So, what’s changed?

Today, companies are relying on technology to power their workforce’s efficiency and productivity more than ever. Carbon footprints have greatly increased in the process. According to researchers, information and communications technology alone will comprise almost 14% of the world’s total carbon emissions by 2040—up from just 1.5% in 2007. 

Realizing that our devices improve productivity at the cost of the environment is a uniquely challenging double-edged sword. Businesses are eager to reduce that impact while leveraging the benefits of technology. The question is, how? That’s where the concept of green IT comes into play. 

What Is Green IT?

Green IT—otherwise known as green computing—is the practice of designing, manufacturing, or using technology in a way that limits its harmful effects on the climate. This includes everything from choosing environmentally friendly materials to reducing energy consumption and electronic waste. 

Green IT is an enterprise-level commitment to lessen the environmental impact of technology as much as possible. 

And, more businesses are taking on this commitment. According to a Gartner study, CEOs ranked sustainability in their top 10 strategic business priorities for the first time in 2022. Many respondents even place sustainability on the same level as brand trust in terms of its importance as a competitive differentiator. 

Indeed, numerous forces are compelling enterprises to adopt greener business practices. A recent survey found that 98% of consumers believe brands have a responsibility to make the world better, and 40% say they prefer to buy sustainable products over others.

The survey also suggests three areas of opportunity where CIOs can take the lead when going green:

1. Implementing a holistic insights program to measure and drive sustainability
2. Leveraging an environmentally friendly tech strategy
3. Driving transparency and accountability across the value chain

These areas fall neatly within the domain of green IT. By auditing your company’s technology stack and strategizing ways to implement eco-friendly initiatives, you can effectively support sustainability in both your own operations and those of your business partners.

Benefits of Green IT

Organizations with sustainability programs in place report a number of resulting advantages, including:

• Cost savings: Reducing energy consumption and e-waste can translate into money saved. In fact, Gartner reports that 4 in 5 business leaders say sustainability helps them reduce operational costs.
  
• Improved reputation: Consumers are looking for mindfully sourced products from organizations that value the environment. At least 60% are even willing to pay more for products with sustainable packaging. Implementing green IT strategies can underscore your commitment to sustainability and help drive positive business outcomes.
  
• Compliance: Regulators are increasingly cracking down on ecologically damaging business practices. For instance, the European Union recently implemented restrictions on single-use plastics, prohibiting their sale across all member states. Adopting green practices can help you remain in compliance with changing regulations and avoid fines and legal repercussions.
  
• Reduced carbon footprint: Perhaps the most impactful benefit of green IT is its ripple effect on the environment. By using technology more efficiently and reducing waste, organizations can drastically reduce carbon emissions overall.

Examples of Green IT strategies

Green IT has the potential to benefit both your business and the environment. But what does it look like in practice?

Let’s explore seven examples of green IT strategies you can implement to better support your sustainability goals.

1. Telecommuting and Hybrid Work

With fewer employees working on-site than ever before, travel to and from the office has reduced. 

Implementing a hybrid or remote-first work policy can potentially reduce your employees’ vehicular carbon emissions. Of course, this also raises the question: How do you keep distributed workforces connected and collaborating?

To overcome the distance, many enterprises are leaning on cloud-based solutions, such as video conferencing and cloud calling platforms. These tools allow team members to communicate as if they were together in person without skipping a beat.

2. Cloud Sustainability 

Gartner defines cloud sustainability as the use of cloud computing to achieve environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. By utilizing cloud services, companies can eliminate residual impacts associated with on-premises systems, such as cooling and compute power.

Take data centers, for example. It’s estimated that traditional data centers consume over 205 terawatt hours of electricity every year, which is more than the annual energy usage of Taiwan, Ireland, Denmark, or South Africa. Most enterprises replace them every few years, growing their carbon footprints in the process.

Cloud data centers are a more sustainable option. Many are run on renewable energy and serve multiple clients at a time, consolidating compute power and maximizing utilization rates. This reduces idle capacity, resulting in greater energy efficiency across the shared infrastructure.

3. Hot Desking

Offices aren’t as busy as they used to be now that employees are working from home at least part time. Consequently, workspaces—and the resources used to power them—are going to waste.

Hot desking is an office setup where desks are not assigned permanently but booked as needed by employees. This approach to shared workspaces can help reduce the energy required to heat, cool, and light office spaces. 

4. Sustainable Hardware Procurement

According to the World Economic Forum, 80% of a product’s environmental impacts are linked to decisions made during design. For this reason, many business leaders are looking for sustainably sourced hardware with energy-efficiency built in. 

Sustainable procurement involves purchasing devices that are environmentally friendly and buying from vendors with sustainable practices. From low-power servers and notebooks to smart lights and video conferencing equipment built with a circular design approach, manufacturers are offering more eco-friendly products.

5. Centralized IT Management

One of the best ways to further your ESG goal is to truly understand your technology stack top to bottom. The only problem? Many enterprises don’t have visibility into energy consumption, emissions, and other key performance metrics.

Business leaders should prioritize vendors that offer these insights inside a single pane of glass. With full visibility across the entire organization, you can monitor estimated energy consumption, track emissions over time, and report progress to customers and stakeholders alike.

Better yet, with data at your fingertips, you can jump into action and identify areas of improvement.

A Greener, Cleaner Future

Sustainability is more than a buzzword. It’s a mission. As sustainable practices rise up the corporate agenda, it’s clear that the next era of enterprise technology will be greener. 

By implementing environmentally friendly technologies and sustainable practices, businesses can not only reduce their own carbon footprint, but also be on the forefront of positive change. 

The post Green IT: Why the Next Era of Enterprise Technology Is Sustainable appeared first on SiteProNews.

Minimizing churn risks or increasing customer retention is one of the biggest goals and at the same time challenges for CS organizations, especially in B2B subscription-based SaaS companies.

When planning for every future period, a CS organization should reach out to their clients and determine what their mutual goals are, allowing both parties to put their best efforts into working together to achieve mutually rewarding results. This client-centered approach will facilitate better business outcomes for both parties, and basically is the only working approach to building great customer relationships and reducing churn. 

What is Customer Churn and Why Does it Matter? 

To put it in a simple way — churn occurs when a customer cancels a subscription or terminates a contract, meaning that they stop using your company’s product or service. Churn can be measured by the percentage of customers that have stopped using your product or by lost revenues, both over a specific period (normally quarter/ year). 

So, why does churn matter? Low churn rate indicates high customer retention, which not only positively impacts businesses’ bottom line and reduces costs to attract new clientele, but also demonstrates great product/customer service and strong brand positioning. Today’s business is not about one-time purchases, it’s about repeat purchases, long-lasting customer relationships and loyalty.  

What are the Main Reasons for Churn? 

Setting aside all product/service quality related factors (e.g., poor performance, bad service, repeated issues that are not addressed etc.) that inevitably lead to customer churn, one of the biggest factors is low or zero product engagement. 

Due to the high volume of work and issues an average CS manager deals with on a daily basis, it’s very easy not to recognize red flags when your product is actually not being utilized, and therefore no value is delivered to the customer. There are, of course, multiple tools and management platforms for CS teams that are supposed to help track those scenarios and send alerts, but they cannot necessarily be relied on 100% of the time. 

In addition, you might be blindsided by situations where the customer is quiet and you assume everything is fine, but then all of a sudden there comes a termination notice. 

Needless to say, not all organizations have the right tools in place. More often than not, CS managers rely on multiple spreadsheets, analytic tools, platforms etc. so there’s in fact no centralized source of information to make a good judgment call about customer satisfaction. 

How Do You Encourage Customers to Utilize Your Product to Prevent Churn? 

Obviously, it is much easier to take preventive measures so emergencies don’t happen rather than having to deal with consequences when it’s already too late. This is especially true when talking about customer relationships, and customer churn respectively. 

That said, in order to not have to deal with churn when it’s already escalated, do the right thing from the start.  Below are three working tips: 

1. Pass the activation/implementation stage. Seize the day to start delivering value as quickly as possible after the contract has been signed. You have many more chances to quickly and smoothly pass the activation/implementation stage once the client is still focused on your product and is ready to do their bit in the process. 

2. Find your champion or champions and use their help to promote your product usage across their organization. Your best customer is the one who’s actively collaborating with you, sending tons of feedback, requests, and so on. That way you know your product is being utilized; all you have to do is deliver a great product and customer service.

3. Know your customer, their business specifics and operations. In other words, establish great communication and serve as an extension of your client’s team. Make sure your product is set to help your client achieve their business goals and stay up-do-date, because businesses tend to change. What was important last week may no longer be relevant as businesses have to adapt to various circumstances and you want to stay-in-the-know.   

What’s the Best Way to Know Your Customer is About to Churn?

In most cases customer churn can be predicted, and therefore prevented. All you need to do is pay attention to the signs. Easier said than done! You obviously need to come up with a system to recognize those signs and act accordingly. The right way to do this is to implement a customer health score that’ll help you recognize triggering situations, and also celebrate success when the customer is really happy and there are no red flags. 

