Category: Insights

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The Impact and Importance of New Technologies in the Oil & Gas Industry

Miley on May 16, 2021

According to Pew research Center, the majority of Americans seem to favor renewable energy sources. Over 80% of them support the expansion of solar panel and wind turbine farms, with support for offshore drilling, fracking, and coal mining declining more and more with each passing year.

It’s no longer the question of whether the oil and gas industry needs to change – the question is how to do it. The slow downturn that started back in 2014 is still influencing many companies, and even though signs of possible recovery are becoming apparent, only the smartest, most adaptable of businesses are likely to succeed.

So, what’s the key to triumph? It’s simple – new technology. Technological advancements can quickly lead to growth if you utilize them right. We’re here to show you how to do that.

Consider AI technology

Using AI isn’t just about doing things faster. The potential to improve processes is practically endless if you invest enough. You can make the entire supply chain exceptionally efficient with the help of AI programming that will quickly solve various development, production, and transportation issues that you’ve been struggling with.

This doesn’t mean that AI will replace your people, either. Your most competent workers will now be free to use their creativity to think of new business solutions. The oil and gas industry is generally struggling with lack of new talents right now. Too many experienced workers (especially engineers) are retiring with not enough fresh young blood to replace them – the youth are simply shifting their focus to IT skills. Using AI in your company could actually attract these young talents and help you fill up your workforce with competent and eager workers.

AI can also be used to measure seismic activity and analyze subsurface levels, minimize downtime for predictive maintenance, and predict risks of oil corrosion. Basically, if you’re not investing in AI right now, you’re bound to fail. All your competitors are doing it, and you need to beat them to the punch.

Invest in the latest equipment

Outdated equipment is not only slow, but dangerous. Keeping old pieces around is a big hazard, so you need to assess every piece you own and figure out when was the last time you did maintenance or changed necessary parts.

Something as simple as investing in new gate valves can make a huge impact on your business, especially if you get equipment made out of quality materials that are resistant to corrosion. If you haven’t taken stock of your inventory now would certainly be a good time – see which pieces need to be repaired, which needs some basic maintenance, and which need to be completely replaced with newer, faster, and sturdier models.

Infographic created by Smartcorr Systems, a corrosion monitoring equipment supplier

Rely on robotics

Investing in robotics can turn jobs that were previously extremely difficult and dangerous into a breeze. For example, connecting and disconnecting drill pipes is something a robot can do with ease. This dangerous operation is crucial to the whole process, and with proper robotic advancements you can make sure no person ever has to risk their life to do it.

Try out drone technology

A droid is small and it can fly – two characteristics that make it the perfect little soldier that you can send to all those places a human would have a hard time reaching or even find them inaccessible. This can make it a lot easier to monitor every single part of your operation and make sure everything is in order.

You can carry out every inspection remotely and then have your drone take a high-resolution picture of anything you need. The drone will give you feedback in real time, and you can quickly react if you notice that anything is amiss.

A drone can also help you map out rock outcrops and then have them be used to create 3D models that can act as a learning aid for new workers.

Minimize the impact on the environment

The oil and gas industry, same as any big industry, needs to find ways to become more environmentally aware if it wants to meet the ever-increasing demands for a greener Earth. More efficient equipment, automation, and progressive air pollution control technologies can go a long way to helping you minimize the impact of your business on the suffering environment.

The only way to improve public opinion of your operations is to keep these things in mind.

Investing in the technologies we mentioned can help your business thrive. Not only will you make the whole process faster, smoother, and more effective, you can also minimize your impact on the environment. With AI, robotics, drones, and good equipment you will lessen the chances of oil spills, which are generally still one of the biggest and most dangerous ways the oil and gas industry causes harm. Find a way to make your business cleaner, safer, and smarter, and you’ll stay on top.

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Top 6 Tips to Improve Your Core Web Vitals Scores & Page Experience Signals

Miley on May 10, 2021

The deadline for improving Core Web Vitals Scores & Page Experience Signals is nearing for eCommerce Website Design Service providers all over the world. From the 1st of May 2021, Google is going to introduce core web vitals scores metrics on its algorithm as the vital contributors to predict the page experience of the eCommerce sites.

It is too early to predict how it is going to create an impact on the website performing organically or its search engine results. However, it is assured that the upcoming Google algorithm update with Core Web Vitals & Page Experience Signals will create a significant impact on boosting the ranks of eCommerce or retail sites.

Here this article is dealing with the top 6 effective ways to boost core web vitals scores & page experience signals. Before going to the core topic, let us brush up with the basics.

What are Core Web Vitals Scores?

It is a set of metrics specially created by the search engine giant Google to measure the page load performances of a website. When these metrics combined with the existing Google Page Experience Signals, it will provide an important contributing factor to predict the User Experience of a particular website.

Here are the 3 key core web vitals metrics that predict the user experience of a site.• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Metrics that measure the loading performances of the large image/videos/animations of a website.• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Metrics measuring the visual stability of a website that can disturb users to access the page/site content.• First Input Delay (FID): Metrics that measure how a website responds to the first user interaction.

Elements That Determines Page Experience of a Website

Web Development Company offering custom PHP development services for eCommerce sites must take care of these elements for boosting its overall page experience.• Core Web Vitals• Mobile Friendliness• Safe Browsing• HTTPS• Non-Intrusive Interstitials

To improve the core web vitals scores and page experience signals of the site and to lineup according to the upcoming Google Algorithm update from 1st of May, implement these 6 tips.

Tips to Boost Core Web Vitals Scores & Page Experience Signals

1. Reduce & Optimize JavaScript (JS)

Optimizing JavaScript (JS) or removing unused JavaScript (JS) will reduce the time taken by the browser to execute the website’s JS code; as a result, the loading time of a website improves a lot. As per the Google Algorithm report, a site has more than 300 milliseconds for interacting with users marked with poor FID score.

