2016

The Society for Information Management (SIM) recently released their 2017 trends analysis. They reflect the continuing evolution of business trends being information technology trends. Moreover, IT has increasingly become a priority for most businesses. SIM notes that IT budgets have increased this year by an average of 4.15%, short of last year’s increase of 4.6%, but positive nevertheless.

The report also notes that IT professionals’ salaries have risen by 3.5%, and  IT staff hiring has also increased. The shift of budgets to cloud computing from hardware and software continues, and are likely to increase again in the year ahead.

IT executives highlight three top concerns:

Business alignment

This has been the top priority for four years running. It was listed as the top priority for IT leaders among 41.7% of those executives polled.

Security

36% of IT leaders noted security as their top concern. Remarkably, just four years ago, security was listed as the ninth area of concern. Higher profile security breaches and increased emphasis on the topic by the executive teams and boards of companies will mean that this concern is likely to remain high for IT executives.

IT skill shortages

24% of IT leaders indicated that skills shortages were the top concern. The concern center around technical skills like analytics, software development, cybersecurity and cloud-centric skill, but increasingly, there is concern regarding the paucity of soft skills.

IT leaders are increasingly taking on more strategic responsibilities. This is aided by the fact that 46.3% of CIOs now report to the CEO, according to the SIM report. This is compared to 28.6% who report to CFOs and 16.8% who report to COOs. CIOs now meet with various members of the C-suite on a weekly basis. This represents great progress for the function.

SIM concludes that other than the CEO, the CIO has the most complex, broad, and diverse set of responsibilities. This is demonstrated by the need to think to the future in aiding the strategies of every division of the company. CIOs must also help drive the innovation agenda for the company while also focusing on risk mitigation associated with security investments. The simultaneous focus on risk taking (a necessity with innovation activities) and risk mitigation is but one demonstration of the complexity of the role. The progress made in the function suggests that more CIOs are up to the challenge.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2016/11/21/cios-top-three-concerns-for-2017-alignment-security-skill-shortages/#1b370e944f0a

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My last post studied how the mentality around VoIP is far from legacy telephony, and how it has implications that go beyond this major transition. Legacy telephony has been intertwined with many personnel for ages, and if asked, they wouldn’t see much reason to switch. For them, there’s no problem to fix, unless of course your phone system is failing, and the status quo is just fine.

On the other hand, decision makers – either IT or management – may have very good explanations to accept VoIP, and the impact on employees needs to be considered. Making the move will largely be transparent to employees, even to the point where if they weren’t told anything, they may never notice. However, that can be risky, especially in terms of earned trust if things don’t go to plan.

That’s unlikely to happen, the IT will be better off with a more constructive approach that will please everyone in the end. You’re utilizing VoIP for good reasons, and when employees experience the profits that come with this change – even if they’re unexpected – your movement from legacy to the world of IP will get off on the right foot. Over the course of my research, I have come by many benefits, and I’ll outline some examples – things employees will love – with three here and three more in my next post.

#1 – Basic User Experience

If your workers are rooted in the pre-Internet world, must have been using desk phones for a long time already and probably the same one for most of it. In fact, it’s not unusual for desk phones to be the longest-serving means in use for communication or getting work done. Perhaps the fax machine has been there a little longer, but there’s probably just one of those in the office. In terms of what’s on the desk, personal computers turn over every few years, but desk phones last forever. Many employees are using their mobile phones more than anything on their desk, but these turn over even faster than PCs.

Your desk phones may have a very high level of familiarity, and even though they all look similar, each employee has a personal connection to “their” phone. Unless it’s useless already or becomes a hazard to use, they won’t see a reason to change. If their job requires a lot of phone usage, it will be significant to know that the basic user experience will stay the same when VoIP comes.

Old habits die hard, and if they view VoIP as being new, complex technology, there could be a lot of uneasiness around something that’s important to them. While that may be a precise description of VoIP, the good news is that VoIP is designed to imitate the legacy telephony experience, not replace it with a new one. Everything works the same as before, and in some cases, even the pre-sets. When they discover that, their apprehension about new technology will melt away and they won’t miss a beat with their new IP phones.

#2 – Visual Voicemail

In terms of new features that essentially make VoIP a better experience, this is hands-down the one that everyone will love. For long-time legacy telephony users, this will be a great development since they can now stay current on missed calls when away from their desk. Since legacy systems operate independent of the data network, there is no intelligence to route messages beyond where your desk phone sits.

On the other hand, VoIP shares the same network as all your other applications and by integrating the phone system with your desktop, you can receive notifications about missed calls from any broadband connection. This alone will be well received by employees, but there’s more to take into consideration. These alerts will include an MP3 file of the message, so there’s no need to call into your phone system to recover the message. Not only that, but because it uses a digital file, it can be easily shared with others. There’s even more to like about visual voicemail, but based on these examples, it’s not hard to see why employees will love this feature.

#3 – Low Cost

This matters more to the employer and it’s probably the most attractive feature for clients when going to VoIP. Low cost international long distance calling rates is another attraction for residential VoIP, but the psychology is different since costs are being incurred. Generally speaking, the vast majority of long distance needs for SMBs is domestic, and on this front, there are two things employees will really like.

First, time is not a factor since these calls are unmetered. If a sales call or a customer support call runs longer than usual, there’s no need to worry about the charges eating into their operating budget. Similarly, meticulous employees may be genuinely concerned about wasting their employer’s money, so now they don’t have to feel guilty if a long distance call runs longer than expected.

Second, this situation makes life easier for some employees that are working from home. In cases where employees pay for their phone line out of pocket and then chargeback the costs for repayment, they no longer need to track domestic long distance charges, which could be extensive for sales or technical support people. With VoIP, the only add-on charges will be international LD, but that’s usually minor, and otherwise, these types of employees will love how this simplifies managing their phone service.
Source: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/voip-news/three-things-employees-will-love-about-voip-71443

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Advantages of IP PBX when compared to Analog/Digital PBX (IP PBX Vs Traditional PBX):

1. Single Network: This is one of the biggest advantages of of IP Telephony systems. Traditional PBX require their own network and it is quite expensive to build a separate telephone network spanning the entire premises. With IP Telephony, the Computer Network can be used to carry voice calls along with data and the IP Phones connect directly to Network Switch Ports using Cat 5/6 Cables. Most of the IP Phones come with an inbuilt two-port switch that eliminate additional switch ports and cables required for their connectivity. Redundancy is an issue, and the IP Phones stop working if the computer network is down, but redundancy can be built into IP networks using technologies like Link Aggregation, RSTP, etc.

2. Inter-branch Calls: If IP Telephony has been deployed in multiple branches (in different locations) of the same company, it is possible to use MPLS Networks/ Internet Leased Lines (With Unlimited Usage plans) to transmit voice calls over the WAN IP Network. This way, the inter-branch calls would not incur additional costs.

