B2B firms’ commerce goals outpacing their digital capabilities, study finds [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

Those pesky legacy systems could be costing you a big business deal.

CloudCraze’s recently released 2017 B2B Digital Commerce Imperative Report found that for many B2B brands, legacy commerce systems are proving to be a barrier to digital transformation, preventing organizations from providing the agile, flexible buying experience customers demand.

In fact, the report found that as many as 70 per cent of companies have lost a business deal because of an ordering-specific pain point, and 31 per cent say they’ve missed out on at least $2 million in sales. According to CloudCraze, these numbers reflect an inability to accommodate the complex needs of today’s buyer because as a B2B business, they are relying on outdated commerce systems: More than 65 per cent last updated their systems more than two years ago, before Software-as-Service (SaaS) had matured.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

With Outgrow.co, your business can build its own interactive viral content [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

What started as a means to streamline a company’s business development process with an interactive tool has now become its core business.

Five-year-old New York City-based Outgrow.co was always fielding questions from potential customers about pricing for its web and app development services, so it decided to create an interactive online tool to make it simple for a potential client to discover quickly if they are serious about becoming a paying customer.

In the last year, however, this has become Outgrow.co’s focus, said co-founder Pratham Mittal. “It’s hard to build interactive content today. You need designers.” And this equates to high costs and a great deal of time that many businesses don’t have.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

NRAM’s Day Is Finally Here: Report [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

Better late than never might be a good way to sum up NRAM.

After years of not quite be ready for wide adoption, a new report from BCC Research is predicting that Nano-Ram (NRAM) is finally in a position to disrupt incumbent DRAM and flash memory with commercialization expected in 2018. The Wellesley, MA.-based research firm said the first non-volatile memory chip to exploit carbon-nanotube technology looks like it’s finally ready to have a serious impact on computer memory.

“Industry experts had given up on waiting for CNT memory,” said BCC Research editorial director Kevin Fitzgerald in an interview with EE Times. “I believe one needed fresh eyes to really see that the time was coming when it was really possible to make the switch from silicon to carbon.”

Read my full article on EE Times.

Optimizing customer service will be driven by AI and collaboration, Salesforce says [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

The future of exceptional customer service will be a united front powered by artificial intelligence.

That’s the theme of Saleforce’s Second Annual State of Service Report, which surveyed more than 2,600 customer service professionals worldwide to better understand how smart technologies are affecting service protocols and how service leaders are responding to customer expectations.

For example, the report found that 64 per cent of consumers and 80 per cent of business buyers expect companies to respond in real time.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

Diligent’s new tool helps corporate boards evaluate themselves and improve [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

Gone are the days of board members meeting just four times a year to discuss a company’s financial performance. Instead, increasing pressures are prompting the need to make sure everyone is well prepared and handling any issues effectively.

That new reality is what drove the launch of New York-based Diligent Corporation’s newest product. The company, which already provides board collaboration and communication tools to more than 4,700 organizations and 140,000 users, including 40 per cent of Fortune 1000 companies, has introduced Diligent Evaluations to make board evaluations easy to administer and analyze for both administrators and directors.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

Sun Life feels ready for oncoming “insurtech” [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

There may be a generational divide when it comes to embracing online services for banking and insurance, but for Sun Life, that generational divide is shrinking.

“Everyone is touching a digital channel today,” Cynthia Stark, VP of digital strategy for Sun Life Financial global marketing, tells ITBusiness.ca. “It’s just a degree of comfort and how deep how they will go.”

She would know: Sun Life recently refreshed both its Canadian website and mobile app, and though many customers are only using the company’s online services to review information rather than conduct transactions, it was important that both platforms be able to accommodate as wide a range of users as possible, she says.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

CRA to expand EFT audits in 2017, PwC warns [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

The next two years will see an expansion of the Canada Revenue Agency’s efforts to review international funds transfers (EFTs), which means many taxpayers can expect to see an “EFT letter” next year, according to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) Tax Insights brief.

The CRA initiative builds on efforts by the agency that since the beginning of 2015 have required financial intermediaries to report international EFTs of $10,000 or more to the agency. But while the fishing net may be widening, businesses that do things by the book shouldn’t worry, according to Montreal-based PwC partner Marc Vanasse.

“It’s business as usual for those who are reporting to government on fund transfers,” he said.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

Trust in fintech suffers from a generational divide [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

The big banks may have more time than they think before their “Uber moment” arrives based on this year’s Digital Money Trends Report, which found that Canadians are still wary of fintech, even as they increasingly search for information about financial products online.

The second annual report released by online financial comparison site RateHub.ca found that Canadians to not place a high level of trust in fintech companies yet, especially compared to their counterparts in the U.S., as there are fewer players here and less awareness. In addition, fintechs in Canada are newer and Canadians tend to have entrenched loyalty to the Big Five banks, unlike the fragmented financial services south of the border.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

Flourishing Internet of Things still faces adoption, security challenges, Juniper finds [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

Internet of Things (IoT) growth predictions have been bullish for a number of years, and new data from Juniper Research predicts the number of connected devices will triple in the next five – but that rosy forecast comes with some caveats.

The recently released The Internet of Things: Consumer, Industrial & Public Services 2016-2021 predicts the number of connected IoT devices, sensors and actuators will hit more than 46 billion in 2021, which is a 200 per cent increase from 2016. The growth will be driven in large part by a reduction in the unit costs of hardware, the organization found, forecasting that industrial and public services will post the highest growth over the next five years, averaging more than 24 per cent annually.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

Juniper predicts more chatbots and fintech in 2017 [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

Ashley Madison users have already unwittingly encountered a great deal of bots, but in 2017 they are going to become more prevalent – and more transparent to the user, according to U.K.-based Juniper Research.

In its top 10 predictions for the year, the organization forecasts that chatbots – virtual agents which operate via social networks and messaging platforms – will grow in presence and popularity, streamlining e-commerce activities such as booking flights and hotels, or to order items directly by speaking with a bot through an app.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.