Even without the health score system, you will eventually know if your customer is satisfied or not. The big difference is that if you don’t have a health score (or if there’s no one actually working with this data) you’ll end up knowing the customer is about to churn when it’s too late. And that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that throughout the entire time this customer has not been receiving value from the product they paid for, so it’s wasted time and money – and this is most definitely not the right way to build a customer-centric organization that cares about delivering value. 

Should you have a working health score system in place, you’ll have a chance to be proactive and make improvements on the fly. That will produce great customer retention and satisfaction. 

What Makes an Effective Health Score System? 

• Simple and easily trackable. Do not overcomplicate your health scoring system, especially if you’re only at the very beginning of the process of implementing and assessing your customer’s score.  
• Flexible when needed/however needed. As your product matures and business grows, it’s only natural to revisit your health score and make adjustments. Rather than sticking to some scoring system just for the sake of saying that you have a health score, be flexible and make changes. You may realize that your health score was tracking some metrics that are in fact not too critical or are no longer needed for a particular niche of customers, simply because they stopped utilizing some product features. 
• Have a playbook of action items in place for every triggering score you’re seeing. In other words, every CS team member in your organization should have a clear understanding of what to do in case they’re seeing a low usage rate, infrequent logins, etc.

It’s all about data, added value and ROI. 

We live in a data driven world, where business makes decisions based on tangible metrics, not just a gut feeling. When selling your product, you most likely presented an ROI model to your client, and they were impressed with it. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have signed the contract. Now that the sales team have done their job, a CS manager steps in and actually proves the value and justifies an ROI. 

It’s really easy to show great ROI when everything is really smooth and goes as planned. These would be perfectly “healthy” clients and you can build great case studies together and celebrate success. 

In other instances where things are not that bright and shiny, you need to work on proving the value of your product, encourage close collaboration with your client, drive engagement, and improve product adoption. 

How to Prove That Your Product is Adding Value?

Run experiments to prove your product value! Based on your business specifics, you may want to find a way to run an experiment to show that your product helps with set business goals and therefore delivers value. 

Implement a product in a specific setting/group of users and compare users’ (target group) to non-users’ (control group) behavior and KPIs before and after the product was implemented. Expected takeaway: target group has better KPIs (different businesswise), not necessarily all KPIs – make sure your results are honest, and when you’re not seeing better results, mark them as an area for improvement and suggest a game plan to improve in the future. Since the target group improved their performance because they were utilizing your product, this demonstrates the proven value of your product. 

Also, keep in mind that the best way to measure your product value is to solicit direct feedback from end users. Not only will you get a great deal of invaluable insights about your product, but you will also have validated data on how well your product is doing. So run surveys and manage feedback. 

Now that you have the results of the experiment, and ideally survey results, package them well and deliver the value of your product in a QBR (quarter business review) setting. As an outcome, you have a good chance to increase product adoption, renew contracts, upsell, and obviously, reduce churn risks proactively. 

Churn Happens. Learn from These Situations and Do Better Next Time

Churn will inevitably happen, and you will lose clients, large and small, at some point. One thing you should do is to establish a reasonable churn rate. This is so that in case the situation gets out of control and you lose a great many customers/contracts, you question if the business is generally doing all right. Probably not, and you need to understand what’s critically wrong and fix it. 

Another thing you should do is really learn from these unwanted situations and do a better job next time. Make sure you find time to look back at the situation and analyze what caused churn. Was there anything that could have been done differently? What needs to be done/improved in the future so this won’t happen again? 

Also, leave the door open and keep great relationships with your customers even if they choose to go with a competitor. It is likely that if you really improve and fix the issues which led to churn, your customer will come back some time in the future. If you learn from your mistakes, every churn can stimulate improvements and drive great changes, which is actually a good thing.

The post Data-driven Approach to Reducing Customer Churn in B2B Subscription-based SAAS Companies appeared first on SiteProNews.

Infrastructure is one of the core sectors of a software development process that can range from servers and databases to container clusters. As a result, infrastructure services witnessed tremendous growth in the IT field. Businesses are now much more secure, service-oriented, and agile in delivering unified experiences to end customers.

With the increase of large-scale public cloud platforms and utilization of their provisioned infrastructure, you might have come across the concept of infrastructure as code. However, the practice of infrastructure as code didn’t wholly coalesce till the end of the 2000s. Nowadays, many IT leaders start by implementing infrastructure as Code, otherwise known as IaC.

Top cloud vendors like AWS, Azure, and Google have set up IaC systems that allow them to offer substantial services to millions of their clients to pursue their goals in this abstracted environment. According to the Gartner, survey report stated that 60 percent of companies will adopt infrastructure automation tools as part of their DevOps toolchains in 2023.

Infrastructure as code is the most popular DevOps technique that boosts scalability, accelerates software development, and optimizes costs. IaC is one of the driving reasons for the accelerated digital transformation witnessing massive growth across industries. This blog post will explain what IaC is, how do IaC works, and its benefits.

What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?

Infrastructure as code refers to the provisioning and managing of underlying IT infrastructure (such as load balancers, virtual machines, networks, and connection topology) defined through code processes rather than manual and hardware processes. IaC uses a high-level descriptive coding language that automatically provisions the IT infrastructure. By operating software development practices, infrastructure setup can be reliable, transparent, and repeatable. In the current era, Terraform and Ansible are the most popular IaC tools.

IaC allows software developers to execute and write instructions for network, storage, and compute elements that require testing, development or deploy a software application rather than manually configuring physical servers. This also leads to increased consistency, more efficient development, and agility to the market.

How Does IaC Work?

There are primarily two approaches for writing the code for IaC tools.

1) Declarative approach

The declarative approach, also known as the functional approach, allows the users to provide directions to the automation platform. It defines the desired state of the final solution where users only require a specific tool or platform to handle the steps to achieve the defined requirement.

In this approach, the user must know the current state, whether the infrastructure already exists or not. This approach is preferred in infrastructure management use cases as it provides flexibility when managing the infrastructure.

Declarative is a preferred approach in recent times and is arguably the most dominant format for IaC automation. The declarative tool is popular because it requires a simple process to understand the user’s part.

2) Imperative approach

The imperative approach, also known as the procedural method, defines the steps to implement to achieve the desired configuration. It allows users to specify the commands required for a change, and those commands need to execute in the same order to reach the desired solution.

In the imperative approach, users are in the dark as to whether the infrastructure exists or not. The imperative model cannot be easily re-run, and it doesn’t include the capability of deleting or updating the system. With this method, users must have enough knowledge to guide the automation platform on what to perform.

IaC tools can operate in both declarative and imperative models, but they mostly prefer to run in a declarative approach. Chef is an imperative tool while Puppet, Pulumi, Terraform, ART, and CloudFormation are declarative tools.

Benefits of IaC

Adopting an IaC solution can guide your company in managing IT infrastructure needs, including improving consistency, manual configuration, and reducing errors. Some of the expected benefits that IAC include

a) Speed

Automated management and provisioning are faster than manual processes. Operating the scripts and teams in IaC can quickly build infrastructure for every environment phase including development, production, testing, and stagging. As a result, application deployments can release even more quickly and safely without waiting for new software.

b) Efficiency

IaC allows developers to increase productivity and efficiency on multiple fronts, especially by integrating with DevOps and software development. Cloud architectures can quickly deploy to make the software development life cycle much more efficient. It also tracks all environment build-up commands in a repository. If users have any issues, they can quickly roll back to their previous instance or redeploy an environment.

c) Reduced risk

Automation reduces the risk of human error, such as manual misconfiguration. Therefore, it may decrease downtime and increase reliability. However, a few IT experts are highly specialized in managing and operating complex infrastructure. Therefore, it is hard to manage or understand how it is set up if they leave the organization.

Adopting Infrastructure as code defines the process of infrastructure management, deployment, detailed reports, and documentation and allows new IT professionals to work without setbacks.

d) Reduced management

Admins need to govern and manage storage, network, compute, and other hardware layers in a data center. While implementing IaC technology admins can eliminate these multiple tasks and solely focus on mission-critical tasks.

e) Cost savings

Automating the infrastructure management process allows IT techs to execute higher value tasks quickly and perform a manual task in less time, which can increase productivity and frees up expensive resources to work on other activities. Most IaC platforms provide a consumption-based pricing model. Therefore, users need to pay for resources that they use actively only.

Conclusion

Infrastructure as code has become a vital practice virtually for every organization to deploy, develop and scale cloud applications with reduced cost, high speed, and low risk. IaC makes it possible for teams to set up complex IT environments that efficiently manage large-scale IT estates. Moreover, IaC helps reduce the misconfigurations of IT environments through automation.

No matter which model of IT infrastructure you manage- whether your resources run in the cloud or a hybrid model, or on-premises. IaC can guide you to improve and scale your approach to IT environment management, and it delivers more productivity in a short period. Adopting IaC is crucial to modernizing your approach to running and building the software.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Infrastructure as Code (IaC) appeared first on SiteProNews.

What is an Example of a Caricature:

Based on the previous samples, caricatures include some overemphasized body parts of a person and use bold lines and colors. These body parts could be significant features that make a person well-known, such as their eyes, nose, lips, and the like.

How Does Caricature Work?

As previously mentioned, caricature works by emphasizing a person’s distinguishable features. Besides, what’s the point of making a caricature of a person if the drawing isn’t recognizable, to begin with?

