“The Money2020 Expo is a premier conference drawing together thought-provoking leaders in the arenas of retail and finance. VP’s, Senior Execs, CEO’s and the like from companies such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express etc, share ideas of innovation and opportunities for the next generation of data infused technological advances”

5th floor 1 Broadway Cambridge MA

+1 857 383 1574

info@zakipoint.com

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 20th, 2012

Zakipoint’s Ramesh Kumar, a panel discussant on mobile payment, loyalty and data analytics for retail, at the Money2020 Expo

Ramesh Kumar, Managing Partner at zakipoint discusses innovative financial services trends at the Money2020 Expo

Cambridge, MA- zakipoint, a big data analytics company with a focus on mobile data analytics, is sending its Managing Partner, Ramesh Kumar, to the Money2020 Expo on October 22nd-24th, at the Aria Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, CA. Here, Mr. Kumar will discuss mobile payment, loyalty and data analytics for retail.

We at zakipoint seek to help enterprises generate revenue by leveraging new opportunities offered from big data. Our work includes developing mobile loyalty programs in the media, entertainment, and retail industries. Mr. Kumar’s background consists of launching a mobile loyalty program titled, Orange Wednesdays (2-4-1 cinema promotion), for Orange, in the UK, Spain, Romania and few other markets. Over 2 million subscribers use the mobile loyalty program.

“ There is a unique opportunity for businesses everywhere, as we now understand people’s actual behavior in the offline world- where they are going, where they are checking in, what they are browsing, and how they’re comparing prices etc. This level of insight can help predict many aspects of the consumer experience, enabling retailers to target their offerings like never before,” said Mr. Kumar. Along with previous strategic consulting work, Mr. Kumar also served as Deputy Chairman of the UK branch of the Mobile Marketing Association, and is a chairman for the TiE (The Indus Entrepreneur) Conference East flagship innovation conference.

Zakipoint is a big data analytics services firm established in 2011, dedicated to relentlessly searching for underlying patterns in data, and the use of identified patterns to redesign the way organizations do business. To get involved or to provide feedback, drop us a line at info@zakipoint.com or call us at +1 857-383-1574.

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“I need to hire a PhD in statistics or machine learning to make sense of all this new data about my customers”. This is probably what many executives think when faced with the amazing opportunity of big data in their businesses. It is clear that the data is valuable as a competitive weapon. But how we go about exploiting it is not clear. The sheer volume and variety of data is immense. In 2010 alone, we collected as much as five thousand years worth of data and it’s only doubling in amount each year. The gap between the amount of data at hand and the knowledge on how to use it is becoming increasingly noticeable. This is a real problem, the problem of talent shortage.

According to the McKinsey & Company report titled, Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition and productivity, “1.5 million more data-savvy managers (are) needed to take full advantage of Big Data in the United States alone.” This is staggering, if McKinsey & Co., is right about this. Since the market for data is steadily rising, many people are becoming more and more interested in learning about the different facets of analyzing data effectively.

We conducted a detailed survey in which we asked executives, managers, and business leaders to tell us their training needs for data analytics. They expressed a great deal of interest in learning about data analytics. See selected charts from the survey below.

We also learned from the survey results that an overwhelming majority of interested executives actually want to roll up their sleeves themselves and learn more about data modeling tools like logistic regression, decision trees, clustering analysis, and more. Getting to see case studies of other companies using data analytics is of interest to executives. (If you are interested in the full survey results, please send us an email.)

Once they have the tools and broader understanding of what to do with data, executives and managers can ask the right questions, build hypotheses, weigh in on modeling techniques to be employed, interpret the data models presented and drive value from their data vaults. Instead of pushing the critical thinking to external PhD’s in statistics and expecting magical results, they will feel empowered to engage with the process and outputs from data analytics.
Developments in online learning mean that much of this knowledge and training can be imparted through online webinars, video masterclasses, online tools and a community to engage with for continuous learning. At zakipoint we have launched a half day training seminar: “Go Big with Big Data Analytics” that is tailored to individual companies. This seminar addresses both broad questions of how to generate value from the big data and specific questions of where to find data outside the enterprise for your business.  It also helps executives analyze what strategic and tactical questions can be answered using big data. Drop us a note if you want to set up an introductory meeting.  Our team of data scientists, data technologists and data strategists look forward to discussing our training with you.

Trevor Eckhart released a video that reveals the inner workings Carrier IQ, an application installed on millions of phones logging everything. Skip to 6:45 section of the video to see what is being captured by this application. Carrier IQ application runs in the background throughout without an option to turn it off.

Here is the video to show how carrier IQ works

Can banks and credit card companies profit from their customer’s transaction data by use of predictive analytics? The answer is Yes. Visa and Mastercard have announced that they are exploring Ad targeting for 3^rd party brands by using transaction data – see WSJ article. Companies like Segmint and micronotes are helping banks with this endevour. There has been a strong negative response by consumers to the extent that Senator Rockefeller has written letters. The fact remains that it is not illegal and many other companies are doing just the same. All digital Ad networks rely on a multitude of information to make Ads relevant. Earlier this year, Amazon unveiled its “Kindle with Special Offers,” which was a clever yet slightly underdeveloped way for Amazon to target ads on Kindle based on purchasing data history, in exchange for a $25 discount on Kindle. If players like Amazon are monetizing transaction data, and will be doing so even more with our own browsing history captured on the “silk” browser, installed on “Kindle Fire”, the question at hand is, why cant banks follow suit? This article argues that banks can easily profit from using transaction data, but will need to formulate a strategic approach which will allow for a beneficial outcome.

I recently had the opportunity to sit with Prof. Peter Fader of Wharton, a leading expert and academic in predictive modeling for customer acquisition and retention. His new book “Customer Centricity Essentials: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and Why It Matters” released in October is already doing well. It has been published by Wharton Digital Press. You can find more about the book on amazon here.  I learnt some interesting things after reading the book.

Amanda Duesund, a business development manager from Zakipoint, has interviewed Shahin Ali about what sort of data is underutilized that can help customer acquisition and retention models. We will take a look into what kind of new data that is out there and Shahin explains very well what companies should be focusing on now in the competitive landscape that we are operating in.

Shahin Ali is an expert in the area of Customer relationship management with 12 years of experience with progressive strategic management and marketing experience. He also has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT.

YouTube has two billion views a day, so it doesn’t take an expert to understand that this is the place to get customers, gain credibility and increase brand recognition.The company The SiteSlinger is a growing firm specializing in rapid website design. When they started using video to market their unique service they increased their online traffic by 40%, conversion rates by 130%, and tripled their profits with a simple rebranding strategy with video at its core.

I was meeting a senior product manager at a very successful online property. This comment was made. I paused to think about this. I guess in the past this was a good and simple way of thinking about the role of couponing and loyalty card. But then I dug into the work I have been doing with Orange (carrier) in the UK. We launched a couponing promotion 6 years ago called Orange Wednesdays http://bit.ly/cdysnS , which has driven millions of customers ( http://bit.ly/aewQUl official count was 14 million on the 5th anniversary) to the cinemas. Wednesday use to be the lowest traffic day of the week for the cinemas, now it is the highest week day traffic day for the cinemas across the UK. Great acquisition tool.

Check out Orange Wednesday 5th anniversary preparation video here