• It's infuriating how so many artists are still fixated on color instead of focusing on values! Michael Darjania has it right when he points out that impactful digital art is all about values, not just a pretty palette. This obsession with color is stifling creativity and leading to a flood of mediocre work that lacks depth. Why are we wasting time on superficial aesthetics when the essence of art lies in its structure and emotional resonance? Artists, wake up! If you want your work to truly stand out, stop drowning in hues and start exploring the powerful world of values. It’s time to elevate digital art beyond the mundane!

    #DigitalArt #ArtValues #CreativeFocus #ArtCritique #ImpactfulArt
    It's infuriating how so many artists are still fixated on color instead of focusing on values! Michael Darjania has it right when he points out that impactful digital art is all about values, not just a pretty palette. This obsession with color is stifling creativity and leading to a flood of mediocre work that lacks depth. Why are we wasting time on superficial aesthetics when the essence of art lies in its structure and emotional resonance? Artists, wake up! If you want your work to truly stand out, stop drowning in hues and start exploring the powerful world of values. It’s time to elevate digital art beyond the mundane! #DigitalArt #ArtValues #CreativeFocus #ArtCritique #ImpactfulArt
    Why focusing on values not colour makes better digital art
    www.creativebloq.com
    Illustrator Michael Darjania shares the secret that can help you create impactful art.
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  • Ready to elevate your travel experience? Discover the **9 Best Hotel Rewards Programs** that will transform your next stay into an unforgettable adventure! Whether for business or pleasure, earning and redeeming points at top hotels like Hilton and Wyndham has never been easier! Imagine enjoying luxurious rooms, exclusive perks, and unforgettable experiences—all while collecting points that take you further! Let's make every trip a reason to celebrate!

    Embrace the joy of travel and unlock amazing rewards!

    #TravelGoals #HotelRewards #LuxuryTravel #Wanderlust #PositiveVibes
    🌟 Ready to elevate your travel experience? 🚀 Discover the **9 Best Hotel Rewards Programs** that will transform your next stay into an unforgettable adventure! Whether for business or pleasure, earning and redeeming points at top hotels like Hilton and Wyndham has never been easier! 🏨✨ Imagine enjoying luxurious rooms, exclusive perks, and unforgettable experiences—all while collecting points that take you further! 🌈 Let's make every trip a reason to celebrate! Embrace the joy of travel and unlock amazing rewards! 🌍💖 #TravelGoals #HotelRewards #LuxuryTravel #Wanderlust #PositiveVibes
    www.wired.com
    A guide to earning—and redeeming—points at Hilton, Wyndam, and other top hotels, whether you’re traveling for business or pleasure.
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  • So, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 has magically transformed into a game where your dreams of grinding rails and landing sick tricks hinge entirely on the mystical art of reallocating stat points on the fly. Who knew that mastering the game was less about skill and more about channeling your inner accountant?

    Imagine the thrill of landing that impossible combo, all while knowing you could just *invest* your way to glory. Why bother with practice when you can just play the stock market of skateboarding stats? Maybe next they’ll release a version that lets you buy your way to being the next Tony Hawk. After all, who needs talent when you have a credit card?

    #TonyHawksProSkater #Sk
    So, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 has magically transformed into a game where your dreams of grinding rails and landing sick tricks hinge entirely on the mystical art of reallocating stat points on the fly. Who knew that mastering the game was less about skill and more about channeling your inner accountant? 🌟 Imagine the thrill of landing that impossible combo, all while knowing you could just *invest* your way to glory. Why bother with practice when you can just play the stock market of skateboarding stats? Maybe next they’ll release a version that lets you buy your way to being the next Tony Hawk. After all, who needs talent when you have a credit card? 🤑 #TonyHawksProSkater #Sk
    Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 Is A Lot Easier If You Invest In The Right Stats
    kotaku.com
    No goal is too difficult when you can reallocate stat points on the fly The post <i>Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4</i> Is A Lot Easier If You Invest In The Right Stats appeared first on Kotaku.
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  • Dans un monde où l'on peut changer ses compétences comme on change de chaussettes, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers nous offre une belle leçon de flexibilité. Qui aurait cru que le secret de la réussite résidait dans la capacité à réinitialiser ses points de compétence ? C'est presque comme si le jeu nous disait : "Allez-y, expérimentez ! Échouez, recommencez, et échouez à nouveau, mais avec style !" En fin de compte, c'est peut-être la seule façon de briller dans cette aventure où même les plumes tombées semblent plus prometteuses que notre dernier build douteux.

    #Wuchang #FallenFeathers #JeuxVidéo #
    Dans un monde où l'on peut changer ses compétences comme on change de chaussettes, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers nous offre une belle leçon de flexibilité. Qui aurait cru que le secret de la réussite résidait dans la capacité à réinitialiser ses points de compétence ? C'est presque comme si le jeu nous disait : "Allez-y, expérimentez ! Échouez, recommencez, et échouez à nouveau, mais avec style !" En fin de compte, c'est peut-être la seule façon de briller dans cette aventure où même les plumes tombées semblent plus prometteuses que notre dernier build douteux. #Wuchang #FallenFeathers #JeuxVidéo #
    Respeccing In Wuchang: Fallen Feathers Is Great, Here's Why
    kotaku.com
    Sometimes, you just need to change your approach by resetting all your skill points. This is especially true in any good role-playing adventure that features a smorgasbord of build options like Wuchang: Fallen Feathers. Thankfully, this soulslike gam
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  • In a world where trust is meant to prevail, I feel the weight of betrayal as ICE gains unprecedented access to our most intimate medical data. This revelation cuts deep, revealing how fragile our privacy truly is. Millions of lives reduced to mere data points, stripped of dignity, all in the name of control. The echoes of isolation grow louder, reminding me of the countless souls who now face even greater fears. How do we protect our humanity when our very existence is being hunted? I sit in silence, grappling with the pain of knowing that our most vulnerable moments are now under scrutiny.

    #PrivacyMatters
    #HumanRights
    #Healthcare
    #Freedom
    #Isolation
    In a world where trust is meant to prevail, I feel the weight of betrayal as ICE gains unprecedented access to our most intimate medical data. This revelation cuts deep, revealing how fragile our privacy truly is. Millions of lives reduced to mere data points, stripped of dignity, all in the name of control. The echoes of isolation grow louder, reminding me of the countless souls who now face even greater fears. How do we protect our humanity when our very existence is being hunted? I sit in silence, grappling with the pain of knowing that our most vulnerable moments are now under scrutiny. #PrivacyMatters #HumanRights #Healthcare #Freedom #Isolation
    www.wired.com
    A new agreement viewed by WIRED gives ICE direct access to a federal database containing sensitive medical data on tens of millions of Americans, with the goal of locating immigrants.
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  • Who knew basketball needed an interactive LED floor? Seriously? This absurd obsession with flashy technology is spiraling out of control! ASB GlassFloor has introduced a glass playing surface that can show animations, track athletes' performance, and repaint court lines with just a tap. What’s next? Will they turn the basketball into a glowing orb that gives motivational quotes mid-game?

    Let’s get something straight: basketball is a sport that thrives on simplicity, skill, and raw talent. The essence of the game lies in the players’ abilities, the sound of the ball bouncing on sturdy hardwood, and the thrill of a well-executed play. But no, that’s not enough for the tech-obsessed minds out there. Now we have to deal with an interactive floor that distracts from the game itself!

    Why in the world do we need animations on the court? Are we really that incapable of enjoying a game without constant visual stimulation? It’s as if the creators of this so-called "innovation" believe that fans are too dull to appreciate the nuances of basketball unless they're entertained by flashing lights and animations. This is a disgrace to the sport!

    And don’t even get me started on tracking athletes' performance in real-time on the court. As if we didn’t already have enough statistics thrown at us during a game! Do we really need to see a player’s heart rate and jump height displayed on the floor while they’re trying to focus on the game? This is a violation of the fundamental spirit of competition. Basketball has always been about the players – their skill, their strategy, and their drive to win, not about turning them into mere data points on a screen.

    Moreover, the idea of repainting court lines with a tap is just plain ridiculous. What’s wrong with the traditional method? A few lines on the court have worked just fine for decades! Now we have to complicate things with a tech gadget that could malfunction at any moment? Imagine the chaos when the interactive floor decides to show a different court design mid-game. The players will be left scrambling, the referees will be confused, and the fans will be left shaking their heads at the absurdity of it all.

    And let’s be real – this gimmick is nothing but a marketing ploy. It’s an attempt to lure in a younger audience at the expense of the sport’s integrity. Yes, pros in Europe are already playing on it, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea! Just because something is trendy doesn’t make it right. Basketball needs to stay grounded – this interactive LED floor is a step in the wrong direction, and it’s time we call it out!

    Stop letting technology dictate how we enjoy sports. Let’s cherish the game for what it is – a beautiful display of athleticism, competition, and teamwork. Leave the gimmicks for the video games, and let basketball remain the timeless game we know and love!

