This is the biggest difference between Huawei and traditional Internet companies.
Huawei abides by its own business boundaries and is committed to becoming a platform for the platform. There are many companies that through their own experience in a specific industry have transformed into an enabler platform for that industry. It is very common to see companies such as GE, which is now providing an industrial cloud platform for the aviation and manufacturing industries. Huawei believes that it must create an open, secure, and reliable ICT infrastructure platform within its business boundaries to become the platform for its customers and partners’ platforms. Huawei’s platform is a cloud-pipe-device collaboration full-stack ICT platform; it provides all-in-one ICT services for customers and partners. The upper layer platform does not need to bother with the lower layer’s complex software and hardware systems; it can focus on its own service optimization and innovation.
Huawei is committed to becoming the ecosystem’s soil (the platform) to help customers grow quickly. This is why its plan for developers is called the ‘Developer Enablement Plan.’ This platform is the presence of Huawei in over 170 countries around the world. Developers and partners could use this platform for their global marketing and services.
In order to enrich this ecosystem, Huawei has laid out the plan of establishing OpenLabs, which cover all areas of jointed innovation with customers and partners across industries: public safety, finance, power electric, and manufacturing.
In the next three years, Huawei will continue to invest $200 million to build and operate OpenLabs (currently 13 and grow to 20) in Asia, Europe, Middle East and Americas.
Huawei provides a one-stop cloud-side collaboration infrastructure platform that integrates all new ICT technologies to help businesses stay competitive in the digital age. Huawei’s business has achieved rapid growth via industry-leading customization solutions for government and associated industries.
By carrying out joint innovation with partners centering around the business needs of customers, Huawei focuses on creating a win-win ecosystem.
In the transformation process, customers, partners, and Huawei each have their own unique advantages: customers understand their businesses, partners know how to transform the business needs of customers into industry-relevant applications, and Huawei knows how to utilize hardware and software ICT infrastructures to deliver effective business support to customers.
Partnering on the Digital Journey
In the digital transformation journey, Huawei has embraced the vision that partnership and collaboration will be a bigger driving force than the technology itself. By partnering and guiding its customers in their digital transformation journeys, Huawei is strategically guiding each enterprise to their destination. The goal is to be connected, intelligent and cloud-based.
Huawei is uniquely positioned to take enterprises on this journey because the company is able to provide a holistic suite of solutions from devices, to infrastructure, to services based in the cloud equipped with Artificial Intelligent capabilities.
According to Mr. Lida, “Huawei’s business positioning is to be a pioneer of digital social and intelligent social development processes, the industry’s digital enabler, and the best partner. In 2016, Huawei’s Enterprise business grasped the historical opportunities of digital transformation by focusing on infrastructure”.
Road to Digital Transformation Isn’t Smooth
Of course, the road of digital transformation from traditional ICT manufacturers to the enterprise market isn’t easy, even for Huawei.
Backed by six years of hard work, Huawei focused its ICT infrastructure and carefully chose partners with complementary strengths. By working together with its partners, Huawei has been able to deliver key industries with true digital transformation. The combined results have been to help public safety and government, finance, energy, and transportation enterprises to achieve digital transformation while still generating sales revenue of 40.7 billion yuan (about $5.9 billion) – a 47% increase from 2011 when the business was formed.
Smart Cities
In the field of smart cities, Huawei delivers ultra-wideband network, cloud computing, large data, Internet of Things and other facilities and technologies for cities to create a “nervous system” that enables all things to be interconnected in a smart way. Huawei has also been widely recognized for their participation in the smart city project through the “one cloud- two network- three platform”.
During the 2016 Barcelona Global Smart City Expo, Huawei was also awarded the “Southern Innovation Award” for the construction of a digital health system in Kenya.
To date, Huawei Smart City solutions have been successfully applied to more than 40 countries around the world and more than 100 cities.
Huawei Smart City (credit: Huawei)
At HUAWEI CONNECT 2017, Huawei and the Shandong Weifang Municipal Government ushered in a new generation of information technology. By including Internet of Things, cloud computing, and large data, Huawei is creating a NB-IoT city network and establishing the first city level based on the company’s OceanConnect IoT platform. Huawei has also used the Internet of Things to integrate various types of sensing devices to achieve data collection and management.
Public Security
In the field of public security, Huawei has continued to apply new ICT technologies such as cloud computing, large data, mobile broadband cluster, Internet of Things and artificial intelligence to the public security field. By working together with partners to build solutions to help cities achieve digital transformation, public security has improved and cities become more secure. Currently, Huawei’s safe city solution has served 80 countries, more than 200 cities and more than 800 million people in Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America.
Technology and the Competition
As traditional industries enter a critical period of digital transformation to drive business innovation and growth, the cloud is at the foundation for enterprise digitization. To meet this growing demand, Huawei has launched a number of industry-leading ICT products and solutions.
Huawei IT products continue to innovate thereby expanding their role as a digital transformation leader.
With Huawei’s IT products and solutions serving more than 170 countries and regions worldwide, the company is setting a new standard for the future of digital innovation and outperforming its competition.
