Let me have an honest confession first!

When I think of manufacturing, the very first image that occurs to my mind is a factory stacked with heavy machinery, some old-fashioned, obsolete models of machines quite rusted, continuously operating, and operating, just to produce some finished goods. Well, goods mean, something like a car, car of Mr.Bean? Or, if I fan my wild imagination a bit more, then I see a black & white picture of Laurel & Hardy mending machines in a garage. Sounds weird?  Indeed ‘Yes’! Because my intelligence fails before Artificial Intelligence. When AI arrives, the world halts, Industries automate, and disruptions act as blitzkrieg. That’s the modern story about the manufacturing industry where digital technologies like AI and Video Surveillance tools are highly disrupting the ecosystem, bringing in a greater ROI in businesses across the globe.

In this blog, I am trying to explain why video surveillance has a growing importance in the manufacturing industry, and its top 10 applications therein!

Video Surveillance Benefits

A typical manufacturing organization needs video surveillance tools and solutions for maintaining and taking care of multiple areas, for instance, CCTV cameras around car parking, at entrances, at exit points, office areas, delivery points, dispatch, as well as the manufacturing & assembly areas. Being a complex business due to inherent operational features, the very industry involves a greater number of areas involving high potential security risks, and health, and calls for urgent safety guidelines to strictly adhere to!

In broader terms, video surveillance to manufacturing has the following significant benefits:

• Business security aspects like machinery, and product
• Site visitors’ safety as well as safety for employees
• Monitoring varied  manufacturing processes
• Optimizing  business processes

Top 10 Applications

1. Reinforce Security

The major objective of video surveillance tools, equipment, and solutions is to reinforce end-to-end security. For a manufacturing business, plant, machinery, raw materials, finished goods or products, all have equal importance. Effective & efficient perimeter protection, sending alarms, alerts to security personnel regarding breaches, any suspicious behavior, and intruders, are all made possible via an integrated video surveillance system. It is required to protect the first line of site- security. Thus, a facility equipped with prominent security cameras conveys a powerful, deterrent message to one and all.  

2. Safety Attention

Video surveillance system minimizes any sort of mishappening at manufacturing facilities. The nature of the manufacturing environment attracts frequent injuries, accidents taking place. In industrial sites, factories, manufacturing facilities, the gravity of accidents may prove fatal and serious. However, video surveillance cameras can be effectively used to reinforce safety at all these places, at the workplace, too. Yes, at workplaces this surveillance tool actively reduces the chance of abrupt casualties owing to safety measures adequately taken. Otherwise, work-related illness or injuries carry a massive cost. Video surveillance helps to reduce varied accident costs, as video surveillance cameras help during post-incident investigations identifying the exact persons accountable for it. This saves further lives and incidents because investigations let them know the causes and they can take actions to deter such repetitions of incidents in the future. They deploy visible signage, new machinery, and protective barriers for that safety vigilance. Thus, manufacturing facilities use surveillance cameras to monitor constantly all dangerous machinery, high-risk areas, high- traffic areas which are vulnerable to accidents.

3. Preventing Crimes

Video Surveillance plays a key role in identifying culprits and facilitating adequate safety and other precautionary measures in manufacturing organizations. Although statistics do vary, it is seen that in many cases, video surveillance significantly leads to the reduction of crime rates and several non-authorized activities in workplaces. Security cameras ought to be positioned in the correct manner that will help to discourage theft, illegal and unauthorized activities. Moreover, as described before, in the case of criminal investigations by authorized personnel and security, it also assists in related law enforcement.

4. Monitoring on a Remote basis

With the COVID situation prevalent and the very pandemic has compelled people to stay at home, remote service across industries has seen a big surge. Consequently, even manufacturing facilities have started creative schedules as a response to the pandemic by adopting remote monitoring features. An AI-based integrated video surveillance system allows authorized personnel to access security footage over the internet, desktop, or mobile, from any location that seems fit from security aspects. The surveillance also enables manufacturing organizations to manage varied locations on a remote basis without people being present physically onsite. This feature augments security guards, helps in controlling crimes, and preventing any untoward incidents as cameras are mounted across the sites. Live video monitoring allows logging into any camera, or all of them if any alert or alarm sends respective signals. Reliability is a significant character of any AI-based video surveillance system across the manufacturing organization.

5. Production Monitoring & Optimizing Operations

In a manufacturing business, machinery failure casts a serious impact on output or flow of production. This leads to a reduced profit and customers’ dissatisfaction as well as anxieties created amongst the stakeholders. After all, machinery costs are a big amount (in millions) while profit is the ultimate business goal, too. Manufacturing facilities greatly rely on machines, production at a larger scale, and they don’t want to take the aforementioned risks now.SO, installing and mounting massive video surveillance equipment which is more empowered by digital technologies such as AI and Robotics, makes the business error-proof. With the help of additional technologies like thermal imaging, video surveillance can minutely highlight any potential machine failures, machines overheating for instance, and prior corrective and proactive actions can be taken to avoid those issues. Thus, monitoring of an overall production process makes this application of video surveillance a great help. Furthermore, video analytics help control the flow and movement of people across the manufacturing plant, and unauthorized people are barred from entering restricted areas. The analytical tools with immense digital capabilities in the decision-making process, facilitating changes and improvements efficiently and on the scale.

