The pragmatic answer lies in the type of industry one works in.

Most people look at industries that are into manufacturing and construction as more susceptible to accidents compared to a typical office job.

This is not exactly true.

Collective studies reveal that office workers are as likely to sustain injuries due to random incidents that can happen to anyone at any time.

The severity of some of these injuries may vary, yet the prognosis is still the same, treatment needs to be doled out to the individual on the receiving end and immediate countermeasures should be placed to avoid further incidents.

Safety regulations at workplaces often serve its purpose in diminishing health hazards, yet it is often left to an individual itself to find the cure.

There is no threshold limit to pain, every fall or trip however small or big can entice physical and emotional damage that can be easily avoided.

Let’s take a closer look at 5 common occupational hazards and remedies to overcome them.

1. Slip, Trips and falls:

The most common workplace-related injury that is mostly due to small hazardous conditions like wet floors, open desk drawers, or some random article lying on the floor.

Falls in workplaces can lead to even more serious consequences due to the height factor.

How do I avoid such situations?

Know your surroundings:

Always keep your eyes open for any anomaly at your workplace, be it a wet floor, objects that are out of place, open drawers, electrical cords and more.

Record incidents:

It is important to report every incident that you find to concerned authorities in order for them to take the required countermeasures. For better efficiency, ditch the traditional paper or spreadsheet based reporting to a digital incident management software.

Brighten up your workspace:

Always make sure that your office space is brightly lit up, making sure every object or path-way is easily visible.

2. Aggressive Behaviour:

Erratic behavior, Mood Swings, arguments or just plain old-fashioned fistfights among workers has sadly become a common sight in the work-place.

We are bound to face pressure in our goal to reach the top of the corporate ladder. Our anxiety turns to stress and sooner or later this continuous influx of stress is bound to burst.

I’m no psychologist, how do I foresee aggressive behavior?

Pay due-diligence to your colleagues; do not hide comments or remarks that pave the way for an impending attack. Read distress signals amongst your workers and report any erratic behavioral pattern to your superiors

Employers’ should encourage a positive work environment, where people come together collectively to synergize all their energy into reaching a common goal.

Sounds perfect, but an ideology that may never pass into fruition in a vastly competitive workplace.

The better option is to learn how to fight stress.

3.Body Postures:

Being still while working on your system, Looks like there’s no harm in it whatsoever.

Yet science proves that every repetitive movement you do in typing and positioning your posture to the screen can invariably cause strain to your fingers, neck, back, muscles and eyes

What is ergonomics? How does it relate to my safety?

Ergonomics is the science of arranging things people use so that the people and things interact more efficiently and safely.

It is important to know the ideal distance and posture one should follow while being seated next to a computer.

This is a commonly ignored work-related injury. The impact of ergonomics can only be seen in the long run.

4.Occupational Hygiene:

In a deteriorating Global environment, it is of primary importance to make sure that we are able to breathe easy and clean in our work-space in order for us to increase our productivity during work hours.

Cleanliness may not always be tangible; our attention is mostly focused on impurities we can see, feel or smell.

We look past the finer details like air pollutants and toxic substances and infectious pathogens that often cause severe work-place ailments.

Simple remedies are all that is needed to promote clean hygiene in your workspace

At your workspace, check to see if the source of ventilation is always serviced and in prime condition, keep your space devoid of garbage and clutter, Stay home if you are infected by a virus or bacteria that is infectious, and more.

5.Reckless Negligence:

There are times when employees resort to brain-fade techniques that cause damage that can and should be avoided at all costs.

From falling off swivel chairs (instead of using ladders) while fixing bulbs to getting breezed-off the edge of railings of a multi-stored office building while sitting on them just to enjoy the fine air.

The most common display of this rare intelligence is seen when people multitask on their smartphones when on the move either when walking or driving.

Impact related injury has the highest number of fatalities.

Though there is no prognosis for stupidity, yet it is important for people in the surroundings to immediately alert or report any incident that can develop into a dangerous situation

Better Solutions:

Most countries make it mandatory for companies to enforce safety and health parameters that is periodically checked for compliance and other safety measures related to employee’s health and safety.

Developed countries often follow a stricter regiment to structuring and implementing health and safety regulations for the workplace. This leads to a significantly lesser number of casualties.

For example, India has more than 48,000 workplace-related fatal accidents that occur in a year. This is more than 20 times the number of fatal accidents in Briton.

Is there a better solution to creating a hazard-free office space?

Technological advancements in the field of Safety and health in the office have paved the way for a unified system where every report, audit, compliance is stored and retrieved with ease.

Most companies opt for EHS software to easily track any hazardous incident and eliminate it – creating a safer workspace.

Creating a congenial work environment not only facilitates productivity but also looks into every minute aspect of the health and safety of the people working.

According to the world health organization (WHO), workplaces designed on good principles of occupational health and safety are also the most sustainable and productive.

The bottom line is a healthier office space is good for you. But it’s best that you do it yourself!

To read more EHS related blog posts, visit the Safetymint blog.

Read our exhaustive guide on Permit To Work System.

The post 5 Common Occupational Hazards and How to Overcome Them first appeared on Niyati.

