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12 Best WooCommerce Plugins to Boost Sales

Last Updated on February 18, 2022 By Ayesha Saeed Leave a Comment

In an online world, business entities always want to work on all the strategies which would increase their sales by using the best plugins. Sale plans are the backbone of any business success or failure. Sales ratios determine the future of your business. Let us look at what should we do to boost online sales by using different plugins?

The plugin contains a group of functions that are used to add multiple new features to your WordPress website. For enhancing sales relevant plugins should be used which would boost your profit. Picking the right plugins is very helpful in taking your business to the next level.

Attracting the visitor to your website is should your first main goal. According to a survey by the Oberlo dropshipping app, there are a total of 2 million people in the world who shop online. It makes up 26.28% of 7.8 billion people in the year 2020. It shows a huge percentage of people are online buyers and it highlights the significance of developing the best website for sale purposes.

Setting up a new store or improving your already existing store is no more a problem. You don’t need any web developers anymore because the managers can run an e-commerce site on their own. It is now easily possible all because of the Woocommerce plugin available in WordPress software through which you can create an amazing store.

Woocommerece is considered one of the leading software which offers the best online store development features. WooCommerce is a popular open-source e-commerce solution available on WordPress software. Since 2011 WooCommerece is providing the best services to all small, medium, and large businesses. Since the day it is launched it is widely used all over the world. It is the best platform to sell your product and services.

Thousands of free and paid online plugins are available. All are easy to install and customize according to your product and services. You can apply different themes and blocks to your website. You can set up an online store in just a few minutes by choosing different available options.

For example, add product variation, cart, and payment by credit card, tax calculation, configuration shipping option, mail chip, affiliated link, etc. At any point, adding, removing, modifying, switching themes, and changing plugin features are easily possible.

There are multiple payment options that you can offer to your customer’s e.g. Amazon pay, Stripe, Alipay, Paypal, Square, 2checkout, Authorize.Net, and many more. You can limit your shipment or you can offer both local and global shipment options.

It is also available on a mobile application which makes store management easier, faster, and more efficient. These plugins give huge control over data. All data can be tracked and stored easily. An online store can also be enhanced by offering membership, payment by subscription, delivery option, drive sales and live rates for top carriers are some examples of extensions.

Selecting the best plugins could boost sales rapidly. Let’s, put a light on WooCommerce plugins that are efficient for increasing sales.

1. WPC Product Bundle

To buy things in the bundle always attracts customers because they buy products at cheaper prices. WPC product bundles have a positive impact on sales. People love to buy more things at fewer prices. Site owners can offer amazing attractive deals. Numerous products can be combined in one bundle at a reasonable price.

The product bundle contains the detail of price, image, quantity, and a brief description of the product. This plugin automatically calculates the prices of bundles offered in sales. It is also helpful in creating the site ranking.

2. Live Chat WooCommerce

Live chat messaging allows website visitors to chat with you directly. It helps engage the customers with real-time conversation. In case of any query, customers can ask questions directly through live chat. Customers can ask for the delivery time, product stuff, different payment methods, any new discounts offer, etc.

Giving response to customer build trust and they tend to buy more from the highly managed website. This plugin can also generate an automatic message, the moment a visitor comes to the website. Interacting with customers boosts a huge amount of sales.

3. Advance Coupon

The advance coupon WooCommerce plugin offers great deals to customers in the form of different coupons. It is efficient in creating interesting and attractive coupon deals that your target audience loves.

For example, auto-apply coupons, discount coupons, buy one get one coupon, shipping coupons, URL coupons, scheduled coupons, and more.

People always choose a website that offers the best coupon deals. At online stores, coupon deals boost sales and retain the customers for regular buying.

4. Woocommerce Checkout field editor

The user experience of the checkout field is one of the main determining factors in the conversion of any Ecommerce website. The plugin Woocommerce checkout field editor is one of the leading in the business with its enhanced UX and React JS based UI.

It helps in editing the default checkout field of Woocommerce by adding or removing fields from it to make it a more relevant and useful one.

5. YITH WooCommerce Zoom Magnifier

YITH zoom magnifier is considered to bring more sales to the website through its unique functions. Website stores that have customer-friendly features always stay everyone’s first choice for purchasing. YITH WooCommerce zoom magnifier plugin allows the customer to magnify &  zoom the product images.

Pictures can be zoomed in to check the smallest details of the product. When image details can be seen properly, there are more chances that customers will buy that product. Customers can also view images in slider form. The owner can also engage customers by customizing the zoom feature for mobile users as well.

6. WooCommerce Social Login

Another most widely used plugin for sale enhancing available is WooCommerce is a social login. Around 3 billion people use different social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google Plus, etc. It makes up 45% of the world’s population. When e-commerce stores are integrated with social media sites, it helps customers to log in easily. This makes the customer experience smoother.

Social login is beneficial in making website access in less time. It is considered the best marketing strategy to promote your product/service site through social media. Online websites get easily popular through these logins. People who don’t know about your store can get to know about them through these famous platforms.

7. WooCommerce Custom Products addons

The plugin Woocommerce custom product addons are one of the top-rated plugins for adding custom product options in the Woocommerce product detail page. This plugin helps to add custom fields of various types to the product detail page of any Woocommerce store, ranging from the simple text field to fields based on custom price formulas. The plugin is one of the most successful, in this category with more than 15000 users worldwide.

8. WooCommerce Multi-Currency

To generate higher revenue, the website should always be designed by keeping multiple countries in mind. WooCommerce multi-currency will expand the business finance as it allows the buyers to view prices of the product in multiple currencies and it allows the website owner to accept payments in multiple currencies as well.

