Is blockchain’s open financial tools and services an opportunity for entrepreneurs?

Outside of the novelty and consistent price speculation of cryptocurrencies, one trend that has fast materialized is for an open and more accessible financial ecosystem.

With the expansion of regulation and infrastructure, facilitating open financial tools loom large, and while this innovation is for the greater good, many entrepreneurs are stuttering at the scale at which this sector is growing. From open source tools to standardized identity protocols like anti-money laundering, the digital asset market is slowly converging with different economic structures that will help entrepreneurs in the long run.

Open and integrated finance

Decentralized or open finance is a type of interoperable financial system that involves transparency, standardization, financial inclusion, and increased accessibility. This opens the opportunity for financial tools to play a more crucial part. For example, crypto traders are using trading tools and indicators to check the market condition before investing. Tools like BTC Profit System offer the most accurate information of the currencies and their expected behavior by using a combination of algorithms.

This approach has also helped many cryptocurrencies to lower their barrier so that investors can access transfer mechanisms and value storage. The currencies are trying to create a separate class of assets and remove intermediaries that exist outside the existing financial system.

One of the most significant aspects of this movement is the emphasis on different financial tools built on blockchain protocols for digital assets. Since these projects are expanding on the basis of blockchain technology, they are useful to build open financial instruments that offer more transparency to entrepreneurs; something that they had been looking for all this while.

Open financial tools

The introduction of open financial tools is providing secured lending services. This sector has a massive potential to benefit new entrepreneurs as it constitutes the biggest part of the open finance structure. However, other financial systems that are also gaining ground are decentralized prediction markets and security tokens, especially after utility tokens saw a downfall in the last couple of years.

Although the potential of various open protocols is still there, experts believe that the market is highly unlikely to experience a wholesale transition when it comes to financial instruments operating on the blockchain.

What is more likely to happen is the introduction of a hybrid ecosystem involving digital assets and open protocols with integrated businesses and traditional financial systems. It is still early days to consider a paradigm shift from traditional to digital in the next few years. So, a convergence is what everyone expects to happen.

If an open financial system has to exist, it will require a lot of innovation and proper infrastructure in different sectors. Financial and regulatory institutions in the United States are approaching a more mature market before jumping into the concept of digital assets. More startups are shifting their attention from ICOs to regulatory-compliant digital assets and transparent security tokens. Even ICO models are now focusing on anti-money laundering and KYC processes to reduce this transition and regain the market they have lost. So, entrepreneurs can be assured that the open financial tools and services will work in their favor instead of going against them.

Collaboration not ‘application overload’ is the key to business success

Remember the days of faxes, pagers and instant messaging? It feels like a lifetime ago – but those now archaic forms of communication driven by the desire to improve collaboration and productivity, have led us to today.

Connectivity lies at the heart of collaboration and is central to knowledge, idea and information sharing which are essential for businesses to become more productive and efficient as they make their digital transformation journeys.

There’s no room for isolation in the digital economy. Even on a local level, we need to think about how we maintain communication with peers and colleagues, given that events – from extreme weather conditions to the unpredictable nature of public transport system – conspire to delay us from doing our best work, putting us at a disadvantage to our connected colleagues.

There’s no doubt that the UK economy is still in question, with more uncertainty ahead while it tries to understand it’s future post Brexit. Many companies are responding to the current dynamic by moving toward agile workplaces to cut operational costs, thus moving their staff to smaller, more cost-effective premises while encouraging hot-desking and remote working.

As such, how we define the workspace is changing and today it’s not unusual to see work conducted in environments as wide ranging as huddle spaces to coffee shops; what matters is that the work gets done, rather than where it gets done.

Many companies are increasingly deploying video communications as a way of collaborating, with a view to introducing it to every single meeting room, desk and employee. This isn’t just in response to what’s happening right now, but it’s also in anticipation of future trends, one of which is the rise of millennials in the workplace.

Immersed in tech from day one and tech-savvy, their willingness to embrace technology eclipses that of previous generations who took a perhaps more guarded view of change. In those situations, video facilitates not just the important act of collaboration, but communicating in a way that helps us to build better relationships at work with key stakeholders and fostering personal connections.

Directly connected to customer satisfaction, is how good employees feel at work. It’s imperative therefore to make sure you do everything you can to connect on an emotional level to build productive and lasting professional relationships.

The knock on effects internally have the capacity to bolster and – critically – motivate your entire team. As ever, this initiative needs to be driven from the top. When the C-Level or other members of the leadership team use collaboration tools and have two-way conversations with as many employees as they can, employees are more likely to believe that they are part of a broader team in a business with clear goals and a clear path as to achievement.

