We did not include Headspace and Calm, as these are highly popular and well-advertised applications, instead opting to focus on unique mental health apps recognized across different categories. 

Lets’ start.

BlueIce 

Category: Evidence based mental health apps for youth and kids

BlueIce is aimed at helping teenagers manage their emotions and prevent self-harm with a wide variety of different features. Available for both Apple and Android devices, the application was developed by Paul Stallard from Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust (Foundation Trusts are NHS’s organizations with a strong local reach). To make it as effective as possible, teenager with lived experience of self-harm took part in the process of creating BlueIce.

Here are the key features:

• Mood checker with notifications
• Simple mood diary
• Mood lifter with a set of proposed activities
• Emergency contact numbers
• Additional protection and privacy layer with PIN
• Personalized sections
• Smart safety checks for self-harm prevention

Now, let’s take a quick look at BlueIce’s biggest features — Mood Checker and Mood Lifter. 

The first relies on a “mood wheel”: a user chooses how they feel from a wide range of options on the wheel, take short notes, and then can identify mood patterns and triggers in the Mood Calendar across long periods of time. 

Meanwhile, the Mood Lifter section offers a comprehensive activity suite aimed at lowering stress. 

Here are its key components:

• Music and photo libraries
• Physical activities
• Mood-changing activities
• Mindfulness and relaxation exercises
• Contact a friend
• Negative thoughts spotting

BlueIce’s trial showed that the app can help teenagers manage their stress levels and self-harm urges alongside traditional face-to-face communication with a mental health professional. This and its comprehensive approach make BlueIce one of the top mental health apps available. The application is free, but prescription-only.

Cove

Category: Music Apps For Mental Health

Not everyone will enjoy writing down their thoughts into a mood journal, looking for other ways to improve well-being. Highly praised by top publications like Wired, The Next Web, and Guardian, the Cove app address that by offering simple music-making tools and eye-pleasing visuals designed for reducing anxiety and stress through self-expression. The process is easy: a user selects one of the six moods and then taps to choose chords, melody, and instruments (more than thirty are available) to create their own songs.

Cove was developed with the help of clinicians and other medical experts as well as tested, evaluated, and trialed in the NHS and other health organizations. Although Cove won’t replace professional treatment, it can be used alongside talking therapy and counselling, or simply to relax for a few minutes and enjoy the process of creating music anywhere you find comfortable.

Users have met Cove with high praise, mentioning its therapeutic effect, that it helps to cope with negative thinking, and has easy-on-the-eye visuals. As for the media, Guardian called it one of the best medical apps, and Wired UK wrote that Cove will upend user expectations when it comes to what a journaling app can be (Cove can be referred to as a music journaling app). 

The app is available for free for iOS devices only. 

Xmed Health

Category: Social Media-like Apps for Mental Health 

Although social media platforms have grown to be stress-inducing for many users, people’s love for socializing online can channeled to alleviate modern stressors and solve other mental health issues. The Xmed app may be the best example of that, offering users a health and lifestyle mobile ecosystem, a social network, and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms in one package.

Here is how it works: AI asks a series of questions to identify a user’s health issue, juxtaposes that data with available medical data and information provided by other app users, and arrives at a conclusion. The user can then start talking with certified mental health professionals to tackle the problem, as well as discuss it with people who have the same issue in the app’s in-built social media network. 

Apart from its uniqueness and technological capabilities, the Xmed Health also has a well thought out flow, whose primary focus is to help a user solve their issue, beautiful design and animations, and gamification with levelling up and achievements. 

On top of all this, you can use the app to identify other health issues. making Xmed Health not only one of the best mental health apps, but also a solid health app in general.

Xmed Health is available in the Appstore. 

My Possible Self

Categories: Mental health therapy apps, Mental health tracking apps

My Possible Self promises to help its users lower stress and anxiety levels in eight weeks with a range of features backed up by clinically approved content. To deliver on the promise, the app offers over a wide range of learning modules aimed at various stress-inducing situations in life. 

The modules include:

• Stress and overload management
• Fear and anxiety management
• Overcoming loss and big life changes
• Problem solving
• Happiness and well-being management
• Tackling negative thinking
• Returning to pleasant activities
• Improving daily communication

The list does not end there, as the app’s creators continuously update it with different new modules. The first learning module is free, but to access the rest users needs to have a subscription. 

Still, the app has a number of other aspects that make it one of the best mental health apps. There is a comprehensive mood tracking tool/dairy, created with the help of the company’s in-house psychologists. A user can track their mood daily, selecting how they feel and pinpointing activities, people, and places that influence their mood and well-being. 

Working alongside the tracking tool is the Mood History and Insights features that help users detect mood patterns and act accordingly to improve how they feel. The latter displays mood shifts in a comprehensive chart, showing the patterns and proposing potentially suitable lifestyle changes with the help of custom algorithms. What is more, users can add written notes and images to every mood entry — a small but nice touch that enriches the experience.

The content used in My Possible Self is clinically and statistically proven to lower stress and improve well-being in an eight weeks’ time. To ensure that, the creators partnered with a leading non-profit mental health research facility called The Black Dog Institute. 

My Possible Self was warmly received by users and praised by media outlets like London Evening Standard and Buzzfeed. Is is available both in the Appstore and Google Play.

Happify

Categories: Event based mental health apps, Gamified mental health apps

Happify has a lot to offer. The app uses a set of comprehensive features that rely on science-based games and activities to help users fight stress consistently across all life areas. 

At the app’s centre are Tracks, a section with stretches of different simple activities that help users improve their well-being on a daily basis. These include, for example, singling out small moments in your day that made you feel good and choosing a person to be thankful to. Every user has a progression scale for each track as well as six skills they upgrade by completing it: Savor, Thank, Aspire, Give, Empathize, and Revive. There over sixty available tracks for different aspects of life, part of them only through subscription.

For those who want small bits instead of a long progression, there is an Instant Play section. Here, users can complete activities separately for each of the aforementioned skills. 

Other features include: 

• Happify Daily — articles, videos, infographics, and other types of content related to improving emotional well-being
• Community — a minimalist social network users can choose to be part of and share the activities completed for the skills with others
• Negative Knockout — a game where you bring down your negative emotions in style of Angry Birds.

The feature list is bigger still. For example, the app offers a twenty-page character strength report for each user, compiled in partnership with The VIA Institute. Meanwhile, Happify’s approaches were developed by leading scientists and experts in positive psychology, cognitive behavioural therapy, and mindfulness. 

Happify was widely praised by users and media, including reviews in ABC World News and The New York Times. The company also claims that eight-six percent of their regular users report improved well-being in two month since they started using the app. 

Happify is available for iOS and Android. Part of the features are free, while the rest can be accessed by subscribing. 

What Makes Top Mental Health Succeed

There is a pattern to why the aforementioned mental health apps enjoy success — they all tick the same important boxes. Here are the success factors:

• Mental health professionals should be involved in as many stages as possible
• The app should have a diverse set of features for a user to choose from 
• The features should be backed up by scientific research
• The app should have its unique feature, or approach a common feature from a different angle
• Mood journal is an important feature
• Gamification helps to keep the users engaged
• The app should have an appealing design

Now that you have taken a closer look at the top apps for mental health and what makes them so, you can start planning your own unique mobile product for those who want to tackle their mental health issues in a handy, clear, and pleasant way.

Good luck!

If you want to learn more about digital healthcare technologies, see some of our recent articles on the topic:

1. Trends in Connected Health & Wellness Devices
2. The Current State of IoT in Healthcare

If you need a consultation about your mental health app or other healthcare project, get in touch with our experts.

The post The 5 Best Mental Health Apps (& What Makes Them Succeed) appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

Today, many news apps showcase that a life without print editions and newstands (or only a small number of them), which might come sooner than later, may not be something readers and media companies should be concerned about. If they are properly made, news apps not only carry over the look and feel of newspapers and magazines to mobile, they also give the media new ways and angles to provide coverage, in one place and to a global reader base.

Here are five hand-picked news apps that deliver on that promise today. Use our list to get inspired for your own news app, find yourself a new news sources, or simply explore examples of all-around great mobile products. 

The New York Times (iOS)

Even if you prefer paper editions of newspapers over news apps, it is hard to deny that the New York Times did a great job of carrying over their long-established aesthetic and reporting to mobile. It is just that: the same New York Times, only more visually appealing and handy and available anywhere you want to read it. 

The user experience and design are outstanding: sections are well-organized (with quick access to Saved for Later and Recently Viewed), navigation is quick and simple, and the app’s clean visuals are really easy on the eye. Whether you want to quickly read the morning briefing or enjoy evening articles from the newspaper’s many sections, you will have a pleasant experience. 

Everything’s good under the hood as well: there are no crashes and bugs, and the pages load quite quickly even with poor internet connection. The app has ads, but they are non-intrusive and fit into the design organically. 

When it comes to sections, the New York Times app has it all: from the standard Opinion, World, Business and sport — to sections on health and wellness, entertainment and arts, as well as video and podcasts, among many others. You can also access the day’s paper in the corresponding section. 

With a well-produced “Immersive” section that is dedicated to AR and VR news content, the NYT doubles down on the notion that mobile and digital technology hold the potential to give new life to the media by giving readers new exciting perspectives and angles. 

Readers can access a limited number of articles for free every month or subscribe to one of the plans.

