The Insight Story

An Ultimate Guide: Business Intelligence in Data Analytics

Business intelligence incorporates business analytics, data mining, data tools, and data visualization to help organizations make data-driven decisions. However, it is important to note that business intelligence (BI) is more than a buzzword. Traditional business intelligence programs were developed for decision-making and to turn data into insights for IT-reliant service solutions.   Today modern business intelligence offers businesses a comprehensive view of their organization's data and uses that data to drive change as well as eliminate inefficiencies. To quickly adapt to existing market or supply changes, modern BI solutions are enabling them to prioritize the flexible analysis of governed data across trusted platforms, thereby empowering business users.    What is Business Intelligence (BI)?   Business intelligence, or BI, is a technology-driven process employed to analyze data and derive actionable information that assists executives, managers, and workers in making informed business decisions. As a significant part of the BI process, organizations accumulate data from internal IT systems as well as external sources, prepare it for analysis, and then run queries against the data to create data visualizations, BI dashboards, and reports. The generated results are then made available to business users for operational decision-making. A process of obtaining business insights, business intelligence (BI) involves:  Real-time monitoring of data  Dashboard development and reporting  Benchmarking  Performance management  Data and text mining  Data Analytics  Read more: The Future of Business Intelligence: Top Trends for 2023 and Beyond  Why is Business Intelligence Important?  The role of business intelligence is to enhance an organization's business operations with relevant data insights. Companies today are employing business intelligence tools and techniques to translate their collected data into valuable insights. These insights are then used to inform business decision frameworks to increase productivity and revenue, leading to accelerated growth.   The ultimate goal of business intelligence is to drive better business decisions, enabling organizations to boost their revenue, enhance their operational efficiency, and gain a competitive advantage over other businesses. Business intelligence incorporates varied processes and tasks vital for businesses. And data analytics is a major tool within BI as it helps in ultimately piecing the larger puzzle. However, to achieve this goal, businesses need to incorporate a combination of business intelligence and data analytics, along with data management and reporting tools for efficiently managing and analyzing data.     Business Intelligence Use Cases  Business intelligence offers narrower business benefits, making it simple for organizations to organize, track, and maintain the status of data operations and gather competitive intelligence on their rivals. In addition, it also helps in analyzing different aspects of technology and analytics. Some examples of enterprise business intelligence use cases include:  monitoring business performance and other metrics  backing decision-making and strategic planning  evaluating business procedures  deriving useful information about customers, supply chains, and other elements of operations  detecting trends and market patterns  Benefits of Business Intelligence   A successful business intelligence program helps in generating a variety of business benefits for an organization. Business intelligence enables C-suite executives and department managers to scrutinize their business performance to act quickly when issues or opportunities arise. By analyzing customer data, they can make marketing, sales, and customer service efforts more influential. Business intelligence can be employed across the supply chain and manufacturing and distribution channels to detect crises before they cause any financial harm.   Read more: Sustainable Fashion: Top Ethical Fashion Trends to Know In 2023  The key benefits that businesses can get from business intelligence frameworks include the following:   speeding up and improving decision-making  optimizing internal business operations  boosting operational efficiency and productivity  identifying business problems  tracking emerging business and market trends  developing stronger business strategies  driving higher sales and revenues  Importance of Business Intelligence in Data Analytics  Business Intelligence platforms are being used increasingly as front-end interfaces for big data analytics systems. They contain a combination of structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data. Modern business intelligence systems offer flexible connectivity options, enabling the user to connect to a range of data sources. This and the relatively simple user interface make them a good fit for big data architectures.  With the data landscape growing at a much faster pace and organizations gathering, storing, and analyzing heaps of data, the process is becoming more complex. It is, therefore, important for organizations to consider the connection between business intelligence and big data. Big data analytics today has become a bit of a buzzword in the industry, and data experts define it as measures employed to volumes of data to identify vital insights. It is the main defining factor, as the amount of data is ever rising and easy to store for a long time period.   BI tools users have access to Spark systems, NoSQL databases, and other big data platforms. In addition to conventional data warehouses, it helps them in gaining a unified view of the diverse data stored. With a BI framework, many potential users can get involved in analyzing big data sets. Alternatively, big data systems operate as staging areas to process raw data that can be filtered and stored in a data warehouse for analysis.  While it is important for BI as businesses are creating more data every year, and BI platforms must keep up with the rising demands. A good platform will enable businesses to grow with increasing demands. However, if not maintained, the BI dashboards and data sources may fall behind.  Read more: Technology Investment: Top Trends for 2023 Business Analytics: How Business Intelligence and Data Analytics can Work Together  Business intelligence involves data analytics, and business analytics uses both as a part of the process. Business intelligence helps users to conclude data analysis. Data scientists dig into data specifics by employing advanced statistics and predictive analytics to discover and forecast future patterns. Business analytics encompasses data mining along with predictive analytics, applied analytics, and statistics to conduct data analytics as part of the intelligence strategy.   Business intelligence is designed to uncover answers to specific queries and offer a data-driven analysis for decisions. However, organizations are now using the process of analytics to enhance their follow-up questions and iteration. With this cycle of analytics, businesses are integrating analytics to react to changing consumer expectations.  Key Highlights  Business intelligence represents the technical infrastructure employed by organizations to collect, store, and analyze company data.  It parses data and generates reports and information to equip managers to make better decisions.  Software companies are designing new business intelligence solutions to make better use of their data.  BI tools and software are available in different forms, like reporting/query software, data visualization software, and data mining tools.  Business intelligence offers a definitive approach to analytics, enabling individuals without a technical background to access and explore data insights.  Read more: Integrating Data and Artificial Intelligence in Business Strategy to meet ESG Goals  The Future Role of Business Intelligence: Final Thoughts   Business intelligence is evolving continually to keep up with the growing pace of business needs and technology. With the emerging trends, businesses have to stay users up to date with innovations as well as changing consumer preferences. While artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will continue to grow, businesses are integrating the insights from AI into a broader business intelligence framework. Companies are striving to be more data-driven and making more efforts to share data and collaborate. Data visualization is also emerging as an essential component of working together across teams and departments.   Business intelligence also offers capabilities like real-time sales tracking, enabling users to discover new insights into customer behavior as well as to forecast profits. Diverse industries, including retail and insurance, have also adopted BI, and more are joining every year.  It is important to note that business intelligence relies heavily on data analytics. The framework cannot function without it. Conversely, data analytics, which is heavily integrated into every business operation, functions well with the framework to generate precise business insights. While business intelligence framework is being used in prominent ways in data analytics, it is functional across other fields, too.  With a presence in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, London, Zurich, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, SG Analytics, a pioneer in Research and Analytics, offers tailor-made services to enterprises worldwide.       A leader in Data Analytics, SG Analytics focuses on leveraging data management & analytics and data science to help businesses discover new insights and build strategies for business growth. Contact us today if you are looking to make critical data-driven decisions to prompt accelerated growth and breakthrough performance.    

