Posts

5 of the Most Useful AI/Machine Learning Tools for Your Business

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |AI Machine Learning Tools|5 of the Most Useful AI/Machine Learning Tools for Your BusinessAt this point, pretty much everyone is familiar with artificial intelligence, or AI. Thanks to movies such as The Matrix, Terminator, and well, AI: Artificial Intelligence, most people are aware of the concept of intelligent machines. But although AI is a real and genuine technology, the potential and tangible applications of modern AI advancements are far from what Hollywood movies and novels by authors such as Philip K. Dick would have us believe.

AI is the future’s wave of adaptive learning, which involves utilizing programs to learn from data. As AI learns from the fed data, it advances and becomes more complex, reliable, accurate, and secure. Therefore, AI brings many adaptive learning benefits to education, businesses, and sectors of society. AI paves the way for more machine learning and other AI-related opportunities to drive industries to rapid digital transformation.

In fact, real AI is mostly applied to business development and science projects where data-driven derivatives and goals are the primary focus of a given strategy. In simple terms, AI applications are primarily focused on gathering, analyzing, and sorting data, much like any other computer program. However, where AI is different is in its machine learning capabilities.

What is Machine Learning?

What is machine learning? Well, machine learning is the concept of an AI developing its own repeatable output based on the data analysis from repeated input. For example, Facebook’s machine learning algorithm, DeepText, analyses posts and displays the ones that it thinks you might find interesting based upon your previous post-browsing history.

DeepText isn’t the only machine learning tool that you are exposed to on a daily basis. Netflix’s video suggestions, email spam filters, and even certain video games are all examples of machine learning that you probably use on a daily basis and don’t even realize.

Over the past few years, the power of machine learning and AI has become a viable tool in business development because of the analytical and data processing capabilities of modern hardware and accompanying software tools.

Benefits of AI and Machine Learning

Machine learning algorithms attempt to understand all data, applying learned concepts to new data sets to enhance performance and accuracy. Just imagine the functions and capabilities computer programs can do with these technologies. 

Here are the benefits of AI and machine learning:

  • Businesses can provide excellent customer service
  • Eliminate manual errors because of precision and accuracy 
  • Automation reduces manual tasks, such as data entry and computation
  • Improve decision-making with forecasting and real-time reporting
  • Reduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities and threats 
  • Improve productivity and time management

Companies utilize AI and machine learning to stay competitive. Having the right AI/ML tools in place can help a business reap the above benefits, making an edge to attain goals and objectives for long-term success. But what AI and machine learning tools do you need for your business?

Common AI and Machine Learning Tools

Large corporations such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google apply their own machine learning tools to their own business and have developed consumer-level AI suites for use by other businesses that don’t require knowledge of complicated AI programming and can be used for specific data analysis and modeling.

Some of the most useful AI suites include:

  • Google Cloud AI
  • Amazon SageMaker
  • Microsoft Azure AI
  • MonkeyLearn
  • Obviously AI

One of the most robust and technological machine learning tools available, Google AI powers the company’s own algorithms and provides multiple data-driven features while Amazon SageMaker comes as part of the extensive Web Services suite with an ability to perform custom ML datasets, and Azure AI from Microsoft is an impressive suite with many real-world applications as well as analysis.

Two AI tools that aren’t from huge corporations are MonkeyLearn and Obviously AI. MonkeyLearn is a very user-friendly text analysis MLAI and Obviously AI provides natural language analysis for forming predictions based on specific input.

Google Cloud AI

Launched in 2008, Google Cloud AI is mainly a compounding structure for integrating the useful features of cloud computing into a single, manageable platform with Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) options for secure cloud services. However, the system also provides feature-rich machine learning tools as standard that can be utilized in a variety of ways.

One of the most powerful AI and ML systems available, Google AI prides itself on being able to take under-researched problems and find solid, scientific solutions that advance the state-of-the-art in the field. Google also has a mission to make its AI system available to everyone and apply the technology to solve some of the world’s most pressing humanitarian and environmental issues.

The suite comes with many impressive AI applications that you can integrate directly into your deployment and productivity pipeline almost immediately:

  1. Contact Center AI; allows you to automate your call center interactions with customers.
  2. Documents AI: can read and extract data from your documents with algorithms that can look for fraud, data entry errors or receipt mistakes.
  3. Recommendations AI: can deliver personalized recommendations for each of your customers based on their previous interactions.

