Unsurprisingly, 97% of remote work employees aspire to work from home till the end of their careers.
There is not much of a measurable difference between remote work and work from home but let us discuss it:
What is Remote Work?
The act of an employee working remotely, away from the employer’s main office, is known as “remote work.”
An employee’s home, a co-working space, another communal area, a private office, or any other site other than the typical corporate office building or campus might be considered such a place.
Consider it this way: remote work employees may complete their tasks and achieve their objectives wherever they wish, as opposed to having to commute to an office each day to work from a certain workstation.
Why is Remote Employment So Common?
Due to the advantages it provides for both businesses and individuals, remote work is becoming more and more common.
The pandemic, which compelled many businesses to swiftly transition from a typical face-to-face work environment to a fully remote work environment for concerns of health and safety, also brought it a great deal of increased attention.
The benefits of remote work, such as shorter or no commutes, easier hiring and recruitment, and increased productivity, all contribute to its long-term appeal.
People can work remotely in a number of different ways. That’s the beauty of remote work employment: people may select the type of work that best fits their lifestyles.
For instance, some employees can work remotely most of the time during the workweek, but they must travel to the office one day a week for in-person meetings.
These remote work employees can work from their company’s office when necessary, but they often operate from their homes or local coffee shops.
Work-life balance: People prefer work from home for a variety of reasons, but the more flexible lifestyle is the most common one.
Improved well-being and health: Compared to their coworkers in offices, remote work employees are noticeably less stressed and have greater morale. 55% of participants in a study by the Royal Society for Public Health in the UK reported feeling more stressed as a result of their commute.
Renewed enthusiasm for their work: Working remotely often allows people to produce their best work. They can block off ambient distractions as they see fit, and their surroundings inspire them more.
With collaboration tools such as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, remote employees can easily connect with their colleagues and complete their work.
Common Remote Work Challenges
When the fundamental guidelines and best practices for how remote teams operate are not followed, issues with remote work frequently arise. This presents difficulties like:
Productivity drains: Employees may lose motivation and do less work if there are no clear rules and regulations.
Micromanagement and lack of trust: Low morale and increased anxiety can result from micromanagement, which is the psychological counterpart of watching someone’s back to make sure they are performing their job.
Unreliable technology: For remote work teams, using subpar tools and technologies can be detrimental to production and morale. Ineffective broadband connections, unstable software, and old hardware can all frustrate users and significantly reduce outcomes.
The hesitant remote workforce: When an employer or employee chooses not to work remotely as a deliberate decision or plan, there may be even another difficulty. The greatest candidates for remote work are those that actively seek it out for themselves and their employers.
With a remote workforce, you often have to deal with protecting your employees’ information. It may take more time, but the investment is worth it to protect their security when they’re working at home or in a hybrid workplace.
Working from home (WFH) means an employee who is working from their home, apartment, or other place of residence as opposed to the workplace.
Many businesses have a work from home policy, also known as a remote work policy, that enables their staff to work from home either full-time or only when it is most convenient for them.
Advantages of Work From Home
Working from home has a number of important advantages. because they don’t have to spend as much time traveling.
Reduction of additional costs: Saving on additional costs is one of the benefits of remote work. Travel is typically an employee’s second largest expense after rent. Additionally, employees overspend at the cafeterias at work, on gas, and on other unnecessary expenses.
Excluding travel time: Metro travel is time- and energy-consuming. When they eventually arrived at work after a minimum 2-hour drive or longer on a weekday, employees used to feel exhausted.
Increased productivity: The absence of typical workplace interruptions is one benefit of work from home. Quieter surroundings aid in completing the task more quickly and calmly.
What Distinguishes Working from Home vs. Working Remotely?
Although one type of remote employment involves working from home office, the two concepts are not always equivalent.
This is so that it is clear that working remotely does not dictate where a person works; it only indicates that they rarely enter a conventional office to carry out their duties.
Remote work and working from home differ from organization to organization because some organizations give their employees computer systems rather than laptops, so the employees have no choice but to work from home.
A transitory or infrequent kind of remote employment is frequently referred to as ‘working from home.’
This situation may involve, for instance, an employee who would typically work from the company’s office but suddenly needs to do so for a day or two due to a temporary childcare necessity.
Remote work employment is still a relatively new notion in the professional world that is commonly referred to as the future of work.
Since communication and productivity tracking are no longer an issue, it is easy to operate a business with software like Google Workspace, which allows employees to work from home.
Businesses in Malaysia can get Google Workspace Applications from Exabytes for their employees to work from home.
Contact an Exabytes Professional now to learn more.
Virtualization as technological advancement has transformed the ways how enterprise data centers work.
Today, the scope and flexibility available for data centers in managing the server virtualization, handling virtual machines configuration, handle the physical infrastructure of data centers in effective ways is the result of virtualization.
The introduction of Hyper-V as a hypervisor from Microsoft is a change in the ball game of virtual machines, wherein the data centers were able to unlock new capabilities and the potential for new scales.
Despite its slow start Hyper V is one of the significant solutions in the hypervisor space and is currently among the pioneers of virtual machines.
