#tips Archives - anteelo

SEO Basics: A Beginner’s Guide to SEO Success

Posted on 06/11/202113/11/2021 by Tushar

The better your site ranks in search engine results, the more visitors you will get to your website. However, to achieve those higher rankings, youâ€™ll need to do some Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). For many business owners, this can be a technical challenge. SEO is a big subject and one which is in constant flux due to the regular changes search engines make to their ranking criteria. It is impossible, therefore, to provide a comprehensive guide in a single article. Instead, this post will provide some simple, common sense tips to prepare you for your SEO journey.

1. All three types of SEO are required

There are three main types of SEO and to effectively optimise your website, youâ€™ll need to work on all three. These are:

On-page optimisation â€“ this is essentially putting the right keywords in the right places on your pages and providing high quality content for your visitors.
On-site optimisation â€“ a more technical form of SEO which requires things such as fast loading times, mobile-friendly pages, a well-structured site, easy navigation, good use of internal links and search engine-friendly URLs.
Off-site optimisation â€“ improving the authority of your website and its pages by getting your content linked to on other high-ranking websites.

2. Learn from your competitors

The ultimate aim of any SEO strategy is to come top of the first page of the search engine results. According to Smart Insights, the top ranking site gets 35% of all clickthroughs. Between them, the top five sites get 65%. Those in the positions between 6 and 21 share out most of the 35% which is left, while any website that ranks lower than that is unlikely to receive any clickthroughs at all.

If you want to be at the top of the list, then analysing the websites that achieve those positions is a good way to start. This doesnâ€™t just mean looking at the website, it means using competitive analyses tools that go much deeper and can show you the number of backlinks a site has, how fast its pages load, where its traffic comes from, what search terms it ranks well for, etc. With high-quality information like this, it can be much easier to implement the strategies that have worked well for your more successful competitors.

3. Patience and perseverance

Patience and perseverance are two essential requirements for those doing SEO. Patience is important because the things you implement can take some time to have an effect on your rankings. It can be weeks or months before you see the benefits. So, if you change some keywords and donâ€™t see any improvements after 48 hours, it isnâ€™t a sign that they have not worked and need to be changed yet again, itâ€™s the fact that they havenâ€™t been left long enough to have an impact.

Perseverance is equally important because SEO is an ongoing process. Search engines are always tweaking their ranking criteria and not responding to those changes can result in your website losing its hard-won position. At the same time, the search engines prefer to give their users the most up-to-date information, if your web content is old or out of date, it will eventually slide down the results page. Youâ€™ll need to regularly update your pages or add fresh content.

4. Play by the rules

Search engines make it very clear about the expectations they have of website owners, as can be seen in Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Here youâ€™ll find a list of things they expect a good website to do and a list of things they prohibit. The main aim of these guidelines is to ensure that users get the best experience from the search engine, for example, Google will not want to send its users to your site if thereâ€™s a chance their devices will get infected by a virus.

Another key element of the Webmaster Guidelines is the stipulation that website owners must â€˜avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings.â€™ Failure to do so can result in your site receiving a penalty or manual action from Google. If these things happen, your site will disappear from Google results completely. With a manual action, you may be able to submit your site for reconsideration after you have made the necessary changes.

5. Team up with the right partners

The complexity of SEO often means that website owners will outsource it to a third-party agency that has the tools and resources to undertake the on-site and competitor analyses and implement the necessary changes. When you do so, you need to choose a partner you can trust not to use unscrupulous black-hat SEO methods that can result in search engine penalisation. In particular, make sure that anyone offering content outreach (writing content containing a link to your website to publish on other sites) only publishes on relevant, quality sites. Creating lots of backlinks on poor ranking sites can have a long-term, negative ranking effect and lead to a penalty.

Another partner you will need to consider is your hosting provider. From an SEO perspective, you should identify a web host that can has the resources to help your site load more quickly on your visitors devices and which offers the security tools (firewalls, intrusion prevention/detection, SSL certificates, etc.) to keep visitors safe â€“ these are both things that can help you rank higher.

Conclusion

Undertaking SEO is essential if you want your site to rank highly but there’s a learning curve to go through and so you cannot expect to achieve everything overnight. Indeed, the process is an ongoing one and will require regular monitoring and input. Hopefully, the information provided here will have given you the preparatory guidance you need before starting your SEO journey.

HBase vs Cassandra: A Comparative Look

Posted on 12/05/202102/06/2021 by Anteelo Master

Selecting the best database management system is the key to ensure effective, streamlined app development process and a successful end outcome. However, choosing an ideal system for a project is not very easy for there are always a number of details to be considered at every turn. Especially when it impacts the performance of your project and the development process.

In this article, we will be taking an in-depth look into two such popular systems and look into how they stack up against each other: HBase vs Cassandra.

We will be exploring the essentials, architecture, performance, amongst other things.

What is HBase?
What is Apache Cassandra?
The Similarities Between HBase and Cassandra
HBase vs Cassandra: The Differentiating Factors
When to Use Which Database

Let us start with the overviews first.

What is HBase?

HBase is a distributed, scalable, column-based database with dynamic diagram for structured data. It enables efficient and reliable management of large data sets which are distributed among multiple servers.

HBase Architecture & Structure

It is a one of a kind database which works on multiple physical servers simultaneously, which ensures a smooth operation even though the servers are not operating together. HBase data model uses two primary processes for ensuring ongoing operations:

A. Region Server – It can support various regions. The region here stands for record array that corresponds to a specific range of consecutive RowKey. Every RowKey contains these elements –

Persistent Storage – It is a permanent storage data location in HBase. The files are used in the HDFS storage in HFile format. The RowKey sorts this data type and divides them in pairs, where each pair aligns with one HFile.
MemStore – It is a write buffer in which anything written to the HBase gets stored. When the MemStore reaches a specific size, the data gets written in a new HFile.
BlockCache – It is a read cache which enables you to save time on the data which is frequently read.
WAL – When the data is written into memstore, there is always a risk of losing it. WAL (Write Ahead Log) saves all the operations prior to its implementation. This way, the data can be recovered if something happens.

B. Master Server – It is the primary server of Apahe HBase. It manages regions distribution across Region Server, monitors regions, manages running of the ongoing tasks and performs a series of other necessary tasks.

To coordinate the action between services, it uses Apache ZooKeeper – a service for configuration and service sync management.

What is Apache Cassandra?

Cassandra belongs to the NoSQL-system class and is designed for creating reliable, scalable repositories of data arrays which are represented as hash. It works with key space, which aligns with the concept of database scheme in relational model. There can also be multiple column families that relate to the concept of relational table.

