Category: Automation

Why API Integration Is A Must For Digital Banking Growth In 2019

May 30, 2019

The banking industry is currently overwhelmed by technological disruptions and heightened customer expectations, with non-traditional players such as Facebook, PayPal, Google, and others quickly usurping roles previously played by banks. Non-traditional players have access to cutting-edge technology, which results in excellent user experience (UX) and innovative financial solutions. Customer expectations cannot be met by traditional banks which restrict themselves to digital solutions such as mobile apps or 24/7 customer service. However, banks can choose to be savvy and make the right choice of opening up their APIs to these third-party products and applications. According to one survey, 55% of financial institutions believe that API integration is critical to business strategy. Banks need to collaborate with newer and non-traditional players and open up their APIs in order to remain competitive and witness growth. API integration is an urgent need Behavioral changes and customer preferences have vastly changed over the years, with millennials and Generation Z expecting more from their banks than older users. Providing excellent customer service and a great mobile application are simply not enough anymore, because of the innovative disruptions initiated by non-traditional players. According to a report published by Intelligent Finance, Baby Boomers (or those born between 1946 and 1964) considered poor face-to-face customer service as a major determinant to exit a bank, while millennials revealed they would exit a bank not only if they disliked its smartphone app but also if it suffered from security breaches. Younger customers are also likely to quit a bank if they are unable to use their bank accounts on third-party applications and products. This is a gap that non-traditional players have capitalized on, and is an existential threat to traditional banks. People aged between 18 and 34 are two times likelier than older customers to use mobile payments and P2P lending products. In addition, the same demographic group prefers to receive constant updates via preferred channels such as text message, app notifications, etc. As Millennials grow older and more affluent, and as Generation Z takes the place of the millennials, the importance of digital banks providing a holistic financial ecosystem consisting of third party products and services used by customers become more apparent. Here are some successful examples of API integration: People with financial difficulties in the USA have started to use P2P lending tools such as Earnin and PayActive. It is now possible to consolidate debt too, thanks to debt aggregators. Marcus from Goldman Sachs and SoFi are often cited as examples for non-traditional lenders. Often, these tools are integrated with e-commerce sites or food delivery apps so that people can purchase what they need on credit, bypassing banking lending rules. Credit unions are a non-traditional alternative to bank loans. Walmart MoneyCenters are extremely popular today because they offer a borrowing alternative to people with poor credit histories. If banks integrate their data with these products, customers can continue to make payments for P2P loans without canceling their accounts. One of the best examples of API integration is when PayPal decided to integrate its API with Siri. iPhone users can send and receive money via PayPal by speaking to Siri. Wave is an invoicing and accounting software used by businesses and individuals. Wave uses banking APIs to help users control all their business finances in a single place. It collects as much data as possible from various sources and even markets loans provided by OnDeck on its platform to eligible users. Larger banks have started to offer data aggregation services to their customers. For instance, HSBC recently launched its Connected Money app, on which customers can view their account details in 21 other banks without ever leaving HSBC’s application. Facebook Messenger payments allow Facebook users to transfer money to their friends without ever having to leave the network. Facebook currently has integrated the APIs of PayPal, Stripe, Visa, MasterCard, American Express and others. If traditional banks do not understand the metamorphosis that has already taken place, they stand to lose more of their existing and future customers to non-traditional players. Specific reasons for API integration In order to survive technological disruption, banks need to engage in business model reinvention, which includes open banking and partnering with the newer third-party apps and products. While the producer market consists of banks and other financial enterprises that create products and services, customers can access these products and services on third-party applications, websites and or use voice control. Capitalizing on these distribution channels by opening up APIs is very important for banks survival. E-commerce and on-demand services such as Uber and Airbnb have spurred a customer-centric demand for always-on banking Internet of Things (IoT) enabled devices have led to a growing need for smart solutions and banking services available on intelligent devices Omni-channel banking experience requires data exchange between apps, and customers take this facility for granted now What kind of apps need integration? New services and applications that need API integrations with banking applications include: Payments, clearing and settlement services Mobile and web-based payment applications Digital currencies (DCs), Blockchain and Distributed Ledgers Deposits, lending, and capital raising services Crowdfunding Market provisioning services such as smart contracts and e-aggregators Emerging technologies such as Big Data, cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics (Robo-advice) Electronic trading and insurance API Integration can prove to be challenging If you thought your in-house developers can release an API along with the application, you will be disappointed to learn that in 2019, it is a very complex situation. Developing an integration workflow consumes the most amount of time during API Integration, and requires special skills. Event Driven Integration is far more complex than simple API integration, as it needs to provide real-time status updates to customers. Real-time status updates are crucial in today’s financial market. APIs are not always uniform and there are no industry standards at the moment. 70% of the developers work with REST APIs, which makes it a wise choice for API Integration. However, REST APIs will not work for all kinds of applications and

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When Technology Met Traditional Banking