More insights into the Microsoft Hyper-V is possible upon understanding the basics of how the virtualization and hypervisor function.
Introduction to Hypervisor (Hyper-V)
As a simple definition, a Hypervisor (Hyper-V) is a miniature software supporting the creation and managing of virtual machines (VMs), using the same physical hardware.
Technically, the hypervisor is a condition wherein there is one single infrastructure split into multiple virtual machines, and each machine is perceived to have the whole infrastructure by itself.
Whereas the resources are shared in the virtual machine’s environment.
A hypervisor supports an abstraction layer amidst the VM and physical hardware.
Hypervisors manage interaction among the virtual machines, and schedule requests from each of the virtual machines to the associated hardware, working as a CPU (central processing unit).
Hyper-V is one such virtualization software from Microsoft which offers the data centers the scope to manage virtual machines using the limited hardware infrastructure and make optimal use of the resources for managing the processes.
While there are scores of virtualization software solutions in the public domain, Hyper V is ranked among the top in terms of virtualization software, for its ease of use and the seamless operations manageable for virtual machines.
Some of the reviews on the effectiveness of Hyper V are about its cost-effectiveness, reliability, and productive server virtualization environment, wherein there are scores of multiple operating systems managed effectively.
The critical advantage in the process of the virtual machine is how each of the virtual machines shall have independency and it supports distinct users to manage the systems without interruptions.
Few of the key benefits emphasized in the reviews for Hyper-V from Microsoft for managing the virtual machines are:
Application Testing Simplification
Hyper-V is resourceful in terms of adding and removing the operating systems from the virtual machines, wherein it helps you run and test the applications, for every single of them using a single computer.
Scalability and Resource utilization is the other significant advantage of the system, wherein virtual machines managed over Hyper V solutions has the scope for maximizing the server utilization, and effective allocation of resources, even in the limited set of physical hardware systems.
Key Features of Hyper-V for virtual machines:
Remote Connectivity is wherein Hyper Vs remote connectivity tool supports administrators to focus on remote access for a virtual machine
It can replicate virtual machines for backups from distinct sites too. Hyper V can support migration tools to move a virtual machine from one host to the other without any interruptions or downtime conditions.
It enables virtual machines to secure from any kind of malware attacks, prevent unauthorized access, and support in securing from any intrusions.
Predominantly, the Hyper-V solutions are rated for their replication, stability, and how tactically even the small number of resources can be used by the service providers towards managing the virtual machines.
The scope for changing the memory and storage on the fly with Hyper V solutions is easier.
Virtualization with Hyper V even on desktop computers running into virtual PC is smooth, and it can improve the overall process outcome.
Does Windows 10 or Windows 11 Pro support Hyper-V?
Microsoft Hyper-V as a virtualization technology needs as little infrastructure as Windows 10 or Windows 11 Pro for enabling the Hyper V optional feature in windows as virtual machines.
When the systems are enabled, it is as equivalent to Hyper V running on the windows servers.
Basis the local resources being run on the client Hyper V workstation or laptop, the whole lab of the Hyper V environment can be executed without interruptions.
In the absence of a Windows 10 or Windows 11 Pro license, one can rely on the desktop type 2 hypervisor like the virtual box or VMware workstation for managing the Hyper V execution as a virtual machine.
However, the process of nested virtualization is essential to manage Hyper V inside a hypervisor.
Hyper V is included with Windows 10 as a lighter version of the hypervisor, which is included with the windows server.
In realistic terms, a couple of features integral to the Hyper-V features in Windows 10 are not even observed in Windows servers.
Quick create a feature for hypervisor in Windows 10, supports windows users to fasten VM creation.
Features integral to Windows Server Hyper V is the scope of virtual fiber channel, wherein virtual fiber channel supports a virtual machine for the usage of physical host bus adapter, to be resourceful for connecting fiber channel storage.
The default virtual switch is the other successful feature integral to Windows 10, which is easy for managing connectivity of the virtual machines without hassles.
The default virtual switch is more significant in terms of a convenience feature than that of the features offering difference in functionality.
Windows server constitutes the license for managing the Windows server as a guest operating system, but such features are not integral to the Windows 10 Hyper V.
However, Windows 10 Hyper-V users have the scope for managing both the applications and virtual machines in parallel.
In simple, the scope of virtualization and managing virtual machines using Hyper-V is highly resourceful for small businesses in managing a distinct set of business applications.
Reach out to Exabytes Malaysia to know more about the Hyper V application for Windows operating systems.
The cybersecurity threat is an imminent challenge facing businesses globally and it is important for SMBs from Malaysia too to ensure robust cybersecurity systems in place for their business information systems.
One of the common and intrinsic cybersecurity threats facing businesses is DDoS attacks.
Technically, the DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack is a kind of cyberattack having a non-intrusive attack targeting the websites or web applications to a slowdown by flooding the network servers.
Servers get exhausted to a resource-intensive endpoint, and even with limited traffic, the attack gets succeeds at times.
What is DDOS Attacks (Distributed Denial of Service)
DDoS attacks in general are threats imminent to the sites with more traffic or vulnerable traffic conditions.
