Microsoft to beat Amazon in the cloud according to ex-Chief Executive Officer

Microsoft office is well-positioned to beat Amazon in the cloud, according to Microsoft ex-CEO Ballmer. Furthermore, Steve Ballmer states that Microsoft has strong products I Office 365 and Azure, but competition against the web services of Amazon would be tough. Also, Google could challenge Microsoft Office 365. Ballmer keeps in touch with his successor Satya Nadella to provide product feedback. Microsoft is building out Azure, the first AI or artificial intelligence supercomputer. The existing Azure tools for ML or Machine Learning as well as cognitive computing would witness massive adoption because of the foray of the company into creating the AI supercomputer.

MICROSOFT’S CLOUD DIVISION STEADILY GROWING

While it is true that Microsoft is well-positioned, it has a lot of work to do. With Office 365 and Azure, the company has real shot but not a birthright. They have to push really hard with Azure against Amazon Web Services. Microsoft CEO from 2000 to 2004, Ballmer said that although Amazon is a direct competitor to Azure, it is Google that can challenge Office 365. Azure is the challenger with Amazon Web services. It only has one way to go, which is up. Office 365 has more ups than down and this is a Google risk. The cloud division of Microsoft has been steadily growing strong. Furthermore, it is an aspect that the present CEO has flagged as the future of the company. The cloud business of Microsoft brought about $6.86 billion in revenue during the second quarter. The revenue of Azure increased by 93 percent.

The Azure AI initiative has the potential of empowering Microsoft to challenge even IBM artificial intelligence via posing a considerable threat to the cognitive platform of Watson and business intelligence platform Cognos. With at present second to Amazon in the cloud, Microsoft could become one of the leading AI players. At the same time, the tech giant could be the number one cloud IaaS player, displacing AWS in a short time. The cognitive services APIs of Microsoft include APIs for speech, vision, language, knowledge and research. Also, ML APIs include key phase extraction, text analytics, language and topic detection and more would witness a growing demand from enterprise customers as soon as the company’s Azure supercomputer will come to the marketplace. In comparison, the AI tools of IBM may not see the same kind of demand. Why? This is because Microsoft would enjoy specific competitive advantages over IBM when its artificial intelligence supercomputer would be available for commercial usage. Microsoft is making its cloud business model flexible enough so it could address the following issues:

GLOBAL REACH. The company’s building a worldwide hyper-scale cloud infrastructure to cover nearly the whole world under its cloud network through using its datacenter presence in over 30 regions across the world.

DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY. Microsoft ensures that digital sovereignty needs as well as other compliance concerns in different counties are addressed properly so expanding its cloud network does not face unnecessary impediments.

HUGE DATA SUPPORT. When IoT goes mainstream, a big amount of data would be generated. The software giant is creating a distributes computing fabric that helps provide customers a flexible hybrid cloud model through Azure and Azure Stack to support huge amounts of data.

Microsoft, a US technology giant also has been targeting on hardware, pioneering new product categories such as the 2-n-1 tablet that’s called Surface. Recently, it announced the next games console, which is the Xbox Scorpio. The former CEO Ballmer said that he was very pleased with the progress with Surface line of products and the hardware division has also been nicely progressing. He is still a major shareholder but refused to reveal the amount of shares he holds. Nevertheless, he stated that he is happy at the current stock price that’s trading more than $65 per share and has seen over 17 percent growth in the past twelve months. Ballmer also reveale4d that he made several adjustments to his Microsoft holding last year to help his philanthropic work.

The tech giant has been able to leverage the popularity of its offerings to cross-sell its cloud software-as-a-service products. In the quarter, Microsoft has reported that the Office commercial products and cloud services income grew. The dynamic cloud services continue to report adoption growth, as clients continue adopting the ERP and CRM services, which deploy machine learning as well as intelligent cloud to glean insights to change how people work across sales, finance, customer service and marketing. With its ownership of LinkedIn, Microsoft indeed is in an extremely well positi8on to become a major player. It has monopoly on business social media niche or community. Furthermore, it has another advantage in its $27 billion free cash flow for the past twelve months compared to the $10 billion for Amazon. This is an integral metric since it represents the money that a company could pull together after capital expenses to do acquisitions or to invest to boost the business. The deal with LinkedIn is yet to play off, but Microsoft enters the four year under CEO Satya Nadella and is headed in a very stable direction lately. The stock hit an all-time high last October, which reflects the optimism of investors.