In the multi-currency plugin, the drop-down menu is present which allows the buyers to view prices according to their counties e.g. Dollar ($), Euro (EUR), Japanese Yen (JPY), and British Pound (GBP), etc.

On websites, when only one currency mode is available it would restrict the customers from other countries to buy your product. Therefore, to cater higher audience offering payment mode in multiple currencies will lead to a maximum profit rate.

9. WooCommerce Points and Reward

Plugins like points and rewards are some of the excellent methods to make loyal customers. Customers always stay connected to those sites which gift them some points in return for their purchases. Points/rewards are maintained easily on the website.

Points get updated customers against his/her Email ID account automatically when he/she purchases anything, These membership points associate the customer with a website for long term basis.

A rewards/points system is a kind of discount that can prompt you to make more purchases. These loyalty-based programs become the reason for an increase in your online store sales.

10. Order Delivery Date for WooCommerce

To improve sales through customer service, the order delivery date is the best plugin in this regard. A customer can choose the delivery date. The delivery date satisfies the customer about the authenticity of the website.

The order delivery date makes sure that the website is not a scam. Customers’ trust is built through this process. On the trust level, huge numbers of purchases are made which eventually leads to financial benefits.      

11. Constant Contact

One of the best email marketing services for e-commerce businesses is constant contact. It helps build the email list. Constant contact stores the information, feedback, Email ID, contact of a visitor. It makes it possible to send personalized emails to the desired audience. It contains multiple email templates in many niches.

Constant contact helps in informing the visitor about your new product and services through email. Any important information, occasional discounts, notification and configurations messages, etc. can be sent through them instantly. Continuous connection with customers makes them remember the website. This will attract people to buy new products/services frequently.

12. OptinMonster

Optinmonster is software that converts unrestraint into customers and subscribers. Hundreds of websites around the world are using this plugin to generate their traffic into subscribers. Having more subscribers means more people will get to know about your product.

Website developer uses this to add unique content, to include a countdown timer, and to fine-tune detail, for campaign-specific analyzing and optimizing growth trends, etc. It is the best way to increase sales conversions.

Conclusion

WooCommerce is the best platform to develop your online website with some extraordinary plugins. These plugins become the reason for attracting customers globally. Creating attractive, customer-friendly, flexible, and easy to understand websites have the power to take your business success to a huge level.

ayesha saeed
Ayesha Saeed

Ayesha completed her Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry and started her career as a College Lecturer in 2013. Today, she’s a happy mom of 2 Kids in the field of digital marketing. She loves reading books, spending time with her family, and making delicious food for her husband.

Filed Under: Business

How to Deal with Unethical Business Practices

Last Updated on March 22, 2022 By Ammara Arshad Leave a Comment

Actions or behaviors that do not meet the good enough standards of business dealings are termed as unethical behaviors in business.

The field of business is caught up with such scandals that become an unpleasant surprise for the Globe. While a few get stuck and ought to face public disgrace, others hold to bask inside the glory in their unprofessionally accomplished achievement.

Unethical conduct in the place of work can have severe outcomes if unaddressed, and it is able to create a noxious work environment in which your personnel and business chores may suffer.

Here are a few common immoral enterprise practices that many organizations around the world are responsible for adopting for fulfillment:

  • Subornment
  • Mismanagement/manipulation of business accounts
  • Exploitation of employs by giving workload more than their responsibility
  • Dumping health-hazardous company waste into water reservoirs
  • Unnecessary medical checkups
  • Misleading information about the products

All these unethical behaviors can affect an organization’s credibility, causing the commercial enterprise to lose customers and in the end close down. On the other hand, business owners and their management teams can cooperate with employees to save you from unprincipled behaviors.

Poor practices by workers can be addressed properly so that these unethical behaviors would not impact on morale, repute, and productivity of an organization.

Following are the guidelines to be followed to fix and prevent unethical behaviors:

Set of Conventional Principles

A code of behavior enables the employees and the business honors with an outline of the type of conduct and behaviors the company expects. It summarizes what behaviors are unacceptable and what measures are taken if a worker violates the code of behavior.

Clear and Transparent Policies

A business should have clear and transparent rules about using business enterprise assets and expectancies of employees during work hours, in order to prevent problematic behaviors. These regulations need to be open to feedback from employees.

Rules have to exist for a clean cause; employees are much more likely to observe guidelines where they sense they’re contributing to particular final results or purpose.

Keep the Code Updated

To keep a business organization’s ethics top of mind it is crucial to update the code of ethics. The Code of ethics should be promoted, regulated, and renewed continuously in order to decline the low moral activities and demise of your business.

Ethics should be involved in day-to-day activities

Involve ethics and moral values of the business to your day-to-day activities and it should be constructed into the workflow of responsibilities and be part of the overall lifestyle, in place of simply present on paper.

Document the dishonest behavior

If your colleague is involved in any kind of immoral behavior it is very important to report or document his or her behavior. If your group or branch is ever audited, your documentation will are available in reachable. It can even help create a paper trail that could maintain you from getting in trouble with your corporation.

Endow Company’s employees

An organization should build an effective way to identify and handle ethics violations by implementing ethics-training programs for all new and existing employees.

Moral instructions should be available both in written form as well as online so that anyone can be aware of it. Training programs and awareness camps should be arranged for workers to educate them about their ethical values.

You would possibly even select to tie to moral conduct a few compensation incentives, which includes an end-of-the-12 month’s bonus or additional paid break day, to further increase the code’s relevance to employees.

Deal with Payment fraud

To reduce ability fraud at every phase of the payments system, agencies are turning to AP Automation. Invoices and digital payments are streamlined for complete control and visibility, and approvals are made quick and easy.