According to the International Labor Organization, approximately 2.78 million deaths are reported due to occupational accidents and about 374 million non-fatal work-related injuries or illnesses are reported.

Based on these numbers, we begin to ponder the core reasons for these losses; the most common being negligence, poor safety culture in the workplace, freak accidents, or more.

Could these accidents have been avoided in the first place?

Most of it could have been averted with a strong occupational safety culture, where regular safety meetings entice workers to strictly adhere and report safety issues with sincere concern over their well-being and that of their fellow workers.

Employee Safety meetings shouldn’t be treated as a to-follow protocol forced by government regulations or compliance acts, but an opportunity to mold your office environment into a safe working zone which ultimately promotes better productivity.

Safety meetings effectively create awareness against impending dangers lurking around our workplace. It is our sole discretion to either ignore or abide by safety norms that determine our vulnerability.

There are 3 main objectives for an employee safety meeting:

Create Awareness:

Imparting awareness on safety issues significantly reduces risk. An aware employee is a better-prepared employee. With complete safety knowledge, we are better equipped to navigate through any perceived harm or danger zones in the workplace.

Toolbox Talk is the ideal short span (a maximum of 5 to 10 minutes) communication forum, where employees are given daily safety briefs that help them avoid any pitfalls on the job. At Toolbox Talks employees are also encouraged to voice their concerns.

Avoid Complacency:

Danger has no limits, be it time or space. We are often apprehensive about new surroundings or jobs but once familiarity breeds in, we begin to neglect the extra effort or time needed to follow workplace safety norms. Most accidents at our workplace are not due to a lack of awareness but an outcome of overlooking awareness issues.

Corrective Measures:

For every accident, there should be several processes in place to evaluate the reasons for the accidents and for immediate corrective measures to be placed to make sure that further similar accidents don’t occur.

Let’s take a look at few ways to improve safety meetings:

1. Create Engaging Sessions:

Bring sessions to life by creating a vibrant atmosphere during safety meetings. Articulate lectures to invoke attention from workers. Go the extra mile to actually spend quality preparation time; After all, you may be responsible for saving lives.

Do not engage attention by projecting gruesome images or videos – this whole operation isn’t to scare employees but to instill safety practices through logical reasoning.

 2. Limit Time-frame:

Keep sessions short – A notion that is a tad paraphrased, yet true. Shorter sessions capture the limited attention span of audiences. Longer ones evoke boredom.

Limit presentations and videos in a shorter time frame too. No matter how interesting the content can be, a condensed version is what audiences are looking for.

Depending on the industry and its liability to accidents, safety meetings can be on a daily basis, weekly or even monthly. Do not try to cram information into one session, focus on the important ones, and use the safety catalogs to elaborate on safety measures as these catalogs can be read at the employee’s leisure.

 3. Choose appropriate experts to lead the meetings:

The idea of getting employees to lead safety meetings not only undermines the role of safety experts but is a dangerous precedent considering the lack of proficiency that may lead to conflicting instructions.

Even safety leaders should be fine-tuned to all the intricacies of the office’s safety procedures, be it handling of equipment, office ergonomics, and more.

Pick the right safety qualified personnel with the articulation and drive to lead safety meetings.

 4. Interactive sessions:

Rather than having employees lead safety meetings, create a proactive atmosphere that allows employees to freely address their grievances or state their own inputs that would enable a safer workplace.

Take issues pointed out by employees seriously and show them you are all about action by swiftly addressing their concerns. A negligent attitude towards employee inputs makes employees resent company activities.

Find the right channel to communicate to employees, not everyone is comfortable voicing their views in a public forum. Use e-mails or a EHS software as a quick addressable system.

 5. Make iterations fun:

Listening to the same set of instructions over and over again eventually makes the subject dull. Yet, it is still important to re-state safety measures so that employees don’t get complacent on the job.

As familiarity breeds, the surprise element is no longer there and we tend to explore something new; this is exactly the reason why our favorite song suddenly becomes dull.

The solution lies in adopting a refreshed approach to iterating a subject. Create new layouts or videos, browse news facts on the same subjects, add a touch of humor in your presentation, and perceive audience responses for better preparation.

A successful safety meeting is a catalyst for a safer environment in your workspace where accidents are negated due to sharper responses from employees.

Newsfeeds from around the globe reveal a plethora of devastating events even in the safest of environments.

Yet, our knowledge of how to react during a crisis plays a crucial role in determining our well being.

Do you have better suggestions to improve safety meetings? Let us know through your comments.

Read more safety management and related articles on the Safetymint blog.

Have a look at our definitive guide on PTW Systems.

The post Employee Safety Meetings – Objectives and Methods to Get Better Results first appeared on Niyati.

Right from the get-go, you are faced with a myriad of possibilities and options… from making sure that your solution can cover a common problem to whether it can gain one-upmanship over potential rivals, from picking a software outsourcing partner to using a DIY platform, or creating beautiful, simple and easily navigable interfaces.

But most importantly, the success of your application will revolve around the platform that you build your software. A platform that seamlessly blends framework, technology, and architecture to ensure an immaculate functioning of your software features.