Apache Cassandra Architecture

The idea behind the Cassandra architecture is to have a P2P distributed system which is made of nodes cluster in which a node can accept the read or write requests. Every node in the cluster communicates the state information about itself and the other nodes through P2P gossip communication protocol. This together forms the basis of Cassandra data modeling and analysis.

At the center of the Apache Cassandra data model lies a Log Structured Merge storage engine. It comes with key elements like:

Memtable
Commit log
SSTables
Compaction

The overview of both HBase database management system and Cassandra must have given you an idea of how similar the features of HBase and cassandra can be.

The Similarities Between HBase and Cassandra

1. Database

Both HBase and Cassandra are NoSQL open-source databases (like Aerospike database). Both of them can handle large data sets and non-relational data, which includes images, audio, videos, etc.

2. Scalability

Both HBase and Cassandra have a high linear scalability feature. Under the feature, users who want to handle more data only need to increase the nodes number in cluster. This makes them both equally good choices for handling huge data.

3. Replication

In case of both HBase and Cassandra, there is a safeguard which prevents the loss of data even after it fails. This is done through the mode of replication. The data which is written on one node gets replicated on multiple nodes in a cluster. Because of this, if a node fails, a redundant node is always present for accessing data.

4. Coding

Both the databases are column-oriented which implement similar write paths. Columns are mainly the center storage unit in a database. Users can add columns according to their requirements. Additionally, the right path starts with logging a write operation to log file. It is basically done for ensuring durability.

Now that we have looked into what makes them similar, let us shift our attention to the difference between HBase and Cassandra.

HBase vs Cassandra: The Differentiating Factors

1. Data Models

While the terms of both the databases are more or less, there are some fundamental difference between HBase and Cassandra.

The column in Cassandra is like HBase’s cell. Its column family is also more like HBase table. On the other hand, HBase column qualifier is a lot like Cassandra’s super column.

One of the Cassandra key characteristics is that it only allows for a primary key to have multiple columns and HBase only comes with 1 column row keys and puts the responsibility of the row key design on the developers. Also, Cassandra’s primary key contains partition key and the clustering columns in which the partition key might contain different columns.

2. Architecture

HBase has a master-based architecture while Cassandra has a masterless one. It means that HBase comes with a single failure point, while Cassandra does not. The HBase client communicates directly with slave-server without contacting master, this gives a working time once the master is down.

Moreover, in the Cassandra and HBase comparison, the former supports both data storage and management, while in case of the latter, the architecture is only designed for data management while it relies on other systems/technologies for storage, server status management, and metadata.

3. Performance – Read & Write Capability

When the comparison is drawn between Apache Cassandra performance and Apache HBase performance, it is done on the front of read and write capability.

Write: Both HBase and Cassandra’s on-server write paths are fairly alike. There are some differences though which makes Cassandra better, like the difference in names for the data structure and the fact that HBase does not write to log and then cache simultaneously.

Read: If you are looking for consistent and fast reads, you should go with HBase. Since it writes on only one server, there is never the need of comparison between the various nodes’ data versions.

Even though Cassandra can handle over 129,000 reads in one second, the reads are targeted and there are high probability of them being inconsistent.

4. Security

Both HBase and Cassandra offer not only database-wide access control but also granualty of a certain level. Cassandra allows row-level access while HBase goes a step ahead and offers cell-level access. Cassandra sets the users roles and their condition, while HBase comes with an inverse move in which the administrators assign visibility label to the data sets and then informs user groups which labels they can view.

5. Infrastructure

HBase makes use of the Hadoop infrastructure which consists of moving parts such as HBase master, Zookeeper, Name and Data nodes.

Cassandra comes with several different operations and infrastructure. It also uses different DBMS in addition to the infrastructure. A number of Cassandra apps also use Storm or Hadoop. Additionally, its infrastructure is based on a single node type structure.

6. Support

The support specific Cassandra and HBase comparison looks like this – HBase doesn’t support the ordered partitioning, while Cassandra does. Ordered partitioning leads to making the row size in Cassandra to 10s of megabytes.

7. Nodes

In the case of Cassandra, the users have to identify nodes as seed nodes. These serve as the points for inter-cluster communications. In the case of HBase there are several master nodes. They monitor and coordinate actions of region servers.

8. Internode Communication

Both HBase and Cassandra have internode communication. While Cassandra uses the Gossip Protocol, HBase uses Zookeeper Protocol where a single node acts as boss through with the other nodes gets the necessary data.

9. Transactions

When it comes to HBase vs Cassandra comparison in terms of transactions, Cassandra comes with the feature of lightweight transactions. The mechanisms used here are Row-Level Write Isolation and Compare and Set. While, on the other hand, HBase works with two different mechanisms known as Check and Put and Read Check Delete.

10. Documentation

Cassandra’s documentation is a lot better than HBase’s documentation. Because of this, working on and learning Cassandra also becomes easier.

11. Query Language

Both HBase and Cassandra shell are based on the JRuby shell. Cassandra query language, is very specific. It is CQL (which is modeled in the line of SQL). Compared to HBase query language, the functions and features of CQL are far more rich.

The differences between HBase and Cassandra shows that there is no concrete answer to which database is better of the two. It all boils down to when to use which.

When to Use Which Database

The Cassandra and HBase use cases can be differentiated on the grounds of application type they are used in and the outcome expectation that an app development company has.

Use HBase if you need consistency in the large scale reads and if you work with a lot of batch processing and MapReduce for it has a direct relation with the HDFS.

HBase’s use cases consist of online log analytics, write-heavy applications, and apps that need a large volume, such as Facebook posts, Tweets, etc. Additionally, there is a large set of use cases related to Cassandra Hadoop integration.

Use Cassandra if high availability of large scale reads are needed. Also, since it requires a very minimum setup with less administration overhead it is a lot easier to get the process started in. It also offers greater flexibility in CAP theorem tradeoffs.

Some examples of what is Cassandra used for can be seen in the development of messaging systems, e-commerce websites, and real-time sensor data.

In short, use HBase data model and implementations when you have to analyze for big data or have to perform aggregations. Use Cassandra if you have to emphasize on interactive data and real-time transaction processing.

Designing the Right Forms

Posted on 21/04/202117/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

When I think about forms, I remember the ones that gave me shudders more than the ones that were a cakewalk. And one major difference between the two which I can recall is that the easy ones talked to me in a human language, while the difficult ones looked like I was filling out a form for buying land on Mars.

*sigh*

What’s even more distressing is that these forms still continue to haunt us, even in the digital world. Wasn’t life supposed to become easier in the digital age?

So what can be done to save the world from bad forms?

Design with Empathy.

Usability experts and UX researchers have figured out common mistakes that designers make while designing forms. So, the ball is in our court now. It’s upon us, the creators of forms, to make sure that no form should deteriorate the experience of users.

