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May 28 2020

Manufacturing in the age of AI

sankeysolutions AI, Manufacturing Manufacturing

In manufacturing, decision-makers must take into account specific industry considerations before they can realize the true transformational power of AI in the enterprise. AI is already transforming manufacturing in many ways. Navigation systems in cars, fitness apps, Alexa and Siri, Amazon, Netflix, weather forecasting, and high-speed stock trading are among current must-have AI applications. Now, even manufacturers with heavy assets, including cement companies, are launching pilot projects to determine if and how AI might benefit their operations.

The case for manufacturers with heavy assets to apply AI

For decades, companies have been “digitizing” their plants with distributed and supervisory control systems and, in some cases, advanced process controls. While this has greatly improved visualizations for operators, most companies with heavy assets have not kept up with the latest advances in analytics and in decision-support solutions that apply AI.

Operators still rely on their experience, intuition, and judgment. For example, Today’s downsized teams of control-room operators are expected to manually monitor a multitude of signals on numerous screens and adjust settings as needed. At the same time, they must troubleshoot and run tests and trials, to name just a few of the tasks that strain the limits of their human capacity. As a result, many operators take shortcuts and prioritize urgent activities that don’t necessarily add value.

This heavy reliance on experience makes it difficult to replace a highly skilled operator at retirement. Since variations in operators’ qualifications can affect not only performance but also profits, AI’s ability to preserve, improve, and standardize knowledge is all the more important. Moreover, since it can make complex operational set-point decisions on its own, AI is able to reliably deliver predictable and consistent output in markets that have difficulty attracting and retaining operator talent.

With respect to operational improvement and dynamic adaptability, artificial intelligence can outperform conventional decision-support technologies. Also, thanks to new, high-performance software tools, processing power, and cheap memory, AI enables companies to cost-effectively create and maintain their own algorithms and intellectual property in-house, which is cheaper, more versatile, and more adaptive to constantly changing equipment and market conditions. AI can fully automate complex tasks and provide consistent and precise optimum set points in autopilot mode. It requires less manpower to maintain, and—equally important—it can be adjusted quickly when management revises manufacturing strategy and production plans.

What Sankey has done!

Sankey Solutions is fast transforming itself as a reliable brand when it comes to customized, novel Digital Solutions. Especially in the Sand crushing space Sankey building muscle for a leading Crushing firm, a complete ERP solution which also has massive impact in improving efficiency of Leads Data collection and generation.

Apart from this Sankey is in engagement with a leading Automobile manufacturer in India and is providing immense value by leveraging IOT of the same nature which can be extended to the issues highlighted above.

Other AI Applications include but not limited to Price forecasts

To manufacture products, you first need to purchase the necessary resources, and sometimes the prices can get a little crazy. For example, if you buy stainless steel, its price is affected by a variety of factors, including the listings of Metal Exchange or the prices of other elements, some of them not listed on the metal exchange. With the rapid changes in prices, sometimes it may be hard to assess when it’s the best time to buy resources. Knowing the prices of resources is also necessary for companies to estimate the price of their product when it’s ready to leave the factory. Let’s stick to the example of stainless steel: the prices can vary, depending on the current listings of e.g. nickel or the price of ferrochrome. The system is able to provide accurate price recommendations just like in the case of dynamic pricing that’s used by e-commerce businesses like Amazon where machine learning algorithms analyse historical and competitive data to always offer competitive prices and make even more profit.

Customer service

When you think about customer service, what industries come to your mind? Hospitality, retail, banking? They deal with customers directly, so customer service is a huge part of their business. In manufacturing, however, the importance of customer service is often overlooked – which is a mistake as lost customers can mean millions of dollars in lost sales. AI solutions can analyse the behaviours of customers to identify patterns and predict future outcomes. Observing actual customers’ behaviours allows companies to better answer their needs. In 2018, Nokia unveiled the latest version of its Cognitive Analytics for Customer Insight software, providing powerful new capabilities so service provider business, IT and engineering organizations can consistently deliver a superior real-time and personalized customer experience. The software allows service providers to quickly identify issues and prioritize improvements. There’s a variety of ways artificial intelligence can improve customer service – read more about this topic here.

Worker Safety

Human factors play a huge, , factor in workplace safety, with fatigue and stress readily contributing to accidents. So, one major benefit of AI is its inability to get stressed, tired or unwell. In other words, AI safety can scale down human factors in the workplace.

For example

Cleverly detects if employees are wearing the correct PPE for each working area by blending video footage, innovative algorithms and machine learning. If a worker is not suitably dressed, alert is sent and restricts access.

Assembly Line

Systems includes inspection stations and software tools that enable engineers to remotely review images of any unit, while virtually tearing down a device to understand what went wrong, take measurements, communicate with the global team, and make fixes or specification changes to stop delays before they start.

Triage defective units automatically

Restart downed lines hours or days faster
Identify root cause in minutes
Test hypotheses without building more units
Monitor and set cosmetic specifications remotely
Keep teams aligned around the globe

Other areas in production and manufacturing which can find AI applications are Inventory Management, staffing, predictive maintenance, educating new workers, using a combination of AI-CAD and cloud technology to find bottlenecks, limitations mistakes, and much more! Stay tuned

May 21 2020

Why your asset and wealth management business needs automation

sankeysolutions Asset Management, Automation Wealth Management

“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.”
Bill Gates

Since the last global financial crisis of 2007-08 assets under management have experienced a sustained growth across the globe. According to experts at PwC this is expected to continue and reach US$145.4 trillion by 2025. While the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic downturn might slow this development, the underlying trend will persist. Despite the positive outlook, the wealth and asset management industry is confronted with a paradigm shift which is in full progress – challenging the old ways and pushing traditional players to embrace digitalization. Companies with a limited understanding of the broadening role of technology will fall inevitably behind.