Whether you’re a techie or non-tech entrepreneur, at one time or another you may have had the inkling to bring your software idea to life. Read on, as we guide you through the right steps to ensure a big-bang delivery of your software with the right platform:

Make users validate the platform

You may have built a native mobile app, but are losing a lions-share of your customers because you failed to initially recognize the need to capture them on the web-platform. With a thorough user validation program, you may have uncovered that a progressive web application would have been the right fit.

Often, entrepreneurs are blindsided by their intuitions in selecting a platform. The result often amounts to software riddled with complexities and features that no one uses.

This is because of the absence of an actual feedback loop and MVP releases that deliver the software in small incremental cycles for user validation.

Software that does not conform to a user’s requirement may require a complete refactor of the platform that it was built on – alleviating expenses and making a negative first impression on customers.

An effective user-validation program often comprises of:

• In-depth market research
• Analyzing channel distribution of customer segments (web or mobile)
• Incremental MVP releases
• Testing prototypes with target users

Explore all options:

With a plethora of options available, it has become increasingly imperative to understand the extensive development and deployment options that each platform brings.

From off-the-shelf reusable code libraries to creating custom code or selecting a backend structure on the cloud to ensure easy access, multi-tenancy and security. Some platforms include:

• Operating platform (iOS, Android, Windows),
• Automation platforms (AI and analytics)
• Cloud platform (PaaS, Google Cloud, AWS)
• Mobile platforms (Native, hybrid, web apps, progressive application)
• Database Platform (Oracle, MySQL, MongoDB)

Platform that serves its purpose:

Whether you’re building a simple native iOS app or a complex web app, your integrated development environment should provide programmers and developers with a specific set of tools that is concurrent to their domain expertise and can accommodate the features explicit to your product vision.

First-off, learn about the technology adoption cycle of your software and where it fits in, then consider each feature and technology stack needed to build each feature.

Pick the right technology by asking the right questions like:

Does your app need to scale up?

Are privacy and security a big deal?

These will give you the answers to align all your ducks in a row.

But specificity can also be rigid, which is why you need to ensure that your SDLC is based on agile frameworks. Agile delivers a complete product iteratively – making sure that the products bear popular customer suggestions, is constantly bug-free and is updated to the latest technologies.

Bring in the Experts:

Bug fixes and errors are commonplace in the software development cycle. But is your team stacked with the knowledge to swiftly handle a crisis?

It is a fact that most companies developing software hit a wall when it comes to skill-set. This goes back again to choosing a platform that can easily adapt to your team’s proficiency.  But what if the software you’re creating requires unique features that only expert hands can fathom.

The viable alternative is to turn to highly efficient software outsourcing partners with the proven skill set to navigate through any complexity posed either by existing or newer platforms.

Most companies are easily swayed by ballpark quotes and turn to the cheapest alternative they can find – making this a road map for disaster

Investing in seasoned professionals who not just develop software but work hand-in-hand with your business and marketing strategy should ideally prove successful in the long run.

Look for a partner that is willing and able to give you their technological suggestions and creative discourse, have a proven track record of handling software start-ups and are equipped with experts well-versed with front-end and back-end technologies.

If you are looking for the right partner to build a platform that encompasses any level of complexity. Reach out to us and we’ll help you in articulating a successful software venture.

The post How to choose the right platform to build your software first appeared on Niyati.

Now, we may be at the tipping point at a whole new standard to financial transactions – “the internet of money”.

Leading the charge to this brave new world of cryptocurrency is the world’s most connected company, Facebook, which recently unveiled its ambitious plan to create a “simple global currency and financial infrastructure” know as Libra.

What is Libra?

Libra is a cryptocurrency powered by blockchain technology to enable users to send, receive and securely store money across the globe using any connected device like their mobile phone or tablets. Sounds fairly straight-forward and similar to online banking, but wait there’s more; Libra’s architecture is decentralized and peer-to-peer, which means; no banks or governmental financial sectors to levy heavy remittance fees on transactions, especially if it is across borders.

Set to be released in the middle of 2020, the underlying goal of Libra is to make monetary transactions on a global scale as easy as sending a message or photo.

Are Libra and Bitcoin the same crypto-coin?

The stark difference between the two crypto-coins is that Libra is a “stable coin” in which value attached to it remains stable amidst market fluctuations while the Bitcoin value is inconsistent.

Though both are powered by the blockchain architecture, Libra is a permissioned system that lacks the anonymity of a permissionless system like Bitcoin and is not entirely decentralized with nodes being controlled by a central reserve comprising of members of the Libra association. But unlike its counterparts, Libra with its limited nodes can handle about 1000 transaction per second – making it much faster and less volatile than Bitcoin.

What can Libra achieve?

Facebook has maintained a philanthropic vision behind Libra; to create financial inclusion for the unbanked which estimates to about 1.7 billion (31%) people around the world without bank accounts.

Yet, it is hard not to imagine the potential that Libra can leverage, given that Libra will be bundled into Facebook’s massive ecosystem by integrating the currency into the Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram application environment – making it possible to send money via WhatsApp. Libra will also have a standalone app called “Calibra”.

