Meaningful Use Of Social Media Analytics

When you arrive at a  social marketing strategy, you also have certain criteria to monitor it. The same applies to social media. Each section on social media is unique in its own way, and a metric that might work in one area might not for others. To make the task easy for you, we have come up with certain essential social media analytics and monitoring metrics.  


Followers


This appears like a simple metric but is highly valuable. Friends and Followers on Facebook and Twitter respectively do certify your online presence. It does reflect the number of people you are connected with. Though “the more the merrier” is a welcoming statement, but when it comes to effective social media monitoring it is best to go beyond numbers or at least manage the numbers well. This means, if on Twitter you might have 200 followers whereas you might be following 700 people, then that’s a sign to watch out for. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that the percentage of people you follow and the ones who follow you back are proportional.


Social media engagement


The aptest way to define social media engagement is that it is a free flowing conversation on relevant topics. At the same time, you must ensure that this conversation and discussion does not cross over to idle directionless banter. If that is the case, then you would be losing your basic objective of social media monitoring. Therefore, if you see your social media engagement to be free flowing and progressive in nature, be rest assured that you are using the correct social analytics and metrics.


Turnaround Time


This is one of the crucial social media monitoring metrics. How much time do you take to communicate back to your online audience? Since in social media the communication is ongoing it is essential to reply in time in order to add value to the audience in the apt way. When you have an objective in mind and a conversation is on the flow it is best to reply back within 15 to 30 minutes, else the focus changes and the interest are lost.


Social network monitoring might appear to be a complicated for many. However, with advanced social analytics tools  it is easy for you to track down social behavior and understand what works for your social campaign and what does not. Today there are advanced analytic dedicated to a social networking forum, such as Facebook analytics that is specially designed for Facebook and its features. These tools revert quickly with important feedback and actionable insights that you can incorporate into your social marketing strategy.  


Also read more about :  social gaming analytics

Developing Better Cyber Security for Tomorrow

With science and technology evolving at a faster pace, one of the crucial elements that need to be attended to timely is Internet and cyber security. Today, the Internet can be accessed by all and hence it is an open space for third-party intruders to engage in sophisticated security attacks that result in systematic compromises for various verticals.

Over the past decade since the occurrence of 9/11, the state of cybersecurity breaches and threats has grown significantly in almost every sector in the US economy. As you browse the Internet or news sources, you will see that major security threats and breaches dominate the headlines on a regular basis.  There have been intrusion campaigns, namely the “Operation Shady Rat” disclosed by McAfee, and “Nitro” disclosed by Symantec, that highlight that almost every industry vertical, including technology, defense, financial services, manufacturing, and government, have been affected by these threats.  

 

Apart from the systematic compromises faced by these industry verticals, there have also been marks of cyber warfare operation involving Duqu, Stuxnet, and more recently, the US RQ-170 Sentinel spy drone over Iran. It is also a fact that during the past decade, the state of security technology has improved, but only incrementally. This means that security innovation with positive results have been experienced in certain areas only.  

 

Discussing cybersecurity, some experts opine that perhaps no other section of the security industry has developed in the last decade more than the field of software security. Its growth and evolution mostly took place in the commercial marketplace. In 2000, the software security vertical was small and was at times mistaken for security software. However, there have been several occurrences that resulted in a major shift in the way developers set up software today.

Software security, however, has emerged as a bona fide profession. Cybersecurity now uses a process-oriented approach. If you want to have more information on this field then you can browse online and can become a member of any esteemed computer society online.


This is a valuable source of information, as they featured relevant news and authored computer magazines from trusted sources. It can be used by professionals and students alike, for their own reference, presentations or for anyone who wants to build a career in computer technology.


Read more about : ieee digital library  , swebok

Ensure Efficient Processes with Flexible Supply Chain Solutions

Today’s increasingly complex supply chains are challenging to manage in nearly every industry. With the growing complexities of trade, supply chain solutions are getting increasingly sophisticated. Fueled by global competition and changing market dynamics, supply chain managers are seeking new solutions that better position their organizations for improved flexibility and future growth. In today’s fast-moving business environment, most companies are striving to operate a more dynamic supply chain to respond to rising volatility in customer demands and market conditions.