3. Long Distance Calls: Its possible to terminate SIP Trunks from ITSP’s (Internet Telephony Service Providers) directly to the IP PBX. So, international calls and long distance calls can be made through the Internet for lower cost. Concepts like DISA (Direct Inward Station Access) allow a user to dial to the corporate IP PBX (from anywhere using a PSTN Phone/ GSM Cell Phone) and access the IP Trunks connected to it, to make long distance calls at reduced rates.

4. Easier Management: The Analog/ Digital PBX is difficult to manage. Some of them can only be managed using complex CLI Commands that are proprietary to each vendor. But an IP PBX generally has a web based GUI (Graphical User Interface) console to manage/ configure/ make changes to many of its functions. This makes it easier for administrators to manage an IP PBX. Users may even be given a custom web-page which they could use to login and set their own preferences.

5. Soft-Switch: Some IP PBX models come as down-loadable software that can run on standard computer servers. These are called Soft-Switches. Soft Switch based IP PBX have a lot of advantages. There are some open-source based Soft-switches that can be downloaded free of cost (Like Asterisk, Trixbox, FreePBX, etc).

6. Cell Phone/ Land Line Integration: You can download a SIP Client on your Cell Phone (that supports this feature) to receive land line calls on your cell phone itself, through a Wi-Fi Network. So, your cell phone can become your mobile land-line extension!

7. Fixed Mobile Convergence: As an enhancement to the above mentioned point, it is possible to automatically shift between Wi-Fi Networks and Cellular Networks by using a technology called Fixed Mobile Convergence. So, when you are attending a land line call on your cell phone using the Wi-Fi network and you suddenly move out of the office, the call can continue on a cellular network!

8. Wi-Fi Phones: Wireless Networks (Wi-Fi) are very popular, and can be found almost in every company. It is possible to use special Wi-Fi based Phones to attend to land line calls from where ever you are, within the company premises (Wi-Fi Zone). The DECT standard followed by Digital PBX also allows to do something similar, but a separate and a dedicated digital wireless network is required to enable the same. There are a lot of advantages of VoWLAN (Voice Over Wireless LAN) technology when compared to DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Technology).

9. IP Phones/ Soft Phones: IP Phones may be costlier than analog phones, but IP Phones have a lot of advantages over analog phones like easy movement from one place to another (while still retaining the extension number), Connecting to Internet using inbuilt browsers, Down-load ring-tones, etc.  IP PBX support Soft-Phones that are software programs which can be run on a computer and they have a number of advantages over IP Hard-phones.These soft-phones can be used along with headset/mic to receive all your land-line calls directly from your desktop PC.

10. Encryption: IP PBX / IP Phones are capable of encrypting conversations by using techniques like sRTP (Secure Real Time Protocol). Though this technique is not used often, it can be used to deter hackers from listening to voice calls over the IP Network.

11. IP Faxing: IP PBX support IP Faxing which, among other things, can be used to receive and send faxes directly from a computer.

12. Analog Trunks/ Analog Phones: Analog/ Digital Trunks like ISDN / PRI Lines / FXO Lines etc from the Telephony Service provider can be directly terminated on an IP PBX. Similarly, Analog Fax Machines and Analog Phones can also be connected to an IP PBX. Both use devices called Analog Telephony Adapters (ATA). The main advantage with ATA is the fact that it can be present anywhere on the network. For example, if an Optical Fiber Cable connects to an individual department, the ATA can be placed in that department to connect the FXO/FXS trunk and subscriber terminals directly, while communicating back to the IP PBX over the IP Network (Using the Optical Fiber Cable).

13. Video Calls: With an IP PBX, it is possible to make video calls along with audio calls over the IP network. There areVideo Phones that can be used for this purpose, and some IP PBX vendors support this functionality.

14. Unified Communications: Unified Communications (Or UC) is an emerging field in IP Telephony that integrates multiple ways of communications like voice calls, video calls, voice mail, email, fax messaging, Instant Messaging, Cell Phones, etc and allows the user to use one mode of communication to communicate with other modes, seamlessly.

15. Call Recording: Often, you may want to record certain voice calls for future reference. In analog/digital PBX, a separate line needs to be connected from each phone (in parallel) to an expensive equipment called Voice Logger. But with certain IP PBX models, call recording is an inbuilt function and can be activated by the user through their IP phone/ PC interface whenever required.

16. Presence/ Instant Messaging (IM): Some IP PBX models come with built-in Instant messaging function that can be used along with a PC based interface. This is similar to the web based IM that we are familiar with. The instant messaging function includes presence information which enables the caller to see if the user is available and their preferred mode of communication at that point of time.

17. Speech Recognition: Speech Recognition, is another emerging technology that has successfully been integrated with IP PBX which recognizes voice input (speech) directly from a caller to perform a desired action. For example, a caller could call the board number of a company and say the name of the person whom he wants to talk to, for the IP PBX to fetch the extension number from a database and forward the call to that extension automatically.

18. Meet Me Conference: Only simple built-in conference facilities are available with Analog/ Digital EPABX. Even that is restricted to 3-8 party conference calls at a given point of time. But IP PBX can enable a Meet-Me Conference(sometimes included as a default functionality) which allows many users to dial into a conference room to enable multi-conference calls. There can be multiple such conference rooms and multiple callers in each conference room. The users could even be given a security pass code that authorizes them to enter the conference call.

19. QoS & Voice Compression: Since IP Telephony shares the same network as computers and other IT equipments, the available bandwidth often needs to be shared between multiple type of devices. But fortunately, up to 10 Gigabit Ethernet bandwidth is available for the IP Network backbone today, which is sufficient for most enterprise applications. Further, Network Switches support QoS policies to be applied to IP Phones and voice related applications so that real time latency sensitive voice traffic can be given priority over data traffic. Various Voice Compression CODECS are available to compress voice signals over the IP Network.

20. Remote Maintenance: Both IP PBX and IP Phones can be accessed remotely (with sufficient authorization, perhaps over VPN Networks) for making configuration changes and monitoring purposes from anywhere over the Internet. The analog PBX might support remote access in a limited way, but analog/digital phones cannot be accessed from a remote location.

21. Hosted IP PBX: With an IP PBX, its possible to host the IP PBX Software (with a service provider) and register your IP Phones to the hosted IP PBX in their premises over the Internet. The service providers take care of the hardware/ software and maintenance of the hosted IP PBX, while charging a monthly fee for the Service.

22. Voice Mail/ IVR: Though Voice Mail functionality is available in an analog/ digital PBX as well, there is a limitation on the number of hours of voice mail that can be recorded. IP PBX use Servers/ Computer based disks to store voice mail and hence have more voice mail storage capacity. An IP PBX can even send a notification email to the user when a new voice mail is recorded. Advanced Interactive Voice Response (IVR) creation / customization can be done relatively easier and the tree structure changed frequently using IP PBX.

23. Help-desk/ Call Center functionalities: Some basic call center/ help desk functionalities can be built in to IP PBX like Call Queuing, Group Ringing, Automatic Call Distribution, etc.

24. Database Integration: A Number of interesting applications can be enabled by integrating databases (like MySQL, etc) with IP PBX. An IP PBX can be programmed to fetch certain database entries, when requested by the users, by pressing certain key combinations guided by an IVR – Interactive Voice Response. Mobile Banking is a good example of an application enabled by IP PBX through Database Integration.