In addition, the automatic workflow guarantees that invoices aren’t duplicated or paid to an unrivaled supplier. With AP automation, leaders aren’t best shielding the commercial enterprise from fraud associated losses.

Conclusion

Unethical behavior sooner or later receives observed with the aid of upper control and also you don’t need to be reprimanded for any longer speaking up.

Remember, speak up will now not just help create a higher painting environment, but it’s going to also help colleagues understand your integrity.

In order to triumph over unethical behavior within the administrative center, leaders should additionally create a surrounding in which employees sense safe and comfortable.

Ammara Arshad

Ammara Arshad has been working with writing challenged clients for over 8 months. She provides ghostwriting, editing, SEO friendly content, and product description content. Her educational background in M.Sc. Hons. Human Nutritional and Dietetics has given her a broad base from which to approach many topics.
Know more about her on Linkedin or facebook

Filed Under: Business

How Product Life Cycle Helps Businesses

Last Updated on July 29, 2021 By Asad Naeem Leave a Comment

The product life cycle is the process through which a product covers its journey throughout, from beginning to end. It is completed with steps that include

1. Idea, Research, and Development: The very first stage of the product life cycle is that a person gets an idea about any product, does research on anything, and creates a team. He checks the impact of that product on the market and develops the product.

2. Introducing in Market: The next step is to introduce the product into the market. All that is to be done are advertisements, brochures, public dealing, and giving samples to the market.

3. Growth: The product then starts its growth. Constant hard work is required to take that product to an upper level. This is a very important step in the life cycle of a product, as all the other steps rely on this one.

4. Maturity: The product starts getting its maturity in the market. Now, it has many competitors. The sales are the highest on this point. Gradually, the market becomes saturated and sales start to decline.

5. Decline: The product has reached its fate that is to decline. The life cycle is now ended. This all process is very important in the following ways.

It supports Business decision making. The life cycle of any product helps the new beginners in marketing and entrepreneurs to observe the scope of a thing in market so they can start their own business, taking forward their ideas, and introduce any product into the market.

It brings the need for new product development. The product life cycle leads to the formation of many new products. Just take the example of China. They introduced millions of new and cheap products all over the worldwide market only by considering the product life cycle into account.

It reminds me of, “Survival of the Fittest. “Survival of the fittest” is a phrase that originated from Darwinian evolutionary theory as a way of describing the mechanism of natural selection.

According to this, anything having better combinations and makeup would survive in the environment. The same is the case in the marketing that the product with better usage would be the fittest in the market

Life Cycle of Product also helps us to Understand

Competition in the Market: Keeping the life cycle into account, people do watch others and top-rated products and in comparison, running in a race of “DOING BETTER” many new products are made by different people, in this way, the user comes to know about many products.

The market becomes better and prospers if there is healthy competition between the marketing managers.

User awareness: The product life cycle helps the marketing managers to get an idea of what the user and public think. It helps the makers to make the products according to the demand of people and the market.

 Product life cycle helps to re-new the ideas through the opinion of users.

Profit/loss regulations: The profit and loss regulations tell us that, if a product giving a good profit, it means it has a very high demand in the market and so with the case of low that now it is near to be declined.

It is also useful because

It balances the trade. We can get to know about the balancing in the trade which means not too many products should be made that overflow a market with no consumers, neither too low production of products which causes the harm to the repute of any organization.

The product life teaches us to maintain a balance between requirements and productions.

It is also a Forecasting tool. This lifecycle forecasts the future and stability of any product in a market. This gives rise to the prevention of any problem to be faced in the future.  It is also called the prediction and fate of any product.

Asad Naeem

Asad Naeem is a poet, content writer and social activist. He is a medical student. He knows how to make everyone well aware of social topics that are needed in out society. Find him on Facebook

Filed Under: Business

7 Best Actions Boost Hotel Revenues

Last Updated on December 8, 2021 By Ali Husnain Leave a Comment

A hotel jam-packed with people doesn’t always govern success. The hallmark of a profitable business in the hospitality industry is revenue. As bizarre it may sound, but managing your health and managing your revenue are the path to the same street. You employ an effective strategy; you get results.

Hotels deploy several revenue management techniques & practices to surge the bottom line. This article provides you with the top 7 actionable tips, which can equip you with a blueprint to maximize your hotel’s revenue.

1.  Know Your WHY

Things start to fall into place when you know the cause of action better than the course of action. If you want to cultivate loyalty in your customers it’s crucial for you to clearly understand and communicate your WHY.

Every company knows WHAT they do. Most of them know HOW they do WHAT they do. Whether you call them a “Differentiating value proposition” or “Unique Selling proposition” But very few companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. By WHY I don’t mean money – that’s a result.

By WHY I mean what is your purpose, cause of action? WHY does your company exist. Companies try to sell people WHAT they do, but they WHY they do it.

Quoting Simon Sinek here: “When communicating from the inside out, however, WHY is offered as the reason to buy and the WHATs serves as the tangible proof of that belief”.

So, WHAT you do is the external factor, but WHY you do it is something deeper.

2.  Truly Understand Your Market

The first step of paramount importance is to define your hotel’s target audience. Who is your customer, which category of guests do you mostly cater to, what is their buying behavior, and so on?

Identifying a target market and building a customer profile enables you to pinpoint the needs and wants of your current and potential customers. That said, it translates to new opportunities and vulnerabilities in your hotel.

These insights provide you with a foundation to establish your hotel’s USP(s) & keep up with market trends which eventually secure you a competitive advantage over peers.

With this hotchpotch of knowledge, you can easily seize the opportunity to over-deliver and bring more value to the table.

An effective practice to keep a check on competitors is benchmarking. This facilitates you to gauge your competition according to price, locations, and distribution channels.