Can Facebook be trusted with our finances?

Though Facebook will be credited to initially developing Libra, it will get only a single vote in a consortium of 28 members that form the “The Libra Association”, which in turn runs as an independent non-profit entity based in Geneva and includes members like Visa, MasterCard and Paypal, tech firms like Uber, Spotify, E-bay and other diverse organizations that will work in unison to govern, implement and build strategies to take Libra forward. Facebook hopes to have 100 founding members before Libra is launched.

Distancing itself from managing user-profiles and financial details, Facebook has created a subsidiary company known as Calibra, a digital cryptocurrency wallet that will be integrated into the Facebook ecosystem without sharing user details to Facebook for targeted ads or any other vested interest.

Can Libra ascend government regulatory laws?

Ever since the announcement of Libra, financial and government regulators have taken a hostile stance towards implementing Libra on a global scale. For one, Libra can create a status quo where governments may have to give up their monopoly of control over currency and banks can no longer levy extortionist fees for cross border payments.

With over 400 million WhatsApp users and 300 million Facebook users, India is billed to be a major target for Libra. But it will have its work cut out given that India’s current regulation does not warrant banking transaction under cryptocurrencies.

Yet, India’s successful adoption rate to digital transactions through digital wallets and its government-run interface known as UPI, opens the scope for other forms of digital money like Libra to flourish. In fact, Facebook has already started a test run integrating UPI to allow payments via WhatsApp, albeit it gets the permission it needs to go mainstream.

Can Libra be exploited for illegal transactions?

A partially decentralized and unmonitored banking system like Libra may prove to be a haven for money launderers and drug lords to move money without being tracked. But Libra, unlike bitcoin, will have wallets with a restricted access system that will verify users through government identifications and facial recognition.

Furthermore, Libra will be closely examined by government agencies for potential risk and privacy issues before it could get off the ground.

Conclusion:

Remember a time when sending an SMS to another country took a sizable chunk out of your wallet. The advent of digitalization has taken messaging to a whole new dimension – making it free, easy-to-use and instant. Likewise, imagine the possibilities that digital money can bring.

From changing the way we connect to each other to playing a major role in political revolutions like the Arab spring, Facebook has indeed changed the world. It has created its very own global diaspora that can be influenced into adopting its new venture of proliferating into the world of finance.

Why wouldn’t they? Libra is set to democratize the financial system, provide financial identity to the unbanked, ensure that cash is always secure with no need of it being carried around, and remove cumbersome experiences of delayed payments and high transaction fees. Libra will connect the world by “making money work for everyone”.

The post Facebook’s Libra – The Rise of a Global Financial Network? first appeared on Niyati.

The first industrial revolution triggered the birth of the agricultural revolution, where steam engines powered machines to increase crop yield at better quality and lower cost. Then came the discovery of electricity which played a major factor in influencing the second industrial revolution – paving the way for mass manufacturing of products in assembly-lines and factories. The third industrial revolution was driven by the emergence of computer-driven systems – making it possible to program machines and networks on human prompts.

Now, we have begun to scratch the surface of the fourth industrial revolution, otherwise known as Industry 4.0.

Spurred by the wide adoption of digitization tools and systems, Industry 4.0 focuses on autonomously completing a task by integrating digital systems to communicate with each other to make decisions based on precise analytics – empowering machines to do things that human minds, eyes and hands could otherwise handle.

This wave of connections between digital tools like IOT devices, big data, cloud computing, AI, robotics, machine learning, neural networks, AR, VR, and other digital systems, orchestrates a truly collaborative atmosphere, where products and services are built to accommodate customer insights, market demands, and evolving technologies.

Industry 4.0 opens huge opportunities for disruption to manufacturing IT services.

Ramp-up speed to market:

Delegating work to a coalition of smart systems will accelerate the speed of each process – be it physical or mental, research or production. After all, the notion of any digitized system is to provide instant results.

Dynamic and competitive products:

Powered by smart and intuitive systems, Industry 4.0 will translate every speck of data into information, be it market fluctuations, reductions of waste, etc – to build better products based on new-learning and to become resource efficient.

Customer insights become more intimate:

Industry 4.0 will usher greater levels of personalization and customer integration. Large-scale and proactive cooperation with customers will unravel key value propositions that can be easily integrated with a flexible production process.

Greater flexibility to worldwide operations:

Businesses will be liberated from carrying data in silos and will create a global-value-chain, where customer, suppliers, and manufacturers are inter-connected and flexible enough to seamlessly incorporate market demands.

When human workers become spectators:

With a shortage of skilled workers, employing automated machines as the workers of the future is inevitable. Industry 4.0 focuses on easing the work-life balance of human workers by turning their focus to more creative and value-added pursuits, while ensuring dangerous or tedious work activities are assigned to machines.

Conclusion:

Industry 4.0 is already on course to reshaping the future of manufacturing; DHL and Amazon employ autonomous mobile robots (ARM) to transport packages around the warehouse using smart-system to deliver the package in relevance to its delivery schedule. Digitized ports in cities like Shanghai, Rotterdam and Hamburg have been steering processes independently throughout the entire value chain be it logistics, tracking or safety systems using a series of connected digitized solutions and robotics.