The knock-on benefits further motivate staff who, generally, will provide a better and happier service to their customers; at a time when many companies are committed to their digital transformation path, engaging positively with customers is even more imperative.

The main steps businesses can take to do that are to: deploy one end-to-end collaborative platform that updates information in real time and provides full visibility across the full range of key deliverables.

Companies need to avoid using too many applications that can tend to complicate and confuse efforts at communicating more effectively and can, in fact, lead to ‘communication overload’.

All businesses are facing uncertain political and economic times. But success through trying times lies in unity, a scenario that can be embraced and achieved through technology that keeps everyone engaged, connected and collaborating, wherever they are.

Photo by Helloquence on Unsplash

Abe Smith

Abe Smith is the Head of International for Zoom Video Communications. An industry decorated technology executive, Abe is recognized for building high-growth global teams at leading enterprise cloud companies such as Oracle and Cisco where he held senior roles. Bringing almost two decades of experience in SaaS, Smith is an authority on scaling operations in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Drawing on over 8 years of leadership at WebEX, where he was responsible for pioneering the web-conferencing category across emerging markets globally, Abe joined Zoom in 2019 to accelerate revenue growth while delivering happiness in all markets outside of the USA and Canada. Abe graduated with highest honors from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he studied Political Science with a certificate in International Relations.

How digital marketing teams can cut costs

When a marketing budget is bursting at the seams, it can be tempting to make big changes, but these are more like knee-jerk reactions than strategic decisions.

It may be that cuts are necessary for some areas, but before you make any drastic cuts to your team’s resources or consider losing staff, try not to panic. It’s likely that several smaller changes will add up to a more significant saving than you might think.

Making your current processes more efficient and giving employees the tools they need to improve productivity can have significant benefits. Here’s how digital marketing teams may be able to cut costs in simple but effective ways.

Embrace Automated Marketing

A big drainer of time in marketing is the small tasks which eat into your day and prevent you from focusing on the activities that result in profits. Luckily, there are lots of tools now which take a lot of the administration away from your day via automation. There are plenty of social media scheduling tools available, and these can manage your communications and publish content at the best time.

There are also chatbots which can respond to frequently asked customer questions. Mailchimp and Marketo enable you to create and send email campaigns to a schedule and feedback the key statistics so you can analyze its success. Automation and artificial intelligence is not a replacement for humans, but it can definitely take the strain off and give your staff more time to focus on what makes the business profitable.

Don’t Work Harder, Work Smarter

This is particularly relevant to marketing agencies, but it’s also a good lesson for any marketing team. Make your interactions with clients as meaningful as possible by ensuring both you and them are working towards the same objective and tracking the same measures of success. When you do meet to discuss progress on a specific project, you need to be on the same page and can understand exactly what matters to your client from the outset.

In terms of team communication, try to reduce the number of trivial emails by introducing instant messaging tools like Slack, which will streamline inboxes and keep projects flowing.

Find Cheaper Office Supplies

Even digital companies need office supplies, and all too often, we spend too much on the products we use. It could be because we are convinced certain brands are better than others simply because they charge more, or it could be because we have been with the same supplier for a long time and just accepted the price increases. It’s always worth taking some time to shop around and see if you can find a better deal. Visit www.cartridgepeople.com to see if you could be paying less for paper, ink, toner, computer accessories, and stationery.

Target Your Strategy

You could spend a fortune on marketing and generating sales leads, but if the people you’re attracting to your business aren’t likely to buy from you, you’re going to be wasting money. You may be targeting an audience which is too broad, so consider looking at more concentrated, smaller segments. Your audience research should be based on data and not assumptions, but make sure you’re looking at more than age range or professions.

Customer insights should also include buying habits and lifestyle information such as the TV shows they like to watch. It will enable you to create a more bespoke marketing campaign which is more likely to return new customers. Consider using online surveys and customer interviews to gather this information and use it to create customer personas. You will be able to increase your customer understanding on a deeper level.

Lose What’s Not Working

Not every marketing channel is the right fit for every business. For example, many companies spend a lot of time working on creating content for social media platforms when, in reality, this is not where their target customers will be found. You may be spending a week or two collating a monthly email newsletter which doesn’t actually result in any extra business or engagement.

Take an objective look at all your channels and see which is most profitable. That’s where you should be investing your time. You don’t necessarily need to stop using the underperforming channels altogether, but you should make sure you’re using your time and money wisely.

Use Free Marketing Tools

Digital marketing is simply bursting with new online tools and platforms designed to help both agencies and companies to improve their operation. This could be a tool for keyword research like answerthepublic.com or an email marketing platform. Some tools require a subscription fee to open up all their functionality, service support, and intuitive interfaces, but there are lots of free tools out there too.