April 3, 2019

Digitization has transformed and challenged every traditional business. Therefore, New Age Banking is nothing but digitization of traditional banking procedures. That means, now you can skip those long queues and can be click dependent! During the course of digitization in India, team Indus Net Technologies have played a predominant role in digitizing products and services for several financial organizations, allowing them to be accessible 24X7 for client servicing and acquiring new businesses. Today, we have a wide plethora of digital products and services and this article takes you through the process of digitization in banking. Online Lending Traditional lending always drove off customers, owing to the cumbersome procedures. However, financial institutions identify lending to be an effective revenue channel for which, banks are also putting effort to minimize the time and effort for a customer to avail loan or cards. Therefore, online lending eases customers to avail of the lending services in no time. Following points brush through the Unique Selling Points (USP) which are used by banks for lending Pre-approved personal loans Paperless transaction Seamless and short online journey Instant disbursal The digital lending process thus simplified the complications of lending and removes the human resources thereby helping banks to maximize their profit. Use case: IndusInd Bank provides pre-approved loans to their customers from their portal where ETB users can log in and get lending’s instantly if eligible. They also have a portal for providing Loan Against Securities and services to provide Consumer Durable Loans. FOREX Foreign currency exchange is something that was served by only aggregators and offline shops till recent times. Digitization of foreign currency exchange is one of the hottest trends sweeping the industry. “Multi-currency Travel Card” is another product in their bouquet. Today, the complete act of end-to-end foreign currency exchange has become hassle-free. And that’s what technology is meant to be! Following USPs are used by banks for foreign currency exchange Hassle-free onboarding Paperless transaction Complete online journey Airport/Kiosk based delivery With respect to the product “Multi-Currency Travel Card” banks today, eased the seamless card buying and reloading process, allowing the customer to opt for the product over cash. Security is another aspect that allows the customer to choose “Multi-currency Travel Card” as their travel buddy. Following USPs are used by banks for channelling customers for “Multi-Currency Travel Card”. Hassle-free reloading Encashment of leftover currency Currency conversion Door Step delivery Airport/Kiosk based delivery & reload Use case: IndusInd Bank has facilitated a dedicated portal for providing existing and new customers with foreign currency exchange, purchase and reloading Multi-Currency Travel Card. The best part about digitization is the end-to-end delivery of the service. That means not just the product became handy, but also the delivery process! Banking Services Banking services is a mandate for the bank customer to visit a branch of a bank. Owing to ease off the ‘request service’ procedure and providing a response to the request, banks are attaining the requests via their service request digital platforms. Different digital platforms are created by banks via web and mobile platforms which allows customers to login with their information and place their service request. The information in turn is processed digitally by the banks and is implemented as per request. USP’s for digital service request processing are Hassle-free requesting placement Less cost of the request processing Customer satisfaction WHAT’S IN STORE FOR TRADITIONAL BANKING’S FATE? Looking forward, digitization is gradually changing the course of human interaction with the bank with respect to our requirements. Though the expectation from a bank remains the same the interaction procedure and channels would completely transform. That way, our future is pretty clear when technology will replace traditional bank visits for whatsoever purpose.   Following transformation in traditional banking could be predicted  Increase in customer on-boarding via the mobile medium Digitization of the products and processes Targeting Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) level customers Less investment in process and more investment in digitization

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How To Enrich Customer Experience Using AI?

January 4, 2019

Artificial Intelligence has become a buzzword over the last two years and there has been good development around it as well. However, customer experience still hasn’t seen any drastic improvement. The reason often stated is that automation lacks creating an atmosphere of emotional engagement which is a must for positive customer experience. This is where artificial intelligence is going to come to our rescue. AI-enabled technologies can help us understand customers at a deeper level, and predict what they really want, helping us craft campaigns and product experiences that lead to better customer experiences. Let us take a look at how you can start using artificial intelligence quickly and easily, in order to enrich the customer experience. Implement AI-enhanced customer service Artificial intelligence-enabled tools process gigantic amounts of data to quickly understand the situation and history of a customer, helping customer service agents to respond accurately. In addition, customer service enhances customer experience only when it is available 24/7, on all channels. Only artificial intelligence can make that possible for you in a cost-effective manner via chatbots and virtual assistants. Here are some specific uses of implementing AI-enhanced customer service: Chatbots can respond to queries on a number of channels 24/7 Virtual assistants can provide human-like customer service via text and voice AI-enabled tools can assist customer service agents to ingest a customer’s entire history while answering queries Identify customer emotions and provide context-appropriate customer service Use case: CIMB Bank now offers 24/7 customer service by integrating EVA, a Chabot-enabled mobile app. Bank customers can perform a number of activities such as transferring money. paying bills, checking balance, etc. The bank could reduce its dependence on human customer service agents, and also provide 24/7 customer service. Point to note: AI can be used independently if you cannot afford an in-house customer service team. Consider AI-assisted after sales support From Internet of Things to predictive analysis, after-sales support is rapidly changing in recent years. Thanks to artificial intelligence and the many technologies that fall under this bracket, implementing after-sales support is easier than ever. Internet of Things-enabled devices can help provide predictive product support, thereby enhancing customer experiences. Here are a few situations when you can use IoT-enabled after-sales support: Identify when parts are malfunctioning and send technicians immediately Observe downtime and uptime of products and make product enhancements Gather data related to product usage Make improvements to your product and enhance customer experience Use case: Syncron Uptime is an IoT-enabled product by Syncron, which helps manufacturers to provide after-sales support. The technology helps identify when a product will require replacement or repair, by tracking equipment in real time. It uses sensor data to identify malfunctioning and other anomalies, and help manufacturers respond before the customer has knowledge of something going wrong. Point to note: If you provide services rather than products, you can use textual analytics to process natural language on social media or email to identify what your target audience wants. Invest in intelligent data analytics While older data analytics tools only processed data and generated reports, AI-enabled tools can unify various data sources and bring real-time insights to you. Most importantly, AI helps you put insight into its business context. Text analytics solutions are increasingly being used to identify patterns and predict outcomes and take action when required. By using an AI-enabled data analytics tool, you can: Build a dynamic customer profile that recognizes individual interests, previous communication, loyalty, etc. Offer predictive personalization to your customers for enhanced satisfaction Unify data related to customer journeys and generate insight that is more predictive in nature Identify when customer churn might occur based on text communications Use case: Nordea is a Swedish bank that uses an AI-based text analytics solution. The tool analyses hundreds of inbound customer communications every second and processes them intelligently. Each communication is forwarded to the right business unit, eliminating customer frustration. The tool can also be used to recognize customer churn and eliminate it. Point to note: Customer behaviours are chaotic and their interaction datasets are messy. Data insights can bring discipline into an otherwise undefined and unchartered territory. Understand your customers at a deeper level Affective computing, a branch of artificial intelligence that recognizes people’s cognitive and emotional states, is expected to grow to a $41 billion industry by 2022. Apple, Facebook, Google, and other companies are currently working with affective computing specialists such as Beyondverbal, Affective and Sensay to bring facial analysis, emotion recognition, voice pattern analysis, and other humanizing technologies to software programs that run products and services. Here is how you can implement effective computing in the coming months: Identify customer moods on social media by using textual analysis Provide customer support by recognizing negative emotional states such as frustration or anger Use conversational IVRs to recognise frustration during telephone calls Chatbots can recognize emotions and respond appropriately by using neuro-linguistic programming Use Case: Ford is working with Affectiva to bring AutoEmotive, an Automative AI, to its cars in order to prevent accidents and incidents of road rage. This emotion-recognition software uses AI to identify human psychological conditions such as lack of attention, rage, anxiety, etc. in order to take control over the vehicle or just stop it from moving. Point to note: Implement a solid privacy and consent policy to keep yourself safe from litigations, and protect your customers as well. Focus on the humanization of customer interactions A monogamous relationship with AI may spell doom to your customer experience strategy. Nearly 50% of those interviewed in a survey expressed that they would prefer if AI-enabled interactions were more human-like. While AI has obvious benefits of cost reduction, efficiency in customer service, and access to valuable insight, it may reduce customer experience unless you humanize it as well. Here are a few tips to humanize an AI-enabled customer support strategy Implement natural language processing and human voice to bring a “real human” experience Use AI-enabled data density to provide personalized and individual attention to customers Implement real-time support with