We live in exciting times, where innovations will lead to more expansive technological advancements and life-altering disruptions. Can manufacturing industries step-up to the pace of progress or be overwhelmed?

The post Embracing Industry 4.0 – The Future of Manufacturing first appeared on Niyati.

Indeed, functionality is an essential part of the application development cycle, it is the core fabric that underlines what the software is and can become. Yet, it has proved an unwise strategy to lay all your eggs in one basket.

Instead, you need to find the right balance between usability and functionality to strike a winning combination.

User Experience is the skin of the application that sways the user’s attention through aesthetic appeal and user-friendly interactions with your product – complementing the user journey at each turn.

By influencing a customer’s adoption of your product through persuasive experience design, you open the very real possibilities of ensuring that your product grows, succeeds and reaches new customers.

Companies like Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Apple, and Google have been able to scale over competition due to their commitment to improving user interactions with their products right from the get-go.

UX strategies continuously evolve over time, it has become pivotal that the user experience adapts to new technologies, a growing and diversified consumer base and meets the current demands of a highly competitive market.

If you are seeking to improve or build on your UX for your website, mobile or software application, read on, as we talk about 4 of the best UX strategies you should lean on to make your product a runaway success.

Build products using a human-centered approach:

UX considerations have to be implemented right from the ideation stage rather than an afterthought when the product is nearing its final stages of development.

Widely acclaimed as the human-centric approach to developing a product, design thinking provides a comprehensive solution to ensuring that your final product hits all the right notes with consumers, from its features, user experience to adaptability.

With design thinking, you essentially walk in the customer’s shoes through every step of the product journey discovering pain-points and opportunities, and iteratively building on them to enhance the experience of using the product throughout its lifecycle.

Minimalism is the new standard:

One extra step in the checkout process can lead to an abandoned cart. This has become the norm for a generation that is habituated in instant gratification. Cluttering the user interface with random usability functions and aesthetics can spell doomsday to the entire application.

Every element that goes into the making of the application should live up to the expectation of users and accentuate the user journey – making it as easy as it can be for users to navigate and complete the task the app was designed for.

Minimalism does not imply to stripping-off contents, images, and functions just for the sake of it, but applying research and analytics to discovering what the right content/design aesthetic is, where it should be placed, the time and place it should appear.

Mobile-friendly optimizations become obligatory:

According to Google, more than half of the users are less likely to engage with a company if its online product isn’t mobile friendly.

With the growing number of mobile users and the amount of time spent on smart-phones or tabs spiraling forward, shifting priority towards building mobile-friendly user experiences has become the benchmark to measure performance and higher-engagement metrics.

Users engage more often with mobile devices for its benefits of being connected round-the-clock from the comfort of wherever you are. Thus, building the UX for mobile devices should complement the in-built functionality value that mobile devices bring like automated locations sensors, connecting with device hardware like camera, etc.

Score more points with customers via gamification:

Gamification is proving to be a popular UX niche to keep users hooked on to your product and to gain a wealth of information into customer activities and behavioral patterns.

Though the term derives its roots from gaming, it isn’t about game design. The idea behind gamification is to use elements of the gaming interface in a non-gaming UX environment. Most educational applications have greatly benefited from gamification by creating a UX structure that challenges users to improve their engagement in order to win some form of benefits.

Slowly but surely gamification of the user experience is spreading through to most other application like payment apps (where users win points for every purchase), health apps and more, and with the addition of leader boards and user journey charts; a game based UX can become the benchmark for enthusing user interest.

The Bottom Line:

Designing an exceptional UX isn’t as simple as it sounds; it involves a dedicated team that can immerse themselves with the user psyche and design a user experience that users would love to engage with on a daily basis.

After all, Great products provide great experiences.

Very soon, your online medium is going to be preferred means of capture, interact and retain customers.

You need to make sure that your UX has what it takes to adapt to new technologies and scale over evolving customer demands to make that big splash.

The post 4 UX Strategies That Can Make Your Application Stand Out first appeared on Niyati.

None more than the rags-to-riches tale of the world’s most well-known beverage, Coca-Cola, which interestingly may have never come into existence.

On the brink of bankruptcy, John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola finally threw in the towel and sold his formula to a number of investors including Asa Griggs Candler – a marketing professional credited to initially popularizing the brand by distributing thousands of coupons and souvenirs depicting the brand’s trademark.

Ever since, Coke’s continuous push to adopt disruptive marketing trends to reach customers has helped them stand the test of time and grow into a global leader from its humble beginnings.

Now in 2019, Digital marketing is the new paradigm for achieving brand success.

With almost 4.4 billion active internet users online, marketers have shifted their focus on acquiring the latest online tools and technologies that will help them engage with an evolving online customer base

Change has become a symbolic part of digitization, keeping that in mind, let’s looks at digital marketing tools that can potentially script more successful brand stories.

Make marketing more personal with Account-Based Marketing (ABM):

An explosion of contents to a wide array of prospects may presumably create a reaction or multiple reactions. But, not everyone is the same and a study reveals that people are rather irked with so much irrelevant content before them.