 
Flexible supply chain solutions offer the much needed relief in streamlining infrastructure, and in disciplining operational progress in the entire process. Effective supply chain management is about delivering the right product in the right quantity and in the right condition with the right documentation to the right place at the right time at the right price. Supply chain management solutions help in reducing inventory, increasing the speed of transactions, efficiently fulfilling customer demands.

 
For successful supply chain solution services, it is necessary to align long drawn out analysis and intricate strategies with overall business goals for delivering value. And every good logistics services company takes care to generate client profits through the immaculate planning of following the steps of assessing, designing, implementing and also managing end-to-end integrated supply chain solutions. This also helps in addressing the client requirements instantly by faster implementation hence providing value for all the investments. Successful supply chain solutions allow a company to rethink their entire operation and restructure in a way that permits them to focus on core competencies and outsource the other processes.

 
Effective supply chain solutions from experts are generally backed with on-demand product configuration and a strong logistics and distribution network which improves flexibility and reduces risks, manufacturing costs, and lead-time and inventory overheads. This ensures that enterprises can focus on core business while the solution providers cater to the customer requirements with reduced shipping and delivery costs while providing efficient warehousing, order management and inventory control.

 
Without doubt, successful organizations of the future will be operating in an environment of well-integrated supply networks communicating over web-based information systems on a real-time basis. Being more knowledgeable in the industry best practices, efficient supply chain consultants offer ideas and processes that are extremely cost efficient and convenient. These service providers also offer accurate and valuable advice on the long-term strategy for your business and ensure that the advice will fit in with your overall business goals and plans.

 
Also read more about : retail distribution & Returns Management

Services Of Retail Distribution Programs

In today’s competitive and retail sales arena, a huge amount of importance is given on acquiring the right product, at the right time, to the right stores and in the appropriate quantity. This is essential to the profitability of every store location as well as the supply chain.

 

In majority of retail stores, the quantity of space kept available for checking, receiving and display of the merchandise is restricted. Hence, it important that the retail products are efficiently moved to the selling floor in an systematic manner by the store workers. The regional retail distribution centers are most often used to consolidate the combined purchases of selected products that are destined for refurbishing each stores that are located within its service territory and offer one or more of the following solutions to shift the same to the stores:

 

·         Central checking and receiving

·         Central reporting of the received products to account pay ables for supplier payment

·         Assurance operations and Quality control

·         Returns to vendor as per the requirement that involves aspects such as deficiencies, overages, unauthorized substitutions, late arrival and so on

·         Value added services such as assortment building, price making, rework and so on

·         Consolidation of outbound store shipments on route trailers for movement of goods to stores

·         Cross docking of promotional, new items and seasonal products that need instant distribution to the retail stores

·         Transfer to DC storage and Order selection areas for consequent processing, shipment and selection

 

These services enable the store professionals to concentrate their activities on Customer Services and selling activities. As the retailer expands, and the retail stores too grow in number then the meaningful and efficient services of a systematic retail network distribution becomes crucial in managing the “floor ready” goods to the retail stores.

 

Industry Solutions for Retail Distributions

 

Today eminent service providers of supply chain solutions have introduced efficient retail distribution programs offering the following services:

 

·         Price minimization's and a quicker time to market

·         High-end in-house IT capacities

·         Simplistic and scalable distribution services

·         The outsourced expense is totally variable and tied directly to demand

·         Shared-overhead model minimizes expenses

·         There are no long term leases

·         Strategically designed  manufacturing and distribution hubs that reduce shipping and delivery costs

 

However, it is essential to join hands with a solution provider that would successfully understand and cater to your requirements and is within your budget plans. Furthermore, it is also crucial to take into account a company’s feed backs and experience track record.


 

Also read more about : supply base management & Returns Management

 

Enterprise Risk Management- The Complete Solution

All enterprises, irrespective of their size of business operations compete against their rivals to stay ahead in the market. However, in the process, they tend to face many challenges that can hamper their progress.  Organizations have over their lifetime  managed risks that has a direct effect on their bottom line. However, besides the fluctuations in  economy,there are still other risks that becomes detrimental to the organization's existence.