So far, 197 of the top Fortune 500 companies and 45 of the top 100 companies have chosen Huawei as their digital transformation partner. This list includes SAP, Accenture, Deutsche Telekom, Volkswagen, Oracle, Honeywell, GM, ABB, Intel, Sony, the Russian Federal Savings Bank and more.
The digital revolution in India has encouraged many businesses to opt for their website. Two major things can be observed here: First, even the brick and mortar businesses that earlier refused to go for online operations have also started investing on the digital presence, and secondly, the businesses don’t stop at just building their own website and social media pages. They want their websites to be professionally and strategically designed to market their business and eventually increase the revenue. In short, the website creation is not just an option for the Indian businesses that want to grow- it is the mandatory condition. So, let us see the best practices to adopt while designing or marketing a website geared to make your presence stronger and increase the revenue:
Don’t be just another site by overselling
Millions of websites float on the digital ocean just like a number of huge ships and small boats that are laden with a number of items they are hawking to sell. Right from the world tour to mundane industrial tools, these sites sell almost anything under the Sun.
Being exposed to 5000+ messages geared towards marketing the product the consumer today has actually developed contempt towards commercially motivated messages forcing them to buy the products he doesn’t want. Hence any attempt at over-selling will ironically diminish your chances to sell your products or services. Besides, when everyone is overselling and you also join the bandwagon with the similar semblance- where lays the uniqueness, the innovative appeal. Instead of selling the products sell the “purpose-designed content presented in most natural format. Let genuineness guide the content and ensure that the content should be captivating, interesting and above all informative.
Content is really the king – Respect it
The content should complement the products you offer and subtly reveal it to the clients during the natural course of reading. Three things that will offer you a distinct appeal will be – the language, media, and knowledge. In fact, the aim should not be to make sales or acquire a client but to establish a definite rapport with the reader that would start a long lasting relation. This approach will help you to acquire loyalty and eventually converts readers into client. Whether you are finalizing the content of the website or writing company blogs, always ensure that you should use the simple language, a beautiful flow and some genuine knowledge in your content.
Change with time
You also need to assess the present scenario identify the obliterated practices and shunning them the same time you can identify the present shift in trends and predict the futuristic strategy. That will offer eh cutting edge over your clients. For example, e current trend is to value images much more than content. People of today now need something quick that does not to be read while squinting but could be seen while effortlessly. Hence employing n infographic can be the best way pp enjoy the attention.
Graphics attract but is moderate
You should also ensure that the audience should get the swift entry while they type for any search. You can offer a number of infographics that will allow you the entry a well-designed calendar. Besides the mobile search have now surpassed he desktop search. Hence a having a mobile enabled infographic can be the best choice.
While design plays a key role in impacting the audience you need to be very careful while designing your site. The major objectives of a site are not to overstuff your site with design elements but to offer a design that is most relevant with r studying habits.
Minimalism is the Mantra
Go for minimalism when it comes to eh designing. Opt for the simple design with brand specific features. Whether it is design, content, colors or programming the minimalistic approach will offer you a good rapport with the audience and will play a major role in increasing your reach while widening the opportunities to sell. There should be a Concord symphony between the design and content. The design should caress the eyes while communicant g with the audience in a nutshell.
Could Experimental Oxide Memory Send SSDs the Way of the Dinosaurs?
Losing access to data on a laptop hard drive can be especially stressful, given that most laptop computers hold a mixture of both business and personal information. In fact, many business people aren’t just lost without their laptop computers, but don’t have the data they need stored or backed up anywhere else.
No matter how uninterested you are in the technical nuances of digital storage media, it’s hard to deny the appeal of knowing what lies ahead. Although magnetic hard drives were the cream of the crop for decades, their time eventually passed. Now, their flash memory successors appear to be on the road to a similar fate.
Solid state devices have clear technical advantages. Their nonmoving components, rugged construction and compact sizes are appealing, but do these devices have sufficient staying power? Researchers are hard at work cooking up potential usurpers to the throne. Here’s a quick preview of memory technology’s next exciting manifestation.
RRAM: Moving on From Flash (SSD)
As we’ve explained in some of our previous blogs, flash is a type of non-volatile memory that functions by using electrical signals to change and detect the electrostatic state of a circuit component, such as a transistor gate. Resistive random-access memory, or RRAM, employs a totally different strategy.
RRAM cells modify the resistance of a dielectric, or substance that reacts to electric fields by becoming polarized. This arrangement, known as a memristor from the combined terms memory and resistor,changes its resistance in response to stimuli, which gives it the power to record information. Instead of simply modifying a semiconductor’s charge state by accumulating electrons or holes, however, RRAM creates defects in layers of oxides attached to the memristor’s dielectric material. These oxygen ions and the vacancies left in their absence can be guided and modified through the application of electric fields.
What Drives the Interest in RRAM?
