Nowadays, hackers are using VoIP as a tool for fraud. Banks and institutions are using voice biometrics for security and to speed up transactions. Voice biometrics is becoming popular with call centers because they use the technology as part of authentication process which verifies the identity of customers.  Voice analytics is another way VoIP can work to detect fraud. Through voice analytics, call centers and other institutions can automatically monitor and record calls & turn a call into text for further machine processing. To know more, follow Doug Mohney (editor-in-chief of HD Voice News)’s article at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/voip-news/4-ways-voip-can-reduce-fraud-70005

Generally people accept that using Voice over IP (VOIP) services will have a high level of quality, especially if they’re connecting from a hardwired internet connection.  We can measure the quality of your VOIP network. We can measure VOIP quality by its MOS or Mass Opinion Score. It is calculated by using the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) standards P.861 and P.862 or using ITU Standard G.107. Another way to determine the quality of your VOIP phone is to look at its R-Factor.  This score is an alternative to the MOS and runs on a scale that ranges from 0 to 120.  There are other factors that can be studied to determine the quality of your VOIP system.  They are: delay, jitter and lost data. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/tech-advances-business/how-to-assess-voice-quality-on-a-voip-network-70043

Recent research found 43% of companies using CRM solutions don't touch half of the features included. CRM is used mainly for sales but also supports marketing and support departments. They also track customer data, contact, and follow-up appointments. A CRM is a valuable tool to improve small business productivity, but there's no reason to get one that includes all features.  Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/how-much-crm-is-too-much-for-your-small-business-70037

Any business needs to sell products and answer the need of their customers in order to grow their business. Every business need to quantify customer satisfaction, but, you need to collect data first to quantify customer satisfaction. This is where CRM comes in. CRM helps you pull in more profit and also helps in maximizing marketing tool. CRM can also look into the customer trend. A CRM system can record all your past interactions, meetings and even business presentations. It will not just collate and analyze data, but it can also group your customers into different segments based on their budget or preferences. So, CRM as a marketing tool, not only relies on the products or services you offer, but it also relies on actual customer feedback. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/how-to-maximize-crm-as-a-marketing-tool-70038

CRM solutions handle sales operations and also provide valuable data for marketing & support departments. Nowadays, some CRM solutions are integrating social data, but companies should ponder over this question - does your SMB really need social features incorporated into your existing solution? We should know the difference between Social CRM and a regular CRM solution. A standard CRM solution gathers data from email, lead from input and phone calls, whereas, a social CRM examine individual prospect social media profiles, your overall audience impressions on social media, social conversations, and other insights into what your customers and prospects are concerned about. Sales, support and marketing departments benefit from adding social CRM data and features into their workflows. To know more about whether Social CRM is relevant to your industry or not, follow: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/does-your-smb-need-a-social-crm-70036

Customers nowadays, use apps and for a product owner it is important to know what value his app is generating to the customers. Product owners should connect with their customers and to connect with customers at a deeper level, you must take advantage of predictive analytics. Predictive analytics helps to discover core product value, and product managers can chalk out an efficient roadmap for delivering core product value to users as quickly as possible. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/mobile-apps/how-product-owners-can-use-predictive-insights-to-optimize-the-app-experience-01345327#EhVGic3TUeHPzH71.97

Nowadays, consumers want portable, quick and flexible technologies and that is why the ERP landscape is also changing quickly. According to technology expert Jennifer Lonoff Schiff, no one really knows the factors that will define tomorrow's solutions. Here are some factors that are gaining a lot of attention with regard to the ERP systems. They are: Social ERP, cloud, seamless integration, mobile, cloud, and analytics. Read more at:  http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/inside-erp/5-tech-factors-that-will-define-tomorrows-erp-70024

Experts estimate that 72% of ERP implementations fail to meet major targets. The most common disappointments are projects that exceed timeline targets, implementations that cost more than expected, and outcomes that deliver fewer expected benefits. Strong project management, the right internal and external talent, reasonable expectations, accurate selection processes, proper accountability for a project vision can help companies avoid the most common sources of failure. In short, without a clear road map, an ERP implementation is not possible. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/inside-erp/6-things-every-organization-needs-to-avoid-an-erp-faceplant-70026

Car insurance companies use obsolete customer demographic profiles in order to create rates and premiums. According to a report, big data allows car insurance companies to use complex data analytics to examine millions of customers at once, which results in providing accurate data and real-time correlations between driver behaviors and demographics. Big Data is also preventing fraud, policy profiling. In short, big data is revolutionizing the insurance industry. Read more at:  http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/accessible-bi/big-datas-impact-on-insurance-70027

In a recent survey, it was found that top uses for Big Data in digital marketing include: 29% - better understand customer insights, 18% improve the supply chain, 16% power campaigns and promotions. Marketers must use online data as the fuel that drives success when it comes to digital marketing and they must collect and integrate these online data sets into a marketing database. The information being generated from Big Data can be segmented into six specific categories: Web Mining, Search Information, Social Media, Crowd Sourcing, Transactional Data, and Mobile. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/big-data-drives-digital-marketing-success-01345766#uSzYX0oZgtDE3Sgp.97