At times, the attacks are so intense wherein in millions of requests per second flood the servers, and genuine request from the nodes gets interrupted for service.
In the security landscape, handling DDoS protection and prevention is a complex and challenging system for businesses.
To understand the preventive measures essential for DDoS protection, it is important to know various types of DDoS challenges and the DDoS effects.
Volumetric
This is one of the most common kinds of DDoS attacks attacking websites. In this form of DDoS attacks, the websites receive unusual traffic into the website network.
The volumes of requests are so high that the servers become unresponsive. This disrupts the complete business and traffic to the website.
Imagine an airline site or an eCommerce store or public services website getting millions of requests per second, and it hits the genuine traffic and disruption.
Now one can judge what is DDoS attacks intended for and the need for DDoS protection.
Protocol Impacts
Though not often, these kinds of attacks are known to disrupt data transfers. In general, this type of attack is significant over data transmission protocols, wherein TCP/IP connections are disrupted by sending a flood of packets.
Thus, in the stream, genuine data transfer packets get hampered and the wait for the connections do not take place, resulting in significant DDoS effects.
The other set of attacks is targeting specific applications and intends to harm the transactions for the attacks. Imagine a scenario of a banking specific or service from application services getting interrupted, it can be a complex issue for businesses.
Hence, focusing on the above-mentioned types of attacks, the following are some of the key steps which can be resourceful for businesses to ensure DDoS effects do not impact the business.
Understanding and Securing the Network’s traffic
Based on the nature of business, there is a set pattern for each website as average, peak, or non-peak traffic.
The network administrators or the monitoring teams need to have some screening set-up to monitor the network traffic to the prevention of DDoS attacks.
If there is any unusual traffic to the website happening, activating the backup and disaster prevention and recovery plans is important to avoid what is called DDoS attacks.
Deploying DDoS Response Plans
One of the critical steps for the prevention of DDoS attacks in the systems is to have robust security solutions in place.
Having a good WAF (Web Application Firewall) system in place for filtering network requests, screening them, and monitoring the traffic is important.
A strong WAF deployed for the process can protect the systems by preventing any unusual traffic from the sources from being terminated at the firewall stage, and do not allow them to the server levels.
In addition to developing a WAF security layer, the other checklist solutions are to train the response teams, have backup servers for activation ready, communication plan in place for stakeholders.
By having such plans and measures in place, the DDoS effects on the website can be minimized, and business continuity can be planned.
In targeted DDoS attacks, when the complete application is on one server or the holistic set of services are offered from one server, it is easier for attackers to launch DDoS attacks.
However, in a resilient server environment, the preventive steps for DDoS attacks are in place.
The data centers are not the same for hosting the application, and different networks are used for offering distinctive services of the application. The scope for hampering the traffic to the site shall be minimized.
In such an application architecture, even if one segment of the services is under attack, the other services are active, and the disruption shall be limited.
Also, for hackers to breach through multiple networks and WAF systems can be a complex task. This is one strategic solution toward preventing DDoS attacks and having DDOS protection.
Good Cybersecurity Practices
Periodical audits of the server security, network security, upgrade of system defenders, and managing the vulnerability issues if any in the application and network security layers are paramount for DDoS protection.
Alongside the scalability to cater to huge volumes of traffic to the website, the admin teams must ensure any chances of DDoS attack conditions are prevented effectively, and there is a complete ecosystem in place for managing DDoS protection.
The DDoS effect is more about choking the bandwidth and making genuine requests or traffic to the sites getting affected.
However, if there is a strategic plan for the backup of bandwidth and the scope for managing huge traffic with flexible bandwidth consumption, the risk is mitigated to an extent.
The objective of such a process is to buy time before it’s late to prevent the DDoS attack and its DDoS effects.
Cloud Computing Migration
The other strategic approach for the problem is to move to cloud computing from the conventional server hosting approach.
In the cloud hosting models, as the compliance norms are high, and the website is hosted from multiple locations, even in the success of the DDoS attack, the impact on the actual traffic can be less.
The alternative servers will start addressing the genuine requests, and the business continuity is in place.
To know more about the DDoS attacks, the challenges, and DDoS effects, to understand the dynamics of outsourced cybersecurity, reach out to our expert team Exabytes Malaysia for more details.
Cloudflare: Cloudflare is the global leader in CDN. It offers web optimization and has multiple firewall securities features that protects you from DDoS attack.
Sucuri Website Security: DoS / DDoS attacks are easy to employ and highly effective in causing your website long downtimes and bandwidth bills. Sucuri Web Application Firewall (WAF) prevents these types of attacks before they occur.
Cloud computing refers to the provision of computer services through the Internet, such as servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence. This allows for speedier innovation, adaptable resources, and scalable economies.
According to Statista – Cloud computing will bring in about $400 billion in revenue as a subset of IT services in 2021 and shows very little indication of slowing down.
The best method for delivering enterprise applications is now cloud computing, which is also the go-to option for businesses expanding their infrastructure or introducing new products.
What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing, in general, is the delivery of hosted services through the internet.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) are the 3 primary categories or kinds of cloud computing under which these services fall.