Compared to typical flash memory, why is RRAM so appealing? Analysts say that it can perform operations at greater speeds and use less energy in the process. The other potential advantage lies in its size: One company created a prototype RRAM chip that was able to store a terabyte of data in around 200 square millimeters’ worth of space. Thanks to a significantly smaller cell size, RRAM may even beat out novel forms of stacked 3-D flash memory in terms of storage density.
It’s also worth considering that it might be possible to manufacture some variants at room temperature with low forming voltages, which could be equally advantages for cost-conscious memory makers and consumers. Even more promising, manufacturers can use a wide range of dielectric materials to form memristors, which increases the probability that some unknown avenue of investigation might produce a workable implementation.
Technical Hurdles
The physics ideas behind memristors and RRAM have been around for decades. So why aren’t these kinds of memory already the standard?
The answer lies in the fact that being able to form a memristor and connect it to memory cell circuitry is only one part of the equation. For instance, researchers have long struggled with critical tasks like getting RRAM cells to switch states reliably, and only recently did NIST scientists discover a way to make switching operations more consistent by maintaining tighter control of the signal energy used to induce transitions. Nevertheless, RRAM still faces problems regarding its instability and other factors.
When Will a New Flash Memory Killer Arrive?
It’s hard to say when people might be freed from the yoke of flash memory, but the prospects look good. Considering that RRAM and other alternative types of storage have so many potential benefits, it seems like a mere matter of time before companies introduce a product that works.
More than a few private concerns have invested significant resources and brainpower into the pursuit of alternative memory technologies. Firms like Panasonic have produced evaluation kits for their RRAM prototypes, and Rambus acquired Unity Semiconductor for $35 million to gain the company’s oxide memory portfolio.
Numerous companies have also filed patent applications, and as with many technologies, IP protection generally begets forward progress. Regardless whether RRAM becomes the next big thing after flash or simply paves the way for a similar alternative, it’s highly likely that we’re on the verge of something new and exciting. The real question is what kinds of technical challenges users will encounter and what novel practices might data recovery professionals have to develop to keep pace.
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TTR Data Recovery is a team of Flash media data recovery specialists who don’t just have the tools and expertise needed to pull data from damaged and inaccessible Solid State Drives, but also an understanding of how these configurations work, and the best ways to get your data recovered.
These days, it’s hard to talk about the business landscape without bringing up automation. With technologies as diverse as machine learning, robotics and 3D printing business automation is changing poised to revolutionize society.
At this point you’ve probably heard about the autonomous drones and vehicles coming for transportation and retail jobs. If you’ve used online tax preparation recently, then you have an idea why there’sno hiring glut for tax preparers these days.
At this point, everyone knows what robotics means for factory jobs. But have you heard that your local bakery or news organization could someday be run by robots?
As automation becomes more advanced and more businesses reap the financial rewards, automated processes will take over more diverse roles within business. Here are some professions that may at first glance be robot-proof, but are becoming increasingly automated.
Masonry and Construction Workers
Like any profession, construction work has benefitted tremendously from mechanization. From the nail gun to the crane, it’s hard to imagine construction without power tools and equipment.
These days, robots are manufacturing building components in factories and laying bricks at construction sites. Drones allow one person to quickly survey sites that would have required a helicopter flight and team of personnel in the past.
It’s now even possible to“print” a house using computer modelling, concrete and a robotic “printer.” If people can hook up some cables and tubes and print a house in a day, what does that say about the future of construction jobs?
Farmers
Taxis, trains and drones aren’t the only vehicles that can be automated. It isn’t hard to imagine fleets of robotic tractors and combines rolling across gentle rural hills. However, automation can do a lot more than plow fields on the farm.
Machines arebeing created now that will allow farmers to weed and prune plants without the help of human workers. There are even robots milking cows in Germany.
Automated farming isn’t expected to really start paying off for another few years, but about10 percent of farms in the U.S. have already begun switching. That means fewer and fewer jobs for humans in the coming years.
Office Workers
Blue collar jobs have been among the first and hardest-hit types of work to become obsolete at the hands of robots. But factory workers aren’t the only ones whose jobs are being automated away.
Tasks that used to require entire high-rises full of workers are now being done by small teams. Personal computers have already revolutionized business offices, and that trend is showing no sign of slowing down as artificial intelligence makes it possible to automate even more.
Accounting is one area that has benefitted from automation, thanks to the increasing intelligence of software and digitization of documents. It’s now possible to oversee an accounts payable system that would have at one time required a dozen workers and a warehouse of paper with automation software.
Customer service employees are also beingincreasingly replaced by chatbots and other software designed to mimic human interaction. As more and more clerical and office jobs are automated, the perception that business automation is a blue-collar problem will become increasingly antiquated.
Journalists
It seems like writing would be a profession unlikely to become automated. However, automation is becoming increasingly responsible for the financial reports, sports updates and other content we read and watch each day.
Machines excel at combining data, but what they haven’t been great at is providing context. Thanks to machine learning, language processing is becoming increasingly sophisticated.
Business like the Associated Press, Comcast and Yahoo have been using automation to create reportsfor a few years now. Content is now being generated at a rate that would have required thousands of workers located around the world in the old days.
