Technology and Troubleshooting

Technology has numerous benefits but along with those it brings snags too. At times websites get bogged down because of some glitches, technical issues, or other hardware/software related flaws. Such issues can be from customer side or company's side. For example your computer hardware might get heated up. Unknowingly, customers will reach you out because they think that company is responsible for the product or software malfunctioning. You have to guide and inform them in a polite way that they should try to fix the faults in their systems because such issues can be from any side (customer or company). That’s where troubleshooting comes in and saves your time. 

While troubleshooting these technical issues you can focus on the following areas:

1. Refresh page or site: Sometimes technical issues are trivial and require you to refresh or reload your webpage. Simple things like logging out and then again signing in can help in this regard. The system gets slow or stuck because you might have opened too many tabs. In order to optimize it you can clear cache items, junk or cookies, delete unnecessary documents, files, audio or videos that have piled up limiting your storage space. Your data gets saved on the browser because of cookies while cache stocks up some of the page components. Restarting or rebooting your gadgets/ devices also helps at times. If these steps solves your problem then there is no need to follow other guidelines.

2. Breakdown of information: Technological experts try to discern the issue by getting to the nitty gritty (root cause) of it and see where the actual problem lies. Thus, they break down the problem into simple parts which they can easily comprehend. For example there might be a software bug that produces unexpected results. The results might be different from the ones they expected. For example when using word for writing an article you might expect that the system will automatically save it. However, in actual terms the screen freezes and you might have to shut down and restart the device for it to function properly. You will lose all your data if it was not saved initially.

3. Sum up all the details and report: If you are clear that a problem exists, what you should do next is to report the issue to the relevant department. Customer should reach out to the company's customer care representative if they figure out a fault while the company should report the matter to its development team to sort it out. One must give a detailed report of the issue to minimize further questioning and maximize efficiency. In case the problem still prevails then customers must share the screenshots, screen recordings, faulty messages or console errors on the web browser.

4. Viewing the issue from the perspective of a technical engineer: Technical support teams make up or recreate the glitch themselves to preview it and find out exactly what the issue is and whether it happens again. For example if you visit a website and click to visit another landing page but it does not open, you can report about this big to the tech team and they will look into it by reproducing it and experiencing similar bugs or not. Based on their own findings they will fix that issue.

5. Prepare a bug list for engineers: Here the customers makes a request for changes and improvements for a smooth and big free experience. Customer support teams who sometimes gives them canned replies (you prewrite and formulate common replies to complaints, queries or requests) passes this to the tech department who work on to resolve it. 

In order to set things right, troubleshooting requires clear and effective communication from the customer and company’s side. Only then the process can become faster, efficient and technical mishaps and difficulties can be avoided.

Data Privacy and Ethics in Business

Privacy is terms of protecting data is imperative and with time it is becoming more complex due to the progress made in technology, expansion and changing needs of businesses. Whenever a company gathers the personal data of an individual, ethically it’s their responsibility not to reveal it. Company has to keep their confidential information secure, as customer-business relationship is based on mutual trust and legally they will be accountable if they breach those terms. Preserving the privacy, maintaining ethics and granting security to all the stakeholders are things that are interlinked and form the basic structure for businesses. Violation of any of these means breaking the law which can ruin the relationship and create an unbridgeable gap between the two parties. To avoid these unpleasantries and going up along the tangled path, it is important to stick to a firm privacy and security framework that is based upon ethical grounds.

Information and data collection have their pros and cons. The silver lining is that it gives you a deeper insight of your customers, results in fair trading, communication becomes faster and effective, and ensures transparency in business dealings. The shortcomings are that it is risky when you entrust your staff and vendors with sensitive data to make ethical decisions since companies are prone to cyber-attacks. Data losses or leakage can result in legal implications, break the trust of customers, businesses can lose their credibility and they may face financial downturns.

Below are some practices that businesses can follow to ensure that they correctly adhering to the principles of privacy and staying within the realm of ethics. These will also help them to mitigate the aforementioned drawbacks.