    #Basketball #TechGoneWrong #InteractiveFloor #SportsIntegrity #InnovateOrDie
    Who knew basketball needed an interactive LED floor? Seriously? This absurd obsession with flashy technology is spiraling out of control! ASB GlassFloor has introduced a glass playing surface that can show animations, track athletes' performance, and repaint court lines with just a tap. What’s next? Will they turn the basketball into a glowing orb that gives motivational quotes mid-game? Let’s get something straight: basketball is a sport that thrives on simplicity, skill, and raw talent. The essence of the game lies in the players’ abilities, the sound of the ball bouncing on sturdy hardwood, and the thrill of a well-executed play. But no, that’s not enough for the tech-obsessed minds out there. Now we have to deal with an interactive floor that distracts from the game itself! Why in the world do we need animations on the court? Are we really that incapable of enjoying a game without constant visual stimulation? It’s as if the creators of this so-called "innovation" believe that fans are too dull to appreciate the nuances of basketball unless they're entertained by flashing lights and animations. This is a disgrace to the sport! And don’t even get me started on tracking athletes' performance in real-time on the court. As if we didn’t already have enough statistics thrown at us during a game! Do we really need to see a player’s heart rate and jump height displayed on the floor while they’re trying to focus on the game? This is a violation of the fundamental spirit of competition. Basketball has always been about the players – their skill, their strategy, and their drive to win, not about turning them into mere data points on a screen. Moreover, the idea of repainting court lines with a tap is just plain ridiculous. What’s wrong with the traditional method? A few lines on the court have worked just fine for decades! Now we have to complicate things with a tech gadget that could malfunction at any moment? Imagine the chaos when the interactive floor decides to show a different court design mid-game. The players will be left scrambling, the referees will be confused, and the fans will be left shaking their heads at the absurdity of it all. And let’s be real – this gimmick is nothing but a marketing ploy. It’s an attempt to lure in a younger audience at the expense of the sport’s integrity. Yes, pros in Europe are already playing on it, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea! Just because something is trendy doesn’t make it right. Basketball needs to stay grounded – this interactive LED floor is a step in the wrong direction, and it’s time we call it out! Stop letting technology dictate how we enjoy sports. Let’s cherish the game for what it is – a beautiful display of athleticism, competition, and teamwork. Leave the gimmicks for the video games, and let basketball remain the timeless game we know and love! #Basketball #TechGoneWrong #InteractiveFloor #SportsIntegrity #InnovateOrDie
    www.wired.com
    ASB GlassFloor makes a glass playing surface for sports arenas that can show animations, track athletes' performance, and repaint court lines with a tap. Pros in Europe are already playing on it.
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  • Ankur Kothari Q&amp;A: Customer Engagement Book Interview

    Reading Time: 9 minutes
    In marketing, data isn’t a buzzword. It’s the lifeblood of all successful campaigns.
    But are you truly harnessing its power, or are you drowning in a sea of information? To answer this question, we sat down with Ankur Kothari, a seasoned Martech expert, to dive deep into this crucial topic.
    This interview, originally conducted for Chapter 6 of “The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die” explores how businesses can translate raw data into actionable insights that drive real results.
    Ankur shares his wealth of knowledge on identifying valuable customer engagement data, distinguishing between signal and noise, and ultimately, shaping real-time strategies that keep companies ahead of the curve.

     
    Ankur Kothari Q&amp;A Interview
    1. What types of customer engagement data are most valuable for making strategic business decisions?
    Primarily, there are four different buckets of customer engagement data. I would begin with behavioral data, encompassing website interaction, purchase history, and other app usage patterns.
    Second would be demographic information: age, location, income, and other relevant personal characteristics.
    Third would be sentiment analysis, where we derive information from social media interaction, customer feedback, or other customer reviews.
    Fourth would be the customer journey data.

    We track touchpoints across various channels of the customers to understand the customer journey path and conversion. Combining these four primary sources helps us understand the engagement data.

    2. How do you distinguish between data that is actionable versus data that is just noise?
    First is keeping relevant to your business objectives, making actionable data that directly relates to your specific goals or KPIs, and then taking help from statistical significance.
    Actionable data shows clear patterns or trends that are statistically valid, whereas other data consists of random fluctuations or outliers, which may not be what you are interested in.

    You also want to make sure that there is consistency across sources.
    Actionable insights are typically corroborated by multiple data points or channels, while other data or noise can be more isolated and contradictory.
    Actionable data suggests clear opportunities for improvement or decision making, whereas noise does not lead to meaningful actions or changes in strategy.

    By applying these criteria, I can effectively filter out the noise and focus on data that delivers or drives valuable business decisions.

    3. How can customer engagement data be used to identify and prioritize new business opportunities?
    First, it helps us to uncover unmet needs.

    By analyzing the customer feedback, touch points, support interactions, or usage patterns, we can identify the gaps in our current offerings or areas where customers are experiencing pain points.

    Second would be identifying emerging needs.
    Monitoring changes in customer behavior or preferences over time can reveal new market trends or shifts in demand, allowing my company to adapt their products or services accordingly.
    Third would be segmentation analysis.
    Detailed customer data analysis enables us to identify unserved or underserved segments or niche markets that may represent untapped opportunities for growth or expansion into newer areas and new geographies.
    Last is to build competitive differentiation.

    Engagement data can highlight where our companies outperform competitors, helping us to prioritize opportunities that leverage existing strengths and unique selling propositions.

    4. Can you share an example of where data insights directly influenced a critical decision?
    I will share an example from my previous organization at one of the financial services where we were very data-driven, which made a major impact on our critical decision regarding our credit card offerings.
    We analyzed the customer engagement data, and we discovered that a large segment of our millennial customers were underutilizing our traditional credit cards but showed high engagement with mobile payment platforms.
    That insight led us to develop and launch our first digital credit card product with enhanced mobile features and rewards tailored to the millennial spending habits. Since we had access to a lot of transactional data as well, we were able to build a financial product which met that specific segment’s needs.

    That data-driven decision resulted in a 40% increase in our new credit card applications from this demographic within the first quarter of the launch. Subsequently, our market share improved in that specific segment, which was very crucial.

    5. Are there any other examples of ways that you see customer engagement data being able to shape marketing strategy in real time?
    When it comes to using the engagement data in real-time, we do quite a few things. In the recent past two, three years, we are using that for dynamic content personalization, adjusting the website content, email messaging, or ad creative based on real-time user behavior and preferences.
    We automate campaign optimization using specific AI-driven tools to continuously analyze performance metrics and automatically reallocate the budget to top-performing channels or ad segments.
    Then we also build responsive social media engagement platforms like monitoring social media sentiments and trending topics to quickly adapt the messaging and create timely and relevant content.

    With one-on-one personalization, we do a lot of A/B testing as part of the overall rapid testing and market elements like subject lines, CTAs, and building various successful variants of the campaigns.

    6. How are you doing the 1:1 personalization?
    We have advanced CDP systems, and we are tracking each customer’s behavior in real-time. So the moment they move to different channels, we know what the context is, what the relevance is, and the recent interaction points, so we can cater the right offer.
    So for example, if you looked at a certain offer on the website and you came from Google, and then the next day you walk into an in-person interaction, our agent will already know that you were looking at that offer.
    That gives our customer or potential customer more one-to-one personalization instead of just segment-based or bulk interaction kind of experience.

    We have a huge team of data scientists, data analysts, and AI model creators who help us to analyze big volumes of data and bring the right insights to our marketing and sales team so that they can provide the right experience to our customers.

    7. What role does customer engagement data play in influencing cross-functional decisions, such as with product development, sales, and customer service?
    Primarily with product development — we have different products, not just the financial products or products whichever organizations sell, but also various products like mobile apps or websites they use for transactions. So that kind of product development gets improved.
    The engagement data helps our sales and marketing teams create more targeted campaigns, optimize channel selection, and refine messaging to resonate with specific customer segments.

    Customer service also gets helped by anticipating common issues, personalizing support interactions over the phone or email or chat, and proactively addressing potential problems, leading to improved customer satisfaction and retention.

    So in general, cross-functional application of engagement improves the customer-centric approach throughout the organization.

    8. What do you think some of the main challenges marketers face when trying to translate customer engagement data into actionable business insights?
    I think the huge amount of data we are dealing with. As we are getting more digitally savvy and most of the customers are moving to digital channels, we are getting a lot of data, and that sheer volume of data can be overwhelming, making it very difficult to identify truly meaningful patterns and insights.

    Because of the huge data overload, we create data silos in this process, so information often exists in separate systems across different departments. We are not able to build a holistic view of customer engagement.

    Because of data silos and overload of data, data quality issues appear. There is inconsistency, and inaccurate data can lead to incorrect insights or poor decision-making. Quality issues could also be due to the wrong format of the data, or the data is stale and no longer relevant.
    As we are growing and adding more people to help us understand customer engagement, I’ve also noticed that technical folks, especially data scientists and data analysts, lack skills to properly interpret the data or apply data insights effectively.
    So there’s a lack of understanding of marketing and sales as domains.
    It’s a huge effort and can take a lot of investment.

    Not being able to calculate the ROI of your overall investment is a big challenge that many organizations are facing.

    9. Why do you think the analysts don’t have the business acumen to properly do more than analyze the data?
    If people do not have the right idea of why we are collecting this data, we collect a lot of noise, and that brings in huge volumes of data. If you cannot stop that from step one—not bringing noise into the data system—that cannot be done by just technical folks or people who do not have business knowledge.
    Business people do not know everything about what data is being collected from which source and what data they need. It’s a gap between business domain knowledge, specifically marketing and sales needs, and technical folks who don’t have a lot of exposure to that side.

    Similarly, marketing business people do not have much exposure to the technical side — what’s possible to do with data, how much effort it takes, what’s relevant versus not relevant, and how to prioritize which data sources will be most important.

    10. Do you have any suggestions for how this can be overcome, or have you seen it in action where it has been solved before?
    First, cross-functional training: training different roles to help them understand why we’re doing this and what the business goals are, giving technical people exposure to what marketing and sales teams do.
    And giving business folks exposure to the technology side through training on different tools, strategies, and the roadmap of data integrations.
    The second is helping teams work more collaboratively. So it’s not like the technology team works in a silo and comes back when their work is done, and then marketing and sales teams act upon it.

    Now we’re making it more like one team. You work together so that you can complement each other, and we have a better strategy from day one.

    11. How do you address skepticism or resistance from stakeholders when presenting data-driven recommendations?
    We present clear business cases where we demonstrate how data-driven recommendations can directly align with business objectives and potential ROI.
    We build compelling visualizations, easy-to-understand charts and graphs that clearly illustrate the insights and the implications for business goals.

    We also do a lot of POCs and pilot projects with small-scale implementations to showcase tangible results and build confidence in the data-driven approach throughout the organization.