Machines aren’t yet able to reliably gather first-hand information and turn it into a compelling human interest piece, so the machines aren’t yet here to replace human writers. However, as machine learning and language processing becomes more advanced, the trend of needing fewer humans to accomplish more won’t be stopping any time soon.
Bakers
Yes, even yourlocal artisanal bakery may someday be automated thanks to automated baking systems that produce consistently high quality loaves. Automation helps bakers to reduce waste and produce a consistent product, so it makes sense for them to adopt it where they can.
Larger bakeries are much like factories and havealready been reaping the rewards of automation. In the past, automation has made the most sense for large-scale operations.
But as it becomes easier and more cost-effective to automate processes in small business such as artisanal bakeries, automation will begin to penetrate further into our work lives in unexpected ways.
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Author Bio:
Susan Ranford is an expert on career coaching, business advice, and workplace rights. She has written for New York Jobs, IAmWire, and ZipJob. In her blogging and writing, she seeks to shed light on issues related to employment, business, and finance to help others understand different industries and find the right job fit for them.
Social media is a major part of today’s world. With Facebook recently announcing that over 2 billion people now have a Facebook profile, there simply is no way to ignore its existence. As a brick and mortar retailer with no online selling option, the lazy view would be that you don’t need a social media presence but this couldn’t be further from the truth. The likelihood is that a portion of the people in your store are likely using social media while in the store (perhaps creating a Snapchat story or an Instagram post) or else they used social media in advance of their visit to your store. Of course it is vital to note that social media requires effort and time and it’s difficult to see the tangible results for the effort you put in.
That’s why it is so important to be measured in your approach to social media and not invest a load of time recklessly creating various platforms. It’s not simply about creating the likes of a Facebook page for example because that page also needs to be maintained and populated and someone has to be assigned the responsibility of doing that. The guys over at Storetraffic have put together this infographic which details everything you need to know about social media to make a start for your brick and mortar store. Check the full details out below!
Have you ever accidentally deleted something that you didn’t mean to? Maybe your computer crashed with all your valuable data on it? There is a hope in getting it back. Data recovery software can help you recover your lost data. You can find any of your deleted or lost data super easily through EaseUS. They offer quick, easy, and reliable service for all of that. Here’s everything you need to know about it.
You’re not figuring it out on your own
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard provides you with instructions to guide you through finding your lost or deleted files. This program can recover files from not only your computer, but also your phone, hard drive, digital camera, USB, SSD, etc. It’s very easy to use, as they don’t leave you to figure it out on your own; the easy, step by step instructions will help you find your files. They’re confident that you will get all your possibly lost files back using their state of the art software.
It’s all free and it’s powerful
All of their services are completely free to download and can work for recovering files from your memory card, USB, or other digital device. They can recover files from formatting, accidental or sudden deletion, hard drive corruption, system crash, improper operation, volume loss, virus attack including ransomware or malware, or any other potential loss. You can trust their free and reliable service to find your lost files, no matter how lost they may seem. The step by step instructions also make it easy for you to recover the lost files.
It’s super easy
They make it easy for you to find your deleted files. Their recovery software will guide you through what to do to locate and save your lost files. Their system is safe, reliable, and guides you each step at the time through the process. This ensures not only your safety, but also ensures you save valuable time. They strive to be clear and concise in their instructions and successful in your recovery of your files.
Flexible and Saves you time
Since this is a software you download and use when you have the time available, it is flexible for your schedule. It’ll also save you some of your precious time by making it quick and easy to recover your lost data. Why waste your precious time sifting through trash folders in search of your, seemingly, long lost files. This software strives to be efficient and exact, offering a basic scan to track down literally all of your lost data.
If you’re concerned about potential lost data, EaseUS totally has your back. They’re easy, reliable, and safe while allowing you more time to focus on more important things. They will help you access your lost files easily. Using this software, will walk you easily and quickly through the steps to find your lost files on whatever system you either deleted, crashed, or whatever reason you lost your files.
When online retail first became popular it was very much its own entity. Bricks and mortar retailers may have feared it but it was a separate thing. Back then, very few would ever have envisaged how big a role the internet would play in offline retail.
As this infographic from The CUBE outlines, more and more retail sales are being influenced by mobile devices. Many of you will likely be part of the 53% of retail sales that were influenced by a mobile device in 2016. You may have seen a product in a store and done a quick Google on your phone to find out a little more information. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you will buy the product online and you may just want to get a little more information on the product before buying it in-store.
Therefore, retailers shouldn’t worry about the increasing use of mobile phones in-store. Their use can often help persuade a customer to buy a product in your store! Find out more information in the infographic.
Small businesses make a big impact. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, 54 percent of all sales are created by 28 million small businesses operating nationwide.
These businesses are facing a new challenge: embracing digital transformation to stay competitive and customer-focused on a global scale. Cloud computing has emerged as one key component in this strategy, with nearly 40 percent of SMBs already leveraging cloud technology, and experts predicting this number to double in the next three years. Let’s look at some of the best reasons for small businesses to embrace the cloud.