6. Safety Training

Video Surveillance tools like CCTV cameras provide video clips that can show in slow motion leading to see footage meticulously.  This sort of video footage can now assist with employee training and coaching for specific purposes, safety training, as well as remedial training. Even the management committee can retrieve significant insights via these video footage clips. This helps the latter to spot employees and workers who need customized training related to their work. AI-powered video surveillance solutions help with predicting this kind of training requirement required thus facilitating the decision-making process.

7. Compliance Adherence

Video surveillance application empowers manufacturing facilities with the visual data of all operations and processes happening within. This also ensures that employees are adhering to compliance, following company protocols and procedures, adhering to specific policies. Also, it enables management with timely actions in advance, addressing vulnerabilities and sorting out relevant issues by implementing the required changes.

8. Proper Documentation

An integrated Video Surveillance system gives support, 24 hrs. of continuous coverage of the manufacturing facility. It means anything that happens is captured on video, which amounts to documenting records of the entire manufacturing process. With proper documentation, the very facility or company remains prepared for any requirement in the future,e.g. legal matters, law enforcement, etc. Video surveillance application allows properly documenting unauthorized access, safety violations, or onsite mishaps.

9. Preventing Product Losses

HD and IP cameras help to access video footage over any sort of network, viz., mobile phones as well as tablets. Thus, if a manufacturing organization is storing certain spare parts, products, installing HD cameras helps strict vigilance in the area. This prevents the loss of expensive equipment, stocks, and protecting assets. This allows smoother operations in the manufacturing facilities and businesses to thrive.

10. Internet Security System

AI-powered video surveillance cameras capitalize on internet protocol (IP),  the massive power of internet networking, for sending, receiving sensitive data. This facilitates an easy installation and connection to the required system, and viewing of live camera feeds, just at any time, any location(remote basis) is possible using mobile apps for smartphones, and tablets.

End-Note

Installing advanced technology-based video surveillance tools and solutions within the premises of manufacturing companies has become the utmost priority now. Necessitated by the mandatory security concerns,  businesses are actively inquiring and hunting the best digitally powered, AI- video surveillance tools for high-scale adoption. However, which type of video surveillance application is appropriate for your business type, you need to take professional advice from an established mobile application development company only.

Not sure how video surveillance and digital can apply to your manufacturing business? Speak to our experts.

Content Personalization is the most revered keyword in the digital world today, where content is the king, and technology serves as the impeccable tool! All businesses across industries have some form of virtual presence- websites, social media handles, etc. Content exists indispensably everywhere. The digital world feeds on content and people are subconsciously and deliberately, both ways, being driven by the immense power of content in their day to day life. Content personalization plays an important role here. Your customers will love to see content that is personalized to their likes, dislikes, preferences. And as personalization is quite predictive once you know your customers (target audience), you can devise mechanisms exclusively catering to their unique needs. Machine Learning has started playing a key role here. As Bill Gates has said so aptly“If your business is not on the internet, then your business will be out of business.”And, if your business has adopted digital technology capability in the form of ML, you are above par, and perfectly driving along the digital line!ML  is helping marketers to scale their content marketing strategies ina big way!

Let’s see how Machine Learning  AI Capabilities are enabling content personalization at length, leading to organizations’ ability to scale and enhance their customer experience!

Optimization of Content Delivery

Optimizing means locating the essential points in a customer’s journey and adding a personal touch to them. Contexts play a trigger to the need of creating and optimizing specific content between customers. Machine Learning algorithms help deliver the right content at the right time for innumerable individual website visitors based on their data about what they have done in the past. Along with NLP, ML   does scanning of content, first, then goes deeper to it and understand core meaning alongside the context, and then end up indexing, building a custom library for specific usage. This facilitates the automated delivery of personalized content across the web, email, or desktop and mobile platforms.

Boosting Content Efficiency

What is your topmost priority in your wishlist while sending emails to target audiences? Of course, content engagement. How to assure increased content engagement metrics from your target audience? The email content is thriving even though chat apps and social media channels have emerged as popular user interface modes. Email marketers are heavily relying on Machine Learning capabilities for content personalization and relevance. The former use ML to segmentize markets, as well as for market-timings and copywriting aspects of email marketing. The ML technology boosts the overall effectiveness of content efficiency in email marketing. Just that you have to identify the most suitable Machine Learning email marketing tools for your business. So, you see, Machine Learning capabilities take care of boosting the efficiency of the billions of emails sent and received per day. As per a recent Statista Report, around 306.4 billion emails have been sent and received in the erstwhile year 2020, this figure is expected to rise to 361.6 billion-mails on daily basis by 2024.

Individualized Content-Experience

Active content users are those users who give more time to content and have a higher rate of engagement on a particular landing page(s). Traditional website metrics such as the number of page views, number of sessions are not sufficient for an individualized experience. Deep content analytics, powered by  Machine Learning algorithms,  go beyond this traditional type. They focus on all those metrics that provide real insights on content engagement like those active users just we spoke about!ML analyzes these data at scale, on a real-time basis, based on the exact momentous content engagement patterns of users. This way, AI, ML capabilities powered personalized tools allow the individualization of content as they use these insights for automating cross-channel varied content distribution to web users as per their unique interests, preferences, and behaviors.

