expand Archives - Business Intelligence Info

Tag Archives: expand

Delivery startup Refraction AI raises $4.2M to expand service areas

March 9, 2021 Big Data

Join Transform 2021 for the most important themes in enterprise AI & Data. Learn more.

Refraction AI, a company developing semi-autonomous delivery robots, today announced that it raised $ 4.2 million in seed funding led by Pillar VC. Refraction says that the proceeds will be used for customer acquisition, geographic expansion, and product development well into the next year.

The worsening COVID-19 health crisis in much of the U.S. seems likely to hasten the adoption of self-guided robots and drones for goods transportation. They require disinfection, which companies like Kiwibot, Starship Technologies, and Postmates are conducting manually with sanitation teams. But in some cases, delivery rovers like Refraction’s could minimize the risk of spreading disease. Recent market reports from Allied Market Research and Infiniti estimate that annual growth in the last-mile delivery sector over the next 10 years will exceed 14%, with the autonomous delivery segment projected to grow at over 24%, from $ 11.9 billion in 2021 to more than $ 84 billion globally by 2031.

Launched in July 2019, Refraction was cofounded by Matt Johnson-Roberson and Ram Vasudevan, both professors at the University of Michigan. Working alongside several retail partners, people within a few-mile radius can have orders delivered by Refraction’s REV-1 robot. After customers order through a dedicated website, Refraction’s employees load the vehicles at the store, and recipients receive text message updates, along with a code to open the robot’s storage compartment when it arrives.

REV-1, which is approximately the size of an electric bicycle and is legally categorized as an ebike, weighs approximately 100 pounds and stands roughly 4 feet tall, including its three wheels. It travels an average 10 to 15 miles per hour with a very short stopping distance, and the compartment holds about six bags of groceries.

$Delivery startup Refraction AI raises $4.2M to expand service areas$

REV-1’s perception system comprises 12 cameras, in addition to redundant radar and ultrasound sensors — a package the company claims costs a fraction of the lidar sensors used in rival rovers. The robot can navigate in inclement weather, including rain and snow, and it doesn’t depend on high-definition maps for navigation.

Prior to a partnership with Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Produce Station, REV-1 had been delivering exclusively from Ann Arbor restaurants, including Miss Kim and Tio’s Mexican Cafe, during lunchtime as part of a three-month pilot. The company charges the restaurant a flat $ 7.50, and Refraction’s over 500 customers pay a portion of that fee if the business chooses. (Tips go directly to Refraction’s partners.)

As of May 2020, Refraction had eight robots running in Ann Arbor, and it expects to have over 20 within the next few weeks. The latest investment brings its total raised to date to over $ 10 million.

“Last-mile delivery is the quintessential example of a sector that is ripe for innovation, owing to a powerful confluence of advancing technology, demographics, social values and consumer models. Conventional approaches have left businesses and consumers with few choices in this new environment as they struggle to keep pace with surging demand — burdened by the costs, regulatory, and logistical challenges of a legacy infrastructure,” Refraction CEO Luke Schneider, who took the helm in fall 2020, said in a press release. “Our platform uses technology that exists today in an innovative way, to get people the things they need, when they need them, where they live. And we’re doing so in a way that reduces business’ costs, makes roads less congested, and eliminates carbon emissions.”

VentureBeat

VentureBeat’s mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative technology and transact.

Our site delivers essential information on data technologies and strategies to guide you as you lead your organizations. We invite you to become a member of our community, to access:

up-to-date information on the subjects of interest to you
our newsletters
gated thought-leader content and discounted access to our prized events, such as Transform 2021: Learn More
networking features, and more

Become a member

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Waymo to expand autonomous truck testing in the American Southwest

June 30, 2020 Big Data

Today during a briefing with members of the media, Waymo head of commercialization for trucking Charlie Jatt outlined the company’s go-to-market plans for Waymo Via, its self-driving delivery division. In the future, Waymo will partner with OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers to equip cloud-based trucks manufactured and sold to the market with its autonomous systems. In addition, Waymo will work with fleets to provide its software services and offer support for things like mapping and remote fleet assistance.