1. Devise a Code of Ethics: All begins from developing and setting a tone within the organization's culture. Training and guiding the employees regarding the policies and procedure is the first step towards building digital trust within and beyond the organization. For this they must keep in mind that they respect the individual behind the data since they are there to serve them. Privacy and security officials must have a clear knowledge of what is expected from them. Unnecessary data that is of no use for the company must not be collected from people. They must adopt a farsighted approach (as to what can happen in future) while utilizing the data and using the analytical tools. Side by side, they should know the way they have used the data in the past and make improvements accordingly. In short, the whole plan should be based on accountability, clarity and auditability.

2. Adopting Ethical Technology: While investing and introducing automation in various business processes, make sure to do proper planning and see how customer will react to certain marketing techniques that you will adopt. For example by knowing the zip code of an individual and keeping in mind how the algorithms regard the inputs, you can do target marketing and focus on specific customer niche in a way that satisfies them. 

3. Take prior consent for data collection and sharing: During the process of data collection and sharing it is essential for companies to get a detailed and informed consent from the individual. As the information is passed on from one department to another a lot changes and becomes different from the context in which the individual gave approval and consent. Proper guidelines and practices must be followed before the disclosure, sharing and manipulation of data to mitigate risks and potential harm. Strong ethical initiatives prevents the non-consensual data sharing and data cannot be misused by those parties who are not given access.

Much of a company's success and reputation depends on the way it uses the data of customers. Customers’ value and demand trust from companies. Using the data ethically and prioritizing consumer/customers privacy, organization's profits can surge as they will gain loyal customers and stakeholder will trust them more.

Ethical Hacking

With the escalation of global conflict, a number of subversive minded groups and individuals have emerged, threatening the national security systems of countries by funding and backing cyberpunks. Organizations are intimidated by these hackers too, who try their utmost to access and extort their data by means of malware. All the organizations, government/intelligence agencies, and national defense councils have to put in effort because viruses, malware and worms are active and making their way to their systems. To nip them from gaining access to networks they must work on new strategies, update their technologies and introduce hack preventing tactics. 

What is Ethical Hacking?

Ethical hacking is the lawful way of gaining an authorized access into the network or systems by penetrating into it. It is mainly done to improve and safeguard network security and shield against potential threats. During the process of intrusion, ethical hackers look for the weak points, identify threats from the system and later fix the vulnerabilities. All this is essential because if malicious attackers gain access to your network, it can result in data loss, sabotage the organization or institution and even result in financial losses.

Furthermore, there are few rules that ethical hackers must follow while performing their duties:

1.     Follow legal requirements: Before doing the security assessment, they must take prior approval from the relevant department of the organization.

2.     Determine the scope: They must give a detail account of the scope of assessment they will conduct so that everyone knows the parameters within which the ethical hacking is being performed. This will make sure that the work is done legally and with their approval.

3.     Inform about the vulnerabilities: After analyzing and determining the vulnerability, ethical hackers must keep the organization in the loop by reporting them about the vulnerabilities that they found out. Also, propose and give recommendations as to what corrective actions can be taken to resolve and deal with those vulnerabilities.

4.     Keep data confidential: There are certain agreements to which ethical hackers must abide. They should accept all the terms and conditions since data is sensitive and must not be disclosed. 

     There are some skills that certified ethical hackers should possess which include: 

       1. In-depth knowledge of information security

       2. Strong grasp over scripting language

       3. Network proficiency

       4. Competency in terms of operating systems

Other than that, there are many benefits of ethical hacking, the main ones include:

1.     Helps to combat attacks from cyber terrorists so that data cannot be misused, breached or stolen.

2.     Preventative action can be taken after finding the weak points and detecting the vulnerabilities from hackers POV

3.     Shields national security from external and internal threats or terrorists.

4.     Enhances the company's image in the eyes of customers and investors when company protects their personal data and provides them product security.

Now let’s move on to the different phases of ethical hacking that saves companies from attacker’s exploitation and falling in their trap.