    12. What technologies or tools have you found most effective for gathering and analyzing customer engagement data?
    I’ve found that Customer Data Platforms help us unify customer data from various sources, providing a comprehensive view of customer interactions across touch points.
    Having advanced analytics platforms — tools with AI and machine learning capabilities that can process large volumes of data and uncover complex patterns and insights — is a great value to us.
    We always use, or many organizations use, marketing automation systems to improve marketing team productivity, helping us track and analyze customer interactions across multiple channels.
    Another thing is social media listening tools, wherever your brand is mentioned or you want to measure customer sentiment over social media, or track the engagement of your campaigns across social media platforms.

    Last is web analytical tools, which provide detailed insights into your website visitors’ behaviors and engagement metrics, for browser apps, small browser apps, various devices, and mobile apps.

    13. How do you ensure data quality and consistency across multiple channels to make these informed decisions?
    We established clear guidelines for data collection, storage, and usage across all channels to maintain consistency. Then we use data integration platforms — tools that consolidate data from various sources into a single unified view, reducing discrepancies and inconsistencies.
    While we collect data from different sources, we clean the data so it becomes cleaner with every stage of processing.
    We also conduct regular data audits — performing periodic checks to identify and rectify data quality issues, ensuring accuracy and reliability of information. We also deploy standardized data formats.

    On top of that, we have various automated data cleansing tools, specific software to detect and correct data errors, redundancies, duplicates, and inconsistencies in data sets automatically.

    14. How do you see the role of customer engagement data evolving in shaping business strategies over the next five years?
    The first thing that’s been the biggest trend from the past two years is AI-driven decision making, which I think will become more prevalent, with advanced algorithms processing vast amounts of engagement data in real-time to inform strategic choices.
    Somewhat related to this is predictive analytics, which will play an even larger role, enabling businesses to anticipate customer needs and market trends with more accuracy and better predictive capabilities.
    We also touched upon hyper-personalization. We are all trying to strive toward more hyper-personalization at scale, which is more one-on-one personalization, as we are increasingly capturing more engagement data and have bigger systems and infrastructure to support processing those large volumes of data so we can achieve those hyper-personalization use cases.
    As the world is collecting more data, privacy concerns and regulations come into play.
    I believe in the next few years there will be more innovation toward how businesses can collect data ethically and what the usage practices are, leading to more transparent and consent-based engagement data strategies.
    And lastly, I think about the integration of engagement data, which is always a big challenge. I believe as we’re solving those integration challenges, we are adding more and more complex data sources to the picture.

    So I think there will need to be more innovation or sophistication brought into data integration strategies, which will help us take a truly customer-centric approach to strategy formulation.