This way, you can cut through the noise & constantly offer superior value. Remember, Price brings repetitive business but value cultivates loyalty among customers.

The only way to win in this industry is to shape up the identity of your hotel around consumers’ expectations.

3.  Leverage Social Platforms

In this digital era, Social Media platforms are the go-to options to precisely reach your target audience. If your business is not leveraging this resource, you are leaving an enormous amount of opportunity.

Social Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube allow you to run ads at a relatively low cost yet deliver an outsized ROI. There are endless options to share promotional content online for free.

At the very outset, Allocate a budget for Digital Marketing & decide which channels to penetrate. Most business owners confuse Digital marketing as an expense, in fact, it’s an investment towards growth. That said, start creating compelling content around your hotel’s niche. Content leads to awareness and exposure for your business which ultimately translates to profit and customer acquisition. Most businesses now use SMM for brand building.

In the wide array of marketing options, Influencer marketing is considered a popular option to build trust and generate conversions.  

The strategies you implement and the technology you deploy to increase hotel revenue may differ predicated on your goals. However, it’s essential to use social media platforms to their fullest potential to grow your business.

4.  Foster Direct Bookings

Gone are the days of dominance of local travel agencies. It’s a digital play now, Online travel agencies (OTAs) are the biggest booking channel for hotels. OTAs play a significant role in bringing guests and easing their way throughout by serving a number of functions like offering incentives, discounted prices, or ratings.

However, a rule of thumb is; “lessen the friction, better the profit”. For any hotelier, Encouraging travelers to book directly can be the most rewarding but challenging shift at the same time.

Decreased spending on OTAs results in more revenue. After all, 20% saved is 20% earned!

Keeping this simple fact in mind

The most important distribution channel is your website because it eliminates the third party & allows you to build a direct relationship with your guests.

There are some proven ways to increase your direct booking given as follow:

  • Optimize your Hotel’s website SEO
  • Reward your guest for direct bookings
  • Make your site optimum for Mobile phones
  • Showcase positive guest reviews on your website
  • Offer Loyalty programs

5.  Gain Essential Feedback

According to a survey: “80 percent of travelers read at least 10+ reviews before making their decision”.

Online feedback can make or break your hotel’s reputation. The only way to cut through the competition and grasp the most beneficial reviews is to actually care about customers’ opinions.

When you take the time to regularly respond to their feedback even if it’s negative they are more likely to perceive it as a positive gesture.

Constructive feedback also lays out the opportunity to improve your system according to guests’ needs. Simply put, You get the feedback when you ASK for it.

One of the best ways to do so is to send a post-stay email with a request to leave a review in exchange for a discount or ask it personally during their stay. Here’s the good part humans love sharing their opinion. 

6.  Apply Exceptional Upselling

Upselling is an exceptional way to increase revenue. You can upsell the simplest things from Netflix to room services. Just think out of the box and find ways to provide more convenience to the customers. And they won’t mind paying a bit extra for a better experience.

Ancillary revenue can be generated both online and offline. Online upselling works by offering service or room upgrades. Offline it works by offering extra add-ons.

If you have a restaurant or spa make sure guests use it. Luckily, If your hotel is based in a popular tourist destination, you can coin it in multiple ways. It all boils down to how you communicate your traditional or seasonal services such as foods. Go the extra mile to encourage customers to buy more interchange to the value you offer.

Local festivities and national events that re-occur each year are essential to keep in mind. Price your services accordingly, to capture the high demand at the right time.

Therefore, make sure to optimize these occasional opportunities to their full potential.

7.  Entice Niche Markets

“Jack of all trades, master of none” is not different than trying to seize the entire market. Whereas, playing in your field can help you excel in a particular niche. Enticing a specific group of people unlock a number of ways of increasing revenue and customer acquisition. Identifying your micro-niche enables you to streamline all of your efforts in one direction. This way, you can capitalize on a particular demographic.

Interestingly, Dominating a niche market also differentiate your hotel from the competitors. Hence, serves as a USP.

Final Words

Hope that these 7 tips give you some powerful insights to elevate your hotel’s revenue. In the end, it all comes down to constantly testing strategies and finding the best action plan for your business.

Ali Husnain

Ali Husnain is a Freelance Content Writer & a life enthusiast. He writes SEO optimized articles for businesses that want to see their search rankings surge. Crafting words that bring the most value to the readers stay his utmost priority. When he’s not writing, Ali enjoys getting immersed into reading Self-Help books. Reach out to him on LinkedIn or Facebook

Filed Under: Business

Why The 5 Forces Model Developed by Michael Porter Is Still Relevant

Last Updated on April 14, 2020 By Janet F. Murray Leave a Comment

The Five Forces Model is a business analysis tool that was created by Michael Porter during the 1970s. As a Harvard Professor, Porter came up with this diagnostic tool to measure micro influences in the business environment. This initiative was also intended to augment the analysis tool offered by S.W.O.T., which focused on internal business elements.

Motivation for The Creation of Five Forces Model (FFM)

Where the S.W.O.T. analysis tool concentrated on internal corporate capabilities, Porter saw a gap to develop a method to evaluate micro influences in the business environment. The FFM first earned its stripes in the 1980s when competitive strategies in the corporate environment started to become popular.

These competitive management strategies first began appearing in educational organizations, followed by their implementation in private businesses. The driver behind this approach was the need to promote profit growth. Profit maximization was becoming harder to achieve in an environment that was growing increasingly complex however.

The appearance of the world wide web in business during the 1980s was one element that added to environmental complexity. Another was the pressure to promote shareholder profits.

The FFM model enabled identification of competitor strategies to inform counter-strategies. Counter strategies were desirable to grow profits in areas other than where an organization’s competitors were active.