Amazon SageMaker

Part of Amazon Web Services, SageMaker provides multiple machine learning bindings for some of the most widely used and powerful programming languages available such as Python, Ruby, and Java which allows the creation of custom datasets and algorithms in addition to an impressive collection of preexisting ML systems that can also be incorporated into cloud computing.

One of the most impressive features of SageMaker is its support for other ML platforms with which it can integrate for even more productivity and increased workflow. Google Brain’s open-source platform TensorFlow is compatible with SageMaker as is Tableau. Both of these are focused on business intelligence and deep learning with traditional ML at their core.

SageMaker is one of the most powerful, scalable ML platforms available with many useful features:

  1. Clarify; reduces bias in ML that could help you find suitable employee candidates or customers.
  2. FeatureStore; allows you to select from multiple pre-existing feature groups that can be applied to your specific requirement model.
  3. Data Wrangler; this allows you to manipulate and convert data from one type to another, useful for such things as data modeling, calculation, and visualization.

Microsoft Azure AI

As the world’s leading software manufacturer, Microsoft is no stranger to complex data and advanced programming such as AI and ML. Also a cloud compounding service, Azure AI provides SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS capabilities with support for many of the best and most flexible programming languages available, along with their frameworks, with the suite’s emphasis being on software development by utilizing data sets, storage, and management features.

The business applications of Azure are impressive and the platform has been built from the ground up to accommodate business processes that accelerate development and rapid deployment in scalable, automated, and reproducible ML scenarios using specific data, models, and processes.

While most other ML platforms can be used for a broad range of applications, Azure AI is laser-focused on business development strategy:

  1. Video Analyzer; allows you to obtain real-time analytics from played and streamed videos.
  2. Azure Cognitive Search; add feature-rich data sets to your search functions such as autocomplete, geospatial filtering, and keyphrase extraction.
  3. Adaptive Machine Learning; user friendly interface with advanced features allows you to develop ML scenarios with either beginner or expert knowledge.

MonkeyLearn

One of the best Software-as-a-Service machine learning tools around, MonkeyLearn provides a feature-rich set of machine learning capabilities at a low cost that can provide useful insights for any business, but is especially popular with small to medium-sized businesses as one of its best features is that no coding is required.

Using MonkeyLearn’s user-friendly interface, you can develop topic-specific models for ML datasets such as keyword extraction, text to tag conversion and text classification features such as sentiment analysis, topic labeling and intent detection; true machine learning that can boost the productivity of any data-dependent business.

Some of the most useful features of MonkeyLearn include:

  1. Text Extraction; analyzes data so you can pick out features, keywords, or entities such as “14” screen size”, “free delivery”, or “Disney”, respectively, for example.
  2. Text Classifiers; analyses data so you can classify text according to a topic, intent, or sentiment.
  3. Integration; MonkeyLearn can further increase your ML capabilities by integrating with other popular programs such as ZenDesk, Google and MS Office, and Rapidminer.

Obviously AI

Another excellent machine learning application, Obviously AI uses natural language processing as a means of producing prediction models based upon specific input datasets. The platform requires no programming and operates via a user-friendly point and click interface in order to upload data and model a scenario for prediction with naturally written questions.

The MLAI then works to predict a specific outcome based upon the questions input and a predefined prediction column, then it can accurately model such things as revenue forecasts, lead conversions, and loan repayment probabilities in minutes, saving both time and money.

Basic on the surface, but extremely complex at the core, Obviously AI’s best features include:

  1. Complex Models; the app comes with built-in models that you can use right away for predictions.
  2. Ease of Use; the intuitive and user-friendly UI facilitates high-level machine learning with no expert knowledge of coding.
  3. Business-Boosting ROI; predictions with the app allow you to make informed decisions that can increase sales, detect fraud, or estimate paywalls and customer willingness to pay.

A Binary Decision?

It is pretty clear that machine learning and AI are driving the future of many industries, with large corporations at the wheel. Google, Amazon and Microsoft are empowering businesses of all sizes and across all sectors to advance their strategies with the inclusion of AI analytics, automation and prediction models.

The capabilities of AI and machine learning seem almost limitless and from a business perspective are able to extremely reduce the amount of man hours and, therefore, finances required to perform specific actions such as document analysis, categorizations and data extraction.

As AI and machine learning become more prevalent throughout all business sectors, one should ponder the questions; where does this leave the necessity of the human mind and what will be the human cost of such technological innovation?