You have the data! What next?

The Basic Algorithms and Advanced Algorithms features of ML  lead to the ultimate Content Personalization of users visiting various websites and social media platforms. The  Predictive Content Personalization Engines collaborate with the Data Management Platforms and together they perform activities like syncing, merging, and segmenting data. Consequently, user-specific content promotions, messaging recommendations, etc. are executed and delivered.

Notable examples – Netflix, Amazon, Spotify

ML-based Predictive Content Personalization goes hand in hand with the e-commerce industry, entertainment industry, and so on. Amazon leverages the massive potential of e-mail recommendations and says that this is proving to be more efficient than on-site personalization. Netflix uses dynamic page metrics and follows recommendations generated by ML that are unique to visitors’ tastes and preferences. Spotify leverages the power of ML-backed personalized playlists such as Discover Weekly, Release Radar, Spotify Radio, and some new ones, too, all emphasizing the content personalization aspect.

Tighten your seatbelt– Content Personalization is the key to your business

Predictive content personalization, powered by Machine Learning algorithms enables an organization to provide a unique experience to each user, visitor, or prospective customer. Real-time high-quality recommendations, personalizing every touchpoint along a customer’s journey while safeguarding data privacy and security aspects, ML helps content personalization in a way that dramatically boosts the chance of conversion rates. That’s what your ultimate business goal, isn’t it?

We offer a wide range of customer-Centric Machine Learning Services to deliver personalized content for your audience, that can integrate well with your marketing communications or with existing applications.

Business requirements vary from organization to organization. Large enterprises to Small & Medium businesses to Start-Ups, their needs vary and so do the solutions respectively. Information technology is playing a big role everywhere. SMBs are leveraging the technology to level-up their presence in the global market and streamlining operations to bolster newer revenue opportunities.  The focal point of the entire system is the magnificent role of an IT / Enterprise Application Development Head who sits on the steering wheel monitoring and ensuring that the system works without hiccups. Challenges are plenty – finding what’s new in tech to adopt, IT teams are really working hard while budgets remain in checks, data remain secure and employees stay up-skilled with time.

Not easy, right? So, if you are that person who is heading application development in your organization, this story is for you! Let’s focus on your challenges and how you should tackle them-

1. Business Needs and Platform Change

Your client may change gears abruptly and demand new changes in their current landscape which requires new ideas to implement. Your current enterprise application system needs to be in the adaptive –mode where you can accommodate to these sudden types of changes & requirements. Getting the right product is what you can decide at the moment!

As you see, it’s not possible to predict many changes that are rather abrupt in nature, you need to be prepared, alarmed. How? Adopt a flexible and highly scalable architecture to your application. The architecture should be loosely coupled where components can be easily plugged & played. This is called Modular Architecture that ensures changes will impact only onto a specific module that can be modified without interfering with the functioning of other modules.

2. Coping with Evolving New Technology

There’re plenty of technologies out there, which one have you adopted? For instance, AI is commercially being deployed in almost every industry due to its high capability of doing data-driven tasks. Your competitors are moving from a traditional n-tier application architecture to a modern Micro services architectures (MSA). What about your application? Will you join this race of competing or see how your organization will be benefitting from the technological adoptions that you will settle for?!

The bottom line is – no need to try every technology rather align your IT teams with the business sides and understand the short & long term business objectives and then, plan accordingly, which technology adoption could help you achieve your goals. Moving to CLOUD is a viable option if looking for some bigger growth opportunity as you can try and test new software in a cost-effective manner and then scaling this as per your needs!

3. Moving to the Mobile Platform

Do you know that mobile has become the platform for more than half of all the web traffic today? As per a recent survey by DataReportal, 5.15 billion numbers have been the unique mobile users making up to 66% of the world’s population .So, getting MOBILE with your APPLICATIONS  is not a mere empowerment but necessity!  If you don’t, your company might lose relevance.

You should be careful while creating a perfect interface because good user experience is very critical to mobile apps. It means, users should not get disappointed due to broken apps bearing overlapping layouts. Be focused on testing part in order to get the right fields and layouts thereby fitting well onto the mobile format. Experts’ consultation is strongly recommended!

4. Cyber Security

 SMBs are the favorite targets for hackers and cyber criminals. It should be a matter of great concern for your application because you don’t have enough budget or technical or personnel expertise as compared to enterprises, to defend your system. As per Verizon- 2020 DBIR, 74% of the total data breaches of SMBs do involve external threat-actors .Adopting security best practices is the only solution before you.

In order to combat the above threats, you should periodically conduct Application Vulnerability Tests that ensures that your application, server, back-end services are secure. Stay alert, stay safe!

5. Big Data Significance

Digging your customers’ data is critical for identifying trends and newer business opportunities. You can collect their data from customer purchases, e-mail lists, social media, etc, that helps you get insight into your customers’ tastes and preferences. Data analytics tool such as HADOOP and BIG DATA can help you out.