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How To Enrich Customer Experience Using AI In 2019?

January 4, 2019

Artificial Intelligence has become a buzzword over the last two years and there has been good development around it as well. However, customer experience still hasn’t seen any drastic improvement. The reason often stated is that automation lacks creating an atmosphere of emotional engagement which is a must for positive customer experience. This is where artificial intelligence is going to come to our rescue. AI-enabled technologies can help us understand customers at a deeper level, and predict what they really want, helping us craft campaigns and product experiences that lead to better customer experiences. Let us take a look at how you can start using artificial intelligence quickly and easily, in order to enrich the customer experience. Implement AI-enhanced customer service Artificial intelligence-enabled tools process gigantic amounts of data to quickly understand the situation and history of a customer, helping customer service agents to respond accurately. In addition, customer service enhances customer experience only when it is available 24/7, on all channels. Only artificial intelligence can make that possible for you in a cost-effective manner via chatbots and virtual assistants. Here are some specific uses of implementing AI-enhanced customer service: Chatbots can respond to queries on a number of channels 24/7 Virtual assistants can provide human-like customer service via text and voice AI-enabled tools can assist customer service agents to ingest a customer’s entire history while answering queries Identify customer emotions and provide context-appropriate customer service Use case: CIMB Bank now offers 24/7 customer service by integrating EVA, a Chabot-enabled mobile app. Bank customers can perform a number of activities such as transferring money. paying bills, checking balance, etc. The bank could reduce its dependence on human customer service agents, and also provide 24/7 customer service. Point to note: AI can be used independently if you cannot afford an in-house customer service team. Consider AI-assisted after sales support From Internet of Things to predictive analysis, after-sales support is rapidly changing in recent years. Thanks to artificial intelligence and the many technologies that fall under this bracket, implementing after-sales support is easier than ever. Internet of Things-enabled devices can help provide predictive product support, thereby enhancing customer experiences. Here are a few situations when you can use IoT-enabled after-sales support: Identify when parts are malfunctioning and send technicians immediately Observe downtime and uptime of products and make product enhancements Gather data related to product usage Make improvements to your product and enhance customer experience Use case: Syncron Uptime is an IoT-enabled product by Syncron, which helps manufacturers to provide after-sales support. The technology helps identify when a product will require replacement or repair, by tracking equipment in real time. It uses sensor data to identify malfunctioning and other anomalies, and help manufacturers respond before the customer has knowledge of something going wrong. Point to note: If you provide services rather than products, you can use textual analytics to process natural language on social media or email to identify what your target audience wants. Invest in intelligent data analytics While older data analytics tools only processed data and generated reports, AI-enabled tools can unify various data sources and bring real-time insights to you. Most importantly, AI helps you put insight into its business context. Text analytics solutions are increasingly being used to identify patterns and predict outcomes and take action when required. By using an AI-enabled data analytics tool, you can: Build a dynamic customer profile that recognizes individual interests, previous communication, loyalty, etc. Offer predictive personalization to your customers for enhanced satisfaction Unify data related to customer journeys and generate insight that is more predictive in nature Identify when customer churn might occur based on text communications Use case: Nordea is a Swedish bank that uses an AI-based text analytics solution. The tool analyses hundreds of inbound customer communications every second and processes them intelligently. Each communication is forwarded to the right business unit, eliminating customer frustration. The tool can also be used to recognize customer churn and eliminate it. Point to note: Customer behaviors are chaotic and their interaction datasets are messy. Data insights can bring discipline into an otherwise undefined and unchartered territory. Understand your customers at a deeper level Affective computing, a branch of artificial intelligence that recognizes people’s cognitive and emotional states, is expected to grow to a $41 billion industry by 2022. Apple, Facebook, Google, and other companies are currently working with affective computing specialists such as Beyondverbal, Affective and Sensay to bring facial analysis, emotion recognition, voice pattern analysis, and other humanizing technologies to software programs that run products and services. Here is how you can implement effective computing in the coming months: Identify customer moods on social media by using textual analysis Provide customer support by recognizing negative emotional states such as frustration or anger Use conversational IVRs to recognise frustration during telephone calls Chatbots can recognize emotions and respond appropriately by using neuro-linguistic programming Use Case: Ford is working with Affectiva to bring AutoEmotive, an Automative AI, to its cars in order to prevent accidents and incidents of road rage. This emotion-recognition software uses AI to identify human psychological conditions such as lack of attention, rage, anxiety, etc. in order to take control over the vehicle or just stop it from moving. Point to note: Implement a solid privacy and consent policy to keep yourself safe from litigations, and protect your customers as well. Focus on the humanization of customer interactions A monogamous relationship with AI may spell doom to your customer experience strategy. Nearly 50% of those interviewed in a survey expressed that they would prefer if AI-enabled interactions were more human-like. While AI has obvious benefits of cost reduction, efficiency in customer service, and access to valuable insight, it may reduce customer experience unless you humanize it as well. Here are a few tips to humanize an AI-enabled customer support strategy Implement natural language processing and human voice to bring a “real human” experience Use AI-enabled data density to provide personalized and individual attention to customers Implement real-time support with