Cloud technology can be either public or private. Anyone with an internet connection can buy services from a public cloud.
A private cloud is a proprietary network or data center that offers hosted cloud computing services to a small group of users with specific access and authorization settings.
The goal of cloud computing is to provide easy, scalable access to computer resources and IT services, whether they are private or public.
The hardware and software elements necessary for a cloud based systems correct execution are included in the cloud computing services. Other names for cloud computing include utility computing and on-demand computing.
The cloud symbol, which frequently represents the internet in flowcharts and diagrams, served as the model for the term “cloud computing.”
How does Cloud Computing Operate?
When using cloud computing, client devices may connect to faraway physical servers, databases, and computers to access data and cloud applications through the internet.
The front end cloud technology, which consists of the accessing client device, browser, network, and cloud software applications; the back end cloud technology, which consists of databases, servers, and computers, are connected via an internet network connection.
A central server controls communications between the front and back ends of cloud based systems. Protocols are used by the central server to speed up data sharing.
The central server makes use of both software and middleware to control communication between various cloud based systems and cloud servers.
Models for Deploying Cloud Computing
The three different deployment options for cloud technology are private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid cloud.
A private cloud offers a specialized, private cloud technology for a single company, with physical components either on-site or in a vendor’s data center.
This architecture provides a high level of control because a single organization has exclusive access to the private cloud.
Advantages include the capacity to increase computer resources in a virtualized environment as needed and a customizable design, as well as sophisticated security mechanisms.
When offering intranet-based cloud computing services to internal users, a firm frequently maintains a private cloud based systems on site.
In other cases, the company enters into a contract with a third-party cloud vendor to host and operate private cloud computing services away from the office.
2. Public cloud
The public cloud uses the internet to store data and regulate user access. Since cloud computing is totally virtualized, it allows for the flexible use of shared resources.
The public cloud technology deployment approach enables enterprises to grow more quickly since these resources are supplied via the internet; paying for cloud computing services resources as needed is a significant advantage over local servers.
3. Hybrid cloud
A hybrid cloud is created when private and public cloud computing services are combined.
This enables enterprises to take advantage of shared cloud based systems while still leveraging their current IT infrastructure for vital security needs.
Thanks to hybrid cloud technology, companies can keep private information locally and access it using apps that are hosted in the public cloud.
An enterprise may, for instance, keep sensitive customer data in a private cloud based systems and carry out computations that need a lot of resources on the public cloud to abide by privacy requirements.
Additionally, companies have the option of using multiple public cloud computing services or a multi-cloud strategy.
By distributing workloads over many cloud platforms, this method enables businesses to optimize their cloud computing environments for speed, adaptability, and cost-cutting.
IaaS providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) provide a cloud computing service instance and storage, as well as application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow customers to transfer workloads to a virtual machine (VM).
Users are given a certain amount of cloud computing storage space and are free to start, stop, access, and modify the virtual machine and storage as needed.
For different workload requirements, IaaS providers provide small, medium, big, extra-large, and memory- or compute-optimized cloud computing services in addition to providing instance customization.
Platform as a service (PaaS)
The PaaS concept places development tools on the infrastructure of cloud computing service providers. Users can get access to these tools online by using APIs, web portals, or gateway software.
PaaS is utilized for the creation of all types of software, and several PaaS cloud computing service providers host the finished product.
Salesforce’s Lightning Platform, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, and Google App Engine are examples of popular PaaS cloud computing platforms.
Software as a service (SaaS)
Software as a service (SaaS) cloud computing services is a method of distributing programs via the internet; these cloud computing programs are sometimes referred to as web services.
Users can use a PC or mobile device with internet connectivity to access SaaS apps and cloud computing services from any location.
Users get access to databases and application software under the SaaS cloud technology model.
The productivity and email capabilities provided by Microsoft 365 are typical examples of SaaS cloud based systems applications.
Are you losing customers but unsure why? It could be due to these common reasons for decreasing customer loyalty.
Poor customer retention is like filling a bucket with holes in the bottom: one might keep adding on to compensate, but one would be far better off figuring out what caused the holes and how to fix them up and gain customer loyalty.
Customer retention is a critical element of building a sustainable business.
According to a Harvard Business Schoolstudy, boosting customer retention rates by 5% raises a company’s profitability by 25-95%.
As per statistics, 47% of global customers expect better customer service from their favourite businesses than they did in the previous two years.
“Expecting outstanding experiences everywhere, every time has become the new worldwide standard for customer service.” “In a few years, they’ll take this several notches higher,” says Preethi Bridgeman, Director of Solution Engineering (Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa) at Freshworks.
Why is Your Customer Loyalty Decreasing?
1. Failure to meet customer expectations
Even for organizations that invest considerably in enhancing their customer service, declining customer loyalty has been a concern.
Customers don’t care if the service they’re getting is better than a year ago; they look at other ‘best-in-class’ organizations as a guide.
Many businesses regarded a loyalty card as a quick way to build customer loyalty.
In reality, recent studies indicate that loyalty cards reduce profit margins for current clients, causing businesses to lose money rather than gain customer loyalty.