The three primary competitive strategies consist of cost reduction, the concentrated strategy, differentiation or combined strategies to drive share acquisition in a less saturated market.

Criticism Leveraged Against The FFM

Many business leaders and academic scholars have noted that the FFM has shortcomings. Most business analysis tools are not comprehensive, requiring augmentation by others such as S.W.O.T., the resource-based view, PESTEL, and others. Porter was aware of this when he developed the tool to enhance the internal analysis provided by S.W.O.T.

Other than its shortcomings, scholars have mentioned that this tool is difficult to apply to practical circumstances. They state that it doesn’t possess enough depth, and that the modern generation does not have the mindset to harness its capabilities and access its true worth. A poor analysis of the micro environment results, leading to sub-optimum management decisions being made.

Management in the modern era also aver that the FFM does not offer strategic alternatives to manage change in the present-day business world. Acquiring a greater market share or taking other action to achieve a competitive advantage is not however, confined to being created within the five forces. Competitive advantages should be developed in areas where there is less competition. In this way, the organization gains a foothold in a particular area, which it can grow into a strength not possessed by others.

Many of these scholars have failed to comprehend the thorough level of analysis that this model delivers, when properly applied. Despite major changes in the business world since the inception of the FFM, it remains relevant when these changes are accounted for.

The Business World Has Changed – So Must Analysis Models

The internet has changed how business is conducted since the 1980s. Rapid technological advancements have been made in the past 40 years. Digital marketing and online business are becoming the norm, as are cloud computing services, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. Innovation and creativity have formed the backbone of many of these environmental variations, prompting major strategic changes.

One adaption suggested for the FFM by Želimir Dulčić, Vladimir Gnjidić and Nikša Alfirevic, is to include a dynamic factor that is associated with the five environmental forces. This modification will enable improved recording of changing industry conditions, the ability to better evaluate the contemporary status and to better forecast changes. With this modification in place, management will have a far more powerful FFM to support their decisions in a dynamic environment, constantly subject to transformation.

Tony Grundy developed certain micro forces to be used in conjunction with the FFM tool. These micro forces included urgency, discretion, importance, mindset and several others. He then suggested that these be alternated in relation to each traditional force, to provide for a greater depth of analysis.

Other micro factors proposed by Gould, Anthony and Desjardins, Guillaume consist of ‘Do it Yourself’, ‘Other Technologies’, ‘Emotional’, and ‘Bundling or unbundling’ – all of which offer new ways to analyze the business environment in conjunction with the FFM.

The traditional five forces of this model comprise rivalry power in the organization’s industry, buyer and supplier power, the threat posed by product substitutes and barriers that discouraged others from entering the market.

Adding other micro forces to each of these elements for further analysis, enables greater worth to be extracted from the analysis of each level in the environment.

A three-dimensional model has also been suggested to enable the FFM to adapt to the contemporary business world. This has been discarded as being too complex and time-consuming to implement.

New Business Strategies for a Modified FFM Model

The FFM model needs to make basic adaptions to accommodate radical progressions in the way that business is done, since the model was conceived. Against this background, four strategies have been proposed for this model to counter competitive technological innovations. The lack of strategies to counter modern business competition was noted as a weakness of this model.

New strategic suggestions encompass the leader strategy. A leader strategy supports success where technological resources and R&D capabilities encourage a position of leadership as the first to enter a market.

This next strategy that management can apply to promote a competitive leverage is the fast follower. The learning curve of its predecessor is harnessed to save time and costs, but the organization must have powerful capabilities and remain flexible to compete against the first mover.

The minimization strategy focuses on cost cutting efforts in its products and processes in relation to its competitor’s efforts. The final strategy proposed by Michael Porter for use to compete in the FFM, is market segmentation.

Market segmentation or the specialization strategy focuses on meeting a specific need. Intense marketing efforts are required to meet that need. A further follow up to this strategy, is to copy the products of technological forerunners to create an individual competitive advantage.

The Ongoing Significance of the FFM in the 2020s

The Five Forces model developed by Michael Porter in the 1980s is still clearly relevant. Using the FFM to develop deep analyses of corporate environments is key to extracting its value.

The typical application of this model has been superficial but comprehension of its worth should help to promote better business environmental analyses in the 21st century. This is particularly true with the adaptions discussed earlier.

The reader should also keep in mind that the shallow application of this FFM, will result in shallow results. Insufficient or incorrect information is the basis for poor management decisions. The opposite is also true. The author therefore recommends that anyone who chooses to use the FFM as a business analysis tool, do so with depth and sincerity.

Janet F. Murray

Author Bio: Janet F. Murray is a versatile aspiring author and commercial writer. She has a degree in business management, and her specialty is generalization because she works as a ghostwriter and enjoys variety. She can be contacted at facebook or Linkedin

Filed Under: Business

Enhancing Financial Business’s Capabilities with AI tools

Last Updated on March 19, 2020 By Areeba Jehanzaib Leave a Comment

Numerous challenges encountered by enterprises often require AI and machine learning solutions. AI tools offer such an amazing feature to enhance organizational capabilities such as automated decision power, boosting predictive analysis, data analysis and data theft detection, cyber threat protection and a lot more.

Why AI tool is the technology of next generation?

In today’s age, all leading organizations deploy AI based tools for their digital transformation. It helps companies in growing their business and marketing their top-notch products. It also helps in hiring the right people, automating company’s finances, increasing customer satisfaction ratio, identifying fraud, detecting cyber intrusion and a lot more.

AI tools enhance businesses productivity by automating the processes. With AI tool, enterprises can customize the solutions specific to a problem that usually human can’t do.