Al Jazeera English

Apart from its appealing and intuitive design, what makes the Al Jazeera app stand out is the emphasis on live news. They are quickly accessible in a video or audio stream and equally comfortable to watch on a smartphone or tablet. 

Al Jazeera understands the needs of modern users better than other media companies: the app has two more video sections alongside the Live broadcast — on-demand programming and documentaries. Other sections feature top stories, latest news, and  opinion pieces. 

You can personalize your feed in the “My Feed” section, which provide quick access to bookmarked topics, saved pages, and programmes. That being said, navigating Al Jazeera English is a breeze. Even on smaller screens, there is a lot of breathing space, and the sections are well-organized in general. 

Sections include: Arts & Culture, Business & Economy, Environment, Poverty & Development, Human Rights and more, as well as a separate section that covers different regions of the world. Readers can also access archived content. 

Al Jazeera English is free-of-charge. 

New Yorker Today

Like the New York Times, The New Yorker magazine has managed to go mobile with great success. Capturing the look and feel of the magazine really well, New Yorker Today serves three goals: delivers the latest news, opinion pieces, articles, and writing; provide quick access to the decade-spanning library ot its widely celebrated cartoons; give fast access to the magazine library with the latest and archive issues.

Although its website and magazine app can stand on their own and can be used separately, New Yorker Today seems to be aimed at readers who want to access the most popular parts of the The New Yorker’s digital experience in one place. 

Sections:

• Latest news and writing
• Cartoon randomizer
• Digital edition of the magazine (differs from the magazine app)
• Bookmarks and history

There is a limited number of free-to-read articles and a range of subscription options available for readers.

Pocket

As far as news apps go, Pocket is not a typical media product. At its heart is a simple promise of letting users save articles and web pages for later reading and viewing, but it delivers on it to the fullest. If you read news alongside articles from different publications, but do not want to assault your eyes with the endless stream of headlines of news aggregator apps (or simply find the look and feel of Instapper uninspiring), Pocket will your top choice.

Pocket is integrated with all popular browsers on desktop and mobile and with over fifteen thousand apps, making it quick and simple to save articles anywhere you find them. There are many instruments for managing them too. You can always locate the right article quickly with tags and a number of sections — all put together nicely in an extremely comfortable-to-use design. Other features include choosing the background color and highlighting text, listening to any article, and following friends to find out what they are reading.  

All of this comes for free, but you can get extra features like advanced search and fonts with the paid premium version. There is also a section of curated articles from numerous different publications updated everyday as well as a tool to look for them yourself across different categories. 

Pocket is continuously updated, bug-free, and the user experience is equally satisfying in the web app and native apps (although you cannot listen to articles in the web app). Interestingly, It is in-built into the Firefox browser and is owned by its creators, the Mozilla Corporation. 

TechCrunch 

The shiny look and handy navigation of TechCrunch’s website can be enjoyed in any browser, but you might just opt for the publication’s app instead. It bares the visual style of the website, but provides a more focused, personalised, and ad-free experience. 

Following the latest tech news with the TechCrunch app is easy, fast, and comfortable. You can browse the headlines of the latest news and bookmark them right in the feed. One more section gathers topics of your choice in one place, and you can manage or stay notified about them right in this section. Finally, there is “Saved for Later,” where you can read the bookmarked articles. You can also access the latest TechCrunch videos at the beginning of the main feed. 

In sum, the TechCrunch app streamlines reading tech news to the maximum, delivering a snappy experience without ads, bugs, and free-of-charge. 

The post The Rise of Mobile Media: The 5 Best News Apps appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

A marketing director of an established brand with a young audience, an aspiring entrepreneur, a digital marketing manager, a senior-level manager at a big organization — everyone will find something interesting in our list.

Let’s start.  

Social Media — WeAre8 

WeAre8 is a unique mobile platform for influencers and micro-influencers that helps them connect with their favorite brands to get paid for sponsorships. Influencers download the WeAre8 mobile app, sync their social media accounts, and can receive sponsorships in a personalized feed. 

There are over thirty vertical feeds available, including fashion and style, technology, visual arts, music, and wellness and sports. 

There are three  ways to get sponsored:

• Share branded content across social media channels
• Watch and respond to videos from brands
• Create unique content

After a user gets paid, they can cash out to a PayPal account, or donate to a charity of their choice.

WeAre8 positions itself as a people’s platform for those who want to have a solid side hustle. The platform partners with over thirty-six charities and donates five percent of brand spend as part of its business model.

Meanwhile, any brand working with WeAre8 has direct access to millions of influencers worldwide, with a combined social following that exceeds 1.2 billion users. 

Mobile — App Platform Mobile Roadie

Launched in 2009, Mobile Roadie is the first Do-it-Yourself (DIY), no-code app builder in the history of software development. Its creators recognized that mobile will become a powerful marketing tool, creating a universal, rich-featured, and intuitive app builder for businesses across industries. Mobile Roadie is still highly popular today, powering ups apps of Madonna, Dallas Mavericks, Wynn Las Vegas, San Diego Zoo, and more. 

The platform uses a drag-and-drop editor and ready-made feature modules to allow businesses to quickly build and customise native iOS and Android apps with unique design. It also includes a comprehensive content management system (CMS), and a data dashboard with insightful app analytics that let business learn more about their customers. 

Mobile Roadie’s pre-made features include:

• Media: music, audio, video, podcasts, photos
• Interactive map
• Events and schedule 
• Chat wall
• In-app ads and purchases
• Push notifications
• Pop-up promos
• Geofenced messages
• Polls
• Rewards,
• Augmented reality
• Beacons, and other features

In sum, a business gets a mobile presence, a set of engagement tools, and means to learn more about their users — faster and at a fraction of the cost as compared to custom software development. If a company wants to go above and beyond with their app, they can hire the Mobile Roadie team to do custom development as part of three different packages aimed at the look, functionality, and business needs.  

Content Marketing — Unsplash

Whether it is an enterprise or a new neighbourhood restaurant in New York City, Unsplash is a real find for marketing efforts in any company. If the inherent mediocrity of the likes of Shutterstock tires you, or producing quality visuals and photos for your content takes more time than your team has, Unsplash provides just the right solution. 

Free of charge to this day, Unsplash started out as a place where professional, amateur and mobile photographers as well as visual artists uploaded their photos, both sharing and promoting their work (the user is always reminded to copyright the author when they download a picture, but it is not obligatory). 

At the start, Unsplash reminded a more slick and elevated version of Instagram without comments and influencers, where you could browse beautiful photos, finding something for a social media page of a small business like a coffee shop. 

While it successfully saved that allure, today’s Unsplash can cover the needs of the vast majority of industries, from embedded software development to building construction to island festivals. 

If you need a crisp, attention-grabbing image, Unsplash is a go-to platform: you can always find something to make your blog or social media post stand out from the crowd. 

Unsplash is also a forward-thinking platform: the like count was removed and the newly introduced monetization is organic, as businesses put advertising in Unsplash-styled photos in an intrusive way. 

Finally, Unsplash is just a pleasure to use wherever you click. 

Voice Advertising — Spotify Ad Studio

In a world that overwhelms your customers with visual information from all sides and screens, voice advertising is having a big moment alongside the enduring popularity of podcasts and music streaming. A properly put together voice ad is not only effective, but less intrusive as compared to different types of visual ads filling the numerous screens of your users. 

Part of Spotify for Brands ad suite, Spotify Ad Studio is a self-service audio ad platform that lets brands create great ads in three easy steps:

1. Creating an ad. You can pass the script to the Spotify team, and they will record a voiceover, mix the music, and produce it at no extra cost. 
2. Audience targeting. You target users based on their age, gender, location, activity, music or podcast taste, as well as choose on what platforms to air it. 
3. Campaign customization. The last thing you need to do to launch the campaign is set a budget and dates. 

Key platforms include mobile tablet, desktop, web. Platforms like gaming console, connected TV, and connected car are available in some markets.  

There are also two advertising options aimed at Spotify Free users. With interest targeting, brands can engage users based on activities and topics they like (determined by their podcast, playlists, and platform preferences). The feature works in three categories — comedy, technology, and cooking. The second one is real-time context targeting, allowing brands to reach users at specific moments during the day, like a morning run or dinner. 

With a twenty-nine million ad-supported users and a set of measurement tools, Spotify Ad Studio may be a fitting choice for your next voice ad campaign. 

Cross Platform Ad Management — Adobe Primetime

Today users watch TV on their mobile devices anywhere they want, as the classic TV experience has become a thing of the past. With advanced data tools and technology available, new advertising opportunities for broadcast and cable networks and other TV providers amount. 

Adobe’s advertising platform Primetime helps TV providers and their partners in a number of ways:

1. Uses data and machine learning to help TV providers know their viewers better, improving ad targeting across platforms. 
2. Creates smooth and personalized ad experiences without buffering and playback errors.
3. Enables the providers to enforce intelligent authentication rules, reducing account sharing and driving revenue.
4. Allows TV providers to operate at scale, ensuring reliable ad insertion at massive live events like the Superbowl.
5. Allows for delivering video across all platforms in a single workflow and ensures consistent ad delivery across all screens.

Adobe Primetime is used by the vast majority of TV companies in North America. 

