Machine Learning – Dutch Uncles

How The DataTeam is Helping Big Businesses to Make the Most from Data?

Shalmoli Sarkar — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 11:58:34 +0000

We sell a pair of socks by leveraging AI and data analytics for acquiring customers. Sounds weird? But, this is what Pritika Mehta, founder of SockSoho- a D2C startup selling socks mentioned in an interview when asked about her flourishing D2C socks business in India.

By analysing various data points SockSoho generates insights on customer behaviour and spending patterns that help refine marketing strategy and inventory planning and expand into multiple verticals.

The approach taken by SockSoho is probably the story of every startup’s success which is making the startup ecosystem so well-received in India over the recent decade. But, the biggies and conglomerates that have been ruling the consumer’s cart for ages have remained a laggard in the usage and generating insights from massive volumes of customer data they generate. However, the Chennai-based The Data Team is now looking to change this.

What is The Data Team?

Founded by Rangarajan Vasudevan, The Data team is an AI service company that offers solutions in business intelligence in sectors of telecommunications, retail, oil and gas, e-commerce, banking, media, insurance, fintech, and NBFC. Through its AI-driven solutions, it is enabling brands to have a frictionless customer experience and provide the personal touch, immediacy, and convenience that customers expect. The Data Team’s solutions can transform a usual CRM ( customer relation management) system into a self-updating, auto-correcting system that remains on top of its game eventually building customer loyalty and brand building.

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According to a report from Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute, the fodder deficit is upto 29 percent in the availability of feed including fodder.

Cadenz- Decoding customer’s behaviour

Cadenz – the flagship product of The Data Team is the market’s first Customer Intelligence Platform that provides enterprises live behaviour intelligence about its customers using its data automatically.

It helps enterprises to eliminate customer friction to boost revenue, improve loyalty and monetise effectively.

How does it work?

Cadenz gathers scattered customer data, consolidates records, and automatically infers the interests of customers using behavioural AI algorithms. It has below features to offer:

A single view of the customer

It can build a 360-degree view of all customers by integrating customer journeys across multiple touchpoints. Within the single view, Cadenz can say the following things about your customer-

1. Personalise product or service recommendation

2. Anticipate user behaviour for cross-channel marketing

3. Provide contextual customer service.

Real-time personalisation

Instantly hyper-personalises customer at every interaction at points such as location, POS, call centre, transaction, location, purchase history, and personal preferences, etc. It benefits the business by-

1. Increasing the wallet share

2. Better customer satisfaction

3. Boost conversion

Automated behaviour segmentation

With Cadenz businesses can discover customer profiles or customer groups using natural language-based concepts. Its ability to identify micro-segments reduces the period from the conception of a new idea until it is released to the marketplace.

The Data Team’s distinguished clientele consists of HDFC Bank, Singtel, Indian Oil, Central Group, Credit Mantri, SEBI, and ICICI Lombard.

What lies ahead for such AI solution service providers?

In today’s tech-savvy world, customer intelligence is a must-needed asset required for the continuity of business. Its importance is felt highly in the BFSI sector since banks need to respond faster and make the customer feel special and give assurance that their money is safe with them. AI solutions extract relevant customer information and provide hyper-personalized products and services that can truly help financial institutions improve revenue per customer and connect with customers like never before.

Similarly, for a telecom company’s continuity in the long run offerings such as high data speeds and free voice calls is passe’. The telecom company must understand every subscriber’s preference and build a customer profile that will aid them to deliver delightful customer experiences resulting in more stickiness and usage.

Therefore, such startups will have good business opportunities ahead since the legacy brands will require this valuable data to accelerate their business and transform into a digitally native business.

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Sports Analytics Platform Needed To Create Indian Athletes for Olympics

Shalmoli Sarkar — Sun, 01 Aug 2021 05:35:08 +0000

PT Usha, India’s lone track and field athlete to have participated in four Olympics expresses her dejection over not winning a medal at the Olympics for the country. In an interview, she said that Indians not winning an Olympic medal at the track and field event can be attributed to a lack of providing scientific training to athletes as well as being unable to identify talent from the grassroot level.

It is indeed true, ever since India made its Olympic debut in 1900, it has managed to put a dismal count of only 28 medals to date. A country, whose fraction of the young population constitutes around 35 percent of the total population pie holds a poor population to medal ratio.

With the advancement in science, technologies such as computer vision, machine learning, advanced wireless connectivity, and wearable sensors have made inroads into the sports space to become sports analytics platforms transforming the way athletes train, compete, and manage their careers while providing in-depth insights to coaches and athletes on live in-game activity and past game events. The extensive use of sports analytics platforms in an athlete’s training programme will fill the void that PT Usha was referring to.

Why does India lack a sports analytics platform for athletes?

Search for sports analytics tools that serve other than cricket, you will get few results. For a country where people worship cricket, a majority of the sports analytics tools are designed for cricket due to its popularity and India being world champions. Cricket analytics platforms like SportingMindz and Sports Mechanics are known to have given their services to IPL teams like RCB, Kings XI Punjab, KKR, and Deccan Chargers etc.