Data Analytics as a Service (DAaaS): A Brief Overview of the Next Data Evolution

Today more and more organizations are turning to cloud integration to modernize their operational infrastructure and workloads, data analytics as a service, or DAaaS, is emerging as an increasingly popular solution for data integration, management, storage, and analytics. By embracing DAaaS, companies can enhance the agility of their data workloads, reduce time-to-insight, and boost the reliability and integrity of their data.   Let's explore what DAaaS means and why companies are leveraging DAaaS-based strategy for integration, storage, and management of their data.  An Overview of Data Analytics-as-a-Service (DAaaS)  As the name suggests, data analytics as a service, or DAaaS, is a platform that enables organizations to process huge amounts of data. Incorporated with a cloud-based delivery model, DAaaS is available with cutting-edge tools for data analytics. It enables the users to modify or configure based on their unique objectives and requirements.   Considered a significant data management strategy, in Data analytics as a service (DAaaS), businesses can use the cloud to deliver data storage along with integration, processing, and analytics. Just like software as a service, or SaaS, DAaaS functions on a cloud computing strategy to deliver applications to end-users.  Read more: Top Data Science Trends to Look Forward in 2023  Data Analytics as a Service (DAaaS): How does it Work?   With organizations finding the perfect DAaaS, they are integrating their enterprise data into the platform. This enables them to organize this massive amount of information and access the analytical insights generated. It also helps in arranging the analytic data workflows established by employing a vast collection of services, a majority of which are based on machine learning.   The DAaaS approach helps businesses to move away from the ‘one-size-fits-all” approach and integrate a marketplace-based approach, empowering them to choose data analytics services based on their specific needs. DAaaS platforms also provide businesses with ample functionality to fit their requirements of more complex data analytics like data science.  What are the Challenges of Data Analytics as a Service (DAaaS)?   While choosing DAaaS has excellent features, it can sometimes pose challenges that can emerge as a hindrance for organizations, primarily due to the cloud environment.   Security  Today, security remains one of the biggest challenges organizations must deal with. DAaaS mandates organizations to move data into cloud infrastructure and transfer data over the network. This could create security risks for data theft. It is due to this reason that some companies are hesitant to move their data to the cloud. But it depends on the DAaaS provider. Therefore, it is vital to choose a platform that offers high-quality and proven services. However, these challenges can be mitigated by employing encryption for data in transit.  Accessibility & Scalability  Access to advanced analytical capabilities is emerging as a major concern for organizations as there is a rising need for major investments in software. Organizations are scaling their services to cater to the rising demand. This flexibility will help foster rapid responses to new opportunities, thereby scaling operations.  Read more: Business Outlook In 2023: Data Compliance and Data Security & Pipelines  Complexity   Data analytics plays a vital role in business success. While data analysis is complex, it requires the right expertise and knowledge of a professional. On the contrary, the absence of qualified data scientists in a business is a significant contributing factor to unsuccessful projects. And as a business, if you are planning to move to DAaaS, offering your employees internal training for analytics tools is something that should not be overlooked, even if it requires additional costs. Employee training will not only help in reducing expenses but also will ensure a higher return on investment.   Data Management   The analytical workflow can often be demanding for any business. It composes multiple steps requiring the right talent, from data acquisition to data modeling and visualization. While outsourcing these responsibilities, organizations should not underestimate the benefit of training their existing talent. Constant employee training will help contribute to long-term business success.   Additional Compliance   For some organizations, compliance challenges are likely to arise when sensitive data is transferred into a cloud environment. But this does not imply that data cannot be integrated into the cloud. Companies can opt for special data compliance requirements to ensure that the selected DAaaS platform meets the requirements while staying compliant.  Data Analytics as a Service (DAaaS): Strategic Advantages  Many businesses are investing in data analytics engines heavily in sizeable, centralized infrastructures like storage repositories. Organizations are also employing highly qualified professionals to drive their data ecosystem. A DAaaS setup equips them to harness advanced analytics capabilities without cutting down on other expenditures. With a DAaaS approach, small and midscale businesses can leverage the potential of data analytics for informed decision-making. Let's uncover some of the strategic advantages offered by DAaaS platforms to businesses.  Flexible Internal Infrastructure  Big data analytics installations often inflate the capital and operational expenditures of an organization. With the majority of organizations leveraging DAaaS platforms, they are banking on the platform provider without breaking a sweat on their return on investment (ROI). The sheer flexibility of DAaaS platforms helps in ensuring that companies do not have to bear hefty subscription, maintenance, or upgradation costs associated with data analytics service providers.  Read more: Outlook 2023: Why ESG Integration with DE&I is becoming a Business Necessity?  Enhanced Decision Making  Many organizations today are testing the waters for data analytics services. They are embracing a steep learning curve to walk through. However, the time and effort required to overcome this learning curve can dilute the capacity of data experts to extract relevant insights. This is where the simplicity of DAaaS comes into the picture. DAaaS platforms offer organizations the freedom of choice based on the marketplace requirement, thereby enabling them to alleviate the barriers associated with learning. This further helps in fostering a better decision-making environment.   Minimized Expertise  One of the most significant barriers for organizations seeking data analytics solutions is the lack of qualified data experts in the industry. DAaaS implementation demands a team of data experts to function, and they do not need to be experts in big data analytics operations.  Real-Time Analytics  For many organizations, real-time analytics is still uncharted territory. The limitations of real-time analytics stem from different industry-specific challenges like the quality of data, the performance of applications, or even cloud subscription plans. DAaaS helps organizations tackle their data analytics operations with a ‘real-time ‘approach by integrating their operational engines with the cloud service providers. The lightweight nature of applications offered by the DAaaS platforms helps in achieving real-time analytics at a lower cost.  Top Domains that DAaaS can Empower  DAaaS is assisting businesses to leverage a subscription plan that presents them with fully customizable analytics applications along with data that is easy to understand and gain insights. Some of the popular use cases that can make an impact on the industry type include:  Predictive Maintenance  Retail  Manufacturing  Finance   Infrastructure Development  Read more: Data & Analytics Strategy: Must-Have Crucial Elements for Decision Making  Future of DAaaS   While there are many advantages of DAaaS platforms, enterprise application development companies, as well as data analytics service providers, are just getting started with integrating and developing them. DAaaS platforms demand an ideal combination of big data analytics along with cloud engineering expertise, thereby enabling organizations to develop and deploy cloud and data analytics applications.  Taking the Next Step on the Data Analytics as a Service (DAaaS) Journey  Compared to on-premises data solutions, data analytics as a service (DAaaS) offers organizations several benefits - from easier setup and integration of cost-optimization opportunities and reliability. However, DAaaS poses some challenges, but those can be mitigated and managed with the right framework.  Some companies are already leveraging DAaaS to speed up as well as simplify their process of generating insights from data and achieve better data governance. Today, these companies are in a position to maintain an edge over their competitors as well as streamline their operations through more improved data integrity.  With a presence in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, London, Zurich, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, SG Analytics, a pioneer in Research and Analytics, offers tailor-made services to enterprises worldwide.      SG Analytics - Data Insights & Analytics company focuses on leveraging data analytics and data science to help businesses discover new insights and build strategies for business growth. Contact us today if you are looking to make critical data-driven decisions to prompt accelerated growth and breakthrough performance.         

US Job Growth Report: Why is the Market Slowing Down?

