BLOG

According to the official data from Statista, the total amount of digital information globally is expected to comprise 175 ZetaBytes by 2025. Concepts of Big Data and data modelling, allowing hardware to collect and process tons of data from numerous sources online and fast, plays a big part in optimizing worldwide data consumption. As a whole, data modelling can come in quite handy in your business managing routine. Learn how exactly. 

What is Big Data?

Big Data describes a field of technological solutions that are intended to handle one global task - process colossal amounts of both structured and unstructured data in the real-time mode. Common data modelling concepts may be put to good use in various fields, from science to commerce. 

Fortunately, Big Data solutions are affordable even for small businesses to implement. In the recent past, companies had to hire whole departments of experts and organize for occasional courses focused on learning data modelling. The niche is so rapid in its development, however, that today cloud-based digital business analytics solutions managed autonomously by AI can handle it all.

8 Tips On How to Get Started With Business Intelligence for  Businesses

Let’s find out step by step how to most properly approach the implementation of the data modelling basics in your business.

Pick customizable solutions & don’t stop at one

As a rule, business analytics solutions are used by every other company department for its own purposes. Add a huge number of data sources to work with today and you can see that a single product would hardly be enough to meet all the needs of all the employees. 

For instance, a logistics departments could use some software based on GIS data modelling, the supply-managing team will find dimensional data modelling principles very helpful while your sales department will need a solution with the capabilities of statistical modelling for data analysis.

Thus, it would be pretty reasonable to consider the purchase of several integrative Big Data-processing, data modelling solutions from the get-go. 

Establish transparent client relationships

To provide a good competitive ability for your business, it’s crucial to set transparent, trustful relationships with clients. In this matter, you may use certain software data modeling tools that can analyze the interaction of your customer support with end consumers step-by-step and provide conclusions or predictions based on the accumulated data.

Employ several data sources at once

Up to date, there is a huge selection of software solutions that gather user data - social media, search engines, and various web applications. You shouldn’t neglect such galore and go for a number of such channels at once. It’s better when the data source is integratable with third-party products.

Implement Predictive Analytics solutions

Software that features a forecasting tool will give much more than just a boost in the data processing speed. The major advantage of predictive analytics is that you get long-term predictions, on which future company goals may depend. Mostly, these goals are directed at boosting or retaining the existing level of income. 

Nonetheless, as practice shows, predictive analytics in combination with artificial intelligence can go beyond the mentioned capabilities. In particular, you can identify employee turnover issues on the early stages of work and plan out further worker retaining strategy. 

Thus, Watson IBM software is used to assess general factors that influence people to leave their positions. Analyzing structured data, the supercomputer defines tendencies of each separate employee and calculates the chances of them leaving. 

Don’t forget to visualize data

As enterprise data modelling tools, obviously, contain tons of regularly updated info, it’s pretty difficult for a regular person to focus on everything that’s going on. That’s why it’s important to have a software tool at disposal, which would help you visualize the collected information for certain periods of time. That’s how you get to accessibly see ‘the big picture’.

Provide multi-user interaction

The more your software is accessible to users, the better. I.e., it’s great when your employees or project mates are able to access an app project from any device connected to the web and check the relevant data. That’s where cloud storage will come in more than handy.

Store data in a reliable place

Considering the all-around availability of Big Data solutions, their suppliers should be able to guarantee a sufficient level of security for their users. In fact, the security of a virtual user environment is among the basic elements lying in the foundation of the software provider’s business. That’s why the provider’s responsibility before a client company is usually regulated by a Service-Level Agreement (SLA).

Before purchasing a license for some software, make sure that your service provider employs specialized software products and hardware means of data protection in cloud.

Accelerate business-crucial decision-making

It doesn’t matter on which stage of development your business currently is. In any case, you can probably use a reputable source of objective, relevant info to guide you in your decision-making. In this aspect, we can return to helpful Big Data visualization tools, which allow to visually assess the dynamics of company growth building interactive charts within seconds. 

Conclusion

Summarizing our brief data modelling tutorial up, as you can see, implementation of common data modelling techniques and integration of solutions based on them is quite an accessible task even for a small business. If you plan on starting up a Big Data project, contact us and we’ll create you a scalable, reliable yet affordable and user-friendly product that is guaranteed to meet your highest expectations.  

What Does the Title "Best Web Development Company" Entail? 

Fine dress helps to impress - an increasingly relevant notion in the eCommerce industry. An eye-candy, high-quality website helps to attract new partners and boost the loyalty of the existing ones. 

Thousands of companies operating in the US web development services market are well aware of such tendencies, making potential clients’ choice all the more difficult. More and more equally impressive sites need to be scrolled through, lots of feedback and pricing policies need to be analyzed.

It’s also helpful to remember design is everywhere. Being eager to observe involves a lot more than having a hot-take on Snapchat’s new redesign. Seeking to learn from the real world helps unlock design thinking in more profound ways. Be on the hunt for opportunities to learn about experience design throughout your day (i.e. push/pull doors, queues, tv remotes, cars), not just when you’re looking at a screen.

However, well-planned, masterfully implemented solutions are what allow a certain dev establishment to be deemed as the best eCommerce web development company in the US and their clients to stay a step ahead of competitors.

6 Qualities of the Best Web Development Company

The following factors define the leading eCommerce web development company among all the rest and may help to significantly reduce the time needed for finding a reasonable partner.