This is why it’s a must to get the elements of the face right and emphasize significant features to get that caricature effect. To make your caricature successful, you can also capture the personality of the person you’re trying to draw through various props and different styles.

Furthermore, caricatures don’t have to be based on famous personalities. In fact, you can create a caricature of yourself or another person.

How to Draw a Caricature By Hand?

To draw a caricature by hand, you can go traditional using any pencil and paper to make your sketch. You can also draw a caricature through digital art by creating digital caricature through software such as Photoshop.

Disadvantages of Drawing Caricature by Hand

Of course, if you’re not a skilled artist, to begin with, drawing a caricature from scratch will be a difficult task. It will take some practice to polish your drawing skills and get the output you desire, so constant practice is essential if you want to create a caricature that looks like you or the person you’re trying to create a caricature of.

How do AI Caricature Makers work?

AI caricature makers work by using tools and techniques where machines produce caricatures based on how artists typically draw. For instance, a particular system would use hundreds or thousands of caricatures made by professionals to generate a caricature based on a single photo.

So, if you want to enjoy caricatures but can’t make one on your own, it’s highly recommended that you use free caricature maker apps that are available online.

3 Free Caricature Maker APPs for Caricature Lovers:

Of course, suppose you’re not a naturally-skilled artist and still want to enjoy portraits of yourself, family, or friends in various caricature styles. In that case, you can commission an artist that draws caricatures for reasonable prices.

But if you don’t have the money to commission an artist, you can also use free caricature apps available online. Below are some free caricature apps for every caricature lover out there, including steps on how to use them.

1. Caricaturer.io

Overview of Caricaturer.io

Caricaturer.io is a free caricature app that you can use online. You can get more than 60 caricature images generated by the app’s AI technologies by simply uploading an image.

If you’re interested in using this caricature maker, here are the simple steps you can use to turn your photos into caricatures.

How to convert a photo to caricature

Step 1: Start by visiting Caricaturer.io‘s website.

Step 2: Once the website is loaded, upload or drop any photo of your choice on the “Upload an Image” button.

Step 3: Now that you’ve loaded your chosen photo, you can click on the upload button to process various caricatures of your image. All you have to do is wait.

Step 4: Depending on your internet speed and other factors, waiting times for your processed caricatures can vary. So with that in mind, you can create an account in order to receive notifications about your photo, even if you’re not on the website.

Step 5: Finally, when your caricatures are done processing, you can download them with the styles you prefer.

Step 6: If you want to download all the available caricatures produced by this site, you can sign up (if you haven’t done so) for a ZIP download and take the necessary steps to create and verify your account. Once you’ve done that, you can download the ZIP file which will contain all 60+ caricatures of your photo.

Before and After effects:

Caricaturer.io provides you with a ton of cartoon effects, color styles, and backgrounds to choose from. Here’s a sample set of caricatures from the website. Just look at all the fantastic caricatures you can choose from!

2. Photocartoon.net

Overview of Photocartoon

Photocartoon.net is another free caricature maker that lets you turn your images into a cartoon or painting.

How to convert a photo to caricature

Step 1: To begin, go to Photocartoon’s website at Photocartoon.net and upload your chosen photo from your computer or a URL.

Step 2: After uploading your chosen photo, click on the “Cartoonize Online” button to begin your image’s “cartoonizing” process.

Step 3: Photocartoon will now provide you with several cartoon styles to choose from. To choose from different styles, go to the left side of the app to find the box containing the various cartoon styles that you can select for your desired output. You can scroll up or down to browse through several cartoon styles.

Step 4: Additionally, you can also include text in your photo and customize it with various fonts, colors, and sizes by locating the text box at the top-right.

Step 5: If you want to adjust the photo’s brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue, you can go to the bottom-right portion of the site to find the Equalizer section. By default, the settings of each aspect are set to zero.

Step 6: Once you’re satisfied with the result, scroll down to find the download button to save your caricature.

Before and After effects:

Here are some sample photos created by Photocartoon’s app using different styles and adjusted brightness, saturation, contrast, and hue. Look at how the head is oversized from the drawing while still looking like the person in the given photo.

3. Toonme

Overview of Toonme

Toonme is another free caricature maker where you can convert your photo to a caricature online. And just like other previous apps we’ve discussed and used, it also makes use of AI technologies to turn all your photos into caricatures!

Here’s a helpful guide down below on how you can use Toonme to create amazing caricatures of your images.

How to convert a photo to caricature

Step 1: Go to Toonme’s website at toonme.com.

Step 2: Once the site is loaded, simply click on the upload button (the blue circle button with the “+” sign) to upload your photo for cartooning.

Step 3: You will now be directed to Toonme’s photo lab. From here, you can select a variety of cartoon styles based on your preferences.

Step 4: When you’re done choosing your preferred styles, click on the download button to save your created caricature.

Before and After effects:

Voila! Here are the generated caricatures from the Toonme website. Toonme also includes full-body caricature styles for you to try out, where the head is oversized, giving it that caricature effect characterized by such drawings.

Which is The Best Caricature Maker: Caricaturer.io vs. Photocartoon vs. Toonme

Caricaturer.io is Preferred

Caricaturer.io wins due to its wide caricature styles produced for you in just a matter of minutes. Besides, all you have to do is upload your chosen photo and let the AI do its work. After some time, you will have over 60 caricatures to choose from and download the styles to your liking. And if you like them all, you can easily download all in one ZIP file.

One downside of using this caricature maker, however, is its speed. The site says that it only takes half a minute or more to finish the caricature-making process, but from my experience, it takes quite a while. This is most likely due to internet speed which can greatly affect the time needed to create all 60+ caricatures.

In addition, another turn-off about Caricaturer.io is its inability to cancel the current ongoing process. For instance, if you wanted to cancel the process and use another photo for caricatures, closing the website doesn’t work. As previously mentioned, the process continues even after closing the site, so there is no way to cancel once you’ve started it.

Photocartoon is Preferred

Photocartoon is preferred if you want to further customize your caricature by adding text and adjusting its brightness, contrast, and the like. Photocartoon also comes with several options for cartoon styles and other effects, so using it is easy and fun.

The downside to Photocartoon is its big watermark right on top of the photo which can look very disruptive. To download your caricature without a watermark, you have to purchase the full version of Photocartoon Pro.

Buying Photocartoon Pro will give you watermark-free images, allow you to download HD images, and let you produce unlimited caricatures. Photocartoon Pro, however, can only be used with the Windows operating system, so non-Windows users cannot enjoy the pro version’s software perks.

Toonme is Preferred

Toonme is the caricature maker for you if you want several styles to choose from and to download a photo with a less disruptive watermark. Toonme is also easy to use and doesn’t require prior editing knowledge to generate a caricature of a photo or two.

Besides its website, Toonme also comes in a free mobile app, so you can use it on your mobile devices. So whether you’re an iOS user or on Android, this app is easily accessible by anyone who owns a device and has Wi-Fi.

Toonme’s stumbling block compared to apps such as Photocartoon is its limited customization options on the website, unlike its downloadable application. Still, the app is free, so you can freely download and use the app and its features as much as you want.

Wrapping Up

Overall, drawing a caricature on your own requires a bit of skill and mastery before you can successfully create one for display, but thanks to free caricature maker apps such as the three above, you can access amazing caricatures free of charge.

It’s amazing how far AI technology has come in our generation. Thanks to its capabilities, you can produce cartoonized versions of yourself. So, if you want to create a caricature of yourself or someone else, you can use the above caricature makers and produce your desired caricature in a few easy steps.

The post Which is a Better Caricature Maker: Caricaturer vs. PhotoCartoon vs. Toonme appeared first on SiteProNews.

What is CRM in Banking?

Financial service providers cannot risk falling behind in the competitive landscape, considering that even a slightest margin can make a huge difference, whether it is for time, action, or money.  Only proactive insight can help companies meet the expectations of modern consumers and at the same time, build a profitable business. But how can they achieve this goal if they cannot visualize the end-to-end customer journey?

Banking CRM provides full visibility into customer account management, allowing financial services companies to track and monitor the sales and marketing funnel to understand how customers respond to business interactions. An analysis can help financial services companies know their customers better and make evidence-based decisions on the basis of real-time data. 

A powerful banking CRM can help sales leaders address a wide range of customer management challenges in finance, varying from building the ideal customer profile to analyzing a team’s performance and providing support in driving productivity and training and development measures. Here are the top 5 benefits of banking CRM:

• Customer journey visualization: Allow users to visualize the entire lead to conversion journey. 
• Track and monitor customer communication: As customer communication at all touchpoints is recorded properly, users can track and monitor those as and when needed for reference purposes. 
• Marketing and sales integrations: Most CRM enables marketing and sales integrations to help users know which campaign generates what type of lead thus removing guesswork from the marketing. 
• Outstanding customer service delivery:  CRM records all the data about customers, such as their birthdays or dates such as when they become the client of the company. Using this data, companies can create personalized campaigns to create more effective engagement.  

However, buying banking CRM software requires thoughtful consideration, because, while each solution provider claims to have power-packed solutions to transform customer relationship management, not every solution is a fit for your business. A key aspect here is that every business is unique and has a unique set of requirements. 