As Waymo transitions to this model, Jatt said that Waymo intends to own and offer its own fleet of trucks — at least in the short term. One of the delivery solutions it’s exploring is a transfer-hub model where, rather than an automated truck covering an entire journey, it’ll be a mix of an automated portion and a portion involving manually driven, human-manned trucks. Automated vehicle transfer hubs close to highways would handle the switch-off and minimize surface street driving.

In a first step toward this vision, Waymo says it’ll soon expand testing on roads in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas along the I-10 corridor between Phoenix and Tuscon, as previously announced. It this year mapped routes between Phoenix, El Paso, Dallas, and Houston and ramped up testing in California on freeways in Mountain View, but the focus in 2020 will be on the American Southwest.

VB Transform 2020 Online – July 15-17. Join leading AI executives: Register for the free livestream.

Tests will be primarily along Interstates 10, 20, and 45 and through metropolitan areas like El Paso, Dallas, and Houston. Chrysler Pacifica vans retrofitted with Waymo’s technology stack will map roads ahead of driverless Peterbilt trucks as part of a project known as Husky.

Waymo is also engaged with local delivery under the Waymo Via umbrella, the company reiterated. It currently has two partnerships in the Phoenix area — one with AutoNation and one with UPS. On the AutoNation side, Waymo is performing “hot shot” deliveries where Waymo vehicles travel to certain AutoNation locations and deliver car parts. And on the UPS side, the company is ferrying packages from stores to UPS sorting centers.

Waymo began piloting dedicated goods delivery with class A trucks — 18-wheelers — in 2017. After completing tests in 2018 with real loads from Google datacenters in Atlanta, Waymo began limited testing on roads in the San Francisco Bay Area, Michigan, Arizona, and Georgia, and on Metro Phoenix freeways.

Waymo’s autonomous trucks employ a combination of lidars, radars, and cameras to understand the world around them. They have roughly twice as many sensors as Waymo’s cars to handle the trucks’ unique shape and the occlusions they cause, and they place a greater emphasis on long-length perception (the perception range is somewhere beyond 300 meters). But they use the same compute platform found in the fifth-generation Waymo Driver.

As the pandemic drives unprecedented growth in the logistics and ground transportation market, Aurora, TuSimple, and other rivals are investing increased resources in fully autonomous solutions. They stand to save the logistics and shipping industry $ 70 billion annually while boosting productivity by 30%; according to a recent study from the Consumer Technology Association, a quarter (26%) of consumers now view autonomous delivery technologies more favorably than before the health crisis.

Besides cost savings, the growth in autonomous trucking has been driven in part by a shortage of human drivers. In 2018, the American Trucking Associates estimated that 50,000 more truckers were needed to close the gap in the U.S., even despite the sidelining of proposed U.S. Transportation Department screenings for sleep apnea.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Nested expansion using the $expand query option via the Web API by example

May 22, 2020 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

A question that I keep getting is, “Can I perform nested queries using $ expand query option with the Dynamics 365 Web API?”. The answer is, yes this is possible without the need to leverage fetch XML. Unfortunately, a quick internet search at the time of writing this blog might lead you to believe it is not possible. In this short post I will show you how by example.

The following example queries an account record, expanding the primary contact lookup, and on the primary contact expands the created by lookup. Each level has a select statement to demonstrate how it works at the different layers. For reference, I am using Postman to perform my tests.

Request:

GET [Organization URI]/api/data/v9.1/accounts(85268bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6)?$  select=name&$  expand=primarycontactid($  select=fullname;$  expand=createdby($  select=fullname)) HTTP/1.1

[EDIT] *Note that you do not need to included the navigation property you wish to expand in they query.

Response:

{
    "@odata.context": "https://admissions-dev.crm.dynamics.com/api/data/v8.2/$  metadata#accounts(primarycontactid,primarycontactid(fullname,createdby(fullname)))/$  entity",
    "@odata.etag": "W/\"2082428\"",
    "accountid": "85268bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6",
    "primarycontactid": {
        "@odata.etag": "W/\"2081664\"",
        "fullname": "Yvonne McKay (sample)",
        "contactid": "32278bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6",
        "createdby": {
            "fullname": "Paul Breuler",
            "systemuserid": "17541fec-8178-4196-84cc-240a576e308c",
            "ownerid": "17541fec-8178-4196-84cc-240a576e308c"
        }
    }
}

You can nest up to 11 expand commands. If you want to see what the beast of a string looks like check out the following request used to test. For this example, I leveraged the circular reference between accounts and contacts.