     
    This interview Q&amp;A was hosted with Ankur Kothari, a previous Martech Executive, for Chapter 6 of The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die.
    Download the PDF or request a physical copy of the book here.
    The post Ankur Kothari Q&amp;A: Customer Engagement Book Interview appeared first on MoEngage.
    #ankur #kothari #qampampa #customer #engagement
    Ankur Kothari Q&amp;A: Customer Engagement Book Interview
    Reading Time: 9 minutes In marketing, data isn’t a buzzword. It’s the lifeblood of all successful campaigns. But are you truly harnessing its power, or are you drowning in a sea of information? To answer this question, we sat down with Ankur Kothari, a seasoned Martech expert, to dive deep into this crucial topic. This interview, originally conducted for Chapter 6 of “The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die” explores how businesses can translate raw data into actionable insights that drive real results. Ankur shares his wealth of knowledge on identifying valuable customer engagement data, distinguishing between signal and noise, and ultimately, shaping real-time strategies that keep companies ahead of the curve.   Ankur Kothari Q&amp;A Interview 1. What types of customer engagement data are most valuable for making strategic business decisions? Primarily, there are four different buckets of customer engagement data. I would begin with behavioral data, encompassing website interaction, purchase history, and other app usage patterns. Second would be demographic information: age, location, income, and other relevant personal characteristics. Third would be sentiment analysis, where we derive information from social media interaction, customer feedback, or other customer reviews. Fourth would be the customer journey data. We track touchpoints across various channels of the customers to understand the customer journey path and conversion. Combining these four primary sources helps us understand the engagement data. 2. How do you distinguish between data that is actionable versus data that is just noise? First is keeping relevant to your business objectives, making actionable data that directly relates to your specific goals or KPIs, and then taking help from statistical significance. Actionable data shows clear patterns or trends that are statistically valid, whereas other data consists of random fluctuations or outliers, which may not be what you are interested in. You also want to make sure that there is consistency across sources. Actionable insights are typically corroborated by multiple data points or channels, while other data or noise can be more isolated and contradictory. Actionable data suggests clear opportunities for improvement or decision making, whereas noise does not lead to meaningful actions or changes in strategy. By applying these criteria, I can effectively filter out the noise and focus on data that delivers or drives valuable business decisions. 3. How can customer engagement data be used to identify and prioritize new business opportunities? First, it helps us to uncover unmet needs. By analyzing the customer feedback, touch points, support interactions, or usage patterns, we can identify the gaps in our current offerings or areas where customers are experiencing pain points. Second would be identifying emerging needs. Monitoring changes in customer behavior or preferences over time can reveal new market trends or shifts in demand, allowing my company to adapt their products or services accordingly. Third would be segmentation analysis. Detailed customer data analysis enables us to identify unserved or underserved segments or niche markets that may represent untapped opportunities for growth or expansion into newer areas and new geographies. Last is to build competitive differentiation. Engagement data can highlight where our companies outperform competitors, helping us to prioritize opportunities that leverage existing strengths and unique selling propositions. 4. Can you share an example of where data insights directly influenced a critical decision? I will share an example from my previous organization at one of the financial services where we were very data-driven, which made a major impact on our critical decision regarding our credit card offerings. We analyzed the customer engagement data, and we discovered that a large segment of our millennial customers were underutilizing our traditional credit cards but showed high engagement with mobile payment platforms. That insight led us to develop and launch our first digital credit card product with enhanced mobile features and rewards tailored to the millennial spending habits. Since we had access to a lot of transactional data as well, we were able to build a financial product which met that specific segment’s needs. That data-driven decision resulted in a 40% increase in our new credit card applications from this demographic within the first quarter of the launch. Subsequently, our market share improved in that specific segment, which was very crucial. 5. Are there any other examples of ways that you see customer engagement data being able to shape marketing strategy in real time? When it comes to using the engagement data in real-time, we do quite a few things. In the recent past two, three years, we are using that for dynamic content personalization, adjusting the website content, email messaging, or ad creative based on real-time user behavior and preferences. We automate campaign optimization using specific AI-driven tools to continuously analyze performance metrics and automatically reallocate the budget to top-performing channels or ad segments. Then we also build responsive social media engagement platforms like monitoring social media sentiments and trending topics to quickly adapt the messaging and create timely and relevant content. With one-on-one personalization, we do a lot of A/B testing as part of the overall rapid testing and market elements like subject lines, CTAs, and building various successful variants of the campaigns. 6. How are you doing the 1:1 personalization? We have advanced CDP systems, and we are tracking each customer’s behavior in real-time. So the moment they move to different channels, we know what the context is, what the relevance is, and the recent interaction points, so we can cater the right offer. So for example, if you looked at a certain offer on the website and you came from Google, and then the next day you walk into an in-person interaction, our agent will already know that you were looking at that offer. That gives our customer or potential customer more one-to-one personalization instead of just segment-based or bulk interaction kind of experience. We have a huge team of data scientists, data analysts, and AI model creators who help us to analyze big volumes of data and bring the right insights to our marketing and sales team so that they can provide the right experience to our customers. 7. What role does customer engagement data play in influencing cross-functional decisions, such as with product development, sales, and customer service? Primarily with product development — we have different products, not just the financial products or products whichever organizations sell, but also various products like mobile apps or websites they use for transactions. So that kind of product development gets improved. The engagement data helps our sales and marketing teams create more targeted campaigns, optimize channel selection, and refine messaging to resonate with specific customer segments. Customer service also gets helped by anticipating common issues, personalizing support interactions over the phone or email or chat, and proactively addressing potential problems, leading to improved customer satisfaction and retention. So in general, cross-functional application of engagement improves the customer-centric approach throughout the organization. 8. What do you think some of the main challenges marketers face when trying to translate customer engagement data into actionable business insights? I think the huge amount of data we are dealing with. As we are getting more digitally savvy and most of the customers are moving to digital channels, we are getting a lot of data, and that sheer volume of data can be overwhelming, making it very difficult to identify truly meaningful patterns and insights. Because of the huge data overload, we create data silos in this process, so information often exists in separate systems across different departments. We are not able to build a holistic view of customer engagement. Because of data silos and overload of data, data quality issues appear. There is inconsistency, and inaccurate data can lead to incorrect insights or poor decision-making. Quality issues could also be due to the wrong format of the data, or the data is stale and no longer relevant. As we are growing and adding more people to help us understand customer engagement, I’ve also noticed that technical folks, especially data scientists and data analysts, lack skills to properly interpret the data or apply data insights effectively. So there’s a lack of understanding of marketing and sales as domains. It’s a huge effort and can take a lot of investment. Not being able to calculate the ROI of your overall investment is a big challenge that many organizations are facing. 9. Why do you think the analysts don’t have the business acumen to properly do more than analyze the data? If people do not have the right idea of why we are collecting this data, we collect a lot of noise, and that brings in huge volumes of data. If you cannot stop that from step one—not bringing noise into the data system—that cannot be done by just technical folks or people who do not have business knowledge. Business people do not know everything about what data is being collected from which source and what data they need. It’s a gap between business domain knowledge, specifically marketing and sales needs, and technical folks who don’t have a lot of exposure to that side. Similarly, marketing business people do not have much exposure to the technical side — what’s possible to do with data, how much effort it takes, what’s relevant versus not relevant, and how to prioritize which data sources will be most important. 10. Do you have any suggestions for how this can be overcome, or have you seen it in action where it has been solved before? First, cross-functional training: training different roles to help them understand why we’re doing this and what the business goals are, giving technical people exposure to what marketing and sales teams do. And giving business folks exposure to the technology side through training on different tools, strategies, and the roadmap of data integrations. The second is helping teams work more collaboratively. So it’s not like the technology team works in a silo and comes back when their work is done, and then marketing and sales teams act upon it. Now we’re making it more like one team. You work together so that you can complement each other, and we have a better strategy from day one. 11. How do you address skepticism or resistance from stakeholders when presenting data-driven recommendations? We present clear business cases where we demonstrate how data-driven recommendations can directly align with business objectives and potential ROI. We build compelling visualizations, easy-to-understand charts and graphs that clearly illustrate the insights and the implications for business goals. We also do a lot of POCs and pilot projects with small-scale implementations to showcase tangible results and build confidence in the data-driven approach throughout the organization. 12. What technologies or tools have you found most effective for gathering and analyzing customer engagement data? I’ve found that Customer Data Platforms help us unify customer data from various sources, providing a comprehensive view of customer interactions across touch points. Having advanced analytics platforms — tools with AI and machine learning capabilities that can process large volumes of data and uncover complex patterns and insights — is a great value to us. We always use, or many organizations use, marketing automation systems to improve marketing team productivity, helping us track and analyze customer interactions across multiple channels. Another thing is social media listening tools, wherever your brand is mentioned or you want to measure customer sentiment over social media, or track the engagement of your campaigns across social media platforms. Last is web analytical tools, which provide detailed insights into your website visitors’ behaviors and engagement metrics, for browser apps, small browser apps, various devices, and mobile apps. 13. How do you ensure data quality and consistency across multiple channels to make these informed decisions? We established clear guidelines for data collection, storage, and usage across all channels to maintain consistency. Then we use data integration platforms — tools that consolidate data from various sources into a single unified view, reducing discrepancies and inconsistencies. While we collect data from different sources, we clean the data so it becomes cleaner with every stage of processing. We also conduct regular data audits — performing periodic checks to identify and rectify data quality issues, ensuring accuracy and reliability of information. We also deploy standardized data formats. On top of that, we have various automated data cleansing tools, specific software to detect and correct data errors, redundancies, duplicates, and inconsistencies in data sets automatically. 14. How do you see the role of customer engagement data evolving in shaping business strategies over the next five years? The first thing that’s been the biggest trend from the past two years is AI-driven decision making, which I think will become more prevalent, with advanced algorithms processing vast amounts of engagement data in real-time to inform strategic choices. Somewhat related to this is predictive analytics, which will play an even larger role, enabling businesses to anticipate customer needs and market trends with more accuracy and better predictive capabilities. We also touched upon hyper-personalization. We are all trying to strive toward more hyper-personalization at scale, which is more one-on-one personalization, as we are increasingly capturing more engagement data and have bigger systems and infrastructure to support processing those large volumes of data so we can achieve those hyper-personalization use cases. As the world is collecting more data, privacy concerns and regulations come into play. I believe in the next few years there will be more innovation toward how businesses can collect data ethically and what the usage practices are, leading to more transparent and consent-based engagement data strategies. And lastly, I think about the integration of engagement data, which is always a big challenge. I believe as we’re solving those integration challenges, we are adding more and more complex data sources to the picture. So I think there will need to be more innovation or sophistication brought into data integration strategies, which will help us take a truly customer-centric approach to strategy formulation.   This interview Q&amp;A was hosted with Ankur Kothari, a previous Martech Executive, for Chapter 6 of The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die. Download the PDF or request a physical copy of the book here. The post Ankur Kothari Q&amp;A: Customer Engagement Book Interview appeared first on MoEngage. #ankur #kothari #qampampa #customer #engagement
    Ankur Kothari Q&amp;A: Customer Engagement Book Interview
    www.moengage.com
    Reading Time: 9 minutes In marketing, data isn’t a buzzword. It’s the lifeblood of all successful campaigns. But are you truly harnessing its power, or are you drowning in a sea of information? To answer this question (and many others), we sat down with Ankur Kothari, a seasoned Martech expert, to dive deep into this crucial topic. This interview, originally conducted for Chapter 6 of “The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die” explores how businesses can translate raw data into actionable insights that drive real results. Ankur shares his wealth of knowledge on identifying valuable customer engagement data, distinguishing between signal and noise, and ultimately, shaping real-time strategies that keep companies ahead of the curve.   Ankur Kothari Q&amp;A Interview 1. What types of customer engagement data are most valuable for making strategic business decisions? Primarily, there are four different buckets of customer engagement data. I would begin with behavioral data, encompassing website interaction, purchase history, and other app usage patterns. Second would be demographic information: age, location, income, and other relevant personal characteristics. Third would be sentiment analysis, where we derive information from social media interaction, customer feedback, or other customer reviews. Fourth would be the customer journey data. We track touchpoints across various channels of the customers to understand the customer journey path and conversion. Combining these four primary sources helps us understand the engagement data. 2. How do you distinguish between data that is actionable versus data that is just noise? First is keeping relevant to your business objectives, making actionable data that directly relates to your specific goals or KPIs, and then taking help from statistical significance. Actionable data shows clear patterns or trends that are statistically valid, whereas other data consists of random fluctuations or outliers, which may not be what you are interested in. You also want to make sure that there is consistency across sources. Actionable insights are typically corroborated by multiple data points or channels, while other data or noise can be more isolated and contradictory. Actionable data suggests clear opportunities for improvement or decision making, whereas noise does not lead to meaningful actions or changes in strategy. By applying these criteria, I can effectively filter out the noise and focus on data that delivers or drives valuable business decisions. 3. How can customer engagement data be used to identify and prioritize new business opportunities? First, it helps us to uncover unmet needs. By analyzing the customer feedback, touch points, support interactions, or usage patterns, we can identify the gaps in our current offerings or areas where customers are experiencing pain points. Second would be identifying emerging needs. Monitoring changes in customer behavior or preferences over time can reveal new market trends or shifts in demand, allowing my company to adapt their products or services accordingly. Third would be segmentation analysis. Detailed customer data analysis enables us to identify unserved or underserved segments or niche markets that may represent untapped opportunities for growth or expansion into newer areas and new geographies. Last is to build competitive differentiation. Engagement data can highlight where our companies outperform competitors, helping us to prioritize opportunities that leverage existing strengths and unique selling propositions. 4. Can you share an example of where data insights directly influenced a critical decision? I will share an example from my previous organization at one of the financial services where we were very data-driven, which made a major impact on our critical decision regarding our credit card offerings. We analyzed the customer engagement data, and we discovered that a large segment of our millennial customers were underutilizing our traditional credit cards but showed high engagement with mobile payment platforms. That insight led us to develop and launch our first digital credit card product with enhanced mobile features and rewards tailored to the millennial spending habits. Since we had access to a lot of transactional data as well, we were able to build a financial product which met that specific segment’s needs. That data-driven decision resulted in a 40% increase in our new credit card applications from this demographic within the first quarter of the launch. Subsequently, our market share improved in that specific segment, which was very crucial. 5. Are there any other examples of ways that you see customer engagement data being able to shape marketing strategy in real time? When it comes to using the engagement data in real-time, we do quite a few things. In the recent past two, three years, we are using that for dynamic content personalization, adjusting the website content, email messaging, or ad creative based on real-time user behavior and preferences. We automate campaign optimization using specific AI-driven tools to continuously analyze performance metrics and automatically reallocate the budget to top-performing channels or ad segments. Then we also build responsive social media engagement platforms like monitoring social media sentiments and trending topics to quickly adapt the messaging and create timely and relevant content. With one-on-one personalization, we do a lot of A/B testing as part of the overall rapid testing and market elements like subject lines, CTAs, and building various successful variants of the campaigns. 6. How are you doing the 1:1 personalization? We have advanced CDP systems, and we are tracking each customer’s behavior in real-time. So the moment they move to different channels, we know what the context is, what the relevance is, and the recent interaction points, so we can cater the right offer. So for example, if you looked at a certain offer on the website and you came from Google, and then the next day you walk into an in-person interaction, our agent will already know that you were looking at that offer. That gives our customer or potential customer more one-to-one personalization instead of just segment-based or bulk interaction kind of experience. We have a huge team of data scientists, data analysts, and AI model creators who help us to analyze big volumes of data and bring the right insights to our marketing and sales team so that they can provide the right experience to our customers. 7. What role does customer engagement data play in influencing cross-functional decisions, such as with product development, sales, and customer service? Primarily with product development — we have different products, not just the financial products or products whichever organizations sell, but also various products like mobile apps or websites they use for transactions. So that kind of product development gets improved. The engagement data helps our sales and marketing teams create more targeted campaigns, optimize channel selection, and refine messaging to resonate with specific customer segments. Customer service also gets helped by anticipating common issues, personalizing support interactions over the phone or email or chat, and proactively addressing potential problems, leading to improved customer satisfaction and retention. So in general, cross-functional application of engagement improves the customer-centric approach throughout the organization. 8. What do you think some of the main challenges marketers face when trying to translate customer engagement data into actionable business insights? I think the huge amount of data we are dealing with. As we are getting more digitally savvy and most of the customers are moving to digital channels, we are getting a lot of data, and that sheer volume of data can be overwhelming, making it very difficult to identify truly meaningful patterns and insights. Because of the huge data overload, we create data silos in this process, so information often exists in separate systems across different departments. We are not able to build a holistic view of customer engagement. Because of data silos and overload of data, data quality issues appear. There is inconsistency, and inaccurate data can lead to incorrect insights or poor decision-making. Quality issues could also be due to the wrong format of the data, or the data is stale and no longer relevant. As we are growing and adding more people to help us understand customer engagement, I’ve also noticed that technical folks, especially data scientists and data analysts, lack skills to properly interpret the data or apply data insights effectively. So there’s a lack of understanding of marketing and sales as domains. It’s a huge effort and can take a lot of investment. Not being able to calculate the ROI of your overall investment is a big challenge that many organizations are facing. 9. Why do you think the analysts don’t have the business acumen to properly do more than analyze the data? If people do not have the right idea of why we are collecting this data, we collect a lot of noise, and that brings in huge volumes of data. If you cannot stop that from step one—not bringing noise into the data system—that cannot be done by just technical folks or people who do not have business knowledge. Business people do not know everything about what data is being collected from which source and what data they need. It’s a gap between business domain knowledge, specifically marketing and sales needs, and technical folks who don’t have a lot of exposure to that side. Similarly, marketing business people do not have much exposure to the technical side — what’s possible to do with data, how much effort it takes, what’s relevant versus not relevant, and how to prioritize which data sources will be most important. 10. Do you have any suggestions for how this can be overcome, or have you seen it in action where it has been solved before? First, cross-functional training: training different roles to help them understand why we’re doing this and what the business goals are, giving technical people exposure to what marketing and sales teams do. And giving business folks exposure to the technology side through training on different tools, strategies, and the roadmap of data integrations. The second is helping teams work more collaboratively. So it’s not like the technology team works in a silo and comes back when their work is done, and then marketing and sales teams act upon it. Now we’re making it more like one team. You work together so that you can complement each other, and we have a better strategy from day one. 11. How do you address skepticism or resistance from stakeholders when presenting data-driven recommendations? We present clear business cases where we demonstrate how data-driven recommendations can directly align with business objectives and potential ROI. We build compelling visualizations, easy-to-understand charts and graphs that clearly illustrate the insights and the implications for business goals. We also do a lot of POCs and pilot projects with small-scale implementations to showcase tangible results and build confidence in the data-driven approach throughout the organization. 12. What technologies or tools have you found most effective for gathering and analyzing customer engagement data? I’ve found that Customer Data Platforms help us unify customer data from various sources, providing a comprehensive view of customer interactions across touch points. Having advanced analytics platforms — tools with AI and machine learning capabilities that can process large volumes of data and uncover complex patterns and insights — is a great value to us. We always use, or many organizations use, marketing automation systems to improve marketing team productivity, helping us track and analyze customer interactions across multiple channels. Another thing is social media listening tools, wherever your brand is mentioned or you want to measure customer sentiment over social media, or track the engagement of your campaigns across social media platforms. Last is web analytical tools, which provide detailed insights into your website visitors’ behaviors and engagement metrics, for browser apps, small browser apps, various devices, and mobile apps. 13. How do you ensure data quality and consistency across multiple channels to make these informed decisions? We established clear guidelines for data collection, storage, and usage across all channels to maintain consistency. Then we use data integration platforms — tools that consolidate data from various sources into a single unified view, reducing discrepancies and inconsistencies. While we collect data from different sources, we clean the data so it becomes cleaner with every stage of processing. We also conduct regular data audits — performing periodic checks to identify and rectify data quality issues, ensuring accuracy and reliability of information. We also deploy standardized data formats. On top of that, we have various automated data cleansing tools, specific software to detect and correct data errors, redundancies, duplicates, and inconsistencies in data sets automatically. 14. How do you see the role of customer engagement data evolving in shaping business strategies over the next five years? The first thing that’s been the biggest trend from the past two years is AI-driven decision making, which I think will become more prevalent, with advanced algorithms processing vast amounts of engagement data in real-time to inform strategic choices. Somewhat related to this is predictive analytics, which will play an even larger role, enabling businesses to anticipate customer needs and market trends with more accuracy and better predictive capabilities. We also touched upon hyper-personalization. We are all trying to strive toward more hyper-personalization at scale, which is more one-on-one personalization, as we are increasingly capturing more engagement data and have bigger systems and infrastructure to support processing those large volumes of data so we can achieve those hyper-personalization use cases. As the world is collecting more data, privacy concerns and regulations come into play. I believe in the next few years there will be more innovation toward how businesses can collect data ethically and what the usage practices are, leading to more transparent and consent-based engagement data strategies. And lastly, I think about the integration of engagement data, which is always a big challenge. I believe as we’re solving those integration challenges, we are adding more and more complex data sources to the picture. So I think there will need to be more innovation or sophistication brought into data integration strategies, which will help us take a truly customer-centric approach to strategy formulation.   This interview Q&amp;A was hosted with Ankur Kothari, a previous Martech Executive, for Chapter 6 of The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die. Download the PDF or request a physical copy of the book here. The post Ankur Kothari Q&amp;A: Customer Engagement Book Interview appeared first on MoEngage.
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  • How to optimize your hybrid waterfall with CPM buckets