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How Data Influences Media and Marketing Today

September 27, 2018

Market research has always been the basic tool to design and develop strategies and campaigns. However, traditional market research consumes a lot of time and requires special skills to process and analyze and to derive insights. Marketing campaigns in the past weren’t accurate because market samples did not truly represent a population, and both advertising and marketing strategies weren’t quite accurate. Campaign failures and losses can be tied down to incorrect insight or partial insight into a market’s needs and demands. In addition, most marketing agencies depended on print and TV to disperse marketing messages until the recent past. Digital media changed all that and democratized the process of marketing and advertising, while contemporary data techniques have taken digital marketing to the next level. Thankfully, newer data analytics techniques have not only reduced marketers efforts to crunch data but have also ushered in a new era in which marketing campaigns are highly personalized, scalable and democratic. In this article, let us take a look at how data has influenced media and marketing, and how there has been a complete paradigm shift. Integration of tools Software integration has led to richer insights and predictions, as there is a larger sample of data to analyze. Cloud-based solutions have helped companies to implement affordable integration solutions across departments. Integration has also brought together disparate software solutions such as CRM, ERP, and HRMS which help businesses to access more detailed data and predict outcomes accurately even on the go. Current marketing and advertising initiatives depend on such an integrated approach to make the correct move. An increasing number of agencies use MarTech solutions to predict better campaign outcomes, and this is possible because of modern data analytics. MarTech consists of marketing automation tools such as Marketo, HubSpot, MailChimp, SalesForce, and Insightly. It also includes data and intelligence tools such as FullContact, Cloudinary, Decibel, among many others. In addition, predictive analysis tools help us make better predictions and foresee campaigns even before campaigns are launched. This allows us to have defined outcomes in mind. Some of the most important predictive analysis tools used today are Microsoft’s Azure Machine Learning Studio, SAP Predictive Analytics Software, IBM Predictive Insights, among many others.  These tools can be integrated with each other, or with other enterprise software solutions for richer insights. Personalized marketing and advertising Earlier, personalized marketing was a challenge and a number of efforts never yielded the desired results. However, thanks to social media, it is easier to curate customers and people with specific interests and capture their sentiments easily. All this data can now be crunched and analyzed for better insight, leading to highly specific marketing and advertising campaigns. There are a number of marketing automation tools that help you personalize advertising. HubSpot and MailChimp can be used by both small and medium-sized businesses to personalize campaigns, while Marketo is a value addition for larger organizations. All these tools use data to take personalization to the next level. In addition, you can use Google Optimize 360, which helps you create custom segmented customer experiences. Forbes also listed Clearbit, Kickbox, Quickmail, Buzzstream, and other tools in its list of tools that help personalize marketing and advertising. In short, these tools help to gain better insight about customers and market, which helps personalize marketing and ad campaigns even at the micro level. The advent of MarTech and AdTech In the last couple of years, technologies that assist in automating and turbocharging marketing and advertising processes have been given the terms of MarTech and AdTech. Both these technologies have helped thousands of agencies to provide better campaign results, automate most marketing processes, and process data in a useful manner. The advent of MarTech and AdTech has also resulted in marketing Big Data. Various market-related data is constantly added to Big Data, and data analytics continue to derive richer insights. Most importantly, MarTech tools like GetResponse, Autopilot, iContactPro can be integrated with ERP and CRM for more coherent insight. After all, both frontend and backend need to be in sync with marketing campaigns for the message to reach effectively to the right audience. It is important to note that while marketing technology tools can up your data game, it is really up to you how to use the insight your derive. For example, integrating a digital asset management (DAM) with Adobe Creative Cloud can provide insights into how designers influence the marketing process. Or, you can choose to integrate Oracle Eloqua with an ERP like Sage 100 ERP or SAP Business One to better understand how order processing trends can improve future campaigns. Data helps launch hybrid and omnichannel marketing campaigns Most marketing campaigns tend to take a hybrid approach, combining online with offline. A survey conducted by Vistaprint Digital showed that 29% of businesses ignore either offline or online marketing practices, favoring one practice more than the other. However, a hybrid approach that uses both the practices is always more beneficial. Some of the ways you can use data analytics to spur offline marketing success are by analyzing QR code usage, proximity marketing using Bluetooth technology, and tracking URLs and web traffic generated from offline visits to actual stores. Using data analytics to track these behaviors will help to launch more cohesive omnichannel marketing campaigns, which bring an integrated shopping experience to customers. Facebook and Google have come up with tools which help advertisers to understand the effect of online advertising on offline sales. They can predict and track online to offline conversions. Data is here to stay for the long haul As you can see, data tools have changed the game when it comes to marketing and utilizing media tools. While we are no longer reliant on traditional media platforms, and digital platforms have long become mainstream, data analytics has ensured that digital marketing will continue in a forward path in the months to come. All these trends will help agencies to develop and implement marketing and ad campaigns quickly across digital media platforms. Dissemination of marketing communication

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The Accelerator of Growth – Sales Automation