Before I begin, I want you to go to your design repository and pick up all the forms that you have designed till today. Look at them and answer the below questions for me-

Are there any questions that sound confusing to you as you read them now?
Are you asking for too much irrelevant information from the user?
Have you given enough choices to the users in your multiple-choice questions? Is there a field where they can write their response if none of the options match their answer?
Did you give instructions to the user to help him/her understand the form & its purpose?
Did you add a disclaimer in the form about how you are going to use/not use this information for other purposes?
Did you ask for personal information? Like blood group, marital status- which was, somewhat, not needed for your perusal?

With this exercise, I want you to put yourself in your users’ shoes and answer this- how would you feel if someone asked you to fill this form? Bored, panicky, irritated, satisfied, happy?

Whatever your response is, it will help you figure out your mistake and design better web forms. But first, let’s see what are the common problems that we see in present-day forms-

They lack human conversation

Most web forms lack empathy while conversing with users. They present questions with are confusing, long or just burdensome. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Forms, like any other means of communication, should flow with ease. They should be clear, concise, sometimes clever, and at all times cooperative.

They ask for too much-unrelated information

We all love data but hate filling forms because they ask too many questions. People dread filling forms that ask for too much personal information.

Think of it this way- you meet a stranger while you are on a holiday. You indulge in some small talk but after that, the stranger picks on you and starts asking personal questions- like marital status, hobbies and your source of income. Does it freak you out? Of course!

Web forms are quite similar to that weird stranger.

They lack coherence and character

Nick Babich says-

“A form is a type of conversation. And like any conversation, it should consist of logical communication between two parties: the user and the app.”

Users who land on your form are here to start that conversation. But, when small things like input fields, alignment, spacing, text color, labels are inconsistent and look visually cluttered, it puts them off. It creates confusion and they either skip it or fill incorrect information.

And the list is probably endless. The only conclusion that we can draw from here is that bad forms are omnipresent- a form for registration, another one for a newsletter, a bigger and more complex one for the checkout process.

So, now the mental model is such that when the users come across three to four bad forms while interacting with the website, they assume that it’s going to be a waste of time and effort. They don’t even like the idea of ‘filling a form’. This is the major roadblock to designing forms– how to design a form so that people want to fill it?

We might help you with some suggestions. Here are 7 ways in which you can design better forms by keeping our end users in mind-

Know your users

Most forms on the web are “for anyone, for everyone”. Blame it on our mindset that just wants to collect more and more data, just for the heck of it. More signups=more users. But does more users equals loyal users? Certainly not!

In that mindless race to collect more user information, we often spoil the experience for the real users- the ones whose aspirations we want to meet. So, it’s important to know who is your targeted audience, why they visit your website and what do they want to achieve with the form? Do they want to purchase a product? Or, do they want to receive promotional offers in email?

Avoid collecting unnecessary data

When you ask for users’ personal information, it raises a red flag in their mind and they immediately start weighing if they should leave or continue. For instance, if you’re filling a form for becoming a blood donor with Red Cross and they ask for your email id, wouldn’t you wonder why they need your email id and not your phone number?

Now, as a blood donor, I would want to be notified on my phone, not my email id. And if a form asks me for my email id I would think- will they send me regular emails? Damn! My inbox is already full of spam emails. Should I proceed or skip?

So, carefully devise the questions that you want your users’ to answer. And if there’s a reason behind collecting specific personal information, mention it explicitly in your form.

Explain why you are collecting personal information

Information such as date of birth, address, physical characteristics (e.g. body weight, birthmark), marital status, sexual preference, religion, income, socioeconomic status, cultural background, and educational background are all considered to be sensitive personal information.

So, be aware of what information you’re asking users to fill in the form. Chances are, most users will drop out of the form if you ask them for too much personal information.

Ask questions that are easy to understand

Every user on the web is different. They belong to all age groups and they have their own reasons to browse the web. Some are experts, some are naive. Therefore, it’s important that your form doesn’t feel intimidating to any of them.

If you use abbreviations or terms that are regional or are understandable only to a certain age group, it will confuse people. They will either skip that part or answer whatever they feel is right.

Write labels that help users in answering

Labels are the text which identifies text fields, checkboxes, drop-down menus, and every other information field in a form. They instruct and inform the user about the information that they need to fill in. So, through them, you can communicate the action you want the users to take.

Therefore, make sure that labels are written in a language that helps even the first-time users in answering the questions easily. However, don’t write too long sentences. Labels should be crisp and short. As an example see Amazon’s previous sign-in page as compared to the current one with shorter, better labels.

Group related things together

Grouping related information in logical blocks helps users understand the flow of questions. When you group similar information, users are more likely to grasp things in a better way.

Consider the example below- in the first one, every field is thrown into the user’s screen and it feels a bit overwhelming. The first thought that will come to your mind is- “Am I supposed to fill this entire thing?”

However, when you group things together with proper labels, users understand what part of the information they are filling in personal, account-related, contact information.

Help them when they make errors

When users don’t have a clear understanding of what they need to do with a particular input field, they are more likely to make errors. So, it’s important that you don’t scare them with a red mark. Instead, guide them to success. Make them aware of the correct way with a helpful message.

For example- Facebook helps its users marvelously when they enter a wrong password. if the password that they have entered is incorrect, the interface reminds them that they had changed it a while back.

There are many more ways to simplify the form design. However, there aren’t any fixed steps to follow which will always lead to creating better user experiences. The only thing that you need to keep in mind is- keep it short. And simple. Users love it when they are left to do more without putting much ‘thinking’ into the process. So, respect their time and they’ll respect your designs.

Improving meeting by integrating them & Collaboration Technology

Posted on 16/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Are your meetings like the weather? You know, everyone complains about them, but no one seems to be able to do anything about it. We’ve all endured long, boring meetings that feel endless. And we’ve all struggled through an exhausting, frantic week overfilled with back-to-back meetings. The higher your job title, the more time you likely spend in meetings. Some CEOs, for example, do little else.

Even worse, many meetings fail to achieve their goals. Nearly half the respondents to a recent survey of office workers called too many meetings their No. 1 time-waster. In another survey, respondents rated about 1 in 10 meetings as poor.

Despite these challenges, your organization can dramatically improve its meetings. The key, which I’ll explain in more detail below, is using collaboration products and services that are integrated. Rather than working individually, these integrated products and services can provide you with a true meeting solution that’s seamless from beginning to end.

Wrong-way down

If the solution is that simple, then why have past attempts to improve meetings failed so miserably? Two main reasons:

1. Process focus

Many past approaches at improving meetings focused too heavily on avoiding certain behaviors. For example, some business leaders forbade the use of PowerPoint. Others ruled that no meetings could run longer than 30 minutes. Still others — including celebrity execs Mark Cuban and Elon Musk — went as far as instituting policies of no meetings at all!