Some Statistics

  • About 84% of marketing companies implemented AI and machine learning enabled products in 2018
  • About 75% of businesses used AI and machine learning solutions to increase customer satisfaction by 10% in 2018
  • Corporate investment in AI was tripled in 2017 and its expected that it will become a $100 billion market by 2025.
  • In 2016, $5 billion investment was recorded in machine learning venture.
  • A recent survey found that about 44% of US customers prefer chatbots rather than humans.

AI Tool For Cybersecurity

Let’s see, how financial businesses and enterprises encountered security threats in past years.

Year 2017

Financial industry has seen a major shift in attacks in past few years. In 2017, attacks on atm machines continued to increase along with fileless malware attacks on banks infrastructure.

Number of end users affected by banking trojans rose up to 767,072.

Around 19% of corporate users were attacked by banking malware.

It affected users around the world including Germany, China, Russia, Brazil, Vietnam and the United states. The most dangerous among banking malware family are Zbot and Gozi that affected 33% and 27.8% of attacked users respectively.

Also in 2017, a large number of end users were attacked by android banking malware in Russia and Australia.

Year 2018

In 2018, financial phishing considerably decreased from 53.8% to 44.7% among all phishing detections. Phishing attacks on Mac users grew up to 57.6%. In 2018, the number of users attacked by Android banking malware increased up to 1,799,891 worldwide.

Most affected countries were Russia, South Africa, and the United States. In 2018, cryptocurrency became a hottest topic that brought the risks of ransomware.

In 2019, financial organizations suffered huge number of attacks, data breaches and data stealth.

Year 2019

Biometric systems were implemented in financial organizations for user identification and authentication and attacks were made on biometric data and hackers leaked several major biometric records.

These biometric records were then used to carry out POC ( proof of concept) attack.

In March 2019, several attempts of DDoS attacks against financial companies were observed. Attackers used TCP SYN-ACK packets that flooded their data centres and damaged their reputation.

Forecasting 2020

Considering the effects of cyberattacks on financial sector in past years, we can predict that in future, cyberattacks will continue to evolve, not only in the financial sector but also in other industries such as health care, retail and government.

Regarding financial organizations, cyber criminals are likely to develop more sophisticated ways to cause monetary losses.

In 2020, we can expect an increase in mobile malware and cloud-based attacks. Insurance companies and banks need to work on their security strategies as current practises are susceptible to vulnerabilities. The industry is likely to witness an increase in DDoS attacks especially banking sector.

In near future, hackers are likely to develop more mature malware to counteract current security mechanisms hence, it is high time to deploy an efficient security system that can ensure protection from all kinds of malware either traditional or advanced.

AI-Enriched Cyber Tool, An Ultimate Solution

An AI-enriched cyber toolprovides a complete solution for financial businesses that enable them to proactively hunt down malware variants and other critical cyber threats that can bypass security layers. Such tools are based on artificial intelligence and provides intrusion detection at all security layers.

From network configuration to digital connections to IoT device configuration, right selection of cyber tool monitors enterprise’s entire network for abnormalities and detects even a tiny behavioural anomaly.

Thus, the tool detects malicious threats in their earliest stages along with regular scans of any suspicious activity across endpoints of the enterprise.

There are numerous cyber tools available in the market offered by multiple companies but only AI-based cyber tool can cater the growing security and performance concerns of financial businesses

Areeba Jehanzaib

Areeba Jehanzaib holds bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering with inborn passion to create content on top-notch technologies. She started her career as a technical writer during early years of graduation. Over the years, she has worked with notable companies across the globe, providing services of technical documentation, content creation and supervision. You can reach her via Linkedin

Filed Under: Business

List of The Multinational Companies in India

Last Updated on April 21, 2022 By Ayesha Saeed 1 Comment

Multinational corporations have their benefits and demerits too. Many multinational companies in India are leading the business market. These companies have their headquarters in the host or home country. The company information regarding any company can be researched on many research platforms.

Here are the following names of the MNC:

1. IBM

This multinational company is an Indian private limited, and a part of IBM has been operating its business from India since 1992. This multinational company is known for its innovative and integrated software and hardware services. The motto of the company is to think and create, which leads the country forward and helps in progressing the identity of the nation.

2. MICROSOFT

Microsoft is a global brand initially from the United States, but it also has headquarters in New Delhi. This MNC started working in the country in 1990. This MNC has some business units which in the country are:

  • Microsoft Corporation India Pvt Ltd (marketing division)
  • Microsoft global services India
  • Microsoft global technical support center
  • Microsoft India development center
  • Microsoft IT
  • Microsoft research center

3. Nokia Corporation

The Nokia corporation MNC started in 1865. this company is the leading manufacturer of stylish mobile phone range which are:

  • Normal handset phone
  • Touch screen phone
  • Smartphones
  • Business phone
  • Dual sim phone

To be in a leading position, Nokia has acquired many other companies so that they can enhance the ability to create phones for the world.

4. Pepsico.

This MNC entered the Indian market by the name of Pepsico. inc in India in the year 1989. This company made its mane in the industry in the first 20 years, and it became the largest beverage and food manufacturer. As per the business of the report of PepsiCo last year, they generated net revenue growth by 33%.

5. Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited

This is the largest pharmaceutical company that started the business in the year 1961 and made its image value when it opened a headquarters in the year 1973. This MNC is the largest manufacturer of medicines that are affordable and are of high quality. This company has made its worth as the patients, and healthcare experts recommend their medications when required.

6. Reebok International Limited

Reebok international limited is known for its shoes and lifestyle products. This company is a subsidiary of Adidas AG, which is originally from the United States of America, started its operation in 1890. The company noted that during the last financial year, Adidas sales were inserted by 9%.

