Product Engineering Archives

The Power of Salesforce Integrations

The Power of Salesforce Integrations: Improving Business Processes and Driving Growth.

Salesforce is one of the most popular customer relationship management (CRM) platforms on the market, used by businesses of all sizes and industries. However, to get the most out of Salesforce, it’s essential to integrate it with other systems and applications.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the benefits of Salesforce Integrations, discuss common integrations, provide key considerations, share case studies, and look at the future of Salesforce integrations.

Understanding Salesforce Integrations

Salesforce integrations involve connecting Salesforce with other systems and applications to streamline business processes, improve data accuracy, and enhance user experience.

There are two main types of Salesforce integrations:

Point-To-Point
Middleware-Based

Point-to-point integrations connect Salesforce directly to another system or application, while Middleware-based integrations use an intermediary platform to manage data flow between systems.

Common Salesforce Integrations

There are many different systems and applications that can be integrated with Salesforce, depending on a business’s needs.

Some of the most common integrations include:

Marketing Automation Platforms
Customer Support Systems
Financial Management Software
Human Resources Platform

For example, integrating Salesforce with a marketing automation platform like Marketo can improve lead generation and management by automatically syncing leads and contacts between the two platforms.

Integrating Salesforce with a customer support system like Zendesk can improve customer service by providing agents with a complete view of customer interactions and history.

And integrating Salesforce with financial management software like QuickBooks can improve accounting and billing processes by automatically syncing customer data and invoices.

Key Considerations for Salesforce Integrations

When planning a Salesforce integration, there are several important factors to consider, such as data security, data mapping, and data syncing. It’s essential to ensure that sensitive customer data is protected during the integration process and that data is mapped accurately between systems to avoid data discrepancies.

Additionally, it’s important to determine the frequency and method of data syncing to ensure that data is up-to-date and accurate.

An earlier published article of ours shed some light on the basics of Salesforce understanding.

Tarams’ Salesforce Integration Offerings

Our dynamic team comprising developers, designers, and subject matter experts ensures the smooth development and administration of processes and modules in Salesforce. We pride ourselves in our Advanced Salesforce Capabilities to build custom solutions tailored to suit the client’s needs.

Many companies have successfully integrated Salesforce with other systems and applications to improve their business processes and drive growth through our Salesforce Integration Services

Case Study 1

A Bay Area-based software company used Salesforce to manage its sales process but struggled to manage customer support tickets efficiently.

We integrated Salesforce with a customer support system (Freshdesk) and we were able to:

Streamline Ticket Management,
Improve Customer Satisfaction, and
Increase Customer Retention

The new system was able to efficiently segregate tickets based on priority and the customer’s churn was drastically reduced.

Case Study 2

A financial services company based out of the UK used Salesforce to manage its sales pipeline but struggled to manage financial data accurately.

By integrating Salesforce with a financial management system called Sage Intacct, they were able to improve financial reporting and analysis, reduce manual data entry, and increase efficiency.

Future of Salesforce Integrations

The future of Salesforce integrations is bright, with new innovations such as AI and machine learning driving even more automation and efficiency.

For example, Salesforce is developing a new AI-powered integration platform called Einstein Automate, which will automate repetitive tasks and streamline data flows between systems.

Additionally, new integrations with emerging technologies such as blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT) will provide even more opportunities to drive business growth and innovation.

In Summation

Salesforce integrations are essential for businesses that want to get the most out of their CRM platform. By integrating Salesforce with other systems and applications, businesses can streamline their processes, improve data accuracy, and enhance user experience. As new technologies emerge and the integration landscape evolves, businesses that stay up-to-date on the latest trends and innovations will be best positioned for success.

Tarams Software Technologies Pvt Ltd. is a software services company bridging the gap between ideas and successful products. Our combined experience in diverse domains and technology, paired with a keen eye on current technological advancements, results in the right mix you need for your business to grow.

Learning Management System (LMS) – An Overview

What is an LMS?

LMS stands for Learning Management System. It is a software platform that allows organizations to manage, deliver, and track their training and development programs online. An LMS provides a centralized location for learners to access course materials, take assessments, and receive feedback, while also providing administrators with tools to create, manage and track the progress of courses and learners.

An LMS can be used for a variety of purposes, including employee training and development, compliance training, and education in academic settings.

LMS can also provide reporting and analytics on the performance of learners and the effectiveness of training programs, which can be used to improve the learning experience and drive better outcomes.

What is DevOps?What are some of an LMS’s Key Features?

A top-notch Learning Management System (LMS) will have the following key features:

User-Friendly Interface:- A user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate is essential for an LMS. It should be intuitive and visually appealing, with clear instructions and access to support resources.
Customization and Branding:- An LMS that allows for customization and branding enables organizations to create a unique learning experience that aligns with their brand and culture.
Mobile Compatibility:- With the increasing use of mobile devices, a top-notch LMS should be accessible from mobile devices, with a responsive design that adjusts to different screen sizes.
Content Creation and Management:- The LMS should have tools for creating and managing content, including the ability to upload and share a variety of media formats, such as video, audio, and interactive content.
Personalization:- An LMS should provide personalized learning paths for each user, based on their learning style, preferences, and performance.
Assessment and Reporting:- An LMS should have robust assessment and reporting capabilities that enable organizations to track learner progress and evaluate the effectiveness of their training programs.
Gamification:- Gamification features such as badges, rewards, and leaderboards can make learning more engaging and motivate learners to complete their training.
Social Learning:- An LMS that incorporates social learning features such as discussion forums and peer-to-peer collaboration can enhance the learning experience and promote knowledge sharing.
Integration with Other Systems:- A top-notch LMS should be able to integrate with other systems such as HR and performance management systems to provide a seamless learning and development experience.

Overall, A good LMS should provide a comprehensive and customizable learning experience that is accessible from any device, promotes engagement and retention, and enables organizations to track learner progress and evaluate the effectiveness of their training programs.

LMS in 2023

A well-devised and thought Learning Management System, has been and will continue to be a game-changer in the education and training industry. In 2023, LMSs are expected to continue to benefit the industry in several ways, including:

Enhanced Learning Experience:- With LMS, learners can access their courses from anywhere, at any time, using any device. LMS allows for a personalized and adaptive learning experience, with interactive and engaging content that promotes retention and knowledge transfer.
Increased Efficiency:- LMS enables organizations to streamline their training process by automating tasks such as registration, course delivery, and assessment. This leads to increased efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Better Tracking and Reporting:- LMS provides detailed tracking and reporting on learner progress and performance, allowing organizations to identify knowledge gaps and measure the effectiveness of their training programs.
Improved Compliance:- LMS helps organizations ensure compliance with industry regulations and standards by providing a centralized platform for training and certification.
Scalability:- LMS allows organizations to scale their training programs as they grow, without the need for additional infrastructure or resources.