Request:

GET [Organization URI]/api/data/v9.1/accounts(85268bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6)?$  select=name&$  expand=primarycontactid($  select=fullname;$  expand=parentcustomerid_account($  select=name;$  expand=primarycontactid($  select=fullname;$  expand=parentcustomerid_account($  select=name;$  expand=primarycontactid($  select=fullname;$  expand=parentcustomerid_account($  select=name;$  expand=primarycontactid($  select=fullname;$  expand=parentcustomerid_account($  select=name;$  expand=primarycontactid($  select=fullname;$  expand=parentcustomerid_account($  select=name;$  expand=primarycontactid($  select=fullname))))))))))) HTTP/1.1

Response

{
    "@odata.context": "https://admissions-dev.crm.dynamics.com/api/data/v8.2/$  metadata#accounts(name,primarycontactid(fullname,parentcustomerid_account(name,primarycontactid(fullname,parentcustomerid_account(name,primarycontactid(fullname,parentcustomerid_account(name,primarycontactid(fullname,parentcustomerid_account(name,primarycontactid(fullname,parentcustomerid_account(name,primarycontactid(fullname))))))))))))/$  entity",
    "@odata.etag": "W/\"2082428\"",
    "name": "Fourth Coffee (sample)",
    "accountid": "85268bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6",
    "primarycontactid": {
        "@odata.etag": "W/\"2081664\"",
        "fullname": "Yvonne McKay (sample)",
        "contactid": "32278bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6",
        "parentcustomerid_account": {
            "name": "Fourth Coffee (sample)",
            "accountid": "85268bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6",
            "primarycontactid": {
                "fullname": "Yvonne McKay (sample)",
                "contactid": "32278bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6",
                "parentcustomerid_account": {
                    "name": "Fourth Coffee (sample)",
                    "accountid": "85268bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6",
                    "primarycontactid": {
                        "fullname": "Yvonne McKay (sample)",
                        "contactid": "32278bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6",
                        "parentcustomerid_account": {
                            "name": "Fourth Coffee (sample)",
                            "accountid": "85268bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6",
                            "primarycontactid": {
                                "fullname": "Yvonne McKay (sample)",
                                "contactid": "32278bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6",
                                "parentcustomerid_account": {
                                    "name": "Fourth Coffee (sample)",
                                    "accountid": "85268bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6",
                                    "primarycontactid": {
                                        "fullname": "Yvonne McKay (sample)",
                                        "contactid": "32278bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6",
                                        "parentcustomerid_account": {
                                            "name": "Fourth Coffee (sample)",
                                            "accountid": "85268bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6",
                                            "primarycontactid": {
                                                "fullname": "Yvonne McKay (sample)",
                                                "contactid": "32278bf8-448a-ea11-a812-000d3a579cc6"
                                            }
                                        }
                                    }
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Thanks for reading, hopefully you found this helpful.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement in the Field

#PowerQuery – Control the expand columns so it includes new columns

October 9, 2019 Self-Service BI

Image a scenario where your column in your PowerQuery that contains a table with a set a columns that you know at some point will have more columns added.

In the case above I know that we at some point will add more columns in the merged ProductAttributes table.

How can we make this dynamic using PowerQuery

When we click the icon for expanding the table, we might just select this and move on

But notice the formula created in

It says

= Table.ExpandTableColumn(#”Merged Queries”, “ProductAttributes”, {“Brand”}, {“Brand”})

This means that even though we might add new columns to the ProductsAttributes table – it will still only be Brand that is expanded and only that column.

The bolded arguments is 2 lists that contains the Column names to expand and the new names of the columns – the last argument is optional so we can actually skip that if we want the original names – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerquery-m/table-expandtablecolumn

Now by changing the formula to this

= Table.ExpandTableColumn(#”Merged Queries”, “ProductAttributes”,List.RemoveItems(Table.ColumnNames(#”Merged Queries”[ProductAttributes]{0}), {“ProductKey”})
)

We can make the table dynamically expand when adding new columns in the table ProductAttributes

We get the new column included as well

The magic formula does this

Table.ColumnNames(#”Merged Queries”[ProductAttributes]{0})

Will return a list of column names from the step before
expansion (note I use the step name and column name) – and I use the {0} to extract the column names only form the first row – otherwise the formula will fail.