3. Failure to focus on the overall customer service experience
When a company is organized into departments, each department is invariably in charge of a particular facet of customer support.
There is a lack of communication frequently between sales and after-sales staff, which leaves consumers with poor customer support.
4. Lack of distinctive consumer relevance
When a consumer is disloyal, they are expressing their dissatisfaction with a product or customer service that is no longer relevant to them.
Since not enough thought was given to what role the brand should play in the customer’s life, that particular product or service did not stand out from the competition.
What Exactly is Customer Retention?
Customer retention is a statistic used by organizations to track customer loyalty over time and assess overall success.
Companies will adopt numerous techniques to decrease the number of clients lost in a given period and improve their experiences to guarantee that they remain loyal to the company.
How is your customer retention rate calculated?
To calculate the customer retention rate, divide the total number of new customers by the number of customers acquired with all customer retention strategies at the start of the period.
For example, if you started the year with 100 customers and gained 20 new customers but lost 10 at the end of the year, your customer retention rate would be 90% with increased customer loyalty.
Seven of the Best Customer Retention Strategies
Companies that retain consumers can assist them to gain greater value from a product; encourage them to offer feedback in order to influence possible new customers; and begin to establish a group of similar customers or users with whom they can interact.
1. Implement customer service tools
If you own a small to medium-sized business (SMB), your customer support team may be small.
However, as the client base grows, customer service demand may increase, forcing you to extend the bandwidth of your customer support team.
Hiring is expensive, so many companies rely on technology like CRM to augment their customer service needs.
2. When you make errors, apologize
In business, mistakes happen no matter how hard you try to avoid them.
Whether it’s a data breach, an outage, a billing problem, customer support or anything else, a mistake might put you at risk of losing valuable customers if you don’t address it properly.
3. Provide consumers with convenience
Whatever sector your company is in, you want to make your product or customer service easy to use.
Make your goods and customer service as widely available as possible.
Determine your consumers’ desires and habits, then design tools and processes to enable them.
It’s up to you whether you use an app or more traditional techniques to gain customer loyalty.
4. Make use of customization to provide good customer service
Customers want to be treated like humans, not simply through personalized advice and service, but they also want to see the emotion behind your brand.
If there is no emotion behind your brand, then you cannot expect customer loyalty.
To begin with, establish your audience personas and interact with them through their chosen channels.
It makes little difference if it’s email, Facebook, or Twitter, as long as it’s where their attention is focused.
From there, you should urge clients to contact you directly through that channel.
If they like the customer service, the probability of gaining customer loyalty is higher.
5. Educate your clients
Just because your customer has made a purchase from you does not imply that you should give up on closing the transaction.
Give people more alternatives than ever before, go the extra mile and provide them with something important, such as a free instructional program and best customer support.
6. Thank your clients
To that point, saying thank you to your consumers outside of an email campaign or a customer purchase goes a long way toward creating a beloved and remembered brand.
You can gain customer loyalty this way.
7. Create trust among your consumers
Two things are true when it comes to establishing trust between your company and its clients:
If people purchase from you, don’t assume they trust you.
Building trust takes time.
When making a purchasing choice, 81% of customers think trust is a significant aspect of their decision.
Building trust is not a one-size-fits-all strategy that can be implemented quickly by any organization.
After all, trust is defined as “a deep conviction in the dependability, honesty, competence, or strength of someone or something.”
For the reason that reliability is an important aspect of establishing customer loyalty, the organization should continually provide value to clients.
A new customer loyalty card or a flashy new advertising campaign will not fix the problem of consumer loyalty.
The company’s leaders should have a clear vision of how the company should operate and provide the customer service team with a help desk tool to give quality customer support.
If a business wants to improve its customer service, they must get the Freshworks HelpDesk software from Exabytes and improve their customer retention strategies.
Contact an Exabytes Professional now for further information.
Consultative selling is a modern selling approach where the needs of the customers are always prioritized before anything else. A consultative selling approach is a need-based approach that focuses on the enhancement of interaction and connectivity with customers.
CRM software (customer relationship management software) is utilized to effectively manage relationships with customers through advanced tools and methods.
The consultative selling approach is used for any business as customers form an integral part of business development.
CRM customer relationship management techniques, along with a consultative selling approach, will help understand customers’ interests and provide high-quality services.
The functioning of a particular business is analyzed to utilize the apt consultative selling approach for better results.
The salespeople conduct consultative selling through enhanced communication with customers where proper guidance and advice are given to help them achieve all their goals.
Businesses use CRM software when required choosing the apt one as per their functions.
Exabytes focuses on the enhancement of communication and interaction with customers through the use of CRM software and other methods like the consultative selling approach.
As a well-known service provider, Exabytes offers quality services concerning CRM customer relationship management methods and techniques per customer interest.
Top 8 Consultative Selling Strategies for Business
Consultative selling can be effectively carried out if the right strategies are used correctly as per the need.
The sales team has to be well-versed with all the required strategies which need to be applied after considering the business’s nature and the particular strategy’s impact.
The top 8 consultative selling strategies for business are the following:
1. Research about prospects thoroughly before engaging
In consultative selling, as customers play an essential role, it is important to research them to understand their needs, interests, and other desires and provide services accordingly.