Title Your Real Estate Career Should Enhance Your Life, Not Define It

/in /by

StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Real Estate Career|The Pitfalls Of Overindulging In Your Real Estate CareerVolatility and uncertainty are two words that clearly define the current state of the real estate market. Still, regardless of the changing landscape in real-estate investing, it has sparked many individuals to strike the opportunity of making the most with the Covid-19 induced economic recession. As a result, alongside the sudden surge in cryptocurrency investing, more people are looking into real estate careers as a way of guaranteeing their financial freedom in the long term during the current market downturn.

However, while we strongly commend those grasping their future by their hand, we have reason to believe that many newcomers are wrongly motivated by dreams of catching the wave of economic recovery and timing the market in their favor. And, while it’s entirely possible to set yourself for life with the right decisions in place, defining the next few years to come by your real estate career alone without recognizing the risks will set you up for failure and regret.

A Market Of Opportunity And Equally Terrifying Risks

It’s true that during trying times is when life-changing opportunities present themselves. Still, we must also look at it because the same market also carries equally terrifying risks that could do the same damage otherwise. And all it would take is one slip-up or a single moment of getting too ahead of yourself for one unnoticeable detail to leave your attention and make everything you’ve built up crumble to your knees. Plus, considering that the real estate market is more than capable of recreating this situation a hundredfold, newbies must proceed with this new career with caution.

  • Soaring Demand And Limited Housing Supply: Currently, there’s soaring demand for new homes and a minimal housing supply to top it all, making it a seller’s market and a dream for those already holding key properties to offer. However, the same situation was reflected during the housing crisis, and if the pessimists were to be proven correct, it wouldn’t be long until an event to pop the bubble. Sure, prices are high, and you’ll get multiple offers, but don’t take on too much.
  • Global Shortage Restricting New Developments: We’ve established the people want homes. They want them now, but the depleted global supply chains make it near impossible to start new housing developments because we are currently facing shortages. For example, lumber has drastically risen in price now that the US is facing a shortage of resources, making the prospect of building new homes less financially feasible.
  • Home Sales Are Unexpectedly Plunging: Lastly, despite the enticing home prices that appeal to sellers, existing home sales are down by 2.7%, and the current trend points to more decline. Therefore, you might not even be able to sell a home. The indicators show an explicit contradiction between demand and the realized home sales, making it even riskier for those new to their real estate aligned professions.

But Value Your Career And Safeguard Your Livelihood With Competence

Of course, we are by no means dissuading people from investing in a real estate career because it’s a career path that will inevitably teach you methods of guaranteeing long-term financial security. However, given the volatile and uncertain nature of the current real estate markets, you must safeguard your livelihood with competence instead of overindulging yourself with career goals and yet-to-be-realized dreams.

1. Know Your Way Around The New Marketplace

Times are changing, and the same is happening to the real estate marketplace, so you should start to know your way around it as soon as possible. From connecting with key stakeholders and making valuable strategic partnerships, you could quickly grasp the overall market sentiment in your locale and position yourself to make the most profit in the ideally safest way possible. For example, understanding trends in homeowner insurance helps you approach your clients’ interests better and more professionally.

2. Understand The Change In Homebuyer Demand

People want different things from a house, and with the new normal, homebuyers’ behavior is also shifting toward the emerging needs and challenges brought about by the global pandemic. For example, now that remote work is here to stay, and there will always be a reliable remote workforce staying at home, expect an increased preference for homes that could offer separate office space. So, when renovating or fixing up a property, always consider how you can meet the change in homebuyer demand.

3. Balance Your Risk Appetite

Last but not least, we recommend that you balance your risk appetite and acknowledge when you’ve bitten off too much than what you can handle. Far too many uncertain variables are currently at play, and if you don’t have enough liquid cash to meet an unexpected crisis, the market will liquidate your assets for you and put you back in square one or, worse, in more debt.

Don’t Stretch Yourself Too Thin.

In conclusion, you don’t want to stretch yourself too thin by focusing too much on your real estate career without recognizing the red flags all around you. Take a step back and always analyze every deal you plan on doing so you can mitigate any looming risks beforehand.

Five Important Factors When Choosing A Courier Service for Your Home-Based Business

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Courier Service|Five Important Factors When Choosing A Courier Service for Your Home-Based BusinessOver the years, delivery services have increased amongst families and individuals as a convenient way of sending and receiving items from distant locations, saving them a trip or two. In recent years many people have left the corporate industry, or due to circumstances, they are forced to work from home. As a result of predominantly working from home, essential items need to be delivered home from various locations.