    In-app bidding has automated most waterfall optimization, yet developers still manage multiple hybrid waterfalls, each with dozens of manual instances. Naturally, this can be timely and overwhelming to maintain, keeping you from optimizing to perfection and focusing on other opportunities to boost revenue.Rather than analyzing each individual network and checking if instances are available at each price point, breaking down your waterfall into different CPM ranges allows you to visualize the waterfall and easily identify the gaps.Here are some tips on how to use CPM buckets to better optimize your waterfall’s performance.What are CPM buckets?CPM buckets show you exactly how much revenue and how many impressions you’re getting from each CPM price range, giving you a more granular idea of how different networks are competing in the waterfall. CPM buckets are a feature of real time pivot reports, available on ironSource LevelPlay.Identifying and closing the gapsTypically in a waterfall, you can only see each ad network’s average CPM. But this keeps you from seeing ad network distribution across all price points and understanding exactly where ad networks are bidding. Bottom line - you don’t know where in the waterfall you should add a new instance.By separating CPM into buckets,you understand exactly which networks are driving impressions and revenue and which CPMs aren’t being filledNow how do you do it? As a LevelPlay client, simply use ironSource’s real time pivot reports - choose the CPM bucket filter option and sort by “average bid price.” From here, you’ll see how your revenue spreads out among CPM ranges and you’ll start to notice gaps in your bar graph. Every gap in revenue - where revenue is much lower than the neighboring CPM group - indicates an opportunity to optimize your monetization strategy. The buckets can range from small increments like to larger increments like so it’s important to compare CPM buckets of the same incremental value.Pro tip: To best set up your waterfall, create one tab with the general waterfalland make sure to look at Revenue and eCPM in the “measures” dropdown. In the “show” section, choose CPM buckets and sort by average bid price. From here, you can mark down any gaps.But where do these gaps come from? Gaps in revenue are often due to friction in the waterfall, like not enough instances, instances that aren’t working, or a waterfall setup mistake. But gaps can also be adjusted and fixed.Once you’ve found a gap, you can look at the CPM buckets around it to better understand the context. Let’s say you see a strong instance generating significant revenue in the CPM bucket right below it, in the -80 group. This instance from this specific ad network has a lot of potential, so it’s worth trying to push it to a higher CPM bucket.In fact, when you look at higher CPM buckets, you don’t see this ad network anywhere else in the waterfall - what a missed opportunity! Try adding another instance of this network higher up in the waterfall. If you’re profiting well with a -80 CPM, imagine how much more revenue you could bring at a CPM.Pro tip: Focusing on higher areas in the waterfall makes a larger financial impact, leading to bigger increases in ARPDAU.Let’s say you decide to add 5 instances of that network to higher CPM buckets. You can use LevelPlay’s quick A/B test to understand if this adjustment boosts your revenue - not just for this gap, but for any and all that you find. Simply compare your existing waterfall against the new waterfall with these 5 higher instances - then implement the one that drives the highest instances.Božo Janković, Head of Ad Monetization at GameBiz Consulting, uses CPM buckets "to understand at which CPMs the bidding networks are filling. From there, I can pinpoint exactly where in the waterfall to add more traditional instances - which creates more competition, especially for the bidding networks, and creates an opportunity for revenue growth."Finding new insightsYou can dig even deeper into your data by filtering by ad source. Before CPM buckets, you were limited to seeing an average eCPM for each bidding network. Maybe you knew that one ad source had an average CPM of but the distribution of impression across the waterfall was a black box. Now, we know exactly which CPMs the bidders are filling. “I find ironSource CPM buckets feature very insightful and and use it daily. It’s an easy way to identify opportunities to optimize the waterfall and earn even more revenue."