But as we cannot have the same column names twice (i.e. ProductKey needs to go away) so we need to use the List.RemoveItems functions

List.RemoveItems(Table.ColumnNames(#”Merged Queries”[ProductAttributes]{0}), {“ProductKey”})

Thereby removing the ProductKey Item in the list

And this means that when we get more columns in the table “ProductAttributes” table they will automatically be included in the expanded columns

Hope this can help you power queries even more dynamic.

Here is an example file – Link

Power Query On !

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Erik Svensen – Blog about Power BI, Power Apps, Power Query

Google to expand AI-powered flood forecasts in India ahead of monsoon season

September 19, 2019 Big Data

Google is making an expansion of its flood prediction AI for regions in India for the coming monsoon season to cover more than 11,000 square kilometers in areas along the Ganga and Brahmaputra rivers, the company announced today. Approximately 20% of global flood fatalities occur in India.

Since the start of Flood Forecast initiative trials in the Patna region first began about a year ago, 800,000 notifications were sent to smartphone users. Alerts are also sent to a human network of volunteers with the nonprofit SEEDS to spread emergency warning news among people without phones.

The expansion will be supported by new forecast methodologies like a recently made approach to create Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) such as optimizing its inundation model to work with tensor processing units (TPU) and supply predictions 85 times faster than the use of CPUs alone.

“Correlating and aligning the images in large batches, we adjust their camera models (and simultaneously solve for a coarse terrain) to make the images mutually consistent. Then, we create a depth map for each image. To make the elevation map we optimally fuse the depth maps together at each location,” Google said in a blog post. “For additional efficiency improvements, we’re also looking at using machine learning to replace some of the physics-based algorithms, extending data-driven discretization to two-dimensional hydraulic models, so we can support even larger grids and cover even more people.”

In addition to use of TPUs, to continue to improve the accuracy of flood predictions, Google began to use imagery from European Space Agency Sentinel-1 satellite constellation.

In January, Google said flood predictions achieved 75% accuracy. Model prediction levels have remained the same, a company spokesperson told VentureBeat in an email.

Flood prediction systems could become increasingly important as climate change worsens. In other AI models to protect people and property from natural disasters, researchers this week published a paper on machine learning to predict large wildfires.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Shopify acquires 6 River Systems for $450 million to expand its AI-powered fulfillment network

September 10, 2019 Big Data

Shopify today announced it is acquiring 6 River Systems, a startup focused on fulfillment automation for e-commerce and retail operations. The deal is valued at approximately $ 450 million — 60% in cash and 40% in shares.

In June at its Unite partner and developer conference, Shopify announced the Shopify Fulfillment Network, which uses machine learning to ensure timely deliveries and lower shipping costs. Shopify’s fulfillment centers span California, Georgia, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The network, which is only available in early access, supports merchants that ship between 10 to 10,000 packages per day. The company hopes to eventually support between 3 to 30,000 packages per day. The 6 River Systems acquisition looks like an attempt to speed up that growth.

“Shopify is taking on fulfillment the same way we’ve approached other commerce challenges, by bringing together the best technology to help everyone compete,” Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke said in a statement. “With 6 River Systems, we will bring technology and operational efficiencies to companies of all sizes around the world.”

Robots in the warehouse

6 River Systems is best known for its Chuck autonomous vehicles that can move around packages in warehouses. Indeed, Shopify believes that adding the robots to its fulfillment network “will increase the speed and reliability of warehouse operations, by empowering on-site associates with daily tasks, including inventory replenishment, picking, sorting, and packing.”

While Shopify plans to accelerate the growth of its AI-powered fulfillment network, it promises to keep selling 6 River Systems’ solution for warehouses. The startup’s solution operates in more than 20 facilities in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. It fulfills millions of units each week for companies including Lockheed Martin, CSAT Solutions, ACT Fulfillment, DHL, XPO Logistics, and Office Depot.