1.     Reconnaissance: This is the first stage where all the information is gathered, prior to the launch of an attack. This information is mainly related to the target e.g. their password or job profile etc. Tools such as Maltego and Nmap are used to scan individual's network or to search about them.

2.     Scanning: In this stage the hackers try to access and gain the information of that target individual through different means such as exploring and searching for their IP addresses, essential records, accounts or credentials. To quickly go through their data, tools including sweeper, dialers, network mappers and even vulnerability scanners are used.

3.     Gaining access: Third step is about using means to get access to the person or organization's application, network or system. Attackers might install soft wares, applications or tools to exploit and steal sensitive data by getting access to the systems. Metasploit is one such tool. Certified ethical hackers will make sure that such vulnerable parts of the systems are protected by passwords and they use firewall to protect network infrastructure. They even check who are the gullible employees (can easily be targeted by hackers) by sending them fake emails.

4.     Maintaining Access: Once the hackers hijack the system, he continues to make DDOS attacks to gain access to the whole data base until they are fully successful in their malicious actions. The target in most cases doesn’t know about these activities. Penetration testers get to the depth of the system to find the susceptible areas by scanning the infrastructure of that company.

5.     Covering Tracks: Attackers try their best not to leave any traces behind. Thus, they remove and clear each and every clue and evidence through which they can be caught. Ethical hackers have to keep connections within the system. They use ICMP tunnels and HTTP Shells etc. In order to remove digital footprints, they delete all logs, history and cache so that they cannot be identified or traced back.

Businesses and nations must remain watchful at all times, since attackers are keeping an eye on their sensitive data. A strong ethical hacking system is mandatory in these times where everything is achievable through technology.

 

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Its Applications

With a continuous stream of invention and innovation, it is evident that technological progress is unstoppable and there are no barriers to it. Just like computer printing has moved to another mind-blowing level, allowing users to make physical models of everything through 3D printing (it is being widely used in construction to make houses and other buildings etc.). However, in the midst of all this technological development and evolution there has been a lot of obstruction too, since systems are not user friendly always. For example, when developers use code scanning tools, the application tools gives them suggests that they cannot implement and use in that context. Similarly, the weather forecast doesn’t always give the exact projections. Even while using your phones or laptops the autocorrect often leads to tenses error and spelling mistakes. This means it has an inadequate human computer interaction.

What is Human Computer Interaction?

Human Computer Interaction also known as "man machine study" is a field that explores the interaction between physical labor and computer technology and how it affects people. HCI's main focus is on user centered design while they use computer technology. The main purpose behind it is to make users experience interesting, easy and simple. The concept of design here is concerned more with satisfaction of users and efficiency of computers. Previously, it was difficult to use the personal computers and it requires much training because of the complexities associated with the system. There were problems in moving the mouse and even typing on those old phones was an issue. As HCI came in the 80's, devices, soft wares, applications and gadgets became efficient, intelligible and more functional for everyone who used.  

Applications of Human Computer Interaction

1.     Daily life

Today HCI is being used everywhere as technology and automated machines have crept in. Whether you use Kiosks for ordering food at a restaurant, ATM or vending machines at a mall or even make use of the general ticketing system at a railway station, you indirectly use computers. It is important to make sure that the interface is convenient, safe and useful. 

2.     Businesses and other sectors

Nowadays, almost all the industries and businesses depend on technology for its day to day activities and operations. A well designed and easy to use system makes the workforce more productive and the staff is more satisfied when all the processes and procedures take place smoothly. HCI plays a vital role in industries such as power plants, national defense and security, control centers for airplanes. A minor flaw in the design of the safety critical systems can cause destructive effects and fatalities.

3.     Untrained users or those with certain disabilities

When building systems it is important to pay attention to every individual user with different level of experience, skills and knowledge. HCI must be considered in this regard so that secure, practical and usable systems are provided to everyone, even those users with certain impairments or disabilities. Other than that, after interacting with the computer software, users want to learn, grasp and have a basic know how of the features rather than going in depth of the system through intensive training. Thus, HCI designers come up with unique ideas and strategies that improve user experience and provide them with feasible interfaces.