Overall, Learning Management Systems will continue to benefit the industry in 2023 by providing a flexible, efficient, and effective solution for managing and delivering training programs. Look out for our next feature explaining our take on the current trends in LMS.

Tarams and LMS

Designing a good Learning Management System (LMS) requires a thorough understanding of the needs and goals of the company and its learners.

We here at Tarams offer a range of LMS solutions, including:

Cloud-Based,
On-Premise,
Open-Source, and
Mobile-Enabled platforms.

We believe it is important to conduct research and evaluate the specific features and capabilities of each solution to determine which one best meets the needs of your organization. Our association with Ed-Techs and Data Management Companies implementing LMSs has honed our skills to perfection and we will definitely be the right partner for all your LMS needs.

Digital Transformation- Its Importance and How Tarams Can Help

Digital Transformation – Today

In the modern world, technology is rapidly changing the way we live and do business. The rise of the digital age has brought with it new opportunities and challenges, and companies that want to remain competitive and relevant in today’s fast-paced business environment must adapt. This is where digital transformation comes in, and it has become a crucial aspect of success for companies of all sizes and industries.

In this blog, we will explore the importance of digital transformation and how we at Tarams, an IT solutions company can help.

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, resulting in fundamental changes to how the business operates and delivers value to customers. It is a strategic process that enables organizations to take advantage of new opportunities created by technology and respond to the changing demands of customers.

Digital transformation can involve the implementation of new technologies, such as Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet of Things, as well as the rethinking of business processes, organizational structures, and customer engagement strategies.

Why is Digital Transformation Important?

The importance of digital transformation can be seen in its ability to improve efficiency, drive innovation, and enhance customer experiences. Here are some of the key benefits of digital transformation:

Increased Efficiency: Digital transformation can help organizations streamline their processes and reduce manual tasks, freeing up time and resources to focus on more important aspects of the business. Automating manual processes and reducing the need for manual data entry can also help to minimize the risk of human error.
Improved Customer Experience: With the rise of digital technology, customers now expect seamless and personalized experiences across all channels. Digital transformation can help companies to understand their customers better, provide them with personalized experiences, and build stronger relationships with them.
Enhanced Innovation: Digital transformation can help companies to explore new business models and create new products and services. It also enables organizations to adopt new technologies and tools that can help them to innovate and stay ahead of the competition.
Increased Agility: Digital transformation can help organizations to quickly respond to changes in the market and adapt to new trends and technologies. This can help them to remain competitive and relevant in a rapidly changing business environment.
Improved Collaboration: Digital transformation can improve communication and collaboration within an organization, making it easier for employees to work together and share information. This can help to increase productivity and drive innovation.

How Tarams Can Help

We here at Tarams can play a critical role in supporting organizations in their digital transformation journeys. We can help companies to assess their current technology landscape, identify areas for improvement, and implement new technologies and solutions that can drive digital transformation. Here are some of the ways our IT solutions can help:

Technology Assessment:

We will help organizations to assess their current technology landscape and identify areas for improvement. This can involve reviewing existing systems and processes, as well as looking at new technologies that can help to drive digital transformation.

Strategy Development:

Tarams will help organizations to develop a digital transformation strategy that is aligned with their business goals and objectives. This can involve identifying the key technologies and solutions that will support digital transformation, as well as developing a roadmap for implementation.

Technology Implementation:

We help organizations to implement new technologies and solutions that support digital transformation. This can involve the deployment of cloud computing solutions, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things, as well as the integration of these technologies with existing systems and processes.

Process Improvement:

Tarams years of experience will help companies to re-evaluate their business processes and identify areas for improvement. This can involve the automation of manual tasks among others.

Tarams’ Area of Expertise

Our Product Engineering and Data Science & Engineering teams are well-equipped to assess, recommend, design, implement, and scale your product ideas.

Product engineering involves collaboration between various teams, including designers, engineers, and software developers to create a product that meets the required specifications. The process typically starts with market research to identify customer needs and understand the competition.

This information is then used to inform the design and development of the product, which may involve the creation of prototypes, MVPs, and the testing of the product’s performance and functionality.

Data Science & Engineering includes a wide range of activities, including data collection, data cleaning and preprocessing, data visualization, and the development and deployment of machine learning models. The goal of Data Science & Engineering is to turn raw data into actionable insights that can inform business decisions and support data-driven decision-making.

Data Science & Engineering plays a critical role in a wide range of industries, including finance, healthcare, retail, and technology. For these industries, our data scientists and engineers work to develop algorithms and models that can be used to predict customer behavior, optimize business processes, and inform strategic decisions.

We are always ears for any challenge thrown our way. We love complex problems and unraveling stagnated processes so we can help you on your journey of Digital Transformation toward a scalable and successful future.

Product Engineering Team

Applications (Apps) – An effective business tool for Startups

In the Beginning.

A startup is built on an idea or solution to fill a void in the market. This idea or solution combined with the right team for Product Development and Data Engineering will usually result in a successful growth story.

However, many startups fail to reach their goals, but a strong business plan and understanding of the market can increase the chances of success. Consultants, agencies, and enterprises that specialize in helping startups can provide valuable domain knowledge and business acumen to ensure the best return on investment.

Then there were Apps.

The early stages of a business can be difficult, and many startups fail to establish a solid foundation.

However, combining proven strategies in product development and tools with experienced organizations and data engineering can help a startup achieve its objectives. One such tool is a well-designed Application (app), which can provide numerous benefits for a startup. Apps are an invaluable and critical value add for any business trying to break into the tech market.

Value Add to Customers

Having a well-designed app can provide value to customers by offering them access to the information, support, and product updates they need. An app can provide this information more efficiently than traditional methods, making it an improved value add for a business. It can also help to improve the overall customer experience by providing them with easy access to the information and support they need.

Stand Out amongst Competitors

Customers are always looking for the best company to provide the services they need, and a well-designed app can be an effective way to showcase a company’s services and offerings. By providing a clear and precise view of what a company has to offer, an app can help a startup differentiate itself from other companies in the same field. When used effectively, an app can be a powerful tool for attracting potential customers and standing out among competitors.

An Effective Marketing Tool

An app can be an effective marketing tool for a customer or client-centric business. By providing an effective communication channel through the app, a startup can easily share information about its services and offerings with potential customers. An app can also be used to showcase the company and its products, helping to generate interest and awareness among potential customers. Overall, an app can be a powerful tool for marketing a startup and increasing its visibility in the marketplace.