External factors drive automation

A company’s technological framework becomes an historical heritage that grows in complexity the longer a company exists and adjusts to evolving requirements. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the main drivers for automation processes are not internal but rather external factors. For asset and wealth management companies these can be divided into three main areas:

Regulations: Since the global financial crisis, regulators have pressured financial institutions globally towards more transparency, requiring them to comply with their fiduciary duty towards their clients and to provide value-for-money services. As this regulatory oversight is expected to keep increasing, best practices have shown that it can be best addressed with the help of automation.
Cost-effectiveness: The pressure of decreasing profit margins, rapid technological progress, a shift towards passive investing as well as ultra-low to negative interest rates force companies to enhance their operational efficiency. Further, cost sensitivity of customers and an evolving competitive landscape with new digital entrants has become a primary determinant of flows across the global wealth and asset management community. Increasing operational efficiency while decreasing costs calls for automated processes to substitute work labour inefficiencies and reallocate resources to more valuable tasks.
Customer expectations: As in all areas of life, expectations towards personalized, anytime/anywhere, intuitive digital solutions have been on the rise also in the financial sector. This is further accelerated by the estimated large wealth to be inherited by a generation of digitally savvy. Hence, the digital customer experience has become a differentiator and a way to keep the next generation of wealthy clients.

Applications of automation across three areas

Within the wealth and asset management industry, automation can be applied to three distinct areas with each its respective objective: enriching the front office experience, enhancing the middle office processes and streamlining the back office operations. Following we have selected a few applications across these areas as illustrative examples.

Enriching the front office experience: With client expectations rising towards an upgraded digital experience, the client and advisory relationship can be improved at each interaction point. The most obvious example is the account set-up: it traditionally involves tons of paper, repeated data provisions from the client as well as several back and forth interactions. Automation can simplify this process, enhancing convenience and hence contributing to a better client experience from the get-go while facilitating anti-money laundering/know-your-client (AML/KYC) requirements. Interactiveness can be enhanced with smart chatbots that enable clients to tap into subject matter experts’ knowledge at any time and anywhere. Additionally, clients can be served with increased speed, accuracy and availability while better personalized services can be provided. With automated alerts, visually enhanced data information as well as analytics dashboards and reports, relationship managers can better serve their clients. To fulfil the increasing client demand for transparency tailor-made real-time reports with built-in data quality checks can be generated for review or queued for distribution via automated delivery to clients.
Enhancing the middle office processes: The possibilities of automation within the investment processes are very wide. On one end of the spectrum we find the automation of simpler high-volume and/or repetitive tasks – the socalled robotic process automation (RPA) which performs selected actions based on a defined ruleset. At the opposite end of the spectrum we find AI algorithms built around a learning model that enables it to take decisions based on experiences made and beyond what has been programmed manually. Exemplary applications within the various areas of the investment process include:
1. Research: From data maintenance, collection and cleaning to interpretation of relevant information via natural language processing.
2. Execution: From simple to complex execution algorithms taking account of regulatory constraints, individual client’s objectives, market conditions and impact.
3. Portfolio Management: From robo-advisors providing automated investment advice at low costs to deep learning automated trading systems mimicking the workings of the human brain in decision-making.
4. Risk Management: From tailor-made risk dashboards to detection as well as management of known and unknown risks of ever increasing volumes of data.
Streamlining the back office operations: During the trade processing phase automation can be used to match orders, verify transaction details and to handle exception alerts: while this increases speed of handling, it also eliminates potential incurring errors and frees employees to focus on more valuable business tasks. A single, automated bot could execute accounting and administration processes such as asset and cash reconciliation, including built-in support for tax assessment and filing requirements at a fraction of the costs. Bots can facilitate the hand-off of data across systems and ensure money has been transferred into and out of specific accounts. When we consider expensive penalties for lacking regulatory compliance combined with the continuously increasing regulatory complexity, intelligent automation appears the solution to help tackle these challenges and reduce breaches (e.g. by scanning investment management agreements, RPA can read and extract the most relevant information to then transpose it into compliance rule coding screens faster and more accurately than individuals could do).

Sankey’s approach to automation

The benefits of automation are multifaceted and include cost reduction, better usage of your resources, accuracy improvement, higher speed of processes contributing to an overall productivity increase as well as driving higher staff satisfaction altogether. While Sankey Solutions operates as our customers’ extended CTO team, at Sankey we take a partnering approach in developing custom automation solutions that best address a company’s needs while fitting into its framework – whether technological, organizational or other. Depending on your starting situation and requirements, customized solutions can be implemented over the course of few weeks and often on top of your current technology architecture – hence avoiding major infrastructure costs. Having worked on automation projects around the globe for clients ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500, we have enabled them to be better equipped to face their industry challenges – today and tomorrow.

May 14 2020

Is your reset password mechanism flawed? Assess in a few steps!

sankeysolutions Cyber-security

While the world is moving more and more towards the digital ecosystem, the goal is to make life easier for everyone so that people can connect and communicate with each other through a secured channel. People come online for different purposes, it can be for buying products, transferring money, acquiring knowledge, etc. Hence, security and privacy become a key concern for everyone. There are lots of ways which can lead to security breach, below we’ll elaborate one of them.

Objective – Our purpose behind this article is to demonstrate to how to assess the websites for vulnerabilities and not exploiting it for nefarious activities.

Scenario – Consider a common scenario where a user forgets his/her Account’s password and he/she has to reset the password using an auto generating OTP mechanism where the user can request an OTP on his/her registered mobile number by entering UserID and clicking on the ‘forgot password’ button.

If this mechanism does not have a limit on the number of attempts the attacker can do basic brute force to verify the OTP and eventually take over the account.

So, we’ll assess the Reset password mechanism for the maximum number of attempts a user gets to verify his/her OTP so that it doesn’t lead to hostile account takeover.

Tools you will need:

Vulnerability Scanner – Burp Suite Professional is an advanced set of tools for assessing web security, all within a single product.
Browser – Mozilla firefox.

Prerequisite:

Configure your browser so that all it’s requests go through Burp suite.

Refer this link to configure Firefox with Burp Suite

Approach –

Step 1: Set the site map in Burp suite.