However, you have a choice while choosing your Big data application – On-Premise or Cloud-Base. It is recommended you go for Cloud-Based Software because that gives you more scalability and easier management of things.

6. Budget Constraints

You need to go for software purchases, hardware upgrading, providing your IT team with training in security best practices, all these involve huge investment. Chances are that you may go beyond budget that will hamper your business goals. Then what to do?

Adopt best practices in mind to ensure that your budget does not get blown at all. Three things –

• Invest on technology that gives you high efficiency and productivity. Prioritize.
• Go for leasing while upgrading hardware for your application system. It eliminates upfront costs.
• Maintain your IT assets record /inventory that is regularly updated. You can plan your budget well in advance.
   

7. Resource and New Skills

Finding the right resources is an uphill task. You have to see whether they match your requirements with required technology skill-sets, have adequate experience and fall within the bracket of your approved budget.

You can give them opportunity to wear more hats across the application development system. Re-skill and up-skill your present resources rather than going for new hires unless very urgent.

So, by now you must be clear how timely and wisely adoption of relevant technology and tools can ease out your daily tasks as a responsible IT App Development Head in your organization. Getting deeper to your role, understanding your core challenges and optimizing solutions, planning & implementing IT goals, all of them substantially contribute to the overall success of your organization. Interested to get more insights into your challenges and solutions? Discover how Fusion Informatics can help you. Reach us at sales@fusioninformatics.com

Read Also – Top Mobile App Development Companies in India

Technology has been a key player in the gamut of the payment world for the last few decades. The evolutionary mechanism has duly reshaped the payment industry from time- to- time. Following the first Industrial Revolution that brought about a major transformation in economies worldwide, the payment scenario equally underwent the transition cycle. It’s for the last fifty years or so that the need for a more convenient, secure, regulated mode of monetary transactions catapulted a significant shift in the manner we pay for goods & services now.

From cash payment to check payment, then to plastic cards like debit/credit card payments, the payment industry has seen it all. A solo swipe method did the trick! It’s indeed interesting to find out how technology has impacted payments and finally arrived at the present stage of digital payments. Let’s discuss it!

• EMV Technology

It is the power of Smart Card technology that has challenged a rather precarious counterfeit fraud leading to an alarming situation in the payment domain globally. EMV – Europay, MasterCard, Visa – the names of original creators of the very technology stand for the abbreviation, has come as a big solace to us.

Also known as the Chip Card or IC Card, its data are stored on the IC chips (Integrated Circuits) .The transaction is done by physically inserting a card onto a reader or by just tapping over a distance(contactless) using a Near-FieldCommunication Technology.It is the authentication method that categorizes cards into a Chip &Pin card or Chip &Signature Card.

• Mobile Point of Sale (MPOS)

Mobile POSis the technology that facilitates a flexible payment process in areas like retail, hotel, parking lots, etc.For instance, in a departmental store, customers don’t need to stand in a queue at billing counters to pay bills.Mobile POS enables sales-staff to receive payment from customers just from any location they are present inside the store. Similarly, a hotel staff can check you in or check you out ata lobby itself (or any convenient point).No need to do the formality in the usual front desk corner of hotel.MPOSis widely being used across industries not only in hotel or retail but SMBs and even the bigger enterprises.

• Mobile Wallets

The arrival of digital technology has smoothened the process of payment methods viz., Mobile Wallet is the e-version of a Real Wallet in physical form. Under the technology, consumers use mobile phones to pay for goods & services instead of hard cash, swiping/inserting credit cards or debit cards. Take for instance, Google Pay, Apple Pay, where the entire payment card information is stored on a mobile phone.

• Peer-To-Peer Payments

P2P Money transfer is the electronic transfer of money done by one person to another through an intermediary in the form of a Peer-to-Peer payment application. Paypal, ApplePAyCash, Venmo, Zelle are a few examples of the P2P applications.It is the process of transferring funds between two people through their respective personal bank accounts or credit cards using an online medium or app.In short, it is an effortless money transfer process with a  mere few taps! So, next time when you go outing with family or friends, don’t carry cash but a smart digital payment app on your mobile.

• AI based Voice Payments

Has it not been a common scenario by now- “Alexa, pay my water bill,”a scene you can connect to so often! After mobile shopping, you can now resort to your Android apps that can do you favor towards paying bills through an integrated system of Voice Assistant. This is termed as an AI technology backed Smart Speaker! You speak, and the AI obeys to your command! Many renowned names rule the picture – Amazon, Apple, and Google. Not only at the present but Smart Speaker has a bright future with a Business Insider report suggesting its usage to grow up to 77.9 million users by 2022!

• Biometric Authentication

You can consider Biometric Authentication as a significant addition to various digital modes that the payment industry has witnessed so far. It is a verification system incorporating measurable physical attributes like your handprints, fingerprints, your irises, and even voice. These attributes are unique from person to person. Biometric technology does scanning and then verifying the given attributes to authenticate a user to a particular service. It gives ample scope of combating security threats in the entire system!

• Internet-of-Payments

  A disruptive technology like the Internet- of- Things (IoT) has introduced Internet-of-Payment (IOP) that enables financial transactions over IoT devices like wearable gadgets, appliances, and automobiles. MASTERCARD, VISA are the pioneers in this segment that are helping financial institutions with the seamless method of card payments over connected devices.