The low popularity of other sports like running, gymnastics, swimming, boxing and India’s poor performance in the Olympics forces the developers of the analytics platform to choose cricket over any other sport. Besides, the respective federations and sports bodies are equally to be blamed for their reluctance to invest in the betterment of athletes’ training, therefore there is no creation of supply and demand of sports analytics platform dedicated to athletics.

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The technology interference in the sports space has transformed the way athletes train, compete and strategise games.

Benefits of Sports Analytics Platforms

In the absence of sports analytics platforms, the assessment of an athlete’s performance is through archaic methods of reviewing the gameplays by rewinding videos of their performance looking out for mistakes or scope of improvement. Here are some of the benefits the sports analytics tools can offer:

Injury Prediction: Deep learning algorithms like convolutional neural network models will help to understand the deviation of an athlete’s posture and technique.
Strategise games for maximum wins: Data science in sports can help maximise wins by offering trusted insights on what will likely happen after each decision to extract the best performance. It can predict the strengths and weaknesses of opposition teams and devise the right strategy for the game in any situation.
Find the right player: During practice matches or selection matches, scouting for the right player is a challenge. Using machine learning techniques such as clustering and statistical analysis provides insights into a player’s skills, biometrics to identify the right player. Automated video analysis also aids in selecting the player.
Best Routines and training strategy: Best training regimes and strategies can be created by analysing previous practice matches.

What Lies Ahead for the Sports Analytics Platform in India?

The Tokyo Olympics is certainly emerging to be different than other Olympics as India has sent its largest-ever contingent of 119 athletes to compete at 85 medal events. We can witness the determined athletes advancing in their respective disciplines of boxing, shooting, badminton, sailing, table tennis, and hockey where previously they got eliminated in initial rounds. This is something to realise for sports analytics platforms that there is talent available and the right resources and technology support will further enhance the performance of athletes to win medals. The sports analytics platform will have ample business opportunities to provide its services at the grassroots level i.e., during national level or state level trials or in schools and colleges to help coaches find the best athlete.

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Dvara E-Registry Building a Digital Platform Enabling Stakeholders in Agri Value Chain

Shalmoli Sarkar — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 05:35:13 +0000

India, predominantly an agrarian economy contributing a significant 16 percent in GDP and employing 43 percent face hindrances to reach its full potential due to farmers lacking access to formal sources of finance.

Availability of agriculture credit to farmers is crucial for running the operational expenses in farming resulting in better crop produce as one gets access to quality inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, machinery and equipment, and sufficient supply of water and power.

Credit also acts as a cushion for the farmers to sustain livelihood in inevitable situations of crop damage due to crop failure, price crash, drought, pest attacks, hailstone shower, etc.

According to a report from the Reserve Bank of India, at most, only 40 percent of India’s small and marginal farmers have access to formal credit. Therefore, leaving the rest with no other choice but to knowingly fall into the trap of informal sources of rural credit.

This untapped segment presents an opportunity for Agriculture-Fintech startups which can play a pivotal role in lessening the gap in the non-availability of formal sources of agricultural credit to the farmers.

According to a report from EY, the overall agritech industry is estimated to be a market worth $24.1 billion by 2025, out of which agricultural financial services, the second largest after agri-supply chain, will be a market worth $4.1 billion by 2025.

Meanwhile, Omnivore’s recent $150 million funds to boost rural agritech has benefitted Dvara E-Registry, an AgFinTech startup, that has raised a pre-Series A round of funding.

What Does Dvara E-Registry Do?

Dvara E-Registry aims to channel financial products to farmers and FPO (Follow on Public Offer) through its digital platform. Its digital platform harnessing technologies like mobile and GIS and Machine Learning includes smallholder farmer’s access to financial services and agricultural markets. The startup has worked with over 55+ FPOs and impacted the lives of over 25000+ farmers.

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According to a report from EY, the overall agritech industry is estimated to be a market worth $24.1 billion by 2025, out of which agricultural financial services, the second largest after agri-supply chain, will be a market worth $4.1 billion by 2025.

How is Dvara E-registry Helping the farmers?

Dvara E-registry is aiding the farmer’s access to insurance and credit through its digital solutions which are listed below :

Doordrishti

It provides index-based land and crop analytics by leveraging ML and AI on remote sensing data, weather data, GIS data, and crop science. Using a proprietary android mobile app equipped with sensors it captures the data by georeferencing the land plots. The data captured is fed into a machine learning algorithm which on analysing provides real-time tech-enabled advisory based on which helps farmers access financial products like credit and insurance. The insights generated also help understand a lender about a farmer’s borrowing capacity.

Khetscore

It provides an AI-based farm score to agricultural activity. The score is created leveraging the statistics on weather, satellite data, and crop yield data to assess what can maximise farmers’ satisfaction and optimise loss ratio while keeping premiums within a limit. The yield estimates derived by these models are used to assess insurance claims at a land parcel level.