25. Application Programming Interface (API): External programs and applications can interface with IP PBX using the Application Programming Interface that is provided by many IP PBX vendors. For example, when a customer is ringing the help-desk of a certain company, the IP PBX recognizes that it is a regular customer (via the phone number), fetches recent orders and their current status and displays them on the screen of the help-desk employee. So, even before the employee picks up the phone, he/she might be acquainted with the required information to answer the call! This is enabled by integrating the Customer Relationship Management Application with an IP PBX using API

Source: http://www.excitingip.com/1945/ip-pbx-vs-traditional-pbx-advantages-of-ip-pbx-over-analogdigital-pbx/

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Gartner, Inc.

Increasingly, the world is becoming an intelligent, digitally enabled mesh of people, things and services. Technology will be embedded in everything in the digital business of the future, and ordinary people will experience a digitally-enabled world where the lines between what is real and what is digital blur.

Rich digital services will be delivered to everything, and intelligence will be embedded in everything behind the scenes. We call this mesh of people, devices, content and services the intelligent digital mesh, and this forms the basis for our Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2017.

Intelligent

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning have reached a critical tipping point and will increasingly augment and extend virtually every technology enabled service, thing or application. Creating intelligent systems that learn, adapt and potentially act autonomously rather than simply execute predefined instructions is primarily battleground for technology vendors through at least 2020.

Trend No. 1: AI & Advanced Machine Learning

AI and machine learning, which include technologies such as deep learning, neural networks and natural-language processing, can also encompass more advanced systems that understand, learn, predict, adapt and potentially operate autonomously. Systems can learn and change future behavior, leading to the creation of more intelligent devices and programs.  The combination of extensive parallel processing power, advanced algorithms and massive data sets to feed the algorithms has unleased this new era.

 

In banking, you could use AI and machine-learning techniques to model current real-time transactions, as well as predictive models of transactions based on their likelihood of being fraudulent. Organizations seeking to drive digital innovation with this trend should evaluate a number of business scenarios in which AI and machine learning could drive clear and specific business value and consider experimenting with one or two high-impact scenarios.

Trend No. 2: Intelligent Apps

Intelligent apps, which include technologies like virtual personal assistants (VPAs), have the potential to transform the workplace by making everyday tasks easier (prioritizing emails) and its users more effective (highlighting important content and interactions). However, intelligent apps are not limited to new digital assistants – every existing software category from security tooling to enterprise applications such as marketing or enterprise resource planning (ERP) will be infused with AI enabled capabilities. Using AI, technology providers will focus on three areas — advanced analytics, AI-powered and increasingly autonomous business processes and AI-powered immersive, conversational and continuous interfaces. By 2018, Gartner expects most of the world’s largest 200 companies to exploit intelligent apps and utilize the full toolkit of big data and analytics tools to refine their offers and improve customer experience.

Trend No. 3: Intelligent Things

New intelligent things generally fall into three categories: robots, drones and autonomous vehicles. Each of these areas will evolve to impact a larger segment of the market and support a new phase of digital business but these represent only one facet of intelligent things. Existing things including Internet of Things (IoT) devices will become intelligent things delivering the power of AI enabled systems everywhere including the home, office, factory floor, and medical facility.

As intelligent things evolve and become more popular, they will shift from a stand-alone to a collaborative model in which intelligent things communicate with one another and act in concert to accomplish tasks. However, nontechnical issues such as liability and privacy, along with the complexity of creating highly specialized assistants, will slow embedded intelligence in some scenarios.

Digital

The lines between the digital and physical world continue to blur creating new opportunities for digital businesses. Look for the digital world to be an increasingly detailed reflection of the physical world and the digital world to appear as part of the physical world creating fertile ground for new business models and digitally enabled ecosystems.

Trend No. 4: Virtual & Augmented Reality

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) transform the way individuals interact with each other and with software systems creating an immersive environment. For example, VR can be used for training scenarios and remote experiences. AR, which enables a blending of the real and virtual worlds, means businesses can overlay graphics onto real-world objects, such as hidden wires on the image of a wall. Immersive experiences with AR and VR are reaching tipping points in terms of price and capability but will not replace other interface models. Over time AR and VR expand beyond visual immersion to include all human senses. Enterprises should look for targeted applications of VR and AR through 2020.

Trend No. 5: Digital Twin

Within three to five years, billions of things will be represented by digital twins, a dynamic software model of a physical thing or system. Using physics data on how the components of a thing operate and respond to the environment, as well as data provided by sensors in the physical world, a digital twin can be used to analyze and simulate real world conditions, responds to changes, improve operations and add value.

Digital twins function as proxies for the combination of skilled individuals (e.g., technicians) and traditional monitoring devices and controls (e.g., pressure gauges). Their proliferation will require a cultural change, as those who understand the maintenance of real-world things collaborate with data scientists and IT professionals. Digital twins of physical assets combined with digital representations of facilities and environments, as well as people, businesses and processes will enable an increasingly detailed digital representation of the real world for simulation, analysis and control.

Trend No. 6: Blockchain

Blockchain is a type of distributed ledger in which value exchange transactions (in bitcoin or other token) are sequentially grouped into blocks. Blockchain and distributed-ledger concepts are gaining traction because they hold the promise of transforming industry operating models in industries such as music distribution, identify verification and title registry. They promise a model to add trust to untrusted environments and reduce business friction by providing transparent access to the information in the chain.

While there is a great deal of interest the majority of blockchain initiatives are in alpha or beta phases and significant technology challenges exist.

Mesh

The mesh refers to the dynamic connection of people, processes, things and services supporting intelligent digital ecosystems. As the mesh evolves, the user experience fundamentally changes and the supporting technology and security architectures and platforms must change as well.

Trend No. 7: Conversational Systems

Conversational systems can range from simple informal, bidirectional text or voice conversations such as an answer to “What time is it?” to more complex interactions such as collecting oral testimony from crime witnesses to generate a sketch of a suspect. Conversational systems shift from a model where people adapt to computers to one where the computer “hears” and adapts to a person’s desired outcome. Conversational systems do not use text/voice as the exclusive interface but enable people and machines to use multiple modalities (e.g., sight, sound, tactile, etc.) to communicate across the digital device mesh (e.g., sensors, appliances, IoT systems).

Trend No. 8: Mesh App and Service Architecture

The intelligent digital mesh will require changes to the architecture, technology and tools used to develop solutions. The mesh app and service architecture (MASA) is a multichannel solution architecture that leverages cloud and serverless computing, containers and microservices as well as APIs and events to deliver modular, flexible and dynamic solutions. Solutions ultimately support multiple users in multiple roles using multiple devices and communicating over multiple networks. However, MASA is a long term architectural shift that requires significant changes to development tooling and best practices.

