Here’s why it isn’t the same

1. Oil is a finite resource. 
Unlike data, oil is not only running out, but it’s something we burn and need to replace. Data benefits from an extremely long shelf life.

2. Data’s value is liquid.
The price people will pay for data changes depending on what the data represents, who’s arranging it, how they’re arranging it, and how it can be used today or in the future. A barrel of oil’s price will certainly change, but it can’t be completely devalued by fresher oil being available.

3. Data is global, and can be generated anywhere.
Oil suddenly appeared in many parts of the world that were still developing, and drastically changed their fortunes. Data may help the underprivileged over the coming years, but it is the privileged countries who are set to gain the most from it. (See point 5)

4. Data comes with its own set of issues. 
While oil creates wars and pollution, data creates concerns about privacy and… well, possibly wars too. Anyone who hasn’t been sleeping under a rock is now aware of the Facebook/Kremlin fiasco. For a new resource, this is both a unique and problematic issue.

5. Data is still largely a marketing tool. 
When we talk about data we often talk as if it is a new thing, as if scientists haven’t been working with data, in vast quantities, for decades, even centuries. The data we are talking about now, the “big data”, is largely exciting because of how it allows companies to market themselves more effectively. What many people forget is that consumers only have so much disposable income. If companies all get better at competing for people’s attention, the early ones will definitely be set to gain a lot, but game theory will come into play. Companies not only benefit from data but are choked by the tougher competition. The benefit to global business will come down to the new speed of trade, not a drastic increase in consumer spending.

6. Data needs to be “worked to the end”.
Oil was always a great business to be in it because you can either sell the crude, or refine it yourself and sell the petrol. Once you have done either of those two things you have provided a useful service, and whoever bought the product can go off and do whatever they want with it, powering their business or whathaveyou.
Data isn’t like this. Data has to be looked after when it is deep within the end user’s territory. If someone buys a whole load of data they need to have people employed within their company who can actually process that data and derive insights from it. They have to be constantly sifting through the data, and all the new data that comes from it. If the end users aren’t able to do this effectively, then the data industry is failing. Oil/petrol is comparatively simple.

7. Anyone can collect data. 
Expect competition for data services to be fierce and difficult to monopolize. When the oil industry started to grow if was often built up by certain dynastic families, fathers successfully digging a few wells, and their sons expanding the business into new territories. Data won’t exhibit the same nepotism. The industry is moving so fast that it will be the most effective and innovative leaders that will pull ahead. Having a degree in geology and some insider knowledge could have got you far in 1900 but to get the most out of the data industry you will need a lot more practical experience. Jumping on the data bandwagon may not be as easy as many are making out.

So there you have it. What do you think about our list? Anything we missed?

The post Data Is Not The New Oil – Here’s 7 Reasons Why appeared first on .

5. Rise of the Influencers

Using influencers to promote your brand is nothing new. The Kardashians have made a killing out of promoting everything from holidays to beauty products, but this style of marketing is about to proliferate. All kinds of businesses are beginning to realize the benefit of not just finding a mega celebrity to promote their products, but finding someone who has a small niche following. Celebrities have been promoting products since advertising began, and using social media as a celebrity advocate was a no-brainer evolution. Now, however, it will be the local celebs that start getting sent more advertising revenue.

Why get Kim Kardashian to promote your beauty products if you can sell more by partnering with several niche makeup gurus?

4. Tailored Perks

We all know what it’s like to receive gift cards, or discounts, or loyalty programs from a business we buy from. But have you seen what it’s like to get a supermarket loyalty program that’s tailored specifically to your buying habits? How about deeply specialized offers, based on types of clothing that you tend to buy? Ideas like this, and special members-only content are ways in which many online businesses will be using people’s data to create a more personalized experience.

3. Subscription Mayhem

You’ve probably got a sense over the last few years of how many companies out there are trying to get a subscription model off the ground. People are more happy to pay for something if the fee is doled out over the space of a year. Services like Netflix and Amazon Prime are good examples of successful subscription models, but this trend is affecting many different sectors. SaaS businesses are moving heavily into subscription models to compliment their cloud-based products. You can expect price reductions on food if bought as part of a subscription in the future. The world could become a very different place if companies get creative in this area.

2. Customer is King

With all the customer data becoming available, and a more data-savvy workforce ready to exploit it, you can expect a greater shift towards customer-centric business models. It is competition that will drive this trend, as businesses compete to provide the best service. Being able to talk to a real person, or get a quick response from customer support is becoming more common place – and will be aided by the raise of AI and sophisticated bots. Really getting to know your customer will become mandatory in 2018.

1. Return to bricks and mortar

So many digital businesses have so deeply crushed their high-street counter parts that now they are seeing the benefits to having bricks and mortar locations themselves. Amazon has acquired Whole Foods – a bold and expensive move. And companies like Waterstones have fought back against Amazon, innovating by starting to manage individual bookshops like Mom n’ Pop stores, with wonderful results. All this proves there is still real value in being able to visit a physical location. Many high tech business are remolding these spaces, allowing for cashless payments and scanning of items for later home delivery. How tech will change the way our high streets work will become a lot more apparent this year.

So there’s our list. What do you think about our choices? If you think we missed anything major, throw it down in the comments!

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Unless you have been living on Mars, in a cave, with your fingers in your ears, you’ve probably noticed that China is a big deal these days. Rapid economic growth and a vast population has spun China into the world’s second largest economy, and made it a goldmine for foreign companies looking for a virgin market to explore. With so much new disposable income in the hands of Chinese citizens, foreign companies are desperately trying to work out how to effectively market their products in a country with major cultural differences.