Leadership teams must evaluate the CRM application for financial services on a range of criteria to come up with the best suited application for their business, although some key features are mandatory for any customer relationship management tool.     

Top Banking CRM Features for Effective Customer Management  

With rising customer expectations and new technologies in sales and service management, banking CRM is no longer an option. While financial services leaders are driven to use the most advanced technologies to boost their business, buying the best CRM for the business requires a lot more than technology. 

Deep diving into business requirements and aligning them with software solutions is critical for a successful CRM purchase. Here are some of the top features you must have in your CRM. 

1. Consolidated data in one place

Having contact details in one place allows teams across departments to view, manage, and utilize the data effectively for their respective purposes. Not only does it provide full visibility into historical data of the contact from the entry into the sales funnel to conversion and payment, it allows the team to track leads engaged at every stage of the funnel, which is helpful in analyzing roadblocks and supportive pillars in conversion. 

2. Channel integrations

Invest in a software application that allows you to integrate multiple sources of your lead generation process. You should see which channel is generating the most leads, which channel generates the most revenue, and which channel needs significant effort to generate leads. For instance, it is possible that while your SEO is generating most leads, the most revenue generating channel is social media marketing. You could ramp up your efforts to optimize your SEO for better leads while focusing on social channels to generate more revenue.  

3. Data analytics and reporting 

No banking CRM software is complete without data analytics capabilities. Data powered tools backed by AI and machine learning technologies allow users to navigate every customer touchpoint and get proactive insight into customer activity. 

Data analytics and reporting capabilities empower your team to review every aspect of business performance, from sales revenue to time and money spent on lead generation. You can track which territory is the best for your business. Based on the insight you can allocate more resources to that specific territory. Also, you can set and define performance metrics for your sales team, and evaluate the performance of individual members on those KPIs.    

The Bottom-Line 

Banking CRM tools make customer management easy and fruitful. You can personalize your customer journey and build strong relationships with them based on insight generated from the CRM tool.

The post Banking CRM: Top Features for Effective Customer Management appeared first on SiteProNews.

Some benefits of using MVP to test market viability are feedback generation from early adapters, faster development and increased chances of securing generous investment. Before establishing a successful business, several big names in the world also started their journey with MVP development.

Some of the Companies that Started with an MVP Are:

Amazon

One of the world’s leading eCommerce companies and also a household name, Amazon started its business operations back in the year 1994. Its owner Jeff Bezos launched the company to sell books, and it only had 5 products to sell. Later Bezos looked for some other categories and collected consumer feedback. Gradually, Amazon started selling various types of products including furniture, food, toys, electronics, etc. and gained worldwide success. 

Twitter

Twitter started in 2006 as an idea of a platform that allowed people to send messages to a group. It was capitalized by its four board members, who launched it first for intra-business communication and then made it public in July 2006. A year later, Twitter was recording 60,000 tweets a day and had already become a successful social media platform. Currently, Twitter is available in over 200 countries and records 500 million daily tweets on an average. 

Groupon

Similar to Twitter, Groupon was executed on an intra-business structure. Before jumping on to the final product, Groupon’s founder Andrew Mason released another software named ‘The Point’ that sent coupons to around a 1000 employees. Mason received feedback on the software for 10 months. After catching up with the exact user demands, Mason launched Groupon in 2010 and made it one of the world’s leading daily deals platforms. Not to mention, it only took Andew Mason a month to turn ‘The Point’, his MVP, into the final product ‘Groupon’. 

AirBnb

Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were two friends who were having some budget problems to pay the rent of their apartment. However, they had some free space and some mattresses to offer. They tested out their idea at a tech conference and offered people resting space at $80 per night. At this point, their MVP had no website or a full-fledged team of customer support. Later on, they tested on sellers if they’d be willing to let strangers stay in their houses in exchange for some payment.

Facebook

Before being a global hype in the 2000s, Facebook was launched as ‘TheFacebook’. Meant to connect college students with each other, Facebook simplified the approach to socialize and disrupted the way popular social media sites of that time worked. With time, it became a social media giant that also connected family, friends, businesspeople and even strangers with each other.

How to Modify your MVP?

MVP takes the form of iterative development. However, there are also three simple concepts that you can remember. These are MUP (Minimum Usable Product), MMP (Minimum Marketable Product) and MLP (Minimum Lovable Product).

MUP:This product has all minimum features to make the product usable for the targeted consumers. 

MMP:This product has all the features and defined USPs to make the product fit for marketing

MLP:This product focuses on those minimum requirements that are necessary to make the product lovable. 

How to Find a Reliable Agency for MVP Development?

Entrepreneurs cannot develop an MVP on their own. They are required to hire a mvp software development company. Excluding the time and budget constraints, there are some suggested measures that you can take to find a reliable MVP development firm:

1. View the Case Studies: Case studies stay true to the capabilities of a firm. They are a direct indicator of the skill set of a company.

2. Critic Reviews:Truspilot, Clutch, G2 and UpCity are reliable critic websites who constantly review software development companies to save the trouble for entrepreneurs like you. 

3. Talk to Sales:Discuss your idea with the company before selection. They can guide you about all the complications while allowing you to evaluate their expertise in real time.  

4. Consider Multiple Options:Consult multiple companies before selecting your MVP development firm.

5. Ask for Demo:Some companies provide demos of their products and services. In the end, it is the demos that leave a major impact on a business prospect and help you make an informed decision. 

6. Technical Support: Technical support can be as costly as the development itself. You want to hire the company with the most favorable technical support policies. 

Conclusion

Although the main purpose of an MVP is to validate a market idea, it may fail to do so. However, you can still capitalize by collecting consumer feedback and continuously improving your product like the aforementioned companies did. In the end, they were able to gain success due to validated ideas, iterative improvement and consistency in their approach.

The post Businesses That Made It Big With an Mvp and How You Can Get Started appeared first on SiteProNews.

But, wait, my laptop has many batteries? In a nutshell, YES. But, the primary laptop battery powers all parts from the CPU to the hard drive and is one of your laptop’s most significant and heaviest elements. On the other hand, a CMOS battery supplies power to just the BIOS and is generally coin-sized and located on the motherboard. So, you may have guessed by now how important it is.

What Is A CMOS Battery? Overview and Definition

A computer, be it a desktop or a laptop, has a Motherboard on which the BIOS configurations are installed in a little amount of storage called CMOS. BIOS settings include hardware settings, system time, and date. When the device is turned off, the BIOS protects the data. In addition, the system clock restarts if the CMOS loses power.

A northbridge motherboard connects the CPU to the faster components of a PC, while a southbridge motherboard connects the CPU to the slower parts. But, the CMOS battery feeds the BIOS firmware in your laptop, which is responsible for starting it up and setting data flow. So, if your computer has trouble booting up, or your drivers disappear, or the date and time on your laptop are inaccurate, it means your CMOS battery is expired.

How to Know if your CMOS Battery is not Working?

Even though CMOS is a tiny battery, it performs admirably as a backup battery. It is necessary to protect data from being disrupted. There are many instances when your PC will indicate to you that your CMOS battery has failed. The instances are;

Boot Up Problems

BIOS is primarily accountable for powering up your computer. Therefore, your laptop may have 

a tough time starting up without the battery, or it may not start up at all. You could also hear a persistent beep sound coming from the motherboard, another sign of a dead battery.

Incorrect Time and Date

BIOS has a real-time clock that records the time and date even though your machine is turned down. The method is maintained by CMOS. So if the date and time have suddenly changed, it’s a solid indication that the CMOS battery has failed.

Keyboard Becomes Less Responsive

It’s conceivable that your keys aren’t working; for example, you can’t move your mouse or click on any icons, or the laptop isn’t reading your keyboard inputs. Alternatively, your peripherals might be thrown out of sync, your cursor is imprecise, and your key inputs cause weird operating system reactions.

Disappearing drivers

It may happen if your CMOS battery has died that the drivers you installed are disappearing on their own. For example, we sometimes install drivers for our home printers, and if you see them disappearing all of a sudden, it may be because of a CMOS failure. 

No Internet Connectivity

You might be unable to connect to the internet if your CMOS battery dies. BIOS is in charge of keeping hardware and network drivers up to date. As soon as you replace the battery, you’ll have access to all of your photos, movies, and documents.

What are the Best CMOS Batteries?

A new CMOS battery may be purchased online at a meager price, generally between $1 and $10. In addition, many local businesses, including Target, Fry’s Electronics, Best Buy, and office supply stores, sell these along with ESD pads. Let’s take a look at a few CMOS battery options. 

1. Duracell Specialty 2032 Lithium Coin 

Key Fobs, tiny remotes, scales, wearables, sensors, and medical equipment- everything is compatible with this CMOS battery. The package is tamper-proof, with a double blister to prevent unintentional opening. It comes in various size options such as 1220, 1620, 1632, 2016, etc. It costs $6.42. 

2. GP Battery Lithium Button Cell

This CMOS battery is a crucial source of power for a variety of gadgets. They’re tiny in size but quite firm in performance, and there’s no mercury added to them. This battery comes in a set of 5 batteries with a unit count of 5 and a voltage of 3 volts. It costs $4.67. 