Award-winning

A number of awards on the local and federal level indicate the quality of work a team does and ‘smoothes out’ the client’s subjective opinion. The Interactive Media Awards, Horizon Interactive Awards, and Webby Awards deserve the most attention. 

Innovative approach

All types of software in IT industry constantly enhance and develop further. This allows for making websites accessible, up-to-date, simple to administer, and perfected in terms of design. Leading agencies are fast to grab and implement a progressive piece of software for their own benefit once they see it become available. 

Expansive portfolio

Best companies should adapt to each and every client requirement, demonstrating a high level of technical expertise no matter the field of work. Projects dedicated to the creation of an online clothing shop or a web store selling medical equipment must be executed equally masterfully. 

Extensive services offered

Best contractors are able to provide all-around task completion. Such firms not only usually offer website development, but are also capable of SEO promotion, advertising, and tech maintenance. Add the logo creation, optimal domain search, hosting on top of that as well.  

Track record of success

Extensive experience of working with loyal, grateful partners is the best indication of expertise. Oftentimes, all the info about big clients is displayed on the developer website as an ad, which allows a client to get direct feedback. 

Company growth

The pace of profits’, number of clients and popularity growth is the decisive factor of a successful business model. A large company isn’t always the most optimal choice, but it most probably has something that makes it stand out among competitors. 

How to Choose the Right Website Development Partner

The creation of a new website calls for a good load of skills and experience in many related fields - from the development itself to design and deployment. And it’s quite a challenge to involve separate experts to cover each aspect when you have a limited budget. 

The following tips will help you optimize project expenses and make the most reasonable choice in terms of the development partner. 

What are the key skill sets we’re looking for in an agency partner?

Three main skills in website development include strategy, development, and design. Only truly profoundly expert companies specialize equally efficiently in all three aspects while otherwise, a client is obliged to increase financing to involve additional developers or sacrifice the quality of one project stage for the sake of another. 

If you let your in-house employees or members of an existing team handle a portion of tasks, however, you may avoid increased financial and time expenses.

What’s our rough scope & budget?

It is only obvious that simple and template-based sites are relatively affordable, while complex and original resources are quite expensive. All because the more complex the website is, the more diversely-specializing professionals must be involved. 

Defining a budget and expected results, you’ll make your life much easier in terms of finding the most fitting developer. 

Do we need somebody onsite?

For global and labor-intensive tasks (strategy, design), it is best to go for local contractors who are better aware of the local business and cultural tendencies. More localized tasks that require a lower level of qualification, on the other hand, are most reasonably handled remotely.

Ask your network for references

Any kind of agency self-advertising or presentation cannot be compared with real human recommendations. Choosing a contractor, it’s best to conduct small research by asking for opinions in the following order:

1. Employees of your own company’s marketing department or your team’s marketers;

2. Experts from marketing teams in the companies of a similar scale;

3. Suppliers & partners.

The key information you need to get as a result includes a number of potentially optimal agencies, level of satisfaction, and readiness to work with new orders. 

Research agencies online

Adding up the previous point, personal research through several related online resources would also do good. In such a case, you’ll be able to get closer to the fullest, truest evaluation.

Interview agencies like you would employees

Looking for a contractor is, basically, quite identical to looking for an employee. With such an approach in mind, it may be reasonable to turn to companies that specialize in selecting the required organizations. 

The key moments that require a detailed clarification during an interview include:

• which created websites & why a potential partner is most proud of;
• what is the perfect client in their opinion & which conditions they are ready to offer to such a client in the long-term cooperation perspective;
• what are the three major methods of implementing a project they employ & weak points in each; 
• what are their advantages among competitors;
• which part of the project is better passed to another contractor.

Thorough info by each point will give you a big picture of a contractor’s expertise along with the ability to competently fulfill client requirements. 

Reference check!

It’s always efficient to go the extra mile and ask for previous clients’ contacts. Companies that refuse to provide such information should be excluded from the list of candidates to work with at once. In turn, you should clarify the following points when contacting the referenced clients: 

• duration of cooperation;
• deployed projects & fields of services provided;
• approximate budget & cases of exceeding it;
• what is implemented well & what can be enhanced further;
• an overall level of satisfaction & reasons for further cooperation;

Apply what you learned in the interview

After such polling studies, you should get an absolute understanding of which part of the project can be handled just fine by your own team and what is better passed on to a contractor; as well as indicate whether the skills and experience of a potential contractor may allow them to efficiently solve the set tasks.

Useful Links by Location

To make it all  the more easier for you, here are some links to resources where you can choose from the list of the most prominent companies based in the big US cities:

• Find a top web development company in Chicago in this list;
• Here’s a great list of qualified, well-tried-&-tested web development agencies in NYC;
• And if you need to partner up with a reliable web development in Los Angeles, take a look here;

Conclusion

When establishing an online business and building a new dedicated website, the main thing is to find a reliable technical partner and web development services provider. Any potential error in selecting a contractor may undermine the whole scope of project implementation. 

If you adhere to the simple yet efficient tips mentioned above, you’ll be able to save time, budget, and a lot more chances to get your expectations met in the long run. 

AI and AI-based solutions penetrate all the spheres of our life and business at present in various forms.

Chatbots are the most popular trend and technology of the contemporaneity which really opened up due to the Artificial Technology development.

Chatbots and the place they occupy in the modern world

Chatbots are auto communication systems, either rule-based or intelligent ones. The intelligent bots are quite sophisticated, being a combination of machine learning, AI, and technologies of voice and image recognition.