For those who run businesses from their homes, to help you operate smoothly, courier service becomes an integral part of your business. Several courier services cater to service local and nationwide deliveries depending on your home-based business delivery needs. When choosing a suitable courier to service your business, you need to consider a few critical factors.

Service Type

With different courier service companies around, they too vary in the type of services which they offer. Some courier services differ in locations covered, such as local, national, and international scope. Another differentiating factor is the type of cargo carried, whether it’s individual parcels, supply inventory, automobile spares, or perishable goods; some services are specific to the kind of items they transport.

On-Timing Performance

Time and the tracking of parcels are essential when it comes to delivery services; the speed and route location of the delivery needs to be taken into consideration. The aim is to deliver the parcels before or no later than the promised timeline to the customer. Whether it’s an urgent 24-hour request, as offered by Texas Couriers, or even two days, on-time performance is always a top priority. Choose a courier company that can share tracking and delivery status checks in real-time, via mobile app or web.

Safety and Security

When choosing a courier service, the safety and security of your goods are a massive consideration. Courier services need to prove their safety and security policy of any items or parcels carried. Whether your recipient receives damaged packages or nothing at all that speaks to your reputation as a business, especially when working from home, you can come across as unreliable. You could be transporting a parcel with confidential information, and the last thing you want if having that information leaked.


Pricing

As a business, pricing will always be a factor when outsourcing services like courier service. The cost of the service will determine your profits made from a particular sale or service rendered. Courier companies will price their services according to the parcel size, weight, and delivery location of the parcel. Making a critical comparison of pricing with different companies is essential because companies will charge you different service rates for the same service and delivery time.

Additionally, as discussed by Interchange Pros (https://www.interchangepros.com/b2b-payment-solutions/), you need to see whether the company offers any robust B2B payment solutions. After all, you can save a lot of money using such service offerings.

Customer Feedback

Customer reviews are a great way to scrutinize the reputation of a courier company before you even work with them. This will give you a picture of various customers finding the courier service delivery; you can learn about customer’s experiences with security, timings, and prices. Considering customer reviews is an essential factor when deciding on a courier company, especially if you use the delivery service for the first time.

What Can You Achieve With An Economics Degree?

/in /by

StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Economics Degree|What Can You Achieve With An Economics Degree?An economics degree will support your employability in numerous spaces, paying little mind to the business you work in. There is solid interest for profoundly numerate alumni all through the worldwide work market, and the generally adaptable logical and critical thinking abilities created by financial matters understudies implies that vocations in financial aspects are amazingly wide going and different.

Banker with eco degree

Banking vocations are well known with financial matters graduates, offering degree for high profit and have an appeal for market analysts. According to some experts from this custom term paper writing help, graduates with a foundation in financial matters are especially esteemed for parts in monetary control, monetary arranging, hazard examination, information investigation and consultancy.

With an emphasis on keeping the monetary prerequisites of customers and organizations on target, banking professions are generally worried about exhorting and offering types of assistance for a scope of banking customers and purchasers.

Accountant with economics degree

To turn into a certified accountant you’ll require further proficient capabilities, however numerous bookkeeping jobs are accessible to the individuals who considered financial aspects. In bookkeeping jobs you can work across various enterprises, zeroing in on observing the monetary circumstance of an association, business or person. Vocations in bookkeeping normally center around recording, ordering, deciphering and imparting monetary information.

Finance consultant

Market analysts and financial aspects specialists are at the core of the business world and monetary counseling. Financial aspects graduates may discover positions in huge and medium-sized associations where monetary exploration is required. The part of a monetary specialist needs inside and out information on financial speculations and models, careful scientific and critical thinking abilities and numerical capacity.

Monetary experts in the space of financial aspects would fill comparable jobs yet may work for various customers rather than only one association, creating reports and exhorting on business system. Exceptional industry information and attention to corporate account is fundamental in these jobs.

Data collector and manager

A statistician is a business proficient whose job is to assess and inform on the effects regarding monetary danger and vulnerability. Utilizing information on both business and financial aspects, statisticians give reports and devise techniques on the most proficient method to reduce these dangers. Most passage level occupation jobs in this field are inside benefits and protection, however later on you may have the chance to move towards territories including banking, venture, and medical services or paper writing services in helping with statistics homework. Statisticians ought to be gifted in science and order insights, yet in addition ready to impart complex information successfully to non-specialists.