The US Labor Department issued an employment report stating the market is expected to show wage gain while maintaining its upward trend. And this anticipated slowdown in job gains is followed by January’s torrid pace in the employment sector.   The U.S. (United States) job growth slowed to a still-solid pace in February. However, the unemployment rate is expected to hold at a more than five-decade low. One of the significant reasons for this could be the Federal Reserve's rise in interest rates to a higher level to tame inflation. This has led the financial markets to expect that the Fed is set to sustain its monetary policy tightening campaign into summer.  Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated that the U.S. central bank would have to increase rates more than expected. And this could open doors to a 50-basis-point hike this month. While the labor market is still tight and hot, it seems like it is beginning to cool, and the cooling trend is set to continue going forward.  While job creation decelerated in February, there was some good news on the inflation front, as average hourly earnings rose 4.6% from a year ago. And the best news was the easing of wage pressures. Considering the recent economic strength, many sectors recorded a significant employment gain.   Leisure and hospitality witnessed employment gains, with a rise of 105,000, about in line with the six-month average of 91,000.  Retail experienced an employee gain of 50,000.   The government sector added 46,000.   Professional and business services noticed a rise of 45,000.  Construction companies added 24,000 new jobs, irrespective of the rising mortgage rates that are weighing down the housing market.   On the contrary, headline-grabbing layoffs in the tech sector did put a little dent in the employment numbers.  The information sector saw a loss of 25,000 jobs last month.   Factories had to cut 4,000 jobs in February.   The transportation and warehousing sector also witnessed a cut of 22,000 jobs.  Read more: Investment Trends 2023: Top Tech Stocks to Keep an Eye On  The Existing Labor Market Conditions  The job market growth in January reached a plateau due to many reasons, such as unseasonably warm weather, annual benchmark revisions, and seasonal adjustment factors. The US government used the model to remove seasonal fluctuations from the data. One of the significant factors partially attributed to the seasonal factors was robust consumer spending growth in January.  Financial markets have recorded a 50-basis-point rate hike at the Fed’s March 21-22 policy meeting. The Fed has now increased its policy rate by 450 basis points since March 2022. They can currently be placed in the 4.50%-4.75% range bracket. However, the unemployment rate is unchanged at 3.4%, the lowest since May 1969.  Some economists are cautioning against placing emphasis on the narrow jobless rate gauge. They are of the opinion that the government should instead favor a broader measure of unemployment, including people who want to work but have given up on their job search or those working part-time.  Read more: Digital Banking in 2023: Top Trends to Keep an Eye On  Economists are suggesting examining the three- and six-month averages of payrolls to gain a better understanding of the existing labor market conditions. If February payrolls meet expectations, the three- and six-month averages for job gains can rise above 300,000. This would demonstrate that the anticipated normalization in the labor market is expected to take much longer than expected.  The US government needs to address that inefficiency, but that is currently their main challenge. The Fed needs to be careful about how they interpret the current situation in the labor market. With people unable to move to where the jobs are because of relocation cost barriers, raising rates too high could lead to a surge in unit labor costs as corporations are unwilling to embark on wholesale job cuts, exactly like the one that happened in previous recessions. Source: CNBC  The U.S. Job Market: Hot & Cold Hiring Spree  From the sizzling pace of hiring in January, the situation cooled down in the month of February. However, the U.S. job market is still hot, but the unemployment rate is hovering near a half-century low. Employers added an estimated 311,000 jobs in February, as per the report issued by the Labor Department.   Nonfarm payrolls increased by 311,000 for January, which was above the 225,000 Dow Jones estimate. While this clearly is a sign that the employment market is still hot. But at the same time, the unemployment rate increased to 3.6% from 3.4% in January, as almost 400,000 people joined the workforce.  Read more: Debt Ceiling Standoff - Will the World’s Renowned Economic Safe Haven go into Default?  Estimates for February payroll growth were recorded in a range - from as low as 78,000 to as high as 325,000. And the average hourly earnings were estimated to rise 0.3%, corresponding to the gains in January. This growth is likely to raise the year-on-year increase in wages from 4.4% to 4.7%.  While initially, the Fed was alarmed due to the sudden addition of more than half a million jobs in January, the central bank is now concerned that this overheated job market holds the risk of putting more upward pressure on inflation. The job gains in January were slightly weaker, as 504,000 jobs were added that month.  While the existing conditions in the labor market are very unusual, everyone is eying how the Fed will accomplish the inflation objective without inducing a major economic slowdown.  Key Highlights  The unemployment rate in the US increased to 3.6%, above expectations.  Nonfarm payrolls increased by 311,000 in February, which was recorded above the 225,000 Dow Jones estimate.  Average hourly earnings increased by 4.6% from a year ago. It can be considered a positive sign of inflation.  Leisure, hospitality, as well as retail, witnessed new job creation.  Read more: Explained: Factors Driving Tech Layoffs in 2023  Final Thoughts  The job cut report is arriving at a crucial time for the U.S. economy and, consequently, for Fed policymakers. The U-6 unemployment measure in January was at 6.6%. This indicated there were 10.9 million people open to work compared to the 10.8 million openings in the job market at the end of January. But the problem here is the mismatch of factors like locational and skills mismatches, which signifies the labor market is not functioning efficiently.  While inflation data witnessed a downward trajectory toward the end of 2022, the markets expected the Fed to slow the pace of its rate hikes. That happened in February when the Federal Open Market Committee approved a 0.25%-point increase, highlighting the smaller hikes that would be introduced going forward. At the same time, the Fed is closely monitoring the rising wages, which are expected to contribute to higher prices across labor-intensive service industries. The reported wages in February, on average, were recorded as 4.6% higher than a year ago.  While the strong wage growth is being considered a boon for workers, it will only prove fruitful if it is not eroded by inflation. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell addressed that the recent metrics indicate that inflation is back on the rise. And if that continues to be the case, the rates are expected to increase to a higher level than expected.   The extremely tight labor market conditions can be considered one of the reasons why rates are likely to rise and stay elevated. He also implied that the increases could be expected to be higher than the February hike.  With a presence in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, London, Zurich, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, SG Analytics, a pioneer in Research and Analytics, offers tailor-made services to enterprises worldwide.       A leader in Market Research services, SG Analytics enables organizations to achieve actionable insights into products, technology, customers, competition, and the marketplace to make insight-driven decisions. Contact us today if you are an enterprise looking to make critical data-driven decisions to prompt accelerated growth and breakthrough performance. 

Deploying Technology to Cultivate a Digital Transformation Strategy that Delivers