August 24, 2018

Globally, the sales team is crucial in helping businesses succeed and it is often the duty of top-level executives to breathe life into sales teams. Sales teams are often pressurized to identify and gather leads, make contact, manage opportunities and leads, convert them to sales, and prepare sales reports. In between these dreary-sounding tasks, they also need to make calls, write emails, answer queries and engage in a lot of repetitive manual tasks. In fact, across North America and Europe, manual and repetitive tasks take up sales teams’ time much more than actual core sales activities, which leads to reduced sales and conversion rates. Sales automation helps fix this problem and gives your sales team their mojo back. It helps them to get back on track and plan strategies and implement them, instead of writing repetitive reports. In this article, let us take a look at what sales automation is, and how it accelerates your business growth. What is the sales automation? Sales automation is a software tool that helps your business to automate repetitive tasks such as documentation, sending emails, controlling inventory, pricing, and contract management. It often comes as a part of your CRM or can also be purchased separately, if you want a specialized tool. It helps to reduce the burden on your sales team by automating repetitive and manual tasks so that they can focus on core sales activities. In result, your sales team finds it easier to nurture leads, to interact with them, and to help convert them into customers. The reduced time and effort leads to increased productivity at work, and of course, sales automation has a number of other advantages too. Here are its basic features: Close deals easily: Sales automation helps you to close more deals quickly. You can automate content management, collaboration, and use marketing tools that will help you to find leads as well. It is not a surprise that most businesses use sales automation to manage contacts and accounts and to manage sales opportunities. Find more leads: Sales automation also helps you to find more leads. you can track how well your marketing campaigns are doing, and access sales data on demand. This helps you to send out reports to decision makers quickly so that territories can be planned and campaigns can be launched instantly. Enhance productivity: Most sales automation tools are available on mobile devices, and you can perform sales activities while on the go. You can close deals while on the train or while waiting for your business lunch at a cafe. In other words, sales automation helps you to accelerate productivity. You can easily share files, sync data, and access visual workflows. All business processes can be automated using drag and drop features within a mobile app. Make informed decisions: Most importantly, sales automation tools help you to make informed decisions at the right time. You gain access to reports and dashboards from wherever you are, and accessing sales forecasting gets just as easy as well. With real-time access to your team’s forecasts, mailing to and fro and intra-departmental squabbles are a thing of the past. How sales automation accelerates growth In this section of the article, let us take a look at how sales automation accelerates growth and quickly improves your teams’ productivity as well. Identify your customers Sales departments spend a lot of time trying to identify who could be potential leads and customers. The more time they spend on identifying customers, the less time they can actually use to make contact with them. Sales automation helps identify customers and leads quickly using various metrics. This helps sales teams to quickly make contact and engage in actual sales activity to urge the customer to make a purchase. Businesses often waste considerable temporal and financial resources on customer identification and with a good CRM, that can simply be automated. Access customer information There is little wisdom in developing a sales strategy if we do not understand what the customers want. Knowing how the customers think, where they come from, and what their demographic tends to do are more important than blindly developing sales campaigns. Sales automation provides deep and rich insights about target audience so that intricate sales campaigns can be designed and developed. Targeted campaigns help drive up conversion rates and assist in company growth. Create and edit content Writing reports and documenting sales activities are crucial duties a sales team does. However, these activities can take a lot of time, and result in unnecessary delays in performing other core activities. A good sales automation tool readily creates reports and helps you to focus on more important activities that cannot be automated. Why not generate reports and then make a presentation in person, which has a better impact than just mailing the marketing department cold reports? With sales automation, there will be more time for your sales team to engage in such activities that enhance inter-team communication and collaboration. Follow-up with customers and leads Whether it is writing emails or calling customers over the phone, if you do not do it at the right time, you will not be able to keep a lead warm. To make sure that customers are followed and tracked continuously, and to ensure that leads are kept warm, automate the process of follow-ups. Sales automation can automate communication and help you to remain in touch with them. However, do not automate all communication with your leads and customers as that can have unintended effects. Analyze calls, emails and other communication platforms Call analysis provides valuable information about what customers want, and analyzing email texts can be equally important. CRM tools provide exquisite features that help you to track how email newsletters are read, by whom, and when. They also provide information related to how you can improve your email communication to enhances sales growth. Manual analysis is simply too tedious and sometimes not even accurate. Let us not forget about how important analyzing social media communication is for sales. A

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Blockchain as the Newest RegTech Application – An Opportunity to Reduce Financial Institutions’ Burden of KYC