Develop Customer Loyalty

Having an app that is part of a customer’s daily routine can be an effective way to develop customer commitment and loyalty. In today’s challenging business environment, customer retention and loyalty are crucial for the success of any company or enterprise. By making the app a regular part of a customer’s digital life, a startup can keep its products and services top of mind, increasing loyalty and expanding the company’s customer base. An app can be a valuable tool for building customer commitment and promoting the success of a business.

Product Engineering to the Rescue!

Tarams is a company that specializes in Web and Mobile App Development. Our Product Engineering and Data Science & Data Engineering teams have expertise in developing and delivering enterprise mobility solutions, with a focus on native and hybrid apps.

We are known for our ability to deliver highly secure and scalable applications, setting us apart from other companies in the market. Our commitment to sustainability and functionality makes us a top choice for businesses seeking high-quality app development services.

Product Engineering Team

The Criticality of UX and UI in Product Development

UX and UI in Product Development

The User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) Design are crucial phases in any Product Development Process. The UX/UI and Graphic Designers need to have a deep understanding of their target users’ expectations and mindset in order to create an engaging and meaningful User Experience. This combined with a creative and enthusiastic approach, along with research and knowledge about the product and its potential market, is key to designing a successful product.

Let’s break that down into smaller understandable bits:

A System of Visual Design

A system of Visual Design is a key aspect of UX/UI design. Designers must ensure that all elements of the design are well thought out and executed. The Design should be simple and straightforward, avoiding overly complex designs that may lead users to believe that there is a hidden flaw or error being concealed.

Designers should also be mindful of the purpose of the design, market perception, and individual preferences, rather than simply following current design trends. It is important for designers to strike a balance between using the right tools and having the right attitude toward solving problems for users.

The Groundwork

At the start of a project, UX/UI designers should have a clear understanding of the objective of the project. They should gather as much information as possible about the project and its components, including the particular campaign, function, product, and message. This will help designers outline the scope of the project and develop a comprehensive understanding of its purpose.

The Approach

Designers must have a Visual Design Approach that is both common and unique, taking inspiration from their everyday experiences and surroundings.

The design should be expressed through

visuals,
message,
tone, and
graphics

which are tailored to the target audience.

Designers must also consider the relationship between images and words and whether they work together effectively. For example, the inclusion of captivating words is crucial for a movie poster to attract viewers.

Keep on Practicing

Practice is important for UX/UI designers.

They should constantly be aware of what they see and experience in their daily lives, incorporating these experiences into their designs. This leads to a unique perspective that evolves into a meaningful and impactful product.

A product that is well-designed and convenient to use is highly valued by customers. A unique design that stands out from the rest is often appreciated and can lead to quick success.

Designers should aim to design a product that is exceptional and forces users to engage with it. Offering a free sign-up option is a great way to attract users and gain their trust. Feedback from users is also important for UX/UI designers, providing them with motivation to continuously improve their work. Negative feedback should be absorbed and used as an opportunity for growth and learning.

It's a Wrap

In conclusion, UX/UI designers must stay up-to-date with the latest technology and design trends while also considering the needs of their users. A successful UX designer is able to understand the ideas of their target users and effectively communicate their work. By assisting users in gaining transparency about the product, designers can ensure that expectations are met after the project is completed.

Our Designers and Engineers here at Tarams, are at the helm of understanding the needs of our customers more effectively than most service providers. This stems from having dealt with and dealing with clientele across domains and across geographies. Our Product Engineering team along with our exceptional Design Team are always quick on their step in learning and understanding our customers’ needs and always ensure the Product Idea is well executed into a Product Ecosystem.

Product Engineering Team

Tarams Software Technologies Pvt Ltd

MVPs – The First Step For Launching Your Product

Introduction

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a concept that involves launching a scaled-down version of a product with the most essential features to test its market viability and gather feedback from end users. This allows entrepreneurs to understand the market and customer needs, prioritize features, and fine-tune the product before scaling it to a full launch. MVPs are crucial for the success of a product as they provide a safe environment for testing and analysis, and can help prevent early failure by providing a better understanding of the product’s value and potential. By testing MVPs before launching, entrepreneurs can improve their chances of success by making data-driven decisions based on market analysis and user feedback.

Let us break down the steps of an MVP launch

Step 1: The Groundwork

Before launching any product, it is important to conduct market research to understand the needs and wants of the target customer and to identify any gaps or inadequacies in the current market offerings. This research can help inform important decisions such as pricing, positioning, and messaging for the product. Additionally, it is important to understand the key benefits of the product and the reasons why customers would choose to purchase it over competitors. This knowledge can help inform the development and marketing of the MVP and the final product.

Step 2: Get your Priorities right

Once you start developing the MVP, it is important to prioritize the features based on their importance to the end-user. This means identifying which features are essential for the MVP to be functional and which are nice to have but can be added later. The most critical feature should be the focus, as it is the one that will provide the most value to the user and test the viability of the product in the market. Prioritizing the features in this way ensures that the MVP is a minimal but fully functional version of the final product. It also allows the team to focus on the most important aspects of the product and gather feedback on them before moving on to less critical features.

Step 3: Let’s Talk Design!

User Interface (UI) plays a crucial role in the success of a product. A well-designed UI can make it easy for users to interact with the product and understand its features, while a poorly designed UI can make it difficult for users to use the product and lead to frustration and abandonment. During the MVP stage, it is important to pay attention to the UI design and make sure it is intuitive and user-friendly.

Keep in mind that the design process is evolving, and the MVP should be considered as a starting point. Once the MVP is launched and feedback is gathered from users, the design can be fine-tuned and improved based on that feedback. This allows the team to iteratively improve the product and increase its chances of success in the market.

Step 4: GO GO GO!

After designing the MVP, there are several steps that can be taken to launch it:

Test the MVP: Before launching, it’s important to test the MVP internally and with a small group of users to ensure that it is functional and user-friendly. This can help identify any bugs or usability issues that need to be addressed.
Build a landing page: Create a landing page for your MVP that provides information about the product, its features, and how to sign up or purchase it. This can help generate interest and build a mailing list of early adopters before launch.
Get feedback: Reach out to potential users, customers, and industry experts to gather feedback on the MVP. This can help identify areas for improvement and validate your assumptions about the product.
Get the word out: Use social media, email marketing, PR, and other channels to promote the MVP and build buzz around its launch.
Launch: Once you’ve tested, refined, and promoted the MVP, it’s time to launch it to the public. This can be done through an official launch event or by making it available for purchase or sign-up on the landing page.
Monitor and iterate: After launch, it’s important to monitor the MVP’s performance and gather feedback from users. Use this feedback to identify areas for improvement and make updates to the MVP.