7. Sony

Sony is a significant part of Sony Corporation. They started their work in japan but then established in India in 1994. From then, it has become the most considerable growth in electronic goods. Sony India is now planning to invest in ATL and BTL. The Sony company has also captured 30% of them, the market share of Bravia tv.

8. Tata Consultancy Services

This company is commonly known as TCS. The tata consultancy services are very famous names when we go to the IT sector, or a BPO ( business process outsourcing) company is a subsidiary of the Tata group. The first research center was established in the year 1981 in Pune city. The company is very much looking forward to ten bid deals, which include the contract with the government of Karnataka and credit union Australia contact, which is worth INR 94 crore, which will run for six years.

9. Vodafone

It is an international telephonic company. It has its headquarters in London, United Kingdom. The earlier name of this company was Vodafone Essar and Hutchison Essar. Vodafone is the largest company having the most significant mobile networking in India. The parent company or the leading company started its business in the year 1992, along with the max group with whom it partners in India. Later in 2011, Vodafone partnered with the Essar group to start its mobile operation in India.

10. Tata Motors Limited

Tata motors are the leading manufacturer of transport vehicles, which includes commercial vehicles. The company manufactures three passenger vehicles. This company was established in 1945. The tata motors are one of a part of the tata group, which makes its products in different parts of the country. They produce different vehicles which are:

  • Commercial vehicles
  • Defense security vehicles
  • Passenger vehicles
ayesha saeed
Ayesha Saeed

Ayesha completed her Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry and started her career as a College Lecturer in 2013. Today, she’s a happy mom of 2 Kids in the field of digital marketing. She loves reading books, spending time with her family, and making delicious food for her husband.

Filed Under: Business

How to Successfully Start and Manage Your Short-term Rentals Business

Last Updated on January 12, 2022 By Denis Woods Leave a Comment

Are you an owner of a spacious home, and you want to rent it out for travelers and tourists for additional income? Do you own vacation homes near tourist spots and urban areas, and do you want to establish short-term rentals business using them as a start? You can earn a lucrative income from your properties if you know how to manage them.

Based on statistics, the short term rentals market is booming. In 2019, the market was driven by factors like high hotel prices, demographics, investment opportunities, and the higher desire by homeowners to earn from their properties. The success of the online rental marketplace Airbnb also adds to the market boom.

Questions You Should Ask Before Starting an Airbnb-like Business

Without a doubt, short-term rentals are a profitable business. You can earn a considerable amount of money if you decide to venture into it. However, you can ask yourself these questions first before committing.

  • Are you willing to share your home with strangers and lose your privacy?
  • Do you have the time to manage your business?
  • Are you prepared to do activities like booking management, responding to queries from prospective renters, handling maintenance issues, and a 24/7 presence to resolve the problems that may arise?
  • Do you plan to make the business a steady source of income, or are you only looking for a new source of money?
  • Does your neighborhood association or local authorities allow your business model?

Useful Tips in Managing Your Property Rental Business

Although you may have initially planned your business as a sideline, you may soon find that it can take a lot of your time to manage it. However, there are several strategies that you can use to make it as easy as possible while earning a lot of money from it. Here are some of them:

  • Learn the ins and outs of the market – Conduct comprehensive research on how the business model works. You can also seek advice or attend the training and seminars conducted by industry experts.
  • Know your federal and local laws – Make sure you are up to date on all laws and regulations covering your business and properties. You may also communicate with your homeowners’ insurance provider regarding short-term rentals or other things like water damage insurance etc.
  • Determine your target market – Identify your target market and position your properties to meet their needs.
  • Create a website or list your property in the popular marketplace – Make your business accessible to your target market by creating a website or listing your properties in well-known home-sharing sites like Airbnb.
  • Set fair rates –Offer affordable prices and embrace a dynamic pricing model to become profitable.
  • Maintain a master schedule to avoid double-booking – Integrate your calendar in your listing sites to prevent double-booking.
  • Hire a team of maintenance staff and housekeepers – To keep your properties in good condition, employ dependable housekeeping staff and maintenance experts to maintain them.
  • Invest in technology to protect your property and guests – Install new technologies like smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, noise detectors, security cameras, and motion-activated lights to ensure your guests are safe and comfortable. However, avoid positioning security cameras inside your home.

Your short-term rentals business can provide you with the income you may have earned only in your dreams. With smart planning, dedication, and determination, you can grow your business to greater heights.

Denis Woods

Danis Woods in Businessman, investment banker and stock exchange traders. On the same time he loves writing financial blogs to shed lights on different aspects that new and existing businessman are not aware of.

Filed Under: Business

Seven Reasons demonstrate The Importance of Planning in Leadership

Last Updated on July 29, 2021 By Lisa C. Townes Leave a Comment

Planning is an imperative leadership skill because it guides you about how to achieve a goal. When you talk about leadership and the things that make a great leader, one of the most important things that come to mind is planning. Great leaders originate great plans.

Leaders plan

  • What to do?
  • How to do it?
  • What are the Obstacles?
  • How to bring innovation?
  • What are the behaviors to reduce risks and increase efficiency?
  • How to allocate resources?
  • How to manage time?

Most leaders know the importance of planning so they plan their work. When there is plan team members or colleagues at all levels in business tend to be more stress-free and enthusiastic for work and to achieve their goals. Plan Brings the development of actions in a straightforward way because it reminds people of their goals.

Seven reasons demonstrate the Importance of Planning in Leadership

Everything you need to know about the importance of leadership and planning is leadership encourages and arouses action from workforces by innovating them in planning and decision making.