This research is essential while dealing with CRM software functions as the management process can be carried out effectively only through proper knowledge about customers.
2. Engage in pre-call planning
In addition to research, the sales team has to be engaged in pre-call planning to identify the issues in customer business and other related functions through a consultative selling approach.
3. Be authentic
Consultative selling can be carried out effectively only when the right solutions are given to customers to help them in various functions.
The consultative selling approach is equally practical as that of CRM software, where customer interactions are given importance.
4. Build trust with customers
The enhanced interaction and connectivity developed with customers through a consultative selling approach and CRM software is required to build customers’ trust.
Such trust developed in a consultative selling approach will help advance business development.
5. Ask effective and apt follow-up questions.
Great follow-up questions must be asked appropriately in a consultative selling approach, as communicating salespeople with customers has a huge impact.
6. Actively listen to prospects.
Active listening is required in consultative selling to provide services and solutions based on customers’ problems and concerns.
7. Educate your potential customer
The potential customers must be adequately educated about the use of the consultative selling approach and its uses to choose the apt approach or strategy.
New techniques like CRM software have to be introduced to customers to clearly understand the whole process.
8. Adapt to feedback
Feedback from customers has to be taken at all times to understand the impact of the consultative selling approach on business functioning.
Reasons Why Consultative Sales Are Suitable for Your Business
1. It saves time and effort for salespeople
In a consultative selling approach, the sales team is actively trained to carry out the process in a time-efficient manner where the time and money spent by the company can be reduced.
Less advertising costs, discovery calls, and so on will help save time and effort as CRM software functions.
2. Immense trust and preference over other competitors
Consultative selling is essential for any kind of business as it helps to develop trust in customers, which will help in better sales and development and enhance reputation.
3. Provides customized solutions to problems
As customer concerns are taken seriously in a consultative selling approach, customized solutions are recommended to all the queries and doubts of customers. It helps in enhanced connectivity with customers.
3. Emphasis on customer relationship and not sales
The emphasis given to relationships with customers in consultative selling is one of the biggest reasons to adopt such an approach for business development.
4. Appreciation from prospects
When more care, time, and attention are given to customers, as given in the consultative selling approach, they will start enjoying the services, which will help in increased demand and reputation.
5. Establishing a long-term relationship
A long-term relationship is established with customers through an apt consultative selling approach where the customers are provided with apt services and solutions.
Quick Summary
While dealing with a consultative selling approach, it can be seen that through CRM software, the connectivity and interaction with customers are increased through such methods.
Exabytes focuses on customer management through a practical consultative selling approach where the customer needs are prioritized.
Suppose the reasons for the use of consultative selling are analyzed. In that case, it can be seen that the enhancement of customer relationship management is one of the factors for increased demand for the consultative selling approach.
Different ways to get started with Consultative Selling Process
CRM software has an advanced feature that helps to get consolidated data of customers, which is effective for the development of connectivity as is done in a consultative selling approach.
Providing personalized services after careful analysis of customer needs is vital while starting with a consultative selling process where the visibility of the customers can be increased.
Customers get attracted to different services a particular business provides through a consultative selling approach put forward by the companies as per their needs and requirements.
Integrations of CRM software such as Freshsales CRM from Freshworks and consultative selling approach help improve the efficiency of the whole process required for starting the consultative selling process.
Exabytes puts forward a practical consultative selling approach considering the nature of business and customer needs to ensure their goals are fulfilled effectively.
Contact the Exabytes sales team to experience a consultative selling approach to get the best solutions for your needs.
Today, cyber security has become a global concern due to the increasing number of cybercrime cases. Cyber security plays a key role in helping to navigate and prevent cyber threats on personal or business data.
Everyone can be a victim from a cyberattack. In 2021, 79% and 65% of organisations in Malaysia and Singapore were hit by ransomware respectively.
To enhance awareness and the buzzword of cyber security for everyone. Exabytes in collaboration with Acronis organised a virtual Cyber Security Webinar on 11 Oct, 10.00 am – 11.30 am.
Cyber Security Webinar is aimed at increasing awareness and delivering the message on the importance of cyber security to the public, especially for businesses and organisations.
The webinar saw experts in this subject matter as speakers, namely: Mr. Eric Foo, Mr. Kevin Foo and Mr. Irzal Ramadlani who shared insights on how to prevent and protect your data from ransomware attack.
Below is an overview of the webinar that was discussed by our invited speakers to help you prevent and practice your cyber security easily!
What is Ransomware Attack?
Ransomware attack is a type of malware that threatens and encrypts your personal or business data from anywhere. Hence, cybercrimes will demand a ransom payment to unlock or restore the important data for the victims. Otherwise, they will gain profit from stealing your data by selling it on the dark web market.
There are two common types of ransomware attacks: Locker ransomware and Crypto ransomware.