Human Computer Interaction is becoming more exciting. Whether you want to search a product through Google Voice Search or get an immersive experience through Virtual Reality, HCI makes your interaction seamless.

 

Techniques that can be used for Data Mining

In order to gain valuable business insights, immeasurable amount of data is produced, collected and stored by companies. Data mining dates back to the 1930's and it’s all about screening and sifting through this data. Through this tremendous amount of data businesses try to figure out the hidden patterns and trends and make evaluation accordingly. The need for data scientists is growing as businesses has to grapple for success in the fast paced industry and fact finding is thus essential.

There are several techniques involved in data mining that aspiring data scientists and businesses should learn and know. These methods are listed and thoroughly explained below:

1. Clustering: It is the visual representation of data in the form of graphs. It depicts the sales over a period of time for a specific product, business buying trends or customer’s demographics etc. It is done by grouping together a set of data points according to some characteristics. In this way, the data mining specialists are able to discern and make pragmatic decision because data is separated into subsets on the basis of consumer behavior and demographics. Clustering technique is implemented almost everywhere. For example in grocery or retail stores it gives a better idea to the marketers that which customer purchases which products and in how much quantity per month. They can manage their inventory, replenish items and target specific geographical areas or consumer segments based on this information. Similarly, companies that operate online and have brick and mortar stores can use clusters to rationally plan and manage their staff or timings by evaluating and analyzing whether they are more active virtually (through their apps) or make purchases my visiting stores.

2. Association process: In this model data mining professionals find and depict intriguing relationships or correlations between two items from large data sets also known as variables. It prepares companies for further market research and helps them to come up with new strategies. For example if you visit an electronic shop or a website and buy a smartphone you will get suggestions related to closely related items (complementary goods). In this case it can be screen protector or phone cover because it is likely that you would end up buying it. 

3. Data cleansing: Here the errors are eliminated, superfluous, corrupted or redundant data is eradicated, and later arranged. The null values are replaced and only the useful data or information is extracted and processed for further analysis. Data cleansing is important because incorrect and massive amount of unnecessary data can lead to errors and faults is the process of analysis. Along with this, it requires a lot of time and resources that increases costs for businesses.

4. Visualization of Data: For better understanding and to give a clear picture to all the business stakeholders of the findings, this data is visually transformed by data miners into graphs, maps, 3D models, charts, figures and diagrams etc. This makes decision making faster and more efficient.

5. Predictions: In order to take best course of action and to make accurate future predictions large data sets are required. If companies have large sample size and historical data that means best business projections will be made.

6. Data warehousing: This is another technique in which data is gathered and stored before it is used for analysis and evaluation. This is done prior to the data mining process and it helps to segment and target customers according to the number of purchases made, registration for loyalty programs or discount vouchers availed etc.

There are many other techniques involved in the data mining such as machine learning and neural networks (computer systems make human like decisions), classification and even detection of outliers. Data mining is vital for companies that are seeking for competitive edge or looking for means to increase their productivity so they must invest in it.

 

Top 5 Project Management Challenges

Project management is one of the most challenging and exigent field in which the desired results can only be achieved through unbound practice and relevant expertise. Companies have to attune themselves according to clients requirements and there is no such template that they can follow in order to make project development lifecycle less complex. Let’s have a look at the top five major challenges that project managers have to deal with.

1.     Communication

Communication must be prompt and transparent within the team when handling projects. Project managers should take regular feedbacks from each individual to make sure they are heading in the right direction. The art of effective communication in project management lies in engagement of team and taking incisive updates from them on weekly or daily basis. It can be face to face or through online meetings depending on your convenience.

2.     Ambiguous goals

For the success of a project, the goals must be clear and well defined without leaving any mark of uncertainty. Your team might lose track if whole process of planning and setting of goals is misinterpreted. Two useful approaches that can help managers to motivate team and complete projects are CLEAR (collaborative, limited, emotional, appreciable and refinable) and SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound). Through this complex tasks can be broken down into simple ones and can be assigned to appropriate individual who can complete them efficiently.