Shopify doesn’t expect the transaction to have any material effect on its revenue in 2019. It will increase the company’s expenses for 2019 by $ 25 million, however, including $ 10 million in operating expenses, $ 8 million in amortization of intangible assets, and $ 7 million in stock-based compensation. The company does expect 6 River Systems to generate annual billings of approximately $ 30 million in 2020.

Founded in 2015 by Jerome Dubois, Rylan Hamilton, and Chris Cacioppo, 6 River Systems is based in Waltham, Massachusetts. 6 River Systems had raised $ 46 million to date from Eclipse Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, and iRobot. Dubois and Hamilton were previously executives at Kiva Systems (Amazon acquired Kiva Systems for $ 775 million in March 2012). Shopify specifically called that out in its release, noting that the acquisition will give it “experienced leaders from Kiva Systems (now Amazon Robotics).”

The deal has already been approved by 6 River Systems’ stockholders. Included in the $ 450 million amount is approximately $ 69 million for the startup’s founders and employees “that will vest subject to certain conditions and will be treated as stock-based compensation.” The acquisition is expected to close in Q4 2019.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Signpost Secures $52M to Expand Its SMB Marketing Reach

July 12, 2019 CRM News and Info

Cloud marketing company
Signpost has raised US$ 52 million in new funding to “increase the scale of our business and invest in our technology,” CEO Stuart Wall said Tuesday.

The funding was provided by HighBar Partners and BMO Bank of Montreal as well as previous investors Georgian Partners and Spark Capital.

Signpost expects to add employees in all three of its offices — in New York; Austin, Texas; and Denver, Colorado — and will move its New York headquarters to Seventh Avenue this month.

The company’s Software as a Service platform for small and mid-sized businesses consists of artificial intelligence-based customer relationship management and marketing automation technology powered by automated data collection and cross-channel marketing.

Narrow Focus

“Many local business owners are seeing their competitors benefit from adopting CRM and marketing technology in terms of getting more and better reviews and executing better marketing,” said Wall.

“Also, many are recognizing that investing in technology is the best way for them to delegate manual tasks and reclaim time to focus on their businesses and serving their customers,” he told CRM Buyer.

“What sets Signpost apart is that it has designed a system specifically for small businesses that are managing customer lists, customer emails and online consumer reviews,” noted Nicole France, senior analyst at Constellation Research.

“That’s a distinct, and narrower, set of priorities from what large enterprises need, but more than just email marketing,” she told CRM Buyer. “Though the company has incorporated some AI and automation, it’s applied to these particular areas of focus.”

Signpost’s latest round of fundraising follows a banner year. It achieved cash flow break-even ahead of schedule early this year, as well as 43 percent year-over-year growth in its core product and less than 1 percent customer churn.

This strong growth “indicates just how much demand exists for solutions tailored to the needs of small and very small businesses,” France pointed out. However, SMBs “can’t afford to pay for technology they don’t use.”

Platform Features

After a five-minute onboarding process, Signpost connects seamlessly to users’ phone systems, email services, and other key business platforms, and automatically gathers all of their customer contact information.

Behavioral data collected from more than 70 million U.S. customers help Signpost’s users convert prospects, drive repeat business, and generate new reviews.

Signpost’s platform enables small business owners to do the following:

Capture customer contact information whenever prospects and customers call, text, email, or buy their products or services;
Automatically send texts and emails to drive more feedback, new customers, better reviews, referrals, and more repeat business;
Make payments effortless with Signpost Payments, a complete card payment solution with free equipment; and
Draw on digital marketing expertise from Signpost’s Customer Success Managers to drive more reviews and increase revenue.

“The main challenge is for local business owners to find the time to figure out how they’re going to get more reviews or develop effective marketing programs,” Wall said. “It’s why Signpost has invested so much in automating its platform and making it as easy as possible for business owners to get results.”

Signpost’s depth of automation is a differentiator, observed Daniel Elman, research analyst at Nucleus Research.

“Most CRM systems are primarily a system of record to organize customer information and track engagements,” he told CRM Buyer. “In order to be effective they require consistent manual data entry by the user.”