How would you rate the technologies that let you pay with just a wave of the hand (FitBit), or some In-Car APPfor seamless payments(HONDA or GM cars), shopping groceries using your Samsung Refrigerators? Thus, the Payment Industry has reached to a point where digital payments are the core of businesses across industries.

Would you like to develop some modern technologies to accelerate your business payment systems, reach out to us for a free demo today!

Warehouse Management is a significant part of any Supply-Chain cycle. Managing & controlling operations of a warehouse, on day –to- day basis, is known as the Warehouse Management. Basically, from a layman’s point of view, how you are managing your warehouse depends on the three things – your inventory (types of goods lying in there), your business model, and the technologies you adopt in the supply-chain. Warehouse Management is not just how much space you got but how you use it! Definitely, technologies play a key role in shaping your business, managing your warehouse .What are the top technologies you should adopt to manage your warehouse? Let’s discuss!

Disruptive Technologies

Industries across the world are adopting modern technologies such as the Internet-of-things, Machine-Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, etc. in their day-to-day functioning of businesses. In the entire process, two major things occur – Innovation and Disruption. Thus, disruptive technology is actually the technological innovation that penetrates the existing market and causes disruption there. Smart Warehouses are the product of disruptive technologies such as Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Machine Learning (ML).

1.Smart Warehouse Management System & IoT

Warehouses play an important link in any kind of supply-chain facilitating storage of goods till they get dispatched at a target location. How to bring that global visibility to your supply chain in your business? The answer is WMS or the Smart Warehouse Management System, an IoT enabled technology product. You can get immense power-packed benefits from WMS that converts your traditional warehouse into a smart warehouse! Thus, managing your day-to-day logistic operations becomes easier now. They are done by the Automated-Guided-Vehicles (AGVs), Telematics system which help boost accuracy and speed of the logistic processes, minimizing human intervention.WMS helps optimize all the inventory tasks, procedures in the system.

2. Machine-To-Machine (M2M) Technology

The M2M technology helps streamline and monitor automation process of your warehouse. You don’t need to watch manually how the orders are processed. Combined with WMS, the latest M2M systems can now control all the equipment in your warehouse and this is quite important towards order fulfillment processes. M2M helps you provide actionable insights to take better decisions viz., accuracy in information leads to demand forecasting, which helps you predict when to deliver product!

3. Order Fulfillment Optimization Technology

In short, this technology can be described as an automated, efficient and cost-effective solution over picking methods that are done manually. It helps automate your warehouse processes as a whole.

• Pick- To- Light System – It helps direct your operators in warehouse to reach product location through the help of specific light displays. It has immense ability to organize big volumes of orders picked at a time, viz., Plan, Control and analyze the picked orders. It has a high-level of picking productivity.
• Put-To-Light System – It helps direct your operators how to allocate, where to allocate, various products in the warehouse for respective orders. It has immense ability to pick products from several bulk stocks. If you have a retail warehouse, this system could be an ideal choice. It facilitates high –speed order-sorting capability.

4. Voice Warehouse Management Systems

Voice technology is one of the most effective picking methods used in logistics management. The technology VWMS uses speech recognition as well as speech synthesis allowing workers to communicate within WMS. Spoken commands are given for picking, receiving, putting orders and other warehouse shipping functions.

5. Warehouse Robotics Technology

Smart Robots help in movement, sorting and storage of your inventory in warehouse. As a manger of your warehouse, you should pick that Robotics Technology that suits your requirement

The aforementioned description of technologies is not the end of technological intervention while dealing with multiple chores within the cycle of Warehouse Management. There are plenty of other technologies available in the market. Pick-By-Vision technology, use of Drones, specific Labor Management System software, and many more. You should consult experts to decide which technologies suit your requirement, your environment, facilitating smoother operations and supply chains of your Warehouse.

If you wish to uncover how your warehouse can be managed with simplicity – reach out to our technology experts today!

The ongoing digital transformation of companies around the world has attracted one thing in common – CYBER SECURITY .It is imperative on the part of Small & Medium Businesses (SMBs) to devise strategies to combat the so-called deadly Cyber Threats that have the capacity to throw many stakeholders out of business. Undoubtedly, the malicious Malware, Ransomware, Phishing attacks, etc. are a few terminologies that should be taken cognizance of .Cyber Security measures duly adopted, in timely manner, is the need of the hour to stay safe and sound from the business perspective.

Cyber Attack & SMBs

As an owner of a small start-up or as a founding partner of some medium enterprises, the one significant thing that can put you in a vulnerable state is the CYBER SECURITY. In fact, SMBs are the ones to have been a favourite target of cyber fraudulent because of the lack of sophisticated protections in place. If you have not incorporated a multi-layered approach to data security, you are at a higher risk. According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report – 2019, half of the cyber victims have been Small Businesses.

Remote Work and the Related Risks

As you see, the work scenario has drastically shifted from a usual physical office to work-from-home mode. Your workforce has completely undergone remote! Virtual meetings, virtual collaborations, virtual conferences have now become the primary modes of communication. So, have you really done the ground work? Have you identified the gaps in your remote infrastructure? If ‘Yes’, then well, if ‘No’, then you are at risk. You got to fix the gaps right away else the repercussion might harm your business more than you could imagine.