Lower Costs
Often tapped as the biggest enterprise benefit, cloud computing can help reduce total IT cost for SMBs as well. How? Instead of purchasing computer hardware that must be serviced, maintained and ultimately replaced, businesses leverage provider hardware and reduce capital expenditure. Software costs also come down — instead of licensing “X” copies of productivity suites or graphic design programs, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions let SMBs get the tools they need on demand.
Flexibility and Automation
Need more space or bigger bandwidth? No problem. Cloud providers can scale up on demand to meet emerging requirements. And scalability works both ways — increase throughput as needed for high-value projects or high-traffic events, then return to previous resource levels to keep costs down. In-house IT experts also enjoy the benefit automation; patches, upgrades and software renewals are all handled by your vendor, giving your team more time to innovate.
Recovery and Security
Disasters happen — not if, but when. When disaster strikes, what happens to your data? If it’s stored on local servers only, you could lose everything. Using the cloud, meanwhile, lets you make multiple redundant copies and store them off-site for easy recovery if something goes wrong close to home. In addition, cloud security has evolved to match — and, in many cases, exceed — that of local IT protection. Using a combination of regular audits, advanced encryption and remote data wiping, its possible to enjoy the security of data defense with all the benefits of device mobility.
Freedom and the Playing Field
Small businesses need employee freedom — many rely on remote workers who can get their job done anywhere, anytime. With the cloud, you can effectively take company networks wherever you go, and staff can access cloud services from any approved device.
The cloud also levels the playing field, giving SMBs access to enterprise-grade IT infrastructure without breaking the bank. Add a reduced carbon footprint, and it’s no surprise that more SMBs than ever are tapping the cloud to enhance their IT delivery.
Ready to dig deeper? Learn more about how the cloud can benefit your SMB.
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Author bio: Steve Johnson is President of Maryland Computer Service, and has been helping businesses harness the power of technology for nearly 20 years. His experiences during that time make him uniquely qualified to guide small and medium businesses through the technologies of today into the future.
We all go through periods of eating healthily but it’s so easy to fall into familiar traps. After a long day, the last thing you want to be doing is slaving over the stove or spending time thinking about what you’re going to cook for dinner. You will often just decide to grab something quick or get takeaway for convenience.
The aim of this infographic from Lakeshore Convention Centre is to make healthy eating a little bit easier with the use of apps. The apps plan meals for you, give advice on nutrition, and count calories throughout the day.
There is a great selection of apps available so it might be worth your while to download a few of them to see if they help you out. Most of them are free so you have nothing to lose (except the pounds!) Find out more about the apps in the infographic below.
In today’s computer market, it’s hard to disrupt an entire industry. Laptops may get faster, the visuals will get sharper, but at its core, the product is the same.
That was until two days ago, when Huawei shook up the laptop market. On Tuesday, the Chinese tech company launched their new MateBook series and changed everything. Huawei did it with one simple design change- the power button!
For years, the industry viewed the power button as serving one function. Within the limited real estate of a laptop, why is there one button for power and another for finger scanner?
Ever think of that? Me either.
Well, that’s what Huawei was thinking when they launched their MateBook.
A few years ago, I would have expected that Apple might have attempted such a bold redesign. With their eyes laser focused on beating Apple and Microsoft, Huawei simply disrupted the laptop market. They merged two functions and upgraded the power button.
Simple and convenient.
Clearly, this new power button/ finger scanner isn’t where Huawei stopped. All of the other aspects of MateBook X’s hardware are similarly impressive.
In their product launch, Huawei boldly showed who their competition in the laptop market is. Apple. In fact, the MateBook X and MacBook are so similar that Endgagetcould barely distinguish between the two.
Huawei took them to task and clearly stated their position.
The MateBook X comes in rose gold.
Sound familiar?
In typical Huawei fashion, they focused on the user. What do all laptops users want? A powerful device, that’s simple and has a long lasting battery.
So, that’s exactly what Huawei created in the MateBook.
The MateBook X is a 13-inch Windows 10 ultra-portable is designed as a traditional aluminum clamshell, instead of the original MateBook 2-in-1 configuration. Customers can choose from either an Intel “Kaby Lake” Core i5 or i7 processors instead of the less powerful Core m series. The MateBook visuals are super strong too by offering a 3:2 aspect ratio at 2K resolution with a 4.4mm bezel, which is pushing the bezel to the max.
The Huawei MateBook comes in either 256GB or 512GB SSD options. Sure, the RAM could be a point of contention since the laptop will only come in either 4GB or 8GB options. I’m rather certain that most laptop users will be forgiving considering that the device is so light, thin, and portable. Honestly, to the average user, 8GB will suffice.
Battery
At the launch event, Huawei claimed that the MateBook can run 1080p video for 10 hours on a single charge. That’s serious.
It’s also not surprising.
Huawei has been improving battery life on all of their devices, like their Mate 9. In my review of this AI infused device, the phone lasts almost an entire day.