Monitoring cultivation activities

Dvara E-Registry provides a platform for all farmers to digitally monitor land and cultivation practices by sharing actionable crop insights by leveraging Artificial Intelligence, Remote Sensing and Image technologies. The farmers are provided a detailed analysis of crop reports based on their cultivable area, growth stage, health, expected harvest date and estimated yield.

These insights help the food companies understand the procurement requirements and convey trading parameters like payment and delivery terms, quality specifications of commodity, quality-wise premium or discount, minimum traded quantity to the farmers beforehand.

Learnings from Dvara E-Registry to the other Agfintech Players

Establishing Transparency

Dvara E-Registry has established transparency in communication with the farmers and the FPOs with its digital solutions communicating real-time data about the agricultural activity.

Better Decision making

Leveraging ML and AI to generate insights about the estimates of agricultural activity will increase operational efficiency in decision-making for lenders regarding sanction, review, and renewal of agricultural loans.

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How to Identify Fake Products on your E-Commerce Platform?

Shalmoli Sarkar — Thu, 13 May 2021 11:00:09 +0000

Shenzhen Jiayz Photo Industrial Ltd., the parent company of BOYA wireless microphones and accessories, has filed a petition in the Delhi High Court against e-commerce sites Flipkart, Amazon India, Paytm Mall, Tata Cliq, and Snapdeal for allegedly selling fake versions of its products.

Such cases are just the tip of the iceberg.

There are various instances on social media where people have expressed their anger and resentment towards receiving fake products. Repeated incidents of receiving such fake products tend to erode the brand reputation and consumer trust. This results in loss of revenues which is detrimental to the e-commerce businesses especially in the pandemic where people are most likely to shop from online platforms.

The size of fake and counterfeit products, according to Acviss- a technology company that uses algorithms to protect consumers and brands from experiencing counterfeit products- is a massive Rs 20,000 crore industry, which is roughly less than 0.37 percent of the total retail pie in India. The size is quite alarming for e-commerce businesses. According to ASPA (Authentication Solutions Providers Association), fake and counterfeit products cause revenue losses worth Rs 1 lakh crore annually in India.

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The size of fake and counterfeit products, according to Acviss- is a massive Rs 20,000 crore industry in India.

Reasons Behind the Growth of Fake Products on E-Commerce Platforms

Lack of visibility, traceability, and transparency in the existing supply chain network from manufacturing to point of sale is making room for fake products.

In e-commerce marketplaces, the detection of counterfeit and fake products is cumbersome since orders are accepted by the e-tailers and are shipped directly by suppliers. There is no such body that inspects the goods that are being supplied by the suppliers.

This holds the e-retailers responsible for the quality and authenticity of products and ends up with negative reviews of customers receiving the counterfeit or fake product.

Amazon’s Project Zero to fight fake products

E-commerce giant Amazon was troubled with the menace of fake products largely due to the size and scale of its third-party marketplace that went unregulated. The e-commerce major decided to tackle the fake product menace with its Project Zero initiative which ensured that the customers received authentic goods while shopping on its platform.

More than 7000 global brands are associated with Amazon’s Project Zero initiative across the US, Europe, and Japan, with pilot tests being launched in India to test Project Zero.

How Amazon’s Project Zero Works

Amazon’s Project Zero, as the name suggests, aims to have zero tolerance towards fake products on its platform through its Machine Learning (ML) capabilities consisting of three powerful tools:

Automated protections
Self-service counterfeit removal tool
Product serialisation.

Brands to counter their fake versions will associate with Project Zero to submit trademarks, logos, and intellectual property data with Amazon, which in turn will be used by Project Zero to automatically detect fake or counterfeit products.

Amazon’s machine learning-backed automated protections will continuously scan its site that displays a myriad of 5 billion product listing updates per day, for detection of any suspected counterfeits.

The self-service counterfeit tool gives brands the autonomy to directly remove products impersonating as original from Amazon’s store that otherwise required to file a counterfeit report first with Amazon to take action. This information is shared with the company’s automated protections enabling Amazon to catch potential fake product listings proactively in the future.

Project zero’s product serialisation will allow Amazon to scan and receive confirmation about the authenticity of a brand’s products being purchased on the site. It assigns a unique code for each manufactured unit, that is put on products during the manufacturing process. When the product is ordered, Amazon scans this unique code to verify if the product being bought is authentic. If not, Amazon can detect and stop a counterfeit item before it reaches the customer.

Is Project Zero Free for Brands?

Project Zero enrollment is free for brands however, brands that will use the product serialisation service will incur costs.

Other technologies to Counter Fake Products Being Sold

Blockchain technology is another solution. Its characteristic of distributed ledger technology is widely being used in the fashion industry to establish transparency, security and authenticity in products thus saving the livelihoods of designers and restoring the trust of end consumers. Many global fashion and luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Zara are implementing blockchain technology in the process.

During the development of a product, the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags are attached to the raw materials and are scanned at various stages right from its production to packaging to confirm the genuineness and authenticity of the product. The RFID tags, when scanned, execute a smart contract where multiple trusted nodes verify the information to be correct before the update goes on record in the blockchain ledger. Each entry in the blockchain ledger is protected and encrypted that deters fraud.