Many competing offerings “leverage AI to recommend next action for sales reps and discover trends in data, but Mia, Signpost’s AI-powered CRM, is more hands-off and can virtually eliminate the manual data entry step,” Elman said.

“Additionally, having data from 16 million customers built-in to pretrain the AI is a key differentiator,” he pointed out. “This allows it to be immediately viable for SMBs that often don’t have the years of historical data needed for training an AI system, or the resources to build these capabilities organically.”

Integration With Key Business Partners

The platform offers easy integration to Quickbooks Online, Constant Contact, Mailchimp and Square.

Signpost’s AI feature, Mia, syncs all the contact information and transaction data, and will send feedback and review requests for new purchases.

More than 1,200 customers have used Signpost’s integration.

Signpost’s partnership with machine learning ad platform Acquisio in 2017 lets Signpost users leverage Acquisio’s Promote platform for search engine marketing on Google Adwords.

“Given the long tail of SMB opportunities, particularly among very small businesses, Signpost’s investors likely see the company’s current growth rate as a good indication that there’s still plenty of room for growth in this market,” Constellation’s France said. “An effective but carefully tailored set of capabilities that meet the distinct needs of small businesses has ample opportunity.”

For example, Mailchimp this spring
unveiled an all-in-one marketing platform that includes CRM.

“SMBs are looking for solutions that help them do four basic functions: collect, organize, understand and act, and our marketing CRM is the center of that process,” said Darcy Kurtz, Mailchimp’s VP of global product marketing.

“We anticipate rapid adoption of our full-service marketing suite, as SMB tech is a largely untapped market, but the opportunity is massive. Small businesses contribute to 48 percent of the national GDP,” she told CRM Buyer.

Signpost’s Solutions

Signpost offers three solutions:

Basic, the most popular, is for businesses that communicate with customers primarily through email and only want new reviews;
Standard is for customers who want to add phone and text communications; and
Pro is designed for businesses that want marketing strategy support on top of all that.

Customers pay a flat fee of $ 200 to $ 400 a month, depending on the solution, Wall said. There is a discount for annual upfront payments.

There are also several vendors that offer CRM packages for small businesses
at no cost.

The upside of CRM solutions for SMBs, said Constellation’s France, “is greater market reach and the ability to punch above their weight in name recognition and growth.”

Richard Adhikari has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2008. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, mobile technologies, CRM, databases, software development, mainframe and mid-range computing, and application development. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including Information Week and Computerworld. He is the author of two books on client/server technology.
Email Richard.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

CRM Buyer

Expand Dynamics 365 CRM Using the Microsoft Power Platform

May 17, 2019 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Expand Dynamics 365 CRM with the Help of the Microsoft Power Platform

Now more than ever, data is important to the success of your business. In many instances, expanding the role of your CRM platform and the data it manages could benefit your business significantly. But at the same time, doing so often involves investing significant resources into IT — a strategy that’s not always realistic.

Fortunately, businesses using Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM are in an excellent position to take full advantage of their data and CRM platform. How? With the help of the Microsoft Power Platform.

Understanding the Microsoft Power Platform

Microsoft knows that businesses and everyday users need the ability to easily customize their Dynamics 365 solution, and the Microsoft Power Platform makes this possible with the help of three powerful tools:

1. Power BI for Business Analytics

As a business intelligence software solution, Microsoft Power BI has the ability to pull data from Dynamics 365 CRM, Excel spreadsheets, the cloud, data centers, and other resources. This data can then be easily combined and analyzed for valuable insights. The growth of this tool over the past four years is a testament to its value to millions of users around the globe.

2. PowerApps for App Development

Microsoft PowerApps makes it easier than ever for non-tech users to develop apps of their own. Everyday users can create functional, user-friendly apps without ever having to write a line of code, and this a game-changer for productivity and efficiency.

3. Flow for Workflow Automation

Microsoft Flow allows you to automate complex business processes — again, without the need for extensive technical know-how. Thanks to its easy-to-use interface, Flow allows you to create workflows which can be triggered via Power BI, apps built with PowerApps, or third-party applications.