But few of us have the level of autonomy needed to completely forbid the use of PowerPoint or hour-long meetings. Even if we did, PowerPoint can be useful, and long meetings are sometimes necessary. As a result, these process approaches rarely work.

2. Standalone tech

Until recently, the marketplace was overwhelmed with far too many collaboration products. Most of these products were designed for standalone use, meaning they could not be easily integrated with other products. While some level of product integration was possible, that work had to be done by the user. Unfortunately, many users already had IT budgets and staff stretched thin, so they tended to put this integration work on the back burner, often permanently.

The integration solution

What’s new is the emergence of collaboration solutions that are truly integrated. Now you can deliver a seamless process from the minute a meeting is booked all the way to its post-meeting notes. Integration also means that all meeting participants can benefit from this seamless experience, regardless of their location and which devices (and operating systems) they use.

Here’s an example of how your meetings could be enhanced with an integrated solution:

Before the meeting: The meeting organizer tells their AI-powered voice assistant to review the participants’ smart calendars, select a date and time that works for all, review the meeting-room calendar to find an available room at a convenient location, and finally email invitations to all intended participants. Each participant can join via a common interface — and on any device from any location.
During the meeting: Meetings can be started automatically, either by recognizing the chairperson’s device or with a voice assistant. Remote workers participate via integrated video and chat solutions. The entire team collaborates using a smart whiteboard and document-sharing capabilities.
After the meeting: Videos, text-based notes, PowerPoint decks and other meeting materials are automatically shared with all participants, regardless of whether they use a PC, tablet or smartphone – and regardless of which operating system (Windows, iOS, Android, etc.) these devices run on.

In the near future, meetings could become even more productive with the help selected technologies now in the early stages of development. For example, AI transcribing services will provide written transcripts, accurately capturing and identifying the spoken contributions of all participants. Similarly, auto-summarization tools will automatically generate a short set of text notes after a meeting ends, informing participants of the project’s status, new tasks and more.

Get help here

While selecting an integrated meeting solution is easier than it’s ever been, that’s not to say it’s simple. Today’s solutions are not one-size-fits-all. You still need to consider your organization’s unique needs and requirements. Only then will you be able to select the best possible solution. A trusted partner like Anteelo can help you evaluate integrated meeting solutions and find the one that’s right for your needs.

Business changing powerful entities: AI and IoT

Posted on 10/07/202008/06/2021 by Anteelo Master

Before autonomous drones and machine learning came into foray, James Cameron enthralled the world with his dream project The Terminator in 1984 where he introduced ‘Skynet’, a futuristic artificial superintelligence network that wants to replace humans with machines. Much has been debated about the film franchise ever since as scientists passed it off as a fan service action series, yet the seed of technological brilliance was sown. Whether Artificial Intelligence will take over the world or not, it certainly has given businesses a means of revolution and to readers/debaters like us, food for thought.

Another important piece of disruptive technology that is equally changing lives is IoT which expands to the Internet of Things. Like AI, the IoT has come of age. Its utilities include not just making smart homes but also wearable devices, smart vehicles and smart cities. The role of Artificial Intelligence and IoT in business is currently at its epitome.

AI and IoT are redefining the way businesses used to perform. On one hand, AI with its powerful subset of machine learning, has paved the way for smarter task execution with real-time analysis and greater interaction between humans and machines; IoT, on the other, has upped the scale of communication between devices and humans via effective intelligent technology. The confluence of the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence makes each other’s applications more varied and powerful.

The merger: How AI and IoT joined forces

IoT accumulates large amounts of data through device connectivity via the internet and AI, especially through its powerful mechanism, Machine Learning helps in assimilating and evaluating this data. Machine learning in IoT devices helps to identify patterns and detect any faults in data collection through extremely advanced sensors. Intrinsic things such as stimulation to air, temperature, humidity, pollution, sound, vibrations, lights, etc. are derived with this technology over a period of time. Unlike traditional technology, IoT and machine learning make operational forecasts 20x faster with heightened accuracy. This is the reason why businesses that use AI technology sees a growth in their revenue numbers – a validation of which can be seen in the graph below

Revenues generated by businesses using AI from 2018 to 2025 (estimated)

AI’s role in IoT’s revolution has helped in a massive revenue boost which also means in the sale of more connected devices.

Below is a graph that shows how many IoT-powered devices were there in 2025 and the estimated curve predicts a huge nerve till 2025.

The demand for IoT is certainly going uphill. IoT, along with AI, are currently on demand by every business, whether it’s a Fortune 500 or a startup. Since there is no limit to either’s abilities, companies wish to use them to their full potential and unbridle their potentiality to the world. The following image draws a comparison among different technologies and shows which ones are the most trending.

As IoT keeps collecting data, AI takes the onus of converting it into meaningful and creative actions. Data exchange happens through sensors and in the process, a few of the following things happen:

Data insights are more accurately obtained, monitored and evaluated
The entire process becomes faster and more efficient
Surveillance against cyber-attacks is more defined and stronger

Advantages of AI and IoT in business

Together AI and IoT are unstoppable forces of technology. There are a lot of advantages which the two provide. The following elaborates the same:

Data collection, sharing and formulating user perceptions

Data collection is extremely vital for a business’ growth and development. A business with an IoT strategy knows how technology can transform data compulsion by offering greater access to consumer information. AI makes it easier to handle that information. IoT devices have this unique mechanism to track, record and observe patterns in a user and his/her interaction with the device(s). Businesses use the acquired data to devise better means to enhance consumer experiences.

Elimination of downtime

Oil and gas manufacturing organizations use heavy machinery which can suffer unseen/unplanned breakdowns. This causes downtime that can incur huge losses. Having an AI-enabled IoT platform makes it possible for predictive maintenance. It helps in anticipating machinery failures and breakdowns in advance by utilizing the analytics so that you can plan a course of action beforehand and not let your operations get affected. A study by Deloitte led to the following conclusions-

20-50% reduction in time taken for maintenance planning
5-10% cutback in maintenance costs
10-20% increment in equipment availability and uptime

Strengthening security measures

With the current rise in data breaches and theft of confidential information, security and safety are the most concerning factors for a business. IoT powered by AI provides militant support to your private information and doesn’t allow third parties to intrude. Machine-to-machine communication is being facilitated by various organizations to detect incoming threats and give out automated responses to hackers. A common example could be in the banking sector where illicit activities in ATMs are picked up by IoT sensors and conveyed immediately to law enforcement bodies.