Open Burp suite Go to ‘Proxy’ >> Intercept >> Click on intercept button.
Go to browser >> Enter the target website example.com >> press Enter.
Go to Burp suite(A request will appear on Burp suite)

Left click on request>>go to ‘Send to Spider’> Go to ‘Target’>>Go to example.com>> Spider this host.

Left click on example.com >>Go to spider this host.

Everything set! Your website is ready to go under the scanner. The spider will crawl(find) on all the pages of the website. For example – https://www.yourwebsite.com
Similar to other websites & APIs your website too will have forgot password link which redirects to reset password page.
On this webpage users need to hit the “reset” button(don’t forget to turn on the intercept before pressing the reset button) and they’ll receive a 6-digit otp on their registered mobile number(mobile has to register during the signup process). The user has to enter the otp in order to login into the account and set a new password.

In the HTTP request look for the URL parameter for otp.

Step 2: Testing the password reset page.

Test the page by entering the wrong OTP and intercepting that request in Burp suite.

Go to Burp suite>>left click on request>>Go to send to ‘Intruder’.

Go to ‘Payloads’>>select Payload option ‘Numbers’>> select range (just an assumption)form:-stating limit(500001) to:-ending limit(600000)>>step=’1’.
This means we are about to hit 100000 different OTPs on the target parameter(just an eg.)

Go to ‘Intruder’>>Go to ‘Positions’>>click ‘Clear’>>select the attacking parameter(i.e otpformobile in this case) >>click ‘Add’>>select ‘Attack type:’ ‘sniper’.>>Start attack

After the attack starts, all the OTPs are showing 200 status codes(ie.request succeeded) which concludes no rate limit on the OTP parameter, which means we can enter multiple OTPs until we get the correct OTP.
This is a very serious mistake a developer can make, we observe that out of 100000 OTPs the correct OTP was having a unique length then the rest of OTPs in the intruder.

The OTP having length 521 was the correct OTP in the above example(You can verify since you would have received it on your mobile number).
Once someone has this OTP, the account can be taken over easily.

Possible solutions:-

Following are the possible ways you can fix this loophole in your Reset Password mechanism –

Sending via email id – Conclusion from this experience is, if someone wants to reset the password of his/her account, we should directly send the password reset link on the users gmail account and ask the user to goto his/her gmail account and reset the password from that link.

Retry Mechanism – If we are taking OTP as a password reset mechanism then we must apply a rate limit to it. Probably 1 attempt and maximum 4 attempts, after failing the 4th attempt the OTP which was sent to the end user has to be discarded. Then the user has to request for fresh OTP which will again have 4 attempts only.
Time Based OTP – In order to make the OTP more secure, the rate limit can be combined with a time limit too. Once an OTP is requested by the user, the user will have 4 attempts and 60 seconds or 100 seconds to use all his 4 attempts. After failing, the user has to request fresh OTP again.

Sankey CyberTech Solutions (SCS) is the Cyber Security division of Sankey Solutions. SCS will provide Security & Assessment across various layers of your application architecture. We provide a security framework via range of services that encompasses technical layers of architecture which can help businesses to take reactive and proactive measures in order to safeguard their platforms.

May 9 2020

How these Point of Sale (POS) trends are creating new business opportunities in the retail industry

sankeysolutions Retail Point of Sale, POS, Retail

As technology advances, the retail industry is undergoing a transformation, unlike anything the industry has ever seen. New emerging Point of Sale trends is shaking up the retail space with retailers trying to keep up with the ever-changing needs of consumers.

POS systems have come a long way from just being a tool to record transactions to a dynamic platform that can integrate your marketing, inventory, accounting, and data analytics. Retailers who are leveraging the technology advancements are thriving and are finding new ways to interact with consumers. Here are some of the Point of Sale trends that are creating new business opportunities for the retailers:

Transition to cloud-based POS

According to Forbes, 61% of merchants have embraced cloud-based POS for their business. As technology advances, businesses are more connected than ever. Cloud-based POS has enabled various game-changing features for retailers like location-based discounts, real-time reporting, and customer management. To make the most out of technological advancements in the payment industry, it is necessary that POS systems are driven by agile, cloud-based software in order to enjoy the full benefits of today’s cutting-edge technology.

The biggest advantage of using a cloud-based POS solution is that retailers can do everything from easily accessing their data to upgrading their software across all the stores at the same time. Multiple stores can be updated and upgraded in just minutes, which makes doing business easier for retailers. Cloud-based POS systems are able to keep up with the retailer’s daily operations and are also able to scale up if the situation arises in the future. Cloud-based POS solutions also provide crucial features like CRM solution, guest feedback, reporting & analytics, and payroll. It also gives you an option to add a feature vital to the success of your business should the need arises in the future.

Mobile Payments

Gone are the days when cash was the preferred medium of the transaction at retailers. Customers want to spend as little time as possible while making a purchase. So, those long queues at the checkout line are doing anyone any favors. According to Harvard Business School professor’s research paper, Americans wait in lines 37 billion hours a year. Advancements made in the payment technology space have amplified the customer experience, driven loyalty, and boosted the overall success of the retail business. Mobile wallets are increasingly being embraced by consumers to easily pay for things in person or online.

Today’s consumers love the convenience, the security and authentication features of mobile payment options. Mobile payment offers a wide variety of advantages over cash with a range of options from credit cards to contactless payments. Cashless payments provide speed, convenience, guaranteed payment for merchants, and security and transparency for both consumers and merchants. Recent trends indicate shoppers using less cash than in the past and eight of 10 customers worldwide use a tablet, smartphone, a computer, or some form of digital technology within the store as they shop.

AI Integration

The influx of disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence is bringing exciting change to the retail industry and transforming the industry for better. ABI Research projects the total installed base of AI-enabled camera systems in retail is expected to grow from 420,000 in 2020 to 2.37 million in 2024. AI integration is helping retailers keep their customers engaged, delighted, and convert the majority of opportunities into sales.