    -Božo Janković, Head of Ad Monetization at GameBiz ConsultingUnderstanding your CPM distribution empowers you to not only identify your revenue sources, but also to promote revenue growth. Armed with the knowledge of which buckets some of their stronger bidding networking are performing in, some publishers actively add instances from traditional networks above those ranges. This creates better competition and also helps drive up the bids from the biddersThere’s no need for deep analysis - once you see the gaps, you can quickly understand who’s performing in the lower and higher buckets, and see exactly what’s missing. This way, you won’t miss out on any lost revenue.Learn more about CPM buckets, available exclusively to ironSource LevelPlay here.
    #how #optimize #your #hybrid #waterfall
    How to optimize your hybrid waterfall with CPM buckets
    In-app bidding has automated most waterfall optimization, yet developers still manage multiple hybrid waterfalls, each with dozens of manual instances. Naturally, this can be timely and overwhelming to maintain, keeping you from optimizing to perfection and focusing on other opportunities to boost revenue.Rather than analyzing each individual network and checking if instances are available at each price point, breaking down your waterfall into different CPM ranges allows you to visualize the waterfall and easily identify the gaps.Here are some tips on how to use CPM buckets to better optimize your waterfall’s performance.What are CPM buckets?CPM buckets show you exactly how much revenue and how many impressions you’re getting from each CPM price range, giving you a more granular idea of how different networks are competing in the waterfall. CPM buckets are a feature of real time pivot reports, available on ironSource LevelPlay.Identifying and closing the gapsTypically in a waterfall, you can only see each ad network’s average CPM. But this keeps you from seeing ad network distribution across all price points and understanding exactly where ad networks are bidding. Bottom line - you don’t know where in the waterfall you should add a new instance.By separating CPM into buckets,you understand exactly which networks are driving impressions and revenue and which CPMs aren’t being filledNow how do you do it? As a LevelPlay client, simply use ironSource’s real time pivot reports - choose the CPM bucket filter option and sort by “average bid price.” From here, you’ll see how your revenue spreads out among CPM ranges and you’ll start to notice gaps in your bar graph. Every gap in revenue - where revenue is much lower than the neighboring CPM group - indicates an opportunity to optimize your monetization strategy. The buckets can range from small increments like to larger increments like so it’s important to compare CPM buckets of the same incremental value.Pro tip: To best set up your waterfall, create one tab with the general waterfalland make sure to look at Revenue and eCPM in the “measures” dropdown. In the “show” section, choose CPM buckets and sort by average bid price. From here, you can mark down any gaps.But where do these gaps come from? Gaps in revenue are often due to friction in the waterfall, like not enough instances, instances that aren’t working, or a waterfall setup mistake. But gaps can also be adjusted and fixed.Once you’ve found a gap, you can look at the CPM buckets around it to better understand the context. Let’s say you see a strong instance generating significant revenue in the CPM bucket right below it, in the -80 group. This instance from this specific ad network has a lot of potential, so it’s worth trying to push it to a higher CPM bucket.In fact, when you look at higher CPM buckets, you don’t see this ad network anywhere else in the waterfall - what a missed opportunity! Try adding another instance of this network higher up in the waterfall. If you’re profiting well with a -80 CPM, imagine how much more revenue you could bring at a CPM.Pro tip: Focusing on higher areas in the waterfall makes a larger financial impact, leading to bigger increases in ARPDAU.Let’s say you decide to add 5 instances of that network to higher CPM buckets. You can use LevelPlay’s quick A/B test to understand if this adjustment boosts your revenue - not just for this gap, but for any and all that you find. Simply compare your existing waterfall against the new waterfall with these 5 higher instances - then implement the one that drives the highest instances.Božo Janković, Head of Ad Monetization at GameBiz Consulting, uses CPM buckets "to understand at which CPMs the bidding networks are filling. From there, I can pinpoint exactly where in the waterfall to add more traditional instances - which creates more competition, especially for the bidding networks, and creates an opportunity for revenue growth."Finding new insightsYou can dig even deeper into your data by filtering by ad source. Before CPM buckets, you were limited to seeing an average eCPM for each bidding network. Maybe you knew that one ad source had an average CPM of but the distribution of impression across the waterfall was a black box. Now, we know exactly which CPMs the bidders are filling. “I find ironSource CPM buckets feature very insightful and and use it daily. It’s an easy way to identify opportunities to optimize the waterfall and earn even more revenue." -Božo Janković, Head of Ad Monetization at GameBiz ConsultingUnderstanding your CPM distribution empowers you to not only identify your revenue sources, but also to promote revenue growth. Armed with the knowledge of which buckets some of their stronger bidding networking are performing in, some publishers actively add instances from traditional networks above those ranges. This creates better competition and also helps drive up the bids from the biddersThere’s no need for deep analysis - once you see the gaps, you can quickly understand who’s performing in the lower and higher buckets, and see exactly what’s missing. This way, you won’t miss out on any lost revenue.Learn more about CPM buckets, available exclusively to ironSource LevelPlay here. #how #optimize #your #hybrid #waterfall
    How to optimize your hybrid waterfall with CPM buckets
    unity.com
    In-app bidding has automated most waterfall optimization, yet developers still manage multiple hybrid waterfalls, each with dozens of manual instances. Naturally, this can be timely and overwhelming to maintain, keeping you from optimizing to perfection and focusing on other opportunities to boost revenue.Rather than analyzing each individual network and checking if instances are available at each price point, breaking down your waterfall into different CPM ranges allows you to visualize the waterfall and easily identify the gaps.Here are some tips on how to use CPM buckets to better optimize your waterfall’s performance.What are CPM buckets?CPM buckets show you exactly how much revenue and how many impressions you’re getting from each CPM price range, giving you a more granular idea of how different networks are competing in the waterfall. CPM buckets are a feature of real time pivot reports, available on ironSource LevelPlay.Identifying and closing the gapsTypically in a waterfall, you can only see each ad network’s average CPM. But this keeps you from seeing ad network distribution across all price points and understanding exactly where ad networks are bidding. Bottom line - you don’t know where in the waterfall you should add a new instance.By separating CPM into buckets, (for example, seeing all the ad networks generating a CPM of $10-$20) you understand exactly which networks are driving impressions and revenue and which CPMs aren’t being filledNow how do you do it? As a LevelPlay client, simply use ironSource’s real time pivot reports - choose the CPM bucket filter option and sort by “average bid price.” From here, you’ll see how your revenue spreads out among CPM ranges and you’ll start to notice gaps in your bar graph. Every gap in revenue - where revenue is much lower than the neighboring CPM group - indicates an opportunity to optimize your monetization strategy. The buckets can range from small increments like $1 to larger increments like $10, so it’s important to compare CPM buckets of the same incremental value.Pro tip: To best set up your waterfall, create one tab with the general waterfall (filter app, OS, Ad unit, geo/geos from a specific group) and make sure to look at Revenue and eCPM in the “measures” dropdown. In the “show” section, choose CPM buckets and sort by average bid price. From here, you can mark down any gaps.But where do these gaps come from? Gaps in revenue are often due to friction in the waterfall, like not enough instances, instances that aren’t working, or a waterfall setup mistake. But gaps can also be adjusted and fixed.Once you’ve found a gap, you can look at the CPM buckets around it to better understand the context. Let’s say you see a strong instance generating significant revenue in the CPM bucket right below it, in the $70-80 group. This instance from this specific ad network has a lot of potential, so it’s worth trying to push it to a higher CPM bucket.In fact, when you look at higher CPM buckets, you don’t see this ad network anywhere else in the waterfall - what a missed opportunity! Try adding another instance of this network higher up in the waterfall. If you’re profiting well with a $70-80 CPM, imagine how much more revenue you could bring at a $150 CPM.Pro tip: Focusing on higher areas in the waterfall makes a larger financial impact, leading to bigger increases in ARPDAU.Let’s say you decide to add 5 instances of that network to higher CPM buckets. You can use LevelPlay’s quick A/B test to understand if this adjustment boosts your revenue - not just for this gap, but for any and all that you find. Simply compare your existing waterfall against the new waterfall with these 5 higher instances - then implement the one that drives the highest instances.Božo Janković, Head of Ad Monetization at GameBiz Consulting, uses CPM buckets "to understand at which CPMs the bidding networks are filling. From there, I can pinpoint exactly where in the waterfall to add more traditional instances - which creates more competition, especially for the bidding networks, and creates an opportunity for revenue growth."Finding new insightsYou can dig even deeper into your data by filtering by ad source. Before CPM buckets, you were limited to seeing an average eCPM for each bidding network. Maybe you knew that one ad source had an average CPM of $50, but the distribution of impression across the waterfall was a black box. Now, we know exactly which CPMs the bidders are filling. “I find ironSource CPM buckets feature very insightful and and use it daily. It’s an easy way to identify opportunities to optimize the waterfall and earn even more revenue." -Božo Janković, Head of Ad Monetization at GameBiz ConsultingUnderstanding your CPM distribution empowers you to not only identify your revenue sources, but also to promote revenue growth. Armed with the knowledge of which buckets some of their stronger bidding networking are performing in, some publishers actively add instances from traditional networks above those ranges. This creates better competition and also helps drive up the bids from the biddersThere’s no need for deep analysis - once you see the gaps, you can quickly understand who’s performing in the lower and higher buckets, and see exactly what’s missing. This way, you won’t miss out on any lost revenue.Learn more about CPM buckets, available exclusively to ironSource LevelPlay here.
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  • ‘Balls, Dice &amp; Stickers’ Creates Carefully Planned Mayhem

    Balls, Dice &amp; Stickers asks you to launch a ball at some dice that trigger a ton of ridiculous effects each time you hit them.

    I am not sure what I did to upset paperclips, mice, and the manifestations of the past, but they’re all here to give me a hard time unless I beat them up with some damaging dice. I won’t be rolling those dice, though. That would be a little too straightforward in this delightfully chaotic game. Instead, I’ll be launching a ball at the dice and trying to get the ball to bounce around the room, hitting the dice as much as possible before the ball pings out the bottom of the screen.