Analyze, Act, and Automate with the Microsoft Power Platform: Triple A Loop

With the Microsoft Power Platform, you can generate what’s called a “triple A loop” to analyze data, act on what you find, and then automate future processes:

With Power BI, you can assess a problem and analyze relevant data sets.
Using PowerApps, it’s easy to develop a custom application that can act on what you’ve learned from your data.
Thanks to the capabilities built into Microsoft Flow, you can then automate the entire process moving forward.

Where to Get the Microsoft Power Platform

In some cases, it’s possible to purchase the Microsoft Power Platform on its own. But if you already have a Dynamics 365 CRM plan, the Power Platform may be included in your existing subscription. By utilizing the Power Platform, you can eliminate the need for many third-party tools and start taking full advantage of your data.

The Power Platform: Not Just for Tech Experts

With the Microsoft Power Platform, it’s easier than ever to analyze, act, and automate. Best of all, you don’t have to be an IT expert to make it happen. This psychology student with no background in IT was able to build a universal audit app using PowerApps and Flow. Working toward a completely different result, this American Red Cross worker used the Power Platform to improve the training supplies ordering process for more than 650 CPR and first aid instructors nationwide.

The Microsoft Power Platform: Used By AKA Enterprise Solutions

Here at AKA Enterprise Solutions, we’re big fans of the Power Platform. As our VP of Financial Services Tom Berger recently raved: “I love my new CRM PowerApp!!! We’re drinking our own champagne!” Once you’ve seen what the Microsoft Power Platform can do, and how easy it is for anyone to use, we think you’ll be just as excited as we are.

Ready to put the Power Platform to work for your business? We’re here to help. If you don’t yet have Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM or Office 365 set up, we can help with that, too. For a more in-depth look at Power Platform’s capabilities, check out our recent webcast, No-Code Applications that Solve Real Business Problems.

ABOUT AKA ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS
AKA specializes in making it easier to do business, simplifying processes and reducing risks. With agility, expertise, and original industry solutions, we embrace projects other technology firms avoid—regardless of their complexity. As a true strategic partner, we help organizations slay the dragons that are keeping them from innovating their way to greatness. Call us at 212-502-3900!

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Ford to deploy up to 100 autonomous cars by the end of 2019, expand testing to third city

April 27, 2019 Big Data

Ford intends to deploy upwards of 100 driverless vehicles by the end of 2019 and begin testing in a new city as it ramps up development of its autonomous technologies, CEO Jim Hackett told investors during the company’s Q1 2019 earnings call on Thursday.

Hackett said that Ford is focusing on “more complex” environments with seasonal weather changes and “intense” metro challenges, rather than suburban areas where the roads don’t change that often, or freeways. “We laughed that if autonomy was only destined for the L.A. freeways, you don’t have to deal with dogs and baseballs running across them, and no need to recognize that,” said Hackett. He added, “We’ve opted into some really difficult settings to prove this capability.”

Earlier this month, Hackett — who formerly led Ford’s autonomous vehicle division — admitted during a speech at the Detroit Economic Club that the carmaker had been overly ambitious in its plans to rapidly scale its self-driving efforts. He reiterated that Ford is on track to launch a driverless car fleet in 2021 but said that it’ll likely be geofenced and that the applications “will be narrow” because the problem of self-driving “is still too complex.”

Ford has a close relationship with Pittsburgh-based driverless technologies startup Argo AI, which it pledged to invest $ 1 million in over the next five years. Argo is currently testing autonomous cars in Miami and Detroit, with plans to expand tests to Washington, D.C. in the coming months, and it has obtained a permit to drive its self-driving cars on California roads.

Argo’s system — which comprises sensors like cameras, radar, and lidar, in addition to software and a bespoke compute platform — is one of its two core projects; the other is creating and maintaining high-definition maps of the roads on which its cars will drive.

In November, Ford unveiled a collaboration with Postmates to deliver food, personal care items, and other everyday goods from Walmart stores in Miami-Dade County. This came months after the company launched a delivery program — albeit a non-autonomous one — with Postmates in Miami and Miami Beach, Florida. The latter pilot lets customers order goods from local businesses. Orders are delivered via Ford Transit Connect cars sporting multiple storage lockers, speakers, and touchscreens.