Trend No. 9: Digital Technology Platforms

Digital technology platforms are the building blocks for a digital business and are necessary to break into digital. Every organization will have some mix of five digital technology platforms: Information systems, customer experience, analytics and intelligence, the IoT and business ecosystems. In particular, new platforms and services for IoT, AI and conversational systems will be a key focus through 2020. Companies should identify how industry platforms will evolve and plan ways to evolve their platforms to meet the challenges of digital business.

Trend No. 10: Adaptive Security Architecture

The evolution of the intelligent digital mesh and digital technology platforms and application architectures means that security has to become fluid and adaptive. Security in the IoT environment is particularly challenging. Security teams need to work with application, solution and enterprise architects to consider security early in the design of applications or IoT solutions. Multilayered security and use of user and entity behavior analytics will become a requirement for virtually every enterprise.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gartnergroup/2016/10/26/gartners-top-10-strategic-technology-trends-for-2017/2/#4431dc3e3f9c

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China’s top-25 entry marks the first time a middle-income country has joined the highly developed economies that have historically dominated the top of the Global Innovation Index (GII) throughout its nine years of surveying the innovative capacity of 100-plus countries across the globe. China’s progression reflects the country’s improved innovation performance as well as methodological considerations such as improved innovation metrics in the GII.

Despite China’s rise, an “innovation divide” persists between developed and developing countries amid increasing awareness among policymakers that fostering innovation is crucial to a vibrant, competitive economy.

Innovation requires continuous investment. Before the 2009 crisis, research and development (R&D) expenditure grew at an annual pace of approximately 7%. GII 2016 data indicate that global R&D grew by only 4% in 2014. This was a result of slower growth in emerging economies and tighter R&D budgets in high-income economies – this remains a source of concern.

“Investing in innovation is critical to raising long-term economic growth,” says WIPO Director GeneralFrancis Gurry.  “In this current economic climate, uncovering new sources of growth and leveraging the opportunities raised by global innovation are priorities for all stakeholders.”

Among the GII 2016 leaders, four economies — Japan, the U.S., the UK, and Germany— stand out in “innovation quality,” a top-level indicator that looks at the caliber of universities, number of scientific publications and international patent filings. China moves to 17th place in innovation quality, making it the leader among middle-income economies for this indicator, followed by India which has overtaken Brazil.

Soumitra Dutta, Dean, Cornell College of Business, and co-editor of the report, points out: “Investing in improving innovation quality is essential for closing the innovation divide. While institutions create an essential supportive framework for doing so, economies need to focus on reforming education and growing their research capabilities to compete successfully in a rapidly changing globalized world.”

GII 2016 Theme: “Winning with Global Innovation”

The GII theme this year is “Winning with Global Innovation.” The report explores the rising share of innovation carried out via globalized innovation networks, finding that gains from global innovation can be shared more widely as cross-border flows of knowledge and talent are on the rise. The report also concludes that there is ample scope to expand global corporate and public R&D cooperation to foster future economic growth.

Bruno Lanvin, INSEAD Executive Director for Global Indices, and co-author of the report, underlines: “Some may see globalization as a trend in search of its ‘second breath.’ Yet, the relative contraction of international trade and investment flows does give even more strategic importance to the two sides of global innovation: on one hand, more emerging countries are becoming successful innovators, and on the other hand, an increasing share of innovation benefits stem from cross-border co-operation.”

At the national level, the report says that innovation policies should more explicitly favor international collaboration and the diffusion of knowledge across borders. New international governance structures should also aim to increase technology diffusion to and among developing countries.

Johan Aurik, Managing Partner and Chairman of GII Knowledge Partner A.T. Kearney, the global consultancy, says: “Digital has become a primary driver of strategy development and innovation for business in almost all sectors; I am convinced we are only at the beginning. Notably for established organizations, the challenge lies in finding ways to successfully innovate by using and transforming existing resources and business practices. Realizing success in today’s new landscape requires creative, forward-thinking strategies that embrace digital and address the need to change the fundamental ways of working in the company.”

Northern America

The U.S. (4^th) continues to be one of the world’s most-innovative nations, with particular strengths including the presence of firms conducting global R&D, the sophistication of its financial market, including venture capital, the quality of its universities and scientific publications, software spending, and the state of its innovation clusters. The U.S. scores lower, however, in expenditures on education, in tertiary education due to its low share of graduates in science and engineering, in energy efficiency, and in economy-wide investment and productivity critical to future growth.

Canada (15^th overall in the GII) has top scores in its regulatory environment, the ease of starting a business, the sophistication of its financial market, including venture capital, the quality of its universities and scientific publications, as well as in online creativity. Yet, Canada’s GII rankings had declined in previous years, with its fall from the top 10 due largely to methodological changes as well as comparatively weak performance in education and R&D expenditures, information and communication technology (ICT) services, energy efficiency, and, similarly to the U.S., in economy-wide investment and productivity figures.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Mauritius takes the top spot among all economies in the region (53rd), followed by South Africa (54th), Kenya (80th), Rwanda (83rd), Mozambique (84th), Botswana (90th), Namibia (93rd), and Malawi (98th).

Since 2012, Sub-Saharan Africa has counted more countries than any other region among the group of “innovation achievers” – countries that perform better than their level of development would predict. This year, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Uganda stand out. Better rankings on the indicators for institutions, business sophistication, and knowledge and technology output have allowed the region to catch up to Central and Southern Asia, and to overtake Northern Africa and Western Asia.

Average regional performance shows strengths in the ease of starting a business, ICTs, business-model creation, and relative expenditure on education, with weaknesses in firms conducting global R&D, high-tech exports, the quality of local universities and number of scientific publications. In general, further efforts are required in Human capital, Research and Infrastructure.

As economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is slowing, the GII 2016 shows that Sub-Saharan Africa must preserve its current innovation momentum, while continuing to diversify economies away from oil production and commodity revenues.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Chile takes the top spot among all economies in the region (44^th) driven by good scores on the indicators for institutions, infrastructure and business sophistication, followed by Costa Rica (45th), Mexico (61st), Uruguay (62nd), and Colombia (63rd). Brazil is ranked 69th, with strengths in relevant education and R&D factors, the quality of its scientific publications, and high-tech manufacturing; yet relative weaknesses in its business environment (123rd), elements of tertiary education (111th) and, more generally, its ability to generate innovation outputs, and the creation of new businesses.

Latin America is a region with important untapped innovation potential. The GII rankings of local economies have not significantly improved relative to other regions in recent years, and no country in the region currently shows a performance higher than its GDP.

The report suggests that, as Latin America, and especially Brazil, have entered into a zone of economic turbulence, it is important to overcome short-term political and economic constraints and to redouble longer-term innovation commitments. Greater regional R&D and innovation cooperation can help the region in this process, as underlined in this year’s GII theme.

Central and Southern Asia

India, 66th, is the top-ranked economy in Central and Southern Asia, showing particular strengths in tertiary education and R&D, including global R&D intensive firms, the quality of its universities and scientific publications, its market sophistication and ICT service exports where it ranks first in the world. India also over-performs in innovation relative to its GDP. It ranks second on innovation quality amongst middle-income economies, overtaking Brazil. Relative weaknesses exist in the indicators for business environment, education expenditures, new business creations and the creative goods and services production.