The post Top 5 Unique Marketing Tools You May Not Know About  appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

Legaltech emerged as a response to the challenges the industry faced following the financial crisis of 2008. They included in-house lawyers’ greater demands on firms, pressure to cut costs, lack of standardization in client procurement across departments, attracting and charging clients in the competitive market after the recession, as well as competition from new companies that rejected the traditional law model. On top of that, law firms needed to plow through vast amounts of data since email communication has started becoming the new normal in the industry. 

Over the years, legaltech has grown to encompass, on the one hand, the software and technology tools that simplify and streamline law practice for lawyers, and on the other, digital tools that simplify the acquisition and management of law services for clients by reducing or eliminating the need to consult a lawyer (or making it easier to find the right one quickly). 

Technologies & Application Areas

On a higher level, legaltech is the industry’s way of performing digital transformation, that is, using software and technologies to simplify operations, become leaner, cater to modern customers, etc. 

Legaltech encompasses the following software solutions and technologies:

• Workflow software tools
• Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) algorithms
• Analytics & big data software tools
• Customer experience (CX) solutions
• Cloud technology
• Distributed ledger technology (DLT)

Legaltech Areas

• AI/ML document review – data-trained algorithms that analyze legal documents across many areas, from risk management to M&A to compliance cases.
• Document and contract management platforms — tools that streamline or automate creating templates, negotiating clauses, and analyzing content. 
• Workflow tools – systems that allow lawyers to digitalise and automate their workflows.
• Smart contracts – self-executing clauses in legal contracts enabled by DLT, Internet of Things (IoT), and other. 
• E-discovery tools — solutions that simplify and automate e-discovery stages, for example machine learning algorithms that collect and process documents and prepare it for a lawyer to review.
• Legal chatbots – automated rule-based tools enabled by AI/ML that allow users to get answers to basic legal inquiries in a chat or messenger.
• Online marketplaces — digital platforms that help clients find the right lawyer faster.
• Cloud-based databases — data is gathered in a single data warehouse, where it can be accessed by employees across departments.
• Data security — ensuring the highest level of security for legal records with DLT.

Legaltech vs Lawtech — What Is the Difference?

Some experts reckon legaltech and lawtech serve different purposes, with the first referring to software and technologies lawyers use to streamline their work (e-discovery, AI/ML document review), and the second encompassing products for their clients (legal chabots, online marketplaces). Other lawyers reckon lawtech is not a fitting name for the field, as it implies the subject of law in general rather than an industry. In different publications, lawtech and legaltech are used interchangeably, but legaltech more often still. As of now, using both makes equal sense; time will tell which of terms will stick. 

Use Cases: What Legaltech Benefits Firms Can Expect

While legal tech is a nascent field, law firms are already leveraging what it has to offer, digititalizing their workflows, improving customer experiences, helping clients to return virtual money, and more. 

Big Data & Cloud — M&A & Portfolio Management

Looking for a way to review large patent portfolios, lawyers from Bird & Bird have teamed up with their client Nokia (the technology company) and a range of experts from different fields for a solution. Their joint effort resulted in Pattern — a cloud-based big data tool that simplifies M&As and client portfolio management and includes details of every patent ever published. The tool proved efficient and was rolled out to Bird & Bird’s clients in 2017.

Mobile — Workflow & Document Management 

One of our clients, a long-established U.S. law firm, needed to transfer their workflows and document management as well as minimize the heavy paperwork common to a law firm. 

A comprehensive and handy mobile app proved to be the fitting solution. It empowered the firm’s lawyers with the following features: 

• Immediate access to сritical legal documents; files and documents can be securely shared between the firm’s lawyers
• Attorneys can send bills and receive payments easily
• HR center with powerful employee management tools
• Notification center: clients and lawyers are always notified about changes and updates
• White Label solution

Artificial Intelligence Document Analysis

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to free the legal industry from the massive amounts of paperwork. A good example comes from Luminance — an AI platform for due diligence, insurance, contract, and compliance management. The platform uses computer vision, machine learning (ML) algorithms, and probability statistics to analyze documents much quicker than a human. Since it launch in 2015, the AI platform gained wide recognition among law firms. 

Customer Experience Management

CX platforms can make a big difference in a legal firm’s operations. In one of our projects, we helped a U.S. law firm fully digitalize their legal consulting with such a platform. It consists of two parts. Customers use a mobile app to request legal help by creating tickets with basic information and attached documents. On the other side, the firm’s representatives and employees are assigned with tickets in a web-based interface with a simple workflow (in style of JIRA) to manage those requests. If the representative cannot address the issue, it is automatically passed further to the firm’s in-house experts. The platform also gathers data, accumulating a knowledge base to simplify the process of solving similar issues in the future for every representative and in-house lawyer.

Illegal Transactions Tracking with DLT

While the legal industry heavily relies on tradition, it already started leveraging what distributed ledger technology (DLT) has to offer. Josias Dewey, a partner at Holland & Knight and a software engineer, helps the firm’s clients create DLT proof-of-concepts applications. For example, he helped develop a DLT tool that helps track and freeze illegal virtual currency transactions, helping a client to return $500,000 lost as the result of a hack. 

Find out how legaltech can help your firm become more effective. Schedule a consultation with our experts.

The post What Is LegalTech: Overview + Real-Life Use Cases  appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

We prepared a comprehensive guide for you that answers these and more questions, providing real-life examples along the way. The guide will cover the following:

1. What Does Customer Experience Mean Today?
2. Why Customer Experience is More Important Than Ever
3. Types of Customer Experience Services:
   1. Full customer services experience development
   2. Enterprise UX services 
   3. Customer mobile experience services
   4. Stand-alone solution for specific touchpoint
   5. UX & UI design services
      1. Can UI & UX design and development services involve the latest technologies?
4. Customer experience examples in services of top brands
5. F. A. Q. 

Let’s start. 

What Does Customer Experience Mean Today?

Customer experience is how an organization interacts with its clients over the course of their relationship, online and offline. Every CX is comprised of touchpoints — moments when a company interacts with a customer. A touchpoint is any type of interaction with a client, whether it is answering a question at a store, a call to confirm delivery details, cash desk service, or an outdoor ad. 

As customers demand more from companies in every industry, the concept of customer experience has expanded beyond commerce. Companies like Google build their campuses approaching employees like retail stores approach customers, that is, aiming at high retention and satisfaction rates. 

Where a retail chain would put up a sale, a tech company company offers its employees entertainment, recreation zones, and other bonuses. In this case, customer experience bears the name “employee experience.” Governmental organizations adapt as well, digitalizing and simplifying governmental services for citizens. As a result, more and more subtypes of CX emerge in different industries, indicating that both commercial and other types of organizations give more attention to catering to their customers than ever before — terms like hotel/guest experience, patient experience, event experience, are now the new normal. 

Why Customer Experience is More Important Than Ever

It’s not just naming for the sake of naming. According to a sweeping report on customer expectations by Salesforce, 67% of customers said their standards for good experiences are higher than ever, with 51% noting that most companies fail short of their expectations for great experiences. 

Salesforce

Every industry is inherently different, so customer experience is different, too. As a result, companies and organizations across industries look at how they interact with clients and improve the experiences based on the nature of the industry, client feedback, and customers’ specific needs. In other words, every industry dedicates more resources to building industry-specific CXs.

For example, hotels do not simply provide a generalised customer experience that rests upon a website, guest services, and a manager who will address guests’ concerns — they think about the big picture, from booking to branded hotel app to new ways to amaze their clients in the face of competition from market disruptors. A generalised customer experience becomes a well thought out hotel experience. 

Creating a solid customer experience brings substantial benefits to any organization:

• Strengthens brand/image of a company/organization
• Increases revenue
• Attracts new customers
• Boosts customer loyalty
• Improves customer retention

Most companies do not build customer experiences on their own, more so if they involve the latest technologies — they enlist digital agencies or software and technology companies who offer customer experience services. As the field of customer experience design has been expanding over the years to address the ever-changing customer demand, more services emerged.

Let’s explore them below. 

Types of Customer Experience Services

Customer experience services can encompass everything from building a next-generation retail store to creating a mobile app that would converge all services in one place. So CX is as much about building an Amazon Go type of experience as it is about mobile app UX and UI design services.

End-to-End CX Design (Full Customer Services Experience Development)

Every company has a customer experience, but if you aim at meeting customer expectations at every touchpoint, you need end-to-end CX design. One of its main goals is creating a seamless connection between a company’s physical and digital experiences. End-to-end CX design usually encompasses everything from creating intuitive websites and mobile apps to connecting all the company’s systems.

Amazon is a great example. Enabled by the decision to make an Amazon account the heart of the experience, everything in the company’s CX is simple. Whether you want to buy a product, read a book on the device of your choice, shop at an Amazon Go store, watch a TV show on Amazon Prime — everything is interconnected, simplified, and only a few clicks away. A user only needs to register an Amazon account and provide basic details. 

Amazon uses virtually every technology available in its CX, from IoT to deep learning to robotics. Still, a comprehensive CX does not have to use everything to achieve solid results, even if it operates on a large scale. For example, a bank can transform its branches with web and mobile, a CRM system, embedded software development, and by redesigning the physical space itself. 