3. Panasonic CR2032 Lithium

These tiny batteries are of supreme quality because they are manufactured by Panasonic itself. It comes in a set of 6, and it is compatible with toys. With the lithium 3-volt battery and 4 unit counts, this is a pretty safe option for any device. It costs $5.27. 

4. New For DELL 8.5cm CR2032

This CMOS battery is compatible with laptops like Toshiba, Lenovo, HP, Asus, Sony, Dell, Acer, etc. Some customers have complained about the wrong arrangement of the black and red wire of this battery. But, other than that, it is a pretty good deal for only $3.64. 

5. Energizer 2032 Lithium 

There are two energizer 2032 lithium coin batteries available in this set. With 10 years of shelf life, this CMOS battery is a good deal for just $4.06. The battery cell is composed of lithium manganese dioxide, so you can guess how good its quality is.

6. LiCB CR2032 3V Lithium 

It costs $8.11. Strict Quality Control Standards are used to test it. Longer battery life and power are ensured using Grade A CR2032 batteries. It is compatible with motherboards, watches, calculators, toys, MP3 players, games, digital voice recorders, medical devices, etc. 

7. VARTA Batteries CR2032 Lithium

This CMOS battery is of premium quality and has a long shelf life, even for everyday use. The power source is quite reliable, and it has a warranty of 10 years. From toys to remote controls, from car keys to electronic clocks- it is compatible with everything. Moreover, it costs only $2.70.

8. COMPAQ CQ56 CQ62 Battery

This CMOS battery comes with a cable and a connector packaged in a secured manner. It comes in a set of 1 battery. It is pretty lightweight for 3 volts of voltage. As Compaq manufactured it initially, it is trustworthy in the market. It costs $4.45.

9. Duracell 2032 Twin

From wearables to scales and from medical devices to sensors-this battery is compatible with all. In addition, the power preserve technology guarantees a 10 year warranty period for this CMOS battery. It also comes with tamper-proof packaging and costs $5.68. 

10. Panasonic CR2032 3 V Button

It comes in a set of 20 batteries, and it is the most expensive CMOS battery on our list. It costs $11.23. Since it is composed of lithium manganese dioxide, the quality is guaranteed. With Panasonic as its original manufacturer, the battery has a good reputation in the market.

Signing Off

There is a separate CMOS battery linked to the motherboard in laptops and desktops by two cables. When a device’s passcode is set, the CMOS battery keeps track of it. So, you may have understood by now why a CMOS battery is so important. You can buy any of these CMOS batteries that we have mentioned here online at a lower price. 

The post The 10 Best CMOS Batteries that You Must Know About appeared first on SiteProNews.

Expert guidance at every step

To make sure everyone understands the value of change, and is comfortable with it, I like to bring in many people outside of the sales team at different points during the cycle. These include our internal subject matter experts and company leaders who can speak directly to their peers in the prospect organization.

Early on in the sales process I usually bring in someone from our operations or solutions consulting team to help us dig deeply into the prospect’s current vendor payment setup. It helps to learn where the prospect is at, where they’d like to end up, and how our solution can take them there. 

As people start to think about how their process is going to change, I bring in people from implementation, supplier enablement and/or operations. This helps to better explain what the impact will be to their suppliers, and what implementation will look like for their users. Later in the process, I bring in customer success and tech support people to talk about what they can expect after they go live. 

Last year a government subcontractor client of ours was very concerned about risk and about information security. I brought in the head of our information security team to talk to their Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). They spoke each other’s language and our credibility skyrocketed.

The idea behind my process is to provide different perspectives, and to let people talk with others who have insights into their work. Similarly, to many salespeople in this kind of collaborative selling scenario, I act as master of ceremonies, bringing together the right people and putting together the right agenda for each prospect. 

Frequent flyer miles

Before we moved to a more digital sales process, we were racking up those frequent flyer miles. Sometimes we’d fly to a far-away town for one meeting. We might end up spending several days somewhere between travel and meetings, keeping us from other work and costing the company money. We might also do it the other way around, flying prospects to our HQ. Taking up three days of their time, multiplied by however many people they’re bringing out.

We also used to spend a lot of time, effort, and money going to trade shows. We’d ship in booths and equipment and team members to man these booths to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. After a year and a half of remote selling that looks really inefficient, even a bit antiquated.

The only digital part of our sales process was bringing in executives or subject matter experts remotely.

Effective but not efficient

Last year, when I was succeeding at sales without ever leaving the house, I had a lightbulb moment: Do clients even want to have face-to-face meetings?

According to research by McKinsey, more than three quarters of buyers say they now prefer digital self-serve and remote human engagement over face-to-face interactions, even in industries where field sales have long been the norm.

Don’t get me wrong–there’s value in meeting folks face to face, depending on the situation. In-person meetings are especially important for big deals where you need to establish a high comfort level. However, face-to-face sales meetings are a very time consuming, expensive way to sell, not to mention that some of the people you want to have there are going to have to dial in remotely anyhow.

Challenging Sales

Many of us who are in sales practice are at least familiar with The Challenger Sale. In a nutshell, it’s about understanding the customer’s problems, challenging the current way of thinking, and articulating things that they haven’t even thought about. Maybe it’s time to apply those principles to ourselves. We’re selling change to the enterprise, but how much have we changed our own processes in the past decade? 

For example, look at how cars are being sold now. In the old days you’d have to go to the car lot, kick the tires, fill out paperwork, and sit for hours while the salesperson went to the back room and talked to their managers. I bought a lot of cars that way and every time it was an awful experience. Now you can pick out a car online and have it delivered to your home for a test drive. This process update had my gears turning (pun intended).

Better remote selling

It’s time to double down on remote sales and improve our processes. We’ve reached a point where we can sell pretty effectively using videoconferencing technology, but we can do even better. We can work with marketing to help us brand our online presentation materials and backdrops and level up our sound and lighting. We can use time not spent traveling to organize, polish, and practice our presentations and make them better.

Scheduling is the hardest part of team selling, since there can be as many as 10 or 15 people that need to be on the call, but that was hard with in-person selling too. We can use calendar software to help, or hire someone that’s dedicated to helping set up these meetings for the whole sales team. We can make better use of expert and executive time by establishing regular office hours where multiple sales people can bring their prospects to ask questions. We can do more frequent live demos and take questions from the audience. I’ve got a lot of ideas about how to improve remote sales. They’re all absolutely attainable, especially with the time we get back by skipping travel.

A team sport

Enterprise sales is a team sport. People buy from you first. Then they buy from your company and your product, more or less in that order. Personal relationships are primary, regardless of whether you’re remote or in-person.

I believe that there’s more of an opportunity to make these kinds of connections, and build confidence and trust, remotely. Partially because we already are succeeding at this, and because remote sales are less of an ask on the prospects’ time.

Virtual sales are efficient for sales people too. We can service more customers faster, which helps us accelerate the transition to automated vendor payments, or whatever kind of change for the better, that we’re selling.

The post No More Business As Usual When You Double Down on Remote Sales appeared first on SiteProNews.

The Benefits of Contract Management Software for Legal Teams

Digitizing Your Legal Contract Management Process

Today’s fast-paced world requires law firms to have an effective contract management process in place to satisfy their clients’ needs. However, traditional management methods are outdated and inefficient, meaning firms that use them will fall behind their competitors. The digital approach to legal contract lifecycle management is far more efficient, making it a worthy investment for your company. 

What is legal contract lifecycle management? 

Effective contract management is essential for law firms because it allows them to rapidly and accurately create or revise various agreements and avoid liability. The elements of proactive management include proper creation, negotiation, adherence, oversight, and documentation. In the modern world, proper management is essential for satisfying clients, as it is nearly impossible for legal times to form successful agreements without it. 

The stages of legal contract lifecycle management

If you want to manage your contracts efficiently, you must understand the different legal contract lifecycle management stages. You must carefully manage each phase to ensure that the arrangement is completed successfully and compliant with regulations. 

Some of the most critical phases of a contract lifecycle include:

• Creation
• Review
• Approval
• Execution
• Performance
• Expiration

It is difficult for legal teams to keep track of each phase of the contract lifecycle manually. This is especially true for firms that handle a large load of agreements daily. However, almost every law office can significantly benefit from digital administrative tools as they streamline each phase of the agreement process, saving your company time and resources. 

Traditional vs. digital legal contract lifecycle management

Law firms have two options for contract management, the traditional approach, and the automated approach. Traditionally managing agreements relies on manual processes, physical files, and email to manage vital documents. On the other hand, contract automation allows you to use technology-based tools to streamline your contract lifecycles. Features such as cloud service, templates, and eSignatures give teams that utilize management software a competitive edge over other law firms.

The advantages of using contract management software for legal documents

Today, most clients expect law firms to manage each stage of the agreement lifecycle using contract management software for legal documents. The reason being that the digital platform enables them to draft templates, review terms, and deliver their obligations more efficiently than a firm that relies on traditional management. 

Here are some of the benefits of using contract management software for legal agreements compared to traditional management:

1. Organize all your documents in a secure repository

Using a legal contract lifecycle management program means that you can store all of your documents on a centralized cloud service. This will make them more accessible and also reduce the chances of losing any critical documents or information. When you have a single repository, multiple attorneys and departments can securely access any information they need when working on a case at the push of a button. 