“The commitment of India to innovation and improved innovation metrics is strong and growing, helping to improve the innovation environment.  This trend will help gradually lift India closer to other top-ranked innovation economies”, says Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).  Following India in the region are Kazakhstan (75th), the Islamic Republic of Iran (78th), Tajikistan (86th), Sri Lanka (91st), and Bhutan (96th).

Northern Africa and Western Asia

Of the top five GII performers in this region, two are from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): United Arab Emirates (41st) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (49th). Many of the GCC countries are diversifying their economies following a decades-long dependence on oil, turning their focus towards more innovation-driven and diverse sources of growth and overcoming relative shortcomings in areas, such as Institutions, market and business sophistication.

“Innovation no longer occurs in silos, today it crosses borders and relies on collaboration between various entities to create a win-win prospect. The UAE is harnessing a globalized strategy to lead innovation internationally through its Smart City agenda and bring about a greater degree of convenience and satisfaction, and ultimately happiness, for all,” says Osman Sultan, Chief Executive Officer, du.

Israel (21st) – consistently the only economy among the overall top 25 GII rankings and in the top 10 for any GII  pillar — and Cyprus (31st) are the top two nations in the region for the fourth consecutive year. Turkey ranks 4th in the region in 2016 and 42nd overall. Armenia (60th) is the only economy in the region which outperforms relative to its GDP.

The region shows its highest average scores in ICT access and ICT-driven business model creation, as well as in e-government, and productivity growth. Less notable performances are seen in high-tech exports, patents, and the quality of publications.

South East Asia, East Asia, and Oceania

Singapore (6th), the Republic of Korea (11th), Hong Kong (China) (14th), Japan (16th), and New Zealand (17th) lead the rankings in this region. The majority of innovation leaders in the GII are in this region or Europe.

Among upper-middle-income economies, China (25th), Malaysia (35th), and Thailand (52nd) rank first in the region. Viet Nam (59th) maintains its top place among lower-middle-income economies, followed by the Philippines (74th,) and Indonesia (88th). Low-income economy Cambodia maintains its ranking in the top 100 economies overall (95th).

The region’s strongest average performance is in the number of teachers per pupils and productivity growth, with lower scores in R&D financed by foreign firms, ICT services exports and imports, and intellectual property receipts.

Europe

Fifteen of the top 25 economies in the GII come from Europe, including the top three.  Switzerland retains the top position for the sixth consecutive year, followed by Sweden (2nd), and the United Kingdom (3rd). Following these top 3 regional leaders are Finland (5th), Ireland (7th), Denmark (8th), the Netherlands (9th), and Germany (10th), which joins the top 10 in 2016.

Europe benefits from comparatively strong institutions and well-developed infrastructure, while room for improvement is found in business sophistication and knowledge and technology outputs. Europe does particularly well in environmental performance, ICT access, and school life expectancy. At the same time, there is room for improvement in R&D financed by businesses, R&D financed by foreign firms, high-tech exports, and international patent filings.

Source: http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2016/article_0008.html

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The key considerations for any SMB business owner before investing in a new phone system or new unified collaboration solution are whether this investment is improving profitability, increasing productivity or reducing operational cost. Asset investment needs to deliver a positive return on investment. It should enables your people to be more efficient and productive.

Below, you’ll find the TOP 5 Tips for choosing an IP PBX for a Small Medium Business.

#1 Easy to use real time communications

Studies according to “MobileSQUARED advertising report,” a mobile research firm, shows that 90% of messages are read within 3 minutes, this is clearly showing how time sensitive and real time communications have become critical to business today.

SMBs can benefit greatly from simple tools, like email plug-in application that allows users to access contacts without opening separate applications and be able click-to-call, click to IM, click to SMS directly from their email applications. This is a very effective way to increase productivity and to decrease cost, especially if integrating with 3rd party internet calls providers.

Conferencing is also becoming the cornerstone of the real time communication. You will want to check the sound quality of the speaker on the desk phone as well as the microphone to ensure that your conference calls are audible for you and your participants (wideband audio, noise cancellation….) This is very important when you have frequent and multiple daily business conference calls. This element is often overlooked as a key requierement for productivity increase.

In addition, surveys have shown that many SMB employees keep a paper directory document and use it everytime they want to call someone in their company. By the simple fact to integrate a directory in the telephone system and to provide a “call by name” feature, even with external alphabetical keyboard on the deskphone, it will provide great improvement on daily productivity.

#2 Investment protection

You may want to consider how requirements might change over time, and make sure you get a system that will scale with your future company size and needs. This could requiere some significant analysis. But, it it important to pre-plan your decision based on future expansions, and based on selecting a vendor that has been in the market for many years, which has shown that it will be able to support and maintain your system in the long term.

Reduce operational cost by planning to reverse the cost curve between operating and managing complex systems. Look in to replacing with a system targeted for SMB which offers high business value, low complexity and attractive pricing. It is impressive to see how cost effective and capable SMB telephony systems have become – you could pay much less today in operating cost but get a strong productivity increase. Make sure you are selecting an easy to use and easy to maintain telephony system, and this will assure a much lower operational cost on the long term.

Many SMB are also considering CAPEX and OPEX as cost of operating a network. Don’t put too much significance on initial capiral expenditure and installation cost, look at the long term on-going cost, and do an analysis of the true real cost of ownership. One of the significant factor that should be looked at is the “gain or loss” of revenue because of the telephony network. A ROI is measured by increased transactions, increased productivity, increase customer satisfaction and then by cost saving.

#3 Mobility – BYOD – remote workers

In early 2014, internet usage from mobile devices exceeded PC/laptop usage.

The challenge for a SMB is to balance the risk of opening the door to mobility while gaining the advantages brought by BYOD. Many businesses are coming up with alternate solutions, for example, limiting functions and restricting access to company information.

Other capabilities providing users with Web applications can keep users in touch with their company anywhere using any compatible desktop web browser (from a smartphone, a tablet, a desktop computer or a laptop on Mac/Windows, etc…) whenever they have internet access, simplifying the maintenance and support. This permits users to access call logs anywhere, and to forward their extensions to any phones whether a mobile or home phone, etc.

Applications such as NFC (Near Field Communications) have been gaining traction with easy on-site mobility that delivers benefit from session shift between desk phone and their NFC-enabled smartphone.

More and more companies consider how mobile users and teleworkers can work from anywhere, anytime, whether from home, or from a Starbucks, on the road. Providing the right solution could be complex, between a highly secure but expensive solution, or a simple solution with higher security risk. The analysis of the different solutions should be reviewed carefully and selected based on individual companies’ needs.

#4 Network Assessment

SMBs have a need to implement productivity-enhancing IT services with reduced costs. With that need, they face the complexity between network security, mobility, quality of services and class of services for local applications or cloud applications running on their data network.

A study done in 2015 “Network barometer 2015” looked at large installed based of mid to large customers showed surprising results:

– 60% of network devices have at least one security vulnerability

– 74% of wireless access points are still older models (802.11g and older) that don’t support a sound mobility and security strategy.

