Friday, November 30, 2012

IBM 's Workforce in India Now Exceeds Their US Workforce

It is well known that IBM, like most other large IT companies, has been outsourcing it's jobs to India and other countries for years, And it was just a matter of time before the Indian workforce exceeded that in the US.

Well, now it's happened. Exact numbers are hard to come by, because IBM stopped reporting them a few years ago. However, several sources indicate that IBM has about 90,000 US workers and about 110,000 workers in India.

In the grand scheme of things, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Adam Smith, in his great work "The Wealth of Nations" wrote eloquently that in a free enterprise global economy, jobs would migrate to the areas with the lowest wages. Recent stats show that the average wage in the IT industry in India is $17,000 per year, very low by US standards, or Canadian standards for that matter.

Over time, Smith said, the wages in the low wage country will rise, until some sort of parity is achieved. Then the outflow will stop and perhaps reverse. In the meantime, consumers will have benefited from lower cost goods and services, giving them higher discretionary income, which means higher levels of savings, higher levels of investment, growth in business and the rise of home grown employment in, say, service industries, where wage rates are more comparable globally or in industries that cannot be outsourced. The outsourcing country will benefit from higher exports, because the other countries have more money to import with, creating jobs in export industries and helping to offset the lower employment from outsourcing..

What that means is that everyone benefits. Win-win. That's the theory.

You can read more about the IBM employment situation in this article.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Google Planning to Extend Their Search Capability

Google has been conducting a study intended to tell them what information people need that they are not using Google for. In other words, they want to extend their search capabilities to cover that additional information.

One of the avenues for them to follow is context specific, location based searches. It is directed to the use of mobile devices and recognizes that people are often travelling or just in transit from home to work and want particular information along the way. For example, they might get to a bus stop and want to know when the next bus is coming. Or they might want to go to a particular night spot and want to know the wait time.

The system of course depends on using GPS chips to track peoples' movements and pinpoint their location at any time, raising privacy issues. If people don't want to be tracked, they can turn the GPS function off in their phone.

For a summary of the research Google is doing, follow this link.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Customize Those Websites for Good Marketing

More companies are starting to customize their websites to respond to the particular needs and desires of their customers. This can be done by tracking some basic data, like what they have searched for before, where they are from, what the weather is like where they are from, their demographic, even the device they are using to connect to your website.

The challenge then is to incorporate the data into the actual style and content of the website they see. That means if they are using a tablet, then the website should be specifically designed for a tablet. Same for a smartphone. There is web development software to accomplish this.

Some of the other information can be linked directly to content, such that if, for example, they searched for hand made kitchen furniture previously, then when they log in, they can be presented with ads, say, on a new line of locally made kitchen chairs. Or if they are from North Bay and it is January, they might be presented with a line of heavy sweaters.

Specific customer oriented marketing is the wave of the future in online marketing. Check out this link for more.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Location Based Marketing Moves Ahead

Cisco announced last week a new technology that can be used to track customers in or near their stores. It uses the customers' cell phone signals, transforming them into WiFi signals, which can then be transmitted back to the store WiFi and analyzed. The technology can track their location quite accurately. In addition, if the customer has previously purchased at that store and agreed to a store promotional campaign, the technology can bring up their past history of shopping and their preferences. All of this big data is then analyzed and used to offer the shoppers special deals on the spot. It's a classic location-based marketing exercise using big data analysis techniques. It's a technology that has a very bright future, since smart phones are holding more and more information and are about to be used for payments, adding additional information to the mix. See this article on Cisco's announcement.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves

The One Laptop Per Child Organization is starting to show some very positive results. Self-learning works! Check out this article.

MOOCs, an Approach to the High Cost of Post-Secondary Education

While not a panacea (none of those actually exist) MOOCs point the way to a way to bring about radical change in the educational system. Check this article.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Strategic Social Business

The use of social networking in business is something that. like other business applications requires a good deal of planning and coordination. It isn't enough to just set everyone loose on conventional social networks and think that it will somehow lead to something good. It might not. Social networking is a potential game changer and can significantly alter relationships within the organization, It can lead to the development of new influencers and result in the decline of managerial authority. That's not necessarily a bad thing because we know that the effect of social networking is to turn the organization upside down in a hierarchical sense and generally level the organization out. But if its going to be beneficial to the organization in terms of productivity and doing a better job of serving customers, then that requires enough planning to ensure that the set up of the networking is consistent with corporate goals and strategies. In fact, it should be considered a key part of the strategic planning. Check out this article on the subject.

Friday, November 09, 2012


Secure Web Data under PCI Requirements

The Payment Card Industry's requirements for protecting credit card data can be challenging and confusing for those who must comply. Many hire consultants or Public Accountants to help them..

All retailers need to understand how to protect the credit card and other customer data that comes from online transactions. According to Verizon's 2012 Data Breach Investigations Report, retailers are the second leading source of leaked data (after the hospitality industry), accounting for 20% of total breaches.

For an interesting report on this topic by the staff of InformationWeek, click this link.

Monday, November 05, 2012

Movement Tracking Software - The Next Big Thing

As our devices become more and more powerful and more of them contain cameras, the time may be ripe for some useful movement tracking software. For example, if you get up an leave a room, such software could ensure that your TV is turned off, the lights are softened or turned off, and appliances, like the oven are off.

Tracking software could also learn your gender and study your facial expressions to determine whether you are about to make a decision. It could track your movements in a store, for example, and note your hesitation in looking at a new car and offer you a discount on the spot.

Speaking of cars, your car could keep an eye on you and determine if you are falling asleep and then warn you or even pull over to the side of the road.

These are only some of the technologies under development as we speak (read?). IT promises to be a game changer in many areas. For some more on the developments in one company check this link.