The growth of electronically enabled business, commonly termed as e-commerce has increased the risks for the enterprises. Besides factors such as business operations, supply chain, legal and human resource, financial controls and overall governance, the global organization today are also challenged by online fraud, grey market sales and counterfeits. Enterprise risk management process which  optimizes  and controls  risk in an organization,  refers  to  all methods and frameworks that are used to plan, organize and control the the impact of risk on the financial status.


Unlike the traditional approach, the enterprise risk management takes a more holistic view of the factors that affect the organizations tangible and intangible assets and integrates technology, strategy, people, knowledge and process to handle risks. CNBC reports stating  that 7% of the goods sold worldwide are counterfeit products, showcases the effect of an ever-expanding e-commerce market.  However, with the progress in technology, IT partners have worked with leading service providers to provide online fraud protection  solutions formatted for identification of potential risks from internet fraudsters and counterfeiters. The service providers also offer the clientele  anti-counterfeiting and channel integrity solutions to facilitate risk management across the enterprise.


Implementation of Enterprise Risk Management makes it imperative for an organization to first understand the impact of risk to be mitigated. After proper understanding of the organizational capabilities, the risk management process needs to be incorporated into the organizational policies. The development of SaaS-based anti-counterfeiting software solution with advanced search options, appropriate analysis and resolutions,  will help organizations to regularly  monitor, record and analyze the Internet and  prioritize suspects. Further, by applying human intelligence for data integrity,  the organizations are equipped with  effective and online methods to prevent internet frauds.


Besides, the enforcement agencies and large business houses handling pharmaceutical products and high-end luxury goods  also deploy anti-counterfeiting policies to protect their brands. The growing B2B and B2C online market demands enterprises with footprints on the web, to make use of intelligent practices to monitor frauds and violators. To survive these internet threats and as part of enterprise risk management measures, these new age enterprises need to use efficient anti-counterfeit tools and solutions to protect their entity.


Know more on: brand protection , grey market

Implement Data Protection Frameworks to Ensure Complete Information Security

Keeping your information secure is the top priority for every organization. Today with  the rapid advancement of technology and wireless networks there is increase in newer and much more organized forms of threats to information security. Data theft occurs from a multitude of companies, by accident or on purpose on an almost daily basis, and either such breaches can put the information of thousands of consumers at risk, or enable competitors to access confidential information.

With the increasing use of information technology, data protection has become one of the most important and relevant laws that businesses are required to comply with.  High profile security breaches across the globe have led to the increase in sophisticated hacking attacks and security breach incidents in recent times. Thus, data protection solution is needed to protect data on the systems from viruses or cyber attacks, ensuring its security.

There are many rules and regulations governing data protection. Governments throughout the world have begun imposing new regulations on electronic communications and stored data. Businesses face dire consequences for noncompliance. Some countries hold company executives criminally liable for failure to comply with laws regarding electronic communications and documents. These regulations often define what information must be retained, for how long, and under what conditions.

While protecting an enterprise’s IT infrastructure, data protection may be one of the most difficult tasks that an organization may face. It is therefore imperative to deploy a comprehensive data protection framework across the information lifecycle, as many large enterprise data centers continue to struggle with explosive data growth, limited budgets, and increasing demand for higher levels of service.

Organizations must look now at how they collect, store, use personal data and ask themselves whether they comply with the regulations. Thorough data security begins with an overall strategy and risk assessment. This will enable you to identify the risks you are faced with and what could happen if valuable data is lost through theft, malware   or a system crash.

As complete information security can be a challenge, businesses need an advanced data protection solutions that includes data classification, data flow analysis and tools like data loss prevention, information rights management. By ensuring that data at your company is backed up consistently and protected from theft or loss with a robust solution, you can ensure complete information risk management and save your business from potential crisis in the future.

Read more on - Risk management frameworks, application security

Understanding the Need for Data Protection

Data theft is increasing manifold with the increasing amount of crucial data that enterprises need to store today. Furthermore, the rigid government security compliance regulations have made it mandatory for organizations to give data protection a top priority. It is not only the big corporates that need to secure their data, but also the small and medium scale companies too need to do the same.

