Today enterprises have entered the digital world with data transfer and storage in electronic format. Technological enhancements have brought in frequent changes as well as challenges to the IT infrastructure management. For the enterprises to stand in such a competitive environment, they either upgrade their infrastructure or make use of data centers with high-end and best-of-the-breed technology.   Data centers have become the lifeline for most enterprises especially for small and medium enterprises as they can sustain themselves against the   aggressive competitive environment in a cost-effective manner.

However, in the present market scenario with the  use of the data centers run by third party providers, enterprises must ensure that data loss, identity thefts do not lead to disruption in business continuity. Resorting to efficient risk management frameworks that offers risk analysis will help ward off unwarranted business threats, leverage on opportunities and protect against adverse economic impacts.

As enterprises expand globally, they along with their outsourcing partners, vendors and end-users together responsible for  secure access to the widely networked environment and critical data.  Enterprises thus need to ensure that administrators  with privileged identity  with adequate controls to manage and maintain various applications, systems and network devices across the organization. As  Privileged Identity Management (PIM) provides administrators with high levels of authorization to access and control over corporate IT systems, information assets and applications. Inadequate control over privileged user accounts will be a  risk both from security and compliance perspective.

Among all the possible threat vectors acting on an organization, an insider threat is the most potent of all. The term “Privileged Identities” that refers to accounts with special permissions within the enterprise systems can be categorized as:

  • Generic or Shared Administrative Accounts.
  • Privileged Personal Accounts – used by business users and IT personnel.
  • Application Accounts
Earlier managing access to the critical business data and networked environment was through distribution of passwords to these environments or managing host access, however, with today's threat scenario, calls for effective data protection solutions. The identity access management technology thus needs to accommodate for the special needs of privileged accounts, including their provisioning and life cycle management, authentication, authorization, password management and monitoring.

The leading service providers have worked out advanced privileged identity management solutions to address the needs of diverse industry sectors. The services offered include

  • Planning Services- executive workshop and business requirement analysis,  Strategy and Roadmap, best fit solution identification and Proof of Concepts
  • Implementation Services - Shared ID Management, Session Management and Activity Monitoring
  • Sustenance Services- PIM Health Check, Post Implementation Support and enhancement
A modular privileged identity management approach provides enterprises with effective solutions to address the business requirements.


Read more on - Information Risk Management, mobile security

 
One of the major advancements of internet technology is the emergence of ECommerce and its rapid success in the past few years. Computer literacy and easy online transactions have led to this rapid growth. ECommerce has made it possible for numerous vendors and online merchants to communicate with the global audience and sell their products and services. As a result of this quick expansion, online shopping and other websites are looking out for advanced eCommerce solutions and online strategies to cater to their existing customers better and grab other potential customers nationally as well as globally.

However, it is essential to understand that Ecommerce does not merely include B2C and B2B shopping websites. With the rise of the social web, social networking has undergone radical changes. The conventional online shopping model has modified itself and today welcomes the active participation of the online customers in the selling and marketing of products. This apart, mobile application development has also ushered in a fresh channel in the retail sector by enabling the consumers to shop online directly using their mobile. Service providers offering Ecommerce solutions have the experience of working with leading market players and assist in developing advanced retail goods. Their focus areas include the following:

·         Online, social and mobile commerce

·         Web portals for specialized services

·         Interactive advertising  

Furthermore, there are certain Ecommerce service providers that have also worked with numerous BPM workflow modeling tools like Appian, JBPM, OS Workflow and reporting tools such as Jasper, BIRT, Appian, Kettle, Microstrategy to offer Ecommerce software product development solutions that are consistent, quick and very cost-efficient. They also have the capacity to establish and assist Ecommerce solutions such as:

·         Online storefronts, shopping carts and catalogs

·         Web-based administration products that help to manage inventory, coupon codes and gift certificates

·         Point of sales (POS) and payment processing solutions

·         Web portals for travel, event management and ticketing

·         Online auction engines that are based on open source libraries

·         Websites optimized for the user content generation

·         Location-based shopping solutions for mobile phones

·         Robust, scalable platforms for digital content delivery

·         Next-generation ad servers

The best way for attaining a competitive advantage in the Ecommerce market is to assure a great consumer experience. Some of them include offering secure data management, sharp user interface, quick performance and a solid POS along with the capacity to manage huge amounts of online traffic. Service providers of Ecommerce solutions are working on these aspects to offer better consumer service and gain more online consumers.

Related Links: distributed software development , agile product life cycle management

 
One of the most common challenges of B2B marketing is to understand the basics and importance of lead generation and nurturing. Starting with the ways to generate inquiries through challenging follow-up and hand-off by the sales team, and the ways to evaluate the outcome, this field witnesses much wasted capital, missed opportunities and other downright errors that any other domain in business-to-business marketing and sales.