Today the term digital transformation has become more than just a buzzword. It is often used to gain a clear understanding of what it entails. However, digital transformation does not have to be complicated or overwhelming for the organization. In its simplest form, digital transformation entails employing digital technologies to create new or transform existing processes, products, and services. And this can be accomplished in several ways, which include-  Automating manual operations  Introducing self-service channels for online customer  Integrating data and analytics to drive precise decisions  Developing digital products and services  While digital transformation can imply different things to different organizations, it all depends on identifying and specifying the needs and goals. But the bottom line is that all businesses need to be conscious of the existing opportunities that digital technologies present and ways to use them to drive growth in the competitive market.  By 2025, the global expenditure of organizations on digital transformation technologies and services is estimated to reach $2.8 trillion. Digital transformation today is on the executive agenda of many organizations to prioritize transformation. It is all about integrating technology to enhance the customer experience and adapt to the digital economy to expand its digital capabilities.  Read more: Debunking the Myths - Does Innovation Holds Back Digital Transformation?  Organizations that implement digital transformation have witnessed better customer interaction along with higher operational efficiency to promote new products and services. They assist businesses in adapting quickly to changes in consumer behavior and responding to the latest market trends, along with seizing more growth opportunities through digital transformation. All businesses must integrate new tech with old processes. It helps gain a few efficiencies and reap digital transformation's benefits. But it also mandates rethinking processes to focus on outcomes. By 2025, the global expenditure of organizations on digital transformation technologies and services is estimated to reach $2.8 trillion.   Organizational processes are about what people accomplish, and changing these processes means changing behaviors and mindsets. It requires time, a transition mindset, and rethinking various organizational processes. Hence it is only natural that the process is a significant part of digital transformation. This scope of the digital transformation framework is essential to setting up organizational success. While the process may look different depending on the situation, it can include the following:   Aligning the desired outcomes for customers  Streamlining work activities to create an efficient and functional process   Putting process management that focuses on customers and the end-user experience  Improving existing framework to account for newly adopted technologies  Rethinking strategic decisions about a company process  If you are an organization wanting to implement digital transformation in your organization? Here are a few steps you should undertake to foster the implementation process and ensure that new tech tools do not end up gathering dust.  Read more: Outlook 2023: Top Strategic Technology Challenges  Step 1: Communicating the Significance of Tech in Operations  For any organization, the process of transitioning and incorporating new tech into its operations is long and arduous. It mandates identifying and acknowledging a problem, filtering through a variety of viable solutions, and determining the most viable solutions for the resources. However, integrating new tech, from an end user's perspective, is often perceived as a solution. But for major organizations, it is considered a problem as it requires learning new workflows and developing new habits.  To enhance the process, tech rollouts include campaigns that require communicating with the employees because the new tools are essential and desirable. Often used to describe the process of introducing new tech, the term "rollout" has been finding a significant use in every workplace. And this mechanism is now shifting from a tech-first to a people-first approach in most organizations. Organizations must communicate why this interaction should be encouraged to implement new tech effectively.  Tech solutions in the organizational arena are helping to show the employees. These tech tools assist in automating common operational functions like requesting or enrolling new functional benefits. But the problem with many of these platforms is that they are designed with specific professionals in mind. It is, therefore, important for organizations to introduce new mechanisms and tools necessary to bridge this gap.  Read more: The Age of Digital Transformation: Top AI and ML 2022 Trends  Step 2: Integrating Tech Framework to improve the Employee Experience Defining the need for why will enable businesses to understand the reason tech is introduced in operations. The next step for them is to define the impact that the tech can have on the employee experience. Communicating how the new tech framework will improve the employee experience is perceived as a critical part of the digital implementation process.  Transparency has come to be a valuable tool for employee empowerment within an organization. With many new tech tools being rolled out, organizations are implementing frameworks to increase transparency in their operations. Task management platforms are being used to identify who is involved, what employees should do, and when their work should be expected. Communications platforms also help in identifying when the employees are online, when they read a message, or when they are responding to a query. But for this level of real-time access, organizations need to facilitate the information to improve the employee experience. However, effective technology helps in improving processes. It enables transformation by enhancing accessibility, flexibility, and operational efficiency, equipping employees to identify the critical elements for their interaction.  Read more: The Next Tech Time Warp: How Will Artificial Intelligence Possibly Change the World?  Step 3: Measuring Progress for Growth  COVID-19 rooted and taught businesses the importance of digitizing operations to keep the company going. But digital transformation strategies are not just inclusive of technology. When a company initiates a substantial change in how an organization operates, the employees are likely to feel the impact. Companies can’t make a momentous change in operations unless people change how they work.   Organizations need to measure their progress and track the results of their digital transformation initiative. This indicates tracking the results of a digital transformation initiative to ensure that it achieves the desired goals. It is important for them to keep track of quantitative and qualitative data to assess digital transformation success accurately. This will also assist in identifying what is working and what’s not, enabling them to adjust as required. Digital transformation is a journey, and businesses need to start making changes to stay competitive in the digital age.   Final Thoughts  Businesses are rolling out new platforms and frameworks that are affecting employees, typically requiring a temporary password and a deadline to log on. While it is interesting that these rollouts are presenting new opportunities, it is slowing down certain processes, resulting in a state of rest on the runway. The problem with technology rollout is that it plays a significant role in the overall success of an organization's digital transformation process.   Many digital transformation initiatives are emerging as tech-first, people-second. They are focusing on tools that equip organizations to bring value to their users. Recent studies have also highlighted that only 30% of digital transformation efforts result in a higher level of performance for the organization. And they are now investing a lot in digital transformation but are gaining very little value. Organizations are transitioning their traditional operations into new processes that mandate some communication about the advanced workload resulting from increased possibilities. It also offers a way that digitalizes multiple operations, thus freeing up employees to provide more personalized attention.  With a presence in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, London, Zurich, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, SG Analytics, a pioneer in Research and Analytics, offers tailor-made services to enterprises worldwide.   A leader in the Technology domain, SG Analytics partners with global technology enterprises across market research and scalable analytics. Contact us today if you are in search of combining market research, analytics, and technology capabilities to design compelling business outcomes driven by technology.   