The younger generation is more receptive to the inclusion of AI in their day to day lives. AI enables various features like better shopping experience, fraud prevention, and real-time tracking of inventory. Artificial Intelligence is extensively being used to collect crucial data points into customer’s behavior and offer relevant products based on their preferences and past purchases. AI-Integrated POS solutions have proved to be a crucial tool in targeted marketing campaigns. Retailers can now gain valuable insights from tons of customer data which is being used to reach the right set of customers. AI algorithms have paved the way for a better understanding of consumer preferences which in turn is used to create more personalized and relevant promotional campaigns leading to improved customer acquisition.

Usage of Big Data & Analytics

The retail industry has never seen this amount and variety of data being produced across various domains of the business. POS systems are evolving to provide an abundance of data and analytics solutions that can help retailers make smarter, data-driven decisions about their business. In order to personalize and enhance the customer experience, one has to understand every aspect of the customer buying journey, and that can be done through analyzing data and analytics through your POS.

Retailers are observing increased sales per visit with a deeper understanding of consumer’s purchase patterns, cross-selling, and up-selling trends along with improved inventory management. The data gathered from social media is used to identify changes in customer demand for products and new emerging trends. Retailers are actively looking to correlate their products and services to viral events and social topics. All these insights into customer’s purchasing habits have dramatically improved the efficiency of marketing campaigns.

For instance, restaurateurs in high-end establishments now have pre-built dashboards and individualized reports to their disposal which has helped create a more personalized customer experience for their frequent visitors.

Unmanned Retail

The scale and pace of the unmanned or automated retail have picked up a lot in recent years. Earlier it was only limited to vending machines but now we see unmanned kiosks and unattended grocery stores all around us. Experts predict that the interactive kiosk sector in the US will be worth more than $1 billion by 2020. The current epidemic is only going to push this trend to greater heights with consumers having the chance to experience the unmanned retail service in full capacity.

The popularity of zero-touch shopping is going to dramatically increase especially for food retail. Supermarkets are experimenting with cashier-less stores with core functions such as store monitoring, checkout, and payment is handled by AI technologies. According to a recent survey, 8 out of 10 Americans would prefer fully-automated stores to traditional brick-and-mortar stores. There is a clear business case for unmanned retail when you take into various driving factors like lower labor costs, new data collection capabilities, and improved operational efficiency.

As a tech services company, Sankey Solutions have architected POS solutions for multiple retailers across Europe and Asia enabling real-time tracking of inventory, storing customer profiles, and keeping the retail operations running like a well-oiled machine.

May 4 2020

Key trends changing the shape of forecourt retail

sankeysolutions Retail forecourt, gas station, key, Retail, trends

Gone are the days when a forecourt was a just place to fill up your tank – It has become so much more than just a gas station. The modern forecourts are now designed to compete with big convenience stores and quick-service restaurants. Only 19% of forecourt shoppers cite fuel as their main reason for visiting, forcing forecourt retailers to invest in their stores in order to make it an attractive destination for shoppers. Here are six of the biggest trends that are changing the gas station retail.

Forecourt as a convenient retail destination

Forecourts around the world have seen substantial growth in grocery and top-up shoppers. Forecourts are no longer just used for refueling purposes but consumers see it as a place to pick up lunchtime snacks or get dinner on their way back home. With the majority of shoppers visiting a forecourt by car, forecourts have the unique opportunity to tap into a customer segment that other convenience stores often can’t, due to the unavailability of parking space. One of the major reasons why consumers are opting to shop at forecourts rather than going to a supermarket is the reduced queuing time. It’s just so much faster and more convenient to shop in a forecourt.

Grab-and-Go Eating

With people only likely to become busier in the future, “grab and go” eating has become a major global trend. A number of forecourt retailers have started to experiment with small-format stores to use them as pick-up points for takeout orders. Because of low start-up costs and guaranteed foot traffic, it’s a no-brainer that gas station restaurants are poised to become the next big thing in this domain.

Connected vehicles

In 2020, it’s predicted that 98% of all new cars will offer Internet and car-to-car connectivity. According to a study by Visa from 2018, the 135 million US commuters spend more than USD 210 billion a year on gas, parking, food, coffee, and groceries as part of their drive to and from work. This trend presents a ton of opportunities to the forecourt retailers to provide a seamless end-to-end experience by accessing enormous amounts of data generated every minute by consumers. This sea of data can be leveraged to open doors to futuristic trends like analytics for customized services and promotions, pre-scheduled refueling based on usage and location, and connected stations.

Forecourts with Superchargers

Many countries around the globe are putting in place strategies to reduce and phase-out petrol and diesel cars by 2040. Additionally, awareness has been growing among consumers about issues related to global warming and climate change. In response, forecourt retailers are investing in solar energy and battery storage projects to change the gas station infrastructure with hydrogen dispensers and recharge points capable of providing electric vehicle owners with charging facilities. This will also inspire and push people to have the confidence to make the move to sustainable transport and publicly commit to the more conscious use of energy and materials.

Payment Evolution

Advancements made in the payment technology space have amplified the customer experience, driven loyalty, and boosted the overall success of the forecourt retail business. In-car payment technology is an exciting area of innovation and an amazing opportunity for retailers to optimize their business model. More and more retailers are deploying fuel payment systems that allow customers to pay for fuel and other products from the comfort of their car, with digital receipts and loyalty offers sent directly to the driver’s mobile device. Retailers need to keep adopting along with mobile payment evolution in order to provide seamless loyalty programs, create multi-brand offers, and provide contactless payment.

Digitalization

According to a survey by Accenture, 45% of fuel retailers expect their businesses to invest at least 20% more in digital technologies in the next three to five years. 66% of the respondents selected Data analytics as to the technology capable of driving the greatest performance impact for their business. Right now, most of the retailers follow a Hub-Spoke model where crucial decisions are made at the centralized head office. There is a greater need for decentralized decision making with individual stores having their own intelligence. For instance, an individual store should be able to place an order to the supplier in case of low inventory rather than waiting for the centralized system to do it on their behalf. Retailers can leverage predictive analytics to prevent downtime and dramatically improve forecourt efficiency and automate forecasts.