With Account-Based Marketing (ABM), contents are made customer-specific by understanding their trigger points and creating customized content for a particular customer. Though you may be led to believe that your reach is not as expansive, the content deployed is made to pierce the customers conscious – triggering a reaction.

Incorporating technologies like AI and Big Data may help you derive even more accurate insights into prospects – allowing content developers and designers to create compelling content customized for a particular business account or individual.

The future of content – Video Marketing:

“Seeing is believing”, our intrinsic nature to retain visually moving narratives and in fact buy into its message is a part of our neural makeup. With a steep rise in marketing conversion (close to 70%) due to video marketing and with videos vastly becoming the executives choice, it makes total sense to engage marketing budgets to the channel that pulls our natural inclination.

Videos are the most compelling storytelling channel which can encompass contents of all types, be it music, videos, images, links, etc.

Looking towards 2019 and beyond, popular modes of video marketing includes live-streaming -which is engaging more audience interactions on social media platforms, Augmented reality, Virtual Reality, and 360° videos are making visuals more immersive, and most importantly the recent developments in making video content searchable using AI technologies – could be the tipping point between switching from text related content to video contents.

Amplify data value through Brand Asset Management:

Today, each digital asset is attached with measurable value; value that companies are liable to protecting.  With the surge in data traffic and with Global Asset Management set to become a multi-trillion dollar industry by 2025 – Digital Asset Management (DAM) has become an important tool in the marketer’s playbook.

The future of DAM applications is tied up to efficiency of the program; to integrate with new technologies like AI, ML to bring faster more accurate results, to increase mobility by makings assets universally accessible from just about anywhere using any device, bridging the platform divide from expensive on-premise to the cheaper cloud platform (SaaS) and most importantly ensuring a secure repository of data – bringing data accountability through improved user access systems, data audits and end-to-end encryption.

Intrigue Customers and market effectively with Chatbots:

Chatbots are the future of conversational marketing. With a growing millennial customer base that is technology savvier and inclined towards instantly gratifying their qualms; marketing needs to be personalized, secure, around the clock with a faster delivery module to solve queries.

Initially built for customer service engagements, Chatbots has quickly made the shift to marketing.

Powered by AI and machine learning, the predictive analytical learning process of chatbots will make conversations more human-like, and with voice-activated bots integrating with IOT, we are now open to almost controlling any connected device or process by conversing with an AI-bot.

Turn to your ultimate performance partner – Artificial Intelligence:

Through all the technologies and marketing processes illustrated above, there is a single technology that is constant – Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Perhaps the most defining marketing tool of the future, AI will take marketing automation to the next level – helping us solve complex problems in seconds, ensure that there are quantifiable results for every action or data – helping us make quick fixes and better decisions and gives us unprecedented control of assets – be it digital or physical assets.

Bringing us closer to a world where our reliance on bots becomes greater than that of humans.

Conclusion:

Digital marketers are at constant war with each other to gain prospects.

In a vast battlefield (the internet) surrounded by multiple enemies (competitors).

Is your armory equipped with the latest technologies and processes to give you the decisive lead?

The post Tech Innovations That Can Amplify Your Digital Marketing first appeared on Niyati.

Two-words; Design Thinking!

In today’s extremely transformative and competitive environment, making a breakthrough encompasses an array of evolving complexities that traditional methods of development cannot fathom. A world where Ideas are quickly phased-out for a more versatile version and human expectation match the pace of technological disruption.

Design thinking is a human-centered approach to discovering the next big innovative solution or building on your existing product.

According to Stanford University professor and founder of design firm IDEO, David Kelley defined Design Thinking as:

“A human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.”

Design thinking is not focused on appearances but is a method to combine creativity, customer needs, technology, and flexible solutions to create products that fit into users unmet or unarticulated needs – directly filling a void.

The model of design thinking can be applied to just about anything; be it an internal or external process, team management structure, finding innovative solutions, resolving an existing problem and more.

Led by multi-disciplinary teams, the initial processes lays emphasis on vicariously understanding customer’s pain-points, their feelings, desires, etc, and then defining these needs into opportunity spaces to innovate. Selected value propositions are validated through quantifiable results by rapid prototyping and further refined through iterative cycles based on collective results.

A design thinking led innovative solution is deemed worthy to be launched in the market only when it hits all the right notes – including strategic advantage, impact on business and impact on the customer.

Let us further illustrate the perks of implementing designing thinking for modern day businesses:

Customer satisfaction is paramount to success:

Putting customers first, walking in their shoes or empathizing to their needs – this is at the heart of design thinking and what drives it forward. Not some random compliment or self-gratification.

Thomas Edison didn’t conjure the electric bulb out of thin air, it was borne out of deciphering the needs of the people for a cheaper alternative to oil and gas-based lighti

ng. Though bulbs have taken many shapes and forms since; Edison’s ingenuity has enabled humans over the decades to save cost and resources.

Great innovations understand the customers; it should be a result of wide-scale feedback and research based on various factors like age demographics, profession, etc. The underlying questions should always be – Will my product alleviate a customer pains.

Bring a designers perspective to multi-disciplinary teams:

Engaging the services of multi-disciplinary teams allow you to solve a problem by looking at it from various angles – The key is to get these teams to work in cohesion – orchestrating the perfect collaboration.

What is the advantage of resolving problems from a designer perspective?

Let us look at a use-case scenario to best exemplify how designing-thinking trumps traditional methods. IBM was approached by an airliner to speed-up passenger gate check-ins by improving their kiosk functionality.

From the out-set of the project, IBM’s team of engineers went straight to work by trying to improve the kiosk software. But the designers took an unconventional approach to discover the root of the problem by interviewing gate agents, passengers, etc.

IBM eventually decided to use the designer’s inputs and build a mobile app that eased the boarding process and reduce costs.

Designers are intuitive and embrace the concept of lateral thinking with a more refined approach to immersing themselves to the needs of customers.

Complex problems are broken down to simple solutions:

Companies face multi-faceted problems in dealing with complexities posed by current market demands. To invariable push forward adapting to technological feasibility, business visibility, and human usability quotient is no mean feat.

For the customer’s standpoint “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.

Apple is one of the best examples of how design thinking can be imbibed to break the complexity of disruptive technology. Since his return to Apple, Steve Jobs obsession to connect innovation directly to user-experiences has allowed Apple’s range of “i” products to not only disrupt our perception of technology but to directly fit into our way of living without us realizing it.

Bring more agility to future-proof ideas:

Design thinking embeds the core -values of agile processes to deliver versatile outputs that stand the test of time. One of the key features of an agile framework is to iterate endlessly until the product takes its best shape – satisfying customers and bringing quantifiable business results.

What happens when customers and business requirements change?

Iterations continue.

Agile methodology makes certain that you reach a win-win destination even if you sway of-course; iterations get you back on track. Traditional methods usually take a fixed path that takes you straight to either a win-lose destination.

Conclusion:

We often learn more from failure more than we do from success, yet insanity is repeating the same failure over and over again deriving the same results. With design thinking as the protocol for solving existing problems and uncovering new opportunities – we may have finally found the solution to consistently winning.

The post Implementing Design Thinking To Gain A Competitive Advantage first appeared on Niyati.

Year after year, Digitalization trends come and go. Some fade into obscurity while other trends define the future of business operations.

Early adopters of new digital strategies either land into a pitfall due to the vicious cycle of experimentation or find burgeoning success due to the impact that the innovation brings to a current obstacle.

Then there are the others; Organizations that fanatically abide by their traditional methods and those sitting firmly on the fence on whether or not to pursue digital solutions (they either feel that their legacy applications are yet to run-its-course or that digitization could be a risky venture).

No matter what your perspective is, digital transformation has taken rapid strides; it is clearly the paradigm for business models now and in the future.

By extracting the benefits of digitization, enterprises have become leaner, meaner and more agile – making quick and accurate results at one go from just about anywhere on any device.

Eventually, traditional processes will fade away under the increasing complexities of an evolving market and customer demands. But the opportunities that digital transformation poses will continue to expand – touching different aspect of businesses like never before.

Let’s look at digital transformation trends that are set to take the industry by storm in 2019:

Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning goes mainstream:

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning led disruptions has already made a deep impact on medical sciences, robotics, business analytics and development, transportation, and much more.

Personalization experiences have come of age due to the predictive analytical power of AI. From virtual profiling, automated preference matches and searches, AI’s omni-present stature in personalizing user-experiences will be redefined even as remote smart devices embedded with AI/ML chips find their feet and open up more opportunities to bring personalized benefits on the go.

Businesses will lean on machine learning and neural networks to augment its analytical processes and disrupt the way data is retrieved, stored and shared. The concept of AI developers/coders may finally be realized – giving birth to a new wave of faster, more precise programmers that keep evolving through a continuous pattern of learning.

The theory that AI or machines replacing human jobs has been talked about for years now. During the industrial revolution, this replacement theory was met with a spate of violent protest. Ironically, more human jobs were created than destroyed due to the industrial revolution and according to Gartner – more job spaces will be available now and in the future due to AI.

AR/VR – When virtual becomes our reality:

Virtual Reality and Augmented Realty – two products that have gained immense traction recently after several failed attempts which date back to almost 1957. Set to develop a foothold in both business and consumer markets, AR and VR are predicted to become a multi-billion dollar industry by 2022.

VR office spaces can turn any surrounding into a virtual office, offering multiple solutions to digital interactivity, applications, programs and more. Still, a work in progress – VR offices can mitigate the hassle of commuting and expensive physical office space, offering the same if not enhanced level of productivity and communication.

Mobile devices give the edge to AR, as it does not require a headset or any other gear to function, unlike VR. Integrating AR technology with the mobile hardware allows AR to access system tools like camera, etc to create an immersive experience within your phone screen. For example, let take IKEA’s AR app that enables users to virtually fit any piece of furniture in their home space, taking into account the size of the space and decor. With close to 2000 AR apps available in the IOS Appstore and Google Play, the possibilities that a fusion of AR on mobile technologies brings seem endless.