The Ultimate Guide: Tips to Choose a Top Marketing Analytics Company

Today's data-based marketing campaigns are backed by insights that help outline the steps for success, making them more efficient and effective. However, creating a strong data marketing strategy is easier said than done. Whether combining internal and third-party data, integrating predictive analytics into the data to design a strategy, or examining the marketing campaign data - it demands a keen eye. It's easy to identify why marketing professionals are turning to market analytics companies to develop their strategies.    What is Marketing Analytics?  Marketing analytics assists businesses in leveraging predictive modeling along with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to understand consumer data and identify patterns to predict future consumer behavior. It enables businesses to optimize the return on their investment of a marketing campaign. Analytics enables brands to make sense of the vast ocean of data, which encircles conversion and clickthrough rates along with consumer demographics and online activity. By regularly tracking and reporting consumer data, marketing professionals assist businesses in making decisive conclusions about the impact of their marketing activities and what to do next.  Read more: Debt Ceiling Standoff - Will the World’s Renowned Economic Safe Haven go into Default?  Marketing Analytics: Key Significance  Marketing analytics benefits not only marketers but also consumers. It enables marketers to gain higher ROI on marketing investments by understanding the components successfully driving conversions and brand awareness. Analytics also ensures that consumers see more targeted and personalized ads that cater to their needs and interests. Marketing data can be analyzed using different methods and models based on measured KPIs. Brand awareness analysis relies upon different data and models than conversions.   Some of the significant analytics models and methods used by marketers are as follows:  Media Mix Models (MMM): This attribution model helps in identifying aggregate data over a long period.  Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA): The MTA attribution models provide person-level data from the buyer's journey.  Unified Marketing Measurement (UMM): UMM is a form of measurement that incorporates various attribution models, including MMM and MTA, into comprehensive engagement metrics.  How Does Marketing Analytics Help a Business?   The world of marketing analytics employs maths, predictive modeling, and machine learning to uncover insights from consumer data. This helps in gaining a greater understanding of the consumer's mind and user behavior. Marketing analytics data assists businesses in making decisions on every component, from ad spending to product updates, branding, and more. It helps them to gain a 360-degree view of their campaigns, thus enabling them to make the right decisions.  Read more: Leveraging Data Analytics in Business and Finance to Drive Growth  It offers answers to vital questions about marketing spending as well as campaign performance  The insights derived from big data assist business leaders in making efficient decisions.  With predictive insights, the data helps brands in creating effective product and marketing strategies along with tweaking these strategies based on results.  Companies and marketers no longer have to guess consumer behavior patterns. The accumulated data offers insights into everything, enabling the brand to interact with customers and create excellent customer experiences, thus fostering meaningful relationships.     The Role of Marketing Analytics Company in Data Marketing  Marketing analytics is a growing field, with more marketers pivoting to data to give a competitive advantage to their marketing campaigns; the practice significantly assists businesses. Marketing Analytics is all about following a roadmap. The value of marketing analytics does diminish the fact that it mandates an intensive data analysis that can often be difficult for marketing professionals to complete independently. It is, therefore, vital to choose the most useful metrics that involve collecting the data and interpreting actionable insights from that raw data. However, it is a challenge for even the most seasoned professionals.  This is where a marketing analytics company comes into the picture. It is a team of experts who assist organizations in determining the exact areas where marketing campaigns can help in enhancing data insights, collecting the required metrics, and creating a comprehensive marketing strategy. A marketing analytics company assists you in structuring and developing a strong data-driven strategy.  Read more: The Future of Business Intelligence: Top Trends for 2023 and Beyond  How to Choose Between Top Marketing Analytics Firms?  Today data analytics is rising in popularity due to the singing popularity of marketing professionals supporting the wave of marketing analytics. And with companies emerging to facilitate marketing analytics services, selecting the right marketing partner for your brand requirements is important.   It is crucial to choose a reputable analytics company that understands data and analysis. The firm should provide you with assured analysis. Beyond that, many businesses can require a full suite of marketing services, while others may need a supplement to their current in-house efforts. It is, therefore, essential that the firm you choose provides the services you need. There are a few actions that need to be undertaken when choosing the right marketing analytics partner:  Inquire about services offered As a baseline, it is important to ensure that the firm offers the required services. Beyond that, it is equally vital to identify the services offered— to understand if they are a-la-carte offerings or pre-outlined packages, or collaborative with a final product delivered at the end of the campaign.  Traversing the company's portfolio  You should study the company's portfolio to identify the existing set of firms they are working with or have worked with in the past. Don't forget to check their successful past campaigns similar to the effort you want to compete with them.  Client testimonials  Studying the client testimonials of the selected marketing analytics partner is important as it helps characterize their past clients noted in these testimonials.  Company's value propositions  Data marketing offers interesting ethical challenges. It is, therefore, important that the analytics company's values align with your business ethically. Pay attention to statements encircling data collection as well as the suppression of other data points.  Read more: Business Outlook In 2023: Data Compliance and Data Security & Pipelines  Final Thoughts  Many brands and marketing agencies today are turning to data-driven marketing solution providers that offer them a competitive edge. Partnering with a marketing analytics company helps drastically enhance marketing efforts while adding efficiency and accuracy to advertising campaigns. The right marketing analytics company will offer a variety of data-driven services, such as:  Targeted data solutions include customer data enhancement and data hygiene and processing.  Prospect acquisition and loyalty email services which incorporates prospect email marketing and campaigns.  Data analytics and insight that provides solutions for customer profiling, predictive analytics, and modeling.  Digital marketing services for targeted social media advertising and campaign optimization.  Custom database solutions, along with database development and management.   Finding the right marketing analytics solution provider is key to designing a successful marketing program. Before you partner with any marketing analytics company, it is therefore important to understand the services offered as well as the top tips for choosing the right marketing partner. By identifying and understanding where the audience is engaging and what is driving sales, as a business, you can make sure that you are putting your money in the right place and improving ROI.   With a presence in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, London, Zurich, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, SG Analytics, a pioneer in Research and Analytics, offers tailor-made services to enterprises worldwide.                         A leader in Market Research services, SG Analytics enables organizations to achieve actionable insights into products, technology, customers, competition, and the marketplace to make insight-driven decisions. Contact us today if you are an enterprise looking to make critical data-driven decisions to prompt accelerated growth and breakthrough performance. 

How will Organizations Prioritize Employee Health and Well-being in 2023?

Every new year brings along new opportunities that enable organizations to support their employees. And in 2023, organizations are turning to foster wellness programs with the intent to provide an optimal state of employee wellness, thereby enabling them to thrive collectively. Amidst the stress due to mass layoffs, looming recession fears, and cost-cutting, the focus is now shifting to employees’ health. Industry experts are now deliberately taking the reins in their hands and introducing innovative ways to promote employee wellness in the workplace in 2023.  Many workplace changes that began during the pandemic are picking up steam and becoming the new norm for organizations in 2023. And it is quite evident that employees will not accept the same old wellness solutions anymore. Instead, they are voicing their opinions and demanding answers for organizational reform and resolute leadership to foster an employee wellness strategy. Human resources teams are also placing employee wellness as a high priority within their framework. While the current workplace journey centers around ways to adapt to and create a new work-life balance, it is equally important to introduce proactive measures and prioritize employee health in 2023.  Read more: How can Leaders Establish a Culture of Curiosity and Innovation in their Organization?  The Importance of Creating a Healthy Workplace  The work environment plays a critical role in employee performance and productivity. Creating a healthy work environment is a great game-changer in myriad ways. It curtails costs connected to turnover, medical cover, and employee compensation. A good workplace environment helps in boosting employee happiness, morale, as well as motivation. Consequently, employees are more likely to tune in to their work and perform to their best abilities in order to deliver the desired results.   With a healthy workplace, organizations can establish measures to determine the success of any organization. When a workplace environment is conducive, the employees can become highly engaged and deliver greater profitability. The COVID-19 pandemic forced much of the global workforce to function from home, thereby offering comfort, lowering work pressure, and fostering concentration.   And these benefits of building a healthy work environment are clearly visible. But creating a workplace that every employee will love is a daunting task and can alter work dynamics. As a result, as an organization, it is important to need to stay abreast of modern workplace trends for positive change.     Workplace Wellness Trends to Keep an Eye on in 2023  Effective Employee Engagement  Employee engagement is emerging as the key aspect of workplace wellness in 2023. By fostering effective employee involvement in everyday operations, organizations can significantly impact their attachment. Some examples of nurturing an engaging culture within a healthy work environment involve:  Assign challenging tasks to a team and not an individual  Ensuring every assigned role aligns with the skills of the employee  Appreciating the efforts of both individuals as well as the team  Foster a flexible workspace  Openness to empathy and inclusiveness to attract and retain quality talent  Read more: Why Investing in Employees Enables Better Business Results?  Introducing Expert-led Health and Wellness Sessions  In today’s world, with the rising competition to perform and deliver results, mental health is taking a back seat. It is, therefore, the duty of organizations to ensure that employees stay physically and mentally fit. In the upcoming year, organizations will start integrating and organizing expert-led health and wellness programs such as yoga, aerobics, or Zumba sessions to help alleviate stress and anxiety. By creating a detoxing and happy environment, employees can also strengthen their emotional resilience.  Changing Communication Culture to Equip the Hybrid Work Model  For businesses today, the remote or hybrid work setting is becoming a new reality. With many businesses trying to cut expenses and boost productivity, they are permitting their employees to work from home or other locations rather than the corporate headquarters. And this trend is expected to continue. Employee well-being, experience, and productivity are also interrelated. It is vital to offer employees wellness programs that assist them in transitioning into the hybrid space while also focusing on more than just on-site workplace activities.  However, it is important to initiate a conversation about employees’ health, including their physical, mental, emotional, environmental, and even financial demands. And one of the single most effective ways to change traditional culture is to initiate communication. Due to the rising work stress, employees can often feel their capacity to absorb immense knowledge reducing. It is, therefore, important to initiate a need for a degree of communication from all sides and introduce measures to adjust to a bigger volume. Introducing agile solutions will enable team leaders to manage, assign, and track projects as well as progress, thereby enabling seamless collaboration.  Read more: Sustainability Outlook: Top Emerging Trends in 2023 and Beyond  A New Work Setting: Four-Day Work Week  While employees demand control over where they worked in 2022, a growing swell of employees are now demanding more control over when they work. With the news making rounds, don't be surprised if any enterprise introduces a four-day workweek starting in 2023. To stay relevant and competitive in this red-hot labor market, organizations are expected to introduce a four-day workweek. And the good news is that it will likely be a win for both employers as well as employees, as it will enable employees to deliver results with maximum productivity, thereby increasing the levels of engagement and improving mental health.  Mental Well-Being will be at the Core of Every Operation   Taking into consideration the record level rates of burnout, depression, and anxiety, employees expect their employers to make mental well-being a priority. A recent report found that 52% of workers feel burned out, representing a 9% increase from a pre-Covid survey.  Employees now expect their workplaces to take meaningful action, such as fostering an environment where there is the freedom to feel and express emotions. However, to meet the moment, employers need to go beyond providing the traditional formula to identify individuals at risk and provide them with resources like employee assistance programs. Organizations and their leaders should radically rethink ways to create and nurture a supportive work environment that promotes mental well-being. This will not only help in destigmatizing conversations around mental health, but it will also help examine structural issues that lead to employee burnout and other health issues.  Industry leaders need to prepare themselves to have more open conversations related to mental health within the organization. A recent survey by Monster.com identified that almost 91% of generation Z employees have reported they want to be able to discuss mental-health topics with their colleagues freely. Organizations are now incorporating programs to support mental health concerns while taking measures to address these issues.  Read more: Outlook 2023: Top Strategic Technology Challenges  Final Thoughts  From shared values and wages to accessible mental health support, the culture of fostering workplace well-being is transforming. And organizations are strategically adapting to this rapid evolution to keep their employees happier and healthier, along with retaining their existing talent in 2023. Many workplaces are changing their traditional way of operation and integrating a new momentum to adapt to the new normal.   With new workplace wellness trends emerging in 2023, organizations are becoming exceedingly clear about what their employees will no longer settle for. Employees are demanding effective solutions; organizations are restructuring their strong leadership commitment to foster a healthy environment as a way of doing business.  And as the modern workplace is evolving, it is presenting new ways to hire and retain top talent. These era-defining changes are compelling organizations to create a work environment that is under siege by economic changes, technological developments, globalization, and the COVID-19 pandemic. To keep up with these changes, industry leaders need to rise to the occasion and demonstrate a deep understanding of emerging workplace trends.   With a presence in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, London, Zurich, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, SG Analytics, a pioneer in Research and Analytics, offers tailor-made services to enterprises worldwide.                     A leader in Market Research services, SG Analytics enables organizations to achieve actionable insights into products, technology, customers, competition, and the marketplace to make insight-driven decisions. Contact us today if you are an enterprise looking to make critical data-driven decisions to prompt accelerated growth and breakthrough performance. 