2. Implement Lazy Loading

The lazy loading technique avoids images of the site loading when the site opened and loads them during the exact moment when a user views it. Implementing lazy loading won’t harm the site’s UX or web vitals scores, instead, it will boost the site’s loading time. In addition, lazy loading restricts bandwidth usage and restricts the site’s bounce rate.

3. Image Optimization

Optimizing & compressing images of a website can significantly boost the loading speed of a website. Many may convey as compressing an image will affect the image quality, but the quality of the may differ only if it zoomed or saved in the wrong format. Always use .jpg format for images in landscape and .png format for graphical images.

4. Improve Server Response Time

Server Response Time plays a crucial role in displaying content/images on the browser when a user opens a website. The server response time will directly affect the site’s loading metrics. So, it’s better to choose a web hosting service that offers faster server response time. Google suggests using hosting servers that offer server response time below 600 milliseconds.

5. Avoid Intrusive Interstitials

Having intrusive interstitials will create a negative impact on users while accessing the important on-page content. Intrusive interstitials will consume a significant amount of screen space causing frustration among users on accessing the site content. To avoid such negative UX, redesign site pop-ups and other interstitials in such a way that they do not obstruct users to access site content.

6. Incorporate HTTPS Connection

Implementing HTTPS secure connections to a website will be a promising way to boost the page experience signal. The internet giant Google always tries to ensure its users accessing safe and secure websites through its search engine results. So, having a site with an HTTPS secure connection will improve the site’s SEO score and creates more trust among the users.

Apart from that make sure to use Mobile-Friendly Page Templates, as mobile traffic is going to be the key aspect for driving more visitors to the website when compared with desktop traffic.

Conclusion

Incorporate all the above-listed page experience optimizing techniques to improve the web vital scores of a website and experience the positive effect on the upcoming Google Algorithm update.

Insights

Guide to Protecting Different Types of Sensitive Data

Miley on April 29, 2021

Proper methods for keeping your data safe can help prevent breaches that hurt businesses. They also allow organizations to meet compliance requirements, increase brand value, and support an ethical business model.

In the business world, it’s all about trust, but how can you expect someone to trust you if you can’t keep their (or your own) personal information safe? Still, there are many different forms of data and ways in which this data can be compromised. Let’s find out what are some of the most reliable methods for keeping it all safe!

Infographic created by MXOtech

Problems Caused by Data Leakage

Data breaches and leaks can cause a number of rather serious consequences. Some of them involve corruption or destruction of databases, which are bad in their own right. However, the idea of a leak of confidential information can be far more catastrophic.

First of all, it puts a permanent dent in your reputation. Second, in a scenario where the data theft involved a sensitive piece of intellectual property, the financial damage caused could be immeasurable.

Potential targets of a data breach can be subjects like:

Personal information
Financial information
Intellectual property
Competition information
Legal information
Health information
IT security data

In either of these scenarios, the injured party suffers direct damage, while a malicious third party can gain a competitive advantage or a direct financial gain. Both of these serve as an excellent motivator.

Most Infamous Examples of Data Leakage

Even the top-dogs of the industry aren’t spared of a potential data leak. During the infamous Facebook data breach, as many as 267 million records were compromised. At the time of the Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube breach, there were 235 million compromised records. There are countless similar examples out there.

There are two major misconceptions that one has to deal with in order to protect their records in the digital environment. The first one is that no target is big enough to be 100% secure. The second one is that no one is too small/insignificant to be a target.

Data Leakage Categories

In terms of ways in which data leakage can occur, there are three major categories. These categories are:

In transit: The method known as encryption is supposed to protect the data in transit (in the form of an email, as well as data shared through chats, web traffic, and other sources).
At rest: Even in databases, data is far from secure. The same goes for data on laptops (which can be stolen) and desktops (which can be accessed while you’re not around).
In use: Data currently used is also not 100% secure, seeing as how people can capture screenshots or take photographs of the screen. Needless to say, the latter is almost impossible to detect or prevent other than through screening people you’re sharing data with.

To keep your data leak-proof, you would have to find a way to cover all three of these categories.

Safer In-House Data Management

The safest way for in-house data handling is through IIM tools like M-Files. When it comes to integrating it with the rest of your cybersecurity measures, the versatility of this method is second to none. The automation of workflows and integration with security solutions are just two methods used to ensure data security and integrity.

Today, most businesses perform regular audits and need to present their clients and users with regulatory compliance. Keeping all of this safe and accessible are the prerequisites to running an efficient organization in the digital world.

The Use of Encryption

In order to protect your data in transit, you need to be smarter about your use of encryption. The biggest challenge here lies in the fact that the workforce is always on the move.

Therefore, devices leave the company network, and there are also numerous instances where employees access secure company data from unsecured devices. Fortunately, if the data is encrypted, it’s inaccessible to outsiders even when it’s lost. This acts as an additional safety net that you can count on in the worst-case scenario.

Secure Backups

Theft of data is not the only worst-case scenario that you will have to deal with. In some situations, a breach will result in a loss of corruption of vital data. This alone can ruin hours and days of hard work, thus costing your organization dearly. To avoid this, it’s vital that you introduce regular secure backups.

These backups can be risky on their own, seeing as how they contain a lot of essential data in a single place. So, the best way to protect it is to make sure that these backup servers are not publicly visible. This is also an area where an IIM can be incredibly useful since it can restrict access to certain files based on their credentials.