3.     Risk Management

Risk management is an important challenge that must not be overlooked. It might hinder the company to achieve its milestones, if proper strategies are not implemented to deal with the anticipated risks. Project managers have to pre plan in order to mitigate these impending risks. Using sterling software will save your time and cost and will also reduce the chances of things being missed by automating tasks. Such tools can also give you an overview of your project progress by presenting the time limit and resources available, involving little managerial efforts. All in all, this will help you align your strategies with the risk.

4.     Sticking to the deadlines

The most common challenge faced by agile teams is that of meeting deadlines. Many companies set shorter deadlines to satisfy and reassure their clients which can be problematic. Delays are mostly inevitable. However, if you keep a track of the project from the day it commences or use Gantt charts you can effectively meet the deadlines. Also, keep the customers in the loop in case of sudden alterations in the project from their end. It may require you to extend the date of completion if workload increases.

5.     Managing expenses

In many cases project managers fail to make a correct estimation of the expenses. This can impede the product development lifecycle. The successful completion of project depends on many factors such as the software, tools and equipment that you use and even includes your human resource. The accumulated amount of all these things serves as an expense that must be carefully calculated through project management tools. Budget related constraints can be a big hassle in starting various projects so showing prudence while managing expenses is crucial.

The success of every project depends on how well you deal with all the above-mentioned challenges. Above that, the role of a project manager is also crucial to achieve your goals.

How CRM can improve Customer Experience?

In the recent decades, there has been a visible technology upheaval. Above that, digital transformation has made it inevitable for companies and professionals to reconsider the way they operate and deal with their customers on day to day basis. It is important for organizations to remain proactive, without compromising on their customers current and future needs. For this purpose, Customer Relationship Management is a useful software that gives a holistic view of customers’ preferences, their past purchases, needs, likes and dislikes. Based on that companies can offer customized products and services to them, enhancing their experience.

1.     Keeping customers in the loop

Communication and feedback are the keys to customer retention and loyalty. CRM is a great tool that helps companies to ensure that their customers remain satisfied. The data in the CRM system keeps the customers abreast with new offers, discounts, sale campaigns, initiatives and developments that take place from time to time. It also contains plethora of information of customers related to their activities, prior purchases, needs, conversation and engagement with the brand. CRM systems has made it easier for companies to filter and send messages to the specific customer niche without bugging them with unwanted messages/emails.

2.     Focus on what makes your customer happy

In today’s world, customers are tech savvy and keep themselves up to date through social media platforms. Word of mouth, their opinions, reviews and feedback on different communication channels must be assessed by businesses. To get their feedback on the products and services, marketers must cling to email marketing and surveys. This keeps them informed about the alterations that they should make which best suits their customers. CRM system also has previous data and record of individual customers which tells you what they really want from you rather than you assuming on their behalf.

3.     Making strong ties through personalized relationships

Relationship marketing subliminally affects customers and helps to create a strong bond with them. Customers can reach you out through phone calls, websites, Facebook and Instagram pages etc. CRM software assimilates this information which can be used to make communication more personalized. For example mentioning their names in emails and messages are touchpoints that elevates customer perceptions and improves relationships with the brand. 

4.     Quick response to their queries

If you do not respond to customers messages immediately you might lose them or compel them to opt for competitor’s product or services. To address this issue, CRM software can help you generate ready-made emails by simply selecting the right template for FAQs. Through CRM customers can also sign up for latest updates or even subscribe to get notifications.

5.     Offer customer support

The entire foundation of a business revolves around its customers, so offering them support makes them feel valued. Addressing to their complaints is not a hassle now because CRM makes sure that their inquiries are not lost into thin air. The customer service software keeps a check on their requests through a central system. In this way, customers receive an auto generated email that their request and queries have been submitted and would be resolved soon.

In a nutshell, Customer relationship management is a useful tool to learn more about your customers and their behavior. Companies can use that information to enhance their customer experience.