August 17, 2018

Regulatory challenges have often caused unnecessary inconvenience and delays within the financial services industry across the world. Compliances issues affect every financial service today, and many businesses have often paid enormous amounts in terms of fines, legal fees, and loss of business. The need for compliance and stringent regulations are necessary, especially in a world that is increasingly becoming prone to fraud, security threats, and cyber threats. Governments and regulatory bodies are right on their part to expect compliance from financial institutions, one of which is the ubiquitous KYC document (Know your Customer document). While financial service providers have meticulously collected KYC documents and ensured that they comply, the process has often been long drawn out, complex, and often mired with bugs and technical issues. Most KYC compliance happens digitally, and companies often repeatedly seek KYC from customers, often leading to opt-outs. Technology can help fix this issue for financial service companies, and one way is using RegTech. RegTech is short for regulatory technology and makes use of cloud computing technology delivered via a Software as a Service (SaaS) model so that businesses can easily process KYC documentation quickly and efficiently, at a lower cost. What is going to change RegTech even further is the use of Blockchain. In this article, let us take a look at how Blockchain is changing RegTech, and helping financial institutions to process KYC documentation quickly and efficiently. What exactly do the RegTech companies do? So far, companies that offer RegTech solutions have been working with regulatory bodies alongside their clients, financial institutions. By combining the goodness of cloud computing and big data, RegTech companies have made available sensitive information often required to validate KYC documents. Many RegTech companies have also used predictive analytics and big data to comb through previous regulatory failures and predict future risks that financial institutions should consider. Most RegTech companies have focused on creating analytical tools that sift through big data to pick sensitive information that could help financial institutions to comply better with regulatory authorities. RegTech companies offer solutions ranging from KYC validation to alerting money laundering activities and preventing cyber hacks and data breaches. Simply put, RegTech companies monitor digital transactions in real time and identify irregularities to prevent fraud and other risky events from taking place. Financial institutions alone cannot identify, predict, or avert these risks, nor will they be able to comply with all the regulations, including KYC processing. Using Blockchain for KYC processing Blockchain, which is a distributed database stored on a particular network, and accessible on all computers authorized to do so, is a technology that is picture-perfect for regulatory compliance. In Blockchain technology, every file is split into parts called blocks, and each block needs to be validated individually by the entire network. Smart contracts are based on this technology, and for a contract to be processed, all parties involved need to provide their digital signatures. As all data is encrypted, security is always ensured. In addition, as data is stored across a network and not just on a single computer, hacking or tampering with data is impossible. Most importantly, Blockchain data is immutable, and all changes made to the original database can be tracked. In the financial services arena, this quality is very important because customers simply cannot make changes to their financial history if something had gone awry previously. KYC documents can be processed in an error-free, encrypted, and automated environment, which simply is not possible in other technologies. RegTech applications using Blockchain can integrate both KYC and anti-money laundering steps for commercial usage, and this can be made available to companies both publicly and privately, depending on regulatory requirements. How Blockchain helps companies to reduce KYC burden Blockchain applications can be delivered as cloud-based RegTech apps via a SaaS model to financial institutions so that they can conduct their KYC operations to meet regulatory compliance. Let us take a look at how Blockchain can help financial institutions to reduce the burden of KYC: Identify and verify client information KYC requires financial institutions to identify their customers’ personal details such as name, address, nationality, birthdate, etc. Such basic data can be verified with the help of an identification card that is approved by regulatory bodies. Blockchain digitalizes information and validates such information by cross-verifying digital identities from various sources already available to the Blockchain. In other words, Blockchain not only helps customers to manage their digital identities, it also helps financial institutions to conduct basic KYC seamlessly. While KYC for individual clients using Blockchain is quite straightforward, it gets a little complex for professional entities. Professional entities require the KYC processing of directors’ identities, and other key persons (or corporations themselves) involved. Avoid risk by screening high-risk individuals Most financial institutions gain access to only the basic information of a customer. This basic KYC is not enough to avert risky situations such as money laundering, payment defaults, frauds, financial bankruptcy, etc. Banks can easily screen high-risk individuals if they subscribe to a Blockchain database that stores and validates information related to previous risky financial behavior. In addition, Blockchain-based RegTech apps can also predict future risky behavior by combining predictive analytics and big data with Blockchain. If a customer has had a questionable financial history, for instance, a Blockchain would confirm this to the bank or insurance company, which can decide not to lend a loan or approve an insurance claim. This mechanism can also help in averting money laundering and fraudulent activities, helping financial institutions to comply with regulations. Determine the inherent risk of customers A number of financial relationships require a much deeper insight about the customer or client. The KYC team will need to process questionnaires that probe negative press releases, criminal activity, political opinions and alliances, and a variety of other publicly available information. However, the KYC team simply cannot put all these unrelated datasets together and arrive at conclusions regarding the risk a customer poses. Regulators often prescribe the criteria for determining a customer’s inherent risk, and

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Why Marketing Automation Matters for Your Business

July 19, 2018

If you are late to the party, marketing automation is a force to reckon with and is the fuel that is driving small and medium-sized agencies and businesses to compete with the top players in the industry. Marketing automation helps a small team to put its marketing strategy on steroids, and use Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions to automate both basic and complex marketing tasks to achieve stellar heights. There are a number of software tools and cloud solutions that help businesses to automate various marketing functions, right from understanding a target market to capturing lead-related data and nurturing long-term customers. While implementing a thorough marketing strategy used to be expensive and time-consuming, it is now accessible even to the smallest of companies thanks to SaaS subscription models. SaaS solutions provide efficient, affordable, and accessible marketing tools on different subscription models. Both big and small businesses have begun to use these SaaS marketing tools to automate various marketing functions, and have begun to see exemplary results. Regardless of the size and nature of your business, the axiomatic truth is, you need marketing automation. To explain why marketing automation matters so much for your business, we have listed 7 reasons. Let us take a look at each of them briefly. Understand your market better Most businesses fail to achieve traction because their marketing strategy is not in touch with the actual realities of the market they are targeting. This is only possible when campaigns are tied around behavioral and demographic variables that are often easy to miss. Marketing automation tools provide rich insights into the market in question and help businesses to design campaigns that are effective. When you subscribe to a MarTech solution, you will be able to compete with large businesses who probably have better resources to conduct market research. Market research can get quite tedious and expensive for those who do not have the resources to carry out large market research campaigns, Data analytics, combined with marketing automation tools can help you to arrive at marketing predictions that are useful and effective, at a fraction of the cost. MarTech is increasingly being used to conduct market research by a large number of companies and is encouraging a metrics-driven culture. Curate high-quality leads New GDPR rules and privacy-related restrictions have severely curtailed most businesses’ ability to capture high-quality leads. Yet, the new developments are positive in nature when assessed objectively. Marketing automation tools can now quickly detect and predict which of your web visitors are going to be hour leads, and which of them will convert to customers. Data analytics and marketing automation tools can be integrated and programmed in such a way that you automate the curation of high-quality leads. There’re a number of tools already available to help you automate both lead generation, and filtering of those leads. However, partnering with an agency which will help you to integrate data analytics with marketing automation tools will help you curate a list of high-quality leads. After all, communicating with high-quality leads, even if they are fewer in numbers, is a better sales strategy than coming up with a digital marketing strategy that involves targeting an exponentially higher number of users. Shortlist the best distribution channels Once you have the list of leads generated and curated automatically, you will also need to assess how you should communicate with them. This decision was earlier left to managers or staff who used their own methods (both objective and subjective) to list the preferred distribution channels. Unfortunately, this is not an effective strategy and is mired with loopholes. Inbound marketing can easily be automated, and a digital marketing strategy should be built around actual facts and figures related to which platforms, social media tools, and channels your target users prefer to use. As such, a strategy that involves marketing automation and data analytics will reveal the cold hard facts about where to reach your target audience, and how best to communicate with them. Use marketing automation to choose the best distribution and communication channels, and to base this choice on insight derived from data analytics. Understand different buyer personas To engage in successful marketing, you need to understand your target audience at an intimate level. This is only possible when the most minute of their behaviours are statistically analyzed. Automating the process of studying user behavior will help you to group them under various buyer personas. Right from what they tweet to how they respond to certain images or news feeds, you can predict exactly how you should develop your marketing strategy to win them over. As consumers tend to be a diverse group, you can develop different marketing campaigns for different buyer personas. Understanding personas are closely linked to creating winning digital content as well. Automating the process of collecting information and using data analytics to process this information helps you to arrive at useful insights related to different personas. Use this insight to create a successful agile marketing strategy. Take personalization to the next level There is a misconception that automation implies lack of personal touch. Any Chief Marketing Technologist (CMT) will tell you that automation, in fact, enhances more personal communication. Automating content distribution and basing content creation on various buyer personas help you to personalize all communication at the micro-level. For example, MarTech products can help you to target communication individually, based on various tastes, quirks, behavioral patterns, personal details, etc. While content distribution and communication can be automated, you can use your free time and man-hours to enhance customer interactions and build valuable relationships. Creating a more personal approach used to be expensive and required hiring more in-house staff. Automating such a personal approach will reduce the need for hiring more employees, and will help you build more meaningful relationships with your customers. Save time and money For most small and medium businesses, marketing is the single most expensive business process. Not only does it cost money, it also requires time and effort, all of