Conclusion

It is important to keep in mind that an MVP is not a one-time event, it’s a journey of learning, testing, and iteration. So, it’s important to keep monitoring and gathering feedback from the users, even after the MVP is launched.

We here at Tarams have been at the helm of launching various MVPs over the past two decades. We have been a successful, process-oriented, and result-based organization that ensures its clients the best of service.

Our Data Science and Product Engineering teams populated by technology enthusiasts, designers, developers, and entrepreneurs form the core of our USP in securing and assisting the goals and visions of enterprises and startups alike.

Product Engineering Team

Tarams Software Technologies Pvt Ltd

Google OAuth Review Process – for Restricted Scopes

What is OAuth ?

OAuth (Open Authorization) is an open standard authorization framework for token-based authorization on the internet. It enables an end user’s account information to be used by third-party services, such as Facebook and Google, without exposing the user’s account credentials to the third party.

Google OAuth Review Process

You are likely to receive an email as depicted here if you are an API developer.
The process can be broadly divided into two phases:

1. The OAuth review process
2. The security assessment

If your app accesses Gmail’s restricted scopes, you have to go through both these phases. More details here

1. The OAuth review process

It starts with initiating the review process on your Google Developer Console. You will have to go through a questionnaire which is mostly about helping Google understand the usage of the restricted scopes in your app. You only have to do this for the production version of the app. Lower environments can be marked as “internal” and they need not go through this process.

After you initiate the review, Google’s security team will reach out to you requesting a YouTube video to demonstrate the usage of restricted scopes in your app. Once you share the video, Google will either respond with an approval or a feedback email requesting more information/changes. We had some feedback from Google and we had to share a couple of videos before we got an approval from Google.

Listed below are a few pointers which might help you to reduce feedback from Google.

Google usually takes a long time to respond in this regard. Despite multiple follow ups we had to wait for a month or two to get response for some of these emails – Possibly because they had a lot of requests from app developers during that time.
Also, in general we felt there was some disconnect in their responses as it looked like every response from our end was reviewed by a different person at Google – we received an email stating that we have missed the deadline for initiating the security assessment weeks after we had initiated the process. However, Google did acknowledge the mistake on their end after we responded with the SOW that was already executed.

Follow the design guidelines given by Google for styling the sign in button https://developers.google.com/identity/branding-guidelines#top_of_page
Have a web page for your app which people can access externally, without having to sign in.
Ensure that users have access to your Privacy policy page from your home page. A link to this should be given on sign in and users should only be allowed to proceed on accepting the privacy policy.

While recording the video, go through the “privacy policy” on sign in and demonstrate that users need to accept it before proceeding.
Your policy should explicitly quote the use of all restricted scopes.
The policy should also mention how and why the restricted scopes are being used. Who has access to this data and where is it stored? Can it be viewed by your support staff or it’s just used by the app and humans cannot access it.

While recording the video try to capture as much details as possible demonstrate the usage of Google’s restricted scope within your app.

Code walkthrough wherever necessary Ex. Fetching OAuth token and its use
Demonstrate the storage of sensitive data and usage of encryption

If Google is satisfied with all the details about your app and is convinced that your project is compliant with their policies, you will get an approval mail. You will also be informed if your app has to undergo a security assessment as depicted.

2. Security Assessment

The security assessment phase relatively involved more live discussions and meetings with the assessors and therefore the overall process is quicker. You have a dedicated team assigned to help you. Google gave us the contacts of 2 third-party security assessors.We reached out to both of them and felt that ‘Leviathan’ was better in terms of communication. They shared more information about the overall process and we were more comfortable going ahead with them.We had to fill in and sign a few documents before we got started, which involved

Filling up an SAQ(Self assessment questionnaire) – to understand about the app and the infrastructure.
Signing the SOW
Signing a mutual NDA

After which we made the payment and got started with the process. We had an initial introduction meeting where we were introduced to their team and our assessment process was scheduled. To give you a rough idea, our schedule was about 2 months after we had the initial discussions.As per the SOW, the assessment would include the following targets. These would possibly differ based on individual applications and the usage of the restricted scopes. For reference, our’s was an iOS app.

Website
RESTful APIs
Mobile Application (iOS)
External Facing Network
Developer Infrastructure
Policy & Procedure Documentation

The assessor would retest after we complete resolving all the vulnerabilities. The first retest is included in the SOW and additional retests are chargeable.The timeline we had before Google’s deadline was pretty tight and we wanted to understand from the assessor if we can do anything to increase our chances of getting it right on the first pass. The assessors were kind enough to share details about some of the tools they use for the penetration testing so that we could execute them ahead to understand where we stand and resolve as much as possible before the actual schedule.

Preparation for the assessment

As part of preparation for the assessment, you can use these tools which help you identify the vulnerabilities with your application and infrastructure. Also, ensuring that you have some basic policy documentation will save you some time.

Scoutsuite – It’s an open source multi-cloud security-auditing tool. You can execute this on your infrastructure. It will generate a report listing out all the vulnerabilities. Resolving as many as you can before the assessment would surely help.

Burpsuite – Burpsuite is not open source but you can either buy it or use the trial version. It’s a vulnerability scanner which scans all the API endpoints for security vulnerabilities. Executing Burpsuite and taking care of vulnerabilities marked as High or more will help significantly before going through the assessment. It’s recommended to run Burpsuite on your lower environments and NOT on production because Burpsuite tests every endpoint by calling it more than a thousand times. You will end up creating a lot of junk data on whichever environment you run Burpsuite on.

Policy Documentation – We were asked to share a whole set of documents before the assessment. We already had most of these documentations in place so it was not a problem for us. But, if you don’t have any documentation for your project, it would save some time to have some basic documentation for your project as a preparation. I have listed out a few here:

Software Development Guidelines
Network diagrams
Information security policy
Risk assessment policy
Incident response plan

We reached out to both of them and felt that ‘Leviathan’ was better in terms of communication. They shared more information about the overall process and we were more comfortable going ahead with them.

We had to fill in and sign a few documents before we got started, which involved

Filling up an SAQ(Self assessment questionnaire) – to understand about the app and the infrastructure.
Signing the SOW
Signing a mutual NDA

After which we made the payment and got started with the process. We had an initial introduction meeting where we were introduced to their team and our assessment process was scheduled. To give you a rough idea, our schedule was about 2 months after we had the initial discussions.

As per the SOW, the assessment would include the following targets. These would possibly differ based on individual applications and the usage of the restricted scopes. For reference, our’s was an iOS app.