    Except THAT is also not all there is to it. Each round, you get a sticker you can apply to one of your dice. These stickers cause wildly varied effects that often build off of the other stickers. For instance, you can add a beehive to one of the dice. This can spawn a bee, which in turn will shoot needles at certain things and will like other objects. Tape adds a banana to the playing field which can provide you points. The Pub spawns a drunk driver, and that drunk driver might get caught by the police car that you spawn from landing on another die. And these dice effects all stack on top of one another as you progress through the rounds, resulting in a bustling field of dozens of bizarre, silly effects all working in tandem with one another.
    Balls, Dice &amp; Stickers is really something to behold after you’ve got a few rounds under your belt. Describing it really doesn’t do justice to how much fun this game is once it gets rolling, so I highly recommend trying out the alpha build on itch.io. I can’t even imagine how much sillier it’s going to get in its full release.
    Balls, Dice &amp; Stickers is availble nowon itch.io. You can add the future full release of the game to your Wishlist on Steam.
    About The Author
    #balls #dice #ampamp #stickers #creates
    ‘Balls, Dice &amp; Stickers’ Creates Carefully Planned Mayhem
    Balls, Dice &amp; Stickers asks you to launch a ball at some dice that trigger a ton of ridiculous effects each time you hit them. I am not sure what I did to upset paperclips, mice, and the manifestations of the past, but they’re all here to give me a hard time unless I beat them up with some damaging dice. I won’t be rolling those dice, though. That would be a little too straightforward in this delightfully chaotic game. Instead, I’ll be launching a ball at the dice and trying to get the ball to bounce around the room, hitting the dice as much as possible before the ball pings out the bottom of the screen. Except THAT is also not all there is to it. Each round, you get a sticker you can apply to one of your dice. These stickers cause wildly varied effects that often build off of the other stickers. For instance, you can add a beehive to one of the dice. This can spawn a bee, which in turn will shoot needles at certain things and will like other objects. Tape adds a banana to the playing field which can provide you points. The Pub spawns a drunk driver, and that drunk driver might get caught by the police car that you spawn from landing on another die. And these dice effects all stack on top of one another as you progress through the rounds, resulting in a bustling field of dozens of bizarre, silly effects all working in tandem with one another. Balls, Dice &amp; Stickers is really something to behold after you’ve got a few rounds under your belt. Describing it really doesn’t do justice to how much fun this game is once it gets rolling, so I highly recommend trying out the alpha build on itch.io. I can’t even imagine how much sillier it’s going to get in its full release. Balls, Dice &amp; Stickers is availble nowon itch.io. You can add the future full release of the game to your Wishlist on Steam. About The Author #balls #dice #ampamp #stickers #creates
    ‘Balls, Dice &amp; Stickers’ Creates Carefully Planned Mayhem
    indiegamesplus.com
    Balls, Dice &amp; Stickers asks you to launch a ball at some dice that trigger a ton of ridiculous effects each time you hit them. I am not sure what I did to upset paperclips, mice, and the manifestations of the past, but they’re all here to give me a hard time unless I beat them up with some damaging dice. I won’t be rolling those dice, though. That would be a little too straightforward in this delightfully chaotic game. Instead, I’ll be launching a ball at the dice and trying to get the ball to bounce around the room, hitting the dice as much as possible before the ball pings out the bottom of the screen. Except THAT is also not all there is to it. Each round, you get a sticker you can apply to one of your dice. These stickers cause wildly varied effects that often build off of the other stickers. For instance, you can add a beehive to one of the dice. This can spawn a bee, which in turn will shoot needles at certain things and will like other objects. Tape adds a banana to the playing field which can provide you points. The Pub spawns a drunk driver, and that drunk driver might get caught by the police car that you spawn from landing on another die. And these dice effects all stack on top of one another as you progress through the rounds, resulting in a bustling field of dozens of bizarre, silly effects all working in tandem with one another. Balls, Dice &amp; Stickers is really something to behold after you’ve got a few rounds under your belt. Describing it really doesn’t do justice to how much fun this game is once it gets rolling, so I highly recommend trying out the alpha build on itch.io. I can’t even imagine how much sillier it’s going to get in its full release. Balls, Dice &amp; Stickers is availble now (in an alpha format) on itch.io. You can add the future full release of the game to your Wishlist on Steam. About The Author
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  • The AI execution gap: Why 80% of projects don’t reach production