Employee Education

All the above-listed ideas and concepts are irrelevant if your employees are not careful enough. If their laptop gets stolen while they’re logged into company tools, platforms, and accounts, there’s not much you can do before the data gets compromised.

If passwords used by your staff members are weak or obvious (pet names, children’s birthdays, anniversaries, etc.), someone can just log in and appropriate private data that you’re safekeeping.

To avoid the majority of these nightmare scenarios, you need to educate your employees about safe behavior in the digital environment. Make sure that they know how, when, and which devices/networks are safe to use for work.

Teach them about the concept of phishing and its hazards. Tell them a thing or two about staying logged in and ask them if they know how to make a strong password. Some platforms have a strong password requirement (multiple character types, capitalization, etc.), but this won’t always be the case.

There’s a reason why some of the highest-paid IT jobs require certifications that promote best security practices. We are, after all, living in a time of cybercrime and security theft.

One of the most important tasks here is the BYOD policy of your company. In the scenario where your employees are bringing their own devices to work, you need to make sure they know how to protect sensitive company data. This way, you’re giving your staff a choice – either comply with all these rules while using their personal devices or use a device provided by the company.

Endpoint Protection

The protection of devices that receive or handle sensitive data (desktop, laptop, tablets, mobile devices, etc.) is often overlooked, which is a significant mistake. Strong passwords and screen locks (ideally with biometric identification) are highly advised. Still, the hardware in your office needs to be protected, as well. The security of the perimeter (for the hardware that your on-spot workforce uses) comes in the form of a security guard or a surveillance system.

Wrap Up

To sum it all up, data breaches cause loss of trustworthiness and revenue. It compromises the personal information of your clients and portrays your entire organization as either negligent or incompetent. In order to avoid this, you need to understand some of the most common sources of this threat. From here, you can take measures to prevent these data breaks or leaks from ever happening. While this is easier said than done, it’s far from impossible. Most importantly, it’s more than worth your time and resources.

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What Are The Highest-Paid IT Certifications

Miley on April 22, 2021

A certification program in any domain is a way to enhance credibility, self-image and encourage life-long learning and professional development. Achieving an IT certification extends your knowledge and skills and prepares you for more job responsibilities. It can help enrich your self-image and reputation among peers. Having an IT certification can improve career opportunities-promotion, job probability, and pay increase.

An IT certification is a quick and readily recognized benchmark for a specific skill set based on standardized testing. It demonstrates your motivation, dedication, and technical knowledge on a related platform. So if you earn an IT certification, you can join a selected group of experts- a peer group with demonstrated skills. Achieving an IT certification shows that you not only have comprehensive knowledge of that technology, but you are also serious about your career to spend the time and money to get the certification.

It can also give you an advantage when hiring managers look at your portfolio as employers always give preference to the certified candidates compared to the non-certified ones. Having an IT certification can make the difference between keeping your job and having an opportunity to find a new one. So the bottom line is you must invest in yourself to make a career difference.

This article will tell you about the highest-paid IT certifications that can make your portfolio strong.

Highest Paid IT Certifications

IT certifications can bolster your skillset and help you perform your tasks more efficiently and with more confidence. Following are some of the highest-paying IT certifications that can help boom your career graph.

AWS Solution Architect Course- This cloud computing certification can help you gain an in-depth understanding of AWS (Amazon Web Services) architectural services and principles such as VPC, IAM, EBS, EC2, and more. It helps you learn how to design and scale AWS Cloud implementation with best-practice through Amazon. Professionals who are having AWS solution Architect certification can earn an average salary of around $155,000 per year.

Google-Certified Professional Cloud Architect- This course is considered one of the highest-paying certifications in the IT industry. It can help you develop the ability to design, create, develop, and manage a cloud-based architecture on the GCP (Google Cloud Platform). It also helps you in designing the business and technical process and the security around them. You can also manage business solutions by leveraging Google Cloud technologies. Nowadays, the need for professional-level cloud architects has increased as all kinds of companies want to store and manage large quantities of digital data through the cloud. It is estimated that a GCP Cloud Architect earns an annual average salary of $176,000.

Project Management Professionals (PMP)- This certification is the most respected level of standardized proficiency in the project management profession. It is the gold standard for project management professionals and is designed to help you master managing project phases like initiation, execution, and stakeholder communication. Earning this certification showcases the capability of delivering a quality service by effectively designing and implementing projects to a high standard. The average salary for a PMP certification holder is around $135,798 annually.

AWS Certified Developer- Associate- This certification can help you master your skills in developing and maintaining applications on AWS. Applicants required experience working with one or more programming languages and AWS before taking the test for the certification. It covers the topics such as SDKs (Software Development Kits) to work with AWS services, choosing the best AWS service for a provided situation, and writing code to focus on performance optimization of an application. An AWS Certified developer can earn around $130,369 per year.

Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)- This certification is designed to promote security best practices as in the present world of malware and identify theft, information security has never been critical. Candidates who hold this certification grasp the safe and secure digital environment for the hiring company. A certified Information security manager can earn an average salary of $117,395 annually. This certification helps you switch from a technical job to a managerial role. It will enrich your knowledge of Information Risk Management, Information security Governance, Information Security Incident management, and Information security program development and management.

CISA – Certified Information Systems Auditor- It is an advanced auditing certification that is ideal for auditors. If you want to become an expert in audit, monitoring, control, and assessment of IT and business processes, CISA is the certification for you. It covers domains like Information system auditing process, Information systems acquisition development and implementation, Governance and management of IT, Information system operation and business resilience, and Protection of information assets. This certification equips you to secure sensitive information and technology assets within an organization. It is considered one of the most popular certification programs for IT professionals who work in information security auditing, controlling, and assurance domains.

