Some of the main benefits associated with mobile marketing include the possibility to send location and time-sensitive pieces of information, via a wide variety of channels, including push notifications, app-based marketing, QR codes, SMS, MMS, Bluetooth, in-game mobile advertising, voice email and even through automated calls. As we live in the era of smartphones, mobile marketing carried out via push notifications is essential to promoting services, establishing brand loyalty, encouraging people to purchase products or services, but also making sure that existing customers return to buy more.

In this particular infographic compiled by the team behind Website Builder, you will be able to find 104 interesting facts that you don’t know about mobile marketing, including desktop vs. mobile comparisons, niches that work best, great mobile marketing techniques, but also usage, user friendliness, adoption, commerce, search and conversion stats.

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Not only it is critical to your company’s security and reputation, but archiving is also crucial to making sure you can trace text-based evidence and use it to prove certain cases on the court. And with the data explosion in the recent years, archiving has also come to the forefront as organizations search for a solution that’ll help them maintain and produce diverse types of data without the need to augment their on-premise IT capabilities.

Nowadays, these implications have become much more pronounced since texting, chat apps, and smartphones have become a common part of day-to-day operations of most business across different industries.

To know more about this topic, check out this infographic as we present to you the top reasons why your organization’s text messages need to get archived.

Reposted with permission. The post was originally posted here.

Read More: 5 tools to manage your Mail Subscriptions and Online Accounts better

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The report states that Asian companies are likely to invest in innovation to boost customer retention. 70% said that customer retention is the key priority for the next 12-24 months and Asian businesses prioritize innovation that empowers tham to do so. On the other hand over 53% believe that they are likely to adopt new innovation to achieve the goal.

According to the survey, 93% of organizations in India, 88% in Singapore, 88% in Philippines, and 82% in Malaysia are more likely to invest in technology to boost customer retention. Of these countries, 62% view technology as a valuable tool in accelerating productivity and 38% view technology as a means for providing better customer support.

“This research shines a spotlight on the innovation landscape in Asia and reaffirms our vision for customer-centricity. The mobile-first culture of immediacy has its roots here in Asia and shapes the new business imperative for Asian companies,” said Robert Wickham, Regional Vice President, Innovation & Digital Transformation, APAC, Salesforce.

“The appetite for artificial intelligence by Asian companies is continuing to grow. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is upon us, and companies that harness the predictive prowess of A.I. are well-placed to address challenges in this dynamic region.”

How Asian countries rank tech investments

83% respondents feel that Enterprise Apps, and 82% feel that Cloud Computing and 80% feel Customer Relationship Management are the top three strategic investment priorities for Asian businesses. Interestingly, 78% say that if they are presented with capabilities of a CRM platform powered by artificial intelligence, they are likely to adopt.

84% in Singapore businesses find the concept appealing and 76% feel the technology is relevant, however, only 68% are likely to adopt AI in CRM. On the other hand 90% in India are okay to adopt CRM powered by AI, 83% in Indonesia, 85% in Vietnam, 84% in Philippines, and 84% in Thailand are most likely to adopt (90%) while Hong Kong is less convinced about the tech with 63%.

How culture impacts innovation

77% agree that innovation has transformed their company operations favorably, with 80% of this group prioritizing innovation within their organization in the next 12 to 24 months. Hence, the report states that the positive impact of a culture that empowers employees to be innovative is evident.

According to the report, This group of Asian companies are more likely to invest in technology regardless of economic outlook and 79% said they will increase their technology spend even in an underperforming economy, whereas 84% of them view technology as a long term revenue driver.

India and the future of innovative tech adoption

The report claims that India continues to lead innovation, as 71% (highest majority) of respondents hailing from India perceive their home country as innovative. 53% respondents coming from India across all surveyed markets believe their companies to be innovative. And when it comes to customer retention technologies, 93% respondents state that India is the most eager market to adopt such technologies.

One in three Asian companies believe that future innovation will be driven by public-private partnerships. Having said that, the report claims that the three key roadblocks that are holding Asian companies back from adoption innovation are costs, complexity of technology and lack of talent.

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Pegasystems conducted a survey amongst 6,000 customers in the US, UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Australia, and found that only 36% are comfortable with businesses using AI to engage with them even if this typically results in a better customer experience. Almost 72% expressed some sort of fear about AI, with 24% respondents worried about robots taking over the world.

“Though AI has been around for more than 30 years, it has now evolved to the point that businesses can engage with each individual consumer on a real-time, one-to-one basis,” said Don Schuerman, vice president, product marketing and CTO, Pegasystems.

“But our study suggests the recent hype is causing some confusion and fear among consumers, who may not really understand how it’s already being used and helping them every day. Businesses need to focus on using AI to develop applications that provide real value for customers to improve their experiences rather than overhyping the technology itself.”

Is ignorance bliss?

Having said that, only 34% thought they had directly experienced AI, but when asked about the technologies in their lives, the survey found 84% had actually used at least one AI-powered service or device such as virtual home assistants, intelligent chatbots, or predictive product suggestions. 41% of the respondents were able to identify AI-powered devices such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

Education & awareness

72% claimed they understand AI, but according to the report, far fewer could correctly define what it is or what it can do. The report states that only 37% knew AI has the basic ability to interpret or understand speech and 35% knew AI could mimic humans. 50% could identify some of the most common AI capabilities, like solving problems and 57% knew that AI could enable learning.

Demographics

Out of the respondents 80% of men think they understand what AI is better than women which stands at 66%. However, 60% women correctly identified that Siri and 43% identified Alexa, are powered by AI than men 54% and 38% respectively. The study also found that respondents above the age of 55 were less comfortable with AI than those aged 18 to 24. they are also surprisingly less fearful of AI consequences – 30% of baby boomers expressed no fears compared to 22% of millennials.

Being comfortable with AI

According to Pegasystems, these misperceptions are important because the study shows they have a negative effect on consumers’ openness to using AI. The data shows consumers are significantly more comfortable with AI if they think they have previously been exposed to it. Only 25% of the people who report no AI experience feel at ease with businesses using AI to engage with them. But for AI veterans, this number jumps to 55%.

A positive outlook

Nearly 70% of the respondents said that they want to experience more AI if it will help make their lives easier. Pegasystems claims that the survey results suggest businesses should be more transparent about the fair and pragmatic use of AI in their products and services. Companies should find non-threatening ways to expose customers to its benefits to change their misperceptions and establish trust and comfort over time.

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Titled, ‘India and Mobile: growing Fast’, the report comprises insights and data collected from over 3,500 Indian smartphone owners and 236 million mobile app installs in India mapped from 2015 and 2016. The report is also based on in-depth market insights from 10 Indian mobile leaders with a combined user- base of 2 billion gamers. The report findings throw spotlight on year-on-year apps install trends, top paid and organic app categories, mobile gaming trends, top regions which are dominating the mobile apps install arena among other insights.

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David Allott, Director, Cyber Defense, APAC, Intel Security stated that many organizations in Southeast Asia have incorporated a ‘Cloud First’ strategy into their architectures.

“Those who have yet to do so, are rapidly striving towards cloud adoption. We saw that in 2016, 57% of organizations shifted to hybrid cloud models, compared to just 24% in 2015. This is an indication of the ever growing state of cloud adoption among organizations.”

Trusting the cloud

According to the report, about 85% of those surveyed store some or all of their sensitive data in the public cloud. Personal customer information is the most likely type of data to be stored in public clouds, kept there by 62% of those surveyed. The report states that most organizations view cloud services as or more secure than private clouds, and more likely to deliver lower costs of ownership and overall data visibility. 29% stated to distrust public cloud completely which, according to the company, has gone down from 50% in 2015.

The report claims that the rationale for companies to store personal customer information on the public cloud appears to be influenced by online business models. Industries with a high proportion of online transactions are the most likely to store their customer data in the public cloud, such as utilities (79%), services (73%), insurance (65%), and finance (64%). Government organizations were more likely to keep staff information (66%) than customer information (59%) in the cloud.

Cybersecurity skill shortage

The survey revealed that there is an ongoing shortage of security skills which is affecting cloud deployment. 49% of the organizations reported the lack of cybersecurity skills leading to the slowed adoption or usage of cloud services, possibly contributing to the increase in Shadow IT activities. Hence, 65% think Shadow IT is interfering with keeping the cloud safe and secure. Another 36% report they are experiencing a scarcity but are continuing with their cloud activities regardless. Only 15% of those surveyed state they do not have a skills shortage.

Unchecked cloud services

Because the cloud services can be procured easily, 40% stated that these services are now commissioned without the involvement of IT. 52% state that they have tracked malware incidents to a SaaS application. SaaS applications have added a new threat vector for malware to enter networks and systems. As a result, 65% of IT professionals think this phenomenon is interfering with their ability to keep the cloud safe and secure.

According to the report, SaaS users were most concerned about protecting sensitive data moving to and from the cloud, understandable given that half have experienced a malware infection from SaaS applications and a quarter have suffered a data breach. The second most common concern of SaaS users was cost, reinforcing how mature these services are becoming.

Data Center concerns

Intel Security states that the number of organizations using private cloud has dropped to 24% in 2016 from 51% in 2015 and hybrid cloud usage has increased from 19% to 57%. Organizations are needed to evolve to a highly visualized, cloud-based infrastructure for moving to hybrid private/public cloud architecture. The report states that 52% of an organization’s data center servers are virtualized, 80% are using containers — 36% using containers inside IT, 18% outside IT, and 29% both inside and outside the IT department — and most expect to have the conversion to a fully software-defined data center completed within two years.

Conclusion

• The report states that cloud is here to stay as businesses trusting them with a wide range of applications and data, much of it sensitive or business critical. As cloud is effective and efficient, there needs to be security in advance to detect threat.
• Security concerns about clouds are maturing, moving from vague and generic fears about breaches to more detailed issues about protecting data at rest and in transit, consistently configuring and enforcing security policies, and controlling identity and access. Unfortunately, the scarcity of security skills is also real, and is an issue for most organizations, regardless of industry, country, or size.
• Increased use of public cloud services may help alleviate the impact of the security skills shortage, as organizations leverage the broad and deep security talent pools that are present in most major cloud providers.

What the survey recommends

• Attackers will look for the easiest targets, regardless of whether they are public, private or hybrid. Integrated or unified security solutions that provide visibility across all of the organization’s services could be the best defense.
• User credentials, especially for administrators, will be the most likely form of attack. Organizations need to ensure they are using authentication best practices, such as distinct passwords, multi-factor authentication and even biometrics where available.
• Security technologies such as data loss prevention, encryption and cloud access security brokers (CASBs) remain underutilized. Integrating these tools with an existing security system increases visibility, enables discovery of shadow services, and provides options for automatic protection of sensitive data at rest and in motion throughout any type of environment.
• Organizations need to evolve toward a risk management and mitigation approach to information security. They should consider adopting a Cloud First strategy to encourage adoption of cloud services to reduce costs and increase flexibility, and put security operations in a proactive position instead of a reactive one.

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According to internet live stats, around 40 percent of the world population has an internet connection today as compared to less than one percent in 1995. The number of internet users has increased tenfold from 1999 to 2013, it was first billion in 2005, second billion in 2010 and has reached third billion in 2014.

The bad news here is that among bots, most of the traffic comes from bad bots and the good news is that traffic from bad bots has declined over the years from 31 percent in 2012 to 28.9 percent in 2016.

Incapsula examined 16.7+ billion visits to 100,000 randomly-selected domains on its network to tackle the following questions:

• How much website traffic is generated by bots?
• How are bad bots used in cyberattacks?
• What drives good bot visits to various websites and services?
• Which are the most active bad and good bots?

Is ‘Bot-Traffic’ a problem?

If you are a businessman and if an internet advertisement is costing you more than you imagined, then you should actually check that whether it is a bot that is clicking your ad or a human being. The majority of digital business owners are facing non-human attackers on a regular basis. Specifically, out of 100,000 domains in the survey, 94.2 percent experienced at least one bot attack over the 90 day period.

According to Axios, the Association of National Advertisers and White Ops estimates that bots cost advertisers more than $7 billion in revenue annually.

“Most ad fraud occurs in the programmatic space, where ads are purchased through an automated bidding system. Sophisticated ad agencies will place trackers on ads that enable them to only bid on quality inventory, which saves their clients money and makes for more effective ad campaigns.”

While these indiscriminate assaults, according to the report are not nearly as dangerous as targeted attacks, they still have the potential to compromise numerous unprotected websites. Ironically, the owners of these websites tend to ignore the danger of bots the most, wrongfully thinking that their website is too “small” to be attacked.

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The analysis takes into consideration the capital raised, growth strategy and competitiveness as well as hardware and software for the five most valued companies. According to the company, all the companies in the list are ride-hailing apps and it does not consider other automotive tech such as self-driving cars or automotive software companies as a part of the study.

Zirra study states that Uber controls the global landscape with a $52 billion valuation and Didi Chuxing, is worth about $31.5 billion. Lagging behind Uber and Didi are local apps such as Lyft, which values at $5.5 billion in the US, Grab that is valued at $4.2 billion in Southeast Asia, and Ola Cabs at $3.8 billion in India. The AI startup also claims that some of these companies are overvalued. Calculations using its algorithms suggest that Uber and Ola are overvalued at about 24%, while Grab is undervalued at 40%.

UBER

Uber is still not close to profitability, but after ceding the Chinese market in exchange of 20% of Didi Chuxing’s shares , it stopped bleeding cash. But Uber didn’t renounce global reach. The company is still investing hundreds of millions of dollars in its Indian subsidiary to compete with the local rival in the $10 billion market.

The study states that the rationale behind Uber’s lead is because of the capital of $15 billion that it has raised and also because it has a global deployment. Uber is also the only company experimenting with a fleet of autonomous vehicles, and the only one that has exercised acquisitions of AI and self-driving car companies, Geometric AI and Otto.

Zirra also claims that the ride-hailing app’s carpooling service, UberPool, is by far the most advanced among the five biggest in the category. The pooling infrastructure allows Uber to test better its self-driving car fleet. Lyft has a car-pooling infrastructure as well, but isn’t operating a self-driving fleet yet.

DIDI CHUXING

The Chinese ride-hailing app took over the local market after acquiring Uber’s China division, winning the campaign for China, but according to Zirra it is very far from global domination. Zirra’s algorithms value Didi Chuxing at $32 billion, a number that expresses Didi’s victory in China. Didi also announced a strategic investment in Brazilian ride-hailing startup 99, making South America its first territory outside of China. That put Didi in a direct conflict with Uber, which is now a stake holder in Didi.

The study also states that because of Didi and Uber’s merger, Baidu is now a shareholder (2.3%), and since the Chinese search engine is already managing an autonomous car pilot at Beijing, it is quite possible that the two will cooperate. Quoting The Information, Zirra states that Blackrock estimated Didi’s revenues in 2016 at $3 billion, and it expects Didi to generate $7 billion in 2017.

LYFT

Lyft, ranked third in Zirra’s highly valued companies list, is still a company in a momentum of growth according to the AI analysis company. According to Zirra, Lyft is expected to generate more than $400 million in net revenue in 2017. With 315,000 drivers listed in the service and 5 million active riders, Lyft is on the way to close the gap with Uber in the application stores, states SimilarWeb.

Lyft also claims to have the second largest automotive fleet management software in the US that can manage any self-driving or car-pooling services fleet in the future. It partnered with GM a year ago, which paid $500 million (for 9% stake, valuing Lyft at $5.5 billion), and chose Lyft to manage its future autonomous cars fleet. According to The Information, The rise of self-driving cars would also improve the economics of Lyft’s business, as drivers now take 75% to 80% of gross revenue.

Nevertheless, there are some risk factors that Lyft is facing for some time: Uber’s truce with Chinese Didi supplied Uber with enough cash and patience to wage a bigger war over Lyft in the U.S. by subsidizing rides. Also, Lyft is still a local ride-hailing app that doesn’t strive to operate outside of the U.S.

Zirra claims that the future is pretty unclear regarding who will rule the combination of ride-hailing and self-driving combination. Lyft made a bet on GM and Cruise. It is a low-risk bet, but it is a bet after all.

GRAB

While Uber fiercely fought Didi in China and Ola in India, Singapore-based Grab excelled in taking over the entire Southeast Asian territory. Despite some Uber presence in the region, Grab grabbed Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. It is active now in 34 cities in the region, claiming over 24 million app downloads and more than 500,000 drivers. Grab offers motorbike taxis on demand and access to licensed taxis.

Lyft, (operating in the US), Ola (operating in India), and Didi Chuxing (operating in China) would be typically considered as competition, but the three have formed a partnership with Grab which allows each to provide their users with only one app yet access the partner services when traveling to those specific countries, as what is informally known as the ‘anti-Uber coalition.’

Zirra quotes The Information again, stating that Grab’s revenues are estimated at $80-$95 million per year, with a $100 million net loss. The good news is that burn rate has fallen to around $10 million a month. Uber is generating in the region 10%-20% less than Grab, but it’s gaining ground on Grab. Uber subsidizes heavily new drivers and riders. It has also partnered with banks to give car and motorbike loans to drivers that are loyal to Grab and are performing well.

OLA

Ola Cabs in India offers multiple transportation services including regular and luxury car service, auto and bike rental service, rickshaw service, bus shuttle, and ride sharing. The Softbank-backed startup claims that the number of drivers has grown significantly, from 10,000 in 2014 to 100,000 in 2015, and last year it boasted 200,000 drivers. Ola has stated that it has plans to reach one million drivers on their platform by 2018. Ola is already operating in 100 cities in India.

Zirra states that Ola’s biggest and most significant competitor is Uber and after the Uber-Didi merger Uber is more eager to conquer India. This could spell trouble for Ola, since Uber is better funded and has a much larger global presence and name recognition.

According to the study, the challenges from Uber have made Ola experiment into other avenues such as OlaCafe, a food on demand service, and OlaMoney, a partnership with YES Bank where customers can press a button for instant cash to be delivered by Ola. One of Ola’s strengths has been their presence in the smaller towns, something which Uber has stated they are not as interested in. Ola believes its services can have the most impact in these places and is therefore seeking to further their presence there.

What’s next?

According to Zirra’s study, there will be consolidation in 2017. As 2016 ended with the crescendo of the Uber China-Didi merger, 2017 will probably mark further consolidation. Smaller companies with a short list of investors and a constant need for cash, such as Lyft and Ola, might (continue to) search for buyers.

An ABI Research forecasts that global ride-sharing bookings will exceed $100 billion by 2020 and $300 billion by 2030 growing at an average of 18%. However, ABI states that the market could face potential disruption from the advent of driverless taxis, which are currently making their way into the marketplace and could overpower the ride-sharing market.

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This kind of approach, unbeknownst to many offices, did more harm than good. Labor and time were squandered with the effort to effectively store, file, reproduce, and process documents made on paper. Money was also spent, not only on paper, but other paraphernalia that were essential to make the paper useful for the daily transactions. Paper usage, after all, also involved inks, printers, writing materials, adhesives, filing materials, and the like.

The paper production industry gleaned a lot from this need, but they contributed to harming the environment as well. Trees were cut down, pollution was emitted from the factories that made the paper, and discarded paper made up a sizeable percentage of a landfill’s weight in terms of solid waste before being recycled.

With the developments in technology nowadays, more industries have begun the transition to a “paperless” or “paperlite” office – essentially translating their usual operations done on paper to the digital format. Many studies are claiming that this transition allows companies to save more money, time, and can translate to a “greener” office – essentially by not contributing to the pulp mills’ production of paper by not needing it altogether.

But this transition is not an easy one, and without the proper procedures, it can fail for your business. To make sure you have a smooth and effective transition, this infographic courtesy of Law in Order will help you out.

Views are of the author and Techseen may not necessarily subscribe to them

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