Automated operational efficiency

IoT deployment streamlines your business and helps in making accurate predictions, all of which are extremely crucial for improving the efficiency of the business. Placing your money on the Internet of Things investment is very necessary in today’s time as the technology also helps in giving you insights into redundant activities and the ones which are consuming a lot of time. A good example will be Google’s reduction in expenditure in cooling their data centres which they could do with AI and IoT. Like Google, you too can find out which of your operational activities need some fine-tuning so that efficiency is not neglected.

Helps in processing business analysis

There needs to be a fine balance between demand and supply. AI helps in improving inventory management and letting go of the pressure on the stock as it will help you to know in advance when you need to restock. This provides an important aid to retailers as they at times hoard too many products to find out later on that all of them cannot be sold. This proves how accurate it is than manual methods. There are IoT applications which help them in gathering the data and analytics for the maintenance of stock.

Better at Risk Management

Earlier we mentioned how AI and IoT help in maintaining cybersecurity. When it comes to risk management, which includes handling financial loss, personnel safety and cyber threats, the pair effortlessly deal with situations and give out prompt responses so that such situations do not arise. For example, Fujitsu, a Japanese IT equipment and service provider makes certain worker safety is maintained through data collected from wearable devices with the help of AI.

Scope for new and improved products and services

The Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology which aims to improve communication via speech, text or gestures has augmented the transmission of information between humans and devices. AI-powered drones and robots give a whole new meaning to monitoring and inspection which never existed previously. It helps to fetch data that a human may never be able to do physically. This proves how strong the IoT and AI future is. For commercial vehicles, it helps in fleet management by monitoring every measurable information. Rolls Royce is a great example of AI-powered IoT use cases. Plans to use AI technology to implement IoT-enabled aeroplane engine maintenance needs. This will help in creating perceptual patterns and help explore in-depth insights.

Examples where AI and IoT are showing brilliance

Now that you’re aware of how AI and IoT solutions help in leveraging business opportunities, let us mention a few examples from real-life instances to prove how the role of artificial intelligence and IoT is helping to create new business models and provide better user experiences. Many of these examples also make up for the most cutting-edge and futuristic trends to watch out for.

Wearables

By now you must have heard how wearables play a key role in the current IoT scenario. Fitness trackers, smartwatches, wearable panic buttons, remote monitoring systems, GPS trackers and music systems are some of the most popular examples of wearables which take up a large part in the IoT ecosystem. You need to simply download IoT applications in your smart devices to get the most precise information.

Robotics

The manufacturing industry was in dire need of adopting AI-focused IoT solutions. This helps in facial recognition, deep learning, big data analytics and especially robotics. Robots and robotics have always been the frontrunners of technology for decades and now, with the passage of time, they have become smarter, more reliable and more efficient. Through implanted sensors meticulous communication is facilitated. Using the fusion of AI and IoT, robots can learn and adapt to newer environments with precision. This makes the manufacturing process linear and saves time and money.

Smart Homes

The smart home ecosystem is growing and is currently valued at $91 million. It’s one of the most pleasing activities of technology where you do not have to get and go to a particular appliance and operate it. The AI-powered IoT technology enables the controlling of your light, fans, television, thermostat, ACs, etc. through your phone. Not just inside but even if you’re travelling outside, say to an outstation and you need to check whether an appliance has been wrongly set on, you can do it with a simple command. Or if you’re returning home after a tiresome day at work and need a bath, you can set the temperature of the water say 10 minutes before you reach home.

Self-driven vehicles

The thought of autonomous cars and vehicles seems exciting and thrilling at the same time. With powerful sensors, installed cameras and robust hardware and software integration, a car gathers monumental information roads, traffic, additional routes, navigation, weather conditions, consumer behaviour and whatnot. Self-driven cars are the perfect examples that will highlight the role of artificial intelligence in future technology. One major concerning factor is safety. Many will face apprehensions over their initial journeys in driverless cars, but that’s what the whole game is about. It has mindblowing learning abilities and high-powered AI mechanisms that will give priority to the passenger’s life at all costs.

Amazon Go

This is truly a masterstroke in AI technology use. To support its retail outlets, Amazon uses IoT to make the shopping experience more convenient for the user. With no cashier or even cash counters, the sensors present will optimise the entire process. For example, sensors are used to determine your activities. Like a supermarket or retail outlet, items are arranged and when you pick up any product, it automatically adds it to your cart and the moment you keep it back, it’s removed from your cart. It connects to your payment mode(s) so when you leave the store with the items, the total amount is debited from your account or online wallet. Just like self-driven cars, they used computer vision, deep learning algorithms and sensor fusion, procreating the ‘Just Walk Out’ technology.

Healthcare

This is currently the need of the hour. With the Coronavirus pandemic, everyone has become extra cautious with their health and technologies like AI and IoT are leveraging the entire healthcare system. The IoT applications and deployments powered by AI help in collecting data to provide preventive measures for a person/patient, early detection and providing drug administration. It draws data from internet-powered medical devices, medical records, fitness trackers, healthcare mobile apps, etc. Many healthcare companies around the globe are making IoT investments so that people stay safe under such hazardous conditions.

Smart Cities

This is the biggest example to show the prowess of the AI and IoT pair. If it is able to maintain civic decorum, then it speaks volumes about technology’s success. Things like smart traffic management, smart parking, smart waste management, smart policing, smart governance and many other factors are the components which constitute a smart city. The Internet of Things for smart cities changes the way cities operate and delivers amenities to the public which includes transportation, healthcare, lighting, etc. Smart cities are arguably a futuristic concept and have a lot of ground to cover. The above video explains how three cities have successfully implemented it.

There are many IoT application development company who have done a tremendous job of integrating the technology into various business types and creating something unconventional out of the banal scheme of things. AI is truly reinventing IoT along with other modern-day techs, and businesses that are vigorously using this technological emergence only have good things to say. No second thoughts need to be spared to explain — The future of IoT is AI and will remain so.

Failure of On-Demand Platforms- Reason & Solution

Posted on 23/06/202007/06/2021 by Anteelo Master

The glaring success of the on demand era has given birth to a school of thought among the tech community. They have started believing that following the uber business model and entering the on demand industry will be the only move that is keeping them from reaching complete success.

While it has worked for a number of businesses like GrubHub or Airbnb, the number of businesses that have failed are also extremely huge. In fact, if you sit down to make an excel sheet comparing the on demand services fail vs success ratio, you will find that the number of businesses that struggled to survive were more than those which didn’t.

But does this mean that you should give up hope on your on demand platforms’ business success and give up? Of course not. What it implies is that when you plan to succeed in the crowded on demand market, you should also factor in the reasons behind the application’s failure.

The intent of this article is to help with just that.