Chatbots assist users in booking, shopping, search of goods, services, and even jobs, communicating in real language, through sites, mobile applications, phones, and multiple chatbot platforms.

Chatbot development - the future of customer service

Bots influence every modern production and sphere. They are used to improve the industrial process as well as for supply chain management. Still, the greatest influence they have on customer service, having totally transformed it.

The technology has many advantages - accessibility 24/7 for the consumers, the possibility to simulate humans and to provide personalized service, as well as being cheap and simple in implementation, operation, and maintenance.

Let’s deal with some benefits of chatbots in more detail.

Bots are where the customers are

Consumers use multiple platforms and channels for purchasing goods and services: email, messengers, marketplaces, social networks, forums, etc. To deliver modern customers the cutting edge service a marketer should be present everywhere and be ready to make personalized offers. Chatbots are perfect in providing audience engagement across various platforms. Find a bit of technical details below.

The most popular platforms for gaining customers and consequently bots usage are Facebook, Telegram and Skype. When a chatbot is developed, Facebook app is created and a separate page for the bot, so the admin rights should be provided to the software developer doing work for you.

Things are more simple with telegram, one only needs an API token to generate and apply with a bot source code to launch it. Preliminary testing can be realized with developer’s own token.

With Skype, the chatbots are integrated through Microsoft Azure, thus the settings are provided to the bot-owner in the Azure interface.

The cases when a client needs several separate projects for bot creation, Microsoft Bot Framework is of use. Besides multiple owners-administrators are allowed here.

So bots can be integrated into a site or a mobile app in various ways, but anyway they save your clients' time and allow them to turn for assistance at any time without even leaving the messaging applications they use. Besides, bots are quick to respond and communicate only essentials.

Interactivity is improved

The advances in technology have already allowed chatbots to lead the human-like conversations, they can analyze the context and deal with complex queries. NLP and big data analytics have brought customer experience to a new level and much more opportunities are open every day. Some brand bots are assigned a personality and a voice which makes customer - brand relations stronger.

Wide-scale of inquiries can be handled

Human staff needs rest and with chatbots customer queries can be processed round the clock, not only during the business hours. 

More than that, bots are more accurate and quick in transmitting tickets to the right specialist, while it takes the time of live operators.

Human operators get help in complex queries management

While the bots accomplish simple monotonous tasks, the live staff is released from routine. Human agents can then focus on complex issues, which demand creativity and analysis. Chatbots speed up the overall efficiency of the processes due to their promptness, ability to handle conversations from various platforms and manifold actions performed in a short time. Besides, their features can always be extended whenever there is a need or opportunity.

Newer audiences can be reached out

Kik and Messenger are the most popular chatbot platforms. According to Venture Beat, there were 300000 chatbots on Facebook Messenger in 2018. It's 10 times more than after the launch of the feature in 2016. To gain new clients companies just need to be active on these platforms.

Due to the possibility to interact with the users through voice, bots can be used to reach out to new internet users. Chatbots have already undergone an astonishing transformation from being a tool for fun to a powerful means of facilitating the communication of tomorrow.

Now you realize that chatbots used for customer service automation can outcome in better customer engagement, higher conversion rates, and broader clients reach, and definitely, want to know how to make a bot program for your business.

How to build your own AI and a Chatbot

There are two ways: to create a tool from scratch or customize an existing solution. However, the initial steps should be similar:

Define the bot opportunities

Before chatbot creation, the business owner should figure out how to apply the technology best. The types of work, which should be optimized through AI solution should be considered from work and data complexity aspect and defined. The major bot activity models are efficiency, expertize, effectiveness and innovation.

Understand the goals of chatbot development

It’s essential to know the pains of the client and to make clear what tasks should be solved by a bot. As soon as you know the answer the designer will be able to create conversations meant to meet the end goals effectively.

Ensure your knowledge base is updated

The work of bots is based on the articles and material you have in your help center. That's why the content should be properly written, up to date, easy to understand and helpful. The first step in the chatbot development process should be creating a state-of-art knowledge base.

Set up your processes

Any bot and AI works within the frames of the processes already adjusted. There is no use to put in place a new system while your existing procedures are chaotic. To avoid mess carefully think your customer service over before automation and make sure it works perfectly.

Aspects to consider here are the following:

• Create a tagging system to figure out the most usual questions.
• Identify the escalation routes to transit clients to the right human specialist.

Make authorization and verification procedures easy for bot’s smooth operation.

Get a proper understanding of your metrics

To track the success of any tool and strategy, one needs to comprehend the metrics he or she can measure success in. Revise the metrics you have or set the new ones before interactive assistant implementation. It will prevent you from running blind.

The major metrics should deal with customer satisfaction aspects. You may compare the number of incoming inquiries and client revenue based activities (orders, purchases, cancellations, etc).

Build/Order a chatbot using frameworks or development platforms

There are minimum 15 powerful platforms for chatbot creation. Some of them are Chatfuel (gathers information in Messenger,) Botsify (allows Smart AI, machine learning and analytics integration and easily integrated via plugins), Flow XO (boasts over a hundred integrations and visual editor easy-to-use), Motion AI (allows visual building, training, and deploying chatbots on Facebook Messenger, Slack, Smooch, or a website). 

It should be noted that while the code-based services like Microsoft bot frameworks, wit.ai, api.ai, IBM’s Watson are intended for developers, bot building enthusiasts who lack professional skills can use Chatfuel, texit.in, octane AI and motion.ai.

