What Drives Digital Transformation: Technology or Strategy?

There has been some debate as to the importance of technology in driving corporate strategy. Cutting edge technology is reducing business life cycles yet without strong leadership it is not possible to integrate this technology to actually implementation at work. While loads of digital players exist, leadership will formulate the vision by which the organization will stand out in the crowd. Employees of the firm must be encouraged to look towards technological solutions as a group effort. This will also enable the breaking up of silos at the leadership level. 

Innovation Requires Experimentation

It is well known fact that in order to gauge business innovation, experiments have to be made. Experimentation enables cause and effect to be understood. Through trial and error, final conclusion emerges. It also enables divergent thought processes to be coordinated together. Some such experiments could be like living abroad for a while, working in other industries or learning some new skill. One must take apart products, ideas and processes and reengineer them to learn from scratch. Also ideas must be tested using pilot projects and prototypes. Blunders may occasionally arise due to the experimentation but this is part of the learning process towards the final organizational good.

Return on Investment for Tourism Advertising Announced

As per market research conducted by DPA, it is now understood that per dollar spent on tourism promotion and advertising in the state of Mississippi, nearly thirteen US dollars are generated. Overall more than twenty million tourists visited the state last year in turn generating revenue worth more than six billion dollars. At present there exist around eighty five thousand people in the state with tourism jobs. Over a ten year period since 2004, each parameter has experienced growth.

What does an emotional connection with your Customers look Like?

Digital marketing has a lot to do with connecting with the emotions of the target audience. Thus it becomes imperative to form strong bonds with emotional customers. As per business research conducted by CEB, there exist three kinds of emotional customers. Type 1 are those who are regular buyers of the brand irrespective of the price tag. Type 2 are those who need not be buyers, yet remain associated the brand by either joining loyalty programmes or participating in customer surveys. Finally type 3 are those who not only purchase the brand’s products but are also vocal about it and influence the buying behaviours of their friends and relatives.

6 Misconceptions that will drag down your CRM Strategy

A business consulting publication has provided us with certain misconceptions we take for granted which will be harmful for the CRM strategy of the firm. It is often thought that all data must be cleansed, yet that is not necessary as one never knows when which piece of information will come prove handy. More volume of data may not always be desirable. CRM data can be useful for all departments and verticals and not for any one particular. Also CRM is not important only for sales but for other tasks as well such as content creation. While businesses indeed are stuck with legacy systems, they can be modified depending on the immediate requirement. Often firms provide incomplete information believing that whatever is available must be shared. However, disseminating any piece of information without grip of the context can have disastrous implications. 

Tourism Industry Mobile Apps help Visitors make the most of their Travel

Mobile apps specifically catering to the tourism industry have been developed and are helping tourists a lot. As per market research conducted, it was realized that around 95% of travel related information searched on the mobile phones was via apps. Also three-fifths of smart phone users have downloaded travel related apps. Thus apps have been specifically designed to help tourists with room bookings, planning of itineraries, search for best food options, event notifications, area wise maps, language translation support and instant feedback. This has enabled en number of problems to be solved and enhance the travel experience.

HR Department workloads set to soar: CEOs

Business consulting giant KPMG has come up with a latest report which states that HR departments’ workloads will rise significantly in the coming times. This is per the views of 85% of the 1,200 CEOs polled. The base of this business research was in Australia where recruitments are also set to rise significantly for the next three years. The positive aspect of this survey was that three-fourths of these CEOs are confident about the global economy though only about half of them have similar positive outlook towards their own organizations.  

Key Trends affecting Global Workforce and Work Culture Identified

Management consulting provided by the Economist Business Unit (EBU) has provided us a set of trends dominating workforce globally. Due to greater integration of world markets, risks have similarly soared across the markets. This risk is partly getting mitigated by CSR programmes which at the same time manage to boost the profit margins. OECD member countries such as UK, USA, UAE and Germany are attracting top talent from emerging markets who themselves are moving for better economic opportunities. Companies are struggling hard but still finding ways of balancing societal needs with respective organizational cultures. Cultural diversity is increasing and this is beneficial for firms as local knowledge is increasing in every market.

Changing Change Management

The way corporate training programmes have traditionally been conducted to usher in change, are not working anymore. It has been found out through business analysis that over 70% of such change management programmes fail primarily due to reluctance on the part of employees. These same programmes on the other hand, succeed 30% more when employees themselves are interested in the same. Thus it is important to create a sense of empathy and shared purpose among the trainees. Also just in time feedback must be implemented for these trainings. The programme must be personalized looking into various staff segments. Also hierarchy prevalent must not dominate during such programmes as that inhibits effective employee engagement. Most crucially, the employee must be able to see tangible change and progress during the sessions itself.

Business Mobility the new window to Innovation

In order to succeed at business innovation, mobility at workplace is a known success mantra. A Forrester anchored business research recently showed that employees feel sense of motivation when their role at work diversifies away from routine tasks only. The struggle to manage the number of online applications must not be seen as obstacle but instead as opportunity. Also the world is progressing towards future inclined towards mobile and cloud based technologies. This will allow far greater mobility for employees at workplace.