Five Challenges in Managing Cyber Security
Shortage and attrition of skilled and experienced cyber security personnel
Stringent government policies on cyber security standards and compliance
The growing number of unknown cyber threats within an organisation undetected is like a time bomb
Lack of cyber threats visibility across the organisation which may come internally or externally
No or limited in-house 24×7 cyber security monitoring and response capabilities
The Ways to Prevent and Protect Your Data
To track and prevent the security threats, exabytes Enterprise Managed Security Services (MSS) provides 24×7 SOC System Logs Collection, Correlation & Anomaly Detection to reduce the time from discovery to resolution. It focuses on monitoring the customer environment through correlation in terms of detecting any anonymous activities, such as anomaly detection, suspicious activity and unauthorised activity.
As a leader in cyber protection, Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud not only supports more than 20 workload types from infrastructure to SaaS apps, but also provides file-level backup and full image backup to safeguard your data.
It helps to keep your data in better way at lower cost involving five stages of protection, which are prevention, detection, response, recovery and forensics.
EE-LIAN also known as Elianware is the main subsidiary of listed company SWS Capital Berhad in Bursa Malaysia. Established at Penang in 1994, Elianware manufactures plastic household goods, such as plastic bottles, lunch boxes, food containers, baskets, storage boxes, etc.
They have developed 1,600 types of household plasticware under its brand. Now, Elianware is one of Malaysia’s leading manufacturers of premium-grade plastic products.
Background of Elianware
Elianware has been in the market for 28 years. Before joining Alibaba.com, they participated in exhibitions across different countries to promote their products which are costly and require lots of time.
They decided to shift to the online platform in 2018, and so, they started their business on Alibaba.com. With Alibaba.com, they can interact with global buyers, from different countries and backgrounds without leaving Malaysia.
Currently, their products have been exported to more than 30 countries worldwide.
How EE-LIAN Manage Their E-Commerce Team
EE-LIAN E-Commerce team consists of 4 individuals handling Alibaba minisite; while the leader is in charge of handling data analysis and keyword advertising.
They also have an in-house designer in charge of updating the content and visuals on the minisite as well as uploading products. Also they have assigned a dedicated sales assistant, to submit weekly RFQ and update the products if there is any requirement.
Lastly, one last individual is dedicated to managing the whole operation part, including replying to customer’s enquiry, closing sales, liaising with the inventory department internally, handling the logistics of the shipments, and after sales service.
How EE-LIAN Overcome Price War
One of the toughest issues Alibaba.com sellers face is price war. Some of the sellers will lower down their product price in order to compete with global traders. However, Elianware managed to sell without lowering their price to compete. In fact, here are some of their winning strategies to compete with the price war:
(A) Set the price slightly higher on Alibaba. When negotiating the price, it will provide space to give the buyer a discount. If the buyer accepts the quoted price, the company can earn more revenue. If the sales amount is big, the seller can always offer them a 5% off for the total invoice value. The buyer will be more than happy to accept that.
(B) When buyers ask for a lower price, don’t hurry to reject them first. Understand their intended quantity to order and their target unit price so that the seller can adjust accordingly. The more the quantity they order, the lower the price. Confirm where their shipping destination is and the preferred incoterms.
(C) Let the buyers know what you can provide. For example, OEM services such as logo printing services, artwork customisation, colour customisation, label and barcode customisation are just some of the good services you can provide to entice them to purchase. Once they are interested, they will ask for a quote, quote them at a higher price, usually they are able to accept.
(D) Value added services: Free sample, Mock Up sample with low sample cost, progress updates, shipping updates, follow up after receiving products and sending additional free samples with their shipment.
Key Takes Away:
EE-LIAN has been using Alibaba.com for almost 6 years. Their secret to success is to keep a positive mentality and do the best as you will never know when you will close the sales. Hence, they treat every inquiry well, follow up and keep connected with the customers with their preferred contact method.
Alibaba.com is the world’s leading B2B eCommerce marketplace that offers tons of opportunities for businesses. Alibaba.com receives millions of visitors monthly, connecting buyers and sellers from 200+ countries and regions.
The platform offers sellers direct access to over 40 million global B2B buyers who are actively sourcing products and placing wholesale orders.
Chat with us today & access the Global market through Alibaba.com today!
Before we begin thinking about what exactly Two Factor Authentication is, commonly called 2FA, how it works, and what are the benefits, we need to understand Authentication.
To access an application or software or data, it is always advised to have some form of authentication.
Consider the place holder for this data, as your home and Authentication, as the key to enter your home.
The place holder can be database, access files, variable files, or any link to the data in the store or application.
Case Study: Authentication for Google Account
The example of a Google Account will help you understand authentication, much better.
A Google account can be used for sending and receiving emails, to browse through Videos on YouTube, identify locations on Google Maps, Browse and download the latest apps in Play Store, along with a host of other areas.
All these, using a single email address. Which means, the importance of having authentication to access the Google Account, is the most important.
If an intruder gets into your account, you can realise the havoc it can play on your personal identity over the web.
These would also mean the various applications that are linked to your Google Account.
With the introduction to the case above, you would have realized how important it is to have a safe, and robust password (one that follows all the guidelines to a password that cannot be realized easily).
This becomes the primary authentication feature. Along with this, if you add in another authentication method – a randomly generated OTP (One-Time-Password) that Google would send to your mobile phone or alternate email id.