Sankey Solutions is a pioneer in architecting next-gen platforms in this domain having worked with some of the UK’s biggest forecourt retailers. Our real-time software solutions have allowed forecourt businesses to effortlessly combine retailing, food service, and pump control – all in one single gas station software helping them to get the most out of their forecourt operations. Our BI insights have delivered faster and more accurate information to decision-makers resulting in improved operational efficiency, improved customer satisfaction, and reduced costs.

May 1 2020

New monetization trends transforming the digital media landscape

sankeysolutions Digital Transformation, Media

Over the last several decades, traditional news industry (newspapers, magazines, books, journals, and periodicals) had a lot of issues which needed to be fixed from profit generation point of view, issues such as sharp decline in number of customers, loss in advertisement revenue, increase in the cost of print production and mass adoption of digital modes of distribution. In 2007, 2008, 2009, there was a sharp fall in Newspaper revenue by 9.4%, 17.7% and 28% respectively. With decrease in number of subscribers, the value of print advertisement decreased on a per-ad basis. To overcome this dip in revenue, agencies have started to adopt digital media by and large. Even the agencies whose business model revolved around tangible flow of news (through mediums like newspaper, magazines) are now switching to digital media to still be in the race.

Apparently, U.S. News & World Report moved to the web (digital media) fully from being print media as a result their subscription rates and thereby their revenues have seen a trend going North.

Another challenge for Media industry: Impact of Covid-19

The news media industry already was facing enormous change and was having to deal with a lot of issues as mentioned above. But since covid-19 struck, there are now further challenges which the media industry will have to face.

Since the start of the pandemic, print advertising revenue has collapsed down by 80%. Though newspaper websites have a good readership number but the income is little because the advertisers have slashed budgets or blocked their promotions from appearing alongside coronavirus related stories. It was also observed that news audiences are starting to decline as people get used to the lockdown.

Media analysts are predicting a long-lasting effect on the consumer behavior across the globe. The changes that were expected to take more than five years have happened in the past five weeks. Further researches say that people are unlikely to entirely return to their pre-lockdown habits.

The media industry extensively works on the concept of meeting supply with demand. Due to this pandemic, there has been a sharp increase in supply but the demand has drastically decreased since there has been a fall in the number of companies wanting to put up their advertisements to reach their target customers.

Is media industry still the most lucrative industry? Are they still making the highest profit?

The media industry was believed to be the most lucrative and highest money-making industry and the incumbent players in this industry were in no mood to change that. After almost dealing with various issues (as mentioned above), they still managed to come up with ways to monetize.

Paywall:

Paywalls are essentially a website feature/ filter that prevents users to view any content until they pay for it. Paywalls have been classified according to the extent of access they provide to their readers.

Hard paywall:

It requires the users to subscribe and thereby pay before they can view any of the content. This will work only if the users are convinced that the content is very high quality and they might not find such content anywhere else or it might work if the users put blind trust in your company (this is where loyalty will come in the picture).

Soft paywall:

If you do not have a bunch of loyal customers, but you are confident about your content, this paywall will help you monetize. Soft paywall is when you let the user read your content till a certain point but to get full access to the write up, they will have to pay for it. This paywall gives you a chance to prove that your content is worthy of the money that they are going to pay to get full access to it.

“Newsday.com” has a paywall in place which charges $260 per year which is pretty high. Even though the number of subscribers they had then was not even near to what they had expected but from those handful of subscribers, they still managed to have a massive revenue of $9000.

Meanwhile “The Wall Street Journal” charged $149 per year for complete online access and enjoys the highest number of subscribers and hence has a steady year-on-year growth even during economic downturn.

Combination paywall:

There are some content which requires us to just compile and sort our thoughts (basically lesser efforts) and we want it to be accessible to everybody. And at the same time, there are write ups which require extensive research, analysis, in-depth investigation etc. In this case, we would want it to be accessible only after getting paid. This combination of some articles being fully accessible for free while some articles requiring paid subscription is an ideal method for publishers who are confident about their content quality as well as their reach.

“The New York Times” has a combination of soft and hard paywall also called metered paywall wherein users can read a certain number of articles per day but post that, they will be asked to pay in order to get access to further articles.

Give free access:

In a world where every media agency is looking forward to putting some kind of a paywall to get access to their content, it might be a wise option to keep your content accessible to everybody. This will increase the traffic on your portal and will definitely attract more advertisers to put up their advertisements.

A few media agencies have given free access to their users for e.g. “The Washington post” or “ChicagoNow” has no paywall and its content is freely accessible and also is one of the most sought-after news portals. These media agencies having “free access to news” business model monetize on the basis of pageviews.

How are startups/aggregators making money: (New ways adopted by them)

Making use of analytics:

With the advent of analytics, pretty much every industry has undergone a “paradigm shift” and so has the media industry. Analytics brings about immense scope of personalization, close enough predictions, trends etc. These analytics tools are exploited immensely by media startups and aggregators which has helped them live up to the customers expectation and thereby improve their agency’s overall performance. These newbies focus on the time spent by individuals on various news genre, on the kind of news individuals prefer to read on the basis of their demographic details etc. They also ran several campaigns to better understand the kind of news people want (detailed or one liners). With the use of analytics, they are trying to personalize the App for higher customer satisfaction.

According to a survey, it was found out that the very basic reason of people not reading/subscribing to news was the fact that they do not have time.

News aggregators like “Inshorts” took leverage of the fundamental problem of the users which was “lack of time”, so they focused on time saving aspect and came up with 60 words summary of News which now is their USP.

Knowing your niche and embracing it:

A lot of aggregators are not just news providers. After a lot of in-depth analysis and research, they have found their niche and they have decided to stick to it which is keeping them in them race. There are plenty of such examples of aggregators who knew their niche and decided to embrace it.

For e.g. “Techmeme”, a technology themed aggregator), “eScience News”, a Science themed aggregator etc.

“The Athletic” for example is a fully paid sports journalism website and provides in-depth sports stories and is absolutely advertisement free. They claim to provide national and local coverage with engrossing analysis & storytelling style. They also have interactive content such as events, podcasts, live Q&A etc.