Facebook has given its marketplace a colorful redesign with visual overhaul

Facebook provides it Marketplace feature with a colorful redesign, providing it a bit of visual overhaul with colorful new icons and enhanced search and filtering features. First launched in October 2016, the Craigslist competitor is a major entry point of Facebook into local commerce. These days, the marketplace sits in a dedicated tab at the bottom of the application of Facebook application, wherein its ever-present red barge pressures one to click through.

 CHANGES WITH A COLORFUL REDESIGN

The changes in the Facebook account are more on making the marketplace easier to use, with a scrollable list of item categories, which look as rounded, candy-colored icons. During launch, the navigational elements of the marketplace were much simpler. Four buttons on the top encourage users to take a photo of an item to sell tap to categories, search or access their own postings easily. Same features are still available post-redesign, except that nowadays, delving into a single category just takes a single tap rather than two. The idea is to boost better discovery, since most people come to the marketplace with a goal in mind. They require a piece of furniture or appliance or want to browse for deals on items that are second-hand, such as purses, clothing, baby products or probably a used smart phone. With added individual category icons, one could now rapidly jump into a specific section. Additionally, in the front of the list, there is now a handy icon to find nearby garage sales.

Any section could be filtered by price and location to narrow the returned listings, with or without an accompanying keyword search. When browsing a given section, one could also tap the filtering options to switch to another category. These are categorized under high-level labels such as Entertainment, Home, Clothing and Accessories, Electronics, Family, Hobbies, Bicycles, Vehicles and Classified. Under each is a selection of sub-categories one could opt to narrow searches. For instance, under Electronics one could choose from Electronics & Computers or Mobile Phones. The Classifieds section feature has the Garage Sales and Housing Ads as well, both push FB further into Craigslist territory. Now, these sections too sport more colorful icons for maintaining consistency with the new look of the Marketplace. The features are available on Facebook’s desktop version and in mobile too but in a different layout.

Facebook has confirmed the launch of the redesign and states that it is now appearing to everyone with the Marketplace feature. The colorful redesign has bigger images, cleaner look and vibrant colors. The first difference noticeable is how the content within the News Feed is going to be more vibrant and bigger. The articles, photos, videos, maps, events and more all would stand out more and will be emphasized more. Another change you’ll see is more content feeds to choose from. This is in an effort to give us more control over the type of content we see in our News Feed. The feeds enable viewing certain kinds of content deemed most important, such as updates from all friends, photos, friends, and games and certain lists of brands or people followed.

FB’s marketplace could be used for listing what one has and what one wants within networks, group of friends or other networks. Beyond the use for classified listings, one could also use Marketplace to have a sense of everything desired or available within the networks. The listings in the Marketplace could be anything, from DVDs and books that are not needed anymore a dream job to land or special requirements. A listing could also be created for basically anything and one could easily keep track of connections to the others in the Marketplace. This means that next time one wants to purchase something, he or she could ask a mutual friend of the seller if she is the kind to scratch CS or allow a cat to have free reign over the sofa. As always one has thorough control over the privacy and the privacy of the listings as well.

The Marketplace of Facebook is a convenient destination for discovering, buying and selling items with people in the community. It makes it easy to look for new things one loves, find new homes for the things no longer used. Marketplace opens with new pictures of items, which people nearby have listed for sale. To find something in particular, search at the top and filter results by category, location or price. One could browse what is available in the different categories. The built-in location tool could be used to adjust the region that one is looking for or switch to another city altogether. FB wants to get into the local buying and selling game with the Marketplace. Furthermore, the colorful redesign of the feature makes it even more effective and simplifies the buying and selling process.

Gaming development remarkable enhancements for the better part of 2017

The gaming development and gaming industry already has shown several remarkable improvements in the last year. The Virtual Reality or VR technology is on the top and is struggling to gain consumer attention in the casino space. On the other hand, e-sports is getting popular by the day. However, the list does not end there. Gaming and mobile consoles are becoming better. Consequently, the developments have given clues on where they gaming industry is headed to in the better part of this year. Game development for most people is far more exciting compared to working out business logic concerns with custom views and databases, thus expect a better gaming experience and developments for the better part of 2017.