According to a research by Access Markets International, the predicted annual expenditure on data storage software, hardware and services by the SMB’s are estimated to increase in the forthcoming years. The research also reveals that globally the storage expenditure is likely to expand at a compounded annual growth rate of 43 percent in couple of years.

Some time back terms such as “data protection” and “disaster recovery” were synonymous with big business houses. However, the modern day business environment of robust software, reasonably priced disks and high-performance tape drives has helped  organizations of all sizes to safeguard their data and cut down on losses and the negative impacts on the business. Majority of business houses today are on the lookout for data protection solutions that:

  • Provides the end users a selection of suppliers and simplicity in data interchange
  • Helps to reliably utilize high end technology for an application thereby reducing backup failure
  • Offers sufficient capacity and performance so that the backup can occur within the available backup window
  • Are user friendly and easy to maintain with ongoing low cost of ownership along with lesser complexities

Focusing on these requirements and demands, esteemed solution providers of application security programs have introduced innovative data protection solutions. These solutions function in three simple steps that are:

Designing and Strategy
This step focuses on reviewing the company’s data security requirements and then comes up with an effective data classification strategy. Post this company’s critical data is analyzed depending on various aspects like those that how it is used, shared, who owns it and the like. Based on this assessment a systematized data protection framework is designed

Control and Integration
This step helps the end users and organizations to implement innovative security and data protection technologies, such as data leakage prevention, information/ digital rights management and other encryption tools.

Sustenance and Optimization
This is the final step, that enables organizations to optimize and fine tune the technology implementation for bringing down the KPI reporting’s, false positives, and executing a robust incident and consequence management framework for end-to-end vigilance.

In today’s era of acute competition, data is the life-force of every organization. Any compromise in data protection might lead to revenue loss and brand erosion that would take a long time to retrieve. In order to avert these negative consequences it is best to invest in an efficient data protection solution.

Also read more on - Information Risk Management, SAP security

Innovation as a Weapon in Global Competition

The global economic environment is undergoing rapid changes and has placed business houses on a competitive edge. Organizations planning for global expansions thus need to create a business that can adapt quickly and flexibly to the changing economic and cultural landscape. A key to achieving this is by incorporating innovation into decision-making process at all levels. Real innovation requires broad changes based on values, guidelines, and measurement systems with flexibility to all employees, while mitigating risk for the business as a whole. This would facilitate the enterprises to stay ahead of the competition while moving into newer markets.


However, sustaining a leadership position in a global marketplace requires organizations to be  storehouse of creative thinking, flexibility and agility. A culture of innovation, gives the organization the required competitive edge with increased ability to respond to change. Nevertheless, innovation is not just about new products, new processes, or new ideas but more than that. It is more about idea generation and idea management implementation leading to sustainable innovation products and services.


In economic terms, innovation refers to technological advancement, or process by which companies create new economic values, by using resources more effectively. Invention, though critical, is only one aspect of innovation. In today’s connected world,innovation takes place through one that spans through various scientific,technology and business disciplines. Know more on innovation management software


As early as 2003, ITC a $7.5 billion tobacco, food and hotel company installed a computer system in the house of a wheat and soybean farmer in India.  ITC paved the way to provide the farmers with information through web pages in Hindi. This innovative act made for the enterprise's entry into the agribusiness. On the other hand, Cadbury PLC, the confectionery business giant with its origins stretching back 200 years has always considered innovation as the business model and it has been the key to their success.


Cadbury with its brands running as international favorites embraced open innovation strategy to expand their business and brand. Their open innovation teams work through crowdsourcing software to gather commercially beneficial innovations. Apart from that, Idea management services have facilitated the organization to manage the crowd-sourced ideas to solve technological challenges. This has led to a steep change in products across all the categories of gum, candy and chocolate, with global sales topping $7 billion, nearly 50 percent more.


With a workforce of 45,000 people, operating across 60 countries, Cadbury is even today is open to innovation from non-competitive industry sectors. This has enabled them to experiment with ideas for new methods of creating 3D forming Chocolate, Thermostatic Food Grade Packaging and microscopic aeration all of which would only confirm its position in the aggressively competitive business world.