“Finshots” with its bold yet very clear motive of “cutting the bullsh*t and getting to the point” claims to provide the most latest and important financial developments in a “language you would understand” that too in less than 3 minutes. Unlike other financial media agencies, they do not post research reports or financial analysis. Instead they build stories for better understanding of status of stock market for people who do not understand financial terminologies.

A News aggregator called “Knappily”, after analysis found out that not everybody wants to go to the depth of the News, to cater to those customers, they release summary of news while for users who would want to know more about any News, they have a 5W1H framework for each news excerpt (who, when, what, where, why & how).

“Pocket” a news aggregator allows users to build an archive of must-read links. Not only that, they let you save articles, photos, videos etc. which you can go through later on, on any device of your choice.

“The Wall Street Journal”(a world class business newspaper) has always concentrated on reporting markets and best deals. It is a one stop solution for executives and business minded people. That is their USP and they have never tried to cater to other needs.

Austria’s “Kleine Zeitung” (“Little Newspaper”, a very lucrative and widely subscribed newspaper) serves only two Austrian countries. They have a “freemium” business model because of the value they created in those regions. In a survey, its readers explicitly mentioned the fact that if they lost focus (of them being a regional/local newspaper), they will immediately cancel all the subscriptions.

The whole point is that we do not want to be all over the place. Trying to cater to multiple needs will only dilute the power of the brand and consumers will end up being confused. Besides, publishers get more opportunities to capitalize on reader’s interest if they are niche in their offerings.

Laying stress on overall service and experience and not only on “content” :

Users definitely come to News sites/Apps in search of authentic, latest news but if they find it difficult to browse through, or somehow they did not like the overall experience, it is very less likely that they will visit the portal again. To ensure loyalty and repeated visits, they have to lay stress over their service as a whole. These services could include conferences, events, tours, e-commerce, advisory and consulting services. News agencies revolve around content marketing but sometimes thinking beyond content and using content to provide a service might just hit bullseye. Mild facilities like being able to share it directly on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or being able to save them for later visits might help increase the user base. A few aggregators are actually playing lucratively in this arena.

Aggregators like “Feedly” is claimed to be the most aesthetically pleasant aggregators of all with their simple, clean and easy to browse vertical grid setup. Not only that, it is completely customisable in paid as well as unpaid version.

Another aggregator which is trying to aggregate the aggregators in the world of technology is “Panda”. With their expertise in technology, this App is heaven like for web designers, developers or for people having entrepreneurial instinct. What makes them unique is the fact that they follow Hacker News, Dribble, Behance, Product Hunt, GitHub etc.

In this list of aggregators winning over because of the overall experience that they provide, “Metacritic” is somewhere top in the list. “Metacritic” is a review aggregator which also includes music and games hence enhancing the overall experience of the user. In the world of aggregators Metacritic is often used as a synonym of professionalism.

“The Wall Street Journal” partnered with National Geographic to offer guided adventure tours.

“Forbes” Magazine has offered “investor cruises” to discuss finance topics at the sea accompanied by its editors, Forbes family members along with a few readers.

Never compromise on quality of content:

That being said (referring to point #3), you can never ever take your content quality for granted, after all that is exactly what is bringing you the bread. Loyalty is gained through the quality of content. A reader will indeed visit your portal/ recommend it to others only if they are convinced of the fact that the news there is latest, crisp, authentic, being updated regularly etc. Quality over everything else, always!

Relationship with stakeholders:

Media companies, in order to survive and grow, need to have a well established relationship with their subscribers, critique, partners, advertisers, sponsors or any other stakeholder. Their readers should be loyal and should be convinced that they are provided with the best service/content available in the market. Also vice versa, if the media agency understands their consumers, they can present them with tailored offerings and not generic content.

At the same time, their partners, sponsors & advertisers should be convinced of the fact that the value they are getting in return is much more than they would get from any other media agency. Here, it is of utmost importance to put value generated for stakeholders over any other factor.

Establishing that kind of a relationship and goodwill is tough and it takes more than patience and perseverance to attain it. But good things come with time and this one will be worth the effort in the long run.

Trying to build an emotional connect with the consumers:

There are real time examples where we see a media agency doing exceptionally well while some not so well in spite of them having better content, UI, overall experience etc. than that compared to the former. This is exactly where the emotional quotient strikes. Clever communication with the stakeholders, trying to win their hearts and thereby loyalty without them knowing of the same is something every media agency should strive for. Every external stakeholder will be aware of the offerings of other agencies which might be better than their own offerings but if you have an emotional connect with your stakeholders, they won’t trade it for anything and you will always have an edge over your competition/potential entrants in media industry.

These startups and aggregators should indeed focus on cost cutting as much as possible and look for creative ways to leverage what they are good at while never losing the quality of their content and readership.

Conclusion

The business model crisis of news industry is no more about solving one particular problem. It is more about handling a couple of problems while taking care of other factors or even worse, handling five to six problems all at once. Because of such intertwined nature of this crisis, there is no “quick fixes” or “one solution for all” per say. Media agencies will have to try multiple ways of increasing revenue and cutting costs and thereby determine which one works the best for them. What works for one agency might not click for the other. From a pool of options like: direct commerce, selling their services, lucrative advertisement opportunities, collaborations, campaigns, membership events etc. While not all ventures might be successful, experimenting and learning is part of the journey.

May 1 2020

Balancing Security with Continuity

sankeysolutions Cyber-security

The quest of serving customers and also enabling remote working for their employees has exposed the majority of companies to cyber risks. Hacking and Phishing attacks were up by 37% in the month of March, according to CloudFlare. Cybercriminals are looking to exploit the disruption created by COVID-19. One such infamous example is of Zoom, wherein intruders would hijack the calls with noise and gross images. Another instance is that of WHO observing double the cyberattacks in March. With increased cyberattacks it becomes essential for companies to take necessary actions for the sake of continuity of their business

Response to COVID-19 has increased degree of risks

Current outbreak has resulted in a paradigm shift in terms of the working environment for most of the companies. Companies have had to provision laptops for their employees to work from home, trying to replicate the same kind of secured environment at their places. Security heads now need to defend their systems on an unknown turf and not home turf. At the workplace, evidently it was pretty straightforward to monitor the activities of the employees, the flow of information, confidential emails, etc with all the process and guidelines in place. However, with this forced though essential change has catapulted security services into uncertainty with high degree of vulnerability.