 

BETTER GAME DEVELOPMENT PROCESS IN 2017

Some of the online gaming developments and game development software to expect this year are the following.

1. Virtual Reality goes mainstream. Last year saw VR tech becoming consumer-friendly. But this does not mean it will fully take off in that year. This year 2017 will be a time when the technology actually would start teething. The segment will steadily grow this year, thanks to companies such as Sony and HTC that have already taken the lead. The technology has managed to ready consumers via launching several consumer headsets that could be accessed for various prices. 2017 will serve as the ideal time for expanding the installment based of virtual reality games.

2. HTML 5 games will gain popularity for 2017. Facebook run the Instant Games in the beta version last year. Now, there are talks that FB may decide to emancipate their platform over competitors such as Apple and Google so that it would start preparing its website for HTML5 games. HTML5 games already are popular in the gaming markets such as in Japan and China. This year is believe to be the year when the games would become mainstream, even penetrating the Western markets. The games in HTML5 would be similar enough to instant play Flash games to make the transition easy. Nevertheless, the HTML5 games must also be much better in a lot of ways. They will not crash as often.

3. Mobile gaming is at an interesting phase. While it has the widest reach, generating more revenue compared to any other platform, the progress since has dramatically slowed down. The online gaming developments to expect this year fall in a lot of various categories. For one thing, most of the new games that people could play would require much better graphics. Designers of online games will be bringing the industry nearer and nearer to the era of VR or virtual reality.

4. The ware between Microsoft and Sony. The two giants fiercely competed in 2016 when it comes to hardware development. At this moment, Sony is way far ahead. The company has gained good momentum with the revolutionary PS4 product. In the meantime, Microsoft, the software giant would need to ensure that their Scorpio device will launch soon. Pictures and rumors have suggested already that Scorpio would be a best. However, most people in general think that Sony would be well-prepared for the launch.

In general, gaming would be more secure, thus people need not worry about accessing them, which at times is a concern with the instant Flash games people played for a long time now. Downloading software on online casinos should be less and less common at present. A lot of people do not like doing it anyway, provided the security concerns that are associated with downloading almost all software off the web and also due to the fact that software will always take up some of the memory that people keep and store on their devices.

Instant play casinos are extremely popular and this should start to be more standard throughout the entire gaming industry. This is partly in thanks to the mass switch to HTML5 games. Definitely, the switch to the new HMTL5 games would create many new gaming chances for people all over the online casino gaming world for plenty of reasons. The HMTL5 games are newer as well as use newer technology automatically would make it easier to more or less embody a lot of other new online casino gaming trends at present. The games are already part of the bigger existing trends in the gaming industry.

This year 2017, the games themselves offer people more satisfying experiences, which resulted from the many new developments. Players will notice enhancements in the games across the board. Furthermore, the background music gets better, the graphics much better and device compatibility will continue to improve. Overall, there are so many wider trends in the world of software that are influencing the online gaming development. Online gaming must be able to alter a lot even before the virtual reality era truly gets going. Without doubt, in itself virtual reality is already here and raring to go. Microsoft and Sony would continue to push for 4k adoption.

Tips in finding an effective Information Technology service provider

In today’s society, almost every business needs technology to run smoothly and successfully. The services that IT companies or service providers offer include the management of an organization’s entire IT network services, network evaluation, networks monitoring, networks designing and more. Working with an IT service provider need not complicate management. Now, companies and businesses more than ever make IT easier with customized services. The different IT services offered by an IT service provider add great value to a business, increase productivity, lower expenses and more.

For all those who are looking to find an effective IT service provider, here are tips to be able to make a well-informed decision.

1. Local Support. For most IT work and support required, location do not actually matter much. Nevertheless, for an onsite work and maintenance, it is beneficial to go for a local provider. It will not only be able to provide a faster online service, but also provides peace of mind because in case of an emergency, it is just nearby.

2. Cloud Services. In the search for an IT provider, one would want to make sure they offer cloud and backup services as well. Even if the company does not plan on using cloud computing, it should at least have the choice to switch to cloud computing should it be decided in the future. Also, the service provider should be able to offer backup services so as not to lose any valuable information and data.

3. Disaster Plan. In the worst case scenario, the service provider is one that could be trusted to get the systems back up and running in no time. It’s important that the IT company could develop a disaster recovery plan for the business. Whether the business suffers from fire or any kind of disaster, it would require the business systems to be up and running more than ever.