Table Of Content

Understanding Uber’s Success in the on demand sector
The List of on demand Brands That Failed Miserably
Reasons Behind on demand Business Failure
How Can on demand Businesses Save Themselves From Shutting Down Prematurely?
Conclusion

Understanding Uber’s Success in the on demand Sector

When you dissect the on demand economy, you will find that it is mainly built on three building blocks: delivery immediacy, consumption passivity, and a fixed cost. Uber did not just ticked all the three boxes of the on demand business model, but also aced some other factors that helped it build a seamless ride booking user experience.

Here are the two factors which added to the brand’s success, making it one of the most successful on-demand companies:

The company operates in populated urban cities where there’s enough liquidity for making the marketplace work.
The customer base were already very familiar with trusting a stranger to take them places. Thus, creating a trust in the market was never a problem.

The Uber model doesn’t care about the transaction’s intimacy aspect nor about the disintermediation challenges. Imagine once you on demand home service app users find a person they like for cleaning their house or planning their kids, how would you stop them from contacting those service providers directly, without going through your application? This disintermediation when continued can lead to greater burn, churn, and in some cases extinction of the business.

Since the Uber model didn’t include the need to care about intimacy, they could survive and grow on a much greater speed. But not every Uber-like story has a happy ending. There are a number of once top in the game on-demand platforms that have fallen owing to the on-demand challenges.

The List of on demand Brands That Failed Miserably

1. Happy Home Company

Happy Home Company was a twist in the otherwise traditional home service market. The idea behind the brand was to offer users home maintenance plans which included recurring things that had to be kept in top working conditions. Inspite of bagging $7 million from investors, Happy Home’s founder wrote a shutdown letter which stated, “Ultimately we weren’t able to make the transition from a scrappy startup to self-sustaining company.”

2. Pronto

The business was set out for helping people get healthy meals faster. The UK based service had the work with the intent of connecting the users with chefs while enabling food delivery in under 20 minutes. It had every element to make it one of the most flourishing on demand delivery apps. Even though the idea sounded good to investors and adopters, the company couldn’t keep up with the promotion budgets of Uber and Deliveroo – one of the very commonly occurring on demand challenges.

3. Workers On Call

AI has changed the face of work, this is something that has been established over time. The Workers On Call services used AI systems for streamlining matching of employers with freelancers who needed jobs. The application that boasted of freelancers getting matched and started to work in under 30 minutes, although backed by a powerful vision, was a little ahead of its time. The brand even after raising $30K funding, signed off with a tersely message saying, “Bye Bye. Sorry Workers On Call is closed.”

4. Homejoy

One of the textbook examples of failed the businesses is Homejoy. Started with $20,000 seed funding in 2000, the business became a big name in 2013 when it raised $38 Millions – making it one of the most successful on demand startups. But soon the customers started failing to convert past their first booking. In fact, only 15-20% people re-booked in a month. The numbers were simply not enough for the brand to survive. Add to this the legal battles against classification of workers a s independent contractors led to the business’s death in 2015.

[Further Read: Why Did HomeJoy Failed]

The truth of the hour that still remains is that even after these on demand platforms failure instances, the fact how the internet has trained consumers to get services in real-time is not stopping budding entrepreneurs from entering the on demand economy. But how can businesses ensure that they are not destined to become yet another name in the list?

While one way to get some satisfaction would be to partner with an on demand software development company that has worked with the inception of popular on demand businesses, it would also help to know the on demand services failure reasons that can lead to their failure.

Reasons Behind on demand Business Failure

1. High Competition

The upsurge of hyperlocal service demand has led to a rise in demand of on demand services attending to the complete needs of their customers. One way entrepreneurs are competing in the market is by lowering their service costs. This, in addition to the high operational costs of transportation, infrastructure, and labour has been keeping on demand startups from flourishing.

2. Reluctance among Venture Capitalists

With on demand failure stories shooting off the roof, investors have started becoming wary of where to put in their money. As it is, getting funded on your application has been a difficult process and when you add in the unsureties that the sector now comes with, the probability of raising money lowers even further.

VCs are now becoming all the more cynical about the startup’s longevity. Businesses that are promising a strong long-term vision with a cash flow picture backing it have become the only answer to the types of apps investors will be backing in 2020.

3. Product Incompetence

If there is one event that follows every successful startup, it would be the fact that competitors are soon to follow. The value that your business once offered starts getting challenged and bettered by the competitors. This, in turn, is leading to the product becoming incompetent in the market, irrespective of the efforts that went behind on demand app development services.

Brands that are failing to keep up with the changes with timely pivots are soon finding themselves crawling out of the on demand space.

4. Inefficient Resource Set

The lack of an experienced set of people can most often than not result in the failure of on demand companies. The same applies for the on demand industry. Irrespective of which on demand domain you pick, you will find that the ones that survived were known for their skilled workforce. A lacking on this front can lead to on demand business losing their worth in the industry and thus get closer to their demise.

5. Not Being Able to Solve Real Problems

A number of on demand companies that fail deal with band-aid type of problems in place of emergency room type problems that make the solution extremely non attractive to the end users. Example: For example, imagine an on demand car wash service. Just how frequently would users demand the service? But the expenses a business will have to make to keep it afloat would be huge. In short, the business neither ends up being cost-efficient nor effective.

6. Under or Over Valuing Demand and Supply

The last in our list of reasons that tend to lead directly to business failure is under or over valuation of demand and supply that your on demand business would garner. Businesses, more often than not undervalue the demand that they would attract and thus plan low on supply. Likewise, they at times think too much of demand and end up with an underutilized supply of resources.

Now that we have enlisted the most common reasons behind an the app business failure, let us dive into the way outs – how can on demand businesses prevent this fate.

How Can On demand Businesses Save Themselves From Shutting Down Prematurely?

Market Expansion

One of the biggest issues with today’s top-on-demand businesses is that they don’t expand from their existing markets. The entrepreneurs who are very new to the industry end up being limited to a pool of loyal customers and don’t think of expansion opportunities. The problem with this is that the moment a new competitor with deep pockets enters the market, the probability of them getting out of business increases.

Here’s a look into the expansion roadmap that we generally share with our clients when we assist them with on demand app development.

Make Your Customer Needs Your Bible

In the fight between what you can offer and what your users need, your offerings should always prevail. Although it can be a sweet attraction to invest in tomorrow’s big need, it can be extremely unwise to let go of your customers’ present day needs.

The truth is that you will get a multitude of opportunities and time to pivot your startup. But what you won’t get is the current time and your users present day needs. Getting insights into this information is what a sound on demand mobile app development company can help you with.