Today with the use of certain conventional direct mail methods, i.e. Multivariate testing, A/B splits on the internet, such as email marketing, web design, pay per click advertising, search engine marketing, social media, web 2.0, landing page optimization the lead generation and nurturing process has become even more complicated to set up. However, on the other hand it has become simpler to manage than before.

Importance of Lead Generation and Nurturing
It is essential to pay attention to the lead generation and nurturing process because of three main reasons. They are:

  • There is always scope for improvement – The ROI from enhancing the lead generation program is mostly worth that time and effort of the B2B marketer.
  • Scope for establishing a competitive advantage – In majority of industry verticals your competition lies in the essential managing lead generation and nurturing process at the same level where you are. The initiatives that you take can help you attain a competitive edge and attain greater market share than other market players.
  • Making efficient use of the budget – When you assess your results, then you are able to put your capital where it’s best working and line it up with your capital to attain strategic goals.

Today service providers specializing in lead management programs have come up with lead generation and marketing automation solutions. They provide end users with a marketing automation platform that enables them to recognize, capture and convert online leads into sales scopes by offering actionable lead intelligence.

The solution further recognizes anonymous website visitors, but also analyzes intelligently their intent and interests to help in the targeted sales approach. The solution is also efficient in identifying the stage where the prospects are in the buying process with the help of sophisticated behavior analysis. The marketing teams can thus give greater attention to lead nurturing programs that will lead to higher qualified leads and sales teams can go ahead and close the deals faster and lessen the sales cycle. This brings in an overall enhancement in the sales and marketing productivity. With advanced lead generation solutions you can attain qualified leads, pre-qualified leads, rich with data and have a an increased higher conversion rate than the cold contacts that helps the sales team to attain their targets quicker.

Read more on - Marketing Automation software, Lead Nurturing

 
Software development is an intense collaborative process where success depends on the ability to create, share and integrate information, and it can be a hard enough process when the entire team is together in one place. But when teams are  members scattered around the country or around the world only makes it harder and this adds to the complexity.Global sourcing and distributed software development have become a common business reality. Gone are the days when software development was performed by small single location. Today, companies are turning to distributed development as a way to be more responsive to customers’ demands for high-quality software applications that are delivered when they want and need them.

To ensure a successful outcome, project managers have to focus on the right success factors for their particular project. Increased competitive challenges are forcing companies to find better ways to bring their applications to market faster. Distributed development environments can help companies improve their time-to-market by enabling parallel activities and 24×7 software development. Yet, as multiple development teams are employed, the need to effectively share data and to collaborate among teams increases substantially.

It is recommended that distributed teams use a planning based approach that identifies a basket of collaboration practices and tool features to enhance their collaboration effectiveness. Distributed software development teams can improve their effectiveness with effective collaboration and by following a few tips

  • Developing a team strategy: By charting out a special strategy, teams can outline the communication plan, the decision making process, and properly distribute goals, roles and responsibilities, ensure fair work distribution.
  • Get to know the team members: Although Face-to-face meetings are always best, it may not always be possible in a DSD environment.  Video conferences, telephone calls etc. can help one get to know the team members better.
  • Monitor progress : Staying in touch with team members and regularly checking in with members to monitor progress helps collect necessary feedback. It helps to keep members  aware of crucial information and decisions.
  • Set an agenda: For a successful project in a DSD environment, it is important to set and follow an agenda, and ensure the right people attend.

Given the trend towards globalization in the software development industry, distance creates an additional challenge to development processes, as fewer opportunities for rich interaction and lower frequencies of direct communication. With the increased pressure to reduce cost, reduce development time, and improve quality, it is essential to team up with a reputed service provider who can ensure collaboration with adequate  advisory services for successful project completion.

Related Links: software product development

 
With the success of eCommerce it’s a whole new world of the B2B marketers with new demands that put on them by the sales teams and senior management, new strategies that are coming to the forefront there are multiple decisions and choices to make regarding technology investments. This is why it is essential to concentrate on the B2B demand generation, to attain a clear idea about the core business environment and use this knowledge for marketing activities. In today’s world of Web 2.0 the buyers and consumers have become more powerful than before. This means the sales and marketing initiatives needs to be centered on the buying process and anticipate consumer information consumption process.

Marketing Automation in B2B demand generation strategy
Marketing automation can be defined as the technology infrastructure that is needed by a company to power buyer-centric demand generation. On its own technology cannot make you an enhanced or a more buyer-centric B2B marketer. However, technology innovation coupled with process, people and content innovation can totally change the marketing game. As a marketer focuses on the same, it helps them to significantly enhance the quality scopes offered to the same. Therefore, marketing automation is the engine that underpins the solution and is essential to the success of demand generation. It is an essential component in scaling and monitoring the pattern of a dynamic marketing campaign led by a buyer and engages the buyers on a “mass one-to-one” basis.