The Challenges Before You

• Phishing & Spear Phishing Threats

These are a major form of Cyber attack. Both are designed to embroil you into performing specific actions like clicking malicious links, email, or attachment. Doing this, you may end up downloading malware on to your device, or you are redirected to a fraudulent website where you are asked to give your personal data such as name, address, phone number, social security number that could be misused by hackers.

                        Phishing emails are those emails sent to a large, random number of recipients. It means, not only you are the recipient of this email but many people like you. Whatever, if any of you click it, malware enters your system and you know the consequences!

                           Spear Phishing is an individual target, just like you! Only you are the recipient here. You may get an email from someone familiar to you, your colleague, your friend, family members, but it is a fake address. You trust, open it and LO, you have allowed a dangerous  Ransomware  to  spread across your company’s network  eventually stealing and locking your  data .Unless you pay a ransom, you cannot unlock or restore access.

• Its’ The Humans, Not The Machines

Without any malicious intent, your employees may mistakenly end up with some kind of data breach, as they have a privilege access to your company’s data. This leads to cyber attacks. Yes, it’s the humans and not the machines, who pose the biggest cyber security threat o your business.

• IOT & BYOD system

You provide a Wi-Fi enabled coffee machines, people wearing smart watches and this makes you vulnerable in terms of laxity wherein cyber criminals can enter your main network. You have a common network for all! Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) system can lead to data theft. Sharing company’s data using unsecure mobile devices or laptop is risky because they may contain malicious applications which can bypass security and access your company’s network.

• SQL Injection

Does your web application use an SQL database like Oracle, MySQL, SQL servers, or any other? If you are vulnerable, attackers can use SQL injection to attack your webpage/application and retrieve the content of your SQL database and execute their own malicious SQL statements there by adding, modifying, deleting records.

• Malware threat

Malware is just any malicious software that has the ability to destroy your business by posing threat to data security. Ransomware, Adware, Spyware, are a few names you should be aware of.

• Adopting Cloud -Based Infrastructures

You have a choice between on-premises & Cloud based solutions viz., software, storage, server, security, ERPs and backups. Cloud may help you access high-end technologies and other resources without paying the premium prices. However, you rely on the servers which are thousands of miles away from your business set up. What would happen if internet crashes? Service disruptions are there and your data may not be available 24*7. Also, you are trusting an outsider with your private data. Unless you bank on high players in this industry who have strict security protocols, you may end up losing your crucial data to cyber criminals.

How to Tackle Cyber Threats

If you think you can protect your business from cyber threat by just installing a single software, you are wrong.  The three major security layers from macro perspective are the Policy, Technology and Training.

• Your policy layer may read as ‘Be careful to open phishing emails’. Allow only specific URLs in your Whitelist.
• The policy layer is supported by technology layer like configuring Firewall entry, exit filtering rules. Also, sub layer like reverse proxy, allowing specific ports, etc. should be properly undertaken.
• Adopt the appropriate Anti-Virus tools and keep upgrading frequently.
• Database access must be restricted as per role basis.
• Application development must be cyber compliant.
• Educate your employees by giving them training in the basic Cyber Securities knowhow- the

Cyber security should be taken as a shared responsibility. It is now a mandatory requirement to sustain your business. Cyber criminals are constantly trying to steal your data – sensitive details like the IP address, Usernames, passwords, credit card number, telephone number, are in hackers’ wish lists. Be alert, be safe!

Good news for travellers! On your next airport visit you might experience a complete different check-in process thereby reducing your time spent in security processes. It will help you to reach your boarding gate much faster than you think. You might be wondering, really? Yes, your face is becoming your Identity.

Facial recognition has already become a big norm, technology advancement in this area has been observed from unlocking phones to Smart Advertising, identifying people on social media, facilitating the secure transaction and now in airports too.

US authorities and Airlines have already started using facial recognition technology from check-in to onboarding. According to the reports, in US by 2021 facial recognition is expected to be deployed at the top 20 airports for all international passengers including American citizens.

How is the facial scanning process at the airport’s works ?

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is working along with airlines to implement biometric face scanners in airports for better security measures. Facial recognition in airports is mainly used for verifying the identity of the traveller.  

The camera placed will take your photo and it is then CBP’s Traveler Verification Service matches it with a photo of your Department of Homeland Security. It may be your photo in your passport or any other ID proof submitted. This process replaces the traditional way of checking passports nationwide. Facial recognition technology security verification systems promise to improve the airport experience fast and easy boarding.

Along with the government, Private companies also started using facial recognition in the airport. By the end of the last year, Delta announced its terminals in Atlanta’s airport was the “first biometric terminal” in the country. JetBlue became the first airline to partner with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority to launch a one-step biometric boarding experience for customers flying to Nassau, Bahamas (NAS). American Airlines, United Airlines have also expanded their use of facial recognition technology to replace boarding passes.