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How Internet of Things Is Redefining The Retail Experience

June 19, 2018

While most of us have remained busy discussing how quickly online shopping has gone mainstream, a quiet revolution is growing in the retail sector across the world. Internet of Things is breathing life into dying retail spaces while invigorating newer and more creative retail units. IoT-enabled shopping is taking online e-Commerce space by storm too, enhancing logistics, delivery, and even the shopping experience. With more than 30 billion connected devices available by 2020, IoT is leading all technological innovation in the retail sector. From improving products to reducing energy consumption, and from enhancing marketing outcomes to improving customer experience, IoT is practically all over the place. Most importantly, all the accumulation of data is helping companies to gain new insights, and enhance products and customer experience, while witnessing double-digit growth rate. Amazon Go is a great example of this revolution. In this article, let’s take a look at how IoT is helping both offline retailers. Let us also briefly look at some of the top trends in retail with IoT devices in mind. How Internet of Things is helping brick and mortar stores as well Thousands of stores are shutting down, malls are going out of business, and retail stores simply aren’t able to catch up with the speed of digital shopping. In addition, people themselves have begun to prefer ordering products online than making a trip to the nearest mall or supermarket. Retail sector all around the world has much to worry about and resent. Yet, there is a silver lining in every cloud. IoT is helping retailers across the world to not only thrive but also attract more customers than ever to their stores. Vending machines are being revolutionised across malls and public places as customised orders and products can now be placed. Interactive displays and digital signage are helping customers to shop better and reach out right counter or shelf, depending on the in-store choices they make. Few retailers may offer virtual and smart mirrors, which provide information about the clothes they are trying. If the particular shirt a man is trying is green when compared to the one he just tried earlier, why not urge him to buy that automatically? Beacons and RFID tags can be further enhanced with sensors. IoT-enabled beacons can be used to recognize facial expressions, customer behavior across shopping aisles, and other such information. This can be used to enhance customer experience. IoT most importantly hastens the checkout process. Both retailers and customers can bid goodbye to lengthy queues at the billing counter, thanks to self-checkouts. Hottest trends in the retail sector depend on IoT If there is one thing that is going to sustain retail, it is IoT. Let us take a look at few situations where IoT is helping retail to innovate, sustain, and thrive. Marketing is easier than ever IoT is responsible for making marketing easier than ever. It provides the tools required for making both omnichannel and multichannel marketing successful. Sensors are increasingly being used by retailers to help customers. IoT sensors also help stores to engage in in-store marketing. Coordinate with customers quickly One of the factors that set IoT apart is its ability to communicate not just between devices or sensors, but also enhance communication between the retailer/manufacturer and the user. This helps store owners to coordinate with customers quickly in case products need maintenance services, or if there is an update to be installed. Download our case study on Konvergence’s K-Wallet, which revolutionized retail shopping some time ago. Customising customer experience There are sensors for tracking virtually every behaviour of a customer. When done ethically, sensors can provide valuable data that help manufacturers to enhance customer experience. Whether it is about enhancing certain product features or bringing better customer service, IoT can do it all with an ease and pomp. Create better product ecosystems Manufacturers and retailers have begun to tie up to provide better customer experience, using sensors. This is helping create new opportunities for better product ecosystems. Customers have options for maintenance, servicing, updating, or choosing from related products post-sales as well. Automated orders of spare parts when they need to be replaced is just one example of this ecosystem. Optimise logistics and inventory handling IoT’s is creating improved efficiency inventory handling and logistics management. Businesses are literally growing because they can deliver products quickly, and replenish stocks. IoT is helping businesses to ensure retail never faces a hitch due to product unavailability or delayed shipments. Data-derived insights IoT, as we all know, gathers and processes enormous amounts of data. All this data is fodder for analytics and insight deriving, and that’s exactly how businesses are using IoT data. Insights derived from product usage, product malfunctioning, customer behaviour, and other such situations continually help retailers and manufacturers to enhance customer experience and product enhancement. We had written an article a little while ago, describing how data analytics and AI both are going to influence IoT in the coming months and years. Read More about How to Manage Your Online Store in 2019? IoT-enabled retail is here to stay As you can see, IoT is quietly bringing formidable changes to both online and offline retail spaces. It is also changing the way retail manufacturers manage their business. Considering how quickly IoT is taking over retail, and how it is sustaining all the players in the space, it is worth observing the technology more keenly. In the near future, IoT enabled sensors will help retailers improve marketing, bring better customer experience, and enhance product support to users. Security may seem like an issue with all the IoT related data being generated, but we recently wrote about how to handle those issues. While we are at it, do take a look at some of the most valuable programming languages to learn, if you wish to develop for IoT yourself. Last but not the least, IoT will help businesses of all types to derive useful insights which will help improve products and customer experience at the same time.