Think of Being Monetarily Prepared First

The matter of the modern day fact is that it is very difficult to get funding on an application. No matter how well propositioned your application is or how green your cash flow statement looks, there is zero guarantee of you getting funded.

The solution on this front can only be to look into alternate financing options and not remain limited to VCs.

Conclusion

The growing cases of on demand industry failures have led to the sector getting the image of being a house of card. The only way for entrepreneurs to enter and succeed in the domain would be to do extensive user research. One way we suggest to achieve this effortlessly can be through the mode of product design and development sprint – one of the key practices that on demand app developers follow.

Making Change Management Work for You

Posted on 11/04/202015/06/2021 by Tushar

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

– Alvin Toffler

“Times have changed.” We’ve heard this statement ever so often. Generations have used it to exclaim “things are so complicated (or simple) these days,” or expressing disdain – “oh, so they think they are a cool” generation. Whichever way you exclaim, change has been truly the “constant”.

This change is bolstered by a tech-enabled world where the speed at which machines are learning is accelerating – the speed of light.

Let me set this in context with an example from the book of Sales. Unlike in the past, today sales reps are not gauged by the amount of sweat trickling down their foreheads. While they continue to be evaluated in terms of business development and lead conversions, it is not all manual and laborious. Technology advancements have made the process of identifying, prioritizing, scheduling, conversing and converting agile and real-time.

But just knowing change, gathering data and appreciating technology will not suffice. The three will need to be blended seamlessly to yield transformation. Applied to deeper organizational context, “Change” needs to be interpreted – its pace needs to be matched, or even better, its effect needs to be contextualized for differentiation.

Change management in this sense is the systematization of the entire process; right from the acceptance of change to its adoption and taking advantage of it to thrive in volatile times.

But what would it take for complex enterprises, that swear by legacy systems, to turbo charge into the Change Management mode?

To answer this, I will humanize enterprise change management with the Prosci-developed ADKAR Model.

Awareness (getting into the race) – Where can I set up the next retail store, what is the most optimal planogram, how do I determine the right marketing mix, what is my competition doing different, how do I improve customer experience, how do I ensure sales force effectiveness – the questions are ample. By the time you realize and start strategizing, a competitor has dislodged your market position and eaten a large portion of your pie. And while these business problems seem conventional, volatility in the marketplace cry foul. Compound this with high dependencies on dashboards, applications, and the likes for insights, and you’ve seen the side-effects – established enterprises biting the dust.

To survive, organizations will need to be knowledgeable about data that matter viz a viz the noise. They will need to interpret the data deluge in relevance and context; after all, not all data is diamond.

Desire (creating a business case for adoption) – Desire is a basic human instinct. Our insatiable urge to want something more, even better, accentuates this instinct. When it comes to enterprises, this desire is no different; to stay ahead of the curve, to make more profits, to be leaders. But there is no lock-and-key fix to achieve this mark. Realizing corporate “desire” will require a cultural and mindset shift across the organization – top-down. And so, one of the most opportune times could be when there are changes at the leadership, followed by re-organization in the rungs below.

Gamification could be a great starting point to drive adoption in such cases. Allow the scope of experimentation to creep in; invest consciously in simmer projects; give a freehand to analysts to look for the missing piece of the puzzle outside their firewall; incentivize them accordingly. Challenge business leaders to up their appreciation for the insights generated, encourage them to get their hands down and dirty when it comes to knowing their source, ask the right questions and challenge status quo – not just rely on familiarity and past experiences.

Knowledge and Ability (From adoption to implementation) – In business context, “desire” typically translate into business goals – revenue, process adoption, automation, newer market expansion, launch of a new product/solution, etc. Mere awareness of the changes taking place does not translate into achievements. It needs to be studied and change management needs to be initiated.

But how can you execute your day job and learn to change?

The trick here will be to make analytics seamless; almost second nature. Just as the message alert from the bank about any suspicious transaction made on your account, any deviation from the set course of business action needs to be alerted.

Such technology-assisted decisions are the need of today and the future. Tredence CHA solution is an example in this direction. It is intuitive, convenient and evolving, mirroring aspects of Robotics Process Automation (RPA).

Reinforcement (Stickiness will be key) – Your business problems are yours to know and yours to solve. Like my colleague mentioned in his blog, a one size fits all solution does not exist. Solving the business challenges of today requires going to the root cause of it, understanding the data sources available to you, and being knowledgeable about other data combinations (across the firewall or within) that matter. Match this stream of data with relevant tools and techniques that can give you the “desired” results.

Point to keep in mind during this drill is to ensure that you marry the old and new. Replacing a legacy system with something totally new could leave a bad taste in your mouth – with less adoption and greater resistance. Embedded analytics will be key – one that allows you to seamlessly time travel between the past, present and future.

To conclude, whether it is about time to implement change, improving customer service, reducing inefficiencies, or mitigating the negative effect of volatile markets, Change Management will be pivotal. It is a structured, on-going process to ensure you are not merely surviving, rather thriving in change.

Cloud Necessary for Digital Transformation? – Here’s Why!

Posted on 09/01/201917/06/2021 by Tushar

Across the globe, organisations are acknowledging the need for digital transformation as new technologies, like data analytics, AI, ML and the IoT make traditional processes redundant and force unprogressive companies out of business. At the same time, shifting customer needs and behaviours demand companies undertake digital transformation in order to evolve. Without the adoption of cloud technology, however, much of this would not be possible. Here, we’ll explain why.

Organisations which have migrated to the cloud and undergone digital transformation experience both significant growth and improved efficiency. It has enabled them to develop new business models that keep them relevant and thriving in today’s dynamic and volatile marketplace. Thanks to cloud technology, they can innovate at pace, make informed, data-driven decisions and speed up the launch of products and services. What’s more, this is achieved more cost-effectively and efficiently.

1. Cost-effective IT solution

The cloud provides organisations with the opportunity to develop a much more cost-effective business model where the need to invest heavily in IT infrastructure is no longer required. By hosting their services and carrying out workloads on the infrastructure of their service provider, not only do they replace significant capital expenditure with less expensive service packages; they also forego many of the associated costs of operating a datacentre, including machine maintenance and server management.

2. Agility

The speed at which servers and software can be deployed in the cloud and the rapidity with which applications can be developed, tested and launched helps drive business growth. Additionally, this agility enables organisations to concentrate on more business-focused issues, such as security and compliance, product development or monitoring and analysis, instead of using up precious time and effort provisioning and maintaining IT resources. Together, these cloud attributes give companies a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

3. Scalability

Another key advantage that cloud brings to digital transformation is instant scalability. It provides businesses with a cost-effective, pay-per-use way of scaling up, on-demand, to ensure it always has the resources it needs to cope with spikes or to carry out large workloads. This means the expensive practice of purchasing additional servers to cater for busy periods but which are left redundant for much of the time is no longer necessary.