National Cybersecurity Strategy: Net Positive for the Cyber and Cloud Security Sector

As digitization and the shift to the cloud gain momentum, regulation is trying to catch up with its accelerated pace, especially post the pandemic, which highlighted the increasingly critical nature of the digital and cloud ecosystem and the massive impact and costs of cyber incidents such as the Solar Winds hack.  The US government has taken significant steps to address cybersecurity concerns. In 2018, the Trump administration issued an executive order to improve the cybersecurity of federal networks and critical infrastructure. In 2019, the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a bipartisan congressional commission, released a report with 75 recommendations for improving cybersecurity in the United States.  Now, National Cybersecurity Strategy (NCS) is the latest in a series of regulatory steps to spur concentrated and collective public and private defensive and offensive efforts to safeguard the rising digital surface and make cybersecurity more pervasive across different industries. In addition to urging software developers and businesses to assume greater accountability in ensuring the security of their systems against hacking, the strategy also aims to intensify its collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Defense Department in thwarting the operations of hackers and ransomware organizations across the globe.  Read more: A Way Forward: Cybersecurity Trends to Watch out for in 2023  Overview of the Cyber Threat Landscape in the US  The US is the biggest victim of cyber-attacks across the globe. With 46% of all cyberattacks in the world aimed at Americans, the United States continues to be the most frequently attacked nation. While globally, the average cost of a ransomware attack was over $4.5 million, the cost in the US was $9.4 million in 2022, over 2x higher, per IBM  Key statistics around cybersecurity in the US are as follows:  Nearly 80% of cyber attackers, according to Microsoft, chose to target governmental institutions, think tanks, and other non-governmental entities  Additionally, according to Microsoft, 58% of cyberattacks in the USA have Russian origins  In the first half of 2022, phishing attacks rose by 48%, with reports of 11,395 incidents costing companies a total of $12.3 million  In 2022, ransomware assaults increased by 41%, and it took 49 more days than usual to identify and fix a breach  Read more: Outlook 2023: Top Strategic Technology Challenges  The shift to cloud-native software development has been a key reason for the rise in complexity and surface area of cyber threats as well as the surge in reported incidences in the last two years. Instead of monolithic applications residing in a single codebase, cloud-based development comprising microservices architecture based on a modular approach – an aggregation of loosely coupled independent functional units/software components – coming from multiple sources, magnifies the risk potential. Accordingly, the cybersecurity strategy and regulatory policies must continue to evolve with new regulations looking to both supplement and address the gaps in the previous legislation.  Figure 1: Cloud Native vs. Monolithic Application  Source: SparkFabrik  Against this backdrop, the NCS is a much-needed step. The latest regulation proposes three policies that could fundamentally alter the cybersecurity space.  Read more: America's TikTok Conundrum - Increasing Scrutiny of TikTok in the US  Firstly, the NCS proposes to shift the responsibility of securing cyberspace away from the users (individuals, enterprises, and governments) to the software vendors. This is a paradigm shift that aligns the interests of both clients and security vendors, in contrast to the earlier approach, where cybersecurity companies avoided all responsibility for any cyber incident that might occur via disclaimers in license agreements. The NCS seeks to make cybersecurity firms accountable for the vulnerabilities/deficiencies in their product that may lead to a breach/hack, which they have so far managed to evade.   “Right now, we have a regime where the costs of liability are borne by the end user. This isn’t just unfair, it's ineffective.” – Kemba Walden, Acting National Cyber Director.    “Software vendors will certainly argue that they will be required to raise their prices, eventually harming the end users and innocent consumers. This is, however, comparable to carmakers complaining about “unnecessarily expensive” airbag systems and seatbelts, arguing that each manufacturer should have the freedom to build cars as it sees fit.” – Ilia Kolochenko, Founder & CEO, ImmuniWeb. Secondly, the strategy proposes to bring in a sector-specific regulatory framework to ensure mandatory cybersecurity requirements for all industries.   Read more: Investment Trends 2023: Top Tech Stocks to Keep an Eye On  Another key concept, “defend-forward”, adopted as a strategy in NCS, seeks to address the growing use of state-backed rogue agencies to target critical infrastructure in the US or its allies and partners. It proposes to use a collaborative geo-political approach leveraging diplomatic tools and economic sanctions to curb ransomware. There is a strong focus on reinforcing the stipulation in Executive Order 14028 (May 2021) that mandates the adoption of “Zero Trust Architectures”. The government has doubled down on making the Zero-Trust approach a prerequisite for the procurement of cybersecurity products or services by federal agencies from vendors. The move will benefit both established and a slew of emerging companies, including CrowdStrike, Palo Alto, Cloudflare, Zscaler, Okta, Cisco, Forcepoint, Illumio, Perimeter 81, Twingate, and Forcepoint.   Figure 2: Zero Trust Security Framework  Source: Gartner  While the NCS could pave the way for a targeted and highly effective regulatory framework for defending the digital ecosystem, its implementation would be crucial. That said, the focus on long-term investment for developing cutting-edge and innovative technologies to stay ahead of the rapidly evolving threat landscape will spur the startup cyber and cloud security space in the US, making it an attractive private investment target.   With a presence in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, London, Zurich, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, SG Analytics, a pioneer in Research and Analytics, offers tailor-made services to enterprises worldwide.    A leader in the Technology domain, SG Analytics partners with global technology enterprises across market research and scalable analytics. Contact us today if you are in search of combining market research, analytics, and technology capabilities to design compelling business outcomes driven by technology 