How should small businesses go about it?

For Small Businesses who Sell on E-commerce Platforms

Fake or counterfeit products will create irate and unhappy customers whose trust regarding your brand will erode resulting in refunds and exchanges eventually causing a drop in revenues. Hence, small businesses who are sellers on e-commerce giants Amazon should enroll themselves with Project Zero.

For E-commerce Businesses

Independent D2C e-commerce can invest in blockchain or ML technologies to make the entire supply and operations under its radar, therefore, protecting the business from selling fake products.

This will make your e-commerce platform secure and increase user’s trust. Sellers and Buyers using your platform will choose you over other options in the market. Hence, you will be ahead of the competition and increase the number of loyal customers. You might also be able to expand your user base with new sellers and buyers when they are influenced by the existing happy users.

The post How to Identify Fake Products on your E-Commerce Platform? appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Zeni: Powering High Velocity Decision Making for Start-ups and Small Businesses

DU Desk — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 04:35:04 +0000

How does the proposition of a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for $299 per month sound like? Unrealistic and confusing, right?

There is a twist. To understand this, you need to move the image of this top professional sitting in a boardroom in a suit and tie to a one inside your computer – An ‘AI-powered CFO’ which will manage all your financial functions, including bookkeeping, payroll administration, invoicing, monetary statements and beyond.

The proposition doesn’t end here. Now, it is one thing to know your expenses have increased, and an entirely different thing to understand why. Does that mean I still need to hire a CFO to analyse that for me? With technology at helm, the answer would be no.

This is what modern bookkeeping fintech start-up Zeni, founded by twin brothers Swapnil and Snehal Shinde, has brought to the table of innovation with its artificial intelligence (AI) – powered financial concierge service for start-ups. We dig in deeper into this two year-old start-up’s evolution, the product offering and how it is here to mark a change in the financial world.

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In its first year itself, Zeni processed over $300 million in transactions and is now managing $200 million in finances each month.

What is Zeni platform all about?

In simple words, Zeni offers an integrated platform to business owners that performs daily bookkeeping besides consolidating all the financial flows like spend, payments, accounts and more. At the same time, the tool connects firms to dedicated teams of finance professionals to provide guidance and deliver insights based on real-time data. It’s a blend of both AI and human finance experts that together manage every financial need of a company, especially a start-up for a flat month-to-month charge. The platform integrates with a company’s bank accounts, credit cards, payroll providers, or expense management system section. It is like Zeni is running your finance department.

The services include:

● Invoice Pay and Invoicing

● Expense and Receipt Administration

● Monetary Projections, Budgeting, and Financial planning and analysis (FP&A) Assist

● Payroll Administration

● Actual-Time Reporting through Zeni Dashboard

● Month-to-month Monetary Statements

● Yearly Taxes and R&D Credit score

Given the speed and the accuracy of this approach, Zeni is able to provide its clients with a real-time access to key financial insights via the Zeni Dashboard – including burn rate, operating expenses, cash/card balance, revenue by product, month-end reports, and more.

In its first year itself, Zeni processed over $300 million in transactions and is now managing $200 million in finances each month. It is on track to process a total of $1 billion in transactions in the next 12 months and is expecting to achieve 300% growth in 2022. Zeni claims to be specialising in technology start-ups and has over 100 clients on board since inception.

Twin Power

Shinde brothers Swapnil and Snehal always had a knack for AI and Machine Learning (ML). Swapnil worked in the technology industry for over 15 years and worked as the Vice President (VP) of Product for international markets at Rdio and also spent four years at Yahoo! as a Senior Product Manager. Snehal also worked in the technology industry for 15 years and worked at both Yahoo! and Rdio as the VP for Emerging Markets. The Shinde brothers both have master’s degrees in computer science from the University of Southern California.

Following their technology-concentrated careers, the brothers ventured into the world of start-ups with the launch of a Bollywood music streaming music service called Dhingana, which was purchased by Rdio in 2014.

This was followed by their second venture Mezi, an AI-powered Travel-As-A Service platform, that was acquired by the American Express (AMEX) in 2018. The duo spent 5 years building this human assisted AI-powered platform which today serves more than 10 million AMEX card members across the U.S. and U.K.

In between the hustle, the duo never stopped building on AI and ML technology. Even when they were dwelling on the proportion of selling Mezi to American Express, the duo brainstormed on how the later had set a Gold Standard for providing high-class personalised concierge service to its Platinum and Black card customers, but is unable to give it to all its card members because it was too human intensive and very hard to scale. The only way to democratise what American Express was doing was by using Artificial Intelligence.

Post the acquisition, the duo wanted to invest more and more in AI and ML and apply the same in different markets which were fragmented and complex. They understood exactly how a similar platform like Mezi could be effective in the world of start-up bookkeeping and accounting markets. This inspiration came from the duo’s first hand experience as start-up owners.

The brothers met with Nexus Ventures in May 2015 and showed them a mock design of how they wanted to build the product. In 20 minutes, the investors decided to fund the company.

