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22/02/2014

Focus Groups

Focus groups are seen as one of the most effective tool to interact with the people. It’s a form of qualitative research and often used in marketing research and product marketing.
It’s a way to reach out to the people to know their opinion, views and beliefs about an advertisement, products, service or concepts. A focus group is an indirect way of conducting an interview where groups (say 10-12) of people participate in a discussion. The manners to conduct this interview are informal where participant feel free to express their views on any topic.
Initially Focus group was also known as "focused interviews" or "group depth interviews". Ernest Ditcher (psychologist and marketing expert) coined the term focus group.

The groups are basically conducted when you are planning to introduce a new product or to modify an existing product in the market, so that you can get feedback on the product before investing your time and money on manufacturing it. It’s a good platform to get feedback from a group of people at one time before launching the product.
Focus groups are used in social science and urban planning as well, as it gives the interviewers the opportunity to study the participant in a more natural way than in a one to one interview.

09/02/2014

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/02/07/social-status-how-facebook-twitter-and-linkedin-compare/?mod=e2fb

This week was a reality check for social media after the big three companies reported their earnings report cards. Here's a look at where each stands at the moment.

17/01/2014

Challenges for the retail industry in 2014
Alison Kenney Paul, vice chairman and U.S. Retail and Distribution leader, Deloitte LLP, shares her view on the challenges facing the retail industry in 2014.
According to Paul, one of the biggest challenges in the retail industry is that customer is rapidly changing. The customers are more interactive, better informed and more selective than ever before. In a holiday shopping survey held in 2013 nearly 60% of the respondents fell that they are better connected to competitive pricing, coupons and what retailers sell than store associates themselves. What retailers are looking for are the ways to provide high-touch, personalized experiences to their customers; in other terms, a truly omnichannel experience. Many retailers unfortunately still depend heavily on the old traditional approach of promotions and mass advertising that do not speak directly to the omnichannel customer. Understanding how the customer expects to be “spoken with” - whether through an instant chat on the website or via an app on the customer’s smartphone as they shops in the store - will continue to challenge retailers well into 2014.

One of the important ways to be successful at personalization for retailers is to develop meaningful insights about the customer. For retailers in 2014, the second big challenge will continue to be searching of customer data and getting relevant, actionable insights from them. The focus of retails should not only on the historical data, but also predictive data about what the customer expect in the future through the development of sophisticated modeling technique

Brick-and-mortar retailers will face a direct competition from the purely online players. The online players are trying to become more like the brick-and-mortars. In past, the advantage which brick-and-mortar retailers have over the purely online players was their capability to provide product experience through touch and feel. However, the online players are balancing this immediate gratification by creating an emotional rush through social shopping, flash sales and near-real experience through augmented reality (AR) apps. As such, the brick- and-mortars need to leverage every opportunity they have to engage customers and build loyalty that endures. Innovative technologies such as Wi-Fi hot spots, smart shelves, point-of-sales (POS) systems, endless aisles and virtual store fronts are effective tools to engage customers both in-store and elsewhere.

Finally, a big challenge for all retailers concerns the supply chain. As the customers are looking for instant gratification, the industry is faced with a myriad of supply chain challenges and opportunities. Delivering the product on the same day and free shipping are expected and no longer considered as unique. In the holiday survey held in 2013, 71% of respondents said if offered they would take advantage of free shipping. More than two third 68% said that they were more likely to shop online if the retailer offered free shipping. Additional customer expectations are free returns, inventory availability and “buy online /pickup in-store “driving retailers to test new approaches to their legacy supply chains.

08/10/2013

Pharmaceutical Industry

According to a research from Urch Publishing, the global pharmaceutical industry is expected to be grow more than $1 tn in 2014, marking a 5% compound annual growth rate.

Pharmaceutical industry consists of companies that make, patent and sell drugs that have therapeutic effects. The pharmaceutical industry is extremely competitive and entry is very difficult due to a combination of strict regulations and the need for extensive research and development, involving time-consuming clinical trials.

In addition, high R&D costs, lengthy clinical trial processes, expiring patents and difficulty in gaining product approval from the appropriate regulatory bodies all mean that companies must produce blockbuster drugs and continue to do so to remain in good standing.

09/09/2013

M2M already a $10 billion sector

Machine-to-machine (M2M) is often portrayed as an emerging industry sector. However, operators are already generating strong revenue in this sector, amounting to $10 bn worldwide in 2013, and increasing to $88 bn by 2023. Future growth opportunities will be realized in emerging regions as applications are tailored to local markets and the cost of solutions declines.

The forecast predicts that SMEs will account for an increasing percentage of total M2M device connections. Excluding connections in the utilities sector, the proportion of SME M2M connections will increase from 14.6% of total connections in 2013 to 24.6 percent in 2023, representing a CAGR of 33 percent. The utilities sector is dominated by large enterprise purchasers of M2M solutions and a large number of low-revenue connections

14/08/2013

Oil and Natural Gas Employment Leading the Economic Recovery

According to EIA report, following the recession, the oil and natural gas industry played a major role in recovering the US economy.

The contribution of the energy sector can be observed by the growth in the private sector employment which is increased by more than 1 mn jobs, or by 1%, during the period of 2007-2012. During the same period, the growth of oil and gas industry increased by more than 162,000, or an increase of about 40%.

The three categories that helped in the growth of oil and natural gas industry are drilling; extraction and support.

According to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of drilling jobs by the end of 2012 was more than 90,000, an increase of 6,600 jobs since 2007. The BLS considers drilling as any job related spudding, reworking of wells or drilling of wells.

The number of position for extraction accounted for more than 193,000 jobs by the end of 2012, an increase of 53,000 jobs since 2007. BLS considers jobs as extraction jobs if they are engaged in operating, developing and producing oil and natural gas fields. BLS also includes into the category of extraction - the exploration and production work up to the point of shipment.

The position that grants the support functions employed upwards of 286,000 employees by the end of 2012 was an increase of more than 102,000 jobs from 2007. The BLS believes job in the support category to be positions performing activities for oil and natural gas operations, including exploration, well surveying, excavation, casing work and well construction.
According to EIA – Drilling and support jobs were mainly hard-hit at the time of recession, but jobs in these categories have bounced back quickly.

According to Karr Ingham, a petroleum economist with the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, the jobs created by the crude oil and natural gas industry goes far beyond this industry. Jobs in the energy sector usually pay higher compare to the private sector jobs. As employee expenditures are linked to incomes, higher paying jobs have indirect effects on output and employment in other areas.
Karr Ingham estimates that there is a multiplier effect from energy sector jobs of about five. This means that in the energy industry each job generates four other jobs in the other industries.