Design Conversation

As most of the technical details are left behind, the conversation should be designed for a chatbot, flow and scripting included here. Decide want a bot will to do, what content will it provide, which questions answer and actions take. It’s essential to understand what the users may want from it and what might an audience ask.

A diagramming, mind mapping or a visual tool, will be helpful to map the outflow of your bot conversation. Use Lucidchart or XMind for the purpose of making a script foundation with all possible conversation scenarios. 

Besides there are 3 major components AI chatbot should define and interpret Context (where the user is and what his or her profile is), entities (what the topic of conversation is), and intent (what he wants to do).

To parse inputs and plan the bot answers Natural language processing system is necessary, because it takes all 3 variables into consideration. Finally, make careful scripting defining how your bot interacts with the audience.

Provide your chatbot with voice and personal tone

Creating a chatbot with personality will determine the way your customers treat your brand. Clarify when a client communicates with AI, and when he speaks with a human for the right expectations to be set in and proper engagement guaranteed. Check the script as if you were a consumer and make sure it contains all the necessary info.

Think about the voice of your brand and provide it to your chatbot. The consumers will then realize they deal with the company they trust.

Testing the chatbot

Though the technology behind chatbots development may seem easily available, testing is vital as the development stage.

Here testing tools and ready-made solutions may come handy: Botium – or Selenium - free, open source tools providing QA. They go ground-up: from the API, through UI, and finishing with actual conversations. This solution is able to train bots in human mistakes comprehension.

TestMyBot is also an open source library possible to be used for free, however it requires Docker and supports Node.js. 

There is a host of services which can test chatbots’ performance against potential users, like Botsociety, Amazon Mechanical Turk,  Testbirds, or other crowd testing platforms, but you should keep in mind the main metrics to track - effectiveness of onboarding, understanding complex requests and typos, being good at things remembering and consistency of personality.

Conclusion

Born in the eon of IoT and smartphones the technology of chatbots has a bright future. Combined with other technologies, like machine learning, NLP, AI, and RPA, bots become capable to solve a variety of business tasks. More than that their activity enables better business decisions, provides operational support and reduces costs.

To become one in 80% of the organizations using chatbots by 2020, you should decide how to start with the technology, what steps to take and when. It’s better to be prompt with the decision since chatbot development goes at a fast pace. A good idea is to turn for the advice of professional developers. It will help you to ensure your bot will be a state of art solution for any client.

We guess everyone has faced this or that bug in some application, which ruined our experience with it. When it’s the app you just use, it’s not a great problem, but if it's the solution you offer your clients, it’s unacceptable! 

Why may failures and bugs in web products happen? It’s all due to the lack of testing since this stage is often undervalued. We insist that application testing is imperative for smooth product operation. 

1. Web application testing components to start

In case you aim to create an app, which provides the state of art user experience, you should not neglect the testing phase. More detailed information about the necessary steps and a kind of web application testing checklist you can find below.

1.1 Functionality testing

The first thing you should check in your product is functionality. The solution you order or develop should meet all the requirements and specifications you indicated. The things which to be verified in the first turn are proper database connection and correct work of the links. Then forms should be verified multiple times with varied data input and cookies, HTML and CSS testing for syntax errors and compliance with standards. 

It’s vital to make sure that the business scenarios work as you expect. Unanticipated user steps should be obligatory tried at this stage as well.

1.2 Usability testing

This stage should comprise navigation and content testing for visibility, legibility, and consistency. You should make sure that all the instructions provided are clear, simple and serve the purposes of the users. 

Each page should contain the main menu and meaningful content. An important element for proper usability is the “Search”, it makes the search of the necessary info quick and smooth. Do not forget to validate the element if its present.

1.3 Interface Testing

This stage is essential to ensure the database, app and web servers interact correctly, without failures, and if there are interruptions they are handled in a due way. To test the interface, you should check the overall compatibility of the backend, soft- and hardware, network and database. Unexpected in-between user actions should also be tested to find out whether the major transaction takes place correctly, even in case of reset in the middle of the process.

1.4 Database Testing

As a business owner, you should check the proper maintenance of data integrity when the database info is altered. Besides, you should check the compliance with the app business logic, as well as that of triggers, store processes, views, etc. The response time and error notifications of queries should be fine-tuned at this stage.

1.5 Compatibility testing

These procedures help to verify if the app is displayed properly on all gadgets and devices. OS and browser compatibility, JavaScript and AJAX functioning, as well as authentication, are the aspects to check here.

1.6 Performance Testing

This stage comprises the app performance tests under standard and peak loads, variable connection speed and stress conditions. It’s vital to ensure that the architecture of the application can support it in a due way at peak loads. The product and infrastructure breaking points, bottlenecks, and crash recovery scenarios should be checked here and the improvements made if it’s necessary.

1.7 Security testing

Customer security should always be the priority of any developer and businessman, but it is specifically vital for e-commerce related products, which store personal and financial information of the user. 

We’ll provide a more detailed web app security testing checklist further on, but it should be kept in mind that unauthorized access to protected pages should be forbidden, restricted files should be downloadable only on condition of special access, and the SSL certificate should be applied.

1.8 Crowd Testing

This stage presupposes testing of digital solutions by a group of people to unravel unnoticed defects and operational drawbacks. The feedback of the people who have a fresh eye trying your product may be extremely helpful, throwing light on usability aspects, features, and bugs you failed to notice initially.