Enterprise UX Services 

If CX in commerce deals with improving the process of buying goods/services from a company for its clients, enterprise UX services focus on enhancing enterprise operations so that the company’s employees would work more efficiently and comfortably. A good example comes from Boeing, whose employees now use AR headsets in the wire assembly process instead of continuously consulting manuals. Results are staggering: assembly speed has risen by 25% while errors are down to nearly zero. 

See the video below:

Customer Mobile Experience Services

This type of services involves creating a mobile-driven CX where a company’s application is front and center, converging all its services in one place. 

For instance, Sweden’s leading insurance provider EuroAccident transferred its insurance process to a simple mobile app. The company’s clients can manage every step easily, from setting appointments to managing insurance for their children. Getting a refund is paperless — a user only needs to make a photo of the check, fill out a few fields, and press a button. The app is also integrated with the country’s most popular booking service, the most widespread banking account authorization system, as well as the company’s IT infrastructure. 

EuroAccident

This is service is often offered as part of mobile UI / UX design services, digital transformation services, or UX/UI design and development services.

Stand-alone Solution for Specific Touchpoint

Say, a retail company has everything covered: mobile and web are interconnected, the company gathers user data to better cater to customers, employees at physical stores can anticipate what shoppers might need, and so on. Still, the company wants to strengthen their image and improve their sales further with something fresh. 

Emerging technologies provide a solution. A company can opt for creating an Augmented Reality (AR) kiosk for the store (we will explore an Under Armour example below) or install beacons that would be connected to a mobile app, delivering personalised offers at the right place and time. 

These services can also be referred to as customer experience IT services, as they involve both software development and sophisticated technology solutions. 

Build a tech-driven CX by leveraging 11+ years of industry-specific design expertise.

Get in touch with us.

UI & UX Design Services

These are typical UI & UX design services you can find on the websites of most software development companies and digital agencies. They include web design, cross-platform design, mobile app design, and so on. 

In the context of customer experience, common UI & UX design services play a secondary role. A company may need them when it already has a solid CX in place, but, for instance, needs to add a new mobile product to it. 

Other UI and UX services might also be useful. Say, a big retail company has built a tablet app for their warehouses themselves, but it does not work properly. Turning to a software development company for UI and UX consulting will provide a solution. 

Can UI & UX design and development services involve the latest technologies?

Yes, common UX and UI services can involve them. A company can create a website with a  virtual reality (VR) feature in mind, or a mobile app with augmented reality. For example, a hotel can set up website-based VR tours of their locations, while an event company can create an AR app allows visitors view immersive AR installations on events’ grounds. 

Customer Experience Examples In Services Of Leading Brands

We briefly explored real-life examples of CXs across industries above, but more of them will give you a better idea of what CX is and what shapes it can take. 

Full Customer Services Experience — Oasis

The U.K. fashion retailer Oasis has merged its website, app, and store experiences into one seamless CX. Whether customers shop on desktop or a smartphone, they can enjoy the same experience, and it extends further, to the brand’s brick-and-mortar stores. The stores’ sales representatives are armed with iPads, enabling them to give customers accurate product information on the spot, as well as use the tablets as cash registers. If an item is out-of-stock at the shop, the sales representative can book it online and order delivery to the customer’s place of choice. The company’s flagship store also incorporates eating, drinking, and beauty areas. 

Oasis’ Flagship Store 

Enterprise UX — AF Gruppen

One of Norway’s biggest construction companies has transformed their core processes with the help of mobile, geofencing technology, and ERP software. As AF Gruppen is often tasked with massive projects like building roads, it often needs to set up the necessary infrastructure in the middle of nowhere. Managing the flow of materials as well as numerous partners is also hard. 

The solution helps to tackle all these issues. With the mobile app, drivers record the process of loading/unloading materials. Geofencing technology helps monitor the movements of the partners’ representatives at a project location, enforcing security, as well as track time of AF Gruppen’s employees. All the data is synced to and consolidated in the company’s project portal, giving it a bird’s-eye-view of any project. 

AF Gruppen 

Stand-alone Solution for Specific Touchpoint — Under Armour 

For one of its stores, Under Armour created an AR kiosk that lets users apply signature objects of sports stars to their photos: Stephen Curry’s mouthguard, The Rock’s headphones and sunglasses, and other. Plus, users pose alongside a 3D animation of the chosen star and can share the photo on social media right away. The solution refreshes the in-store experience as well as helps Under Armour learn more about their shoppers.  

Start building a seamless and engaging CX for your business.

Get in touch with us.

F. A. Q.

What is the difference between customer services and experience design?

A customer service is what  a company offers to customers (insurance policy management, package delivery, etc.), while experience design deals with how a company should offer its products or services to customers at every touchpoint (implementing an AI-driven chatbot in an insurance company’s app for customer support, ensuring managing package delivery on desktop is as simple and quick as possible, etc.).

What are customer experience IT services?

Customer experience IT services help companies cover any software and technology needs related to their CXs. This could be anything from a CRM to tablet app for warehouses to AR storefront.

How can I find a fitting partner for UI / UX design or customer experience services?

If you need UX and UI design services, choose between a digital agency and a software development company. The first option will give you more expertise in marketing, the second in software development. Still, an agency can have solid software developers, and a software development company the required marketing expertise, acquired in completing projects similar to yours. As you will be focusing on expertise and completed projects to select the right partner for UI / UX design services, you can search among both. 

If you need customer experience services, seek out companies that focus on CX, not simply offer it alongside many other services. This could be an IT/software development company or design agency.

Whether you need to find a partner for UI & UX design or customer experience services, you need to carry out a comprehensive research, especially if you plan a major overhaul of your CX — not too many companies offer end-to-end CX design. You can find fitting companies on websites of consulting companies and research firms like Clutch.co, they rate and profile services providers regularly. Asking your business partners or people you know about a potential partner can help you in finding one for UI & UX design or customer experience services as successfully as in any other case where you need a 100% reliable partner. 

The post 360-Degree Guide: Tech-Driven Customer Experience Services appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

Internet of Things (IoT) is the enabling technology of many health and wellness related activities and processes. It is invisible, cost-effective, solves ongoing challenges and opens doors for new creative opportunities, and has a short learning curve. Most importantly, it allows everyone to stay healthy and helps medical experts save lives.

As promising as it already sounds, the promise of IoT in healthcare is broader still — the technology will help the industry perform a meaningful evolution. From ultimate personalization with DNA testing, to sophisticated sleep technology, to smarter houses for Parkinson’s disease patients, let’s explore how connected devices will change the healthcare industry.

Connected Wellness Devices

Evolution of Device Ecosystems

Staying fit and healthy is the main driver of modern lifestyles. Here, smart IoT devices for wellness have become our helpers. Connected gadgets provide and gather important information, motivate us, and even serve as our trainers, among other things.

Today, the vast majority of people who exercise and closely monitor their health have at least a smart watch or bracelet alongside their smartphones and fitness apps, which all work together in one ecosystem. Although they have long become essential to modern exercise routines, as technologies continue to evolve, the role these devices play will only keep growing.

The foundation for these developments is already in place. The Apple and Fitbit IoT ecosystems are already so vast that can use advanced algorithms to provide their users with spot-on insights and workout recommendations.

As the latest Apple Watch model has an ECG feature, we can also expect future IoT devices would perform checks that are currently possible only in medical facilities, gathering even more information and providing even better recommendations.

Wellness Devices will Reach Ultimate Personalization

Existing IoT wellness devices gather many types of data and provide deeply personalized recommendations to users, Still, the highest level of personalization will be enabled by more sophisticated means that rely heavily on IoT technology.

For example, Skulpt developed a scanning device that allows users to analyse fat-to-muscle ratio and muscle health individually. The information is sent to the Skulpt app, as it performs an in-depth analysis and then offers users individual recommendations for safe and efficient workouts.

Still, reaching the highest level of personalization can only be enabled by solutions based on DNA testing. With properly developed AI-driven algorithms, these connected health and wellness devices will provide truly individual workout and diet recommendations.

FitnessGenes is one of the existing examples. The company offers a three-step DNA analysis of vascular function, sleep cycles, saturated fat sensibilities, energy production, and other. After, the FitnessGenes app offers the user a genetically tailored nutrition plan and workout advice. As users continue to demand increasingly personalised products and services, health and wellness devices driven by DNA testing will be widely popular in the coming years.

The New Life of Group Fitness

Small but highly effective, IoT sensors will gain more traction in fitness as well, especially group-focused exercises. Placed on each participant, the battery-powered wireless sensors will gather information and stream it to a TV screen or a trainer’s mobile device, in real-time. This way, the participants could follow the progress of others, while trainers can better cater to each client on-the-go.

Speaking of data sharing, people love sharing their sports achievements with others, as well as connect with fellow fitness enthusiasts. So, apps like Strava will remain popular in the coming years, while also giving way to more curious solutions. For example, xMed allows users to diagnose health issues in two ways. First, it has AI-driven algorithms. Second, it serves us a social media network where users can ask fellow health and wellness enthusiasts for advice — or connect with medical experts. Smart watches and bracelets are in the equation, of course (learn more here).

Better Sleep

Sleep deprivation has emerged as a widespread modern malaise. Scientists, public figures, and popular media outlets ring red alert on our bedtime habits and the low numbers of our shut-eye hours. Arianna Huffington went as far as to branding sleep deprivation “the new smoking” in a Fast Company article, as the condition causes a wide range of mental and physical health issues. Sound-based products providing ambient sounds do not seem to suffice anymore.