Certified In Risk and Information System Control (CRISC)- This certification gives you the ability to manage risk across technology-related and IT-enabled business processes. It can help you learn how to evaluate the alignment of risk mitigation and management with your business framework for change and growth. It also makes you understand how risk-based decisions can maximize an organization’s business potential as they compete with agile, innovative startups.

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner- This certification is provided by Amazon that validates your overall understanding of AWS cloud technology. It suits developers, DevOps, IT Ops, administrators, and cloud solution architects. It will teach you to identify documentation sources and understand core characteristics and technical assistance of AWS technologies.

IT certifications are in high demand as certified professionals stand to gain better and increased job opportunities and bigger paychecks. Choose any course that suits your requirements and enroll to polish your career.

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How to improve e-commerce conversions for your stores.

Miley on April 16, 2021

Conversion optimization is an essential aspect to consider when you’re running an eCommerce store.

After all, if you’re investing so much time and money into your store, you’re going to want the users coming to your website to not bounce off.

But how can you ensure that they don’t bounce off? Well, there are plenty of strategies that you can try to that end.

In this post, we’ll be explaining how eCommerce store owners can implement conversion rate optimization strategies for their eCommerce processes.

So, let’s start.

#1: Discount Coupons and Points on Referrals

In the long run, your goals should not only be more customers but also returning and referral customers.

By introducing points and rewards on the referrals system, you can gamify the eCommerce experience for your website users. This will not only improve the conversion rates of your eCommerce store but also get more eyes on your products whom you can later convert.

Okay, let’s try to explain the benefits you can gain from referrals.

Referrals create a win-win situation. When a referral is complete, you (the referee) get a discount, the person joining up gets a discount, and for the store, it means a double sale. In the long run, the discount costs on referrals can be covered since you have brand loyalty and superior conversion rates.

The only thing that you need to take care of from your end is the product quality. If the quality of the product is bad, then you’re going to have a bad time getting more customers back to your store.

#2: User Reviews, Suggestions, and Ratings

User reviews, suggestions, and ratings are one of the most important aspects of social proof indicating a user’s experience with an eCommerce website.

These metrics are “on the ground” so to speak and give you a gauge of the performance of your eCommerce store and its associated products.

Now, let’s explain each of these three:

Reviews: Detailed product reviews give you an idea of where you need to improve with your product offering. It also shows others users how satisfied they were with the purchase.

Suggestions: These types of reviews are aimed at providing the website owner with input on how he/she can improve the performance of a website. The prime benefit of suggestions is that they help you build your product quality.

Rating: The quickest way to gauge the performance of a product, ratings are a bird’s eye view for a product. They indicate whether or not the product is good.

Now, how do these reviews help in improving conversion optimization? Well, user reviews optimization helps you improve the performance of your store. This leads to better performance overall and can improve customer’s eCommerce experience by a significant margin.

#3: Minimize Load Times for Your Store

Suppose you’re running an eCommerce store. Things are going well, and your site is gaining more and more customers. However, you’re not getting the amount of traffic that you got before because your site’s load time, for one reason or another, increased.

This is a problem.

Load times matter a lot and can mean a lot in conversion rate optimization. Think of it from a user perspective. Would you ever visit a slow-loading website if you have a lot of other options available?

Unless necessary, you’re not going to do that. you can have the best-designed website, but if you haven’t optimized it for load-times, then you’re going to lose a chunk of your customers to the competition.

Besides losing the competition, slow loading websites have a disadvantage in terms of the Google ranking. Yes, Google penalizes sites that have a slow loading speed.

To improve the load times of your eCommerce stores, you can use a tool like GTMetrix to check the current performance of your website. Afterward, you can perform the fixes.

#4: Your Product Descriptions Should Add Value

If you’re running an eCommerce store, your product description content should be optimized to entice the user into converting.

You see, the product page is where the customer decides to enter or exit your store. If you can persuade the user to purchase the product at that point, then you’ve got yourself a conversion.

The product copy and the visual content of the product description should be tailored to the users-intent. It should provide benefits that the user can avail.

How you display your product visually matters a lot as well. You can add custom carousels, infographics, video content, and more. The end goal of all these marketing materials is to ensure that the customer is persuaded enough to convert.

#5: Multi-Payment Gateways

If you’re running an eCommerce store, then you need to invest in having multiple payment platforms on your store.

You see, your users are distributed over a particular geographical area and demographic profile. Because of that, you must understand that not everyone is willing to pay for your products/services similarly.

Some users are going to pay through credit card, and some might prefer PayPal, and some might just prefer Stripe or any other payment for your eCommerce platform. Whatever their selection is, you need to have those payment gateways present as support for your eCommerce operations.

Now, why does that matter?

If a certain user is satisfied with paying through a credit card, they can do so. If they want to pay through PayPal, they can do so with PayPal. Whatever method they choose, what they won’t do is exit your store.

The CRO Journey is Tough

Now, we’re going to conclude this article by just saying this:

E-Commerce is a perilous journey with many hurdles coming to stop your progress. To avoid these hurdles, you need to follow the best practices for conversion optimization discussed in this article. They are only a few which should be easy to understand.

We would suggest that you A/B test your offerings as much as possible to ensure that you have multiple strategies. Going with a single strategy is always counterintuitive. It’s always best to diversify.

So, keep pushing, you’ll get there!

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How to Improve the CRM App’s Performance?

Miley on April 16, 2021

Companies have access to various customer related information and data that were unimaginable a few years ago.

The high-quality and usable information requires extraction abilities in a marketing environment of fragmented communications media with trailblazing technologies like e-commerce, web-based supply chains, and mobile messaging.

Due to advancement, companies are relied on software because it helps them convert information into actionable intelligence and lets them communicate this intelligence to customers at the right time.