1. Cultural Disparities

Did you know about foreign restaurant franchises in China skewing their menus to offer more chicken dishes than their European or American counterparts? Or how about the time that Sprite ran an ad featuring a blacklisted Taiwanese singer, which cost them massive financial losses?

There are a million and one different ways in which ads need to be carefully localized when marketing a product in China. For example, adverts featuring families might tend to show fewer children, to make them more relatable, and companies promoting holidays abroad may wish to not spend time highlighting beaches and sunbathing — as many Chinese women prefer to avoid tanning.

Also, the Chinese calendar is different. With less of an emphasis on Christmas, and more of an emphasis on Chinese New Year and events like Single’s Day (Their Black Friday equivalent). While many companies deftly tailor their brands to the Chinese market, it’s important to remember that many foreign products, particularly luxury goods, are in demand because they are non-Chinese and exotic. A careful balance must be struck between localization and over-localizing foreign brands.

2. Know your Taobao from your Baidu/Your Wechat from your Alipay

In the modern age of digital marketing platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google have become essential for communication with current and prospective customers. But in China, many of these foreign platforms are either blocked by the great Chinese firewall, or simply unused. So what do they use instead?

Baidu is the Chinese version of Google, and many companies looking to advertise directly to the Chinese market may need to look into hiring a specialist who knows Baidu’s ins and outs. The same can be said for Wechat — a sophisticated messaging app also popular in the Philippines. While people in Europe and America use apps like Whatsapp, China is hooked on Wechat due to its versatility (you can book flights, cinema tickets, and transfer money between friends on it), and many companies use it to make sales and communicate with groups of customers.

Alipay is the Paypal of China, and Taobao is their eBay. Ebay shut down its China operation in 2006 after losing a war with Taobao. Jack Ma’s behemoth of an ecommerce site has now become an important part of millions of lives in China, and selling products through it can be a basic way for smaller companies to enter the Chinese market. Competition is tough though, so you’ve been warned!

3. Changing tastes

Think your product might not fly in China? Think again. Many companies are actively working to change Chinese perceptions and hook the Chinese on something they never cared for before. In Shanghai you will find famous Scottish whiskey companies running free sampling sessions, including videos and a lecture on the history of whisky. Considering that China now produces more wine than any other country in the world, even though China was never traditionally a wine country, could the same happen with Scotch?

4. Agencies on the ground

It’s a brave company that looks to enter the Chinese market without some local help. Major ad agencies like Ogilvy and Mather have been here for a while now, and new upstarts like Fred & Farid are making waves with some of their ad campaigns for foreign companies. It’s an easy thing for a local ad man to claim that foreign advertising strategies are useless in China though. So always keep an eye out for trigger happy ad men, it could be that your international campaigns would work fine in China too.

5. China the Continent

The last thing for any marketer to remember is that China is diverse. Treating it as a single country could lead to massive losses on advertising and marketing campaigns. People outside the major cities can have wildly different values to the modern, cosmopolitan masses. There are large Muslim cities in the north, massive metropolises in the east, people working in rice paddies in the west, and even a communist utopia like Huaxi.

Anything to add? Let us know in the comments…

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The answer is simple — it’s a great app for collecting your data and doing calculations. Though these days, Excel seems to be getting more complex with every release.

I love Excel but hate their charts

I’ve switched to Google Spreadsheets and another app (skip past BTW to find out what app). It’s a great free alternative, with the same features of Excel and the added benefit of being right there in my Google Drive whenever I want it!

Every company collects data using spreadsheets. No department escapes their net! But making reports on a daily, weekly or monthly basis can be kind of boring. And it takes a lot of time!

What if you could automate that hard stuff!? Excel does have some very advanced report features with charts that update automatically. That is, assuming you’re an Excel guru and can take care of that type of thing 

If you are more of an amateur like me, you probably need to ask one of your colleagues to do it… But they never have enough time or simply don’t make it look good enough!

My boss doesn’t like to look at a standard spreadsheet anymore. He expects something presentation ready! ‘High impact or head home’ is his mantra. Plus he comes up with so many new questions every week —

Can you show me how many sales we had last week?
Can you compare that with the week before…
How about last year?
Is there a trend going up or down there…

**face palm**

Our company just implemented a new CRM system that should make things more efficient, but truth-be-told it actually makes things worse! Time spent making reports has skyrocketed!

And working overtime isn’t going to fix things! I want my life back :’(

BTW, I hope you recognize these situations!

Imagine there was an app you set up once and you could get all these answers directly!

No more hassling and haggling for data from the BI guys. No more excel madness, no more. Photoshop to make reports look good! Just an Awesome Spreadsheet Dashboard!

Now there is! It’s called Spreadsheet Dashboards from Datadeck! And the best thing is, it’s free!

Connect all of your spreadsheets (Excel, CSV and Google Spreadsheets) in one place and merge all the data together in one (or many) beautiful dashboards.

Datadeck’s dashboards are set and forget. Build it once and it automatically updates as you change the data in the spreadsheet.

Need to make a quick change to please the boss? No worries! Change the date range or add more widgets even connect some other data sources that aren’t a spreadsheet ….

And voila! In an instant, it’s ready. Just how your boss likes it 

We just got featured with Spreadsheet Dashboards from Datadeck on Product Hunt

We’d love your support!

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