Except a sleep robot, wellness medical devices powered by IoT technology have emerged as the solution. Products on this market include sleep trackers, nighttime wearables, and smart pillows.

This wellness connected devices include smart mattresses. Eight Sleep, a New York-based technology company, offers a comfortable mattress with IoT sensors, which gather data about fifteen sleep and health factors, and delivers it to the Eight Sleep app. The application also enables users to control the temperature of both sides of the bed. The latest version has an additional device called the Pod that can dynamically change the mattress temperature according to the gathered data about personal sleep temperature preferences for both sides of the bed. The solution can also be controlled with smart home systems like Alexa.

Connected Devices in Healthcare

Remote Wellness Monitoring Devices

Today, hospitals and other medical institutions continue to struggle with high patient loads, as nurses face long extra hours. The problem will not go away anytime soon, at the very least. On top of that, finding funding remains an unsolved issue for many medical institutions.

Here, IoT comes forward as the most fitting solution, and one of the major drivers of the industry’s technological evolution. Connected health devices help solve healthcare’s critical issues in an effective, patient-friendly, and cost-effective way, as well as introduce many other benefits and solutions.

For instance, the NHS (National Health Service) of the UK is currently at the second phase of testing Technology Integrated Health Management (TIHM). The program reduces the number of hospital and home care admissions for dementia patients with a system of wellness monitoring devices, allowing them to comfortably stay at home for longer periods of time. The NHS installs the sensors in a patient’s place of stay, allowing clinicians to monitor their health remotely 24/7. The solution also involves artificial intelligence-driven algorithms, and can alert medical experts in a number of occasions.

Pfizer and IBM went further with the concept to simplify the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. The medical condition requires continuous assessment and medication regimen adjustments based on a patient’s movements, cognitive responses, and a myriad of other factors. During their study, the companies placed IoT sensors on the majority of objects to monitor the symptoms and relay the data to clinicians, which in turn can make the needed adjustments to the medication routine, as well as stay informed about the patient’s condition around the clock.

The solution also leverages mobile devices and advanced machine learning capabilities. Pfizer and IBM strive to help people with Parkinson’s disease lead their lifestyles without being confined to a hospital while also gather data and streamline the patient management process.

As taking care of patients with serious long-standing diseases is problematic in the face of overcrowded and busy hospitals, solutions with connected health devices can save medical institutions costs and significantly reduce (or even eliminate) the nurses’ extra hours. Due to their invisible and user-friendly nature, connected health devices have a very short learning curve. More so, they allow hospitals to provide patients with the best type of comfort — the comfort of their homes.  

Smart Medication Management

Ensuring vaccines are kept at the right temperature at all times is critical. All the more so if they are dispatched to hard-to-reach regions with deadly diseases and a high demand for the cure.

To address this issue, Nexleaf Analytics created ColdTrace — a remote temperature monitoring system for vaccine refrigerators in rural healthcare organizations. An IoT sensor is installed into a refrigerator unit to monitor temperature and grid power, and the connected health devices system sends updates and alerts to the monitoring personnel.

As for more mundane situations, AdhereTech created a Smart Pill Bottle to ensure a person does not fall out of their medication routine. Currently available only in the U.S., each bottle connects to the company’s HIPAA compliant system to choose the most fitting treatment for every user. The solution also connects to the pharmacy system, notifying pharmacists about people who need their support in real-time. As a result, one uses the Smart Pill Bottle like a normal bottle.

What is important, the “invisibility” factor IoT healthcare solutions will continue playing a pivotal part in connected devices in healthcare. The less the patient has to learn about and deal with device, the easier and less stressful the treatment.

Equipment Management

Hospitals are big and busy, and even a bulky and expensive piece of medical equipment might get lost in a corridor, room, or one of the numerous wards. In the following years, more and more hospitals and medical organizations will turn to IoT technology to quickly locate the needed equipment.

Going back to the NHS, the organization’s Scottish wing started a pilot project with IoT-driven hospital beds at Caithness General Hospital. The beds are equipped with sensors that gather data for maintenance records and pinpoint beds’ whereabouts.

In turn, G.E.’s AutoBed platform can track nurse proximity. Installed at New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital for testing, AutoBed also helps track the beds quickly. The numbers clearly indicate such solutions will gain traction in the future. G.E.’s platform had reduced emergency room (ER) wait times by several hours for fifty percent of the hospital’s ER patients.

Still, some hospitals are just too vast and demand more complex solutions. For example, one company needed an equipment-monitoring IoT ecosystem involving a wide range of connected devices: an RFID wand, RFID scanner, mobile app, and RFID tag printer. Together with a web portal, the devices help find and manage an extensive fleet of medical devices in large hospitals.

The post Deep Dive: Connected Health & Wellness Devices Trends appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

This attack is just an example of what can happen to IoT devices with poor security.

It is not only video cameras, but anything with an internet connection, from a refrigerator, smart locks, thermostats, lightbulbs, vehicles, and even smart toys. Using them always poses IoT security challenges and risks to overcome.

IoT Security Challenges

Now, it is not only us with our computers, but there are also “things” that interact with the Internet without our intervention. These “things” are continually communicating with the Internet, a fridge sending an update of the food inside or our vehicle transmitting messages to the mechanic to inform its oil levels.

IoT is wonderful in many ways. But unfortunately, technology has not matured yet, and it is not entirely safe. The entire IoT environment, from manufacturers to users, still have many security challenges of IoT to overcome, such as:

• Manufacturing standards
• Update management
• Physical hardening
• Users knowledge and awareness

Top IoT Security Risks

Returning to what happened in 2016, the lack of compliance on the part of IoT manufacturers led to weak and unprotected passwords in some IoT video cameras, which, in turn, led to one of the most damaging botnet attacks, the Mirai malware. There are many IoT security threats, but we will be highlighting the most important.

The following security issues with IoT can be classified as a cause or effect.

1) Lack of Compliance on the part of IoT Manufacturers

New IoT devices come out almost daily, all with undiscovered vulnerabilities. The primary source of most IoT security issues is that manufacturers do not spend enough time and resources on security.

For example, most fitness trackers with Bluetooth remain visible after the first pairing, a smart refrigerator can expose Gmail login credentials, and a smart fingerprint padlock can be accessed with a Bluetooth key that has the same MAC address as the padlock device.   

This is precisely one of the biggest security issues with IoT. While there is a lack of universal IoT security standards, manufacturers will continue creating devices with poor security. Manufacturers that started to add Internet connection to their devices do not always have the “security” concept as the crucial element in their product design process.

The following are some security risks in IoT devices from manufacturers:

1. Weak, guessable, or hard-coded passwords
2. Hardware issues
3. Lack of a secure update mechanism
4. Old and unpatched embedded operating systems and software
5. Insecure data transfer and storage

A smart thermostat

2) Lack of User Knowledge & Awareness.

Over the years, Internet users have learnt how to avoid spam or phishing emails, perform virus scans on their PCs, and secure their WiFi networks with strong passwords.

But IoT is a new technology, and people still do not know much about it. While most of the risks of IoT security issues are still on the manufacturing side, users and businesses processes can create bigger threats. One of the biggest IoT security risks and challenges is the user’s ignorance and lack of awareness of the IoT functionality. As a result, everybody is put at risk.

Tricking a human is, most of the time, the easiest way to gain access to a network. A type of IoT security risk that is often overlooked is social engineering attacks. Instead of targeting devices, a hacker targets a human, using the IoT.

Social engineering was used in the 2010 Stuxnet attack against a nuclear facility in Iran. The attack was directed to industrial programmable logic controllers (PLCs), which also fall into an IoT device category. The attack corrupted 1,000 centrifuges and made the plant explode. It is believed that the internal network was isolated from the public network to avoid attacks, but all it took was a worker to plug a USB flash drive into one of the internal computers.

3) IoT Security Problems in Device Update Management

Another source of IoT security risks is insecure software or firmware. Although a manufacturer can sell a device with the latest software update, it is almost inevitable that new vulnerabilities will come out.

Updates are critical for maintaining security on IoT devices. They should be updated right after new vulnerabilities are discovered. Still, as compared with smartphones or computers that get automatic updates, some IoT devices continue being used without the necessary updates.

Another risk is that during an update, a device will send its backup out to the cloud and will suffer a short downtime. If the connection is unencrypted and the update files are unprotected, a hacker could steal sensitive information.

4) Lack of Physical Hardening

The lack of physical hardening can also cause IoT security issues. Although some IoT devices should be able to operate autonomously without any intervention from a user, they need to be physically secured from outer threats. Sometimes, these devices can be located in remote locations for long stretches of time, and they could be physically tampered with, for example using a USB flash drive with Malware.

Ensuring the physical security of an IoT device begins from the manufacturer. But building secure sensors and transmitters in the already low-cost devices is a challenging task for manufacturers nonetheless.

Users are also responsible for keeping IoT devices physically secured. A smart motion sensor or a video camera that sits outside a house could be tampered with if not properly protected.  

5) Botnet Attacks

A single IoT device infected with malware does not pose any real threat; it is a collection of them that can bring down anything. To perform a botnet attack, a hacker creates an army of bots by infecting them with malware and directs them to send thousands of requests per second to bring down the target.