App marketers are concerned about conversion and churn. Marketers like to get customers and make a relationship with them. The biggest stumbling block marketers’ face today is finding the right data to identify the risk of churning users and discover conversion opportunities. Bryn Adler (Content Marketing Manager at Localytics) writes in her article how to prevent churning, re-engage users, increase conversions, and facilitate better relationships. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/mobile-apps/4-ways-app-marketers-can-prevent-churn-increase-conversion-01341983#VzI2kKL3XBBMLz5B.97

Cyber security incidents are on the rise. Hence, traditional host-based security is now evolving to counter new attack vectors and infection types. So, two separate new technologies come together in a way that benefits both – and that is why, host-based intrusion detection systems (IDS) and the cloud has come together.  Palen Schwab (Head of marketing), writes in his article why host-based IDS thrives in cloud environments. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/cloud-computing/5-reasons-why-host-based-intrusion-detection-systems-thrives-in-the-cloud-01340835#Ya1GtqxhGdIsvYib.97

Effective PR focuses on the needs of the buyer. An ideal PR’s message should empower audiences. A successful PR strategy integrates inbound marketing as a win-win situation for you and your prospects. So what is inbound marketing?  Inbound marketing creates marketing materials that provide value. It is customer-centric. Wendy Marx (President of Marx Communications) writes in her article how to combine PR and inbound marketing to drive leads. They are: Press Release, Social Media, Blog Posts, Media Articles, and SEO. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/inbound-marketing/how-to-combine-pr-and-inbound-marketing-to-drive-leads-01345741#K5XWqsXDPQum2A6f.97

Specialists and healthcare facilities are using big data analytics tools to understand big data and take decisions based on it. Big data in healthcare relies on sources and analysis. Sources for data comes from doctors’ and hospitals’ reports on patients, information about genomes, information from hospital administrators and healthcare insurers, financial information, emails, social media, transactions and information from sensors placed in patients to monitor heart rate, sugar levels and other physical conditions. Big Data in healthcare has many advantages. They are: Improving patient treatment, gain insights about the effectiveness of drugs, low healthcare costs, predicting the severity of disease outbreaks, and customizing treatments to individuals. Read more at:  http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/byod-cloud/big-data-is-having-a-big-effect-on-healthcare-69822

In today’s world, every business relies on IT resources. It is not only helping themselves, but also in reaching out to customers. Successful businesses are monitoring the performance of their IT resources. Enterprise IT resources are highly modularized. The integrity of the resources and the overall stability of the system are critical for deployment. Solutions such as ERP and CRM platforms have evolved very rapidly. Businesses in order to succeed and expand, an understanding and deployment of the cutting-edge technologies is very important. The businesses directly tied to the deployment of IT resources will find it advantageous to observe some best practices. They are: Cloud-based SaaS solutions, distributed network infrastructure, and focus on mobile traffic. Read more at:  http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/it-small-business/keys-to-enterprise-network-optimization-cloud-mobile-and-cdn-69995

Internet of Things is evolving. Effective IoT requires software modifications, network communication support changes, platform shifts. The missing key is the data infrastructure to support IoT. Big data analytics is an advantage in today’s world, but it is essential for the coming IoT revolution. Big data can help IoT initiatives in many ways. To know more, follow:  http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/itmanagement/five-ways-big-data-can-improve-your-iot-initiative-69958

Field technicians always have forms with them. The forms may consist of maintenance forms, asset inspection forms, damage report forms, service and repair forms, etc. companies started to implement digital data collection using mobile computers. Nowadays, businesses of any size can afford mobile devices, and hence, digital data collection are becoming an alternative to the traditional methods. But, we must know whether mobile forms are better or paper forms. To know more how mobile forms and QR codes Improve field operations efficiency, follow: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/enhancing-km/how-mobile-forms-and-qr-codes-improve-field-operations-efficiency-69973

Security is important in any IT setup. It is important to ensure that the software is up to date when setting up a new web server or a new network service. Automating IT security is the need of the hour and nowadays, we have ample automating software to choose from. But, automating tools is not enough as we need to teach people how to use automated tools. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/talk-security/improve-the-security-posture-of-your-it-assets-with-automation-69982

In future, VoIP will be primarily mobile. Today’s VoIP systems are mainly on-premises private branch exchange (PBX) systems with a number of Session Initiation Protocol trunks and IP desk sets and cloud-based PBX systems. Mobile applications have been partially integrated into these systems. Companies must consider certain points before making the move to an all-mobile environment. To know more about this, follow: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/voip-news/voip-planning-7-things-to-consider-before-going-totally-mobile-69969

A data lake is a single repository (Hadoop or another NoSQL platform) that accesses and stores all types of data, i.e. structured or unstructured, enabling authorized users to quickly access data from one place. A data lake also captures changes to data. It should be a part of an enterprise data storage strategy for getting the most value from your organization’s data. Nowadays, data lakes consist of machine-generated logs and sensor data, raw customer data collected from website clicks, social media, collections of documents such as e-mail and customer files, and geo-location traces. To know more about data lakes & its benefits, follow:  http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/it-solutions/what-a-data-lake-isand-what-it-should-do-69978