Monthly Archives: April 2017
Otters are Orsome
About Krisgo
I’m a mom, that has worn many different hats in this life; from scout leader, camp craft teacher, parents group president, colorguard coach, member of the community band, stay-at-home-mom to full time worker, I’ve done it all– almost! I still love learning new things, especially creating and cooking. Most of all I love to laugh! Thanks for visiting – come back soon 
Digital Transformation – Mindset Differences
- Analyzing Retail Through Digital Lenses
- Digital Thinking and Beyond!
- Measuring the Pace of Change in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
- How Digital Thinking Separates Retail Leaders from Laggards
- To Bot, or Not to Bot
- Oils, Bots, AI and Clogged Arteries
- Artificial Intelligence Out of Doors in the Kingdom of Robots
- How Digital Leaders are Different
- The Three Tsunamis of Digital Transformation – Be Prepared!
- Bots, AI and the Next 40 Months
- You Only Have 40 Months to Digitally Transform
- Digital Technologies and the Greater Good
- Video Report: 40 Months of Hyper-Digital Transformation
- Report: 40 Months of Hyper-Digital Transformation
- Virtual Moves to Real in with Sensors and Digital Transformation
- Technology Must Disappear in 2017
- Merging Humans with AI and Machine Learning Systems
- In Defense of the Human Experience in a Digital World
- Profits that Kill in the Age of Digital Transformation
- Competing in Future Time and Digital Transformation
- Digital Hope and Redemption in the Digital Age
- Digital Transformation and the Role of Faster
- Digital Transformation and the Law of Thermodynamics
- Jettison the Heavy Baggage and Digitally Transform
- Digital Transformation – The Dark Side
- Business is Not as Usual in Digital Transformation
- 15 Rules for Winning in Digital Transformation
- The End Goal of Digital Transformation
- Digital Transformation and the Ignorance Penalty
- Surviving the Three Ages of Digital Transformation
- The Advantages of an Advantage in Digital Transformation
- From Digital to Hyper-Transformation
- Believers, Non-Believers and Digital Transformation
- Forces Driving the Digital Transformation Era
- Digital Transformation Requires Agility and Energy Measurement
- A Doctrine for Digital Transformation is Required
- Digital Transformation and Its Role in Mobility and Competition
- Digital Transformation – A Revolution in Precision Through IoT, Analytics and Mobility
- Competing in Digital Transformation and Mobility
- Ambiguity and Digital Transformation
- Digital Transformation and Mobility – Macro-Forces and Timing
- Mobile and IoT Technologies are Inside the Curve of Human Time
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New eBook Available! ITOA for Enterprises
We all know that data has become a critical asset. More and more organizations are tapping into Big Data analytics to make more informed business decisions. But beyond customer intel, there is an additional source of valuable information in the raw data generated by IT systems like servers, mainframes, and databases. Our new eBook covers the value of ITOA for enterprises.
Unfortunately, ITOA, or IT operations analytics, can be difficult to achieve. Machine data is unstructured, sequential, and can be overwhelming in volume. Also, this data quickly loses value over time, which makes real-time data analytics vital for success.
Although there can be challenges in setting up IT operations analytics, overcoming these obstacles can be worthwhile for enterprises who can gain valuable insights and enjoy long-term cost savings.
Download our latest eBook to learn about the difficulties enterprises face when considering IT operations analytics and how Splunk + Syncsort Ironstream can help overcome those challenges.
Marketing Firm Zeta Global Turns Heads With $140M Funding Round
Cloud marketing automation firm
Zeta Global on Thursday announced that it has raised US$ 140 million in its largest ever round of financing.
Former Apple CEO John Sculley and David Steinberg cofounded the company in 2007.
GPI Capital led the Series F financing. Other investors include funds sponsored by Franklin Square Capital Partners and sub-advised by GSO Capital Partners, the credit division of Blackstone.
The new round of financing includes $ 115 million in equity and $ 25 million in debt. Zeta will use the funds to advance its growth plan through strategic acquisitions. It also plans to use some of the new funds to invest in new technologies, as well as for operations, and for sales and marketing efforts.
The financing round marks a “watershed moment” for Zeta Global, and the company is on track to reach all of its internal goals, said Steinberg, who is the company’s CEO.
“We are hitting every milestone in our evolution and will continue to capitalize on acquisitions that will enhance and extend our marketing cloud so that we can deliver even more to our blue chip client base,” he added.
GPI Capital Chief Investment Officer Bill Royan, who will join the Zeta Global board of directors after the deal closes, said he was “bullish on the shift towards data-driven digital marketing.”