Keeping in mind all these aspects service providers specializing in lead management solutions has introduced marketing automation software that helps you to consolidate every lead from multiple sources. The software makes it simpler to view every lead coming in from the marketing campaign form fills, website, social media monitoring, email campaigns as well as the offline leads in a single dashboard. This apart, you can have the complete lead information, from the organization details to the decision makers contact details. In addition to that, the company level intelligence and buying intent helps companies to act easily on the leads.

The power and competency of advanced marketing automation software lie in the fact that can seamlessly integrate with your sales CRM system making sure an effortless lead transition from marketing to sales. The software assists you to differentiate the high-intent, “ready to buy” leads from the low intent “just looking for information” leads. The software helps you to score, prioritize and qualify the leads, so that the sales team can only concentrate on the high-end leads for fast sales.

Read more on - Lead Management System,

 
B2B lead generation can be enhanced by publishing blogs on the company website. Here are some important tips for lead generation through corporate blogs.

Every time you put out a blog, promote it across social media – Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook and Pinterest. Make it shareable across social media. Download social sharing plug-ins such as Google+’s “+1”, LinkedIn’s “inShare” and Twitter’s “Tweet”. This makes it easy for people to share your content with just a click. Social sharing helps you climb search results post Google’s Penguin update.

Syndicate your blog content to blog syndication sites. These sites will simultaneously publish your every blog post for free, link to your original post and help you reach a wider audience.

Customerthink.com, b2bmarketingzone.com and business2community.com are established syndication sites in B2B marketing. Do contribution posts to reputed news/contribution sites in your    niche industry. The site will first publish your post, after which you can post it on your site. These have to be negotiated on a per-post basis, and you will have to meet the editorial criteria of the site.  

Seek out influential bloggers in your business. Mention them/their posts in your posts. Influence them to promote your blog. Provide an RSS feed button on your blog so interested readers can read all your posts.

Directories are a bit out-dated, but they don’t hurt. Seek out directories in your niche. Register with sites such as alltop.com and Yahoo directories. Invite industry experts to be a guest bloggers on your blog. It can help drive traffic.

Use a pop up email subscription option. This way you capture interested visitors’ email IDs and build a dedicated readership.

Use Custom URL Parameters from Google Analytics to track source from which visitor came and which posts are most popular. Track your visitors – time spent on blog, page views, number of      comments, number of RSS subscribers, number of visitors who click through to other parts of your website.

Use a marketing automation platform to identify your anonymous visitors. Get their names, company names, company revenues and contact details. Track their behavior to find out if they return to your site and what other sections do they read. The marketing automation software helps to track prospects and score them using a lead scoring model based on their demographic and behavioral patterns. A sales-ready lead gets the highest score, thereby accelerating the lead generation process.


Read more on - Lead Scoring Model, Drip Campaigns

 
Like the change in technology, the targeted attacks too have changed in the recent years. With technology paving way for remote accessibility to desktops and workstations the surge of attacks are directed to the remote users, thus changing the cyber security landscape of the technology enabled business environment. The modus operandi of targeting the new age hand held devices, smartphones and tablets is the ability to bypass the network security controls beyond the encryption. Further, as the most of the applications for the new age devices are based on the cloud, enterprises should take adequate steps towards  cloud security and  ensure data protection.


Cloud security  as defined by Wikipedia is  an evolving sub-domain of network security,  and on a broader perspective  information security and refers to a  set of policies, technologies, and controls deployed to protect data, applications, and the associated infrastructure of cloud computing. Security issues concerning cloud computing are either faced by the cloud providers or by the customers. Whatever the case may be this is all related to ensuring data protection.


Though cloud computing ushers in a host of benefits of delivering  convenient technology solutions cost-effectively, adoption of cloud  brings in issues of security associated with risks. The use of efficient cloud security architecture along with risk management frameworks  will  help enterprises to recognize  issues that will arise with security management. Further, with  critical business data and information stored in digital formats, data protection is of prime importance for organizations and securing it is  important irrespective of where data is stored.


Leading service providers have designed and developed  technical solutions, process frameworks to help  enterprises and government clientele  with secure cloud initiatives and efficiently manage the risks. Enterprises while deploying cloud security needs to establish factors such as


  • Location of data: The vastness of the cloud should not work as a security hindrance
  • Strong encryption : in a scalable environment, incorporating encryption of data on the cloud will ensure data protection  and cloud security.
  • Disaster recovery Plan: Irrespective of the business plan being in a physical store or virtual environment like a web store,most  IT infrastructure enterprises  do not have a business continuity and data restoration plans. Deploying an efficient disaster recovery plan will help the enterprises in  protecting their  valuable assets, besides ensuring protection of data.