Customer management software is an essential component of analytical and operational CRM (Customer Relationship Management) implementations.

Yet, how companies are using CRM software to support their customer management processes and activities and how they satisfy them with results and experiences depends on the software implementation related to improved business performance.

Maintaining good relationships with customers is necessary for the overall company’s growth. Thus, if you have invested a lot of money in CRM-based software, it’s time to think about its performance.

Must-Know Tips to Improve the CRM App’s Performance

Select the Right Performance Testing Tool

Performance testing tools play a significant role in improving the CRM application’s performance, so the first step is to choose the appropriate performance testing tool to initiate the CRM app testing.

Usually, companies use some advanced levels of tools for CRM testing, such as Selenium, Cucumber, LoadStorm, CloudHarmony, and Blazemeter. With such tools, it becomes easy to check the sensitive data and information of businesses without compromising with quality.

Apart from that, many automated and paid tools are available online to check the performance of CRM applications.

For instance, StresStimulus is a paid tool that one can use to examine the performance of websites or web applications and any kind of CRM applications.

This tool is designed for recording different web application scenarios, and it allows to replay those scenarios with load patterns produced through Virtual Users during performance monitoring.

The purpose of automated CRM performance testing tools is to provide the utmost ease for managing the entire life cycle.

The different phases for the performance testing life cycle are as follows:

Non-functional Requirements Elicitation and Analysis.
Performance Test Strategy.
Performance Test Design.
Performance Test Execution.
Performance Test Result Analysis.
Benchmarks and Recommendations.

With the CRM performance monitoring tool, one can easily record the end-user activity and use the data as scripts that are further used to create performance testing scenarios or sessions that define a combination of typical end-users’ activities.

Moreover, these end users’ activities are actual performance tests that can be executed at any time or until any app’s performance testing needs are not correctly met.

With the best CRM performance testing tool, you can ensure that the application responds quickly in terms of speed. It can handle the maximum user load in terms of scalability, and it works with stability with varying loads.

Choose the Well-Trained Workforce

The stringent testing is requisite for the CRM app’s performance testing with pre-built test cases, testing procedures, and automated test frameworks as it helps your business improve customer loyalty, insights, and customer satisfaction.

Therefore, always choose the well-trained workforce for CRM performance testing as the qualified experts can help satisfy your business needs.

They focus on eliminating performance bottlenecks that influence the accuracy, speed, stability, and overall quality of the CRM software.

With an experienced workforce, you can enhance the app’s performance and experience ROI-generated customers and profits.

Check Functional Stability

Before taking the step for CRM performance measurement, it is crucial to ensure that the application is working as expected and functionally stable.

All the bugs or defects should be identified and removed in the functional testing of the CRM application.

The CRM performance testing role is to analyze the software behavior under continuous and peak load conditions.

For example, if the application is developing for 100 users, then chances are high there will be more users in the future who will interact with you in your CRM platform.

To make this application for multiple users, it is a must option to check the load time, response time, along with getting the app ready for the maximum number of users.

Understand the Major Types of Performance Monitoring/Testing

In SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), there are six major types of performance testing for any application.

Likewise, Stress Testing, Spike Testing, Load Testing, Endurance, Volume & Scalability Testing. Based on your application’s requirements, you can consider different types of CRM performance measurement steps.

However, load testing is vital for the CRM application because it confirms that it will give a higher number of user’s satisfaction and fulfill the required needs of the web design and optimization process.

Running load tests during any system customization or upgrade is suggested to validate stability, performance, and end-user experience.

Also Read: Best Practices and Checklist For CRM Testing

Create a Timeline

In the competitive era, providing quality-made, error-free, and faster software is the basic step that we keep in mind while improving the CRM app’s performance.

However, the most important task is to set or create a timeline to deliver the project on time. If you already have a dedicated test environment for CRM performance monitoring, you can start this activity in quick minutes.

On the other hand, if you don’t have any test environment, you may have to build the environment first, and it can consume you a lot of time and money.

You must have sufficient time and resources to inject the load, identify and prepare use cases, test creation, and final execution.

Don’t forget to check the CRM app’s performance against different servers, databases, networks, and devices.

Furthermore, if you are integrating your CRM software with other applications or adding some new themes, you still have to check its performance and get ready your document at each step without showing ambiguity in the scripting process.

Other than that, CRM performance monitoring should be done through the identification of all input data requirements with expected responses.

Determine the different user types and check the performance of the application accordingly. You need to decide whether the use cases are at an active stage or a passive stage.

To obtain the benefits as Devs or Architects, you need to validate design goals, establish scalability patterns and validate the capacity requirements.

Besides, you need to optimize both hardware and software configurations for increased throughput.

You even need to measure the metrics of your CRM, such as customer churn, product usage, closure rates, retention percentage, and recurring revenue.

After improving the app’s performance of your CRM, you can analyze how many loyal customers you have obtained for your brand.

CRM software is an integrated suite of cloud applications such as sales cloud, marketing cloud, and service cloud to gather and store all customers’ data.

It provides a centralized solution for sales teams to manage customer interactions and prioritize activities that helps in boosting the customer’s experience.

It is the most needed tool nowadays to spend valuable time with customers and bring loyalty to them. The more time customers will spend on your CRM, the better sales and the faster growth you can experience in your business.

Conclusion

There is no magic trick to enhance the CRM app’s performance. For this, you need to check the tips that we have given above. With the right performance testing tools, experience, best testing metrics, checklist of non-functional requirements, you can ensure that your CRM software is responsive, stable, reliable, speedy, scalability, and can work under a particular workload.