Laying the Groundwork
Zeta Global, which last year changed its name from “Zeta Interactive,” recently has made some key additions to its management team. In March, it named Donald Steele, the former managing director of North American sales at Epsilon, as its first chief revenue officer. In January, it announced that Jarrod Yahes, former CFO of Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, would be its new CFO.
Zeta Global has expanded through a series of acquisitions to become competitive in the CRM space against incumbents like Salesforce, IBM, Oracle and others.
“The pace of innovation in cloud marketing is fast, and there is no clear winner in that space,” said Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research at Nucleus Research.
“We saw a peak of acquisitions a few years ago, and it’s likely to happen again — particularly with broader platform players that can grab innovation from the niches,” she told CRM Buyer.
Zeta grew by 50 percent in 2016. As it reportedly generated $ 200 million in revenue in 2015, that would put its 2016 revenue at about $ 300 million.
Zeta last summer raised $ 45 million from business development companies managed by FS Investments and sub-advised by GSO Capital Partners, Cerebus PNC Senior Loan Fund and PNC Bank.
Around the same time, Zeta announced its $ 50 million deal to acquire Acxiom, which provides marketing automation software for enterprise firms.
IPO Potential
Zeta Global reportedly has been watching the markets closely with an initial public offering in mind.
The new round of funding and Zeta’s growing base of customers show there is “still plenty of demand for comprehensive, multichannel marketing solutions” from a variety of sources, said Jeffrey Kaplan, managing director of ThinkStrategies.
“The company’s rapidly growing installed base of brand-name customers clearly indicates that it is offering unique capabilities compared to Salesforce.com and other CRM providers,” he told CRM Buyer.
The new round of funding shows investor confidence in the company’s plans to make additional acquisitions or launch an IPO, Kaplan suggested.
“There are a lot of ‘big data’ vendors, but Zeta augments data sets with context and improves Data as a Service marketing,” said R ‘Ray’ Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research.
“They will keep buying distressed companies,” he told CRM Buyer, “and integrating and aggregating data sets to improve marketing outreach.”
Big Data: Making It Big For E-Commerce Retailers
Long considered part of the BI tech jargon, Big Data has emerged as a core ingredient of a successful marketing strategy, revolutionizing almost every vertical industry, from healthcare to manufacturing, banking, finance, and more.
The technology has carved a niche in the e-commerce retail market as well. Today, it’s a part of big and small e-commerce sellers’ business processes, enabling them to achieve their goals more quickly and efficiently.
Big Data for e-commerce: a challenging journey
While there are immense benefits in adopting Big Data technology, there are also massive challenges. Let’s look at some of the hurdles that e-commerce retailers face on the path to adoption.
- Volume: As implied by its name, Big Data integration involves the collection of huge volumes of relevant data from a variety of sources. E-commerce sellers get statistics related to customer behavior (based on searches and transactions), demographics, social media, and more. The challenge here is not only about gathering the data, but also analyzing and using it appropriately.
- Velocity: Handling data as it comes at unprecedented speed is another key concern for e-commerce sellers. Rapid analysis and timely action are essential to tap its full benefits.
- Variety: Big Data comes in diverse formats, from traditional structured numeric databases to unstructured text documents, videos, emails, and more. Retailers need to interpret it to make the right business decisions, allowing for possible data inconsistencies such as seasonal and peak loads (e.g., holiday sales trends).
- Complexity: It can be difficult to link, match, correlate, and interpret data that comes from different sources.
Daunting as the journey may seem, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Retailers who overcome the challenges and use Big Data to their advantage can achieve phenomenal success.
Big Data, big potential: How can it enable e-commerce growth?
Technology forms the core of the e-commerce retail selling process. It is the foundation on which the business is built as buyers connect with sellers through online stores and mobile apps. Disruptive tech such as Big Data analytics, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and virtual reality have become a part of the e-commerce scenario in recent years. Big Data in particular has emerged as a key ingredient in the recipe for e-commerce success.
Big Data can benefit online retail businesses in many ways; here are some of them.
1. Supports dynamic pricing
Pricing is one of the key parameters of e-commerce success, as customers tend to shop from the sites that offer the best prices. Sellers must price fairly owing to the stiff competition they face. The best approach is dynamic pricing, which is responsive to external factors such as consumer demand and competitors’ prices. Big Data analytics is a reliable tool that supports sellers with dynamic pricing.
