under cover ladies night wallpaper: Business

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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

India Card to take on VISA and Mastercard

Do you know your every transaction done with your plastic cards (credit and debit cards) enables some amount of money to be transferred to service provider viz. Visa and Mastercard. Your every transaction makes bank to pay the money to Visa or Mastercard based on your card.

Out of every 10 transactions done in the world, 9 are done by these two companies Viz. Visa and Mastercard, which are American companies. That means a part of your earnings goes to these foreign firms who charge heavy rates to our banks.

But now there is an Indian firm heading to give tough competition to these firms, yes it is India Card.

RBI has asked the Indian Banks Association to launch a not-for-profit company and design a rival card, tentatively called India Card, that will meet the requirements of the domestic banks.

India Card will come with its credit and debit cards just like Visa and Mastercard, and the best part it is an Indian firm and it will charge comparatively lower prices then what Mastercard and visa do. And it is strongly backed up by RBI (Reserve Bank of India).

Moreover, it has got support from nearly all banks like SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC, Punjab National and other banks. It has also gained support from foreign bank like citi bank and HSBC.

Two years from hence the project is supposed to be completed and India Card will jump in to the Payment processing space. This will surely establish our nation in this space too.

Personally, I will love to hold an India Card credit and debit cards and will be a proud owner; I think the rest of nation will also like to welcome the new Indian emerging organization.

Best Regards,

Navneet Singh Chauhan

The War of Titans – Google Vs. Microsoft.

Google and Microsoft - the two biggest software companies of the world need no introduction for sure.

One, who uses a computer, uses Microsoft products for sure and one who comes on web cannot stay away from Google products for sure.

Microsoft and Google have entered in to each other’s field and hence an outbreak of war between the two giants.

Microsoft entered in to search, Google’s basic and legendry product and its main bread and butter. Microsoft is all set to give tough fight to Google in this segment. The second most used search engine after Google is Yahoo. Microsoft had tied up deals with Yahoo to bring a better search engine for end users, and hence a straight attack on Google. Google today stands for a generic term for search. Most of us suggest our mates, “Google it out”, means ‘search it out’. Google’s vast portfolio and more products adding in longer terms may dilute this term.

Microsoft also entered in Online advertising which is Google’s area of dominance. Google Adsense is known for providing relevant and effective ads. It has one of the biggest market share. Google Adsense offers quite detailed information of site traffic and ad hits and has high earning potential for its publishers and advertisers.

Google also entered in to Microsoft’s core product, Microsoft office with its product named Google Docs, though this was not head to head combat as Google created its niche by providing online document services but it can be used as an alternate for Microsoft office services for those who have good internet services after all Google is free.

Microsoft responded aggressively to Google by giving online facilities the very kind which Google offers for free and also it has integrated online document storage in office 2010. With office 2010 Microsoft has taken its office applications to cloud computing to answer Google.

Google entered in to Internet Browsing with its browser called Google Chrome, which became an instant hit after launch and is known for its speed. Google Chrome 5 is one of the fastest and stable editions. Internet Explorer a Microsoft internet browser which has its dominance by having highest share is facing competition with this new competitor apart from its earlier one Mozilla Firefox. Google chrome was developed under an open source project (Chromium) backed by Sun Microsystems and other open source programmers and organizations.

Google’s new project Google chrome Operating system is yet another war field between the two.

Chrome OS claims to be the fastest OS (boot time expected to be in between 7 to 10 seconds). But it is web-based as Google has its dominance on Web. In chrome OS every application will open in Google chrome web-browser. Google had applied logic that in today’s world we hardly use anything apart of web. We sit in office initiate outlook and web; and rarely access stored data. Moreover chromium OS will provide online storage facility to its users. It will have Google docs as its default Document viewer.

It is expected it will take one more year for Google to launch Chrome OS. Off course this operating system will be absolutely free to its users may it be business (most likely) or personal. Hence direct attack on Microsoft OS, which are available after paying license fees.

Both Google and Microsoft are now head on head collisions over mobile OS.

Android (A Google product) is one of the fastest growing mobile browser ranked 3 currently and is expected to reach at 2^nd position at the end of year 2010 or at beginning of year 2011. Microsoft is at top currently with its windows 7 mobile edition. But taking quarterly results, first quarter of 2010 shows Android has added more customers to its portfolio than windows mobile. The other major players include Apple and Nokia.

Android is an open source project and has fast portfolio of applications (more than 20,000 and many added daily) where as Microsoft windows 7 has no applications currently. But windows phone have good gaming platform though. More details are mentioned below.