– 53% of network devices are aging or obsolete (and it is growing year over year)

These points above show it is critical to review the status of your network infrastructure.

If you are a SMB owner looking at implementing VoIP, BYOD or real time application, it is critical to review the current status of your data network.

SMBs have to find the right balance between security risk, cost and advantages to open the network. Upgrading your network to the latest technology and latest software version is a critical element to make sure VoIP, UC, and BYOD investments run smoothly based on your infrastructure.

#5: Technology alone won’t solve your collaboration problems

Based on a study in March 2015 from “Harvard Business review by Mark Mortensen,” every week a vendor introduces a new gadget, system or services that promises to make us communicate and collaborate better. However, the reality is that most results are actually not providing much improvement in collaboration and productivity increase.

It’s not what technology you’ve got, but how you use it! The important point is to align knowledge management systems (or any system for that matter) with how people actually work. While we often think of the future of collaboration resting on the shoulders of technology, that is only part of the story. Sure, technology provides opportunities, but it’s important to view technology and social systems as partners. The promise of tomorrow’s collaboration requires actively considering, designing, and fine-tuning both.

Discuss with our consultants

Going through this exercise can take some time, but this is one of the most important business infrastructure decisions you’ll make, so it’s worth taking the time to pre-plan so you make the right business value decision. Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is the leading European provider of communication solutions. We will be pleased if you would like to engage with our communication advisers.

 

Source: http://blog-enterprise.alcatel-lucent.com/article/top-5-tips-choosing-ip-pbx-your-small-business

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When justifying a loyalty initiative, too many executives focus ONLY on the financials, but there are 15 major business benefits – each a competitive advantage – that only a loyalty initiative can provide…

Many of the so-called loyalty programmes in operation today are not really loyalty programmes at all. Frequent customer is a more accurate term. To be loyal to a business is one thing, to use it frequently is another – it could be a result of circumstances that there is no other choice. Clearly, if another choice becomes available, then the distinction becomes critical. This means that most prudent businesses aim to create loyal customers, not just frequent customers.

Of course, not all customers are potentially loyal customers, for a variety of reasons. So the ideal loyalty programme would be one in which already loyal and potentially loyal customers benefited, but other customers didn’t.

This means that the customers have first to be sorted into groups, and different approaches have to be made to each group. Or, more likely, a programme has to be designed so that it will appeal to the desired group more than to the other group.

A good point at which to start is at the very beginning – when acquiring the customers. In many typical businesses, as many as 45% of direct, new, one-off purchasers do not go on to purchase a second time. In order to grow and maintain a successful business, three simple rules should be followed:

1. Acquire customers that are likely to repurchase – even though this may be at the expense of initial raw response;
2. Recognise which customers are unlikely to repurchase and limit your marketing spend for this segment accordingly;
3. Focus the marketing budget on those who exhibit the same profile as existing repurchasers but have yet to buy a second time.

The fifteen biggest business benefits that every loyalty programme operator should expect to reap – and use to justify continuing and expanded investment in the programme – are as follows:

1. Retain existing customers
   The effect of the customer retention rate on actual, bottom-line customer numbers cannot be over-estimated. In five years, a firm with a 70% customer retention rate will have lost two to three times as many customers as a firm with a 90% retention rate.Not only does a loyalty programme provide a practical, hard reason for continuing to buy (the accumulation of points toward a reward, or higher levels of service) but it also provides information about the customers that allows their needs to be met more efficiently and effectively. This in turn makes them more likely to remain customers. In addition, loyalty programme operators often report that, once a customer starts redeeming rewards, enthusiasm and engagement both increase.In addition to simply retaining customers, the data from a loyalty programme can be used to better cater for their varying needs. Companies typically use this data to segment their customers for the purposes of marketing, sales and customer services. But customers are more complex than that. Their needs and desires differ from time to time, from occasion to occasion, and depending on the reason for the transaction. In other words, the customer is ‘divisible’. Thus marketing can go deeper than one-to-one; it can identify customers’ changing needs and then provide perceived benefit venue-by-venue and situation-by-situation.
2. Acquire new customers
   A loyalty programme should attract new customers to the business; how effectively will depend on how exciting and how valuable the rewards seem to be to the target audience. Acquiring customers is no doubt essential to any business, but it can be expensive if compared to nurturing existing good customers. It should not be the central focus of a loyalty programme; there are cheaper and more effective ways of acquiring customers. However, it is generally far more profitable to retain and up-sell existing customers than to attract new ones.Using a four-year profile of new customer behaviour from a leading retailer, loyalty expert Brian Woolf has shown that, one year after becoming a customer, only two out of each thousand new customers (0.2%) were in the top customer segment and only twelve (1.2%) were in the second segment. Over half were inactive. Between 95% and 96% of the new arrivals were either in the lowest segment or had left by the end of the year. However, quality of new customers acquired can be raised by careful use of the existing data of a loyalty programme. This can be used to establish the demographic particulars of existing best customers, and then to target prospective customers with similar demographics in acquisition campaigns.
3. Move customers up-segment
   By grading rewards (for example, offering extra points for exceeding a specified spend threshold in a time period), customers can be moved up from one spend level to the next. A good example of this is The Continuity Company (TCC), a provider of best customer marketing programmes, which skews its rewards to encourage lower spending customers to move up through the spend segments. In one of the company’s recent case studies, the top spending band’s contribution to sales increased by 41%, the next band down increased its contribution to sales by 45% and the lowest spend band decreased its contribution to sales by some 7%.
4. Deselect unprofitable customers
   It can be more profitable to lose bad customers than to gain new ones. Cherry pickers (who buy only your discounted lines and nothing else) cost you money, as does any low-spending customer. They cost more money to service than they generate. Designing a loyalty programme that rewards better customers without rewarding this segment at all gives them less reason to stay.Gary Hawkins, CEO for US-based Green Hills Supermarket, has found that only around three in ten customers actually generate enough profit to cover the cost of servicing them. What about the other seven? Does it make sense to keep them as customers? To a certain extent it does: if they can be identified through a loyalty programme, efforts can be made to move them up through the segments and hopefully they will become more profitable customers. Moreover, while possibly not generating profit directly, they are contributing to the size of the business and also contributing to fixed operating costs (rent, rates, utilities etc.).However, the ‘worst of the worst’ could probably be profitably lost. So far, it seems that only financial institutions have gone as far as actually closing unprofitable customers’ accounts. The generally adopted approach by other businesses is simply not to reward them in any way and hope that they will leave.
5. Win-back defected & churned customers
   Customer win-back expert Michael Lowenstein says that the success rate in approaching ‘lost’ customers can be three to four times as high as it is when prospecting for new customers. For example, the rate for converting prospects might typically be 5%, while that for reactivating inactive customers might be as high as 15-20%.In the book ‘Customer Winback’, the authors point out that there are several reasons why customer win-back has a greater chance of success than acquisition. You have advantages with lost customers that you don’t have with prospects, including information about their past purchase history, where and how to reach them, and their preferred communication channel.
6. Increase Customer Lifetime Value
   Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or CLTV) is increasingly being recognised as one of the most important measures of the worth of a customer. It takes into account not only the customer’s value now but the expected value over their projected lifetime as a customer. It is arguably the best way a marketer can demonstrate unequivocally that a programme is working: the CLV of targeted customers must increase.
7. Best customer marketing
   Simply put, best customer marketing (BCM) involves spending more time, effort, and money on your best customers in order to maximise the return on marketing investment.The strategy has been honed to a fine art by leading marketers such as Brian Woolf and Gary Hawkins, and has become the driving force behind the leading loyalty programmes in the world today.
8. Build relationships
   Building relationships is crucially important but not always as straight-forward as it might seem. It has been said that relationship marketing is powerful in theory but troubled in practice – an unpalatable concept but probably one with which many marketers could identify. If ever there has been an example of “many a slip ‘tween cup and lip”, counting on the building of relationships with all and sundry in order to generate profits must be somewhere near the top of the list.Building a relationship with customers leads to improved behavioural loyalty and thus to increased bottom-line profits. That’s obvious, isn’t it? Well, no. In fact it doesn’t always work like that. It has been argued that attempting to partner with all customers, regardless of their characteristics, might not always be the best way forward.There are factors that alter the importance of the relationship/behaviour/profits equation quite significantly. Age is just one of these factors. Studies carried out in the UK in the 1990s concluded that customers under 45 were most loyal and those over 65 were least loyal. Yet other studies found no clear relationship between age and loyalty. It used to be thought that older customers were more loyal to brands than younger customers but even that is changing, with some studies finding no clear relationship.
9. Create brand advocates
   Advocacy is one of the highest forms of loyalty that a customer can show. Advocates are so satisfied and pleased with your offering that they tell their friends and associates.To most people, a personal recommendation is far more convincing than any amount of promotional material they receive – even if they already trust the brand.
10. Adjust pricing levels
    A loyalty programme can also help to formulate pricing structure. If enough best customers are happy to buy a product at a particular price there seems little point in reducing that price simply to attract cherry-pickers.But aside from helping to decide what pricing changes should be made, the after-effects of changing prices can also be studied by segmenting and testing offers on the loyalty database – for example, which customer segments buy significantly more or less when prices change, either gradually or suddenly.
11. Responding to competitive challenges
    A good loyalty programme’s ability to tie purchases to individual customers allows quick and accurate identification of customers who defect when new competition opens nearby. They can then be enticed back with customer-specific special offers or even direct contact.For example, one small store had to face up to a competitor opening a much bigger store on the same parking lot. In anticipation, the small store was extensively remodelled, causing considerable disruption. Over the period of remodelling (a matter of several weeks) turnover dropped by 40%. However, a loyalty programme enabled management to identify regular shoppers and mail them a letter thanking them for their patience and enclosing some special offers. All but 183 customers returned to the store. The store management team then sent handwritten invitations and a US$10 gift certificate to those 183 customers. All but three returned.After the new competitor opened, the smaller store’s whole customer database was mailed an offer containing US$5-off coupons for US$50 orders in each of the following twelve weeks. Any customer using all twelve received an extra US$10 certificate. The result was that sales actually rose by between 6% and 7% over the months following the new opening. The competitor’s store (which was approximately twice the size) achieved less than half the sales of the remodelled store. This shows the power of knowing who your customers are.
12. Select stock lines effectively
    Knowing what best customers buy frequently helps choose which lines to stock and which lines to expand on. By way of example, the owner of a small UK-based suburban supermarket had twelve months’ notice that a large national supermarket was opening right over the road from him. He realised that without major changes he would not survive. What he did was simple but clever. The suburb in which he was situated was mixed, having mainly low-cost housing but also a very exclusive area. Many of his customers were low earners who bought their basic requirements every day or two from him – in essence, what they could carry home in a couple of bags. He knew that they would migrate to the lower prices and bigger ranges of the big chain.However, a considerable number of the more wealthy people would call in on their way home from work to pick up bread and milk and a few odds and ends. He started noting what they bought, and what they never bought. Over the months, he stopped ordering products that they never bought, and increased his range of things that they did buy. Over the year, his store slowly changed from a small supermarket to a very big delicatessen. His wealthy customers told their friends and the composition of his customer base changed from mainly low earners to mainly high earners. When the supermarket opened over the road, his low earners did migrate, but he hardly noticed the difference.
13. Plan merchandising more intelligently
    Basket analysis can identify what lines are bought at the same time, particularly by best customers, and planograms can be planned accordingly to encourage cross-purchasing.The apocryphal story of a retailer (usually said to be Wal-Mart) discovering from basket analysis that men who buy baby nappies also buy beer (the refined version on the internet includes “on Friday evenings”) may be true or not – there is a whole web site devoted to discussing its veracity. But this story, regardless of its origin, does illustrate the potential of the principle in its own bizarre way.Data similar to this is used widely to plan planograms for store merchandising. Of course, on one level, plain basket analysis without a loyalty programme is enough for this purpose. But add the dimension of knowing who the customer is, how much they spend, and where they live and you can confidently decide whether it is worth putting a display of nappies in the beer aisle on Friday evenings or not!
14. Reduce promotional and advertising costs
    Because advertising based on segmentation of a loyalty database can be highly targeted instead of untargeted, significant savings can be made. There is no need to send out thousands of flyers that will be thrown away unread, or take pages of newspaper space that is irrelevant to many of the readers.Targeted advertising works measurably. The more sophisticated type of loyalty programme – such as the UK’s Tesco Clubcard – can not only target advertising material almost individually to its many millions of members but it can accurately measure the response rates to those advertisements. If Mrs Smith is sent a coupon for money off Whitesmile toothpaste, the system knows whether or not she redeems that coupon. That information is valuable not only to Tesco, but to the makers of Whitesmile toothpaste. Not only does this form of advertising save Tesco money; it actually earns Tesco money. While national UK magazines are reported to charge between £5,000 and £7,000 per page for advertising, Tesco is said to charge up to £37,000 for an A5 page (roughly half the size of a standard A4 magazine) – and brands pay those kind of rates because it works. Buying space in the magazine is an accountable investment toward measurable sales; one particular toilet tissue brand saw a 27% increase in sales after advertising in this way.
15. Selecting new trading sites
    Selecting a site for a new store is no longer a case of sticking a pin in a map, or choosing a site on a hunch. The loyalty card enables you to profile the demographics of best customers and – because it is often likely that the best prospective customers will have similar demographics – choose new locations much more accurately.In addition, if the addresses of existing customers are known, they can be plotted geographically and sites can be chosen where there are outlying pockets of customers or gaps in coverage.

Source: http://www.thewisemarketer.com/features/read.asp?id=120

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1. Check your local telecommunications authority.

Depending on your location, most governments require a license from telecommunications authorities before you can set up a call center. You don’t want to encounter any issues with any government agencies after your investment. Check it out first.