Once again, like their phones, the Huawei MateBook X has a unibody aluminum design, which is optimal design for making the laptop super thin and super light.
At its thickest point, the Huawei MateBook X measures 0.49 inches- thinner than the MacBook (0.52 inches) and the MBP (0.59 inches). In terms of weight, once again, Huawei out-designed the competition by scaling down the MateBook X to only weighs 2.31 pounds compared to the MacBook Pro’s 3.02 pounds.
Photo Credit: Huawei
Untouchable?
With all of these impressive improvements and features, there’s some talk about the MateBook X not coming with a touchscreen. Personally, I don’t think it will deter users. When asked, Huawei responded that “they wanted to put their best foot forward…” I think that most users are still acclimating to the touch screen feature on a laptop. Keep the laptop simple. Don’t confuse the user.
Fanless?
Under the hood, the Huawei MateBook X is going fanless. That should insure that customers won’t worry about their device overheating.
Sound
In their ongoing focus on outperforming their competition, Huawei announced their partnership with Dolby. The MateBook comes with Dolby Atmos Sound inside. While many devices have Dolby Atmos software, Huawei is the first to integrate both software and hardware solutions. By placing the speakers above the keyboard and including software that optimizes the quality of the sound for movies and music, the MateBook will give users a true listening experience that offers quality both via headphones and speakers.
The MateBook went minimal on the ports. With only two USB C slots, one for power one for everything else, this may be an issue. Hopefully, most users will appreciate the dock offering HDMI, USB A, USB C and VGA that comes with the MateBook. A microSD card reader could have been a valuable addition.
Huawei’s first real attempt in launching a sleek, powerful, practical laptop seems to be a solid competitor in the market. With the MateBook series, Huawei is clearly boasting their ambitions to play with the big boys in the laptop market.
In just a few years’ time, Oppo has made a significant place for its smartphones in the Indian Market. Soon after the successful launch of its smartphones, Oppo doesn’t need an introduction anymore. After the grand success of F1 plus model, Oppo came back with its most successful model F3 Plus. And now, Oppo F3 has been launched in Indian market. F3 Plus came with a whole lot of features in March with a price tag of approx. 30k and Oppo F3 dual camera Selfie phone is just a smaller sibling to Oppo F3 Plus.
This amazing little brother of F3 Plus comes with a price tag of $307 (19,990 INR) and is up for Pre-Order exclusively on Flipkart. Oppo F3 comes with an extraordinary variety of features and hardware in such an affordable price range.
Key Specifications of Oppo F3:
50-Inch Display.
5 GHz Mediatek MT6750T Octa-Core Processor.
16 Megapixel Front Camera.
Resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels.
4 GB Ram.
Android 6.0.
64 GB Storage.
13 Megapixel Rear Camera
Battery Capacity of 3200 mAh.
Dual Sim 4G
Display
Oppo F3 has a Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protected display and the 2.5D curves on the edges give this smartphone an amazing look with a premium feel. It has a 5.5 inch Full HD Display which seems to be a good move by Oppo for competing with the smartphones in same price category.
Chipset and Storage
Oppo F3 is loaded with a 1.5 GHz Octa-core processor with MediaTek MT6750T Chipset. It is a power pack performer which uses a very little power from battery making the battery life longer. Oppo F3 can handle graphic-heavy games very easily with the help of its 4GB RAM. It consists 64 GB hard disk and an expandable storage up to 128GB with the help of microSD card slot.
One thing which makes OppoF3 a step ahead is that it consists a Dual sim slot with space for two nano sims and a micro sd card slot separately for expanding the memory. Most smartphones use the second sim slot to expand memory whereas, OppoF3 has three slots in total and all three can be used simultaneously.
Design
Oppo F3 features a beautifully crafted design with a mix of plastic, glass, and metal. The 2.5D curved glass in front edges gives this smartphone a premium look with the metal back plate gives a cool feel when touched. Plastic is only limited to the frames covering buttons at the top and bottom panels on the back. It is also loaded with a fingerprint scanner. Overall, OppoF3 is a smartphone which looks classy and premium when held and makes the user feel cool about it.
Operating System
While Nougat is in the mainstream, Oppo F3 works on an Android 6.0 Marshmellow operating system, which is pretty odd. Users should expect an update from Oppo pretty soon. This handset is loaded with color OS 3.0 and some pretty cool apps and customization.
Camera
The USP of Oppo Selfie phone has always been its Camera. Oppo F3 has slight changes in camera settings compared to the other models. It consists two cameras in front which is, 16MP + 8MP with a 120-degree wide angle and a whopping 13 MP at the back. Selfie lovers are going to love the front camera of OppoF3 because of its greater results, Sharp and close to real pictures and lots of different modes like Group Selfie mode when the user wants to click a picture with many people, lapse, beauty and panorama modes.
Verdict
With an incredible battery life, provided by sealed in 3200 mAh battery, dual front cameras, gorgeous display and Power packed performance, Oppo F3 is undoubtedly one of the best selfie smartphones in town and every selfie lover should buy this gadget. It is available on Flipkart exclusively and the users who want to own it must Pre-Book it now.