2. Monitor contract approval time

Many clients want contracts approved as quickly as possible, which is challenging to do when you rely on manual management practices. Using a legal management platform allows you to keep contract approval time down and, as a result, keep your clients satisfied with their experience. Additionally, locking down an agreement early ensures that you won’t waste time going back and forth over changes and waiting for approval.

3. Utilize updated contract templates

Using contract templates is one of the best ways to reduce your agreement lifecycles and liability. For instance, legal contract lifecycle management software lets you create one template that you can amend to fit different clients’ needs instead of editing various documents. However, for templates to remain compliant and practical, they should be updated every three to four months. Without smart management, you rely on memory to draft contracts, leaving room for loopholes and liabilities. 

4. Include compliance management in your administrative tasks

Integrating compliance checks into your contract life cycle effectively ensures you aren’t vulnerable to any legal issues. Compliance requirements should be looked over thoroughly, which is difficult for firms that use traditional management techniques. Legal contract management tools help you identify any compliance issues and quickly make necessary adjustments to your document. 

5. Create a standardized contract negotiation process

A standardized negotiation process lets non-legal professionals such as accountants and paralegals specify contract conditions with your clients. Rather than wasting an attorney’s time with non-essential tasks, you can give non-lawyers a negotiation blueprint, allowing your firm to work more efficiently. When the negotiation process is kept short using automation solutions, you can push agreements forward without wasting time and money.

6. Route request to the correct party

When you utilize a new document management platform, you must forward contractual requests to the right person. This is a strenuous process with manual management as you may not know which department handles certain documents. A legal contract lifecycle management solution will automatically send requests to the correct individual. This ensures that your attorneys only deal with the information they need rather than sending documents around to other departments.

7. Utilize eSignatures

The digital approach of legal document management allows you to use eSignatures to sign contracts. Electronic signatures are as legally binding as pen and paper signatures. But, the benefit of them is that you can sign documents right on your automation platform. Integrating digital signatures into your practice ensures that contracts are signed off on efficiently to streamline your administration process further.

Automation is the future of contract management for legal departments

Streamlined contract management for legal departments is critical for delivering compliant contracts efficiently. Digital contract management allows you to manage your agreements from a top-down perspective, letting you see the big picture while focusing on what matters to your client base. This approach to management isn’t possible when you rely on traditional pen and paper techniques, opening your firm up to financial and legal liability. Therefore, if you want your law firm to remain competitive, you must invest in legal contract lifecycle management software.

The post Legal Contract Lifecycle Management: Traditional vs. Digital Approaches appeared first on SiteProNews.

Cryptocurrency is more than simply a different investing choice; it reflects a whole other universe than traditional equities and bonds. Even for experienced traditional investors, understanding the basics takes time due to unfamiliar jargon, developing technology, and keeping up with memes and tweets.

Before investing in cryptocurrency, we advise building an emergency fund, paying off high-interest loans, and establishing a standard retirement savings plan. And, as previously said, you should only invest what you are ready to lose in cryptocurrency, with experts recommending that you allocate no more than 5% of your portfolio to these digital assets.

Another item you should include on your checklist is at least a basic grasp of what you’re getting into, such as how crypto differs from conventional investing methods and the many factors that can impact the market value.

 Before you begin, like with any investment, it is critical to understand exactly what global asset you are investing in. This is especially true for a speculative — and continuously evolving — asset like cryptocurrency. 

It is much easier to do this if you are familiar with the words often used in this world. Whether you want to acquire cryptocurrencies now or later, knowing the terminology is a smart place to start. To make sure you aren’t be left out in the cold, here’s a beginners guide to getting started with cryptocurrencies.

Crypto Terms

Here are some term and jargon definitions to assist newcomers in grasping the world of cryptocurrency investment.

Mining

This phrase can be a little perplexing at times. Mining is the process of creating and distributing new crypto coins. Solving complicated mathematical problems necessitates the use of powerful computers. Users who complete this task get coins as a consequence. They may then trade the coins directly with their peers or through internet exchanges.

Of course, most traders do not mine or create new coins. Instead, much like any other asset in your financial portfolio, you may purchase and sell tokens from other individuals.

Whale

Whale accounts are those that possess a huge amount of a coin and have the ability to affect the market on their own. Most well-known and popular cryptocurrencies have a slew of whales that can truly throw their “weight” around.

Indeed, there are prominent websites that follow the activities of whales to increase transparency in the bitcoin market.

Many whale accounts are early investors or huge money, and following what they’re doing is a good method to predict how the cryptocurrency market will move.

Blockchain

The bitcoin transaction relies heavily on a peer-to-peer network. Blockchain is a digital database that records each bitcoin transaction. There is no risk of a hacker gaining access and corrupting the information kept on the blockchain because there is no central database, and everyone may view the blockchain facts from anywhere.

Gas

Gas is the charge of completing a bitcoin transaction. The fee covers the expense of paying a “miner” (the person who solved the equation and earned a coin) to search for and receive cryptocurrency on your behalf. Its size is determined by how soon you want the transaction to be completed.

Address

This is the precise location to which bitcoin is transferred. It functions similarly to a bank account but solely contains cryptocurrency. For maximum security, each address, which consists of a string of alphanumeric characters, is used only once to store crypto assets. 

This address also assists a receiver in proving ownership of the bitcoin that has been delivered to them.

Fiat

This phrase is most commonly used to contrast cryptocurrencies with normal currency (fiat), which is backed and issued by the government. It provides central banks with greater influence over the economy. Currencies, such as the US dollar and the Indian rupee, are examples of fiat money.

Altcoin

This is basically any other coin that isn’t Bitcoin. Altcoins can range from the second-most popular coin, Ethereum, to any of the hundreds of coins with extremely little market value. According to experts, you should primarily invest in the larger, more popular cryptocurrencies.

Block

These are the data sets within a blockchain. Blocks on cryptocurrency blockchains are made up of transaction records created when users buy or sell currencies. Each block can only store a certain amount of data. When it hits that limit, a new block is created to continue the chain.

Crypto Wallet

A wallet is where you keep all of your bitcoin currencies. It is encrypted, and if you forget your password, you will lose access to your wallet. Because cryptocurrency is founded on the concept of decentralized distribution, the only way to do so is to hold individuals accountable for their passwords.

Wallets are classified into two types: cold and hot. While a hot wallet is stored online and facilitates online trading, a cold wallet is similar to an offline safe to keep your valuables secure.

Hot Wallet

A bitcoin wallet that is software-based and connected to the Internet. While digital wallets are more convenient for immediately accessing your crypto, they are more vulnerable to hacking and cybersecurity threats than offline wallets, just as data stored on the cloud may be more readily accessed than those kept in a safe at home.

Cold Wallet

This is a safe way to keep your Bitcoin offline. Many cold wallets (also known as hardware wallets) are physical devices that resemble USB drives. This type of wallet can help secure your cryptocurrency from hackers and theft, but it also has its hazards, such as losing it along with your cryptocurrency.

Decentralization

The distribution of power away from a central location. Blockchains have typically been decentralized since they require the majority permission of all users to function and make changes rather than a centralized authority.

Decentralized Applications

These are the developer-created applications installed on a blockchain to carry out operations without the use of mediators. Decentralized finance operations are frequently carried out with the help of decentralized applications. Ethereum is the primary network that supports decentralized finance activity.

Fork

When its users change the rules of a blockchain, changes to a blockchain’s protocol frequently result in two new paths: one that follows the existing regulations and another that branches off from the prior one. (For instance, a Bitcoin fork resulted in Bitcoin Cash.)

HODL

Though the word began in 2013 as a user mistake on a Bitcoin forum, it now stands for “Hold On for Dear Life.” It refers to a passive investing technique in which investors acquire and hold cryptocurrencies rather than trade them to expect their value to rise.

Market Capitalization

In the context of cryptocurrencies, the market cap refers to the total value of all coins produced. The market cap of a cryptocurrency may be calculated by multiplying the current number of coins by the current value of the coins.

NFTs

NFTs or Non-fungible tokens are value units used to represent ownership of one-of-a-kind digital objects such as art or collectables. NFTs are often stored on the Ethereum blockchain.

Public Key

This is the address of your wallet, which is comparable to your bank account number. You may provide people or institutions with your public wallet key so they can send you money or withdraw money from your account when you approve it.

Private Key

The encryption code that allows you to access your cryptocurrency directly. Your private key, like your bank account password, should never be shared.

Smart Contract

A computational software that automatically enacts the conditions of a contract based on its code. The capacity of the Ethereum network to execute smart contracts is one of its primary value propositions.

Token

A value system on a blockchain generally has a value proposition other than merely a value transfer (like a coin).

Final Words

Those considering investing in cryptocurrencies should understand that acknowledging industry terms can be advantageous. Would-be traders can enhance their chances of reaching their investing objectives by conducting the appropriate study and understanding this knowledge. 

Interested in learning more about cryptocurrency? You can visit AskCrypto, a cryptocurrency forum where you can get more info about all the callouts, crypto trading, daily updates for the crypto market, and much more.