Alternative jobs

With a foundation in economics it appears the sky is the limit. Other regular financial matters vocations and jobs incorporate reviewer, stockbroker, backup plan, business chief, retail merchandizer, estimating investigator, analyst, monetary advisor and sales rep.

Yet, how would you be able to manage a financial aspects degree if nothing unless there are other options requests to you? Indeed, you may need to likewise think about these more extensive choices: business knowledge, global turn of events, human asset the executives, IT, news coverage, law, the board, statistical surveying, governmental issues, advertising, social examination and tax assessment. Or then again, you could even turn into a business visionary and go into business!

How Can You Protect Your Business From Any Kind Of Harm?

/in /by

StrategyDriven Risk Management Article |Protect your Business|How Can You Protect Your Business From Any Kind Of Harm?When you own a business, the most important thing is always going to be that you protect it from getting hurt in any way. There are a number of things that you can do in order to protect your business, but you have got to make sure that you are taking all of the possible precautions as joined together, that’s when they are at their strongest. If you don’t know how to protect your business, then it’s a good thing you have come across this article as this is exactly what we are going to be discussing. Keep reading down below if you would like to find out more about this topic.

Insurance

The first thing that you are going to need is insurance. When things go south, you always need to know that your business is backed up, and if it’s not, that’s when you’re going to be in a world of trouble. The thing with business insurance is that there are so many different types it can become quite hard to navigate which policies your business needs. As such, we highly recommend that you speak to a broker and see what they have to say. These professionals will ensure that your business has all the cover it needs, without going overboard and having cover that you will never use.

Don’t forget that your business is like your baby, and like your baby, you would rather pay for the best quality care. We feel like this is important to state because some businesses think that insurance is not important. We’re sure that’s not what you would be saying if you were facing days of downtime, losing plenty of potential profit.

NDA’s

Another thing that you should do is have all of your employee’s sign non-disclosure agreements. This way, they are not allowed to talk about anything pertaining to your company or the business that you conduct to anyone who doesn’t work at the business. This saves you from having any secrets of confidential information shared among your competitors. If one of your employees does slip and decide to spill the information, then you can take them to court and make sure that they answer for this.

Some people tend to think that if you ask your employees to sign one of these documents that it means you have something to hide, but it doesn’t. You simply want to protect your business from those who wish to exploit or hurt it which is exactly what you should be doing.

CCTV

It’s also important that you have CCTV if you have business premises. You don’t want people to just be able to walk in and do whatever they want, go wherever they want, and take whatever they want. This is a recipe for disaster, so we recommend that you look into the best CCTV systems on the market, and invest in one of them sooner rather than later. It’s not the waste of money that many people think it is, for the reason alone it is worth it.

The best thing about CCTV is that it acts as a deterrent for anyone who is looking to break into your business. Most people don’t want to risk getting caught as what they are looking for is not that important to them, at least not enough to risk going to jail for it. Hire an expert company to ensure that everything is fitted properly as this is the best way to be sure that you are getting full coverage.

Online Security

Next, you should think about taking the right steps with your online security. It’s fair to say that issues online have become more common for companies in recent years. One of the ways that you can handle this is by taking significant steps to boost your online business security model. This can be as simple as investing in the right cyber-security software. It’s worth noting that anti-virus software is often enough to put a roadblock in front of most hack attempts. If you are worried about issues here, then it could be worth thinking about investing in IT support as well. With an IT support solution, you will have experts on hand who are going to check for any issues that could be occurring behind the scenes.

Of course, if you are running a larger business, then the best way to handle issues with security is to make sure that you are investing in training. Often, an employee will be the reason your online security falls short because they are hit by a phishing scam. If you teach them the danger, they can recognize the signs that they are being targeted.

Get Your Affairs In Order

The final thing that you should do is get your affairs in order. If something goes wrong, then you want to know that the business is taken care of as much as possible, as well as your employees yourself where possible. For example, the same way that you would sort wills, trusts, and estates in your personal life, you should be doing something extremely similar with your business.

Speak to a lawyer and make sure that everything is in order, signed, and taken care of. You want to be sure that you are not leaving your business in the lurch if something goes wrong that can’t be sorted through insurance or any other means. At the very least, you need to be sure that the people who work for you are taken care of.

We hope that you have found this article helpful, and now see some of the things that you can do to protect your business from any kind of harm. It’s essential that you are always taking things with your business as seriously as possible, and taking precautions to ensure that it is safe is one of the most important. The last thing that you are going to want is someone exploiting your business, so make sure that you take these precautions to save yourself the future hassle!