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Author Bio: Pankaj Jangir is a Website Designer and Developer. He makes websites from where users can download their own videos and photos from social media.
If you are serious about online marketing, basic design skills are a must. Whether you want to make a few quick adjustments to a photo before posting on Facebook, or need to change a banner ad for your new campaign, Photoshop is the undisputed king of design software that will let you create virtually any look you want.
Photoshop is so comprehensive that it can be overwhelming to the beginner. With the ability to do just about anything, where do you start?
We suggest starting with the basics. Here are seven basic Photoshop skills you will use again and again as a marketing professional.
Using Layers
Layers let you move, arrange and edit objects and/or text independently. This vital feature is a super time saver. Knowing how to create, delete, group and merge layers lets you easily edit and repurpose your photos and other digital files.
Straighten a Picture
Using your own photos keeps you safe from copyright issues. However, it’s easy to snap a photo only to discover that it’s out of kilter. You can salvage crooked pictures in a flash with Photoshop’s ruler tool, once you know how.
Create Adjustment Layers
Sometimes you need to play with your design a bit before you come up with the right look. However, you might not want to lose the original. Instead of creating a lot of confusing duplicate layers, Photoshop lets you easily create an adjustment layer that lets you apply an effect, and toggle back and forth between options with a click of the mouse.
Remove Spots and Blemishes
Little imperfections such as pimples or stains can ruin the impact of what you’re trying to sell. It should come as no surprise that Photoshop has a tool you can use to make those annoying blemishes disappear. You can learn how to use it in two minutes or less.
Remove Red From Eyes
Sure, you might have stayed awake all night setting up your latest funnel, but there’s no reason to look like it. Just reach for Photoshop’s red-eye tool, and you can banish those flash photo demon eyes forever in about three clicks.
Isolate an Object
If you design ads, web pages or virtually any other piece of marketing material, you will often want to place an object over a different background, or eliminate the background altogether. There are a number of ways to do this. Some take hours, others only minutes. Needless to say, the sooner you learn the quick solutions, the better.
Apply an Effect to an Object or Text
Photoshop offers a wonderful array of effects you can use to spice up any object or text in your design, including drop shadow, bevel, glow, and many more. Adding them is almost too easy — once you know how, you may need to hold yourself back from going overboard!
Get Started Learning Photoshop
Check out the slideshow below for step-by-step instructions on how to do all of the basic Photoshop skills in this article.
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Author Bio: Rocco Lungariello is a Marketing and Social Media Content Creator at New Horizons. He has been generating content surrounding the IT Industry for more than four years.
When you’re ready to dish out some money for a new tablet, you obviously want to buy the best there is on the market. So, when time comes to buy, what should you look for? What are the best new models you can buy today? These are a few of the best tablets you can find on the market today, if you are ready to buy right now.
Amazon Fire With a 1.3 GHZ processor, a 7” screen, and excellent picture resolution (1024*600 pixels) you won’t find many tablets at this smaller screen size which has such excellent colour contrast and resolution. Add in the very light weight of only 11 ounces and you can literally carry this thing around without even feeling it in a bag. The 8 GB built in storage, and Amazon OS are fast, and allows for added storage if you need it. Excellent touch screen, easy to use features, and a small, sleek, elegant design, make this a must have tablet, especially for such a low-price point in comparison to other top manufacturer names in the marketplace.
Surface Pro 4 This Microsoft tablet is another great option. It is sleek, has the unique kick stand design, detachable keyboard, lighted keys, and a very cool looking exterior. It features a larger screen size at 12.3” you can use it like a laptop, eliminating the need to own two devices. The 2.3 processor speed is extremely fast, so you won’t experience lag time or slow speeds, even if you are down or uploading, watching, or playing games, on the device. 1920×1200-pixel resolution also means sharper images, better depth perception, and great color disparity on screen. A bit pricey, but considering it can be a tablet as well as a laptop in one, it is a bundle and a great bargain.
iPad Pro 7 Apple has done it again. If you love large screen sizes, the 9.8” design is truly a great size you won’t find with many competitors on the market today. With the iOS operating system, you won’t be disappointed with speed, ability to browse the web, or do nearly anything (work or play) on this device. It is very responsive, has built in safety fingers (like fingerprint technology), and the 2048×1536-pixel resolution, makes it the very best, and provides the best screen resolution and image quality, regardless of what you plan on using the iPad to do. It is very thin, it is very light, and it comes from the most trusted developer in Apple.
A true must have device, but do consider the high price tag if you are comparing this with other Android based devices which are much cheaper in the price spectrum. The iPad Pro7 can be very expensive depending on the model you go for. Luckily catalogue companies have started to provide different payment plans like buy now pay later, pay weekly, pay monthly. Over the past few years buying tablets on finance has become more and more popular due to the price of the product.
No matter what you are looking for when it comes to buying a new tablet, you have hundreds of options out there. For the budget shopper, for the high-end shopper, and for those who are in between, these are three great models to consider, which will offer great resolution, speeds, and quality, for the price point you can spend when purchasing a new tablet.