Much of the uproar about IoT security began after the Mirai bot attack in 2016. Multiple DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks using hundreds of thousands of IP cameras, NAS, and home routers were infected and directed to bring down the DNS that provided services to platforms like GitHub, Twitter, Reddit, Netflix, and Airbnb.

The problem is that IoT devices are highly vulnerable to Malware attacks. They do not have the regular software security updates that a computer has. So they are quickly turned into infected zombies and used as weapons to send incredibly vast amounts of traffic.

What is more, a botnet can pose a security threat for electrical grids, manufacturing plants, transportation systems, and water treatment facilities, which can threaten big groups of people. For example, a hacker could trigger a cooling and heating system at the same time, creating spikes on the power grid; in case of a big-scale attack, hackers can create a nation-wide power outtage.

6) Industrial Espionage & Eavesdropping

If hackers take over surveillance in at location by infecting IoT devices, spying might not be the only option They can also perform such attacks to demand ransom money.

Thus, invading privacy is another prominent IoT security issue. Spying and intruding through IoT devices is a real problem, as a lot different sensitive data may be compromised and used against its owner.

On a basic level, a hacker might want to take over a camera and use it for spying. Still, one should not forget that many IoT devices record user information, whether it is health equipment, smart toys, wearables, etc. On an industrial level, a company’s big data that can be collected by hackers to expose sensitive business information.  

Some countries are starting to ban specific IoT devices with security problems. For example, the interactive IoT doll with a Bluetooth pin, which gave access to the toy’s microphone and speaker to

anyone within the 25-30 meter radius. The doll was labeled as an espionage device and was banned in Germany.

7) Highjacking Your IoT Devices.

Ransomware has been named as one of the nastiest malware types ever existed. Ransomware does not destroy your sensitive files — it blocks access to them by way of encryption. Then, the hacker who infected the device will demand a ransom fee for the decryption key unlocking the files.  

Here is how a ransomware notice looks like:

Ransomware is evolving, and IoT devices with poor security can become targets as well.

Just before the Trump inauguration speech, about 70% of the Washington DC surveillance cameras were infected with ransomware, leaving the police without the ability to record for several days.  

The cases of IoT devices being infected with ransomware are rare, but the concept is quickly becoming a trend in the black hat hacker world. Still, wearables, healthcare gadgets, smart homes, and other smart devices and ecosystems might be at risk in the future.

Here, the are good news, and there are bad news. While this malware might not have valuable data to lock down because most IoT information is stored in the cloud, it can ock down the entire device’s functionality. Imagine that your vehicle will not start unless you pay a ransom fee — or your house is locked down, with the thermostat set to the maximum.

8) Data Integrity Risks of IoT Security in Healthcare

With IoT, data is always on the move. It is being transmitted, stored, and processed. Most IoT devices extract and collect information from the external environment. It can be a smart thermostat, HVAC, TVs, medical devices. But sometimes these devices send the collected data to the cloud without any encryption.

As a result, a hacker can gain access to a medical IoT device, gaining control over it and being able to alter the data it collects. A controlled medical IoT device can be used to send false signals, which in turn can make health practitioners take actions that may damage the health of their patients.

For example, a hacked medical IoT device can report a fully charged battery to the maintenance station while in reality the battery is about to die. Worse, there are risks of IoT security in healthcare devices like pacemakers or the ones making the insulin shots. The vulnerabilities found on St. Jude Medical’s implantable cardiac gave access to hackers, enabling them to alter the pacing or shocks, or even worse, deplete the battery.

9) Rogue IoT Devices

We might already know about the rapid growth of the number of IoT devices, which is predicted to reach 18 billion by 2022, according to Ericsson. The problem with this number of devices arises not only in the BYOD (Bring-Your-On-Devices) approach in enterprises, but also in home networks. One of the most significant IoT security risks and challenges is being able to manage all our devices and close the perimeter.

But rogue devices or counterfeit malicious IoT devices are beginning to be installed in secured networks without authorization. A rogue device replaces an original one or integrates as a member of a group to collect or alter sensitive information. These devices break the network perimeter.

Raspberry Pi board

Example of rouge IoT devices can take the form of the Raspberry Pi, or WiFi Pineapple. These can be turned into a rogue AP (Access Point), thermostat, video camera, or MITM (Man in the Middle) and intercept incoming data communications unbeknownst to users. Other variations of rogue devices may also emerge in the future.

Interestingly, the upcoming horror movie “Child’s Play” was inspired by the concept and can serve as a curious example. In the movie, controlling other devices in a smart home system, Chucky is a rouge IoT device that has become a high-level threat to people’s lives.

10) Cryptomining with IoT Bots.

Mining cryptocurrency demands colossal CPU and GPU resources, and another IoT security issue has emerged due to this precondition — cryptomining with IoT bots. This type of attack involves infected botnets aimed at IoT devices, with the goal not to create damage, but mine cryptocurrency.

The open-source cryptocurrency Monero is one of the first ones to be mined using infected IoT devices, such as video cameras. Although a video camera does not have powerful resources to mine cryptocurrency, an army of them does.

IoT botnet miners pose a great threat to the crypto market, as the have the potential to flood and disrupt the entire market in a single attack.

Summary

After the Mirai attack, people realized that any device connected to the Internet is a potential ally for an army of bots. But that was only the beginning.

For now, IoT and security are still not found in the same place. There are still many risks and security challenges of IoT now — and more will inevitably emerge in the coming years.

The more variations of IoT devices we see out there, the more complex IoT security problems will become. International organizations and governments will need to create universal IoT standards to control the security in cities, homes, locations like nuclear plants, the manufacturing process, and other areas and locations.

We have seen the emergence of IoT as a trend in the last few years. There are smart devices coming out that we never thought needed an Internet connection: smart toothbrushes, beauty mirrors, tables, pillows, beds, and the list continues to grow. The world is turning into a network of objects collecting our personal, sensitive information.

We can only imagine the amount of important data hackers could steal from those IoT devices if they do not have proper security. So, the top IoT security threats listed above are just the beginning. If we want our devices smart, we need them to be secure as well.

The post Top 10 Biggest IoT Security Issues appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

How are industry-leading companies using the technology? What benefits do they plan to gain by implementing facial recognition? Is the technology regulated?

Join us as we explore these questions below.

1) Facial Recognition in Retail

CaliBurger — Loyalty Program, In-store Experience

The Californian burger company CaliBurger installed kiosks with facial recognition capabilities at one of their restaurants in Pasadena. Linked to CaliBurger’s loyalty program, the kiosks recognize customers when they approach, load their loyalty accounts, and show favorite and past orders. The customers do not need to add any account details or swipe their cards. As a result, Caliburger is able to remove friction from the ordering process almost entirely, speeding it up significantly.

As of now, the kiosks are in the testing mode. Caliburger plans to roll out the technology in other restaurants over time. “Facial recognition is part of our broader strategy,” commented CEO of Cali Group John Miller in a statement.

See the video:

Caliburger’s facial recognition technology works only with prior customer consent, and the company stresses that they do not store the facial images.

7-Eleven — Advanced Facial Recognition in Thailand

In March 2018, 7-Eleven installed facial recognition software into 11,000 stores in Thailand. Coupled with behaviour analytics, the solution is used to track loyalty cardholders, monitor customer traffic and stock levels, suggest products for purchase, as well as recognise the emotions of shoppers.

Thailand’s population reaches almost 69 million people, and 10 million of them go to a 7-Eleven store each day. It is fair to say that the company is planning to get a substantial ROI on the technology, and improve the numbers. The implementation might also be connected to the current rise of facial recognition technology across Asia, especially in China, where people can use it to buy products, withdraw cash from ATMs, as well as get a loan.

Saks Fifth Avenue — Organized Retail Crime Prevention

An early adopter of facial recognition technology, luxury brand Saks installed it into its flagship store in Toronto’s Eaton Centre to fight organized retail crime/loss prevention. The facial recognition algorithms track the store visitors and convert’s photos of suspects into biometric templates, checking them against a database of registered shoplifters. The solution allows for accessing the cameras remotely from Saks’s New York headquarters.  

Here is an example of how facial recognition technology works in crime detection:

Source: Iowa Department of Transportation

Walmart, Samsung, Intel, Home Depot

Home Depot has merged their marketing and security departments for a facial recognition project that would provide insight into shoppers’ in-store product browsing. Michael Weidmann, the consultant for the project, said that no company had ever considered linking the two departments before, but the number has been growing since. With Amazon leading the way with their highly sophisticated and automated Go shops, companies will leverage facial recognition in retail to attract more customers to physical stores in the future.

Meanwhile, Walmart patented a technology with AI facial recognition that enables cameras to capture the facial expressions of shoppers in checkout lines to measure the degree of dissatisfaction with service. The results may help the company improve the in-store experience, including in-store displays, real-time promotions, and other issues.

In general, the use of facial recognition in retail is on the rise. At the National Retail Federation 2018, Samsung and AT&T showed how they plan to use it to get insights into demographics, store traffic customer behaviour patterns, and acquire other data.

Meanwhile, Intel showed a mock-up of a candy store in which a camera recognized recurring shoppers with the help of AI facial recognition, and then informed the store associates about their names, previous purchases, and product recommendations. Properly established, such facial recognition tool could empower the store associates and raise in-store customer satisfaction significantly.