Website
RESTful APIs
Mobile Application (iOS)
External Facing Network
Developer Infrastructure
Policy & Procedure Documentation

The assessor would retest after we complete resolving all the vulnerabilities. The first retest is included in the SOW and additional retests are chargeable.

The timeline we had before Google’s deadline was pretty tight and we wanted to understand from the assessor if we can do anything to increase our chances of getting it right on the first pass. The assessors were kind enough to share details about some of the tools they use for the penetration testing so that we could execute them ahead to understand where we stand and resolve as much as possible before the actual schedule.

Actual penetration testing from the assessor

The assessor initiated the process as per the schedule. The first thing they did was create a slack channel for communication with our team and theirs. We had to share with them the AppStore links, website details and necessary credentials for our infrastructure. They also shared a sharepoint folder for sharing all the documentation and reports. We started uploading all the necessary documents and in parallel they started the penetration testing and reviewing our infrastructure. Again, do NOT share the production environment for penetration testing as it will create a lot of junk data and may delete existing entities.

After two days of testing they shared an intermediate report and we started addressing the vulnerabilities. After about a week we got the final report of the vulnerabilities. We addressed all the vulnerabilities and shared the final report. Here are a few remediations that were suggested for us:

We had to add Contact details for users in our web page to report vulnerabilities
Enable Multi Factor authentication on our AWS logins
Requested for logs around Google OAuth token usage
Encryption on RDS, EBS volumes
Documentation demonstrating KMS(Key management system) usage.

Upon completion of the assessment, the assessor will provide a document containing the following components:

Executive summary, including a high-level summary of the analysis and findings and prioritized recommendations for remediation
A brief description of assessment methodologies.
A detailed discussion of analysis results, including relevant findings, risk levels, and recommended corrective action.
Appendices with relevant raw data, output, and reports from the analysis tools used during the engagement.

That was the end. Couple of days after the approval from the assessor, we got an approval email from Google.

Sentiment Analysis

A study on implementation towards resolving IT tickets

Need for Sentiment Analysis

The Internet today is used widely to express opinions, reviews and comments among other things. These are primarily expressed on various topics such as current affairs, social causes, movies, products, friend’s pictures, etc.

All these opinions, reviews and comments implicitly express a sentiment that the author was feeling at the time of its expression. These sentiments range from happiness, positivity, support to anger, disdain and sadness.

Studying and analyzing these sentiments are necessary for certain individuals or groups, particularly individuals or groups about whom these opinions are being expressed. This involves going through all the comments, reviews, and opinions to gather the information to study and analyze. Physically sifting through all the messages, comments and reviews is a laborious process and there are tools available which eases the burden albeit inefficiently.

This in brief is one of the needs for Sentiment Analysis

IT Tickets

Tickets, in this context – IT Tickets, or ‘Support Requests’ are generated daily across the globe in any organization which has a customer support system in place. These are mainly to resolve the various glitches, errors or downtimes experienced when using devices that are digitally connected. The tickets or requests contain, depending on the service provider, simple fields to report a problem with minimal words and/or screengrabs/screenshots. The tickets or requests are then put through the customer support system, and they go through resolution based on the process dictated by the organization.

In any customer support system, these requests are sorted and analyzed and resolved based on the process in place. A quick turnaround in resolving the ‘support requests’ is important to retain the customer base, as a happy customer is more likely to stick to a service than an unhappy one.

Sentiment Analysis for IT Tickets

This study documents our efforts in implementing ‘Sentiment Analysis’ to sort IT tickets in any organisation to achieve faster turnaround time and quicker resolution

Our Approach

The Support requests or IT Tickets come with various requests ranging from simple to complex. They also carry a variety of emotions ranging from mild annoyance to severe discontent. A mechanism to address ‘priority’ requests is essential to ensure that customers who are very unhappy or distressed be attended prior to others. Ensuring this priority and resolving these issues is proportional to the retention of the customer base.

In analyzing the different solutions available currently, Sentiment Analysis by virtue of its approach, stood out for detecting these ‘priority’ IT tickets and was used to achieve the desired results. The process was carried out without any human interaction, hence the quick detection of ‘unhappy’ or ‘priority’ requests resulted in a quick turnaround time for resolving the tickets.

Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment Analysis deals with identifying the hidden sentiment (positive, negative or neutral emotion) of a comment, review or opinion. It is extensively used these days to understand how the general populace is feeling about a movie, a product or an event.

Identifying ‘Sentiments’

IT Ticket comments come with descriptions that are usually short and sometimes precise. The ‘objective descriptions’ of these comments seem inherently negative, but are neutral in IT Support context.

A typical example is – “The program is throwing up an error“. This statement does not necessarily emote any sentiment. The challenge lies in ignoring the objective parts of the comment and concentrate on the ‘sentiment’ part expressed in the ‘subjective part’ of the IT Ticket. A typical example for that is – “This is terrible and I am frustrated”.

Segregation based on the above theory entails a complete understanding of the product and service for which the IT tickets are being raised. This understanding enables us to identify the words, phrases and sentences that are being used to describe the ‘undesirable behavior’ or ‘malfunctioning’ of the product or service.

This, to a layman, appears very straightforward and simple, but in reality poses a serious challenge in distinguishing between the objective and subjective parts of the issue or comment.

Choosing the RIGHT approach

The approach that we chose had to be able to work on the type and amount of data we had. It also needed to be easily tunable in the future. There are two popular approaches to implement Sentiment Analysis,

Machine Learning Based

In this approach, we needed to generate a vector representation of each comment and train a model with this vector as the ‘feature vector’ and the ‘sentiment’ of the comment as the target. The trained model then would predict the sentiment polarity score of a new comment feature vector, which is then fed into the model.

Keyword Based

Here we looked for keywords and assigned sentiment scores to the text, based on the sentiment values of the keywords.

We did not use the machine learning based approach as we did not have access to ample number of comments for the training; we were able to access only around 9000 comments of which very few – below 50, were manually classified as negative.

We chose to go with the Keyword Based Approach.

Keyword Based Approach

In the keyword based approach, we used a NLTK based library which assigned sentiment polarity scores ranging from -1 (most negative) to +1 (most positive) for pieces of text.

We filtered comments to remove artefacts like personal details, URLs, email addresses, logs and other metadata since these do not have any sentiment value. The text of the filtered comment was then used in the scoring process. If any sentence had a non-alphabet content greater than 25%, then it was not taken into consideration while scoring. Such sentences usually do not contribute to the sentiment polarity of the text – due to the texts usually not being dictionary words. For example, the snippet of code: C = A + B

We took a granular approach when assigning sentiment scores to text as we specifically wanted to ignore parts of text which seemed inherently negative, but were neutral in the IT support context. The approach we used was to divide each sentence in a comment into ‘Trigrams’.