2. What aspects you need to pay special attention

As we have already mentioned above, security should always be the major priority of IT and business specialists. That’s why we offer a kind of web app security testing tutorial to our audience to ensure their products are safe and crafted perfectly. So what should you do?

2.1 Web application security testing with browsers

When your environment and access to tools and scripts is limited, a browser might be enough to do some checking. However, it cannot be a full-fledged alternative to conventional processes. 

Most of the browsers allow to check and change user agents, alter JavaScript or CSS modes, encode, decode, manage cookies and local storage, capture screen-shots, see headers, check offline mode. 

To check your app security in the browser, you should first of all open developer tools. In most cases, the F12 button will help, however, use it mainly for IE and Edge, but there are other ways as well. Windows Dev tools are opened through the combination of Ctrl-Shift - I, use Cmd - Option - I on Mac devices. As to Google Chrome and Mozilla Fireworks right-click on the web page and then on Inspect.

2.2 Penetration Testing

To perform it a tester should simulate unauthorized attacks, aiming to access to protected data. The probability of hacker attacks and data leakage are checked in such a way. 

The procedures at this stage comprise scanning of vulnerability and pen tests. Scanning helps to find out the application bottlenecks, and verify if it’s properly configured to prevent attacks. Besides, it is useful for defining how the product security can be fixed and optimized. 

Pen Tests are a method of preventive control, which helps to define if unauthorized access is possible and how it may happen. It helps test the publicly exposed constituents like firewalls and DNS routers, and to find the most sensitive loopholes. 

The Methodologies and standards of Security Testing are multiple and variable, however, each product demands specific types of tests to be carried out. Still, each tester should work out his own approach based on the peculiarities of the product and standards compliance.

2.3 Web application security testing

There are two main types of such testing DAST and SAST. The first- Dynamic approach presupposes searching for the weaknesses of a web app, which can be ill-used by the attackers, breaking into the system from the outside. To perform such a test, you do not need source code, that’s why can be performed rather often and quickly. 

Static Testing includes a more inside-out approach of searching the weaknesses in the source code. Thus SAST can provide a real-time outlook on the web app security.

Conclusion

Testing should become an essential and obligatory part of any product development procedures, the major priority should be given to security testing. In case you’ve developed or ordered an app for your business needs, you can test it yourself, however, it’s advisable to use expert support for such cases. Axisbits is always ready to perform your product testing and provide advice or even take up its optimization. It will help you launch a perfect app and gain new and returning clients.

Despite the rapid technological progress, supply chain management remains a complex task. The product's way from the manufacturer to the final distribution involves numerous point-to-point interactions that are in most cases supervised by emails and phone calls. Items can transit through different locations, and it may be hard to maintain end-to-end visibility on their way. The lack of control on any stage can dramatically harm the efficiency of planning and slow down the entire supply chain.

Luckily, there are some technologies, such as the Internet of Things, that can restructure and optimize these processes. Such networks already contain about 26 billion devices, and this number is expected to triple by 2025. Are you curious as to what impact IoT may have on supply chain and logistics? How do you optimize the supply chain with IoT? Learn it from our overview.

Roles of IoT and Big Data in Supply Chains

IoT has the power to connect various devices and sensors into a network that can work without further human intervention. Such an ecosystem will constantly generate, exchange, and collect "live" data, providing much more visibility to every process within the supply chain. The sensors can report on conditions and GPS, optimize energy consumption, and alert of potential dangers.

There are several benefits of IoT in supply chain management:

• Improved inventory visibility;
• Real-time shipment tracking;
• Early identification of possible issues;
• Efficient supply and demand planning;
• Better quality management, etc.

7 Ways of Supply Chains Optimization with IoT

In fact, IoT can impact all aspects of the supply chain, from logistics to warehouse management, eliminating blind spots and inefficiencies. Now, let's look at several examples of IoT in the supply chain in detail.

Asset Tracking

People are already tracking numbers and barcodes of goods throughout the supply chain, but RFID and GPS sensors can help to monitor the entire journey of each particular item. Such devices can provide you with granular data about storing conditions, transporting time, etc. You can even learn how long it takes for your products to fly off the shelf. Such data can be vital for maintaining quality control, providing on-time deliveries, and minimizing losses.

Vendor Relations

You may be surprised that suppliers are responsible for 65% of the product’s value. That’s why you should pay closer attention to your vendors and how they are handling your products, and asset tracking can help to recognize the relationships that might cost you money. By paying attention to the items’ quality, you can determine unreliable suppliers and intervene before your customers receive a bad experience.

Inventory Management

Regardless of whether you have your own storage or use third-party warehouses, it is usually very hard to understand how much stock is in there. Items get moved in and out all day long, some goods can be left unaccounted for or even stolen, so real-time stock levels are seldom measured. 

But sensors attached to boxes/pallets can dramatically improve the situation. They can detect the real-time location of all the items you have and even alert workers if the goods are leaving outside the schedule. Another benefit of such devices is accurate forecasting, as you can use their data to determine trends and make the supplying and manufacturing schedules as efficient as possible.

Scheduled Maintenance

Similar smart sensors can also be placed on manufacturing floors to monitor the conditions and plan maintenance. Any unexpected issues at the production stage can put your schedules at risk and thus cost you both time and money. Proactive actions can help you to maintain constant manufacture and prevent downtime.