4. Experience and skill. The service provider should not only have skills but experience as well. The experience and skills must go beyond providing basic IT services and basic network management. It is always a good idea to inquire about skill levels, experience in network security and adaptability to handling changes.

5. The company approach. The world nowadays is an extremely competitive one. To stay ahead of the competition, the IT service provider to hire should have a proactive service strategy, which puts emphasis on fast and efficient problem prevention. Determine if the company employs sophisticated technologies, including advanced analytics, which could lead to service enhancement. Moreover, an organization should determine if the service provider could employ high-tech, back-end technology, like for instance incident escalation and sophisticated alert mechanisms.

6. Performance-based agreements. It’s necessary to hire the services of an IT company that could deliver quality services. Furthermore, it should be one that could back that up with performance-based agreement. The agreement makes the service provider move a step forward to boost service delivery as well as become more proactive and innovative.

7. The portfolio should match the business. When hiring an IT provider, opt for one whose portfolio match with the business. This ensures of quality services with less complexities, since the managed network service provider is experienced in the company’s filed of expertise. Additionally, when moving from in-house IT to outsourcing IT services, an experience provider could help ease the transition while reducing the cost.

The potential benefits of hiring an effective IT company could be obtained only when hiring the right service provider. A competent service provider have the right experience and skills and are able to keep pace with the changing trends in the Information Technology field and more.

The largest social network in China, WeChat has launched its own App Store

WeChat dominates the social networks in China. Now, it wants to pull attention from the app store of Apple in favor of its own app store app. The parent company of WeChat, Tencent announced the Xiaochengxu or ‘mini programs’ feature. Moreover, WeChat told Reuters the function would enable users to access the services of merchants with no need to download their applications.

The biggest social network in China started as a chat application but has grown into a social platform that’s based around its core messaging feature and provides the same functions to Facebook. Extending the experience with mini apps help to further push it into becoming a full social network and lets users spend more time within WeChat. The initial response to Xiaochengxu, according to Tencent has been positive with interest from different merchants, which include hotels, airlines and travel agencies. It would be the content quality that will decide its success of failure. With app stores like the app store google, and Play Store worth billions of dollars, they have become a key target for others to copy. Chinese web giant Baidu launched a similar in-application downloading platform called Light App in 2013. There are 768 million active WeChat users, more than double the whole population of the United States, made over 100 million video and voice calls daily via the application in 2016.

WeChat is the largest and most popular social network in China and has made a deep way into the limelight the past few days since the release of a feature that could be used as an alternative to the popular app stores, like app store google, app stores run by Apple or Google. WeChat focuses on boosting its profile and diverting customers from Apple’s App store concept. The new functionality of the application is aimed at almost 768 million users. Apple and Google have benefited millions of dollars via their common application stores and so this has pressured China to take an effective step. Users of the internet depend on these applications for different reasons, like checking the bank statements as well as online shopping and many more. Based on the Developer Tech report, Tencent said that the current functions enable users to access merchant services without downloading their applications. Furthermore, the company also stated that the initial response to Xiaochengxu received a huge acclaim from different audience groups, like travel agency, airline and hotels.

Billions of dollars are up for grabs from the most common application stores that are run by Apple and Google, making them a major target for China. Applications are relied upon heavily by internet users all over the world, for everything, from grocery shopping to checking bank statements. This is just another indication that this is now the world of WeChat, for western brands this presents a chance to capitalize on the infrastructure that connects such a huge number of prospective customers that are all in one place and also highly engaged. Built-in applications would strengthen or reinforce branding in China on the most powerful social platform. This also further strengthens WeChat’s fortress, their app is the most integrated in the world, with services that range from photo sharing, messaging, dating, gaming, financial management, taxi ordering, geo-localization and eCommerce shopping. Previously, WeChat doesn’t have a built-in app service, thus has none to lose by launching its own version. The message here is that WeChat could fulfill all one’s needs, the time spent in browsing on the web is even within WeChat without having to ever leave the application.