2) Facial Recognition in Hospitality

Accor Hotels — Check-In, Hotel Experience

In 2018, Accor Hotels started trialing facial recognition technology in their Pullman hotel in São Paulo, Brazil to see how it can improve the guest experience. The opportunity was given to selected guest that are part of the loyalty program.

The solution covers key points in Accor’s hotel experience. Guests can use facial recognition to check-in at the desk or an information pillar at the reception as well as use the technology to access their rooms. As a result, the keycards are out of the equation as the guest experience becomes more swift and streamlined.

Accor Hotels lists deeper personalization and standing out from competition as other facial recognition benefits, according to Erwan Le Goff, the company’s vice-president for information technology for South America.

“We realize this technology is a big market differentiator and will be utilized by the sector in the years to come. ” said Mr. Le Goff.

Marriott International — Check-in Kiosks at the Desk

Around the same time in 2018, Marriott announced they are bringing facial recognition to the check-in desk in the form of kiosks. The chain started testing the technology at their two properties in China — Marriott Hangzhou and Marriot Sanya (located on island often referred to as “The Hawaii of China”). The project is also a joint effort with e-commerce giant Alibaba.

“Marriott International has a track record of embracing cutting-edge technology to create memorable experiences for guests,” said Henry Lee, Chief Operations Officer and Managing Director of Marriott International Greater China.

It looks like the chain considers the implementation of facial recognition in hospitality as the next important step for the industry. If the current effort finds its success, Marriott plans to roll out the technology to all of their 6,500 properties — although no definite milestones were set.  

Other Hotel Chains — VIP Identification

When it comes to broad-based usage, facial recognition in the hospitality industry is in its young years. On top of that, it is not properly regulated yet (we will discuss this in a moment). As a result, few companies are willing to voice their efforts, let alone sit down and elaborate on them.

Still, the Guardian reports that a number of high-end hotels in Europe are allegedly using facial recognition to identify VIPs and celebrities for preferred treatment when they enter the front door.   

3) The State of Facial Recognition Technology Regulation

In general, it can be said that the facial recognition technology is not regulated. Only the states of Illinois and Texas in the United States come as exceptions. Still, the gears that facilitate the emergence of corresponding laws are already in motion, and the conversation in general has already started.  

“The technology is in some environments where I’m sure millions of people, in a year, or even in a month, are subjected to it,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, to New York Magazine. “Nobody has any idea that it’s happening, or what data is being collected, or how it’s being stored, or for how long, or who has access to it.”

Ritchie Torres, a New York City Councilman representing Bronx, introduced a bill to move the needle on the issue. It would require a business to start informing the public in case they are using the facial recognition, how long they store the data gathered by it, and who they share this data with. The legislation effort did not get traction yet, and the magazine argues that it will face serious lobbying efforts from the tech industry — citing lack of success with similar laws in Alaska, Connecticut, Montana, New Hampshire, and Washington. Trade groups and tech giants like Google and Facebook are at the forefront of the opposition, the latter being especially aggressive on the issue.

Geoff White, a privacy specialist with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in Ottawa told The Guardian that companies using facial recognition technology have an obligation to be more transparent.

Pushing tech companies to become more so and hoping to get a resolution should not be viewed as an impossible feat. After all, privacy is paramount today, and those companies that fail to follow through eventually risk losing their clients, while also losing image points along the way.

The post Facial Recognition in Retail & Hospitality: Cases, Benefits, Laws appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

From cloud technology to cyber risk management to machine learning in investment banking, join us as we explore the banking industry trends for 2019 and beyond.

Cloud Technology as New Foundation

Cloud has become the new normal for nine of ten enterprises across industries. The average IT environment in both SMBs and larger companies is becoming increasingly cloud-based. Companies also diversify their delivery models, with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) gaining more and more traction. Plus, a slew of new job positions have emerged to manage different aspects of cloud in the enterprise, including architecture and safety.

Cloud is one of the current banking industry trends as well. It is expected that the technology will serve as a foundation for core modernization of banking organizations.

Cloud will provide the industry with a slew of substantial benefits:

• Data management, with storing and processing capabilities
• AI-driven analytics with machine and deep learning algorithms
• Flexible migration from legacy systems to a single cloud environment
• Agility and scale: cloud allows banking organizations make changes and add new functionality quickly

One of the new trends in the banking industry, ensuring fail-safe security will also be a core question regardless of the type of a cloud solution and its scale.

Example of Cloud Adoption: Capital One is in the midst of cloud transformation, on track to move its core business processes and customer apps to cloud.

Risk Management Banking Industry Trends

Existing risk management systems at banking organizations might not be ready to face the challenges of the rapidly changing world. Poised to become the top banking industry trends for 2019 and years to come, AI-driven solutions with machine and deep learning algorithms provide a solution.

Although wide adoption and implementations poses a number of challenges ranging from ethics to cybersecurity, AI-driven analytics will be inherent to the future of risk management. Based on trained or self-learning algorithms, such solutions can find, gather, manage, and analyse data to single out risks and provide insights.

Example of AI Adoption: ANZ has created a proof of concept that incorporates deep learning techniques with customer data to access the risk better and on a more dynamic basis.

As for cyber risk management, experts at Deloitte point at the following trends in the banking industry:

1) Strengthen basic controls like IT asset, patch, and vulnerability management to identify and manage risks related to implementation of cloud and migration to open architecture.

2) Use analytics tools and AI with security in mind.

3) Build an IT infrastructure with security as a top priority: it should be able to withstand systematic attacks and long stress periods.

Retail Baking Industry Trends: From Mobile-Driven CX — to Non-Banks

Fintechs and nonbanks now have a substantial influence in the banking industry. They are highly agile, innovative, and aim at exceeding the demands of modern customers in banking services and experiences.

Established retail banks need to compete and often play catch-up. Still, they acknowledge the need to change, and change fast. Throughout 2018, retail banks across the world were rapidly embracing a mobile-centric customer experience, while investments in mobile technologies has increased significantly. Notably, Asia Pacific leads in adoption of digital banking, with constantly changing consumer demands, unbanked potential, and favourable regulation cited as primary drivers.

How to approach this new customer experiences? Modern customers have a stronger connection to established technology brands like Apple and Google than to banks they use. One of the key reasons is these companies’ ability to merge physical and digital experiences in a single customer journey. Thus, adopting the same approach is a potent solution for retail banks that aim at adopting the latest trends in the banking industry quickly and impactfully. In practice, this means improving different channels — branches, ATMs, call centers, chatbot implementation, and other.

In 2019 and beyond, the banking industry will also see more digital-only mobile banks that operate without branches. Finn by JP Morgan Chase has gained positive user feedback. UK’s Atom Bank, a startup that raised $514 million, has been operating for several years now and offers its clients savings options, mortgages and business loans. Meanwhile, major banking industry organization are likely to strike partnerships with nonbanks to cater to the demands of modern clients as well as score more image points.

While not among evident banking industry trends, branches will continue to play a key part in the customer journey — but the experience will rely on digital tools more, according to a Deloitte survey.

These tools could include:

• Virtual remote services with a bank’s representative
• Digital screen self-service with optional assistance from a representative
• Scheduling video meetings with a bank’s employees
• Branches that operate like co-working spaces, where customer can both work, communicate, and rest

Investment Banking Industry Trends — Simpler, Leaner, More Client-Oriented

There are no big surprises in the transformation of investment banking compared to the other areas. On the surface, investment banks are rapidly embracing digital technologies to become more cost-efficient and elevate the customer experience.

Still, a subtle and all-important change is in motion. According to The Wall Street Journal, the power balance is allegedly shifting to the buy side, especially to the large institutions. On top of that, commoditization, price competition, and growth in the market clout have increased the negotiating power of clients. Other challenges of current economic realities abound, prompting companies to speed up the changes in the way they operate and offer services.

The key trends for investment banking are transforming the customer engagement model to more client-centric and adopting a bespoke approach with more streamlined services, possibilities, and smart individual insights for clients.

Investment banks would also need to sharpen the focus on who to serve, what to offer, and how. In the fast-paced world of today, this would require them to become significantly more agile and use third party solutions more broadly.

Like in other areas of the industry, AI-driven solutions with machine learning will also be a major driver in the digital transformation of investment banking.

AI will help in the following:

• Improving operational efficiency
• Risk management systems (FICC and derivatives training in particular)
• Trading
• Pricing engines
• Risk management systems
• Predictive analytics

Example of digital technology adoption in investment banking: Goldman Sachs created a bond-pricing engine that processes transactions of up to $2 million without human involvement.

Ernst & Young — Digital Transformation Case Study

The Challenge

EY approached us with a need to strengthen their reputation for thought leadership in the world of finance and banking by providing industry professionals with a consistent stream of educational materials and opinion pieces. The solution needed to present content in a digestible but comprehensive way as well as make EY stand out from the competition.  

The Solution

We created a mobile solution called Forecasts in Focus for iPads. Our experts crafted a comprehensive and simple-to-use CMS that allows EY’s editors to upload copy and media materials easily as well as customise their interfaces with reports, geolocation updates, and webcasts.

The Impact

The solution significantly reduced the time for content publishing and management while providing EY’s editors with a comfortable media tool. Second, Forecasts in Focus helped EY create a consistent brand voice online. Finally, financial experts now can count on EY to deliver engaging content and actionable insights on-the-go and in an eye-pleasing way that supports the brand’s reputation.