In 2019, Zeni launched its AI – powered financial concierge service for start-ups, with founders Swapnil and Snehal taking charge as Chief Executive officer (CEO) and Chief Product Officer (CPO), respectively. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States and has a team of 40 and growing.

To date, Zeni has raised a total of $13.5 million in funding over two rounds. Their latest funding was raised on March 9, 2021 from a Series A round. The two year-old start-up has a line of as many as eight marquee investors, including Sierra Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, Saama Capital, Firebolt Ventures, SVB Financial Group and others.

The first paid client came in January 2020. By March 2021, Zeni had managed over $200 million in funds each month throughout over 100 start-up clients. Lockdown also worked in the company’s favour as the majority of businesses were working remotely and looked at Zeni as their remote finance team.

Saving the Burnouts: Single Pane of Glass for Start-Ups

Zeni aims to solve the real-world pain points of start-ups. Despite having a number of tools online to manage finances, the process remains highly fragmented. There are payroll platforms, accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP) flows, expense management tools, etc.

On the human talent side, there are part-time professionals, perhaps even a CFO, to oversee various aspects of these financial flows. The process is both complex and expensive. A CFO generally comes at the growth stage at a high cost, leaving the start-ups with too many complex tools and independent financial experts to choose from.

Start-ups are in a need of a single tool that can streamline financial management across a variety of functions and offer them something beyond accounting. This is where Zeni’s product offering makes sense, especially for early-stage start-ups with no finance team at place.

The single platform, as mentioned earlier, handles all end-to-end finances of start-ups with both technology and human experts. In a traditional accounting model, there is a scope for human error with manual crunching, starting from data entry, transaction categorisation, and attaching transaction documentation in the accounting software etc.

What takes hours of dedicated human resources, takes only a few minutes with Zeni. Plus, nobody has to wait till the end of the month to know what is brewing in the financial cup. This is important for start-ups as real-time visibility, management, and skilled help with a finance resolution will help them maintain a tempo with their rising enterprise.

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The integrated dashboard offered by Zeni to early and growth-stage companies is a unique offering as it is updated on a real-time basis.

How Financially Healthy is my Start-Up?

Zeni offers real-time bookkeeping, which means founders can see exactly how the financial operations of their start-ups are performing in real-time, access the transaction-level data supporting the high-level reports, and use this information to course correct as issues arise.

Majority of the start-ups fail to keep their business alive as they remain unaware of the financial troubles building up or where they are going wrong with the finances. They fail to keep their business financially viable and sound and soon run out of cash, calling it quits.

This problem can be eliminated with real-time check and analysis which cannot be done without technology. The Zeni dashboard is able to generate those insights highlighting the key contributing factors affecting changes to the monthly finances.

This also saves them the effort and resource to dig through the spreadsheets to understand what is going wrong or what went wrong. Zeni literally spells it out for them! This could save start-up from scrambling or burning out.

Pitch it Right!

A lot of start-ups do not have their finances in order which is extremely important during a pitch. Having up-to-date, accurate and readily available financials is a must to reflect to the investors that you have a strong hold over the same. This is also important so when investors start the due diligence process, the business is in the best possible position to gain the investment a start-up needs.

Zeni made a smart move by offering experienced professionals for the same as well to help start-ups manage and track the goals as they move through the funding process.

Is Zeni Placed Uniquely?

The answer would be yes. Zeni is placed uniquely as its offering goes beyond simple automation to advanced FP&A and CFO grade presentations and reports.

The integrated dashboard offered by Zeni to early and growth-stage companies is also a unique offering as it is updated on a real-time basis. This gives the necessary transparency to both the executives and the decision-makers. Hence, breaking the silos of information that is created within each software as the company’s existing financial accounting software is integrated and provides an across-the-board view into the company’s financial position.

The B2B fintech market is blooming with a growing number of digital finance platforms readily available for start-ups. But just because the tools exist doesn’t mean that entrepreneurs’ financial woes are over.

Understanding from this point of view, Zeni is uniquely placed as it aims for consolidation and simplification. Plus, with its proposition of in-house financial experts besides the AI-driven tools, gives the full package comfort to business owners.

Looking at a $19.59 Billion Industry

The accounting software market was valued at $12.01 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $19.59 billion by 2026, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.5%. The future of AI-powered financial concierge has the potential of becoming a must-have for all the start-ups where all the financial services are consolidated into one single platform and the offering goes beyond that.

There has been a complexity around the finance world and it’s about time that the area is simplified for the start-up world. Zeni is definitely a step in that direction. Moving forward, the company is gradually coming out of its stealth mode to double charge its growth numbers with investment in team and sales.

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What are the new products and services in Consumer Tech?

Aakash Sharma — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 02:35:05 +0000

Consumer technology (consumer tech) comes in different forms and offers a wide range of technological possibilities for all common elements in everyday life. We use consumer tech almost every day and for a large part of the day. Alphabet Inc. (Google), Apple, Alibaba, Samsung, Reliance Jio, Tesla, Yamaha, etc., are examples of large consumer technology companies operating worldwide. In driving a Tesla car or paying at a shop using Google pay, we use consumer tech for all our activities.