A trigram is a window with just three consecutive words. This window was slid over the words in the sentence to identify constituent trigrams. We manually went through a large collection of comments and came up with trigrams which should not be assigned a sentiment value, in the IT support context.

Any such trigrams which showed up in a sentence were ignored. The remaining trigrams were scored and we took into consideration only trigrams which had a sentiment score that was significantly different from Zero. Also, if a sentence had less than three words in it, then a sentiment value for that sentence was calculated directly and if that score was significantly different from zero, it was used for calculating sentiment score for the comment. We also manually came up with a list of such sentences that we should ignore.

In adjacent trigrams with overlapping tokens; if their scores hadn’t changed much and the score for the common part contributed the vast majority of the trigram score, then only the first trigram’s score was taken into consideration. For example, let us consider the sentence “it is frustrating to have to go over this again.” Here, the trigrams “it is frustrating”, “is frustrating to” and “frustrating to have” all have a sentiment score of -0.4 and the word ‘frustrating’ alone contributes to that score. So, we just took into consideration the score for the first trigram above and ignored the other two.

All trigrams which satisfied the conditions mentioned above were collected along with their scores. If there are no such trigrams, a sentiment score of zero was assigned to the comment. If there were any such trigrams, we then checked to see if there were one or more trigrams with a score less than or equal to a threshold value. If yes, then we took the mean value of the sentiment value of all trigrams with a sentiment score value less than or equal to the threshold and assigned this value as the sentiment score of the comment. This was done as part of an effort to aggressively go after negative comments.

Here, xi represents a sentiment score and the angle brackets denote mean value.
If there were no trigrams with a score of less than or equal to the threshold, then we took the weighted average of all the sentiment values of all the scored trigrams and assigned this value as the sentiment value for the comment. The weights were chosen in such a manner that for negative scores the weight was greater than 1 and increased as the score decreased and for positive scores the weight was less than 1 and decreased as the score increased

Here xi denotes the sentiment score for a trigram and wi denotes its weight

Results

To evaluate the approach/algorithm, we needed to ensure that the comments were categorised correctly according to their sentiment. “Precision” and “Recall” are two standard pointers in analysing such results. We created a gold standard set of comments consisting of a small balanced set of negative and non-negative comments. Here, ‘Precision’, is the fraction of comments that are actually negative out of the comments which are classified as negative. The closer the precision is to 1, the fewer the number of false negatives compared to the number of true negatives. ‘Recall’ is the fraction of negative comments which are classified correctly out of the total number of negative comments. The closer the recall is to one, the higher the fraction of negative comments which are classified as negative.

Here TN represents true negatives, i.e. comments which are negative and are classified as negative. FN represents false negatives, i.e. comments which are not negative but which are classified as negative. FP represents false positives, i.e. comments which are negative, but are classified as non-negative.

The results are as displayed below

The reason why the precision is so small on the second set is that the vast majority of tickets are non-negative and there will be a certain percentage of these which are wrongly marked as negative by our algorithm. This number is large compared to the number of negative comments which are marked as negative.

We also ran the raw comments through the library we used for Sentiment Analysis and got the following results:

So, we can see that our algorithm involving trigrams and assigning scores according to the above mentioned procedure vastly improve the Sentiment Polarity Prediction process over assigning scores to the raw comments all at once.

Conclusion

We came up with a commendable method to ignore the objective parts of an IT support ticket by coming up with a list of text snippets which did not typically have a sentiment value in the IT support ticket context. The current method of assigning sentiment scores is lexicon based and relies on keywords to which a sentiment score is attached. This might not be able to pick up subtle ways of expressing negative sentiment which a human reader would easily pick up.
Machine learning methods would pick up most of such expressions. But, we, unfortunately, did not have enough data or a balanced set to run supervised learning algorithm
We managed to get a good performance out of a tool which was not explicitly developed to deal with the difficult task of separating out the objective and subjective parts of an IT support ticket and then assign a sentiment score to it.

Jyothish Vidyadharan

Jyothish is an ML Engineer working with Tarams for over 5 years. He is passionate about technology and coding

Babunath Giri T

Babu is an engineer who’s managerial skills have been helping Tarams tackle projects and clients with much success. He has been a part of Tarams for over 3 years.

Trapped in Cloud Migration Dilemma? 15 Factors to Consider to Take Wise Decision!

2017 was a roller coaster ride for enterprises in technology space. Recent IoT trends were the talk of the town and contributed to numerous transformations across industries. Consumer products such as connected devices and wearables were the bellwethers of these transformations.

The IoT industry size was valued at USD 800 billion in 2014. Technological proliferation and exponential increase in venture investments are expected to boost the global market over the next decade. Significant penetrations of internet and advancement in electronic industry have further propelled the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) industry and gives a strong visibility to the compelling IoT technology trends in 2018.

The IoT market is expected to touch USD 6 trillion by 2021, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 26.9%. With this growth, market will witness new business models & use cases along with immense changes in improved customer experience, productivity & workflow.

Now that, we know IoT will be one of the primary crusaders to drive digital transformation in 2018 and beyond, let’s have a quick sneak peek on the top IoT trends in 2018.

In 2018, enterprises will be looking at the ‘cloud’ not just as a tool, but they will be exploring better ways to use it to accomplish their technology goals

Penetration of cloud technology into enterprise IT had brought remarkable transformations to the business realm in the past , and today cloud technology has opened new ways to maximize big data usage to optimize business revenue cycle management.

Cloud technologycontinues to skyrocket with advanced usage of cloud-based solutions for Analytics, Mobility with streamlined collaboration, IoT, etc., due to its cost-effectiveness and high-speed connectivity. As per IDC, 50% of all IT spending in 2018 will be cloud-based and Deloitte predicts that spending on IT-as-a-Service for data centres, software and services will reach $547 Billion by the end of 2018.

We have compiled a list of cloud trends that businesses need to be prepared for in the coming year.

The Rise of Saas, Paas, and IaaS market

Software as a Service (SaaS), where software applications are centrally hosted on cloud – meant to be licensed on a subscription basis, will rise to 18% CAGR by 2020 as per a survey.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) will be the most rapidly growing service that enables companies to develop, host and manage apps over a common platform that will grow to 52% adoption in 2020, as quoted by KPMG.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) where virtualized computer resources are provided online, will grow with a market size of $17.5 Billion in 2018, as per a report by Statista.