4. High availability

Today’s customers demand uninterrupted, 24/7 access to products and services and putting this in place is a key aim of many companies’ digital transformation. Similarly, some businesses rely on critical apps for processes, such as manufacturing, that also need to be operational at all times. What the cloud brings here is guaranteed high availability of 100% uptime. As cloud servers are virtual, instances can be moved between hardware and this means that downtime due to server failure becomes a thing of the past for cloud users. Indeed, even if an entire datacentre goes offline because of a natural disaster, service can be maintained by moving the instances to a datacentre in another geographical location.

5. Security and compliance

Security and compliance are a high priority for all companies and are often a major challenge to those with in-house systems that lack both the budget and expertise to put effective measures into place.

The cloud can play a significant role in improving both security and compliance. Service providers employ highly skilled security experts and deploy advanced tools to protect their customer’s systems and data and to comply with their own stringent regulations. This ensures cloud users operate in highly secure environments, protected by next-gen firewalls with intrusion prevention systems and in-flow virus protection that detect and isolate threats before they reach a client’s server.

6. Built-in technology upgrades

Keeping up with the Joneses as far as technology is concerned is always a challenge for organisations, not simply for the cost of regularly purchasing newer hardware, but also the effort of migrating applications and data during the process.

By adopting cloud technology, companies no longer have this issue. Service providers regularly update their hardware in order to remain competitive themselves and this ensures that their customers benefit from always having the latest technology, such as Xeon processors and SSD hard drives, at their disposal. What’s more, virtualisation means any migration to new hardware takes place unnoticed.

7. Collaboration and remote working

Digital transformation involves the replacing of outdated working practices and legacy systems with those that support innovation and agility. The cloud is the ideal environment for this, providing both the ability for remote working and improved collaboration. Many cloud-based platforms have been developed with collaboration in mind, offering video conferencing, file sharing, syncing and project management tools for teams to use in and out of the office. Files are instantly updated and are available anywhere with a connection; privileges and authentication can be determined for every employee, and projects, people and progress can be monitored and tracked.

Conclusion

Digital transformation is fast becoming a necessity for organisations, providing the means to help them be more agile, innovative, cost-effective and competitive while being better able to meet the needs of their customers. Cloud technology is instrumental in bringing this about as it offers the ideal environment in which to deploy the technologies and undertake the workloads on which digital transformation depends.

6 Tips for Online Stores to Survive Christmas 2020

Posted on 06/01/201917/06/2021 by Tushar

Christmas 2020 is going to be unlike anything anyone has ever experienced and as an online retailer, you are going to need to start your preparations now. The forecasts are mixed. The potential for further lockdown restrictions and increasing unemployment may impact both consumer spending and purchasing habits. More optimistically, for eCommerce, there is going to be a significant shift in Christmas shopping from bricks and mortar to online stores. In this post, we’ll explain six things you can do to help your online store survive Christmas 2020.

1. Get the right stock for Christmas

Stock may be a complicated issue for eCommerce stores this Christmas. Rises in unemployment and the fear of becoming unemployed will certainly affect consumer spending and this may impact the quantities of stock you need to order. Additionally, social restrictions put in place to prevent the risk of the virus spreading are also likely to influence what people spend their money on. Who’s going to want Christmas party outfits if there are no parties? Who’s going to buy a pack of 12 crackers when, this year, there’ll only be four people sat around the table? The pandemic is going to change what consumers buy and businesses need information on those trends to ensure stock is purchased wisely.

Another concern is the supply chain. Even if you have identified the stock you need for the Christmas season, you will need to ensure that you can procure it and that shipping times can be met. Volatility in the supply chain is likely given increasing demand and the potential for disruption due to the virus. Early purchasing might be a necessity.

2. Spread the cost of Christmas

Another reason to acquire Christmas stock earlier than usual is that, with consumer finances stretched, people might start shopping earlier to spread the cost. Rather than a Christmas rush, 2020 might be more of a slow burn.

One way to maximise sales and help customers out would be to offer payment by instalments. The easiest way to do this is to open a PayPal business account through which you can offer flexible financing options that make purchasing easier for your customer. Alternatively, you could set up a savings scheme where customers pay into your business each month in order to spend what’s in credit nearer the time.

3. Get your shipping sorted

eCommerce sales have already grown significantly during the pandemic and Christmas is likely to see a further surge as shoppers stay away from bricks and mortar stores. This could affect the capacity of the carriers you use to deliver the products on time.

The challenge for online stores is to ensure that you get the product to the customer when and where they want it. While consumers have been relatively understanding about longer delivery times during the pandemic, six months down the line, they now expect retailers and carriers will be able to deliver as advertised and are likely to be much less happy when products arrive late – especially when shopping for Christmas.

4. Cut costs

The global downturn means there will be less money for people to spend this Christmas. While social distancing measures means bricks and mortar stores are likely to face the brunt of the decline, it may still affect eCommerce: people may buy more things online but spend less overall.

To keep the business viable, eCommerce companies may have to look at ways to cut costs, especially if lack of demand causes a discounting war and drives margins down. Those in the best position to achieve this are the companies which make use of the cloud. While the cloud itself is a substantially more cost-effective solution to an in-house datacentre, its ability to deploy data gives companies the insights needed to cut costs effectively over their entire operations. At the same time, the cloud enables businesses to make valuable use of automation, such as with sales assisting chatbots that reduce human involvement.

5. Widen the market

Maximising sales is going to be critical this winter and this means making sure your stock is highly visible. This starts with strengthening your digital presence: promoting Christmas stock earlier on your website, advertising online and increasing your seasonal-themed social media activity. For retailers with online and physical stores, benefits can be made from offering omnichannel shopping, click and collect and moving products from stores under local lockdown restrictions to those which are not.

Additionally, there is always the potential to sell your items on third-party websites, like Amazon or eBay, which have a wider reach and high levels of consumer trust when it comes to availability, delivery and consumer purchasing protection.

6. Don’t let your website go down

The likely surge in demand for online shopping means that companies must ensure that their hosting package is capable of handling increased traffic. Too many visitors at the same time can impact the performance of your website if you don’t have enough server resources, i.e. storage, RAM, CPU and bandwidth, to handle them. Unexpected surges can cause your site to perform slowly or even crash. If this happens, visitors will abandon the site, reducing the number of sales, and your reputation for online reliability will be damaged.

Conclusion

Christmas 2020 presents eCommerce businesses with opportunities and threats. The challenge is to put your online store in the best position to avoid the threats and maximise the opportunities. Hopefully, this post has shown you the different things you will need to consider and the importance of starting preparations early.