Technology around consumer goods and retail products is product-oriented and focused on transferring products from the organisation to the consumer. In brick-and-mortar stores, this transfer service includes products with specific or wait times as physical stores try to keep consumers for as long as possible.

New technologies have radically changed that idea, allowing consumers to invent, discover, promote and purchase products. With digitalisation, consumers have moved away from the delayed physical window shopping and now expect the transaction about the product to be a swift experience.

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The future of consumer tech will promote the growth of online customers and the improvement of service personnel.

New products and services in consumer tech

The 5G Rage and new age devices

Devices connected to 5G networks or the latest 4G, LTE, or other cellular networks have transformed the modern age’s internet revolution. The new devices like smartphones and computers work on networks that receive mobile repeater signals and provide users with an ultra-fast internet connection. The most basic forms of consumer electronics that fall into this category are smartphones, tablets, computers and portable access points.

IoT Devices

IoT, or internet of things, devices connect to the internet or other types of specific wireless network applications for unprecedented visibility and user control. Some standard consumer IoT devices include smart devices (such as thermostats, locks, and application indicator lights), sensor-based products (such as door cameras that can alert users to movement), and various Bluetooth devices.

Self-driving automobile and car innovation

Since the Industrial Revolution, numerous innovations have transformed the automobile industry, particularly the invention of the Ford Model T- the first car to have ever been manufactured on a massive scale.

Today, automobiles have become the most important types of consumer tech around the world. With the improvement of technology, cars are becoming faster, better, and even self controllable.

Vehicles often have high-tech functions such as built-in GPS, automatic steering, automatic braking, lane departure warning, a rearview camera, power steering, and various online and offline tasks that can enhance the safety and convenience of driving.

Today, top carmakers like Audi, Range Rover, and others are following Elon Musk and Tesla’s lead in making vehicles that are entirely powered by electricity and have the capability of auto-driving. The electronic vehicle (E-vehicle) market is pegged to be one of the fastest-growing segments in the world.

New age consumer tech-driven fitness equipment and devices

Fitness technologies and consumers tech are fully integrated into the industry. People use devices that monitor their daily goals and participate in activities or workouts, working effectively on consumer tech. But, mobile fitness devices aren’t just about fitness anymore.

Technologies like devices maintaining a user’s body temperature using air filtration technology have proven vital in fitness and life-saving aspects. Additionally, consumer tech has far surpassed the fitness and equipment industries.

Wearable consumer technology mainly includes smartwatches, fitness trackers, clothing with alarms and frequency monitoring technology.

Gaming and consumer tech

From the boom in the late 1970s to the 1980s, the video game industry has exploded to become a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Today’s commuter gaming systems offer 5K internet graphics games, flash processor speeds, and more editing capabilities than game designers.

Video game consoles, games, software, gaming PCs for virtual reality devices, handheld game consoles, add-ons, and accessories primarily are the new gadgets in the consumer tech that make up this segment.

Consumer Tech has changed people’s experience and expectations

Customers expect an omnichannel service experience

Physical markets are no longer the only place where customers interact with businesses. By using social media, e-commerce and third-party websites, customers can connect to companies from various digital media.

This increased reach has increased the demand for better experiences across channels. Multi-channel support offers the connection of communication channels, allowing multiple groups and customers to work efficiently.

Change in digital communication

The advent of videoconferencing changed the telecommunications industry starting in the 90s. And over the decades, the trends have shifted more to messaging and calls over the internet. People increasingly prefer to communicate on the phone rather than by email.

Companies are bringing in technology that combines interaction in real-time with realistic augmented services like AR and VR. A lot is expected from the real-time messaging services and other media.

Remote operations to become routine

The future of consumer tech will promote the growth of online customers and the improvement of service personnel. Service personnel are not limited to call centres. As the COVID-19 pandemic showed, it is very much possible for employees to work remotely, and even productively, when the threat of a pandemic isn’t looming around.

Users can now access most service channels in addition to offices and call centres. Stakeholders can manage teams and workflow via emails, smartphones, live chat and social media.

Most business telephonic services provide cloud-based solutions that allow working from home. As companies recognise potential savings in reducing office space, it will become standard for service personnel to work remotely.

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Is Mental Healthcare a Thriving Start-Up Industry in India?

Aakash Sharma — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 12:35:03 +0000

Mental health start-ups are seizing opportunities and churning out innovative solutions to people who the most need help. Not only are mental health start-ups generating revenue and increasing the number of users, but they are also establishing their position in the market as change bearers for collective good.

Increasing Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in Mental Health

Neuroscientists and doctors worldwide are using machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to develop treatment plans that can help identify some critical indicators before the onset of mental illness. There is a lot of data obtainable, and data scientists can collect it for mental healthcare professionals to do their work better.

What makes ML and AI so useful today is that in the past, the understanding of diagnosis was based on statistical averaging and overuse, but these technologies help customise data for individual cases.

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Machine learning and artificial intelligence can meet the specific needs of psychiatry. For decades, researchers have studied group media and statistics for people who may have the same diagnosis but have little understanding of individual patients.