If you truly want to delve into the gaming experience and make the most of your Xbox gaming, you need the right pieces, right? Of course. So, if you are looking for the right accessories to enjoy your gaming, these are some of the best Xbox accessories to consider investing in today.
Elite Controller
If you have the money, you might as well splurge on this wireless controller. Swappable analogue sticks, paddle buttons on the back, face buttons on the front, and side toggles, truly allow you to make the most out of any fighter or shooter game. No matter what you are playing, this controller provides the right length, button, and analogue stick, so you are never out of place with the gaming control.
Thrustmaster TMX
If you plan to play racing or driving games, this is it. With truly distinguished pedals, you’ll feel like you are in the Indy 500. Heavy duty, adjustable incline panels, progressive resistance for even the tightest turns, makes this the ideal pedal and wheel system for your favourite, high throttle, fast paced games. With progressive resistance, you also must press down harder to really pick up the pace, so it makes it feel even more so like you are in a race car, digging in at your competition’s heels.
Chatpad
If you like to trash talk, this QWERTY style keypad is the way to do it. With a full keyboard, you can easily input text with your thumbs, without having to take your other fingers off the gaming controller. It also comes with a well-made chat headset, so you can talk to other players when you are immersed in online gaming. Truly a must have for fighter games, or RPG games, where you are playing with others in a team simulation game on screen.
Energizer 2X
If you simply can’t stop playing, and need a quick charger for your controllers, this is the must have charger to invest in. You can charge two controllers at once, and truly get nearly a 100% charge in a matter of only minutes. The LED display light is a nice feature, that lights up green to inform you that the controller has fully charged up. If you need to have a backup on hand at all times, then this is the controller charger you should consider investing when the time comes to purchase one.
There are number of options that you can purchase so you can make the most out of your gaming experience. No matter what type of games you enjoy, who you are planning to play with, or if you are an on or an offline gamer, the right accessories are going to make the gaming action far more enjoyable. So regardless of what you are looking for when it comes to playing on your favorite devices, there are several great accessories you should consider purchasing. These are some of the top accessories which will truly enhance your gaming experience, and make you a far superior competitor online.
Malware threats are on the rise, while phishing scams remain persistent — and effective — ways for cybercriminals to hack corporate systems. But the biggest risk to your organization? Applications.
Consider that more than 111 billion lines of new software code will be written this year, much of it used by Web-facing mobile and desktop apps. The result? A rapidly increasing attack surface that regularly produces new vulnerabilities. Add threats from existing, open-source code — a recent flaw in the Apache Struts 2 framework put companies around the world at risk of Java injection attacks — and it’s no wonder that 42 percent of mature DevOps organizations now perform app security analysis at every stage of the software cycle.
What does this mean for your company? With Web- and cloud-based apps quickly becoming the foundation of IT, it’s worth understanding the top applications security threats and learning how to counter them.
Test Case
While threats from outside actors make for sensational news stores and often top the list of corporate worry, app risks actually start closer to home. Why? Because many companies hold back when it comes to testing. Instead of giving dev teams time to fully break, fix and break apps again, software is rushed into production, putting it at risk of compromise. Bottom line? Hackers attack whatever, wherever, whenever. Timid testing isn’t enough.
Down and Out
Your apps are also at risk of DDoS and SQL injection attacks. When it comes to SQL, the problem stems from permissible commands: While the “SELECT” query is commonly used to make password and username database requests, many companies forget to block access to other SQL commands. The result? Sixty percent of Web apps are vulnerable. Lock down code and restrict permissions to reduce your risk.
DDoS, meanwhile, often feels like an attack that can’t be stopped, especially since attackers can now leverage IoT devices to deliver terabytes of traffic and quickly debilitate apps. It’s not hopeless, however — new tools can detect sudden access request spikes, shut down IP addresses and notify admins ASAP.
Scripts, Stocks and Sessions
Also on the top app threats radar are cross-site scripting (XSS) worries, stock API permissions and session hijacking. To cut off XSS, limit the type of Web scripts that can be loaded by specific apps. To combat stock APIs, use extra encryption and build in code delays to reduce the efficacy of automated hacking tools. Limiting session hijacking, meanwhile, demands the use of random session IDs that are always encrypted.
Last but not least are zero-day attacks. Limit your risk by leveraging more in-house code, building in extra security and, if necessary, pulling the app to fix critical issues.
App threats are on the rise. Reduce your risk by learning more about the top threats to your Web- and cloud-based applications, and taking steps to safeguard critical data.
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Author bio: Nori De Jesus is Global Director of Marketing at Column Information Security. De Jesus brings more than 20 years of experience as an advent marketer and business strategist working with software manufacturers and launching proprietary software solutions into the market. With expertise in BPM and case management B2B marketing, she focuses on innovation and making a difference by maintaining agility as the technology climate continues to shift. De Jesus is an evangelist in educating buyers through their technology-purchasing journey via content and research.