The post Cryptocurrency Jargon appeared first on SiteProNews.

The greatest media player will provide you with a major streaming experience. Moreover, people are willing to watch live online streaming videos because internet speed improves day by day.

There are so many options nowadays that choosing one might be confusing as well as stressful. Check here for the best tips and tricks in the tech world. We have an enormous list of articles, posts, how-to guides, and tutorials for all things related to tech. AMTricks will be the best tech site you’ll come across.

For your convenience, we’ve compiled a list of the top 5 media players from which to choose.

Our Top 5 Best Media Players Are As Follows

1. VLC Media Player
2. 5K Player
3. KM Player
4. PotPlayer
5. DivX Player

1. VLC Media Player

VLC is a free media player, and we all like free. It’s a free, open-source multimedia player that can play practically anything and almost all types of video file formats. Without a doubt, the greatest media player is VLC Media Player, which is at the top of this list for a reason: you can use it for years. In addition, you can use the VLC media player on various systems, including Android, Linux, Unix, iOS, and macOS, thanks to its cross-platform availability.

VLC Media Player also provides superb features for fine-tuning video and music playing. It can play formats that haven’t been mentioned in years. It is lightning-fast and does it all without malware, advertisements, or anything else.

2. 5K Player

The 5KPlayer has a very clean and straightforward user interface. It’s also noted for having a wider range of streaming alternatives. As the name suggests, 5K Player is a top-rated video player for Windows 10 because it is incredibly compatible with numerous video codecs and formats. Moreover, you can also import films and music from websites like Vimeo, Facebook, MTV, and YouTube using 5KPlayer.

While it lacks the capabilities of VLC, it can play most audio/video files without the need for extra plugins. It also supports DLNA and AirPlay wireless streaming for simple media streaming. 5KPlayer is especially fun because the primary player UI includes convenient options for rotating the screen, recording videos, and taking photos.

3. KM Player

KMPlayer is noted for its extensive format compatibility and is another great and free Windows 10 media player, playing almost all popular video and music formats. Users have a wide range of audio and video effects to choose from, ensuring that no functionality or support is lacking.

In addition, it has 3D, 4K, and UHD capabilities and a 64-bit version that can play films at up to 8K 60 frames per second on PCs with sufficient hardware. To improve compatibility, you can use external codecs. You can also make favorite parts of videos repeat, remap the keys for the remote interface, and so on. Inside KMPlayer, you can also edit video subtitles.

Moreover, KMPlayer is unique in that it allows you to make GIFs from videos. To open the GIF creation interface, press Ctrl+G on your keyboard. KMPlayer can also be used to download YouTube videos.

4. PotPlayer

PotPlayer is a South Korean media player app. PotPlayer would undoubtedly take VLC’s place as the king of the free media players if VLC didn’t have such a strong brand name. You should, however, be aware that PotPlayer is free yet proprietary software, meaning it is not open source. For Windows 10, it’s a fantastic free media player.

PotPlayer and VLC have a lot in common, including that they both function as simple all-in-one media players for users looking for ease of use. PotPlayer, however, unlike VLC, never fails when dealing with huge files or cutting-edge video formats.

PotPlayer also allows you to change options and customize them to your taste. It has more options than VLC and includes advanced features such as scene previews, bookmarks, clip recording, and more. It also uses fewer resources than VLC, which is crucial.

5. DivX Player

DivX is an excellent streaming media player that enables you to stream video, music, and photographs to any device that supports DLNA. Advanced features include Trick Play, which allows you to navigate to your favorite sequences quickly. It bills itself as the first media player of its sort to enable free HEVC playback.

Moreover, this media player also supports UltraHD (4K) playback, making it a versatile and valuable tool and, of course, specializes in playing video files in the most popular formats, including DivX, MP4, AVI, and MKV.

Lastly, because various audio formats are supported, you can easily swap between different soundtracks. Its intelligent media library keeps track of both private and paid video content.

Conclusion

With that, we’ve come to the end of this article. We know that there are many media players out there, so picking the right one for your system isn’t easy, but we’ve put together a list of the top five media players you should use.

Furthermore, you can now stop looking and rely on the selections listed above.

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Statista aggregated 55 separate research reports from the Statista Global Consumer Survey to find the nations where Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are most popular, providing some of the most comprehensive statistics on the issue. The findings demonstrate a clear pattern. Africans, Asians, and South Americans are far more likely than Europeans, North Americans, and Australians to own or utilize bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Cardano, TPR Coins, etc.  

Introducing the King of Crypto Leaderboard

The king of cryptocurrencies is Africa’s greatest economy. In Nigeria, nearly one-third of respondents — 32 percent — said they had used or owned any form of cryptocurrency in 2020. In comparison, only 6% of Americans said the same thing.

Nigeria’s particular culture and circumstances, as per Bitcoin.com, are propelling the movement. Poverty, which affects 87 million of Nigeria’s 200 million people, is a significant factor, and crypto transactions are inexpensive. Another explanation for the development is that Nigerians are far more likely to use their phones to make payments and send money. Finally, in Nigeria, double-digit inflation is the norm rather than the exception, and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which are limited in number, act as a hedge against inflation.

Almost a third of Nigerians agreed that this was true of them. According to Bitcoin.com, the hefty expense of transporting money across borders in the traditional manner has prompted many people to turn to local bitcoin exchanges that cater to overseas workers and their families. Businesses in Nigeria have recently begun to include crypto plugins in their phone payment options, providing yet another method for Nigerians to use bitcoin in their daily lives.

Case Study

Abolaji Odunjo, a tiny businessman selling mobile phones in a bustling Lagos street market, made a significant improvement to his business by beginning to pay his suppliers with bitcoin.

Odunjo gets his phones and accessories from China and the UAE. For speed and convenience, he added, his Chinese vendors requested payment in cryptocurrency.

He has increased his profits as a result of the change, as he no longer has to buy dollars in Nigerian naira or pay money-transfer costs. It’s also an illustration of how bitcoin, the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency, is finding practical applications in Africa that it hasn’t found elsewhere.

As per statistics given by roughly 20 bitcoin users and five cryptocurrency exchanges, Odunjo is one of many persons at the core of a stealthy bitcoin explosion in Africa.

According to data from U.S. blockchain research firm Chainalysis, monthly cryptocurrency transfers to and from Africa of less than $10,000, which are often conducted by individuals and small enterprises, increased by more than 55 percent in a year.

The number of monthly transfers increased by about half, to 600,700, according to Chainalysis, which claims the study is the most comprehensive ever to map out global crypto use. Nigeria, the continent’s largest economy, as well as South Africa and Kenya, saw a lot of action.

This is a significant shift for bitcoin, which, despite its origins as a payment instrument over a decade ago, has primarily been utilized for financial speculators’ speculation rather than commerce.

Why is Africa seeing such a boom?

Some factors are working behind this boom. Young, tech-savvy people; difficulties buying USD from local currencies; and the complicated and costly money transfer process.

Bitcoin users in five nations, ranging from Nigeria to Botswana, said that cryptocurrency was assisting them in becoming more flexible and profitable in their enterprises, as well as allowing those working in Europe and North America to keep more of the money they send home.

However, dangers abound

Many nations do not regulate bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and their legal status is unknown, so there is no safety net and limited redress if you lose money.

Many people rely on unofficial brokers to change their native currency to and from bitcoin. Prices fluctuate, and buying and selling is a technological procedure that necessitates technical understanding.

In June, minor bitcoin transfers in Nigeria totaled about $56 million, up nearly 50% from the previous year. The number of transactions increased by more than 55% to 120,000.

However, determining how cryptocurrencies are used in specific places is difficult. Digital coins provide a high level of anonymity, and while the value of transactions may be monitored on the blockchain, a user’s identity or location cannot.

Chainalysis, which tracks crypto movements for financial institutions and law enforcement in the United States, collected the information by analyzing web traffic and trade trends, despite the fact that virtual private networks can disguise locations. It distinguished between transactions of less than $10,000 and higher quantities commonly used by professional dealers.

Nigeria’s oil-dependent economy has been battered by low petroleum prices and COVID-19, prompting the central bank to weaken the naira twice this year. As a result, Odunjo and other importers are having to spend more to buy dollars that are becoming increasingly scarce.

Rise of Bitcoin in Nigeria

Because of the naira’s depreciation, many Nigerians are turning to bitcoin as a way to buy items from other countries without having to acquire dollars.

Yellow Card, which has offices in five countries, projected a five-fold rise in monthly crypto volumes in 2020, from $5 million in August to $25 million in August. According to the research, workers utilizing bitcoin for remittances was a key issue.

Bitcoin fees vary based on the exchange or broker, but for shipping 100 pounds, they would normally be around 2%-2.5 percent.

Conclusion

Exchanges and over-the-counter (OTC) brokers, on the other hand, are both vulnerable to hackers and scams.

And, while bitcoin is useful for transfers, it isn’t widely accepted on the ground; for example, stores and landlords rarely accept it. This means that monies sent by workers must be converted back to regular currency by friends or family, frequently through a broker at their end, posing added risk.

However, the majority of bitcoin users claimed that many OTC brokers, who rely on word-of-mouth evaluations, operated reliably in an increasingly competitive industry and were hesitant to jeopardize their reputations.