However, a completely logical and well structured model based on an understanding of an enterprises needs and policies is the key to a robust cloud security system. Such a cloud model considers essentials features like data value, compliance, attitude to risk, and areas of potential exposure. Moreover, identifying the enterprise's business priorities facilitates in accurate understanding the context and security concerns.



Read more on - Information Risk Management, application security

 
In today´s complex technology landscape, there is no scarcity of available frameworks. While it can be an arduous task to choose from the varying alternatives, there are an increasing number of companies who are leveraging a global model for software R&D services. With distributed agile development it is possible to tap into new global markets and obtain access to global talent while potentially reducing costs. However, many of these distributed teams often face unique challenges like team members not being on the same page with respect to work item priorities, lack of real-time collaboration, lack of visibility for the whole project, general misalignment, to name a few.

It is necessary to address these challenges through an efficient and integrated suite of industry-leading application Lifecycle management tools. To ensure smooth operations and efficient performances, enterprises need agility to be capable of addressing the risks and concerns effectively. Having the ability to respond efficiently to changing requirements, the agile methodology provides enormous benefits to the enterprise.

The key to succeed in a distributed environment is to understand the impact of application development in globally dispersed organizations. It is therefore necessary to look for a solution that can enable collaboration by utilizing reports and dashboards that provide real-time visibility throughout the development process. The solution that you choose must provide end-to-end traceability between work items, starting from business requirements and extending all the way to final test execution results and release decision support. This visibility helps distributed teams identify bottlenecks early and accelerate product development.

Your solution must emphasize on the incremental development, to ensure quick adaptation to changing requirements while maintaining product quality and successfully meeting launch deadlines. Teams work in short, time-boxed cycles that result in a fully tested, potentially shippable product each time. This approach enables clients to present a working demo to their customers and gather valuable feedback that will fine-tune the software product development process. With the right insights and strategies, efficiencies can be maximized in a distributed environment. Your solution must help choose and integrate the technology that best meets their needs, and standardize usage by creating utilities that enable developers to utilize a framework in the same manner across multiple products.

Distributed agile teams may not be able to rely on sticky notes, task boards, or charts on a wall for project tracking. They require a robust system for sharing these items and metrics across multiple locations. Choose a tool with good performance across geographically distributed environments that can make distributed teams more effective and efficient.

Related Links: iphone application development, mobile app development

 
Today many new marketing automation services are available in the market for B2B marketers to target the right prospects. By automating the lead generation process B2B marketers can build a pipeline of qualified leads. Today, there are many lead generation services that enable marketers to track visitor intent in real time thereby shortening sales cycle & boosting sales revenue. Let us see how these services aid B2B marketers.

In B2B marketing, volume and velocity of the lead generation process determines the rate of lead conversion. Automated lead generation services and solutions can help marketers to convert online leads into sales opportunities by providing unmatched actionable lead intelligence.

Today, there are intelligent lead generation services that provide unprecedented marketing insights for B2B marketers. The process of lead generation, lead scoring and lead nurturing is optimized using lead business intelligence that is procured from tracking website visitor activities. This critical website visitor background information offers deep insight into their buying intent purchase stage as well.

Such marketing automation services offer marketing and sales teams with automated lead information and ready to use lead analytics that enables marketers to identify warm leads and accelerate sales conversion rate. Social collaboration is also possible using lead generation services using which marketers can incorporate the advantages of social collaboration and “the wisdom of crowds” to run their marketing campaigns.

Marketing automation services today provide total marketing integration so that marketers can enjoy smooth integration with all the top CRM solutions, as well. Another important aspect addressed by marketing automation services is sales-marketing alignment. This issue is complex involving people, processes and the debate over quality versus quantity of leads poses a significant challenge as well. The perceived definition of “qualified leads” varies between both teams and there is considerable disagreement over the need for lead nurturing.

A robust marketing automation platform can pave the way for better alignment between marketing and sales. It efficiently prioritizes leads and shortens the sales cycle. It offers advanced capabilities to make collaboration between the two teams far easier. The following features of marketing automation services help to bridge the divide.



  • Tracking of visitor website behavior.
  • Measurement of visitor intent and interest levels.
  • Gain superior lead intelligence that can shorten the sales cycle.
  • Analytics that to help the two teams jointly identify the business opportunities to pursue.
  • Calculate lead scores using customized lead scoring algorithm, which both teams can collaborate on to define what makes a prospect “sales ready”.

Therefore, implementing one will be beneficial for B2B marketers.


Read more on - Marketing Automation software