2. Go to any telecommunications provider and ask for two things
A toll-free number with a multi channel interface (ISDN)

Go to any telecommunication provider in your area and ask for a toll-free number and a telephone connection that’s capable of receiving multiple calls simultaneously. This is normally an ISDN PRI.
Apply for a broadband with SDSL connection

SDSL is an acronym for Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Unlike standard ADSL broadband, upload and download speeds are the same with SDSL, A bandwidth of 512 kb is capable of receiving 6-8 calls simultaneously with acceptable audio quality.

You can also choose to apply for a leased line. But SDSL is much cheaper than leasing a line. You simply need to pay a flat monthly subscription with no additional charges.

3. Get hold of an IP PABX

IP PABX stands for Internet Protocol Private Automatic Branch Exchange. In simple terms, it is an office’s own full IP telecom system that reduces the cost of office communications. IP PABX allows different offices to share a common phone line, thus reduces the number of direct lines which would otherwise be installed per office.

While the configuration of your IP PABX will be provided by your vendor, you might need to hire a permanent person to take care of this device and its configuration.

4. Purchase IP Phones and lots of Ethernet cables

How you connect your computer to a hub is the same as how you would plug in the IP phones to the IP PABX.

5. Have your support number routed to your IP Gateway

IP PABX would normally provide you with the facility to connect directly to ISDN PR to start receiving calls. If not, your best option is to get a VoIP for consumers.

Don’t be overwhelmed by the term. With the adoption of VoIP by consumers (which is ideal for small call centers), consumer VoiP PBX have appeared with PBX functions becoming just a simple software feature of a consumer-grade routers and switches.

6. Install the necessary call center software

You will need to install an application to your agent’s computer that should provide real time information on the current status of a customer, and any other business policies involving such status.

Check out for a call center management software that doesn’t just provide the ability to control and handle daily customer-related business tasks, but also features instant routing of privileged customers to the best agents, reduces holding times for customers, and offer more efficient scheduling of employees and detailed reporting.

There are also management contact software that will coordinate and manage the interactions between your company and your customers.

Customer satisfaction and the overall business can be greatly influenced by the use of the right software for call centers. You will have a satisfied customer if you can reduce the wait time and connect them immediately with the concerned department. This helps improve customer perception. Customer expectations are high and given the advancements in technology that has made everything fast paced and they expect businesses to be on its toes ready to resolve their issues and with the information they want. To keep up with such demands the best you can do is to set up with the reliable call center system.

Investing in the right online contact management software can reduce costs effectively. The better your business handles calls, the better you earn. Efficiency is the key to a successful call center business.

Source: http://callcentersphil.blogspot.com/2011/10/6-steps-to-set-up-call-center-for-small.html

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In recent years, loyalty programs that reward buyers for sticking with the brand have steadily grown in popularity.

Between 2008 and 2012, U.S. loyalty memberships increased by 10 percent per year – reaching over 23 memberships per household.

But for all their growth and popularity, do loyalty programs really pay off for the companies that offer them? A recent McKinsey study suggests that on average, they do not – and may in fact destroy value for program owners. The study, involving 55 publicly traded North American and European companies, showed that those that spend more on loyalty, or have more visible loyalty programs, grow at about the same rate – or slightly slower – than those that do not (4.4 vs  5.5 percent per year since 2002).

Notably, this trend appears to vary by sector, with loyalty focus having a positive impact on hotel growth, but negative impact on airlines, car rentals, and food retail, for example. However, as a whole, companies surveyed that had higher loyalty spend also had EBITDA margins that were about 10 percent lower than companies in the same sectors that spent less on loyalty.

Despite relative underperformance in terms of revenue growth and profitability, over the past five years, market capitalization for companies that greatly emphasize loyalty programs has outpaced that of companies that don’t. This may reflect the hope that meaningful loyalty programs can drive long-term value – and perhaps that data amassed through loyalty programs will pay dividends in due time. Still, why do many loyalty programs fail to deliver this long-term value? And how do the winners manage to buck the trend?

Hallmarks of success, the ones that buck the trend

Companies that have developed loyalty programs that succeed in driving revenue growth share some common characteristics:

Integrate loyalty into the full experience:  Starbucks, the brand that created loyalty by differentiating the ordinary experience of drinking coffee, has also managed to create a strongly differentiated loyalty program. To do this, the company integrated payments and mobile technology with the Starbucks shop experience to make the transaction more enjoyable.

Use the data: The Target REDcard combines loyalty and a valuable discount program – 5 percent at the point of sale. They have moved past the flat “discount-only” model by building out industry- leading data capabilities, using the data to target highest-value consumers (e.g., future moms).

Build partnerships: Despite Tesco’s massive success at using data to drive loyalty, Sainsbury slightly outpaced the giant’s sales growth in the UK for the last three to four years; in part this could be due to a new form of loyalty program. Sainsbury is the anchor retailer of the Nectar coalition, which allows consumers to collect rewards across a large number of non-competing retailers in the UK. Through Nectar, Sainsbury offers a broader value proposition to its customers, and captures external data from coalition partners.

Solve customer and industry pain points: Amazon’s largest success in loyalty is built around solving one of online shoppers’ primary pain points: delivery. For $79 a year, members of the online retailer’s “Prime” program get free two-day shipping, plus free digital content. Prime not only integrates tightly with Amazon’s customer and convenience-focused brand, it also creates a loyalty program for suppliers, who rely on Fulfillment By Amazon for access to Prime customers. While Prime’s stand-alone profitability is a closely guarded secret, it is estimated that members spend over four times more with Amazon than non-members.

Maximize difference between perceived value and real cost: Like most hotel loyalty programs, the major focus of the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) program is to attract high-value travelers by offering rewards t for personal leisure travel. Redemptions generally occur on weekends, when these hotels have relatively low occupancy and incur limited incremental cost. Starwood has also developed a series of offerings (e.g., upgrades, flexible check-in, Internet) that are highly valuable to their top customers, but bear little marginal cost. Overall, Starwood’s loyalty program has improved its brand appeal and helped the chain achieve above market growth, despite relatively low overall guest satisfaction scores.

Allocate loyalty reinvestment to the most profitable customers: Southwest Airlines’ loyalty program has been a hallmark of its brand, and the 2010 revamping of the program appears to have maintained its customer appeal, while better correlating its spend to profitability. While most airlines attach rewards to miles flown, Southwest offers rewards based on ticket price. Their loyalty rewards spend remains similar to that of other loyalty-focused airlines (i.e., 8 to 9 percent of revenue passenger miles), but the program is better positioned to drive profitability.

Loyalty programs are not only growing, but they are also becoming more tightly integrated with the supporting brand and shopping experience, offering consumers a seamless experience across point of sale, the Internet, phone and mobile channels. Consumer-facing businesses must think beyond the concept of a me-too, points-based loyalty program. To reap the full benefits of customer loyalty, they must create a differentiated experience, consistent with their brand, to provide a step change in brand preference.

Source: 2014, (http://www.businessinsider.com/effective-loyalty-programs-2014-3)

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