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5 useful gadgets for gaming beginners

Miley on April 13, 2021

When you start gaming, there are many things to buy for making your games more interesting. These gadgets can be very useful and easy to apply. They are available in the market and some of these accessories are highly recommended by professionals.

In addition to these gadgets, it is advisable to use VPN when playing video games. By making a secure connection you are protected from different security threats, and by hiding your location, you can also play the games that are restricted in your area! Take some time to research and find the best VPN service for gaming so you can fully enjoy your favorite game.

Below are some of the essential gaming accessories that you should consider for a better gaming experience.

Gaming laptop

The very basic and the most important thing is a gaming laptop. You can also play your games on a simple laptop but having a gaming laptop is much be a better option.

Many laptops come along with the best specifications and they are basically meant to do official tasks but you can easily use them for gaming also due to their high-end specifications.

But there are some laptops which have below the average specifications and these laptops cannot be used as a gaming laptop.

You can play light games or older games on a simple laptop. We recommend you to buy a gaming laptop that meets your needs and your needs decide which device is suitable for you. Budget also plays a great role in choosing the best one. You can easily search on Google about gaming laptop under 300 dollars and will get a great number of suitable laptops for gaming.

But we cannot decide or determine which device is suitable without recognizing our needs and requirements.

Gaming mouse

Most of the games are mouse-dependent. We can say that a mouse is a very basic thing to be used in games. Some games can only be played by keyboards.

But having a mouse is still very important. You can get a mouse from the market and there is a variety of mouse available in the market.

But we are talking about gaming mouse, gaming mouse is meant to be something advance than a simple mouse. There are some extra options in the gaming mouse that can be a good choice for gamers.

Moreover, we can say that a gaming mouse is smoother than a simple mouse. These accessories are somehow more sensitive than a simple one.

Again, having gaming doesn’t mean having a huge cost required for it, there are many under-budget gaming mouses you can easily go for them.

Many manufacturers are available in the market who are offering their products at a very reasonable price and there is no problem using a cheap mouse.

Gaming keyboard

The more your keyboard is smooth, the more you enjoy your games. Some games require an instant response and for instant response, you must need a smooth keyboard.

You can play games on a simple keyboard but if you want some extra fun then you must go for a gaming keyboard. The gaming keyboard will give you access to some extra options that can make

your games more interesting.

But these accessories are all about your budget. if you cannot afford to use a very expensive keyboard, you can go for a simple or cheap keyboard.

A cheap keyboard will also work the same so, go for a budget keyboard. It is very important to stay on a budget while playing the games

Gaming keyboards are meant to be used for gaming specifically but you can also use them for other tasks. these keyboards are flexible and easy to use.

There are two options used for gaming keyboards; one is having a wireless keyboard and the other one is using a wired and typical keyboard.

Gaming headset

Sound is very important for gaming. Like today, we are used to playing real-time games that are using multiplayer so, having a good sound system is very important.

Instead of using a heavy speaker that can be disturbing for others, you must use a gaming headset. Using a simple headset is not a good option especially for gaming.

A gaming headset is a good option due to its base and the quality of sound. So, having a gaming headset is important for gaming.

Having a good light

Having a colorful room always attract you towards gaming. This is the best option for using good lights when you are playing games.

You must have a good atmosphere while playing games. There are a variety of lights, if you are fond of colorful atmosphere then you can go for colorful lights but if you don’t want to be very colorful then you can go for simple one tone lights.

You can buy affordable lights from the market and these lights are not that expensive but they will give you complete joy and make your games more interesting.

Wrap up

Everything looks good when it is properly executed. When we talk about gaming, we need proper equipment for gaming.

We always mention that gaming is not about spending too much. You can make the requirements your priority so you can easily decide what to buy or whatnot.

Having these accessories along with a cheap gaming laptop will blow your mind and give you the best fun ever. You can also play games without using this equipment but having these can make your games more interesting and easier too.

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Ways to Improve your Restaurant Business Visibility in 2021

Miley on April 8, 2021

As the world comes to rely on modern technology solutions, businesses worldwide are facing a major twist in their operations, and the restaurant industry is no more immune from this disruption. Furthermore, due to the pandemic, restaurant owners are already battling for survival. Fierce competition and customer’s changing preferences are the major reasons behind the restaurant industry’s drastic change.

Food delivery apps such as Zomato, GrubHub, Postmates, etc., have changed the way people order and eat. Hence, more and more restaurants are upgrading their current technology in order to achieve optimal results and make their business successful for long-term suitability. Moreover, social media and various online marketing activities help restaurants to promote their products and services. Having a solid online presence is no more an alternative; it is a need.

If you have just launched a fine dining restaurant but lacking an online presence, then you are leaving lots of money and potential customers on the table. In short, you need to embrace emerging trends that build brand advocacy and boost your bottom line. From online ordering to social media marketing to business listing, you need to quadruple efforts to improve visibility in 2021.

Tried and Tested Ways to Improve Restaurant Visibility

These days, the restaurant industry is no longer just about offering quality food and earning money. Things have changed, and the diner’s preferences have been changing. Customer’s expectations from brands are also changing. Along with the quality, modern customers seek digital ordering facilities, strong social media presence, attractive offerings, and much more that encourage them to visit restaurants more often.

Gone are the days when restaurants opted for offline marketing techniques to attract diners. Now technology has changed the entire game since the era of the Internet and smartphones has begun. Diners and restaurants are relying more on modern technology to maximize their business revenue and customer base. According to research, almost 95% of restaurants admit that technology has improved their business efficiency.

Some well-known brands like Starbucks, Chipotle, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut have already implemented mobile technology and are following ongoing marketing techniques to get an edge over the competition.