Planning and leadership have a close relationship. It can be said there is no leadership without planning. Leaders are the person who works through planning like

  • What to do for the success of any organization?
  • How to overcome their weaknesses?
  • What are the possible ways to achieve their vision?

1. Planning helps Leaders to decide Goals

Planning helps every leader to analyze

  • Where they are Now?
  • And where they have to go?

It is very important to find a starting point to know where you currently are?

When you find a starting point where you are then it will help you to decide where you have to go?

It will help you to leaders your future goals. While preparing for future goals planning allows leaders to study the effects, they would like the business to have.

2. Planning helps Leaders to expand Decision making

Decision-making is a process where you recognize any opportunity or any problem then you decide to discourse it. You will have a plan before making a decision e.g., You will gather all the information about the problem to resolve it. You will check all the involved risks, alternatives, and you will make a decision.

3. Planning helps Leaders set abilities and expectations

Lack of abilities not only destabilizes the performance and results of a team but also influences negatively team building, teamwork engagement, and team relationships. There are many different instances where a leader needs to set expectations like building a relationship with colleagues, subordinates, team members.

While making decisions, setting goals, making strategies. So a plan helps leaders to put a thought that

  • What is going on?
  • What they are doing?
  • What should be done next?

4. Planning helps Leader to Motivate the staffs of the Organization

Of course, planning helps leaders to motivate their staff. There are many different plans that leaders use to motivate their team or staff. They motivate them by helping to develop new skills, engaging them in new and challenging activities, believing in them, taking interest in their career development, discuss their current duties and career ambitions.

By listening to them what they have to say gives them an open-door opportunity to make them easy in their working environment.

5. Planning helps Leaders to Allocate Resources

When you start work on any project you need to know

  • how much workforce do you need to work?
  • Or when you will need that?
  • Whose efforts are more to achieve a goal?

Without planning you never even know how much workforce you need for good results. When you plan to allocate the resources you will check the scope of your project, is it long-term or short-term?

Then you will identify your resources, who is currently available, you will track time and manage time for good results.

6. Planning helps leaders to encourage Creativity and Innovation

Innovation and creativity are essential to any business to move on, you can say that creativity or innovation is the heart of any business. What did leaders do to bring creativity and innovation? Leaders record the points of innovation and identify the different procedures like skillset, technology, efficient and effective management. Gather information about what people want, New idea generation to bring innovation.

7. Planning helps Leaders to reduce Overlapping and Wasteful activities

Simply when you set a goal and make strategies, do proper planning to achieve that goal, you will follow the procedure and strategies you plan for success. You will focus on your work and move on steadily without undertaking any wasteful activities.

Same as leaders will plan all the strategies of work and give you direction to focus on your work without wasting time and energy on wasteful activities. Planning helps to direct you to focus on your work.

lisa
Lisa C. Townes

Lisa is a passionate travelers. She spends 3 months every year visiting different places worldwide. She has visited almost every famous place in the world. She herself is an affiliate blogger

Filed Under: Business

Why Startups Should Find an Office Space for Rent in San Jose, CA

Last Updated on July 31, 2021 By Ayesha Saeed Leave a Comment

What most people outside of the United States do not know is that Silicon Valley is the heart of San Jose, CA. The city is the economic and cultural center of technology. In 2018, the area had more than one million in population, the third largest next to Los Angeles and San Diego. All those million people are packed within the 180-square-mile territory. That is why you see a lot of high-rises and skyscrapers that serve as office and condo-space in San Jose.

The year 2019 proved to be eventful for San Jose, CA. The resurgence of the technology industry is helping propel the office space for rent in San Jose. Indeed, property rent is rising. However, it should not hinder your plans to open your headquarters in Silicon Valley. It’s a matter of finding the right agent who can help check off most of the items on your wish list.

But for startups, why should you risk the high rental prices to open an office in San Jose, CA?

Here are some reasons why

  1. You can always attract a talented pool — San Jose remains one of the worker-friendly cities in the United States. The corporate culture is very casual, which also attracts millennials. Additionally, most of the companies here are forward-thinking in their approach to boost productivity. Silicon Valley only attracts the best of the best. As such, you would not have a hard time finding talent to populate your office.
  2. Opportunity to network and learn — If you’re looking for office space for rent in San Jose, know that you’re in the heart of technology in the US. Most companies that locate here know their niche and expertise. You have the opportunity to network and collaborate with like-minded companies to grow your business. Do you need to outsource a specific job? You can easily find somebody in Silicon Valley to do the task with superior quality. San Jose is also teeming with opportunities to learn, such as seminars, conventions, workshops, and symposiums, all geared to advance your learning.
  3. Angel investors — You will also find countless angel investors in Silicon Valley. They are only waiting for a chance to help startups get their products and innovations off the ground. You cannot do this when you’re outside of San Jose because you cannot get your hands on the pulse of the city. In effect, you would be an outsider and, thus, not privy to its secrets.
  4. Business-friendly environment — To its credit, the city has laid the groundwork to optimize the potentials for startups to succeed. For instance, San Jose has one of the strictest intellectual property and trade secret laws in the world. It’s understandable, of course, considering that some of the products are knowledge-based, which means they are not physical products, per se. In that way, the city makes sure that nobody steals your idea without consequences. If caught, they will feel the full weight of the law.

Even if you say that office spaces in San Jose are expensive, you can always justify the expenses when you take in the factors above. Silicon Valley was founded on startups, and it would likely remain so for the end of time.

ayesha saeed
Ayesha Saeed

Ayesha completed her Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry and started her career as a College Lecturer in 2013. Today, she’s a happy mom of 2 Kids in the field of digital marketing. She loves reading books, spending time with her family, and making delicious food for her husband.

Filed Under: Business

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