Driving Sustainable Revenue with Product-led Growth

While the pandemic turned out to be an economic boon for many organizations, it radically shifted consumer behavior. Due to this reason, in the last few years, companies including Zoom, Slack, Shopify, and Netflix perfectly positioned themselves for this transition, and many even experienced hypergrowth as a result.  These services were well-prepared to take advantage of the shift to remote work and other online activities. But one component that Zoom, Slack, and Netflix share is a common focus on product-led growth, referred to as PLG. These players were able to experience hypergrowth during the pandemic by providing their consumers with exceptional product experiences. They were able to identify the rapidly changing environment and meet customers' needs.   By focusing on product-led growth (PLG), these organizations were able to endure the challenges and emerge as leaders in their respective industries. This strategy is aimed at providing organizations with a path for sustained revenue growth while offering consumers an exceptional product experience and engagement. Let's have a closer look at the three Ws of customer engagement:  Who: The customer affiliates that need to be engaged or retained  What: The type of communication that must be sent  When: The best time to send this communication via a digital channel  Read more: The Future of Business Intelligence: Top Trends for 2023 and Beyond  Crucial Points to consider when Drafting a Successful PLG Strategy The looming fear of higher-than-expected inflation and the global economic downturn has made the global markets tighter. The recent turmoil in public as well as private markets, made it evident that enterprises cannot thrive without capital-efficient and sustainable growth.  Asking the Right Questions to Assess the Success  Some of the key questions that can be embedded to assess the success of a product-led growth strategy are as follows:  Is the product meeting customer needs as well as solving their problems?  What is the overall customer acquisition cost, and is it trending over time?  What percentage of growth is generated from product-led channels?  How effectively are the data and analytics being used to drive product decisions and design the right go-to-market strategy?  Is the organization able to retain as well as grow the existing customer base?  Understanding the feedback from the customers on product features and implementing ways to improve  Exploring new ways to integrate product, marketing, and sales efforts to drive growth  How to build solid cross-functional alignment across the organization?  Answers to these questions will provide organizations with the right insights into the effectiveness of a product-led growth strategy. How an organization performs along these lines will help them in identifying and devising new strategies to enhance consumers' product experience.     Embracing Innovation as a Critical Component to Drive Growth  One of the critical components of product-led growth (PLG) is innovation. A product-led growth strategy demands continuity in delivering new and improved consumer experiences. By tweaking, testing, and measuring parts of the user experience, businesses can devise a stronger strategy that assists them in keeping the users more engaged while driving growth. Even in a period of increasing consumer thriftiness, businesses should work towards creating a culture of innovation where new ideas are encouraged and tested. This will help create more opportunities to learn and improve. Businesses are constantly innovating their operations with a clear focus on enhancing experience ranging from onboarding to delivering significant dividends, thereby enabling continued economic growth amid uncertainty.  Read more: Sustainability Outlook: Is ESG an Investment Strategy or a Path to Creating a Sustainable World?  Today product-led growth and innovation are critical components of a successful growth strategy, irrespective of external economic conditions. By positioning the customer at the center of the strategy and delivering new and improved experiences through innovation, companies can attract and retain their customers, drive engagement, and achieve sustainable revenue growth.   With a focus on product-led growth, companies can also lower their dependence on the rising cost of customer acquisition efforts.     Building a Value-driven Community for the Customers  While maintaining an enthusiastic customer base is important for business. It is equally vital to turn that user base into a community that will support one another and share knowledge. To build an effective network, it is important to get the users onboard, connect them, and create a space that fosters conversations. This will further aid organizations in amplifying their products among organic users.  With little effort from a company, a community can help in adding exponential value to the users. Today, establishing a community is a simple task and a great medium to monitor and engage with the audience. Tracking the amount of user-generated content as well as the number of members helps in providing a window into the community's health.  Organizations are now more focused on building a community for their consumers. These platforms will allow them to connect with their audience and understand their preferences and needs, inspiring an inclusive environment. Invariably, this will also help in discoverability through better SEO with user-generated content.  Read more: Integrating Data and Artificial Intelligence in Business Strategy to meet ESG Goals  With more focus on R&D for future iterations and a strong PLG strategy in place, businesses can reinvest in their products. Today, businesses are exploring more cost-effective ways to grow with a sustainable product value proposition. The aim to deliver a great customer experience is becoming more compelling, and customers are less likely to churn. This has led to the creation of new opportunities for enterprises that are embracing PLG and innovation to differentiate themselves from their competition, thereby enabling them to achieve sustained growth.     Integrating Machine Learning (ML) to Identify Customer Cohorts  Brands must start leveraging AI and machine learning to gather insights and predict their customer's behavior. By proactively identifying customers who are likely to make a purchase, businesses can create a targeted campaign to grow revenue as well as engage and retain their consumer base. Leveraging artificial intelligence enables businesses to determine the right communication channel.   Communication timings and channels play a vital role when it comes to delivering messages to customers. And messaging is considered a vital component in building relevant experiences for customers on and off the platforms. A message generally contains three key components:  Text which includes the subject lines, push notification text, etc.,  Media like images, videos, gif  Call to action  During times of economic slowdown, brands are now transitioning to AI to not only understand their consumer preferences but also to automatically pick the best time and channel for the highest ROI. They need to invest in artificial intelligence to optimize their messaging options with rigorous testing automatically. This can help them test promotional campaigns as well as measure the impact of their key metrics.  Read more: Debt Ceiling Standoff - Will the World’s Renowned Economic Safe Haven go into Default?  The Rise of Product-led Market Growth  A key finding from a recent report highlighted that organizations are either working towards implementing or accelerating the integration of Product-Led Growth (PLG) during the economic downturn. Utilizing products across all stages of the buyer journey is emerging as common practice. This rise of Product-Led Growth (PLG) is more than a buzzword. It presents businesses with innovative approaches to scale their operations and revenue. Instead of depending on investment in marketing and sales, PLG is enabling them to take a more organic approach, and users are becoming the main source of growth. This implies that the sales team is relying on a low-touch or zero-touch approach to secure new customers. Initiatives, including targeted cross-sell opportunities, self-guided tours, along with in-app promotions and ad campaigns, are presenting new opportunities for businesses to drive product-led growth.  Looking Foward: A Time to Adapt to Sustainable Growth   With the industry slowly recovering from this slowdown, it is vital to see how fast or slow the transition happens for individual companies depending on a lot of factors. However, there still seems to be one constant when we look back at the organizations that emerged from similar downturns the fastest, which is adaptability.   While uncertainties are still looming over the existing market conditions, it is important to see how quickly and effectively businesses will be able to adapt in the face of change. A growth mindset will be the only factor that will separate the winners in the industries. And accelerating product-led efforts will assist organizations when it comes to reducing costs and increasing customer retention to foster efficient growth.  With a presence in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, London, Zurich, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, SG Analytics, a pioneer in Research and Analytics, offers tailor-made services to enterprises worldwide.   A leader in Market Research services, SG Analytics enables organizations to achieve actionable insights into products, technology, customers, competition, and the marketplace to make insight-driven decisions. Contact us today if you are an enterprise looking to make critical data-driven decisions to prompt accelerated growth and breakthrough performance. 