Overall, it opens the door for new opportunities and improves profitability. So let’s discuss several ways that improve restaurant visibility and keep your customers entertained.

Let Customers Order Food Online

Source: TweakYourbiz

Online ordering has become a boon for time-starved customers. This is why the online food ordering market is not growing, but it’s exploding; it will soon cross the $200B mark. Digital ordering services allow customers to order their favorite food within a couple of clicks.

Hence, technology partners are developing ordering platforms for startups with exclusive features as it offers many golden opportunities to make a solid customer base. As a restaurant business owner, if you have not jumped on the bandwagon of online ordering, this is the right time.

Popular food delivery service apps such as Zomato, Postmates, and DoorDash have encouraged people to order food online as it saves time and money. The majority of customers claimed that attractive deals are the reasons they often order food online. Hence, more and more restaurants are listing themselves on these apps. If you are not doing so, you will lose out on a huge chunk of customers.

When you offer online ordering, you also increase sales and clear up the crowd at your doors. Eventually, it will increase order accuracy, reduce waiting time and create an additional revenue stream for your food business.

Be Active on Social Media

Source: SproutSocial

No matter how quality food you offer, all your efforts will go to waste without having a strong online presence, and you won’t be able to drive traffic. This is what it is imperative for restaurants to have a strong social media presence. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are popular social media channels where you can engage with customers and promote your products and services at cost-effective rates.

You might be wondering how social media presence increases sales and improves visibility; the below statistics will give you a better idea.

Almost 63% of restaurants leverage social media sites to market their products and services.
More than 35% of customers use social media websites to research brands before making purchase decisions.
And 88% of diners are influenced by online reviews and comments; Sprout Social stated that.

Now you must be clear why social media presence is critical for the restaurant business as it is one of the most powerful advertising weapons for your food business. Apart from the promotion, you can engage with customers on a personal level. All you need to create a business profile on these platforms; later, you can promote and communicate with your diners.

Leverage Other Form of Marketing

Earlier, restaurants had limited resources and understandings of marketing. Radio and newspaper were key sources to market restaurants, but now we have plenty of emerging online marketing techniques that have the potential to reach a large audience.

More than 88% of customers research a restaurant online before they order or actually visit the place. While 70% of the American diners stated that they read online reviews to make informed decisions. The introduction of different sites such as OpenTable, Yelp, Zomato, etc., has changed the entire landscape of the restaurant industry.

Here are several emerging online marketing techniques that you can adapt to improve the visibility of your restaurant.

Video content (YouTube)
Get Found Locally ( Google My Business and Local listing)
Website and App ( for menu browsing and ordering)
Paid advertising ( Google Ads)
Content marketing
Email marketing

Above are the popular online marketing techniques that can expand your business reach, boost brand value and upscale your restaurant business without any geolocation barrier.

Stay Updated with Modern Technology

Technology keeps changing, and restaurants are one of the sectors that are disrupted more in recent years. Customers’ expectations are also increasing; this is why it is important to adapt ongoing technology changes to stay competitive and relevant. From ordering online to social media to offering wifi and digital kiosks facilities, technology is everywhere.

Moreover, customers are now preferring online payments over cash, so offering them multiple payment options would be advantageous for you. Make sure the offered payment system is swift and secure. Before you lose a huge chunk of customers, implement modern technology solutions and stay one step ahead in the competition.

Verdict

Once everything is humming for your business, and you have a strong customer base, you have a website, you have a strong online presence, now it’s time to focus on what works and what not for your restaurant business. Change is constant; all you can go with the flow and keep adapting to new changes to thrive your restaurant business.

Development Insights

How to Maintain Your Brand on Social Media

Miley on March 26, 2021

90% of Instagram users say they follow a brand
1.62 billion people visit Facebook daily
92% of companies will tweet at least twice per day

Maintaining your business’ brand was never an easy task, but as social media has reached new heights in popularity, it’s another piece of your brand that you’ll need to take very seriously. Social media sees billions of users log on every day, and that means you have an incredible opportunity to reach many of those users – or at least the ones who will be interested in what you have to offer.

So, this is not a situation to be taken lightly. Having a strong social media presence can give you the edge over your competition, but it’s not as simple as logging onto Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to make an occasional post. That’s why hiring a digital marketing agency Miami is often the right move, but first, let’s take a look at some social media branding tips to get you started.

Make a Policy

This is crucial. Having a social media policy that details everything that needs to be followed can save you from dealing with a not-so-fun digital marketing situation in the future. You’ll need to figure out what kind of voice to use and how to handle numerous different types of situations.

Plus, since you’ll have everything in writing, you’ll have a consistent guideline for dealing with anyone who decides to take things a little too far. Your social media policy should include topics such as:

Security
Copyright
How to handle a crisis
Privacy

Keep Your Voice Consistent

Having a consistent voice across your social media platforms reinforces that these pages fully represent your brand. This doesn’t mean, however, that everything should be the same across these platforms. People expect to see a different type of post on Facebook than Twitter, even if it’s basically about the same thing. Use emoticons (check Kaomoji); they can help you out to emphasize the things you want and show some personalization.

This might involve a little bit of trial and error to discover what you want your business’ digital voice to be, but having the help of a digital marketing agency can help streamline this process.

Work on Your Bio

When it comes to digital marketing, even the small stuff counts. As someone browses through social media, they’ll be seeing many posts, but one of yours might catch their eye. It interests them so much that they decide to check out your profile to learn a little more. This is the moment you’re waiting for. This is your time to shine. A well-crafted bio can lead someone to make a purchase.

What should you include in your bio? That can be up to you, but it’s always important to highlight these areas:

What you do
Where you are
How to learn more

This is also a great space to show some personality, so users aren’t bored by another generic profile.