As part of a $ 900 million investment in its Michigan manufacturing footprint announced two years ago, the automaker said in March that it would build a new factory dedicated to the production of autonomous vehicles. In July, Ford revealed that it would create a separate $ 4 billion Detroit-based unit to house the research, engineering, systems integration, business strategy, and development operations for its self-driving vehicle fleet. Separately, it has entered “exploratory talks” with Volkswagen to co-develop autonomous and electric cars.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Co-Marketing Relationship Guaranteed to Expand Your Reach

March 5, 2019 CRM News and Info

Guest posts

Guest posts on each other’s blogs are a great way to introduce your respective audiences to each other. You can write original content for the post or republish an evergreen post (but be sure to add the rel=canonical to the original post). You could also interview a subject matter expert from your respective companies and include excerpts of the discussion in a an eBook, infographic, or blog post.

Podcasts and Videos

Podcasts and videos represent another great co-marketing opportunity. In the past, we’ve interviewed Vidyard’s Tyler Lessard for Act-On’s Rethink Marketing podcast to talk about the importance of video in B2B marketing. Those podcast interviews are the gifts that just keep giving in the form of blog posts, slideshares, videos, eBooks, and more. I’ve also created co-marketing podcasts and videos with some of our other close partners — including Gong.io, Oktopost, and ListenLoop among others.

Webinars

Co-marketing via a webinar is a fantastic way to get leads into the funnel quickly. Once you and your co-marketing partner have agreed to work together, you should start planning at least two webinars together — giving you both the opportunity to host and serve as a guest contributor. Make sure to prepare informative and professional presentation decks, coordinate with your webinar service to avoid logistical issues, and promote the event to both your audiences through numerous marketing channels beginning at least 30 days in advance of the event. The registration landing page should be on your website when you are hosting and vice versa.

We’ll talk about this more in the co-marketing agreement section, but you’ll want to be prompt in sending each other the attendee registration lists. And you will want to have a good co-marketing plan for following up on the webinar. Does this include sending a link to watch the webinar on demand? Will you be sending one email, or will each partner be responsible for sending an email? These elements need to be discussed ahead of time to ensure seamless execution.

eBooks/Whitepapers

When developing a whitepaper or eBook with a co-marketers, you could be working together on one overarching topic or interviewing each other’s subject matter experts for material to be included in new updates to existing content. Or, another potentially effective idea is to have a team of co-marketing partners working together to create an annually recurring trends and predictions eBook that is updated each subsequent year.

Original Research

Original research often results in some of the most effective content marketing initiatives. For instance, The Content Marketing Institute releases their annual B2B Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends Report, and Puppet, the open-core software configuration management tool, release an annual DevOps Salary report — these pieces are link-generating machines!

Original research can be time-consuming and cost-prohibitive, but if you can split the resources with a partner, these projects become much more feasible. The easiest and most efficient way to do this is to create a survey to market to your respective audiences and then use those results to create assets like infographics and banner ads to support your demand generation efforts.

You’ve likely already been approached to participate in many of these tactics with partners (namely industry analysts or industry influencer consultancies) but at a cost exceeding your budget. These partnerships are always a potential option, but for the purposes of this post, we are focusing more on working with partners with whom you can split costs and share resources.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Act-On Blog

Tag Archives: expand

Delivery startup Refraction AI raises $4.2M to expand service areas

VentureBeat

Waymo to expand autonomous truck testing in the American Southwest

Nested expansion using the $expand query option via the Web API by example

#PowerQuery – Control the expand columns so it includes new columns

How can we make this dynamic using PowerQuery

Google to expand AI-powered flood forecasts in India ahead of monsoon season

Shopify acquires 6 River Systems for $450 million to expand its AI-powered fulfillment network

Robots in the warehouse

Signpost Secures $52M to Expand Its SMB Marketing Reach

Narrow Focus

Platform Features

Integration With Key Business Partners

Signpost’s Solutions

Expand Dynamics 365 CRM Using the Microsoft Power Platform

Ford to deploy up to 100 autonomous cars by the end of 2019, expand testing to third city

Co-Marketing Relationship Guaranteed to Expand Your Reach

Guest posts

Podcasts and Videos

Webinars

eBooks/Whitepapers

Original Research

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives