The leading mobile marketing platform, CleverTap, has announced its entry into the field of psychographic segmentation that sets a new standard for segmenting mobile app users. Psychographic segmentation is an industry-first machine learning capability that sits at the cornerstone of what CleverTap does - help growth marketers deliver on the promise of relationship marketing.
Despite the fact that this in an age of abundant data, mobile users today expect to receive the right information with the right context. Existing mobile marketing tools help divide the audience by demographics, technographics, location, and app behavior. However, user actions are not always telling of what they are truly interested in. Their behaviors and interests change frequently, based on seasons, sporting events and current affairs. Actions can be one off behaviors or occasional purchases.
It is more critical than ever to identify micro-segments of users based on changing needs and pivot marketing efforts to bring timeliness, context and relevance. Of the numerous interactions that users have with a brand, marketers have to identify which ones characterize with their most dominating interests. For example, watching an action movie on one day does not indicate that they are action movie fans. The user’s predominant genre of interest may in fact be comedy and the content recommendations should be representative of these predominant interests.
This becomes even more challenging when the number of users are in hundreds or millions, making it impossible to accomplish contextual messaging at scale. By leveraging the power of machine learning, CleverTap leverages psychographic segmentation capabilities to process millions of data points across an entire user base to determine micro-segments of audiences. By determining a propensity or affinity towards one thing over all others, it helps establish an effective match between products and each user’s dominant interests.
With psychographic segmentation, marketers are able to anticipate user needs and predict what product or message will resonate the most with which micro-segment. They are able to find an accurate and a more intuitive way of understanding how users like to spend time on their app. It allows them to run targeted campaigns and significantly increase the chances of conversion.
Leading marketers are finding success with CleverTap’s psychographic segmentation to help them identify the most intelligent way to engage users along their customer journey. For instance, finding users most likely to purchase limited seats of a movie based on their genre of interest and viewing time preferences. With psychographic segmentation, marketers can now send the best offer to the user most likely to find value in it and ensure that their product inventory finds its most optimal buyers.
“Interest based psychographic segmentation is a significant breakthrough that equips marketers to target much more relevant content to users based on their dominant or significant behavior. In early usage the engagement rates are more than double as compared to engagement with behavior segments. The content and timing is just a whole lot better and users react to it more”, said Sunil Thomas, Chief Executive Officer at CleverTap.
(Authored by Arnab Ghosh, Director, Synergy Property Development Services)
Today we must learn to be fast, fair and slow, all at the same time. Project management professionals across geographies, are not immune from these changes. Traditional construction management methodologies are also being replaced or reinforced with new tools and technology.
In the last decade, there has been a tectonic shift in the way the real estate and construction industry is evolving in India. With the Indian construction market set to be the world’s third-largest construction market by 2021, it is imperative that Indian Construction and Design professionals up their ante in terms of delivering technologically advanced solutions.
The industry has seen sporadic improvements but in essence it largely remains a people-intensive industry as compared to the more developed parts of the world. Companies globally look at anywhere between 1-3% of project costs as the budget for software technologies to create cost and time efficiencies, which is a far cry for India.
While traditional project management models focused exclusively on the delivery of products and services, newer project management models are increasingly focusing on achieving results by interpreting the business strategy, providing effective risk assessment and deriving a solution. By embracing continuous innovation in technology, new age PMC firms are going digital by adopting ‘Cloud-based’ storage services and ‘end-to-end’ project management software solutions. Let’s look at some of the prominent technology tools which new-age PMC firms are using in India today.
Building Information Modelling
BIM is a 3D model-based process for creating and managing project information. The building information model is a digital description of every aspect of the build, and objects in the model can be linked to related information such as quantity, images, specifications or manuals. This technology benefits construction professionals by helping them create better plans, produce faster results, and stay within budget. BIM started slow in India. However with the advent of Smart cities, IoT, VR and AR gaining ground, BIM practise is witnessing a strong revival.
CCTV Monitoring
CCTV installation on-site is one of the best ways to protect a site from undue hazard. They help to track events across the site in more than one place at a time. CCTVs on-site also manage thefts and help to monitor employees at work. Client located offsite are now able to get a real-time view of their sites in the smartphones itself.
Unmanned Airborne Vehicles
Drones or UAVs are extensively used today to monitor the construction work for large and complex sites. They help the Construction management team to have visibility of the workforce operating at heights and keep the site EHS complaint. Analytic software in Drones can help to do thermal mapping and land surveying. It is still not that prevalent in India but will gain ground once the legalities of their usage is formalised.
Project Portfolio Management software
Web based cost effective Project management software is being used extensively to streamline the construction process and increase efficiency. Usually, most of the online software caters to requirements such as maintaining and creating construction schedules, resource allocations, monitoring usage and generating reports.
Cloud-based Document management software
Cloud-based document management system helps to keep all the project related documents in an easily accessible organized manner. It also makes collaborations between teams easier and there are chances of easier recovery of data if it is lost. Most importantly such software has the ability to track deliverables and make the users accountable with well-defined workflows.
Online Conferencing Applications
Considering the fact that large projects have stakeholders located in different geographies, these online conference tools are a boon to PMC firms to bring the team together at an agreed frequency to resolve open issues. Most of this software allows documents to be presented in various formats for quick reference. Virtual meetings are the new reality.
Procurement software
Procurement software contributes to automating the entire tendering process in a project. Such software nowadays is integrated with the Client ERP system and support e-bidding process flows. The workflows are well defined with the necessary checks and balances in place. It helps to maintain transparency and a clear audit trail behind for all orders released against a project.
Web-based Collaboration tools
In any project, collaboration is essential to ensure that all the teams head in the same direction and create an innovative environment. Collaboration tools with real time chats, posting features and group messaging options enable teams to communicate with each other, access information and increase efficiency rapidly.
The flow of real-time information to every team in a project is vital. Amongst the deluge of data, tools which control and analyse the information will become popular. Technology today can create algorithms which help us to take decisions. Every day we are witnessing newer applications and gadgets coming in the market to aid construction professionals. The key is to be aware about the latest advances in technology and adapt them in an innovative and effective manner.
Cheering for England and looking for their soccer team t-shirt? Or expanding your autograph collection and missing that Rajnikanth autographed photo? Is your cricket collection missing the Chris Gayle signed bat? Or is your office desk Avenger collection still short of that Spiderman figurine? Well wait no further! Providing another avenue to shop for collectibles to enthusiasts from across the country, Amazon.in today announced the launch of a dedicated store for Collectibles. The new store comprises of collectibles from two categories - Entertainment and Sports that will provide Amazon.in customers direct access to thousands of collectibles in the form of sports and entertainment memorabilia from selected sellers. The store aims to connect prominent sellers directly with collectible enthusiasts from across the country.
The Collectibles store on Amazon.in is one of the largest online collections of original and limited edition collectibles for purchase directly from sellers and dealers. This new store features easy-to-use discovery tools to help open the collectibles world to customers, provides customers with high quality images and offer detailed information about the collectibles, all in one place! Amazon.in customers can explore collectibles selection from key sellers from across the country. Some of the prominent names include Entertainment Store, Ultra Media, Voxpop, Essence for entertainment and sports collectibles.
Currently, the Collectibles store also has a special football collection displayed as part of the on-going football world cup. Gauging the popularity of the World Cup, the store offers official merchandise such as t-shirts, bobble heads, mini football boots, flags, football, table flag and posters belonging to various teams and football clubs. This is a treat for football enthusiasts as unique and interesting products are made available for purchases and gifting.
Commenting on the launch, Gopal Pillai, Director and GM, Seller Services, Amazon India, said, “At Amazon, selection is one of the key pillars of our strategy. We are committed to ensure that the Amazon.in marketplace offers the widest and the most unique selection to our customers and helps sellers expand their reach and grow at a significant scale. The launch of the Collectibles store is part of our constant endeavor to provide our customers & sellers with a new opportunity to buy & sell products even from a niche category. This store will help sellers reach customers from across the country, along with providing enthusiasts access to collectibles of their interest, especially the football fans right now looking to buy their favorite team’s merchandize. This is definitely a key launch for us and we are excited about the possibilities of this store.”
Amazon.in’s Sports Collectibles store currently has a selection of hats, bats, jerseys, mugs, figurines, fan art, shot glasses, trading cards and autographed selection. The company has on-boarded 9 well known sellers offering ICC official merchandise and rare Olympic autographed selection. Currently, the category offers selection ranging from Manchester United fan art starting from INR 300 to extremely rare Sachin Tendulkar Autograph bats for 65k+.
Furthermore, Amazon.in’s Entertainment Collectibles store currently consists of thousands of apparel, comic books, movies & music, figurines, caps, autograph photographs and old movie posters. The company has on-boarded 6 well known sellers, namely The Entertainment Store which is selling official licensed and limited edition merchandise of Game of Thrones, Avengers etc. The company has also on-boarded Ultra Media House that is listing old movie posters from 70’s super hit films like Toofan and Bijlee. The category offers a selection of collectibles from Captain America posters starting at INR 199 to extremely limited edition Batman Figurines of upwards of INR 40k as well.
Essence offers opportunities to fans to own ICC licensed memorabilia marketed worldwide, such as Sachin Tendulkar’s personally autographed signed bat. Anish Shroff, CEO of Essence said, “Amazon.in’s Collectibles store helps us cater to an untapped sports ecosystem in India and to dramatically expand our audience while simultaneously providing access to affordable, limited-edition collectibles from some of the most significant celebrities.”
Jatin Varma, CEO of Comic Con India said, “Amazon.in’s Collectibles offers opportunities to fans to own licensed merchandise across movies, music and TV-shows. We are looking forward to partner online with Amazon.in’s Collectibles store. This will help us build our online presence and provide a platform to direct traffic to Amazon collectibles to purchase authentic merchandise from our key exhibitors/sellers.”
“I was looking for the Knock out Telstar football all over in Surat, and I finally found the original version of it on Amazon collectibles. Being such a huge fan of football, this belonging is priceless. I am so happy that I could buy it from a trusted platform where I don’t have to worry about it not being genuine,” said Satish Sharma, sports enthusiast, Surat.
COMIO Smartphones, India’s emerging mid-segment brand brings yet another striking smartphone to the market, the COMIO C1 Pro. With this smartphone, COMIO is offering its customers a host of premium features such as Face unlock, 8MP Camera, Dual VoLTE/ViLTE, Intruder Selfie, Venus Browser, Regional language support, Font application and Bike mode. Priced at Rs 5599, the C1 Pro comes in three color variants - Metallic grey, Sunrise gold and Royal black.
The COMIO C1 Pro has attractive features like 4G Dual VoLTE/ ViLTE support powered by Mediatek 6739 Quad Core processor, multiple font support in user interface, 5.0-inch HD display, Quad core 64 Bit processor, 1.5GB RAM and ROM 16 GB memory. It comprises of 8 MP AF rear camera and 5 MP selfie camera with 2,500 mAh battery. The device has 3 dedicated slot support- 2 SIM Card + 1 SD card which can be extended up to 128 GB and WPS Office support for PPT/Word/Excel/PDF. COMIO C1 Pro comes packed with Android 8.1 (Oreo) operating system which ensures pop touch, Simplified UI and 2X Faster Interface.
Sanjay Kumar Kalirona, CEO & Director, COMIO Smartphone further adds, “We are delighted to announce the launch our new smartphone COMIO C1 Pro in such a short span. We believe that consumers in this price segment deserve better features and our budget friendly C1 PRO smartphone provides a potpourri of exciting features like good camera quality, better speed, security features, stylish design and value-added services.”
Key features of the smartphone:
Dual 4G VoLTE/ ViLTE: The device has 2 4G VoLTE SIM slots
Camera features: 8MP Camera with cool modes like Panorama mode and Gestures-setup-in-camera mode which enables the user to capture smile and finger gestures within a photograph
Face Unlock – A higher level security feature with face recognition.
Venus Browser: A light weight web platform for smartphone users with advanced functionalities like browsing, app store and services. Users can multi-task with this app like shopping, playing games, browsing, listening to music and watching movies etc. Venus is first Indian browser solution providing hyper-regional content covering all the major Indian states supporting 22 regional Indian languages.
Bike Mode: This feature basically turns off all the notifications on the device when the user is riding a bike and automatically responds with the message to the caller notifying them that person is riding a bike and will call back later.
Display features such as Split Screen, Pop Touch and Simplified UI/ 2X Faster UI
Security Features: Intruder Selfie
Physical Attributes: 3 SIM slots
Main functions: Android 8.1 Oreo operating system, Quad core 64 Bit Processor and MediaTek chipset
COMIO support: Specially designed after-sales support comprising of 1 year + 100 days warranty, 30-day replacement, a special buy back and upgrade offer allowing you to upgrade your old smartphone. The COMIO upgrade offer allows you an assured 40% return on your old COMIO phone (not more than 12 months old) which will be given if you want to upgrade you existing COMIO phone. Applicable through www.comio.in only. COMIO has 1000+ service centers across India delivering to customer’s convenience.
Reliance Jio offer: Customers can now enjoy unlimited data and talk time offers using a COMIO smartphone. Jio customers to get INR 2200 cashback (44*50 Rs vouchers) at the time of 1st successful recharge of Rs 198/299 monthly plans. The offer can be redeemed from the 2nd recharge onwards.
Availability: The COMIO C1 Pro will available at all key retail stores Pan-India and online platforms- Snapdeal, Flipkart, Amazon, ShopClues and Paytm.
Qlik, a leader in data analytics, announced that New Zealand’s Savor Group of restaurants, which includes Seafarers, Ostro Brasserie & Bar and Ebisu, is leveraging Qlik’s data analytics platform to revolutionize operations from the front-of-house to the boardroom. Qlik is enabling the restaurant group to analyze data collected across all its outlets to better understand drivers of success, promotion performance and supplier value, together with food wastage and costs.
Matthew Sparling, Chief Financial Officer at Savor Group said, “The restaurant industry is highly competitive on all fronts. Even if a customer loves their dining experience, they’ll still want to explore other eateries - making it harder to attract loyal customers. We need to consistently innovate and bring new things to the table, so that visitors to our restaurants are wowed every time they dine with us.”
Savor Group recognized the need to be more effective in leveraging the significant volume of data at its disposal, and to take the guess-work out of its operations to increase competitiveness. Rather than relying on incomplete data, the business wanted a system that would provide consistent figures as well as motivate and engage its staff to use this information. Savor Group turned to Qlik partner, Endeavour, to assist with the implementation of Qlik Sense for self-service analytics in order to connect data from across nine different restaurants to optimize efficiencies across the organization.
Since the implementation, Qlik has provided Savor Group with granular insights on sales and business performance, helping to lead its competitive negotiations with suppliers and partners. It has also helped restaurants like Seafarers to accurately optimize its performance - top-selling and low-performing menu items are no longer identified based on “gut feel.” This helps with the creation of future menus and determining the best promotions to drive capacity and demand.
Wayne Shennen, Venue Manager and Sake Professional at Ebisu said, “Qlik has been instrumental in our efforts to reinvigorate our drink offerings. At Ebisu, we specialize in Sake. Qlik has helped us refine our approach to determine if we’re too cheap or too expensive and to find out what we’re selling the most of and why. This allows us to proactively recommend relevant products to patrons to improve sales. For instance, we noticed one brand of a particularly good Sake was underperforming and encouraged our staff to actively promote it. Before leveraging Qlik, we would sell 1.5 bottles of it a month, now we’re selling one bottle per day. To be able to take that level of insight back to a supplier and show them how we’re selling their product is phenomenal.”
Garnering strong engagement and adoption of the platform was important for Savor Group, so the intuitive nature of the Qlik platform combined with the visual graphs and presentation was exactly what they needed. “The opportunity to access their data, on their terms, meant the process of selling the new system internally to our employees was extremely simple. Staff across all levels could quickly use it with minimal training and they are now very savvy in using the data. Qlik Sense is now a critical tool for the on-going management of our business,” added Sparling.
Sparling concluded, “As a CFO, I’m well-versed in inputting and analyzing data in Excel. However, chefs and front-of-house staff shouldn’t be expected to. They need to see information in real time, and in a format that’s quick and easy to digest. Endeavour and Qlik have been instrumental in delivering these actionable insights to our business group.”
Sharryn Napier, Vice President and Regional Director, ANZ at Qlik said, “The hospitality industry is always moving with the latest consumer trends, meaning restaurants are looking for new ways to innovate and attract customers. For years, restaurants have wanted to understand their customers better but Savor Group is actually doing it – applying levels of analytics that are not just keeping themselves relevant in a competitive industry but also improving the bottom line.”
Online training provider Simplilearn announced its partnership with Lovely Professional University (LPU) to offer certification courses in a variety of high-demand digital technologies to their undergraduate and postgraduate Engineering and Science students as part of LPU’s online internship program.
With a joint focus to make students job-ready with the latest digital skills, the partnership will allow students to access a blend of online self-learning, live instructor-led classes and hands-on practical training. All students of LPU’s online internship program will be required to enroll in their choice of Simplilearn’s digital technology courses. Upon completion of the course, they will receive certifications from Simplilearn and relevant industry bodies. Designed by industry experts who work in their fields of study, all courses are supported by 24/7 online teaching assistants and include assessments and hands-on capstone projects that will provide the students with the real-world experience that is sought after by employers.
“The next generation of talent needs to be armed with emerging digital skills before they enter the competitive workforce, and we are proud that this partnership with Lovely Professional University to make this possible,” said Simplilearn Founder & CEO, Krishna Kumar. “It's encouraging to see that universities are taking measures to prepare their students for the jobs of the future on their own rather than depending solely on hiring companies to train them.”
LPU Chancellor Ashok Mittal said, “LPU is a university which is closely working with industry. The present collaboration with ‘Simplilearn’ will definitely help our students to be job-ready as per the latest requirements of the industry. Thus, this initiative is to prepare students industry ready from day one of their career start and get absorbed on high pedestals even in the initial stages. I also want to share that LPU is already tied up with Google, SAP, Microsoft and more to work closely with industry so that innovative ideas of production be brought forth.”
In addition to training working professionals and enabling enterprises to build a digital-ready workforce, Simplilearn has partnered with leading universities and colleges in the United States to help students build industry-relevant skills and achieve their career goals in high-demand fields such as Big Data, AI & Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, Digital Marketing, Cyber Security and other technologies.
Atos, an international leader in digital transformation, and the CEA (French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission)’s direction of defense applications (CEA/DAM) place Tera 1000 – a supercomputer they developed together for defense and nuclear deterrence uses – among the world’s 500 most powerful machines. Reaching the 14th position, Tera 1000 thus becomes the most powerful European general-purpose supercomputer, with a computing power of 25 petaflops and a very competitive power consumption of 4 MegaWatts.
This result crowns the expertise acquired by the CEA/DAM and Atos in High-Performance Computing (HPC) and the co-design strategy initiated some 18 years ago by the two partners, working together as top contenders in the international competition towards exascale capacities – reaching a billion billion calculations per second.
Developing an exaflop-class supercomputer by 2020 is a necessity for some of the defense programs implemented by the CEA/DAM. To reach this capacity, technological breakthroughs are needed – most notably to maintain low levels of energy consumption, one of the key challenges in the high-performance computing market, but also to ensure smooth information flows and process the significant volumes of data produced by increasingly precise simulations of multi-physical, multi-dimensional phenomena.
To do so, the CEA/DAM decided to adopt co-design processes developed by Atos, with the help of Intel. The objective is to maximize the performances of the supercomputer by testing it on applications. The CEA/DAM’s competencies are required at several levels: for the structure of the applications’ computing codes, the interaction between these codes and the supercomputer and for the architecture of the supercomputer itself.
25 times more powerful for the same electricity consumption, an outstanding eco-responsible achievement
Deployed in two stages at the CEA center in Bruyères-le-Châtel (Île-de-France), Tera 1000 has a 25-petaflop computing capacity and best-in-class energy efficiency for a large range of applications – an achievement made possible through the use of technologies developed by Atos for its line of BullSequana X supercomputers. BullSequana uses an innovative cooling technology, using streams of lukewarm water circulating in close proximity to processors. A single BullSequana module can deliver almost three quarters of the computing power of the Tera 100, the supercomputer that was formerly in use at the CEA/DAM, with an energy efficiency improved by a factor of 25.
François Geleznikoff, the director of defence applications at the CEA, says: “Once again, the partnership between Atos and the CEA/DAM has allowed a major technological milestone in the power capacities of supercomputers. With the Tera 1000, we have very significantly increased the quality that digital simulations can attain for defence applications, but also for research and industry uses. This step opens the way to the exaflops in the coming decade.”
Pierre Barnabé, Chief Operating Officer of Atos’ Global Big Data & Security Division, adds: “Atos is very proud to help France and Europe gain international prominence in supercomputers, and to provide the CEA with the computing power they need to develop quality innovative research. This spot in the top-500 ranking reflects the successful collaboration between Atos and the CEA, and is one of the best examples of Atos’ technological excellence in high-performance computing.”
Technical features
Tera 1000 consists of two computing partitions:
The first one, relying on Intel Xeon V3 processors, has been in production since 2016
The second one uses latest-generation BullSequana, based on Intel Xeon Phi Knight Landing processors connected with a very-high-performance Bull X Interconnect(BXI) network, a result of the R&D collaboration between the CEA/DAM and Atos
The second layer of Tera 1000 marks a breakthrough in the parallel setups used for its 540,000 computing cores. Its architecture prefigures those that will be used in the next CEA/DAM computer, EXA1, by 2020.