Communicate with Your Followers

Communicating with your followers – or anyone – on all social media platforms is necessary, but putting the focus on Twitter can give your brand a lot of positive recognition if you handle things well.

Twitter is where people tend to go if they have a question or complaint. They see it as a more natural way to communicate with someone who can help them or take care of their problem directly. If you have someone or multiple people from a digital marketing agency dedicated to solving these problems on Twitter, it will help maintain a positive image for your brand.

Be Prepared for Backlash

As we briefly discussed the importance of creating a social media policy, not everything will be a positive experience in the digital marketing world of social media. Something you tweet might be considered offensive. Something outside of social media might’ve happened that negatively shines a light on your business. It could be anything – and you have to be prepared for anything.

Having a strategy to handle rough times and customer complaints consistent with your overall brand image can prevent a rough time from becoming awful. Mistakes happen. It’s how you respond that’s important. Having a digital marketing agency Miami on your side can help in these situations.

Your Social Media Voice Can Bring Positive Awareness to Your Business

Some businesses just have digital marketing locked down on social media. They always have the right thing to say. They still have the funny but appropriate reply. They always show they care about their customers. These businesses have made an online name for themselves through a fantastic social media presence. By setting a plan and getting some assistance from a digital marketing agency, your business might be able to reach these heights.

Insights

Website Vs Mobile App: What’s Better For Your Business

Miley on March 24, 2021

Every business strives to reach a wider audience with its digital presence; in trying to do this, both mobile apps and websites come as irreplaceable solutions for most enterprises. Though they have their respective value propositions, both have significant mutual differences as well.

While websites represent a basic solution addressing a larger audience’s needs, mobile apps are more specific solutions to user problems. Though most businesses gradually extend their digital presence to a mobile app starting from an enterprise website, many companies avoid building a website instead of building a mobile app as their critical digital facet. Other enterprises prefer building Progressive Web App (PWA) to incorporate both the attributes of a website and mobile app.

In recent years, in remote corners of the world, having a mobile app presence and a web presence has become essential to address the increasing mobile audience. When it comes to app development Ireland startups across all niches are increasingly preferring native apps to share their digital footprint. The same can be found across other countries as well.

Now the question is whether you should choose mobile apps or websites for your digital presence. Well, here we are going to explain the critical considerations for choosing between these two.

Budget consideration

The first and foremost consideration will be the budget for shaping your digital presence, whether through a website or a mobile app. Depending on your budget, you have a few credible choices like the ones mentioned below.

● Mobile web: Mobile website representing a highly mobile optimised look and feel and offering a web experience tuned to the mobile browsers is the least expensive solution, but you need to compromise on the user experience and mobile-specific user interface.

● Progressive Web Apps (PWA): These are websites coming with an array of native app experience attributes such as offline access, Home Screen access with a native button, faster loading time, etc. PWAs are cheaper solutions irrespective of bringing together the benefits of both web and mobile apps.

● Hybrid apps: Hybrid apps allowing app presence across multiple platforms can enable a business to shape their mobile app presence at a relatively lesser cost just because hybrid development allows using the single codebase across multiple OS platforms.

● Cross-platform apps with native user experience: Now, modern app projects can also utilise modern app development frameworks like Flutter or React Native to build robust cross-platform apps that, in spite of reusing the core codebase, can also allow incorporating platform-specific UI attributes. This is less expensive than the hybrid approach while ensuring several benefits of native apps.

● Native app development: Finally, there is a native app development approach to help build a mobile app for specific OS platforms by utilising the platform-specific SDK, language and tools. This is great as far as offering native user experience is considered, but it is more expensive as an option.

Performance, speed and accessibility

A website entirely depends on the internet and cannot deliver the performance and loading speed of a native app that stores several data layers locally within the device. On the other hand, the PWAs, through local caching technology, are capable of accumulating a lot of data locally in the device to help offline access when internet connectivity is slow or not available.

Another consideration is the installation time and storage space required by a native app. A website, in this respect, doesn’t have the constraint of storage and installation. In this respect, both PWAs and cloud-based apps have an edge as both also perform as websites depending on the remote servers for storage while allowing ease of access through local caching.

Which of them is more user optimised?

Now coming to the usability elements and user experience, mobile apps certainly have the edge over mobile websites. Unlike websites, mobile apps come with a more interactive and intuitive user interface targeting specific user expectations. An app is also a highly-targeted solution to one or a few particular problems the users face and hence are more user-specific than the websites in general.

Today’s mobile apps offering customisation with the user interface, better access to the device and platform features, and better scope to use intuitive user experience attributes provide a lot more than the websites to satisfy the users’ needs. The integrated device features and the platform-specific user experience attributes are the most significant advantages of the native mobile apps.

Marketing and business conversion

Now coming to the roles mobile apps and websites play for marketing and business conversion, there are significant differences. When it comes to marketing and ensuring wider customer reach by utilising the potential of the major search engines, websites optimised for mobile users are clear winners in this battle.

Apart from driving SEO campaigns and targeting users more specifically using search engine specific keywords, mobile web ensures wider accessibility as users don’t need to download and install it. On the other hand, Mobile apps can only take advantage of the mobile App Store or Play Store optimisation to reach more audiences. SEO has an edge in terms of business conversion and outreach over App Store Optimisation (ASO).

Conclusion

To conclude, we must say that having a mobile optimised business website is the first step to shape your digital presence, followed by extending the presence across mobile apps. When you have a popular website and have already used your website for branding and business conversion, you can further strengthen your digital presence with a native or cross-platform mobile app. You can also build a versatile Progressive Web App (PWA) to bring together both the benefits of web and mobile apps for your business brand.