This is a Two factor Authentication or 2FA.
Why is it important to have 2FA two-factor authentication?
No longer can you trust your password to keep you safe. Even if you have a different password for each website you use, malware on your computer (or even on the website itself!) can easily scrape your password and use it again.
Or, if someone sees you type in your password, they can remember it and log in as you.
Think it will never happen to you? Using methods like “credential stuffing,” “password spraying,” or brute-force attacks, hackers can easily break into a lot of online accounts and take over them.
That is always the case. Even tech giants like Cisco and Apple’s iCloud service can be hacked.
This includes cell networks, retail giants, grocery delivery services, music streaming sites, and even cell networks.
These automated log-in attacks can’t get into accounts that have two-factor authentication.
You are also safe from phishing emails when you use two-factor.
Two factor authentication can protect you, even if someone sends you a malicious email that tries to trick you into giving your account username and password to a fake site.
Only the real site will send you a two-factor code that works.
How 2FA helps in protect your data and privacy
Two-factor authentication is becoming more important as companies, governments, and the general public realise that passwords alone aren’t enough to keep user accounts safe in today’s technological world.
In fact, the average cost of a data breach each year is now more than $2 trillion.
Even though 2FA protects against many threats, the most common ones are:
1. Stolen Passwords
Anyone who gets their hands on a password can use it. If a user writes down their password on a pad of paper, for example, that password can be stolen and used to get into an account.
2FA, on the other hand, verifies the user with a second device after they enter a password.
2. Phishing Attempts
Hackers often send emails with links to harmful websites that are meant to infect a user’s computer or get them to give up their passwords.
Once a password is found, it can be used by whoever does the hacking. After a password has been entered, 2FA adds a second layer of verification to stop phishing.
3. Brute-force Attacks
In a brute-force attack, a hacker makes passwords for a certain computer at random until they find the right one.
The second layer of security in 2FA means that a login attempt must be verified before access is given.
4. Social Engineering
Most of the time, hackers just trick people into giving up their passwords. By pretending to be an IT worker at the user’s company, they can gain the user’s trust before they ask for their login information.
2FA stops this from happening by checking the location and IP address of every login attempt after a password is entered.
5. Key Logging
Hackers can use malware to copy a user’s password as they type it, even if they haven’t written it down.
Hackers watch what you type and save the password so they can use it later.
With 2FA, the second layer of verification allows a user to make sure that they are trying to log in, even if their password has been stolen.
Two Factor Authentication Vs. Multi Factor Authentication
Apart from Two Factor Authentication, there are other Authentication mechanisms.
MFA (Multi Factor Authentication) is an authentication method that requires the user to provide two or more verification factors to gain access to any application or data bit or a data pipeline.
Having multiple authentication factor will reduce the likelihood of a cyber attack via that medium.
Most of the Multi Factor Authentication methods are based on the three types of information:
Your knowledge – Like the password or PIN
Your inheritance – Biometric, Voice recognition, Optical recognition
Your possession – Smartphone, Swipe cards
We have now referenced MFA (Multi Factor Authentication) and 2FA (Two Factor Authentication).
How to differentiate between them?
The underlined statement is that 2FA (Two Factor Authentication) is a subset of MFA (Multi Factor Authentication) – where the latter may use more than two methods to authenticate a user or access.
Let’s look at another example, this time you are at an Apple store to buy an iPhone or iPad or a MacBook.
When you want to sign in to a new device for the first time, you’ll need to provide two pieces of information – your password and the six-digit verification code that’s automatically displayed on your trusted devices or sent to your phone number.
With the increase in the number of cyber attacks and leakage of personal data, your password alone is not enough to access your account.
2FA (Two Factor Authentication) completely improves the security of your Apple ID and the personal information that you store within the Apple Cloud (iCloud).
Consider a case where you have lost your iPhone, iPad or MacBook – where in the chances of data leak are high, when these gadgets fall into wrong hands.
There are two ways to use the mobile as an authenticator:
Having an authenticator application installed, that will generate random numbers to match with the first step of authentication.
Using the TAC code that comes with the mobile.
What is TAC (Type Allocation Code)?
TAC is known as Type Authentication Code – which is an eight-digit code that uniquely recognizes a cellular device’s hardware.
It is issued by GSMA and formed by the first eight digits of the IMEI number of the device.
Now when we pair up our regular password authentication mechanism with the TAC, the data access will be unique.
Having gone through so many details above, we need to understand that to protect ourselves from automated log-in attacks, two factor authentication (2FA), is the best method.
Some of the two factor authentication methods, in order of their popularity, are:
Text message code
An Authenticator App – Like Google authenticator
Biometrics
Physical security key – RSA token authenticators that generate random combinations of pass keys
Conclusion: Implementation of Two Factor Authentication by Exabytes
To enhance security and protect customers’ data and privacy, Exabytes had fully implemented Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) Time Based Tokens on its cPanel and billing system login starting 1st October 2022.
Using Time-based Tokens, Exabytes customers are required to input a 6-digit number in addition to their standard login and password.
Only your token device (usually a mobile app on your smartphone) will have access to your account’s secret key and be able to generate one-time passwords.
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