An Ultimate Investment Guide: Understanding Hedge Fund, its Type, and Strategies

When exploring new investment opportunities, the options can often be overwhelming. And the returns on such investments are not always what an investor expects. But if you are an inventory that has been lucky with investments and is looking to take a risk, you should check out a more exclusive and strategic investment option, like a hedge fund. And no hedge funds are not even close to a piggy bank full of change. Hedge fund investors usually rely on investment portfolio management software to track as well as manage their investment portfolios.   Hedge Funds: What is it?  A hedge fund involves a limited partnership of private investors where professional fund managers manage the invested amount. They employ a wide range of strategies, like leveraging or trading non-traditional assets, in order to gain an above-average return. A hedge fund focuses majorly on a cyclical sector, such as travel. A portion of the investment involves an investment of its assets in a non-cyclical sector, like energy. The aim is to use the returns of the non-cyclical stocks and offset any losses in cyclical stocks. Investments are considered a risky alternative investment choice and require a high minimum investment or net worth.  An investment fund designed by accredited individuals and institutional investors, hedge funds serve the purpose of maximizing returns while reducing or eliminating risk, despite the market climb or decline. It is a private investment partnership established by a fund manager as well as the fund investors. They are often structured as a limited partnership or limited liability.   Read more: Investment Banking: A Guide to Understanding the Role of Investment Bankers  General Categories of Hedge Funds  Open-ended hedge funds: These are issued to investors and enable the periodic withdrawals of the net asset value for each share.  Closed-end hedge funds: These funds are issued to a limited number of shares via an initial offering. However, no new shares can be further issued even if the investor demands an increase.  Listed hedge funds: These funds are traded on stock exchanges, and only non-accredited investors can purchase these shares.    Types of Hedge Funds  Hedge funds are considered evaluative and selective investment options that help an investor in generating maximum profits. Let us explore the four common kinds of hedge funds that investors often explore.  Global macro hedge funds leverage macroeconomic factors along with financial conditions such as real exchange rates and inflation rates, enabling investors to generate profit from market swings.  Equity hedge funds are funds that deal with or are invested in global or domestic stocks and offer protection against equity market downturns.  Relative value hedge funds enable the investor to generate better returns by leveraging the price differences of related securities.  Activist hedge funds are funds with investments in companies that act across different demands such as cost-cutting, changes on the board of directors, or even asset restructuring.     Hedge Fund Strategies  Some of the significant hedge fund strategies are as follows:  Macro strategies  In today's global macro strategy, managers are making bets based on emerging macroeconomic trends like interest rates, currencies, demographic shifts, or even economic cycles. Fund managers are employing discretionary and systematic approaches across major financial and non-financial markets to trade currencies, options contracts, and traditional equities.  Read more: Debt Ceiling Standoff - Will the World’s Renowned Economic Safe Haven go into Default?  Directional hedge fund strategies  In the directional approach, investment managers bet on the directional moves of the market. And many expect the trend to continue or reverse for a while. A manager analyzes market movements along with the inconsistencies to decide on the investment option for long or short equity hedge funds.  Relative Value Arbitrage Strategies  Relative value arbitrage hedge fund strategies take benefit from relative price discrepancies between diverse securities. The difference in prices is based on the diverge or converge market time. Sub-strategies in the category often involve fixed-income arbitrage, equity market neutral positions, or volatility arbitrage.  Capital Structure Strategies  Certain hedge fund strategies take advantage of the mispricing of securities in the capital structures of a single company. If the investment manager believes that the debt is overvalued, then they short on the debt and go long for the equity, thereby creating a hedge and betting on the eventual spread.  Long or Short Hedge Fund Strategies  In long/short strategies, the investment managers make pair trades to bet on two securities within a similar industry. If the manager expects that one company is expected to perform better than another, they will opt for a long investment in one and a short one in another.  Event-driven Strategies  Event-driven hedge fund strategies are used when there are underlying opportunities or risks associated with an event. Fund managers search for investment opportunities in corporate transactions like acquisitions, consolidations, liquidations, and bankruptcy. These transactional events usually form the basis of hedge fund investments in distressed securities, along with risk arbitrage and special situations.  Read more: FTX Fallout Calls for ‘Reset’ of Crypto Industry  Distinct Features of a Hedge Fund  Some of the noteworthy features of a hedge fund to note are as follows:  Hedge funds are open to only qualified or accredited investors. They cannot be offered or sold to the public. There is also a mandatory net worth requirement to be met by potential investors.  The fund exists as extensive investments across different sectors, like land, stocks, currencies, and commodities.  The funds use borrowed money to create leverage as well as to multiply returns.  Hedge funds come with management and performance fees.  When investing in hedge funds, investors must maintain their money for at least one year. Withdrawals of funds happen only at specific times, like quarterly or semi-annually.  The funds employ different investment strategies that are disclosed up front to the investors.  Investing in Hedge Funds: Pros and Cons  Investing in hedge funds can enable the investor to bring high returns. However, there is a fair share of risk involved in potential high-reward investments.  Investing in Hedge Funds: Pros  The use of different investment strategies provides the investor with the ability to generate positive returns irrespective of the current market conditions, favorable or unfavorable.  A balanced portfolio hedge fund can help decrease the risk and volatility and facilitate multiple returns on investment.  Hedge fund investments offer investors the ability to customize investment strategies precisely.  Investing in Hedge Funds: Cons  A wrong strategy can expose the hedge fund to huge potential losses.  Investors must lock in their investment/money for years.  The use of borrowed money can turn a minimal loss into a major loss.  Read more: Forecast: Top Venture Capital Market Trends In 2023  Key Highlights  Hedge funds are considered managed alternative investments, most defined as risky investment strategies.  Hedge fund investment mandates a high minimum investment or a net worth from accredited investors.  The charge fees for hedge funds are more when compared with conventional investment funds.  Common hedge fund strategies mostly rely on the fund manager and/or include equity, fixed-income, as well as event-driven goals.  Final Thoughts   Hedge funds can be considered a complicated form of investment along with a risky alternative investment choice mandated by a high minimum investment or net worth. With the distinctive characteristics, strategies, and tax regulations, gaining an in-depth understanding of hedge funds can be a troublesome task. However, if you are looking to make an investment and fit the requirement list of the people that can invest, hedge funds can be a major source of income.  With a presence in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, London, Zurich, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, SG Analytics, a pioneer in Research and Analytics, offers tailor-made services to enterprises worldwide.         A leader in Hedge Fund Research Services, SG Analytics helps in alpha generation by providing actionable research to money managers, active asset managers, and mutual fund managers. Contact us today if you are in search of an investment research firm that offers tailored research support across asset classes to enhance the quality and efficacy of your investment.