To get into the app store of WeChat, companies would have to develop applications that vary from their iOS and Android versions. These are built with a special framework that’s designed by Tencent and reportedly would be based on JavaScript. Applications could be set up in accordance with brands official accounts that already serve as micro-sites for dissemination of content and presentation of information. The applications would have to be developed with local, specialist bodies to fulfill Chinese regulatory requirements. Furthermore, the apps should also be strongly targeted for Chinese consumers, so using local knowledge is paramount for re-branding through apps.

By marrying user applications with official accounts, users could be engaged longer and at numerous entry points. Intelligent brand communication could be developed within the mini applications, which then could directly link to an official account. The applications are accessed from within a new panel inside WeChat, this is close to hundreds of millions of people regularly posting links of photos to their ‘Moment’s’, the equivalent of WeChat to Facebook’s news feed. The new process likely would keep users pending even more time in WeChat, which already accounts for 30 percen tof all mobile online time spent in China. The presence of WeChat is now more important.

How IoT Impacts the Education Industry

The education field is one industry where IoT has positively impacted. The growth of the Internet of Things in education is expected to grow rapidly and becomes an effective tool for teaching.

For many years, technology experts predicted that IoT, a system in which things can communicate internally or with other machines would transform the way people live. It is expected that there would be a thirty percent increase in the devices that are connected to the IoT or the Internet of Things this year. The growth amounts to a total of over six billion devices that join the IoT, with over twenty billion devices expected to be part of it in 2020. While IoT is most widespread in the business field, it has significant impact in the education industry. The use of IoT in education is expected to grow because of the rise of online as well as blended educational program in traditional classroom that increasingly utilize technology as a tool for teaching.

NEW WAYS OF CONNECTING WITH STUDENTS

These days, educators are always on the lookout for new ways to connect with students via relevant discussions, engaging lesson plans, new teaching methodologies and fresh classroom projects. Technology transforms education via processes like a flipped classroom wherein students watch lectures in live video feeds, YouTube recordings or the same venue at home and discuss what they have learned as well as engage in hands-on projects, which are related to the lesson.

Social media as well is in the classroom through discussion forums and blogs. Mobile learning enables students to access the web from anywhere. With eLearning, students could do their lessons on any device, anywhere that has an internet connection.

THE IoT COMPONENTS

IoT enables technology researchers to create more affordable and smaller wireless systems that consume less power and could be integrated into almost any kind of device. WiFi, although the most popular form or integrated technology, there are other formats that are used as too, such as Zigbee, Bluetooth, RFID and NFC. Some of these technologies could add wireless sensor capacities to any kind of device. Moreover, it has a plenty of possibilities for technology, science, engineering and mathematics programs, including physical computing and programming. IoT simplifies and automates access for essential information in any kind of real-world or educational setting.

The Internet of Things has the ability of enhancing the learning experience by enabling real-time as well as actionable insights to student performance. Students bring wireless devices to the classroom or use them at home. The available materials for learning on mobiles, like eBooks are more interactive and engaging. There is constant need for new education technologies, like high-speed wireless networks with the bandwidth for audio and video lessons streaming. Teachers provide seamless assessments on students and one-one-one instruction. With the use of cloud, teachers and instructors could gather data on performance of students. The advanced technology utilized in education furthermore enables teachers to share and coordinate.

HELP FOR STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

Connected devices could help make life much easier for students who have special needs. For example, a student who is visually impaired is given a special card that when registered by computer, would enlarge font size automatically. Instead of having to call over a teacher for help, which would cost both the student and teacher time they can use for more productivity, the student could handle the issue and also promotes independence and self-confidence.

SCHOOL SECURITY

In recent years, school security has been a difficult issue. Schools must be one of the spaces where students would feel secure. Nonetheless, in light with the recent events, it’s easy to understand the worry and safety concerns. With the Internet of Things, schools could create buttons or levers all over the school that, when engaged, would initiate a lockdown system that is customized. The lockdown could include among other features, the following: perimeter security automation, immediate authorities notification as well as video to police transmission so they could monitor intruder activity from headquarters and on the way to a building.

INCREASED EFFICIENCY

Typically, schools have finite resources, which means that the more they simplify daily operations, the more money could be spent on actual students teaching. Activities that consume time, such as taking attendance manually and bringing the information to a central office could be eradicated with the connected devices which instantly send data where it is needed. The Internet of Things could also help cut energy expenses.