The technology adoption of these projects had a high success rate of 99%. Its fast, it’s friendly and it’s flexible along with cost-effectiveness point of view. In McAleenan’s report, airport employees were able to facilitate the boarding of 350 passengers onto an Airbus A380 in 20 minutes. Mineta San Jose International Airport has managed to facilitate technology to reduce processing times for arriving international travellers by 16 percent, and Delta reports say technology implementation has reduced their boarding times by nearly 10 minutes

Facial recognition is a powerful tool. Early adoption and global application of these technologies can provide better user experience and also save manual efforts of resources utilized at airport on other business priorities. The applied technology impact has much lasting impact on the years to come. Time will come soon when we see this technology is applied across airports at global level and providing a new dimension of customer service

The pandemic has changed the business community with additional guidelines and mandates on remote working and social distancing. Hence for many it has become difficult to continue their operations smoothly. This situation demands deep dive into a digital transformation rather than baby steps to ensure sustainability. The prime examples of the insufficiencies of legacy systems buckling under the pressure of increased demand are financial institutions, government organizations, healthcare, insurance systems, retail, and many more.

Let’s have a look on Couple of the examples:

• Accounting:

The traditional accounting system involved manual and paper processes; however, when employees are working remotely, it becomes difficult for an organization to process the paper paychecks unless and until the employee have access to such payroll and accounting software and printing machine. Also, an employer will have to mail those paper checks to employees and the employees will have to deposit them all while complying with shelter-in-place rules.

• Retail

Perhaps your physical business can be functional, however, if you primarily deal in cash, in-store credits, or debit card payments, your customers will find it difficult to step outside, stand in a queue, unnecessarily touch the currency/card and are most likely to go to a different business that lets them use an order and payment app. Thus, it is difficult to continue catering to your customers without migrating to a digital ordering and payment process.

Top Reasons to Adopt Digital during the Crisis

• Acceptance

In normal times, the primary barrier to innovation was resistance to change; however, the pandemic has shown conclusively that workers can be highly adaptive and accepting the change when it’s demonstrated to be in their best interest. This has helped an organization to allow employees in their team to work from home, which in the future will also help them in reducing various costs and driving employee efficiency.

• Staying connected

Remote work is the future of the workplace to stay connected and the companies that do not learn to manage a remote workforce will lose their valuable employees. It became the must-have trend which is more likely to be continued after COVID -19. Not just in the IT industry, infrastructure, engineering, and retail too have moved thousands of people offsite in seven to 10 days and their business has not suffered from any kind of dislocation. The businesses were trying to do such shift for years and due to pandemic, they have managed to do it in just 10 days.

• Engagement

The social distancing norms have made people isolated and are raising the issues related to their productivity. Many mental health issues too have evolved. The technology is helping to resolve these issues by engaging the people in the best possible ways and providing opportunities for various industries to go digital in engaging the larger audience.

• Investment

A research reveals the cloud usage will increase due to COVID and so does the technology budgets, so the current situation is ideal for future investments on digital technologies. Also, the businesses or companies that earlier postponed their digital transformation have the best chance to help out potential customers and simultaneously attract a wider audience for their digital solutions. The companies have reduced the prices of their offering of digital tools, apps, and platforms, which makes it promising for businesses to invest.  

• Testing

When the time was usual, you must have hesitated in implementing new tools and technologies with the fear that something may go wrong; however, during this crisis, you can grab this opportunity to test various digital tools and take the digital plunge.  Many companies that offer digital tools, apps, and platforms are attracting their customers with free trial periods, which makes it easier for you to join the digital bandwagon.

The corona virus crisis has set the reset button with a significant impact on several industries. To be successful, businesses will have to speed up their digital transformation journey and cope up with the sudden shift in customer’s buying behaviour and pattern. We have a host of digital solutions which can help you in sustaining your business during these uncertain times as well as maintain revenue and be productive.

Digital technologies have transformed consumer habits by allowing them to get what they want almost at the moment they need it. Research shows, initially customers often rate an organization based on its digital customer experience. Moreover, digital transformation not only offers an organization an opportunity to understand its customers but also the ways of engaging with them and delivering on their expectations.

Traditionally, companies were deploying their communication channels in silos, which is why agents were lacking the knowledge of customer’s prior digital interactions and were failing to understand the customer’s prior actions on their website before they address the customer’s queries. This resulted in the customer’s frustration as they have to keep repeating the information that is already communicated. This issue could be well-addressed by multi-channel digital customer experience.

Different Types of Methodology in Customer Care

• OmniChannel Digital Experience

Any company which deploys multiple customer channels to provide better customer experience leads in the digital ecosystem. Hence basis your audience you should step up to chart the customer’s journey through various channels like web, phone, emails, social media to identify their preferences and provide support on all channels

• Social Media

Social media has empowered the customers, the consumers prefer to trust their peer’s opinions on your products and services, so equipping your customer service team with a consistent and effective response plan could be your winning strategy. Offering support on Twitter, Facebook, and other social channels have become standard in recent times

• Chatbots and Self-service

Digital chatbots are the most demanding applications that can fulfil and play the role of customer service whether you wish to opt for completely automated AI-based Chatbot or Semi-automated service with human intervention. With the use of Machine learning the chatbots can be trained to handle complex queries and also drive a visitor to perform specific actions

• Chat and Co-Browsing

Co-browsing allows the customer support agent to collaborate with the customer’s browser in real-time. This helps an agent view the issue and navigate over the customer’s screen to guide the non-technical customers through the complex processes. For enhanced visibility, one can display such options next to contact details. Alternatively, one can change the script of a voice agent to help customers discover the digital engagement options available.