Some of the risks include –

Physical Security – With the employees taking laptops to their places, the basic physical security of the assets and information flow can no longer be monitored effectively. There is a risk of employees downloading unnecessary content which may result in downloading some malware and in turn compromising confidentiality of sensitive data on the laptop.
Access Issues – Number of employees requesting access to the resources behind the company’s firewall would be at higher side resulting in more Public IPs going into firewall rules. Since many employees would work from personal terminals, security teams may not know the authenticity of the IP address requesting the access.
Lack of understanding / training – Organizations sometimes fail to provide proper guidelines to the employees around best practices they should adhere to while working from home. Hence employees are oblivious to basic hygiene like Password strategies or the awareness around not being fooled into a scam via emails or fake COVID-19 links or apps.

As the outbreak continues to spread, the attackers will keep exploiting many such vulnerabilities in order to impact continuity of the businesses. Companies can follow certain approach in order to lower the impact of such risks

How can companies cope with it?

WFH Policy – Companies must ensure there is a proper Work from home policy in place. It should include clear guidelines on how to safeguard the sensitive content while exhibiting professional demeanour at the same time. It should also instruct employees to raise the flag with the internal security team whenever they observe any nefarious activity.
Arsenal in place – Security teams should ensure that necessary precautions are taken to protect critical applications and assets. Such precautions include –

1. Securing VPC endpoints
2. Enforcing Multi-factor Authentication
3. Ability to mitigate Volumetric attacks like DDoS. Having threat intelligence, IDS, IPS in place would help.

Best Practices – Employees should be instructed to follow best practices laid down by the organization –

1. Employees should use passwords that are complex and keep changing them frequently
2. VPNs help create trusted connections between employees and the organization
3. Frequently updating software’s with latest patches
4. Changing default settings of personal WiFi network
5. Awareness of phishing scams, click-baits, etc

The ongoing crisis is a major hurdle in advancements of various business sectors like lifestyle, retail, oil & gas and so on. However, it has created lots of opportunities for cyber-attackers to hijack the continuity of the operations. At the same time, it is a vital chance for cyber security experts to evolve and implement strategies to sustain business. Adhering to aforementioned straight forward steps would help businesses minimize the impact of such vulnerabilities.

May 1 2020

Machine Learning

sankeysolutions Technical

Introduction

Technology is the genesis for innovation; the latest tech enables smoother transfer and access to data, creation of better products and swift delivery of services. Being a software service company, one might credit our achievements to the advanced and fast-paced technology; while, appreciating the advances of technology, one cannot solely rely on miracles it delivers to elevate their business.

Technology’s applicability is uniform across all the organizations yet the outcome is varying specific to every entity.

Same technology then why different results?

Almost all companies use the same technology but have varying results, then what affects the outcome?

Its level of relevance and the mindset that’s overseeing it distinguishes one business entity from other. The human wealth of an organization acts as the impetus, who give a unique touch to any task they pursue.

“Same strategy, different people, different results“ Jim Collins

Individuality within an organisation gives altogether an astounding end result, all about a unique perspective and its impact, where even the similar technology will not ensure same outcome.

Technology is to be considered as an auxiliary while an employee being the intrinsic component. So, it is wise to say that technology cannot be an accelerator to success without the right human mix.

At Sankey we have our own beliefs, upon which we put forth our core structure.

Technology defines us but it’s the mindset that differentiates us as Sankey Solutions

This is not just our belief but the ultimate reality; one may have stacked up all modern equipment at their disposal but with the absence of key facilitators it has no potential. In simpler words, our solution mindset team literally fuels the system with their distinctive capabilities to drive the company further.

Technology may not always be innovative but the person working behind one should be

Even if we’re not armed with the latest, being in early stages, our resourceful people won’t let it hinder their endeavor, and still create a masterpiece.

Every employee has their own potential, own uniqueness which means their innovation is distinct from the rest, their competency lies in varied fields, and this is what fuels Sankey Solutions. We are governed by Solution Mindset which hones innovation; we attract everything ingenious since this is at our core.

“Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.” – Steve Jobs

As Steve Jobs rightly said, it is the people and the expertise they carry along, that brings about desired changes, necessary to build fulfilling services for customers.

How our business yields, solely depends upon the people we hire, their psyche, creativity quotient, and utmost important their willingness to do something extraordinary. The last part largely depends upon the opportunities a company provides to its employees; hiring able people but unable to provide them with the necessary opening to exercise their talents will lead to build-up of complacency in employees.

Sankey being a start-up has an unexplored ambit for applicability of employee’s own innovation, design new utilities for servicing our customers in best way possible.

What do we do different that motivates employees?

The answer to how Sankey Solutions differs from the rest of the start-ups is reflected in our philosophy and the values we believe in,

Richness in creativity and applicability of logic is not necessarily answered by a general aptitude test rather something practical, much closer to the reality. Ability of any employee to fix rough situations and come up with unexpected yet efficient solutions is what aligns with the Sankey thinking.

Constant drive for creativity isn’t what yields results, businesses needs to ensure their people are not laden with the constant pressure to yield a unique result, rather are given an environment which breeds creativity naturally.Collaboration and development as a wider goal, not just for its people but also the company as whole, this is how Sankians run!

December 26 2019

What makes us Sankey?

sankeysolutions Culture

What Makes Us Sankey?