2018 will be a golden year for cloud adoption where collaboration and social media democratization will become seamless and industries will witness exponential growth in adoption.

Cloud to Cloud Connectivity

The market is set to be flocked with multiple providers who are ready to share APIs to multiple cloud solutions and cross-functional applications. Enterprises should be looking forward to not limiting themselves to a single cloud service provider.

With the increase of consumer data inflow from disparate sources, consumers also expect faster data connection from network providers. 2018 will be the year when companies will show strong anticipation to move on to 5G networks.

Faster internet connectivity will compel users to demand fast-loading and high-responsive services and apps. Savvy enterprises will enforce highly responsive SaaS and PaaS in their application portfolio so as to ensure faster delivery that would eventually lead to higher traffic, new revenue generating models and value added service.

And all this becomes possible with embracing cloud-based platforms for products and services that allow businesses to gain agility through virtualization.

Pricing War leads to Vivid Cloud Usage

2018 will witness a growth in the volume of cloud service providers; while on the other hand, the market will display a drop in demand. However, it’s the law of nature- with the increase in supply, demand always goes down! Thus, with increased supply, the market will encounter a rigorous price war. Moreover, numerous providers will offer cloud space for free just to gain valuable consumer data.

Crowd Sourced Platform

Despite using insecure, costly and slow cloud space, users will start using crowdsourced platform to keep the cost low and avail optimum cloud benefits.

Sharing strangers’ and friends’ storage will be a common practice and people will start moving out of applications like DropBox and Google Drive. Similarly, businesses will also look ahead utilize crowdsourced platforms to maintain and build large-scale solutions.

Cloud will be the key to cost containment

Cost containment is a technique to cut down costs to essential expenses to limit within financial budgets. The growth of cloud adoption across the industry will be the main idea for long-term cost-cutting IT strategy by lowering the infrastructure expenses and improving ROI. It is predicted to be a norm in 2018.

Cloud Cost War will be at Pinnacle

Giants like Amazon and Google will be leading the war that actually will have substantial collateral damage to the mid-sized and small-scale service providers. AWS has already announced its lowered prices in the 2017 and Google has introduced its Committed Use Discounts (CUD) which gives the flexibility to the buyer to avail highly reasonable price for a committed use contract.

Cloud to On-Premise Connectivity

Businesses will move on to applications hosted on an on-premise based server while showing affinity towards shifting a chunk of their application portfolio on to the cloud to enable smooth customization and here are the reasons why:

Although, on-premise deployment will ensure network security when it comes to data flow, numerous contemporary security solutions work best on the cloud.
Over the years, the enterprise data has expanded at a multiplier level and transferring them on to the cloud remains a tough ordeal for most of the enterprises.
Complete migration of the entire enterprise data takes a lot of time and does not display any short-term profitability.

Cloud Security Threats

Security concerns will become a major roadblock for numerous businesses to move their data onto a cloud. As per a report by Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), USA, 2017 saw 29% rise in security attacks as compared to 2016.

Today, user data is much more vulnerable than ever before, thus even Google brought in its 2-step verification process. As per IDC, global security revenue will grow up to $101.6 Billion in 2020. Another report reveals that security spending will touch $93 Billion in 2018. This will be the year when cybersecurity companies will be on their toes to engineer advance cloud security solutions.

It is predicted that, IT, security and cloud teams will associate to develop new working models to redefine cloud security services to reduce vulnerabilities. By bringing automation, speed, and integration with cloud security services, redefinition on how to approach cloud security for success will be implemented.

Cloud Security Threats

Cloud-based Containerization

Containerization in cloud computing will be implemented by most of the vendors. The phenomena allow the admins to create safe containers on the devices that enable smooth, safe and secure installation and deployment of the application.

Furthermore, cloud solution providers will offer independent container management system that would differentiate their platforms from another cloud container system.

It could reduce the vulnerability of data loss or threat and will be a popular trend in 2018 and beyond.

Cloud and the IoT

IoT as a technology completely depends on the cloud. IoT devices like electronic sensors, home appliances, cars, wearables, etc. communicate and store hefty information. With IoT devices becoming ubiquitous, cloud adoption will be on the rise.

Serverless will gain grounds

The adoption of serverless cloud architecture will enable CIOs to run applications without the burden of on-premise operating servers. Moreover, developers find it convenient to access and extend cloud services when it comes to addressing multiple use cases and application issues.

Serverless cloud architecture also needs less time and effort and simplifies software updates.

Edge computing: the next multibillion-dollar technology

Edge computing will leave no stones unturned, when it comes to operating close to IoT based devices and machinery such as automobiles, home appliances, turbines, industrial controllers, etc. and optimizing the cloud usage. Edge computing will be required to run the real-time services as it operates close to the sources and streamlines the inflow of traffic from these sources. Edge computing is an additional middle layer between the devices and the cloud that keeps the devices away from the centralized cloud computing.

Thus, the public cloud service providers will move towards IoT strategies that will include edge computing as an integral part.

Our Final Verdict

As far as technology advancement is concerned, possibilities are limitless. With evolving IT infrastructure, cloud adoption will be really fast. CIOs will be keen to consider the most advanced offering from the cloud space. However, security concerns will still haunt the CXOs and multiple enterprises will remain deprived of great opportunities.

The market will observe an affinity of enterprises towards hybrid cloud model. A handful of companies may also consider private cloud solution as an option.

At Tarams, we engineer solutions for intuitive visualization of cloud data keeping security and performance as the crux of our cloud-based solutions. Our cloud architects help you to efficiently mine data to develop better analytics, data mining best practices and improve decision making.

We forecast a strong proliferation of cloud technology in the upcoming years and recommend organizations to actively participate in its development, adoption and security.

9 Emerging IoT Trends that will Disrupt Business in 2018 and Beyond

2017 was a roller coaster ride for enterprises in technology space. Recent IoT trends were the talk of the town and contributed to numerous transformations across industries. Consumer products such as connected devices and wearables were the bellwethers of these transformations.

The IoT industry size was valued at USD 800 billion in 2014. Technological proliferation and exponential increase in venture investments are expected to boost the global market over the next decade. Significant penetrations of internet and advancement in electronic industry have further propelled the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) industry and gives a strong visibility to the compelling IoT technology trends in 2018.

The IoT market is expected to touch USD 6 trillion by 2021, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 26.9%. With this growth, market will witness new business models & use cases along with immense changes in improved customer experience, productivity & workflow.

Now that, we know IoT will be one of the primary crusaders to drive digital transformation in 2018 and beyond, let’s have a quick sneak peek on the top IoT trends in 2018.