The Future: It’s difficult to see who will win this battle but there are many people who have opinion that both Microsoft and Google will continue to have good hold on their basic products while eating up some portion of each other’s bread and butter in other segments.

Like Google to domain search market and Microsoft in Operating systems and office applications.

Google’s fan club believes Google will lead the way in every segment especially in mobile OS.

But as said by Gautam Buddha – “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment”.

One who will make a sound edge on present will win the future.

Recommendations For Microsoft:

Microsoft is known for leveraging over its good old products (OS, Office). Leveraging is always good but i still think its lagging a bit in new innovations when compared to Google.

IE: Microsoft still does not provide direct online support for its IE (upto best of my info), it should add update tag as its in Google Chrome, When you click on about Google Chrome it checks for update.

Also it should make clear it passes acid test (http://acid3.acidtests.org/) as Google chrome does with 100/100. Mozilla at 94 and IE somewhere between 40 to 60. (all details are of latest available final versions (no beta versions) of browsers). IE 9 the upcoming Microsoft internet explorer have passed 95 tests in acid test out of 100 and CSS3 selectors test 578 out of 578 tests. Which in IE 6 was at 272 out of 574. Google Chrome and Mozilla firefox already have passed this test with full marks.

Windows Mobile: Microsoft needs to provide application support for Windows phone.. If possible can open up some part of its OS for open source development community (If feasible).

Computing OS: Microsoft is best on this part with windows 7 in picture, but keep innovating and watch out free-wares and Google chromium.

Bing: Focus on brand building, focus on customer retention and give something unique which Google does not offers. It's said to beat Google in search, one has to redefine the word 'search'.

>> Invest in Social corporate responsibility and Green missions like planting and recycling. This has positive effect on customers view about the corporate organization to a greater extent.

Recommendations to Google:

1. Leverage from existing projects. - Search. and keep investing and innovating.

2. Good going with Android, make sure it beats Microsoft, nokia and others for sure; and have a clear leadership. A win in Mobile OS may open up a win chance in computing OS.

3. Consumers have high expectation from Google OS, make sure to meet it.

4. Try to launch offline Google Docs, to combat Microsoft Office.

5. Make sure Google is Green..! Invest in Social corporate responsibility and making a better living environment.

Best Wishes to both Google and Microsoft.

Best Regards,

Navneet Singh Chauhan.

References: Comparison between android and windows mobile adapted from http://www.redmondpie.com/android-vs-windows-phone-7-series-9140453/

http://tools.css3.info/selectors-test/test.html

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

Taking business on web (Online Business)

Hello Readers,

Many companies have proven record of taking their business on web and have made huge money online, for example India’s retail giant Future Group’s” Pantaloon.com. International players have already proved themselves like like.com, which has now become a Google invested company. Dell computers are probably one of the best examples of customization of features over web and quick and reliable delivery periods. But these successes don’t come in a day or even in a year you have to be consistent over the same.

But taking business on web for a small player is not that easy task, running a business on web needs many efforts, and investments.

Pre-requisites of Business on Web.

1. You must have a good and pleasing web-site.

2. Shopping cart facilities.

3. Quick delivery period i.e. strong supply chain management.

4. A secure website. Yes when it comes to payments it must be secure.

5. Good and consistent SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

You can start expecting the business to grow in real terms after fulfilling these things.

But sure shot success needs a consistent performance over years and years.

Few more important things to carry business on.

1. Make sure you get returning visitors. i.e a visitor who visits your website once visits again. He must get interest in your website and products and features though he may not necessarily buy.

2. Make sure customers purchase the products regularly from your website, not just one time customer.

3. Customer’s positive feedback and comments can drive the business; make sure you have a room for it.

4. Make purchase an experience not just a purchase.

5. Ensure your website have right branding and loyalty.

How to Make it..!

You must be thinking how can I do this?

Here are a few guidelines.

1. Make sure your website is up to date. Every time a customer visits he must find something new, especially new products.

2. You can have loyalty programs to make sure your customers remains loyal. Ex. Loyalty coupon generation for each purchase which can give up a discount over next purchase when entering the coupon code.

3. Have a customer panel where customers can write their blogs, testimonials and experiences.

4. You can have a 5 star rating/10 point scale on each product rated by customers.

5. Have a unique profile for everyone who signs in your web-site may not be the customers only.

6. Your site should also have social networking integrations. Ex. A customer can share/recommend/like your website or product or any web-page or his own comment over feedback panel over your website and can easily share with his/her friends over the social networking sites like Facebook, Yahoo Profiles, Myspace, Google Buzz, Twitter, Orkut etc. Similarly can bookmark over other bookmark websites, and can email the web-link to anyone.