Prevent Counterfeit and Substitution

The brand reputation can be severely damaged by counterfeit and substitution that can potentially happen anywhere within the supply chain. Identifying such issues is difficult even for a small business, and it can become an impossible task for cross-border trade. 

This issue becomes solvable if you supply your packages with smart sensors. These devices can detect when the box has been opened and report it back to the manufacturer. 

Visual Inspection

With IoT, the supply chain can become much more accessible for inspection. Augmented reality systems can help managers to explore any stage of the product’s journey without being physically present at that place. Gathering data from thousands of sensors, you will be able to reconstruct the entire journey of every item, detect possible issues, and react proactively to prevent service interruptions.

Post-Sales Data

Asset tracking data can have many other applications. For example, it can give you an opportunity to learn more about product performance after a customer buys it. Previously, you could gather such insights only by inspecting the product, but now you can virtualize this task and use such post-sales data for further improvement.

Wrapping Up

Both small businesses and big companies can benefit from applying IoT in the supply chain. It can help you to track assets within the entire chain, eliminate the blind spots, improve inventory management, and increase overall efficiency. What is more, the data in the IoT network will grant valuable insights on the potential issues, helping you to act proactively before they impact your revenue and reputation.

If you want to enhance your business with IoT, the Axisbits team can always help you with supply chain optimization.

Estimating software development cost is a challenging task. Often, it is not enough to answer the question - how much does the average software development cost? Thorough assessment influences a number of parameters and can determine every step of the way the developers need to take. Thus, the right software development cost estimation is a crucial part of every project. If you want to assess the software development cost of your project most properly, here’s what you need to pay attention to.

Six Important Factors to Consider Behind Software Development Cost

The parameters you need to pay attention to for software development cost analysis vary widely. Some are obvious and determined. However, there also are fluctuating and hidden variables. Let’s review the most important aspects of a software development cost calculator.

1. Work Hours Spent

Time is the most valuable resource for any project. In software development, the value of this variable can vary from mere minutes to days or months. As is the case in other fields, the work hours the team spends on the project directly affect its cost.

While this seems straightforward at first glance, the correct estimation of time has its own pitfalls. Particularly, it depends on a number of parameters, such as:

• A wrongful assumption that the project work time linearly correlates with the number of people working on a project (quality & expertise should be prevalent);
• Overall complexity of each task (how much experties & which tools they require);
• General scope of work (the approximate lengths & widths of the whole development project);
• Unforeseen mistakes & circumstances (make sure to add some extra work hours from the get-go to avoid suffering much from those).

2. Complexity and Work Amount

This point is dependent entirely on the information provided by the customer. To estimate the cost of software code development services, you need to find out what the end product is expected to look like.

To determine the scope of the work for the most proper IT software development cost analysis, you need to:

• have an in-depth understanding of how each part of the software should function & look. The more information you get, the better plan you will be able to put together;
• set up boundaries based on the technical limits & the level of your employees’ expertise;
• define initial terms, conditions, & requirements based on what you already know & have at the beginning;
• set main project objectives by the principle of posing an issue & offering a way to solve it;
• define milestones, such as the project development start & finish, as well as its general phases, by which you’ll be able to conveniently track the overall progress;
• individualize tasks - you need to subdivide general objectives into more individual ones for each respective expert to handle;
• establish the desired deliverables - what you want to see as a result of the finished project (both in technical & conceptual terms, i.e., what exactly should be implemented in the end - simple usable code or file of a certain format or mockup).  

3. Personnel Needed

The more experts you need on the job, the more resources you need to provide them with. However, it can be challenging to determine the exact number of developers needed. One task can become so specific and unusual that it might need a special expert to solve. For a first guess of how much does software development cost, divide the project into general steps and estimate the team you will need for each of them.

There are also specialized platforms and services to help you handle personnel selection properly, like:

• Zoho People - a well-tried-and-tested, integratable with practically any existing system software solution from the renowned CRM provider. Fits small to medium organizations best.
• freeHR - a cost-efficient solution for smaller establishments with a practically limitless free plan. 
• Sentrifugo - open-source, downloadable feature-rich software to fit all business sizes from small and medium to large. 

Each solution is absolutely free in its core version and offer paid plans optionally with more features and additions.

4. Location

If the developing team is spread across multiple countries, the correct software development cost assessment becomes almost impossible. Employees in different locations require different payments depending on the average fee in the country. In developing countries, the offshore software development cost calculation is even more difficult, with each company having its own set of rules. In such a case, be sure to find an optimal way to efficiently manage and communicate with employees remotely.

The specialized platforms intended just for that will help you, such as:

• Slack - an excellent renowned solution for in-house management and communication you can effortlessly register an account in & start working in a common virtual workplace right now;
• Microsoft Teams - a virtual office hub addition to Office 365 that can help you bring all your employees together in a single optimized environment through the efficient remote communication means;
• Rocket Chat - a free, open-source platform that claims right on its homepage that it can reasonably replace your regular email, HipChat, & Slack.

5. Extra Expenditures

The extras depend both on the specifics of your project and the specifics of your team. While each software development cost estimation example is unique in this regard, there are some usual suspects. For example:

• Maintenance costs;
• Security upgrades;
• Training fees;
• Additional testing;
• Infrastructure costs.

6. Status Quo Fee

While it often seems tempting to cut corners both during the estimation and during the development, it can often cost you more in hidden costs. Cheaper hardware and software tools can result in time lost due to glitches or even worse – data breaches.