Mental Health Deteriorated During the Outbreak of COVID-19

COVID-19 has dramatically increased public stress levels and mental health issues. More than 55% of people reported an increase in their stress levels, an increase in existing depression, and activation of new cases of mental health disorders.

The hybrid model, which supports human psychologists and artificial intelligence, is unique worldwide. The use of AI and ML allows for mass data customisation where essential services can be expanded according to personal preferences and services can be provided round the clock. The solutions attained from this model are based on solid clinical contributions to ensure a high level of ongoing care.

Indian Start-ups are Innovating Mental Health Cures and Solutions

Wysa, a mental health forum based in Bangalore, aims to solve mental health with a free artificial intelligence (AI) solution of ‘bot chat service’. According to the company, it saw a 94% rise in cases during the lockdown period from February 2020 to June 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.

In a sense, the company believes that its existing free services models can maximise coverage and new user acquisition. Wysa highlighted that the proposition of users referred to COVID-19 during therapist sessions increased week-on-week during March 2020, from 5% in the first week to 60% in the fourth week.

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence have helped change the face of mental health in two primary ways.

Identify biomarkers and develop a treatment plan

When a patient is diagnosed with a mental illness, a trial and error method is employed to obtain the correct medication dose and a proper treatment plan. With ML and AI at their disposal, mental health doctors will not need a trial and error method. Not all patients’ experience is the same with mental disorders such as depression. The symptoms of one patient are different from the next.

Machine learning algorithms help identify behavioural biomarkers, which are essential for supporting mental health professionals to ascertain when a patient is at risk for a specific mental illness. Besides, algorithms can help monitor the effectiveness of treatment plans.

Crisis prediction

It is essential to understand that people with specific diseases such as panic attacks, psychosis, mania, migraines, etc., are at higher risk. Monitoring patients who have been diagnosed with mental health issues improves their chances of normalcy with apt solutions.

However, certain conditions (such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) have a higher risk of seizures. And psychiatrists are responsible for reducing the anxiety risk of the patient in such cases.

Digital Solutions for Mental Health Issues – what’s in it for newcomers?

Compared to physical clinics, online consulting and digital platforms provide mental health patients with a safer place to share their problems. Given the fear of being judged or seen by people at a mental health facility or doctor’s office, the patient always has an unpleasant stigma. And digitisation of the solutions eradicates such possibilities.

Machine learning and artificial intelligence can meet the specific needs of psychiatry. For decades, researchers have studied group media and statistics for people who may have the same diagnosis but have little understanding of individual patients. But these new technologies can allow them to make personal predictions in unprecedented ways.

In a nutshell, new companies working in this field have vast opportunities to develop and capture the market to help people on a large scale.

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How Does ServiceNow Drive Innovation?

Aakash Sharma — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 06:35:04 +0000

ServiceNow is an American software company that produces cloud computing programs to allow companies to manage digital workflows for business activities. The company is generally known for providing innovative solutions to its customers.

ServiceNow primarily offers its solutions in the fields of health, education, government and financial services. It provides customer services like:

Installation management
Basic orchestration
Service mapping
Portfolio and cloud management
Perimeter encryption
Performance analysis
Service portal design
Datasheet and configuration of the management database

A key player in the IT Software & Services industry, ServiceNow, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, was founded by Frederic B. Luddy in 2004 in the United States. The company is currently headed by Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe and employs 10,371 professionals.

What does digital transformation mean at ServiceNow?

At ServiceNow, the company uses ITSM and its NowPlatform to transform business and deliver benefits that help its customers achieve their business goals. ServiceNow’s NowPlatform provides a ‘System of Action’ for the enterprise. The use of a single data model makes it easy to create contextual workflows and automate business processes.

ServiceNow is transforming the business approach, including the critical elements of digital transformation, the digital maturity model, and the understanding of qualitative and quantitative values.

An integrated collaborative approach and process have helped the company transform its IT expertise, reinvest and drive innovation. There are many types of IT innovations today. Some of them will have a significant impact, others less, but even small ideas can complement each other to achieve meaningful results.

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Data is churning smarter solutions for critical areas of IT, business management, and technology process infrastructure for people.

Automating analytics to give insights

The ServiceNow analytics team is continuously looking for new ways to provide information to users. Its strategy, which focuses on the user experience, always makes the company’s brains think beyond the boundaries. The desire to automate the next steps and create a full cycle of ongoing actions or corrections is a chief goal for the ServiceNow analytics component.

The company uses exported data to identify bottlenecks in analysis processes. Their aim is to fill the gaps in provision of services and boost technological assistance transfer. The solution of internal process problems has led to a continuous improvement of work processes.

Ongoing IT support

With over 10,000 employees and an increasing monthly average business across a month, task managers at ServiceNow like to assess IT service support due to viability. So, ServiceNow’s IT leaders turned to coach loops that automate data collection about the quality of IT support’s activities.