• Digital Voice

This feature will engage your customers via digital voice from your web or mobile application. One can allow its customers to select a time that is convenient for them to receive a callback and reach them at their convenience.

• Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Chat

While customer queue up for an interactive voice response (IVR), one can offer them a link to start a chat by sending an SMS, clicking on the link can initiate a chat with the agent and the gap can be minimized by forwarding the IVR data to chat agent, which will allow the customer to restart the conversation where they left it.

• Blend Digital and Physical World

When digital experience is blended with the physical world, it creates impactful results. Let’s take an example of QR codes, the company can attach a QR code to its products, develop an application to allow its customers to scan such code, which can further help customers to understand the maintenance schedule and other such aspects of the product. This will not only help in providing quality customer service but also enhance customer satisfaction and reduce the strain on the customer service workforce.

Sounds good, isn’t it? We are here to make it true. If you are looking forward to digitizing your customer service, we would be happy to assist you in developing applications like chatbots, AI-guided self-service, Product maintenance, Virtual assistants, and much more that will empower your customers and drive business for you.

With the current situation, the Fintech domain is gaining significant traction from the market. The crisis created by the pandemic has effected a lot of companies, but they are adapting well by enabling trending technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning into their systems. 

Since most of the systems are now moving towards more app-based processes, these technologies are opening gates to numerous opportunities for people interested in this domain. From SMEs to large-scaled Fintech companies- all are adopting these technologies into their systems. 

How can these AI and Machine Learning help Fintech Industries?

We know that early adopters of mainframe computers and relational databases have been Fintech companies. They were always keen to understand how technology can smoothly solve human problems, thus increasing the companies’ efficiency. These companies started adopting methods that included AI and Machine learning that was derived from various aspects of human intelligence. Varied, deep, and diverse datasets can be crunched easily by using these technologies. 

In the olden days, bankers used to assist customers better with their connections, but with digitalization, this personal touch has been lost. So, the main question here is, can technology bring back this personal touch? The answer to this is quite evident with the current advancements in AI and Machine Learning. These technologies can process large pieces of information about the customers that are practically impossible to do manually. This data that is retrieved can be used to provide better and suitable services or products to the customers. This will ensure that companies find whats right for their customers and gain customer loyalty. 

Top 6 Usecases of AI and Machine Learning in the Fintech Industry

We conducted in-depth research and jotted down the best five use cases of AI and Machine Learning in the Fintech Industry. 

1. Accurate and Improved Decision Making

As our world is quickly growing in the new technological ecosystem, it also becomes prone to several financial cybercrimes. So how do we deal with this? Thanks to AI and Machine Learning, companies can now secure their accounts and provide their users with a safe environment. When we talk about cybersecurity in Finance, we often come across cryptocurrency and blockchain concepts. However, we expect to incorporate Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning into digital security. 

These algorithms enable us to detect any suspicious activity and also notify users regarding the same. They help us to monitor all sorts of patterns continuously and notify whenever there is anything unusual. This way, users can keep track of all the aspects, even if they aren’t available. These technologies also help us to identify any kind of illegal activity like money laundering or detect any corruption network in any institution. 

2. Fraud Detection and Security Management

Several analytics tools help us to collect and analyze data that is necessary for conviction. After this, AI tools learn and monitor a user’s behavior and pattern to identify any warning signs of fraud attempts. Machine Learning concepts can be adopted in different stages of the claims management system. Artificial Intelligence can be used to handle a massive pile of data in a short time. Thus it reduces the overall processing time. This results in better customer experience for the users. 

3. Automated Customer Care/Support

Chatbots are one of the most popular AI applications. They have started to receive considerable attention due to the involvement of Machine Learning. These chatbots can interact with customers at any given time and hence are quite handy. Fintech Industries use these bots to solve a significant number of customer complaints at the minimum expenditures. Since COVID-19 has given us the new normal of social distancing, Finance companies may soon adopt more of this technology to solve their customer problems. 

4. Insurance Management

Artificial Intelligence will automate the underwriting process and thus use more crude information to enhance customer decision making. This technology can help insurance management by providing automated agents that can help customers online and guide them with all the requirements. Usually, people opt for insurance when they have suffered a loss, and for a faster process, automatic underwriting can be used. For example, if you feel some treatments may be expensive for insurance, it is better to detect these risks for better prevention. These risks can be calculated by using a Machine learning algorithm that will consider historical data.

5. Predictive Analysis of Stocks

Predictive analysis can serve as a game-changer in various financial services that most affect business strategy, revenue collection, sales, and resource optimization of a finance company. It will help in enhancing different operations and refining internal processes, thus transcending all the competitors. This analysis can help in the calculation of credit scores and hence help in the prevention of bad loans.

Final Thoughts

The current situation has given us the opportunity to explore what technology is capable of. It is time that the Fintech Industry adopts these technologies and makes the best use of it in the near future.