Results and Discussion

So, we’ve narrowed down the most common and persistent issues and found the points that you need to pay attention to. Another question that stands next to how to calculate the software development cost is how to adhere to the estimation. It can be answered in the following steps:

1. Have proper tools for management and maintenance;

2. Ensure the use of relevant software development techniques;

3. Hire a team of professionals for each step of development, including the maintenance;

4. Create a comprehensive plan further into the future.

The whole procedure seems quite time-consuming and complex, which is truly so. That’s what qualified, profiled experts are there for - you can simply formulate your major goals, requirements, and tasks, leaving all the rest to us and avoiding cumbersome procedures you aren’t experienced in as of yet.

Conclusion

There are a lot of ways a software development process can go wrong. Some of them can be easily accounted for while the others are unforeseeable. That’s why any custom software development cost analysis is tricky. While any estimation has a chance to fail, by paying attention to the right elements and leaving enough leeway, there is a way to overcome this obstacle. Still, any assessment should be performed by an expert with hands-on experience. So, if you’re not sure – refer to a professional and check your project every step of the way.

Every year artificial intelligence-based tools cover more and more business niches. At first, it was mostly entertainment and personal aid (probably, every person at least heard about Apple's smart assistant Siri or its competitors). Today this technology is beginning to enter the financial sphere, including banking. Below we are going to discuss the main problems solved by artificial intelligence in banking sector, and also consider seven existing solutions that are actively exploited by well-known US banks.

Artificial Intelligence in the Financial Sector: Overview

Currently, the use of AI in banking “took root” in three major branches of corporate activities:

• Customer service. The most trivial way to apply AI in banking is to extrapolate personal assistant routines to business relationships service in the form of a chatbot. All of us have probably come across online chats in banking services, in which chatbots conduct dialogues with users and answer most typical questions without the participation of a live operator. Artificial intelligence helps to make the UX many times more personalized, and the answers - more accurate and consistent with the expectations of the client.
• Big data processing. In modern banking, every minute servers receive enormous volumes of more or less unstructured data such as financial transactions, movement of funds, deal conclusions, customer requests for comments, etc. In the past years, a new field of science appeared and started to develop - data science. This discipline is directed at analyzing structured and unstructured data, extracting knowledge and insights from it, discovering trends and building accurate predictions. One of its sub-fields is Big Data – a set of methodologies, tools, principles, and algorithms, directed at processing huge volumes of unstructured information. Artificial intelligence is one of the most useful tools here. In practice, AI in banking system does not just analyze the data but selects the best way to process it, which ensures the accuracy and speed of analysis on a fundamentally different level. For instance, this helps banks to actively introduce fraud and other anomalies' detection systems.
• Automation. And, of course, any scalable company in modern business cannot do without AI-based automation solutions that take on some of the daily responsibilities of full-time employees and thus relieve them from routine tasks (for example, scanning the incoming correspondence and extracting the necessary information).

AI in Banking - an Analysis of America’s Seven Top Banks

And now let's take a brief look at seven solutions that have been integrated into existing business processes of top financial corporations in the United States. This review should help you better understand how to use AI in banking:

• CitiBank. We wish to begin with a great example of a product for fraud detection in banking using AI. It was implemented by CitiBank - one of the institutions that make a major stake in providing financial security first. Feedzai is a platform that allows detecting and predicting cases of fraud in real-time by analyzing data streams, including those that come from previously unknown sources. This product minimizes the criminal intent risks, thereby increasing the reliability of the bank and customer confidence.
• Wells Fargo. One of the established market leaders, Wells Fargo bank has a dedicated AI developments group - Artificial Intelligence Enterprise Solutions. Since its establishment in February 2017, this department released several products and services. Among these, we consider the most interesting the AI-based personal finance advising option connected to their mobile app. Not only does it help to conduct account operations, but also serves as an online financial assistant.
• Bank of America. Bank of America has created a voice-controlled virtual assistant for internet banking, called Erica. It aids the customers in the implementation of all those operations that were previously available only in offline branches.
• US Bank. This bank is among the leaders by the number of funds and resources spent at the integration of AI-based solutions. USB created its own research group studying AI/machine learning and puts these two concepts into practice. Currently, they test the results of the introduction of AI- and ML-based technologies into all aspects of the bank's operation.
• PNC. PNC is another financial institution that spends a lot of effort in developing AI-based services. Their main points of focus include the introduction of chatbots to ensure an individual approach to each client and automated treasury management system.
• BNY Mellon. The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, which exists on the market for more than 2 hundred years, pays a lot of attention to innovative technologies - AI, ML, blockchain, robotics, etc. For example, they developed and deployed across all their businesses more than 200 chatbots with the goal of continuous digitalization of everyday work processes. In particular, such solutions are programmed to independently set multiple triggers and react to them, thus reducing the burden on live employees and minimizing possible risks associated with human factors.
• JPMorgan Chase. The last but not least artificial intelligence in banking case study is JPMorgan Chase Bank. This institution is often mentioned among the largest innovation adopters. One of their most interesting products is called Contract Intelligence (COiN). This narrowly specialized solution for legal document analysis and data extraction is actively used in all the branches of the bank.