If you are paying for subscription-based tools, do some research to see if there are any free tools which offer a similar service. Try the free tools for a while to ensure they provide all the features you need, but you may find that you can save a lot of money by using simpler versions.

Go Remote

While remote working isn’t right for every business, it can offer some great benefits to modern teams. It’s never been easier to communicate from email and video conferencing to online instant messaging. By enabling team members to work from home or premises, which are more convenient for them, you are giving your team more flexibility, which is great for morale.

It could also reduce your overheads as you won’t need to furnish, rent, heat, or cool a workspace. You can set specific weekly meetings when the whole team comes together in a virtual meeting space.

Measure Your Performance

If you are spending chunks of time on specific tasks and you have no way of tracking whether or not the time has resulted in new customers, you need to rethink. This also goes for all the cost-cutting changes you’re about to make. You need to be able to test whether or not what you’re changing is having a positive impact on your business. Marketing teams are well-used to A/B testing, so make changes gradually and only rollout those which are proven to be a success.

Embracing AI: Where to start on your path to digital transformation

The term ‘Artificial Intelligence’(AI) evokes mixed reactions – from fear of the unknown to excitement about the possibilities this new technology has to offer.

Whatever your views on AI, the sooner you and your business start to embrace it, the sooner you will see where the positives lie and how to use it to improve business efficiency and drive innovation.It’s relevant for SMEs just as much as larger enterprises.

Amyn Jaffer, Head of Intelligent Automation, Ultima explains that many companies are, understandably, unsure of where to start when it comes to introducing AI. You may also be among those wondering what exactly AI means and how it could make a positive difference to your business.

AI can be defined as an area of computer science that emphasises the creation of intelligent machines that work and react like humans. It’s a very broad term for a wide range of technologies and capabilities which can have a profound impact on organisations in any vertical. This broad scope often makes it hard to establish which aspects of AI are likely to suit any particular business or scenario, but starting with one of its simpler forms is the best approach.

The benefits of process automation

Intelligent Automation (IA) is the use of Robotic process automation (RPA) software with artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to handle high-volume, repeatable tasks that previously required humans to perform them. These tasks can include queries, calculations and maintenance of records and transactions.

As well as being relatively simple to implement, using software robots is both affordable and effective, making it an ideal place for any SME to startits path to digital transformation. And the potential benefits are impressive.

Take, for example, an HR department.Here, Intelligent Automation can be used for processing applications and absence management, as well as ensuring that each company department has the same information about each employee without the typical challenges of multiple system records.With these tasks managed in an automated manner, the HR team is free to focus on the more strategic aspects of their roles.

As another example, Intelligent Automation can be used to simplify the process of reporting on credit for thousands of customers. In one case, a retailer reduced reporting time by 91%, creating savings of more than £100k, by using a ‘virtual worker’ to produce credit reports.

Any large-scale activities or groups of repetitive tasks that draw on or feed information into multiple systems are also candidates for intelligent automation. In practice, this could mean using cognitive services such as text and sentiment analysis to process and respond to natural language text within formats such as emails, documents and live webchats. The aim is to extract data from these sources without the need for human intervention.

Contact centres are simplifying the service agent process by using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to extract key information from emails and messaging chats, allowing their agents to focus on providing the best experience for their customers. Similarly, speech recognition software can be used to answer the phone and respond automatically to customers as software robots are capable of analysing calls and finding the right information to help the caller. The robots gather the required information in milliseconds, making the service more efficient so that real people can deal with more challenging customer services issues.

Cognitive services can also be used to improve business efficiency through visual recognition. One company is using this technology to tag information in photographs – a task that would take hundreds of man-hours to do, but just seconds with cognitive services.

The next level: intelligent data analytics

With these processes in place, companies can move towards introducing more sophisticated AIto mine their data and start to ask questions of that data that will deliver unique business insights. By automatically collecting and sifting through vast amounts of data and then training robots to make sense of the data by asking the data pertinent questions, you can start to solve the problems that have been keeping you up at night. For example, analysing your customer data to establish insights into how different things affect your customers’ purchasing decisions can give real business benefits and drive innovations in how you supply and market your goods.

Ultimately, we’re all likely to have a ‘virtual worker’ by our sides helping us to do our jobs, cutting out mundane, repetitive tasks and freeing us up to be more creative and focus on business goals and innovation. To reach this stage the right foundations need to be in place,and the adoption of Intelligent Automation is the best place to start.

Not only is it simple to implement in many processes throughout most SMEs, software robots also provide positive, short-term ROI which is good for demonstrating to boards the tremendous potential of AI. We’re just at the beginning of the intelligent transformation journey- join in and make your company’s future bright.