Know more on: managing innovation , Idea Management Software

Ideas Can Make The World A Better Place

Revolutionary thinkers and famous achievers say that it takes a small idea to change the world and make it a better place. In today’s dynamic world, this holds true. Innovation is indeed the key to success. We need ideas and out of the box thinking not only to outshine other market players but to address some of the crucial concerns of the world where we live in.  In the recent time, health and the environment have been the greatest concern amidst all. The increased pace of industrialization, pollution, improper waste disposal, erratic lifestyle and food habits, stress and anxiety have given rise to bodily imbalances and unhealthy living conditions. Keeping in mind the power of ideation, brands have been making use of open innovation to resolve crucial global concerns. Know more on idea management solutions


Proteins are believed to be the building blocks of life and have a crucial role to play in alleviating numerous illness and unhealthy conditions. Hence determining its structure helps to understand the mechanisms by which ailments occur and can be healed. University of Washington, Unites States launched a crowdsourced game that welcomed everyone to help scientists fight illness by contributing success stories comprising unlocking the protein structure of an enzyme that can pave the path for an Anti-Aids drugs. The entries impressed the University researchers so much that they included selected players as co-authors a study titled “Crystal structure of a monomeric retroviral protease solved by protein folding game players” that featured in the journal “Nature”.


In the recent past, crowdsourcing has become one of the major ways for idea generation. The process is simple, where a company or an institution keeps an agenda open to the public and encourages them to contribute their thoughts and viewpoints. The reason behind this is that most companies have realized that successful ideas are not just restricted to the intelligentsia. It can be sourced from anywhere and everywhere.


Today most companies encourage us to be conscious individuals and take proactive measures to save the planet of unnecessary waste. ScrapLab, Thailand did something unique in this regard with the help of an open innovation contest. The ScrapLab Design Contest announced in 2011 was a call for sustainable and innovative designs that are made from scrap. The primary objective was recycling waste and create fresh products such as artwork and furnitures. The competition was open to all amateur as well as professional designers. When all the responses were accumulated, the company not only achieved its objective but could also educate people about the value of “waste materials”.


Thus we see that the process of idea management is evolving gradually. It no more is an “enterprise centric” procedure. Rather, it is about thinking big and extraordinary about the world, understand its issues and look for ways to creatively solve them.  With the success stories going on one can say that effective idea management is soon going to become a way of  corporate life.


Know more on: idea management software , Idea capture

IT Compliance Solutions for The Global Business Environment

Though technology has made astounding differences in the ways businesses interact instantly and has changed the rules of the business game for the big as well as small players, it has created a vast crater through which critical business information and sensitive personal information, disappear much to the discomfiture of organizations, in the form of organized or unintentional data breaches and exposures. While social networking today has become a platform for marketing and reaching out to end users, they leave behind a potential for exploits.

McAfee's Unsecured Economies Report showcases an annual loss of more than $1 trillion in intellectual property for the business houses due to data thefts of trade secrets and cyber crimes. Further reports from Clearinghouse records the exposure of more than 158 million U.S residents’ privacy information due to security breaches in a period less than 7 years. Organizations don’t monitor security due to the lack of automated solutions, poor risk management methodologies and inadequate solutions. To overcome such threats the need is to have a unified security monitoring solution.

Today a number of automated and on-demand integrated IT security and compliance management solutions facilitate organizations to ensure end-to-end integration with IT compliance and risk management. Technology innovations today enable a cloud based delivery model that can be deployed on premises or as Software-as-a-service model.

The IT compliance solutions having been built on a framework approach for various mandates of compliance, such as PCI DSS, ISO, HIPAA, HITECH, FISMA, SOX, COBiT, or any other country specific compliance requirements. Such solutions provide for automation of security and threat monitoring, regulatory or standards compliance, audit, and risk management needs of the organization. Armed with an integrated and comprehensive dashboards, the solution provides the required support for secure IT operations and compliance management. The flexibility of such solutions facilitate easy adoption to any new governance requirements. Besides lowering the cost of ownership, it helps organizations map policies and processes as per technical controls, evaluates IT risks and combat cyber threats.

Read more on - vendor management, HIPAA and HITECH