    Enterprise artificial intelligence investment is unprecedented, with IDC projecting global spending on AI and GenAI to double to billion by 2028. Yet beneath the impressive budget allocations and boardroom enthusiasm lies a troubling reality: most organisations struggle to translate their AI ambitions into operational success.The sobering statistics behind AI’s promiseModelOp’s 2025 AI Governance Benchmark Report, based on input from 100 senior AI and data leaders at Fortune 500 enterprises, reveals a disconnect between aspiration and execution.While more than 80% of enterprises have 51 or more generative AI projects in proposal phases, only 18% have successfully deployed more than 20 models into production.The execution gap represents one of the most significant challenges facing enterprise AI today. Most generative AI projects still require 6 to 18 months to go live – if they reach production at all.The result is delayed returns on investment, frustrated stakeholders, and diminished confidence in AI initiatives in the enterprise.The cause: Structural, not technical barriersThe biggest obstacles preventing AI scalability aren’t technical limitations – they’re structural inefficiencies plaguing enterprise operations. The ModelOp benchmark report identifies several problems that create what experts call a “time-to-market quagmire.”Fragmented systems plague implementation. 58% of organisations cite fragmented systems as the top obstacle to adopting governance platforms. Fragmentation creates silos where different departments use incompatible tools and processes, making it nearly impossible to maintain consistent oversight in AI initiatives.Manual processes dominate despite digital transformation. 55% of enterprises still rely on manual processes – including spreadsheets and email – to manage AI use case intake. The reliance on antiquated methods creates bottlenecks, increases the likelihood of errors, and makes it difficult to scale AI operations.Lack of standardisation hampers progress. Only 23% of organisations implement standardised intake, development, and model management processes. Without these elements, each AI project becomes a unique challenge requiring custom solutions and extensive coordination by multiple teams.Enterprise-level oversight remains rare Just 14% of companies perform AI assurance at the enterprise level, increasing the risk of duplicated efforts and inconsistent oversight. The lack of centralised governance means organisations often discover they’re solving the same problems multiple times in different departments.The governance revolution: From obstacle to acceleratorA change is taking place in how enterprises view AI governance. Rather than seeing it as a compliance burden that slows innovation, forward-thinking organisations recognise governance as an important enabler of scale and speed.Leadership alignment signals strategic shift. The ModelOp benchmark data reveals a change in organisational structure: 46% of companies now assign accountability for AI governance to a Chief Innovation Officer – more than four times the number who place accountability under Legal or Compliance. This strategic repositioning reflects a new understanding that governance isn’t solely about risk management, but can enable innovation.Investment follows strategic priority. A financial commitment to AI governance underscores its importance. According to the report, 36% of enterprises have budgeted at least million annually for AI governance software, while 54% have allocated resources specifically for AI Portfolio Intelligence to track value and ROI.What high-performing organisations do differentlyThe enterprises that successfully bridge the ‘execution gap’ share several characteristics in their approach to AI implementation:Standardised processes from day one. Leading organisations implement standardised intake, development, and model review processes in AI initiatives. Consistency eliminates the need to reinvent workflows for each project and ensures that all stakeholders understand their responsibilities.Centralised documentation and inventory. Rather than allowing AI assets to proliferate in disconnected systems, successful enterprises maintain centralised inventories that provide visibility into every model’s status, performance, and compliance posture.Automated governance checkpoints. High-performing organisations embed automated governance checkpoints throughout the AI lifecycle, helping ensure compliance requirements and risk assessments are addressed systematically rather than as afterthoughts.End-to-end traceability. Leading enterprises maintain complete traceability of their AI models, including data sources, training methods, validation results, and performance metrics.Measurable impact of structured governanceThe benefits of implementing comprehensive AI governance extend beyond compliance. Organisations that adopt lifecycle automation platforms reportedly see dramatic improvements in operational efficiency and business outcomes.A financial services firm profiled in the ModelOp report experienced a halving of time to production and an 80% reduction in issue resolution time after implementing automated governance processes. Such improvements translate directly into faster time-to-value and increased confidence among business stakeholders.Enterprises with robust governance frameworks report the ability to many times more models simultaneously while maintaining oversight and control. This scalability lets organisations pursue AI initiatives in multiple business units without overwhelming their operational capabilities.The path forward: From stuck to scaledThe message from industry leaders that the gap between AI ambition and execution is solvable, but it requires a shift in approach. Rather than treating governance as a necessary evil, enterprises should realise it enables AI innovation at scale.Immediate action items for AI leadersOrganisations looking to escape the ‘time-to-market quagmire’ should prioritise the following:Audit current state: Conduct an assessment of existing AI initiatives, identifying fragmented processes and manual bottlenecksStandardise workflows: Implement consistent processes for AI use case intake, development, and deployment in all business unitsInvest in integration: Deploy platforms to unify disparate tools and systems under a single governance frameworkEstablish enterprise oversight: Create centralised visibility into all AI initiatives with real-time monitoring and reporting abilitiesThe competitive advantage of getting it rightOrganisations that can solve the execution challenge will be able to bring AI solutions to market faster, scale more efficiently, and maintain the trust of stakeholders and regulators.Enterprises that continue with fragmented processes and manual workflows will find themselves disadvantaged compared to their more organised competitors. Operational excellence isn’t about efficiency but survival.The data shows enterprise AI investment will continue to grow. Therefore, the question isn’t whether organisations will invest in AI, but whether they’ll develop the operational abilities necessary to realise return on investment. The opportunity to lead in the AI-driven economy has never been greater for those willing to embrace governance as an enabler not an obstacle.
    #execution #gap #why #projects #dont
    The AI execution gap: Why 80% of projects don’t reach production
    Enterprise artificial intelligence investment is unprecedented, with IDC projecting global spending on AI and GenAI to double to billion by 2028. Yet beneath the impressive budget allocations and boardroom enthusiasm lies a troubling reality: most organisations struggle to translate their AI ambitions into operational success.The sobering statistics behind AI’s promiseModelOp’s 2025 AI Governance Benchmark Report, based on input from 100 senior AI and data leaders at Fortune 500 enterprises, reveals a disconnect between aspiration and execution.While more than 80% of enterprises have 51 or more generative AI projects in proposal phases, only 18% have successfully deployed more than 20 models into production.The execution gap represents one of the most significant challenges facing enterprise AI today. Most generative AI projects still require 6 to 18 months to go live – if they reach production at all.The result is delayed returns on investment, frustrated stakeholders, and diminished confidence in AI initiatives in the enterprise.The cause: Structural, not technical barriersThe biggest obstacles preventing AI scalability aren’t technical limitations – they’re structural inefficiencies plaguing enterprise operations. The ModelOp benchmark report identifies several problems that create what experts call a “time-to-market quagmire.”Fragmented systems plague implementation. 58% of organisations cite fragmented systems as the top obstacle to adopting governance platforms. Fragmentation creates silos where different departments use incompatible tools and processes, making it nearly impossible to maintain consistent oversight in AI initiatives.Manual processes dominate despite digital transformation. 55% of enterprises still rely on manual processes – including spreadsheets and email – to manage AI use case intake. The reliance on antiquated methods creates bottlenecks, increases the likelihood of errors, and makes it difficult to scale AI operations.Lack of standardisation hampers progress. Only 23% of organisations implement standardised intake, development, and model management processes. Without these elements, each AI project becomes a unique challenge requiring custom solutions and extensive coordination by multiple teams.Enterprise-level oversight remains rare Just 14% of companies perform AI assurance at the enterprise level, increasing the risk of duplicated efforts and inconsistent oversight. The lack of centralised governance means organisations often discover they’re solving the same problems multiple times in different departments.The governance revolution: From obstacle to acceleratorA change is taking place in how enterprises view AI governance. Rather than seeing it as a compliance burden that slows innovation, forward-thinking organisations recognise governance as an important enabler of scale and speed.Leadership alignment signals strategic shift. The ModelOp benchmark data reveals a change in organisational structure: 46% of companies now assign accountability for AI governance to a Chief Innovation Officer – more than four times the number who place accountability under Legal or Compliance. This strategic repositioning reflects a new understanding that governance isn’t solely about risk management, but can enable innovation.Investment follows strategic priority. A financial commitment to AI governance underscores its importance. According to the report, 36% of enterprises have budgeted at least million annually for AI governance software, while 54% have allocated resources specifically for AI Portfolio Intelligence to track value and ROI.What high-performing organisations do differentlyThe enterprises that successfully bridge the ‘execution gap’ share several characteristics in their approach to AI implementation:Standardised processes from day one. Leading organisations implement standardised intake, development, and model review processes in AI initiatives. Consistency eliminates the need to reinvent workflows for each project and ensures that all stakeholders understand their responsibilities.Centralised documentation and inventory. Rather than allowing AI assets to proliferate in disconnected systems, successful enterprises maintain centralised inventories that provide visibility into every model’s status, performance, and compliance posture.Automated governance checkpoints. High-performing organisations embed automated governance checkpoints throughout the AI lifecycle, helping ensure compliance requirements and risk assessments are addressed systematically rather than as afterthoughts.End-to-end traceability. Leading enterprises maintain complete traceability of their AI models, including data sources, training methods, validation results, and performance metrics.Measurable impact of structured governanceThe benefits of implementing comprehensive AI governance extend beyond compliance. Organisations that adopt lifecycle automation platforms reportedly see dramatic improvements in operational efficiency and business outcomes.A financial services firm profiled in the ModelOp report experienced a halving of time to production and an 80% reduction in issue resolution time after implementing automated governance processes. Such improvements translate directly into faster time-to-value and increased confidence among business stakeholders.Enterprises with robust governance frameworks report the ability to many times more models simultaneously while maintaining oversight and control. This scalability lets organisations pursue AI initiatives in multiple business units without overwhelming their operational capabilities.The path forward: From stuck to scaledThe message from industry leaders that the gap between AI ambition and execution is solvable, but it requires a shift in approach. Rather than treating governance as a necessary evil, enterprises should realise it enables AI innovation at scale.Immediate action items for AI leadersOrganisations looking to escape the ‘time-to-market quagmire’ should prioritise the following:Audit current state: Conduct an assessment of existing AI initiatives, identifying fragmented processes and manual bottlenecksStandardise workflows: Implement consistent processes for AI use case intake, development, and deployment in all business unitsInvest in integration: Deploy platforms to unify disparate tools and systems under a single governance frameworkEstablish enterprise oversight: Create centralised visibility into all AI initiatives with real-time monitoring and reporting abilitiesThe competitive advantage of getting it rightOrganisations that can solve the execution challenge will be able to bring AI solutions to market faster, scale more efficiently, and maintain the trust of stakeholders and regulators.Enterprises that continue with fragmented processes and manual workflows will find themselves disadvantaged compared to their more organised competitors. Operational excellence isn’t about efficiency but survival.The data shows enterprise AI investment will continue to grow. Therefore, the question isn’t whether organisations will invest in AI, but whether they’ll develop the operational abilities necessary to realise return on investment. The opportunity to lead in the AI-driven economy has never been greater for those willing to embrace governance as an enabler not an obstacle. #execution #gap #why #projects #dont
    The AI execution gap: Why 80% of projects don’t reach production
    www.artificialintelligence-news.com
    Enterprise artificial intelligence investment is unprecedented, with IDC projecting global spending on AI and GenAI to double to $631 billion by 2028. Yet beneath the impressive budget allocations and boardroom enthusiasm lies a troubling reality: most organisations struggle to translate their AI ambitions into operational success.The sobering statistics behind AI’s promiseModelOp’s 2025 AI Governance Benchmark Report, based on input from 100 senior AI and data leaders at Fortune 500 enterprises, reveals a disconnect between aspiration and execution.While more than 80% of enterprises have 51 or more generative AI projects in proposal phases, only 18% have successfully deployed more than 20 models into production.The execution gap represents one of the most significant challenges facing enterprise AI today. Most generative AI projects still require 6 to 18 months to go live – if they reach production at all.The result is delayed returns on investment, frustrated stakeholders, and diminished confidence in AI initiatives in the enterprise.The cause: Structural, not technical barriersThe biggest obstacles preventing AI scalability aren’t technical limitations – they’re structural inefficiencies plaguing enterprise operations. The ModelOp benchmark report identifies several problems that create what experts call a “time-to-market quagmire.”Fragmented systems plague implementation. 58% of organisations cite fragmented systems as the top obstacle to adopting governance platforms. Fragmentation creates silos where different departments use incompatible tools and processes, making it nearly impossible to maintain consistent oversight in AI initiatives.Manual processes dominate despite digital transformation. 55% of enterprises still rely on manual processes – including spreadsheets and email – to manage AI use case intake. The reliance on antiquated methods creates bottlenecks, increases the likelihood of errors, and makes it difficult to scale AI operations.Lack of standardisation hampers progress. Only 23% of organisations implement standardised intake, development, and model management processes. Without these elements, each AI project becomes a unique challenge requiring custom solutions and extensive coordination by multiple teams.Enterprise-level oversight remains rare Just 14% of companies perform AI assurance at the enterprise level, increasing the risk of duplicated efforts and inconsistent oversight. The lack of centralised governance means organisations often discover they’re solving the same problems multiple times in different departments.The governance revolution: From obstacle to acceleratorA change is taking place in how enterprises view AI governance. Rather than seeing it as a compliance burden that slows innovation, forward-thinking organisations recognise governance as an important enabler of scale and speed.Leadership alignment signals strategic shift. The ModelOp benchmark data reveals a change in organisational structure: 46% of companies now assign accountability for AI governance to a Chief Innovation Officer – more than four times the number who place accountability under Legal or Compliance. This strategic repositioning reflects a new understanding that governance isn’t solely about risk management, but can enable innovation.Investment follows strategic priority. A financial commitment to AI governance underscores its importance. According to the report, 36% of enterprises have budgeted at least $1 million annually for AI governance software, while 54% have allocated resources specifically for AI Portfolio Intelligence to track value and ROI.What high-performing organisations do differentlyThe enterprises that successfully bridge the ‘execution gap’ share several characteristics in their approach to AI implementation:Standardised processes from day one. Leading organisations implement standardised intake, development, and model review processes in AI initiatives. Consistency eliminates the need to reinvent workflows for each project and ensures that all stakeholders understand their responsibilities.Centralised documentation and inventory. Rather than allowing AI assets to proliferate in disconnected systems, successful enterprises maintain centralised inventories that provide visibility into every model’s status, performance, and compliance posture.Automated governance checkpoints. High-performing organisations embed automated governance checkpoints throughout the AI lifecycle, helping ensure compliance requirements and risk assessments are addressed systematically rather than as afterthoughts.End-to-end traceability. Leading enterprises maintain complete traceability of their AI models, including data sources, training methods, validation results, and performance metrics.Measurable impact of structured governanceThe benefits of implementing comprehensive AI governance extend beyond compliance. Organisations that adopt lifecycle automation platforms reportedly see dramatic improvements in operational efficiency and business outcomes.A financial services firm profiled in the ModelOp report experienced a halving of time to production and an 80% reduction in issue resolution time after implementing automated governance processes. Such improvements translate directly into faster time-to-value and increased confidence among business stakeholders.Enterprises with robust governance frameworks report the ability to many times more models simultaneously while maintaining oversight and control. This scalability lets organisations pursue AI initiatives in multiple business units without overwhelming their operational capabilities.The path forward: From stuck to scaledThe message from industry leaders that the gap between AI ambition and execution is solvable, but it requires a shift in approach. Rather than treating governance as a necessary evil, enterprises should realise it enables AI innovation at scale.Immediate action items for AI leadersOrganisations looking to escape the ‘time-to-market quagmire’ should prioritise the following:Audit current state: Conduct an assessment of existing AI initiatives, identifying fragmented processes and manual bottlenecksStandardise workflows: Implement consistent processes for AI use case intake, development, and deployment in all business unitsInvest in integration: Deploy platforms to unify disparate tools and systems under a single governance frameworkEstablish enterprise oversight: Create centralised visibility into all AI initiatives with real-time monitoring and reporting abilitiesThe competitive advantage of getting it rightOrganisations that can solve the execution challenge will be able to bring AI solutions to market faster, scale more efficiently, and maintain the trust of stakeholders and regulators.Enterprises that continue with fragmented processes and manual workflows will find themselves disadvantaged compared to their more organised competitors. Operational excellence isn’t about efficiency but survival.The data shows enterprise AI investment will continue to grow. Therefore, the question isn’t whether organisations will invest in AI, but whether they’ll develop the operational abilities necessary to realise return on investment. The opportunity to lead in the AI-driven economy has never been greater for those willing to embrace governance as an enabler not an obstacle.(Image source: Unsplash)
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