Tag: customer data

In recent years, South Africa has embraced the global phenomenon of Black Friday. While, for businesses in this country, it's tempting to focus solely on the immediate potential that this flurry of buying activity presents, small and medium enterprise (SME) should take a much longer-term view of Black Friday, understanding its real potential to underpin long-term growth.

The concept of diversity is well understood in most businesses, as is the negative impact of having leadership teams made up of people who are homogenous in their backgrounds, beliefs and cultures. Research has shown, for example, that greater diversity in start-ups is equated with greater likelihood of success.

Seasons Greetings, the time for shopping endlessly has come and it is embraced by millions around the world who have been locked down/in for the passed two holiday seasons because of the dreadful pandemic that ravaged the world over. 

The fact that 57% of marketing executives admit they often don’t have the data to understand customers or anticipate their needs is an existential problem. No matter the industry, customer data and insights are vital to helping deliver meaningful experiences, create strong engagement and achieve customer satisfaction.

The future is never set in stone, but it may be paved by technology. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently forecast that growth of the global economy will slow to 3.2% this year, down from 6.1% in 2021, and to an even lower 2.9% in 2023. This can be attributed to lasting effects of the pandemic, fallouts from the Ukraine-Russian conflict, skyrocketing inflation, and rising food and energy prices.

New Anti-Money Laundering (AML) scores reduce false positive alerts by 50% while detecting 100% of known money laundering transactions, and discover new aberrant, potentially risky. Money laundering continues to fuel crime and terrorism globally, with the UN estimating up to $2 trillion moved illegally each year.

Recently, the FBI announced that more companies have been reporting people applying to jobs using deepfakes. Imposters use video, images, recordings, and stolen identities pretending to be someone else to get a remote IT position.

The stats speak for themselves. Firstly, there has been a 169% increase in online purchases from new or low-frequency online shoppers. Secondly, more than 80% of consumers who increased their omnichannel digital usage during the pandemic expect to continue with these.

As South Africa battles a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, all eyes are on how businesses will steady the ship and continue to prepare themselves for future shocks and disruptions. This, coupled with a global surge in cyber attacks, means that digital transformation and acceleration remain as relevant and important, if not more so than ever. 

Legacy and cloud-native tech can complement each other for a more productive business and happier customers. For financial services firms and insurers, the customer relationship is built on trust earned over many years. In turn, these businesses have to be able to trust their foundational IT systems to deliver the requisite uptime, performance, and security.