Always Planned to work with a tech company? Here is the best place you can search for, Sankey Business Solutions Pvt Limited. It will not only help you learn new technologies but also encourage you to bring up your creativity. But before joining most of the people always have a thought in their mind, why the name of the company is Sankey? What does Sankey mean? Sankey is all about the width and the flow, here width is the quantity of people working in our company and flow shows the direction towards which we are leading. Why we can proudly call ourselves Sankey? What does Sankey do different? Sankey Solutions differs from rest of the start-ups is reflected in our philosophy and the values we believe in, how our business yields, solely depends upon the people we hire, their psyche, creativity quotient, and utmost important their willingness to do something extraordinary. Initially, the word Sankey came after the Irish captain Mathew Henry Phineas Riall Sankey who used the Sankey diagram in 1898 showing the energy efficiency of a steam engine. One of the most famous Sankey diagrams is Charles Minard’s map of Napoleon’s Russian Campaign of 1812. An innovative organization isn’t built in a day; it is developed over a period of time through the practice of continues learning. Likewise, Sankey being a start-up has an unexplored ambit for applicability of employee’s own innovation, design new utilities for servicing our customers in best way possible, it has prospered in the last 3 years with new innovation and technologies with a major transfer or flows within a system. Sankey diagrams are often used in fields of science especially physics where it is used to represent energy inputs.Learning exists as long as business does. Sankey has learned new things from designing UI/UX for the people to developing mobile and web apps. It is also using business process with Analytics and artificial intelligence from data acquisition to strategic insights. Also read:https://sankeysolutions.com/our-services/In continuous learning culture, knowledge becomes the foundation. There is not only the need to constantly keep ourselves upgraded with the latest launch in the market but also be prepared to face the possibility of certain technology going extinct there is always learning and unlearning. Sankey has also worked on new innovative apps. Also, read: https://sankeysolutions.com/our-work/

It has always tried to fulfill the clients demand by giving its best. While weâ€™re on a bigger journey of disrupting service industry by moving away from expert mindset to learning mindset.Our vision is to become the worldâ€™s most innovative solution engineering company and our mission is to help organizations build capabilities to solve business problems through a combination of technology, data and math.Inspired by our founderâ€™s exposure from what he learned in his previous job MU sigmaâ€œTechnology defines us but it’s the mindset that differs usâ€. â€“ Sankey Solutions We work on legacy technologies from lamp stack to mean stack, we always look for something exciting and new. Technologyâ€™s applicability is uniform across all the organizations yet the outcome is varying specific to every entity, what affects the outcome? It’s the level of relevance and the mindset thatâ€™s overseeing it distinguishes one business entity from other. This is how Sankians run! Also read: https://sankeysolutions.com/technology/

October 24 2019

What is IOT?

sankeysolutions Technology

Each year, new technologies rise and fall, sometimes making an impact on our daily lives and other times barely leaving a trace. One category of emerging technologies that has the widest variety is the Internet of Things or IoT.

Someone who works for an Internet of Things (IoT) software company, the frequently asked question will be what is IOT?

It is defined as, A system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people that are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

Let’s see the simple explanation of the Internet of Things(IOT), it means that internet connection is the most valuable thing which benefit us in all terms, from calling & reading books to watching movies & news.

The point is that connecting things to the internet yields many amazing benefits. We’ve all seen these benefits with our smartphones, laptops, and tablets, but this is true for everything else too.

The Internet of Things is actually a pretty simple concept, it means connecting all the things in the world to the internet.

The confusion arises in your mind because there are so many examples and possibilities in IoT. To understand the benefits of connecting things to the internet. We should firstly connect everything to the internet.

When something is connected to the internet it means that it can send information or receive information. This ability to send or receive information makes things smart.

Let’s take smartphones as an example. we can listen to just about any song in the world, but it’s not because your phone has every song stored on it but it’s because every song is stored somewhere else, where your phone can send information (asking for that song) and then receive information (streaming that song on your phone).

A thing doesn’t need to have storage or a computer inside, but it needs to connect.

In the Internet of Things, all the things that are being connected to the internet can be put into three categories:

Things that collect information and then send it.
Things that receive information and then act on it.
Things that do both.

And all three of these have enormous benefits that feed on each other.

Collecting and sending information means sensors. It could be temperature sensors, motion sensors, moisture sensors, air quality sensors, light sensors, and many more. These sensors with a connection, allow us to automatically collect information from the environment which allows us to make more intelligent decisions.

On the farm, automatically getting information about the soil moisture can tell farmers exactly when their crops need to be watered. Instead of watering too much (which can be an expensive over-use of irrigation systems) or watering too little (which can be an expensive loss of crops), the farmer can ensure that crops get exactly the right amount of water. More money for farmers and more food for the world!

Just as human senses, we are able to smell, taste, feel, and hear. Machines have sensors that make them sense the world.

We’re all very familiar with machines getting information and then responding. Your printer receives a document and it prints it. Your car receives a signal from your car keys and the doors open and many more.

The real power of the Internet of Things arises when things can do both of the above. Things that collect information and send it, but also receive information and act on it.

Kevin Ashton, co-founder of the Auto-ID Centre at MIT, first mentioned the internet of things in a presentation he made to Procter & Gamble (P&G) in 1999. Wanting to bring radio frequency ID (RFID) to the attention of P&G’s senior management, Ashton called his presentation “Internet of Things” to incorporate the cool new trend of 1999.

Let’s quickly go back to the farming example. The sensors can collect information about the soil moisture to tell the farmer how much to water the crops, but you don’t actually need the farmer. Instead, the irrigation system can automatically turn on as needed, based on how much moisture is in the soil.

You can take it a step further too. If the irrigation system receives information about the weather from its internet connection, it can also know when it’s going to rain and decide not to water the crops today because they’ll be watered by the rain anyways.

And it doesn’t stop there! All this information about the soil moisture, how much the irrigation system is watering the crops, and how well the crops actually grow can be collected and sent to supercomputers that run amazing algorithms that can make sense of all this information.

And that’s just one kind of sensor. Add in other sensors like light, air quality, and temperature, and these algorithms can learn much more. With dozens, hundreds, thousands of farms all collecting this information, these algorithms can create incredible insights into how to make crops grow the best, helping to feed the world.

As you can see from these Internet of Things examples, the future of IoT is a bright one. As new innovations emerge about how best to use IoT products, it will be interesting to see which way this technology heads.