They plan to use ITSM reporting to automatically generate reports with relevant data such as introduction quality, percentage of calls closed, and percentage needing follow up. At a glance, they will see how an IT support tech is performing against industry benchmarks and coach and train techs, so they continue to improve and deliver a consistent, quality experience.

AI is everywhere, and ServiceNow isn’t an exception

Innovation pushes the boundaries of AI and works better for employees. For tech companies, if you can aptly deploy AI tactics, you can take steps to minimize the impact of competition on your business.

Business information is continuously linked to end-to-end employee tools and infrastructure to identify operational anomalies using AI data. By connecting the two, the team can predict and prevent operational issues before they arise.

Enroute Operational Excellence: What can others learn?

Innovation requires new discipline and patience in management. All of these well-built areas that ServiceNow excels are strong at every turn because of a stung technological background and conviction driven by new-age tech beliefs. You can only be there if you follow this: innovation from the start.

Data is churning smarter solutions for critical areas of IT, business management, and technology process infrastructure for people. A standard services data model (CSDM) gives IT a holistic view of essential applications’ service health in which ServiceNow has significant investments. This can help new businesses make better decisions based on an accurate picture of costs, service availability, and value realization.

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1mg: Bringing AI in India’s healthcare industry

Shalmoli Sarkar — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 12:35:05 +0000

As the world continues to grapple with coronavirus, it has highlighted the underlying challenges that Indian healthcare was facing for a long time. Plagued by accessibility and affordability, Indian healthcare has attracted the attention of the government after the rapid spread of the pandemic, that this year’s union budget 2021- 22 has allocated 2.23 lakh crore to the healthcare sector which is a 137 percent increase from 2020.As per the economic survey of 2019-2020, the doctor to population ratio in India is 1:1456 that is incredibly low against WHO’s recommended ratio of 1:1000. The ratio itself reflects that the Indian healthcare system is flawed, hence it is imperative to deploy advanced technologies such as AI, ML to provide holistic care and precise diagnosis to the patients. Disruptions in healthcare such as online medicine delivery, digital disease management, e-healthcare records will soon gain ground. Deploying technology in healthcare which was yet nascent in India, received a shot in the arms due to the pandemic. As per an IBEF report, the healthcare sector in India is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the country that is expected to reach $372 billion by 2022. Founded in 2012 by Prashant Tandon, Gaurav Agarwal, and Vikas Chauhan, 1mg is an online healthcare platform coupled with the capabilities of artificial intelligence and machine learning to deliver excellent and affordable healthcare-related services.

What 1mg is doing?

Initially, 1mg began by the name HealthKart Plus was a content platform to provide information on medicine side effects, substitutes, and a platform to compare prices of the product. But soon the founders realized the skewed ratio of doctor to patient. Besides the ratio, they realized there is no such platform where people can have consolidated information on the medicines and various lab tests. Hence, their sole motive became to democratise healthcare and create authentic, transparent, and accessible information for the people. In 2015, HealthKart Plus was renamed and rebranded as 1mg.

Its Business Model

Apart from selling medicines on its platform, 1mg’s business model consists of tie-ups with several licensed pharmacies, accredited diagnostic labs, and registered doctors and medical professionals. Customers visiting the 1mg website can book lab tests from a variety of lab testing centres at affordable rates and can book for doctor’s consultation with over 22 specialties. 1mg acts here as a facilitator between a buyer and seller. It earns revenue from the online transactions that the customers make for pharmacy and diagnostics.

1mg deploying Technology in Healthcare

The doctors’ prescription is at times hard to understand. For purchasing medicines on 1mg a customer needs to upload the doctor’s prescription. 1mg leverages the AI/ML technology to create a unified health repository to get a complete insight into an individual’s health. The consolidated health repository can be used to create longitudinal health data and disease progression models for chronic conditions

The handwritten format of the prescription is non-readable by computer. To make it standardized various AI models convert the incoming data into computer-readable and standardised data sets. The digital prescription image made using image processing and semi-automated digitisation is codified by the pharmacist to understand the medicine name.

Accurate Order delivery

Since it is about the delivery of medicines concerning health it cannot be compromised. To resolve bottlenecks in order fulfillment and cancellations, the order delivery is powered by a time prediction engine. The engine is backed by deep learning algorithms that are responsible for inducing high faith and trust and precise estimated time of arrival for any order fulfillment. The company considers long-term data of backlogs in packing and logistics delays to predict accurate time prediction.

Enhanced recommendations

The winning strategy of 1mg is its implementation of state-of-the-art collaborative filtering and transformer models to build its recommendation engine. It uses algorithms like Meta Prod2Vec to build user and item embeddings, which are utilised in neural collaborative filtering and models like BERT, GPT-2. It offers better product recommendations to the customers and improves click-through rate and sales.

1mg recently

As per the AppTweak data, 1mg received downloads worth 184.2 K between 1st Jan 2021 to 10th Feb 2021.

With major conglomerates like Reliance Industries foraying into e-pharmacy by acquiring a 60 percent stake in Netmeds, TATA is in talks to acquire a major stake in 1mg.

1mg is also bringing coronavirus vaccine to people’s doorstep by charging a nominal fee.

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