Trend# 1

Fragmentation in IoT: Big Rock Challenge

While the venture capital is booting the IoT space, there has been a significant influx of network technologies & solutions into the market, developing a highly fragmented scenario within the IoT landscape.

First, well-known wireless networking technologies such as 5G, WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee are currently available to support IoT based solutions. Such vivid internet technologies connecting different groups creates interoperability complexity across the various networks.

Second, attaining IoT-enabled automation and predictive analysis to design industry-specific applications, needs a suite of processes to derive & analyze data from disparate devices. Furthermore, the connected equipment with different form factors and operating systems magnifies the complexity.

Thus, the major roadblock in such a fragmented ecosystem that interconnects different technologies will be the interoperability and integration of these processes to achieve the desired end result.

Trend# 2

Window of Vulnerability will be Wide Open

Cybersecurity will be a hot issue in 2018. Fragmentation will lead to extreme integration and interoperability complexities. This threat will not only remain limited to network security, but it will be a major challenge in managing and controlling connected assets.

Moreover, securing all the assets in an ecosystem without any standard industry regulation will be a big challenge.

Finding a solution that can secure all data sources and keep the data safe from all the vulnerabilities will be main goal of the year and one of the hottest IoT Industry Trends in 2018.

Trend# 3

Edge Networking will be less of a Trend and More of a Necessity

An exponential rise in data glut via IoT results in enterprises needing to find cost-effective ways to monetize consumer data.

So, Edge Computing will leave no stones unturned when it comes to operating close to IoT based equipment and sensors with different form factor and OS such as wearable, automobiles, home appliances, turbines, industrial controllers, etc. and optimizing the cloud usage. Edge computing will be required to run the real-time services as it operates close to the sources and streamlines the inflow of traffic from these sources.

Edge computing will minimize a big chunk of complexity when it comes to the cloud handling, managing data from disparate sources and delivering real-time services.It will be one of the most required and in-demand IoT industry trend that will that will take the entire industry by storm.

Trend# 4

Enterprise Mobility: de Facto IoT Companion

The current trend of mobile platforms getting ubiquitous in enterprises, will result in enterprise mobility playing a crucial role in IoT device management.

Today’s mobility landscape is all about collaborating workforce with BYOD model but with increased addition of IoT based sensors and wearable technologies into the workflow. It is quite evident that IoT and enterprise mobility- as a team, will play a serious game that will matter to the business goals.

As known, mobility and IoT in enterprises, are still in their infancy and their mix will continually evolve. The next mobility projects will get developed with cutting-edge technology in compliance with the business that is built around deriving value from IoT based devices.

The first movers have already begun to refine while the late-comers will directly jump into the blend. IoT industry trends in 2018 will witness a strong convergence between IoT and enterprise mobility.

Trend# 5

The Year of Bells, Dings & Whistles

For retailers, current IoT trends will play a crucial role in improving customer engagement and salesin 2018, 2019 and beyond. Current year will be the year when customers will hear more alerts about offers, incentives and other news regarding office, home & shopping.

In-store beacons will flourish and help retailers to identify a nearby mobile app user and approach with a personalized message. Location-based IoT beacons, sensors and analytics solution will drive the retail space by empowering marketers to send direct personalized messages to customer’s phone, wearable or adaptive in-store digital signage display.

Plus, IoT will tell where customers are spending time inside the store, giving marketers valuable data about customer behaviour and preferences.

Industry experts say that about 79% of retailers will start to use the IoT technology to transform their business in better way that is going to one of the productive IoT industry trend that is going to stay forever.

Trend# 6

Data Deluge Ahead: the Rise of Machine Learning & Advanced Analytics

Just as the abundance of data will push enterprises to the edge computing, it will also push them to machine learning. Machine learning and AI will be the leading technologies to manage the data flowing from IoT devices.

The year will also witness a steady growth in advance analytics solutions to provide a real-time streaming of data from IoT devices. Multiple analytics solution providers will be seen making noise in the arena.

Undoubtedly, the data deluge will give birth to numerous new entrants in machine & IoT analytics space to churn and manage valuable data insights.

Trend# 7

Blockchain and IoT to Dominate Headlines in 2018

The IoT devices, as they increase in abundance, lack standard authentication protocols to secure enterprise data. The probability of intruders penetrating through the vast array of IoT devices into the infrastructure is way higher than ever before. Hence, for widespread adoption of IoT, it is crucial that the industry should look at establishing standardized trust & authentication across all aspects of its ecosystem.

This is where the distributed architecture of blockchain proves to be the lifesaver to tackle trust and security challenge.

The distributed ledger in Blockchain empower the IoT devices to maintain standard identification, authentication, seamless secure data transfer and prevent duplication with any other malicious data.

The operation costs of IoT can be cut down through blockchain since there is no intermediary. The convergence of blockchain and IoT will improve customer experience, simplify workflow, cater to limitless opportunities.

Trend# 8

IT and OT will Walk Together

Operational technology (OT) and Information technology (IT) are conventionally separate organizational units. But, this trend is likely to change in 2018. The extreme inception of IoT into shop floor has compelled OT and IT teams to work closely to deploy IIoT solutions.

Today, analytical tools are majorly used by end users such as plant operators and field workers. Thus, operational decisions can be derived real time to optimize future performance.

IoT solutions will be deployed and driven by business operational teams, more than IT teams. Meanwhile, the OT teams will take the IIOT charge in 2018 and will be one of the greatest IoT trends.

Trend# 9

Investors to Break the Bank

The market is going to see a lot of money in the IoT space. The past has shown eye-popping investments and 2018 will show a relative trajectory. And as said before by 2021 the business spending in IoT will touch $6 Trillion.

Enterprises will continue to invest in IoT hardware, services, software, and connectivity and its going persist as an evergreenIoT trends. Almost every industry will be benefited from its rapid growth.

The biggest slice of funding until 2021 will go into hardware making especially sensors and modules but is also predicted to be outstripped by the fast-growing services category.

IoT’s indisputable impact will allure more venture capitalists towards highly innovative projects. They will continue to break the banks with the promise of IoT by underlining its caliber to improve customer experience and revenue in almost every industry.

Tarams Final Verdict

As a technology consulting and product engineering firm we strongly believe that these 9 trends will play a game-changing role in 2018. However, we also expect new trends to unfold that aren’t on the horizon yet.

We also believe that 2018 won’t be a silver bullet year for IoT but will be a year of preparation for building a widespread and robust foundation for the technology in next five years.

Readers, if you have thoughts on these or if you think that we have missed on any other trends that you believe will propel IoT, please comment below, we would enjoy hearing from you.