AR/VR gadgets ranging from motion chairs, treadmills, body sensors, and 8K headsets will take the immersive virtual experience to the next level; creating a virtual environment that functions and looks like the real world – our second reality.

Bringing the edge to cloud computing:

The cloud services market will continue to soar, Gartner predicts that cloud spending could reach $206.2 billion in 2019. Even as cloud implementation grows so does the tsunami of data, bringing the challenges of delayed latency, less distributed work-loads, and security.

The edge computing platform transmits data through servers that are positioned in a location that’s physically next to the user. Ideally, a unified solution; like the Cloudedge, can channel the benefits of both platforms by distributing application processing to bring a myriad of disruptive networking capabilities including a significant increase in transmission latency and bandwidth especially in a sea of endless connections of both people and things.

Multi-cloud strategies are on the verge of making a breakthrough. With almost 83% of enterprise workloads moving to the cloud by 2020, enterprises are looking for more flexibility to streamline their workloads on a unified environment using public, private and enterprise clouds. With the surge of native cloud apps coupled with the need to scale automatically – Multi-cloud will be the next stage in enterprise cloud storage.

Can a confluence between Blockchain and cloud computing be made possible? Blockchain is touted as the decentralized method of transferring information. Yet, this peer-to-peer network does require a rapidly scalable, intuitive and accessible data storage infrastructure like cloud computing. Similarly, to overcome cloud computing shortcomings, Blockchain’s ultra-secure data processing methods; where each chunk of data needs to be validated by a cryptographic hash to validate individual blocks, could be the secure repository that the cloud needs.

Chatbots – Going beyond customer service:

Chatbots are set to alter the course of customer service and marketing, with almost 40% of large businesses predicted to implement chatbots by the end of the year. Chatbots will become the future of conversationalist marketing.

One of the key drivers of chatbots is going to be the evolution of Natural Language Processing (NLP). Through NLP, machines can interpret human natural languages and with AI computation respond to it via text, voice and possibly physical actions. Furthermore, NLP is set to make chatbots conversations feel more human-like.

Digital marketing and e-commerce have taken a massive leap forward due to bots, even as the technology grows; businesses are looking at newer ways to leverage benefits from chatbots. Marketing and HR professional use bots to streamline their lead generation and prospect scanning processes respectively. More interestingly, integrating a voice-activated operational assistant in offices to mine data in real time could gain more traction compared to applications or management software.

Often during conversations with humans, the lack of empathy shown by bots makes it look cringe-worthy, until now. Chatbots like Replika or Woebot are creating human-like companionships with bots. Built to mirror your mood, Replica absorbs your mannerism, speech patterns etc, to create a conversationalist partner just like you except with unbiased views. These apps are already being billed as a remedial force for millennial depression.

Conclusion:

Digital transformation trends shouldn’t be pinned on just technology. It’s also about how it can adapt to your team culture, impact customer lives and expectations, and bring continuous business growth.

As we explore the major shifts in the digital landscape in 2019, CEOs and leaders need to step up and assess disruptive trends that can give them an early advantage over other businesses – after all, “the early bird catches the worm”.

The post Digital Technology Trends to Watch Out For in 2019 first appeared on Niyati.

HSE software developers strive doggedly in a never-ending pursuit to bring more innovations to the fore. Considering that they deal with something as precious as the safety of human beings, it is pivotal for every QHSE leaders to stay updated with the latest trends and technologies of the industry.

Let us look at EHS trends that made an impact in 2018:

1. Remote-access technologies gets a face-lift:

2018 witnessed a higher adoption of wearable technology (PPE) like tracking devices in the forms of watches, eye-glasses and even body sensors on suits, sensors that track anomalies on machinery and the multi-faceted drone technology.

2. EHS expenditure gets hiked:

This would come as an incentive to all QHSE leaders, considering the judicious approach of management teams in allotting budget for HSE safety. According to research firm Verdantix, between now and 2020, 62% of firms will increase their expenses on operational risk due to better performance.

3. Mobility will facilitate greater efficiency:

Mobile audit applications has liberated HSE field personnel of elaborate paperwork. 2018 have seen more companies implement mobile strategies to instantly carry out audits by directly filing e-forms or images into the company database, connect back-end office with field personnel to share continuous feedback, approvals, request and much more.

4. Cloud becomes widely endorsed:

About 80% of HSE leaders have embraced cloud-based software as their leading source of data management. Furthermore, companies are on the lookout for software that encapsulates stringent security protocols to safeguard data against the rising cyber-threats.

5. More emphasis on smarter technology:

Integrating smart technologies like big-data and AI will help drive smarter, faster and more accurate outcomes in decision-making, forecasting based on behavior based safety, automated responses, and creating predictive and preventive analysis.

Technology will continue to push the envelope – bringing bigger, brighter solutions to ensuring less incidents and better regulations.

What other technological advancements have you noticed in the EHS industry in 2018? Do let us know through the comments.

Read more EHS related content on the Safetymint EHS blog.

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The post Game-changing EHS Trends in 2018 first appeared on Niyati.