MOBILE LEARNING

Until just recently, is a student needs help with homework, the option would be to either figure it out, ask a parent for help or call a friend or classmate. With the Internet of Things, schools could provide students with full-time access to educational tools. The ability to digitally share content with teachers and peers encourages engagement and collaboration.

The Internet of Things impacts the education industry in a very positive way. With IoT, there are more venues for learning, which in the past were only limited to the classroom setting.

The Top 8 Strategic Technologies for the Customer Experience

For a business to stay ahead of the competition these days, it should continuously look for ways to meet the ever evolving requirements of the customers. The top strategic technologies for the customer experience help a business to thrive in the tough competition these days.
 

Customer experience heads and chief customer officers believe that only fifty percent of the projects that they oversee involve technology. On the other hand, IT leaders and CIOs believe it’s nearer to eighty percent. Both agree that the wide array of technologies that could be brought to bear to face the challenge is huge. Some technologies provide more impact than others, some more tactical in how they are used. The list of technologies that help boost and support the customer experience is a growing and long one.

Emerging technologies are set to break out and disrupt business models this year. The unprecedented connectivity between the plethora of devices that tap intelligence from smart devices would drive a dramatic transformation. The results include business advances and dazzling user experiences. Consider the top eight strategic technologies for the customer experience below.

 

1. Business process management or BPM. Is a systematic approach to make the workflow of an organization more efficient and effective, as well as more capable of adapting to the ever-evolving environment. A business process is an activity or a set of activities that accomplish the certain goal of an organization. The BPM’s goal is to minimize human error, miscommunication and to focus stakeholders on their roles’ requirements. It is furthermore a subset of infrastructure management, which is an administrative area that deals with the maintenance and optimization of the equipment of a business and the core operations.

2. Voice of the customer. Is a process that is used in capturing the feedback and/or requirements from the customer to provide them with the best in class product quality and service. This is all about being constantly innovative and proactive in capturing the changing needs of the customers. The term voice of the customer is used to describe stated and unstated requirements of the clientele. It could be capture in several ways, including surveys, direct discussion or interviews, customer specifications, focus groups, warranty data, observation, complaint logs, field reports and more. The data is used to identify the needed quality attributes for a supplied material or component to integrate a product’s process.

3. Customer analytics. Often, customer analytics is managed by an interdisciplinary group composed of business owners from various departments within an organization. The group includes sales, marketing, customer service, business analysts and IT. To be effective, the group must agree first on which business metrics they need to be able to achieve a single view of the customer experience. Several instances of CRM or customer relationship management applications, poor customer data integration or CDI and disparate enterprise resource planning or ERP could leave the members of the group with a fragmented view of a customer. The customer analytics’ goal is to build one, accurate view of the customer for the group to work with and decide on how best to acquire and keep customers. Furthermore, it also helps to identify high-value customers and interact with them proactively.

4. Master data management or MDM. It is an extensive method of enabling a company to link all of its vital data to a single file, which is called the master file. Them file provides a common point of reference. When done properly, MDM simplifies sharing of data among personnel and departments. Additionally, it could also facilitate computing in numerous system platform, architectures and applications.

5. Personalization. Sometimes known as customization, personalization consists of tailoring a product or a service to accommodate certain persons, at times tied to segments of individuals or groups. Numerous organizations use personalization to boost customer satisfaction, marketing results, branding, digital sales conversion and enhanced website metrics for advertising as well. It is a key element in recommender systems and social media.

6. Multichannel customer service. Its aim is to provide the clientele with options on how they like to communicate with a brand, for instance, if they have a query or want to make a complaint. Moreover, it’s also about providing a seamless experience to the customer, whatever the channel they want to use. Behind the scenes, a lot of enterprises may not have joined up customer service channels, but when it comes to the customers, they deal with one company, whether by telephone, online or in a local store.

7. Communication privacy management. Is a systematic research theory that is designed to develop an evidence-base comprehension of the way people decide about revealing and concealing private information. The theory suggests that individuals coordinate and maintain privacy boundaries with different communication partners, depending on the perceived costs of information disclosure and benefits.

8. Loyalty management. Is a business model used in the strategic management wherein the company resources are employed to boost customers’ loyalty as well as other stakeholders in the expectation that the business objectives would be met or surpassed. One example of this kind of model is quality of service or product that leads to customer satisfaction, which could lead to customer loyalty and of course leads to profitability