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Disruptive Innovation in Payments

June 1, 2018

We could have written paeans about FinTech a couple of years ago, but to do so now would be to sing praises about what is already the norm. FinTech, the inevitable result of finance services making use of technology to enhance solutions and services, is the single largest disruptor in the world of finance. In addition to being a disruptive development, FinTech has evolved into becoming almost conventional, replacing legacy methods and making them seem archaic. Yet, a closer observation reveals that there is a lot of disruption taking place even within contemporary FinTech. Technology has driven FinTech to continuously evolve itself, and newer players continue to give a run for their competitors’ money almost every day. In this article, we briefly recap the growth of FinTech and contextually place this growth in a situation that continues to bring disruptive innovation in payments. We shall also take a look at certain trends driving this disruption, and what we can expect from this exciting development in the near future. The growth of FinTech While it may sound like a fancy term, FinTech isn’t actually very new. Using technology to drive financial procedures has been around since the 1900s in various forms. From being able to wire money to someone in a different part of the world to modern peer-to-peer payments, FinTech has come a long way. Barclays opened the first ATM in the world in 1967, and Wells Fargo kick-started the world’s first online checking account in 1995. PayPal came to being in 1998, and online transactions and payments have grown exponentially ever since. Apple Pay, which was announced in 2016, was another watershed moment, as it heralded a new smartphone-based payments solution. Finally, blockchain-based payment technology gave rise not only to cryptocurrency, but also to smarter payments, seamless insurance claims processing, loan disbursals, and contactless payments. We had recently written an article about how Blockchain is bringing winds of change to the insurance sector. Drivers of the change As we can see, FinTech has evolved dramatically in the last few years due to rapidly evolving technology. However, market behavior and changes within finance sector have also been major drivers of change. In this section, let us take a look at three aspects of this disruptive innovation in payments. Technological development It goes without saying that technology is a big reason for disruptive changes in FinTech. In particular, artificial intelligence and blockchain have caused tremendous changes in the finance sector, propelling drastic changes that have taken even FinTech players by surprise. For example, PayPal and other peer-to-peer payments solutions were taken by surprise when cryptocurrency came to being. Blockchain in fintech is the single-most disruptive situation at the moment. Cryptocurrency players like Bitcoin etc. were taken by surprise when Ethereum-based legal peer-to-peer payments application started to be launched. For instance, blockchain-based claims processing, stock purchase, and Ethereum-based P2P payments solutions are quickly taking over traditional smartphone-based payments applications. Smart contracts have enabled seamless and secure transactions, making financial procedures more reliable than they ever were. In fact, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call blockchain a cultural phenomenon. For an industry that focuses much of its energy on building and maintaining trust, blockchain and smart contracts-enabled applications are almost a godsend. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to state that technology itself is driving change and causing more disruptive innovation in the field of FinTech. Those who aren’t part of this exciting evolution will quickly be left behind. In-store mobile payments are touted to exceed $503 billion by 2020. Just in the US, a whopping 150 million people are expected to use in-store mobile payments. The spending ability of mobile payments users is very high. They spend twice as much as non-users do, and earn at least $70,000 a year. Security-related doubts have been a hurdle for mobile payments adoption. 47% of cybersecurity professionals felt mobile payments weren’t secure enough at the moment, as opposed to just 23% feeling confident. Public Wi-Fi is the greatest vulnerability with respect to mobile payments, with a threat figure of 26%. This is closely followed by stolen devices, a situation whose threat figure is 21%. Market trends Increasingly, users have come to expect a lot more than what technology can offer at the moment. We can describe this as a market that’s so spoiled by choices that even the most disruptive technology no longer feels like disruption. Consumer behavior has shifted from being awestruck by disruption to expecting innovation by default. In other words, services that do not seem innovative enough for consumers simply get ignored. This has forced most industry players to closely study consumer behavior and surpass their expectations. This isn’t usually possible because users have come to expect a lot more than what technology realistically allows us to do. Yet, FinTech companies and solutions providers have to work harder to keep pace with market expectations ad and focus on driving change. Adopting innovation and complex technologies such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, and blockchain will help FinTech companies to surpass market expectations and bring value to the services they launch. Data analytics, in particular, can help FinTech entities to study consumer behavior closely and launch FinTech products that match market expectations. Industry changes There are a number of changes within the industry that are propelling disruptive changes within FinTech sector. Banks are desperate to retain their roles in the finance space, and payments intermediaries may simply vanish, because of smart contracts and distributed ledger technology. The same distributed ledger technology is helping FinTech organizations to make cross-border payments instantaneous, giving rise to new corporate and consumer solutions that will enable instant international payments a reality. Fintech companies have also begun to make use of open APIs, machine learning, and robotic process automation to enhance the experience. Most importantly, a lot of FinTech activity currently is focused on thwarting cyber-attacks, ensuring data privacy and safety, secure financial transactions, and eliminating payment frauds. Blockchain, smart contracts, artificial intelligence and machine learning are currently top

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