2. Enables delivery of personalized customer experiences
The cutthroat competition in e-commerce makes customer satisfaction a major concern for sellers, and delivering a personalized shopping experience makes a big difference. Big Data analysis gives sellers insight on customer behavior and demographics and provides customers a personalized experience. For instance, customer data can be used to create buyer-specific e-mails for promotional campaigns.
3. Helps improve business performance
Integration of Big Data technology helps e-commerce sellers improve their business performance. It can track shoppers’ journeys in order to drive relevant content and purchases. Cross-device tracking, for instance, can be used to re-target buyers to decrease cart abandonment and improve conversion rates. The data can also provide sellers with a feedback tool to understand why customers aren’t completing transactions, then direct them to take steps to redress the issues, win over buyers, and build lasting relationships with them.
4. Facilitates smart inventory management
Analytics also improve inventory management for e-commerce businesses. Stocking the right levels of inventory is one of the biggest challenges for e-commerce sellers. Too much inventory results in storage expenses and risk of redundancy as the goods may never be sold. On the other hand, inadequate stock means that goods may not be available for customers and send them to competitors. Big Data predictive analysis comes to sellers’ rescue by helping them calculate optimal stock inventory levels, including predicting booms in demand during the festive season and holiday sales.
Conclusion
The benefits of Big Data analytics for online businesses make the technology a worthy investment, and tapping into the expertise of qualified professionals helps retailers get the most advantage from it. The journey seems to be a long one, particularly for small retailers who have to think twice before making such a massive investment. But, as this technology is surely going to reshape the e-commerce retail industry in future, failing to use Big Data may put retailers at a significant disadvantage compared to competitors.
For more insight on this topic, see 5 Steps to Your Customer’s Heart with Emotionally Aware Computing.
Power BI Pride 2017: share your pride with the world!
It’s about pride – the pride you have as a Power BI customer, partner, or employee. It’s about pride in your work, and in the work of your fellow business intelligence experts. Last year we asked for insights on what you love the most about Power BI, and we shared some of your amazing responses at the Microsoft Data Insights Summit. Now we’re excited to announce that Power BI Pride is here again for 2017.
This year, we want to hear specifically about what makes any of the top 10 features of Power BI (as voted on by the community) special or impactful or useful for you. To participate, create a short video of yourself talking about one of the top features. For example, you could complete one of the following sentences:
- What’s your name and where are you from?
- What do you LOVE about Power BI feature X (select from top 10 voted features)?
- How does Power BI feature X make your job easier?
- What’s the best thing you’ve visualized with Power BI feature X?
There’s no wrong way to take pride in these features and how they inspire your work — just be yourself! You can find the full submission instructions on the Community forum. Videos must be submitted by Sunday, May 14, 2017.
Select videos will be included in the Data Insights Summit opening keynote with Microsoft CVP James Phillips, and shown elsewhere throughout the 2-day event to attendees from around the world. All videos that adhere to the guidelines will published on the Power BI YouTube channel on June 12, 2017.
This is not a contest – there are no prizes – it’s all about the pride. We can’t wait to see and share your videos!
Winning Strategies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
- Data is the modern commercial playing field, information dominance is your goal, those that can “act and with speed” have the advantage over those which cannot.
- Advantages in the speed of data-driven decision-making, automation, robotic process automation will dictate the winners of tomorrow.
- Complexity is the enemy of agility, and acts as poison from the past.
- It takes an optimized Information Logistics Systems (OILS) to support real-time digital interactions.
- Faster operational tempos and information logistics systems – open up a plethora of new business opportunities and business models.
- Precision and real-time data beats estimates and conjecture.
- Digital interactions require real-time business operational tempos.
- Bad data will make the smartest systems dumb.
- Competitive advantages from new technologies depreciate quickly – so act fast.
- Situational awareness enables management to focus on the knowns, rather than the unknowns.
- Demand for real-time digital customer interactions increases the need for contextually relevant and personalized user experiences and digital transformation across all systems and processes.
- Data has a shelf life, and the economic value of data diminishes quickly over time, and the more data that is collected analyzed and used, the greater the economic value it produces in aggregate. In addition, the economic value of data multiplies when combined with context and right time delivery.
- Digits can be changed faster than the human mindset.
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I invite you to watch my latest short video on digital technology trends and strategies:
How Much Will Microsoft Dynamics 365 Cost?
Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Microsoft Dynamics CRM) is the latest iteration of CRM software from Microsoft and is built to enhance your entire office system. Other posts will extol the virtues of Dynamics 365, and you may already be aware of some of them. But what you may be wondering is: What will it cost to purchase and implement Dynamics 365 in your particular office? While price quotes are often rather general, we at the CRM Software Blog have come up with a tool to make it a lot easier to zero in on a realistic price for budgeting purposes.