AI in Banking: Prospects

Well, what are the prospects for AI in finances? In fact, we were able to identify five main options for the implementation of artificial intelligence in banking, which will be the most promising in the next few years:

• Improvement of the client service quality and further personalization of customer experience (AI in mortgage banking is now particularly popular because, with the help of solutions based on this concept, customers can independently calculate mortgage rates and payments);
• Market forecasting (everything is clear here - assessment of risks, prospects, customer involvement, etc.);
• Fraud detection (the speeds with which modern AI can process huge amounts of unrelated information already allows detecting non-standard customer behaviors and criminal activity with high accuracy);
• Technological competitiveness (here we are talking about all sorts of service applications for banking, which add popularity to the bank and inspire customer trust);
• Personnel work coordination (in today's market, large networked corporations do poorly without highly automated business processes).

Summary

As you may already understand from our analysis of AI situation in banking, artificial intelligence opens up the broadest prospects for the banking industry and in the near future, AI-based products are only going to grow in number. If you also wish to bring a project of similar orientation to life, you definitely cannot do without professionals. In particular, our developers are expert in developing AI-based solutions for the financial sector, and therefore it would be easy for them to implement the product of your dream within the stipulated time frame.

If a decade ago a company had a status if it had an official website, then today, this competitive attribute is quite out of date. A regular website just doesn’t do it anymore for tried users of the now - a regular website with static pages demonstrating sheets of info, that is. 

A much more efficient solution nowadays is to give users interactive capabilities and make web resources be able to solve more complex tasks rather than merely provide a display of info. Here’s where web apps come into play - online resources with dynamic, interactive web pages intended for immediate user interaction (which is, most commonly, achieved via the web app development services in React). Thus, a web application can be your perfect up-to-date solution to help you put your business’ name on the map of your niche. 

Most startup creators prefer launching main representatives online in the form of web apps. Moreover, certain businesses are all-around based on web app solutions - e.g., Ally is an online bank that doesn’t have any offline headquarters or outlets for customers - it’s based on the web technology from the get-go. 

Let’s discuss the major steps your development team or hired web application development services provider will have to go through to deliver an up-to-date startup. 

How to Build a Web App for Startup

In the core of any business web app development, lie 5 major steps. Let’s take a closer look. 

Step 1: Set up team logistics

A thing you will have to handle even before formally employing mobile web app development services is your business’ logistics priorities. As a rule, any average custom web application development services client poses two main priorities: speed of delivery and costs. 

Obviously, if an end product must be finished as fast as possible, the price of dedicated custom web & app development services will grow accordingly. So before starting to look for developers specializing in the custom web & app development services, think whether you will be able to manage the deployment and support of your product later when the main dev stages are done and you’re all out of budget. 

Step 2: Craft your company hypotheses

The next step would be to define the exact goals of your company. Marketing is crucial to think out here - from sweeping marketing research and competitor analysis to the composition of detailed clientele portraits.

Fortunately, there are public web resources like Statista which provide tons of statistical consumer data (including a TA’s gender, geolocation, social status, age, etc.) and make it easier for you to handle all the marketing analytics by yourself. 

Step 3: Write a value proposition statement for human beings

This step implies an analysis of potential clients’ pain points and the subsequent creation of a product that helps them solve at least one (major) issue efficiently. Depending on your TA, such issues can include a lack of time (e.g., banking apps are great at helping with the spare time shortage), of social activities (social networks are here for the rescue), of specific knowledge (smart assistants and feedback apps like Yelp), etc. Don’t try to cover as many pain points as possible at once, however - try to help your potential user painlessly manage at least a couple of them. 

Step 4: Build an MVP

MVP is a minimum viable product for a demonstration of your main business idea and core functionality. The reasonability of launching an MVP is quite simple to grasp: every other startup that employs web app development services in React.js is looking to provide users with something original and unexplored, which spawns many risks of an end product simply not fitting the big picture of the relevant consumer space. 

MVPs are created exactly to gather some real feedback from among your TA without going too far on the initial startup creation stages. All the secondary functionality can be added after the fact of your application being gladly received by the client-base. 

Step 5: Customer engagement

Surely, before launching your web app, you should conduct at least a small and humble advertising campaign. If we take a step aside from all the marketing mumbo-jumbo, however, and think about how customer engagement could help enhance all your further startup stages, you’ll see that the following affairs are necessary:

• get some real user feedback;
• react to user demands in terms of your software;
• encourage users for the provided help in polishing the product. 

Web App Development For Startups: Results & Discussion

Once the main functionality of your solution is done, you should definitely think about ways to monetize and promote your web app. Let’s see.

Monetize your app

In fact, there aren’t that many ways to monetize a web app - it’s not mobile software which must be downloaded, installed, and, if need be, prolonged in the license. With your web app, in commercial terms, you can: 

• distribute goods;
• issue fees for in-app registration;
• issue fees for target actions made with an app;
• monetize aggregators (place user announcements in tops for additional payment, sell ads, etc.).

Remember that when you pick a monetization method, it should correspond in cost with the value it provides for users. 

Launch and market your app

Launching an app into the release isn’t the final stage of your startup by far: not a single, even super useful solution, can make it in the market without ads. Think which promotion tools can be the most efficient and fitting in the case of your particular TA (for instance, FaceApp with its notorious age-hardening filter offered some influencers to post their transformations on Instagram, making it a viral thing within days.

Conclusion

Summarizing all the above-said, as you can see, there are some major steps a dev team should take when developing a business web app to deliver a successful, competitive end product. Don’t forget, however, that sufficient web app development services for startups can only be provided by qualified experts. If you’re looking for such specialists, turn to Axisbits. We specialize in web app development services in New York and other locations. We will be glad to help you with a project of any scale and complexity.