Need a consultation about software and technology efforts for banking organization? Get in touch with our experts.

The post From Cloud to Startup-Like Agility: Banking Industry Trends 2019 appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

Elaborately designed, guest service-first structures, hotels were separate worlds onto themselves, built to exceed expectations of its clientele over and over again with new technological conveniences and amusements.

The world of the modern hotel (especially a luxury hotel) has grown significantly since. Still, the hospitality industry is on yet another technological threshold. New technologies are helping the hotels become not worlds, but entire universes. Where in the past the hospitality industry always tried to exceed expectations of their guests, modern tech will allow to predict them with high precision, attuning the guest experience on-the-go to fit personal demands. More so, all of this will happen automatically and will only require human supervision.

From comprehensive smart room solutions to virtual reality to artificial intelligence, join us as we explore the technologies that already started changing the hospitality industry, as well as look at one real-life case study encompassing those technologies.

Smart Rooms & Internet of Things

The digital transformation of the hospitality industry starts with elevating the concept of the room to include the latest technology. Enter smart room — a cloud-based system with IoT devices that gives guests control over their experience with a mobile device, typically an in-room tablet. More specifically, guest can control a wide range of amenities and guest services. This includes lights, conditioning, media devices in every room separately via many IoT sensors; as well chat with concierges, hotel restaurants booking, and instant access to flight schedules. On top of that, the tablets powering a smart room present a new avenue for driving sales with personalised promotional offers for each guest.

As rooms are at the heart of any hotel experience, their smarter versions will become default for the hotel industry in the nearest future. Concurrently, they will be the cornerstone and the starting point in full-fledged Digital Transformation of the hospitality industry, allowing hotel chains to deliver better experiences, drive sales, and learn more about their guests to continuously improve the services further.

The possibilities do not end there, and it is easy to see why the smart room idea has emerged in the first place, becoming one of the top trends in hospitality over the recent years. Whether it is millennials or other generations, modern guests have high expectations from staying at a hotel or resort. If the other services they use in their daily lives are pleasant, easy, fast, and personalised, they expect even more from top-dollar hotels in the age of high technology and market disruptors like Airbnb and VRBO. Guests anticipate a new level of comfort and customer experience — with unique features and services to surprise and help them throughout the stay.

This goes in line with one of the overarching hotel industry trends — hyper-personalisation. Achieving it will not be possible without smart room solutions and IoT. Therefore, shifting to smart rooms is something no leading hotel chain can miss out on.

Beacon Technology

Although not widely used in the hotel sector today, beacons will become its mainstays in the near future. This compact and cost-efficient devices can send notifications with promotional offers or useful tips to a hotel app, or simply to smartphone. Different in type, sizes, and durability, beacons will help hotels drive sales and improve the guest experience outside the rooms, including locations with high temperature, swimming pools, and spas. For example, Fontainebleau Miami uses their data from beacons and property management systems to generate early guest check-in and late-stay promotional offers.

See our concise guide to beacons to find out more.

The Transformation of the Booking Process

Augmented & Virtual Reality

Airbnb is already experimenting with Augmented and Virtual reality for the booking process, and hotel chains will follow suit for several reasons. Both technologies eliminate the ongoing guessing game of how the room would look like for the guests, facilitating the buying decision process. Potential guests can also leave markers with notes in the AR environment to notify hotel staff about their wishes and preferences beforehand.   

The experience can unfold on a smartphone, laptop, consumer AR and VR glasses, as well as sophisticated headsets with full-fledged premises previews. Thus, AR and VR give more freedom to users in choosing their hotel, allowing them see and even experience what are they paying for, whether it is an exotic resort in a far away corner of the planet or a popular place of destination somewhere in Europe. This not a fantasy — Marriott Hotels offered such a VR experiences several years ago.

Artificial Intelligence

Powered by machine learning algorithms instead of pre-set commands, AI-driven chatbots will automate and simplify the booking experience. Such algorithms will be trained on call center agents’ conversations and customers’ website booking behaviour to offer the most fitting booking options for each guest, and sometimes even anticipate demand for additional services, and thus creating another way to drive sales.

Mobile

No impressive technology will work on its own when it comes to the booking process: mobile will remain one of the key hotel industry trends in the coming years. Thus, a hotel will need to ensure their branded hotel app has a simple, fluid, and highly functional booking process. For example, a luxury hotel’s mobile app can allow guests book rooms for their fellow travelers and pay for them; or assign rooms in big resort villas to different guests while also leaving individual notes with preference — all in one app, in a simple interface with only a few scrolls.

Artificial Intelligence-driven Customer Experience

In the coming years, as the hotel industry introduces automation, AI chatbots will take center stage as virtual assistants for every step of the stay. Employing machine learning, this consultants will be part of hotel apps to answer basic queries, for example:

• Do you have a two bedroom available for one night?
• Does your hotel serve vegetarian dishes?
• Can I bring my dog along?

Virtual assistants will help, guide, and provide offers for guests throughout the stay based on the data they share with the hotel, as well as their behaviour in the smart room, hotel app, and on the other platforms. A famous yoga coach will lead a morning session at your hotel? The virtual assistant will notify the guest who are interested in yoga with a single messages, proposing to sign up right away. A family staying at one of your properties is visiting the city for a first time? The AI concierge will provide recommendations if they plan to go out. There is a weather emergency at the resort? The chatbot will send a notification with safety tips immediately.

AI concierges can also help drive better customer services and thus significantly increase  service revenues. For example, one of the guests stays at the same hotel every month and prefers the same Asian restaurant. The virtual concierge will always keep them posted about new and seasonal menu items.

Better stated, AI is one the top hospitality trends for the future along with smart rooms. AI-driven solutions will open the doors to hyper-personalisation wide open, and this process has already started. In 2016, one luxury UK hotel developer created a smartphone-based AI service to let guests book rooms and request local area recommendations by messaging.

VR & AR Entertainment

In the upcoming decade, the hotel sector will always need to find many fresh ways to keep their guests entertained. Any type of gamification can be appreciated if used in the right area of the hotel experience. Here, AR & VR emerge once again as both future and current trends in the hospitality industry. Guest will definitely enjoy exploring the hotel grounds with Pokemon Go-like experiences, while their kids can play an AR quest that matches the theme of the hotel, discoverings game treasure items as they explore the hotel as well.

The possibilities with AR and VR are many; they depend on creativity and, expectedly, the size of investment. For example, Marriott Hotels surprised their customers with VR postcards, immersing them into headset-driven 3-D travels stories.

Case Study in Hotel Innovation — Smart Rooms, Cloud & Mobile for Luxury Asian Hotel Chain

Smart Rooms

A leading Asian hotel chain approached Intellectsoft for a comprehensive smart room solution for their brand new property. This was the first time the company outsourced software development. Closely collaborating with the client’s team on and off site, we created a tablet-based solution with pre-set designs for each hotel suite.

The solution gives guest complete control over room environment, guest services, and maintains the branded premium experience the client is known for.

Features Include:

• Attune amenities: air conditioning, light, windows, and media centers in every room.
• Order guest services
• Chat with staff
• Order food to room
• Access all the information about the hotel
• See flight schedules
• Stay notified with alerts

Benefits for the Client:

1. Next-level guest experience with unique, state-of-the-art smart rooms
2. New, wide avenue to drive sales with spot-on promotional offers sent right to the devices
3. Extends and solidifies the hotel’s branded premium experience
4. The client can learn more about their customers with new data, and continuously improve the experience further
5. Cloud-based solution that integrates with other client’s systems

Cloud: Single Architecture for All Operations

Having successfully implemented the smart room solution, Intellectsoft is now helping the client make an ambitious transition from legacy systems to one enterprise architecture model, where all systems have exposed APIs.

With this model, the client’s different systems can be re-configured and combined with each other, allowing for flexible and faster creation of new business scenarios and new trends in hospitality industry.

For example, a hotel chain has a branded mobile app for the guests, where they can book rooms, access loyalty cards, follow the latest updates, and other. The company plans to add the purchase of tickets for their new entertainment parks built as part of some of the resorts. Instead of establishing this separately, a single cloud architecture where systems have exposed APIs will allow to cut costs and time, largely because the payment processing functionality and the backbone for the functionality are already there. Plus, the feature will essentially be a part of the entire open-ended system where everything is in one place.

Branded Mobile Application

The client also entrusted us to transfer their brand experience to mobile. This resulted in a simple and eye-pleasing mobile app. In a few easy steps, the customers can book rooms for themselves and their travel companions, managing an array of essential options along the way. The application allows the customers to manage their membership and loyalty cards as well. To make the booking process as simple as possible, we also integrated the most popular payment service in the country.

Concluding Thoughts: Gradually Embracing the Hotel Industry Trends

The road to digital transformation is long, but the benefits of taking it are many. The majority of the modern sophisticated technologies can help the hotel industry change in a meaningful way — significantly improving many areas of the guest experience, driving sales, and introducing new, exciting dimensions to both vacations and business trips. What is interesting, the list of technologies forming the bedrock of this transformation does not end on the ones mentioned above. There will be many new trends in the hospitality industry that will help it change in exciting and meaningful ways, towards new bright horizons.

The post Hotel Industry Trends: From Decades of Innovation — to Digital Transformation appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.