7. Make sure your customer remembers your website link and your brand name. This can be done by proper exposure of your brand on your website (like logo, tag-line, product names etc.) and fulfilling your commitments over each purchase.

8. Have a proper feedback forum, insist your customer to file up a feedback forum once he receives his goods. This can help in controlling the things before it goes too wrong and also ensures you are going right.

9. You can also show statistics like Visitors per day, Total no. of visitors, time spent by each visitor on your site, Total products sold by now, Total no. of customers, and other relevant statistics. Stats really works dear, people become more credible to website and think I am at right place.

10. Provide online help and personal assistance on your website.

11. Have a panel where customers can leave their contact information. so that you can get back to them for shorting their queries.

Want to hear more from me? Post a comment here and I will definitely respond to you.

Best Regards,

Navneet Singh Chauhan.

Is your Website Growing older ? Is it giving you desired Revenue ?

Years back, you took your business online with the latest and most cutting edge eCommerce technologies. Now, almost half a decade later, your website is still chugging along, but that once shiny layer of digital paint is now showing signs of age.

Does this story sound familiar?

Standards, styles, and best practices on the web change at lightning speed, and although your website may still be completely functional, you may be warding off potential customers and clients unknowingly. Here are 5 questions you need to ask yourself to see if your website needs a redesign, pronto.

Question 1: In terms of speed, how fast is your website? You’ve worked hard to get your visitors to show up at your website’s door – don’t put them to sleep with long load times. Numerous studies have been conducted and all of them have found the same result: Longer load times = less visitors = less business.

A study conducted by Akamai in 2006 found that if your website takes longer than four seconds to fully load, 33%, or one-third, of all visitors will abandon your site. Additionally, Amazon found that a 100ms increase in site load time would result in a 1% decrease in sales, while Google found that an increase of 500ms on load time would directly result in a drop in traffic and revenue by 20%.

Whatever numbers you go by, the one takeaway is that your website needs to load, fast. Try optimizing your website by compressing images for the web, aggregating and cleaning out your CSS, and removing old, unnecessary content to reduce HTTP requests. You can also try switching webhosts if loading issues persist.

Question 2: Does your website lack consistency? Although it may not seem like it, consistency in major elements on all pages of your site is a must. Elements like navigation, fonts and colors, URL format, and editorial style should show consistency throughout your website as it shows your professionalism and attention to detail when conducting business.

If your site is riddled with typos, mismatching font sizes, and non-loading images, not only will it impact the credibility of your website but can also negatively affect your search engine optimization strategy, which can result in lowered sales.

Sites like Yahoo!, eBay, and the BBC have hundreds if not thousands of pages online at any given time, yet almost all of those pages have a similar feel, design, and editorial style. Browse through, compare, and take notes, and see if your website maintains a solid level of consistency when compared to some major leaguers.

Question 3: Does your website scream sensory overload? Don’t try to throw text, imagery, links, icons, buttons, ads, or whatever else at your visitor right off the bat. Information overload will prevent you from surfacing the most important information on your website while delivering a load of clutter your visitor will have to sift through. You’ll be shocked to see how quickly a set of eyes can glaze over.

Matching the contents of your website up with the right information architecture will not only produce more efficient visitors but will also produce more efficient shoppers as well.

Question 4: Does your website look old-school? Technologies aren’t the only thing that evolve at a break-neck pace online – styles do too. Whatever style was hot back in ’05 probably isn’t what’s hot right now.:

Just like hairstyles, websites date. What was all the rage a couple of years ago is now seen as passé… Sometimes this is down to design trends - like the 3D buttons and interfaces that were so popular a few years back when graphics tools made it easy to create bevel and emboss styles. Other times it's because the web is maturing and web designers develop a better understanding of what visitors want. For instance, Flash intro pages were all the rage until web designers realised that users didn't like them and wanted to get straight to the content. Flash introductions are the beehive hairdo of the web design world: dated, impractical and utterly pointless.

Question 5: Does your website render perfectly? And by perfectly, I mean perfectly, in all browsers on all operating systems, and on all platforms with no text overlapping and no extra scroll bars anywhere, etc. You absolutely do not want to degrade your customer’s user experience based on their choice of browser, regardless of if it’s Internet Explorer on Windows, Firefox on Mac, or even Safari on iPhone.