As you know, every business has different processes and requirements. That is why the Quick Quote tool is valuable. You’ll answer a few basic questions about your business (size, number of prospective users), your industry (service, manufacturing, financial), your preferred method of deployment (on premises, cloud or a combination) and the level of support and training you require. The Quick Quote tool will use your information to instantly and automatically generate a price range for what you are likely to pay for Dynamics 365 software, implementation and ongoing costs. Of course, the quote is non-binding. But it will give you a good idea of the factors involved and will give you the numbers to consider when budgeting for your Dynamics 365 project.
Provide your company’s email address and the Quick Quote will be sent to you as a PDF.
Along with the Quick Quote estimate, you will receive a referral to just one of our Dynamics CRM partners in your area who can answer your questions and work with you if you choose. Of course, the referral, just as the quote, is non-binding and comes with no strings attached; the Quick Quote and the referral are free.
Find the Quick Quote tool by clicking on the orange bar at the top of each page of the CRM Software Blog.
So, how much will Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM cost?
Request a free Microsoft Dynamics 365 Quick Quote to find out.
Check our Microsoft Dynamics 365 Partner Directory to find a company near you.
By CRM Software Blog writer
It’s Time To Start Catering To The Omnichannel Shopper
If your brand isn’t among those planning a significant spend on mobile marketing in 2016, you need to stop treating it like a fad and step up to meet your competition. Usage statistics show that today people live and work while on the move, and the astronomical rise of mobile ad spending proves it.
According to eMarketer, ad spending experienced triple-digit growth in 2013 and 2014. While it’s slowed in 2015, don’t let that fool you: Mobile ad spending was $ 19.2 billion in 2013, and eMarketer’s forecast for next year is $ 101.37 billion—51 percent of the digital market.
- Marketers follow consumer behavior, and consumers rely on their mobile devices. The latest findings from show that two-third of Americans are now smartphone owners. Around the world, there are two billion smartphone users and, particularly in developing regions, eMarketer notes “many consumers are accessing the internet mobile-first and mobile-only.”
- The number of mobile users has already surpassed the number of desktop users, as has the number of hours people spend on mobile Internet use, and business practices are changing as a result. Even Google has taken notice; earlier this year the search giant rolled out what many referred to as “Mobilegeddon”—an algorithm update that prioritizes mobile-optimized sites.
The implications are crystal clear: To ignore mobile is to ignore your customers. If your customers can’t connect with you via mobile—whether through an ad, social, or an optimized web experience—they’ll move to a competitor they can connect with.
Consumers prefer mobile — and so should you
Some people think mobile marketing has made things harder for marketers. In some ways, it has: It’s easy to make missteps in a constantly changing landscape.
At the same time, however, modern brands can now reach customers at any time of the day, wherever they are, as more than 90 percent of users now have a mobile device within arm’s reach 24/7. This has changed marketing, allowing brands to build better and more personalized connections with their fans.
- With that extra nudge from Google, beating your competition and showing up in search by having a website optimized for devices of any size is essential.
- Search engine optimization (SEO) helps people find you online; SEO integration for mobile is even more personalized, hyper local, and targeted to an individual searcher.
- In-app advertisements put your brand in front of an engaged audience.
- Push messages keep customers “in the know” about offers, discounts, opportunities for loyalty points, and so much more.
And don’t forget about the power of apps, whose usage takes up 85 percent of the total time consumers spend on their smartphones. Brands like Nike and Starbucks are excellent examples of how to leverage the power of being carried around in someone’s pocket.
Personal computers have never been able to offer such a targeted level of reach. We’ve come to a point where marketing without mobile isn’t really marketing at all.
Mobile marketing tools are on the upswing too
As more mobile-empowered consumers themselves from their desks to the street, the rapid rise of mobile shows no signs of slowing down. This is driving more investment into mobile marketing solutions and programs.
According to VentureBeat’s Mobile Success Landscape, mobile engagement—which includes mobile marketing automation—is second only to app analytics in terms of investment. Mobile marketing has become a universe unto itself, one that businesses are eager to measure more effectively.
Every day, mobile marketing is becoming ever more critical for businesses. Brands that fail to incorporate mobile into their ad, content, and social campaigns will be left wondering where their customers have gone.
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The post Mobile Marketing Continues to Explode appeared first on Millennial CEO.
photo credit: Samsung Galaxy S3 via photopin(license)