And for an increasing number of people, the benefits exceed the risks.

The post Have You Thought of the Name of This Country That Tops the Crypto Trading Leaderboard? appeared first on SiteProNews.

In B2B sales, the transactions occur between two businesses. In simple words, one company or business sells a product or service to another business. For example, if a ketchup manufacturer sells its ketchup to various fast food outlets, that’s a B2B sale. Generally, this type of sale is considered to be complex, however, the sales process is pretty much the same; you need to generate leads, create awareness about the brand and sell it. 

These sales need effective sale strategies to convince all parties involved in the business deal. They are often more complex than B2C sales because of their higher-order values and longer sales cycles.

Following are a few fundamentals of creating a great B2B Sales Strategy.

Focus on Customer Need

The whole B2B sale starts by identifying a customer’s need and then planning out a solution to cater to it. For a B2B sale, your solution will need to increase revenue, decrease cost/expense, improve productivity, or avoid something bad. These are the key benefits that B2B organizations are looking for.

The Ideal Customer

It is essential to find the right organizations and contacts for sales success. There are many sale strategies to reach out to targeted clients.

Strategies that can be implemented to generate leads via marketing include:

• Onsite and offsite content marketing
• Personal branding
• Search engine optimization
• Influencer marketing
• Social media marketing
• Email marketing 
• Cold Calling
• Advertising 

Study the Buyer’s Behavior 

How great would it be if you could just read the customer’s mind, right? Well, the best we can do is make assumptions based on data. Consider how your potential customers make decisions? The key to mapping out your sales process is to understand your customers. Understand the steps, information they need, and the people involved. This allows your organization to align your sales and marketing efforts. This chart from the Content Marketing Institute shows how B2B content marketing has changed from 2017 to 2018 by customer need. 

Build Your Sales Team

The efforts of good teamwork always go a long way. At the start of your organization’s sales efforts, it is important to plan out the type of future sales and related skills that you will be needing. Hire a team according to your business demands and equip them with the means and technology to build a trustworthy B2B impression on potential clients.

Set Realistic Targets and Goals

Organizations will typically have a revenue target for their sales effort. Revenue is a lagging result. There are activities that need to come first that lead to sales. This could include things like booked meetings, demos, proposals, and other steps. You should have targets set on these activities to ensure you are making revenue.

Conclusion

While planning to initiate B2B sale strategies, ensure that you have budgeted enough for the activities essential to B2B marketing. It’s a process that needs to be optimized from time to time, in that customer needs are constantly evolving, and B2B companies that do well are those with the capacity to quickly adapt.

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You need to familiarize yourself with the labor laws guiding the recruitment process in another country, especially if you are a foreigner. You do not want to run the risk of breaking the rules and restrictions for hiring in the area. You also want to get acquainted with the general customs and practices of hiring before commencing the recruitment process in any particular place.

Ways to Handle Hiring and Human Resource Management 

There are common ways to go about hiring in new places, which we will be discussing in this article.

1. Internal Human Resource Management

Conducting your recruitment process using your resources is one of the cheapest options when hiring employees. If your business or organization can handle its employment processes internally, you could go for this choice.

This approach is mostly suitable for a well-established business, considering how many laws and regulations govern foreign employment processes. You have to use experts in your human resource department to ensure no stone is left unturned in all practices demanded by the labor laws.

It helps if you have adequately planned for payroll management, allowances, taxes, and insurance as well as considered all mandatory social benefits for each employee, compensations, and have adequate documentation of each employee’s profile in your organization.

2. Use of Listing Site

There are many listing sites available for you to use when you want to hire workers in a new country, either full-time, part-time, or as contract staff. These sites are common ground for employers and employees to meet. 

You can use these job posting sites to create an awareness of vacancies in your organization. Often, skilled laborers visit these sites when in need of employment, and they can see your advert, the requirements, and the conditions of service.

These sites help you fill up openings faster than you could without them. Their popularity in the local market contributes significantly to this. Examples of such sites include; Indeed, Glassdoor, Jobable, CPjobs.com, etc. 

Some of these sites even offer free job postings, while you may have to pay to use others’ services. Whatever your budget and needs are, there is always a job posting site for you.

3. Use of Talent Dispatch Services

If you are running a foreign business or company, you can also use talent dispatching services to locate licensed Human Resources Agencies to outsource your hiring and employment recruitment process. 

These HR agencies will handle all your hiring, staff management, and recruitment processes, serving as a front for you on employee matters. While these employees work for you, these agencies directly interact with them to manage remuneration and documentation.

The only way for a foreign organization without a legal entity to hire in China is by using these talent dispatch services. 

4. Outsourcing to HR Agencies

If you know you do not have all the resources, legal back-up, or experience required to handle your hiring process, you can outsource your Human Resources department. While this might cost some more than internal recruitment, it saves you a lot of stress and risk of operating in contravention of local labor laws and regulations.

You can make your hiring process a lot easier by using Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs). These organizations help businesses handle their employee recruitment and management process. You can get the kind of employees you want by using a Chinese-based PEO. It is the best way to hire foreign employees in a new country.

Global PEOs can help you set up the best application process to hire abroad, train your employees, handle payroll services, tax filing and payment, and other functions relating to human resource management.

Final word 

With these organizations, you can rest assured of safe practices that can save you from lawsuits because they operate within the law’s confines, complying with all labor rules and regulations. It is one of the most significant advantages of working with PEOs, particularly for new businesses that are yet to familiarize themselves with laws guiding operations in a foreign environment.

The post 4 Hiring Tips for starting a Company in a New Country appeared first on SiteProNews.

It is critical to build a tech team that has support functions, always ready to resolve technical issues such as hardware and software problems over the phone or online regardless of time. They serve as a backbone to ensure that the company functions like a well-oiled machine. Some of their support could be data restoration, software troubleshooting, and remote training among others. A remote technical team is a lot more cost effective than an office-based team. 

Before doing a deep dive into how to build this important remote team, let us first look at the basics of leading a team and some remote work hacks that  should be applied every step of the way.

Alignment of objectives. Operating a business in the midst of all uncertainties requires trust. Though, nothing will be done if employees are not sure about their exact roles and the directive from top management moving forward. It’s crucial that leaders can clearly set expectations, outlining the responsibilities and timelines to be able to give everyone the trust they need and deserve. Nothing is wrong with being upfront about what needs to be done and when it is due even if it means pressuring the team members a little bit. 

Contextualization. What people need nowadays is a sense of purpose especially when the world is basking in disheartenment. You must clearly communicate with your team members why and how they matter, serving an invaluable role to make the big picture come to life. Some of the things that must be clarified are their mode and frequency of communication, overall business goals, and the role of the team as a whole in the company. Giving them this context can help them define their own version of success.

Respecting boundaries. Even while on a work-from-home setup, there should be a distinction between personal and business hours. Employees shouldn’t feel obligated to respond all the time especially after they have logged off. Encourage them to turn off notifications and to communicate if they feel that they are being overworked. Open communication is key when it comes to establishing reasonable boundaries. 

Accountability. Since boundaries are to be respected, schedule regular check-in meetings where everyone can agree on timelines and talk about how they are doing thus far. It is also important to communicate who will be held accountable for what to manage expectations. A progress tracker would be helpful as well to see how everybody is managing and to get insight if someone needs help on a certain task. This will encourage the members to up their performance and do better.

Now that the fundamentals are covered, it is time to determine a couple of ways to strengthen a remote tech team. Remember that those who are part of this team are more likely fixed in front of their computers to answer calls from anyone anytime. Their soft skills are therefore as important as the technical know-how they bring. Holistically honing their talents will take some time but will surely be worthwhile and beneficial in the long run.

Updated infrastructure. Due to the nature of their work, remote employees must have the right equipment and a reliable internet connection to efficiently function. Many challenges are out of the question if these basics are not already covered. HR should also take the initiative to ask if there are other things that they need which could be provided by the company to ensure that everyone in the remote tech team is feeling optimal and properly supported. 

Online project management tools. Message boards and applications are useful not only in tracking progress but also communicating with fellow team members. They might as well use their time to connect with others not only to make them feel that they are part of the team but also to evaluate their respective points of improvement from time to time. The centralization that project management tools offer also help in managing the influx of inquiries. Implementing an effective follow-the-sun-model could bring significant benefits as well since it allows the company to pass along the work at the end of a workday to someone in another time zone. These systems can permit the team to also find information that they need without spending too much time looking for it, as well as have a bird’s eye view on how everyone is faring. 

Reasonable KPIs. This is one of the first things that the team should agree on in order to have clear goals to pursue in a specific amount of time. Defining KPIs will allow the team to know exactly where they are headed and reward the individuals who are exerting the needed effort to achieve a common objective. This will allow them to also identify and concentrate on essential tasks and be encouraged to achieve greater heights when they know that they are significantly contributing to the business.

There will always be room for growth when leading a team. The points for improvement can be identified and objectively assessed through adequate communication armed by an efficient system. It can be difficult to navigate through a remote work environment, but going the extra mile of doing whatever it takes to make it work will cultivate not only employee trust but also a healthy corporate culture.

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