May 2015

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 27 may 2015

Staying close to the customer and fulfil his needs and wants has been the mantra of successful brands and businesses. Technology has brought the customer even closer and given brands the opportunity to better understand and analyze the customer behavior and focus strategies to satisfy him/her. Considering the highly competitive and fast paced world of fashion and luxury, established luxury brands need to think like disrupters by putting customers at the center of their strategies. Disrupters focus on 'jobs to be done' in the present. Clayton Christensen's disrupter framework focuses on consumers' social, emotional or functional problem, and turns business into its solution. This framework makes innovation independent of the latest technology or the hottest new gadget and firmly relies on human behavior. Thinking about customers and their behavior patterns provide brands insights into the future. Understanding the next generation of customers and removing friction from their brand experience with a well thought out solution will hold the key for the brand's survival. Following are four ways established luxury brands can succeed by staying close to the customer - (1) Create a seamless path from inspiration to purchase. (2) Make your brand narrative attainable, intuitive and immersive. (3) Evoke in your customers the feeling of belonging and being special. (4) Serve and reward. Read on...

AdAge: Luxury Brands Must Innovate or Die in the Digital Age
Author: Ana Andjelic

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 26 may 2015

As businesses continue to pile-up huge amount of data there are opportunities for data scientists to provide meaningful insights to help them grow and succeed. Even startups at their early stages have substantial data that can be utilized for business value. Tianhui Michael Li, Data Scientist and Executive Director of The Data Incubator, gives his view on how a skilled data scientist (DS) can be a catalyst of growth for entrepreneurial ventures - (1) Growth Hacking: DS can utilize social data and web analytics to implement low-cost, high impact marketing campaigns. (2) Customer Retention: Bain & Co. found that 5% increase in customer retention increases profits by 125%. DS can analyze customer behavior and target communication for customer engagement, retention and even identify brand advocates to bring new customers. (3) Personalizing Products and Services: DS can utilize sales, marketing and web data to identify customer needs and wants. This will assist in customizing offerings. (4) Marketing Optimization: DS can optimize every aspect of marketing and advertising from ad budget to ad clicks to actual conversions and purchases, and much more. Read on...

Entrepreneur: 4 Things a Data Scientist Can Do for Entrepreneurs
Author: Tianhui Michael Li

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 25 may 2015

The value of big data lies in extracting insights and its meaningful use in solving business problems. In recent times organizations have made big investments in technologies associated with it to store, analyze, report and visualize data. Stuart Frankel, CEO and co-founder of Narrative Science, provide his perspective on why these investments haven't got expected returns, limitations of human-powered data science as it is not a scalable solution, unaffordable data scientists and, opportunities and prospects of scalable automated solutions to analyze and interpret data, and obtain hidden insights for business value. According to him, 'Artificial intelligence (AI) is beginning to transform data and analysis into relevant plain English communication. AI is shortening employees' data comprehension-to-action time through comprehensive, intuitive narratives.' Following are some examples which he shares regarding use of AI in data analysis - Some mutual funds are using advanced natural language generation (Advanced NLG) platforms, powered by AI, to automatically write fund performance reports in mere seconds; In medical billing, AI scours thousands of billing records across hundreds of hospitals and generates narrative reports that immediately provide the desired analysis; AI solutions are improving customer experience. AI is the first technology to make personalized, "audience of one" communication a reality; Wealth management is beginning to use "Robo-advisors", the automated financial advisor that can offer a low-cost alternative to expensive, human advisor. Moreover AI is being embedded into existing advisory platforms, delivering personalized portfolio reviews and recommendations in natural language to customers. He further explains, 'The commonality across all of these new technologies is that they offer something additional humans cannot provide: the power of scale...In the near-term, the adoption of AI within business intelligence platforms and customer-facing applications will accelerate...The key to all of this is the intersection of AI and advanced natural language generation. We're at the beginning of the next phase of big data, a phase that will have very little to do with data capture and storage and everything to do with making data more useful, more understandable and more impactful.' Read on...

Harvard Business Review: Data Scientists Don't Scale
Author: Stuart Frankel

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 14 may 2015

Pervasion of technology in every aspect of society is leading to ease of access and instant availability of products and services to customers. There are multiple vendors vying for consumer's attention. This highly competitive environment makes the marketers job more relevant and challenging. They need to equip themselves with the right skills, tools and strategies to reach out effectively to their target audience. Christian Eriksen, Regional Director of Marketing and Solutions at SimCorp Asia, provide four tips to marketing professionals for efficiency, effective communication, partnerships and growth - (1) Buyer Personas: Know who you are selling to. (2) Buyer's Journey: Know where your buyers are at in the buying process. (3) Invest in Technology: Automation in marketing is key. (4) Partner with the Right People: Those who understand your brand and market. Read on...

CMO Innovation: Four tips for marketing professionals
Author: Christian Eriksen

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