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Bank Reports Show US Consumer Remains Strong

ValueWalk — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 11:00:47 +0000

After solid reports from JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), and Citigroup (NYSE:C), traders turned their focus to Goldman Sachs and Bank of America as they continued to search for clues about the strength of the U.S. consumer and economy.

Both Goldman Sachs and Bank of America reported earnings and revenue that exceeded expectations for Q3, further solidifying the strong showing of the major U.S. banks in the September quarter.

How Goldman Performed in Q3

For Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), traders were focused on trading revenue stemming from activity in Treasury securities and various assets, which has yielded positive results for several other banks. Traders were also looking to hear more from the bank’s CEO David Solomon, who has faced scrutiny after revealing losses within the consumer banking unit.

The banking titan reported a lower third-quarter profit compared to the previous year but managed to exceed lower earnings expectations, thanks to record revenue in its trading segments.

For the three months ending on September 30, Goldman Sachs profit dropped by approximately 36% to $1.88 billion, or $5.47 per share, compared to $2.96 billion, or $8.25 per share, in the same quarter the previous year.

Analysts had expected Goldman Sachs to report earnings of $5.42 per share. Third-quarter revenue amounted to $11.82 billion, a decrease from $11.98 billion in the prior year’s quarter but still above the average analyst estimate of $11.15 billion.

“We continue to make significant progress executing on our strategic priorities and we’re confident that the work we’re doing now provides us a much stronger platform for 2024,” said Solomon, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs.

The global banking and markets segment generated a 6% increase in net revenues, reaching $8 billion. This growth was driven by strong performance in fixed income, currency, commodities, and equities. Moreover, the bank posted record quarterly revenue in its financing operations.

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Equities net revenue saw an 8% rise to $2.96 billion, primarily attributed to higher equities financing revenue, especially in prime financing. This was partially offset by lower portfolio financing revenue. Revenue also increased in equities intermediation.

However, investment banking fees remained unchanged at $1.55 billion. Debt underwriting, driven by leveraged finance activity, buoyed this segment, but a decline in mergers and acquisitions activity weighed on the advisory business.

“I also expect a continued recovery in both capital markets and strategic activity if conditions remain conducive. As the leader in M&A advisory and equity underwriting, a resurgence in activity will undoubtedly be a tailwind for Goldman Sachs,” Solomon added.

Solomon has come under scrutiny following the disclosure of losses in the consumer banking unit. Analysts have been adjusting their expectations for Goldman Sachs, as the deal environment for mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings has been lackluster despite expectations for a strong recovery after a disappointing year of 2022.

Goldman’s shares were mostly flat in Tuesday trading following the release of the Q3 earnings report.

How Bank of America Performed in Q3

Unlike Goldman, traders were looking to hear from Bank of America about the bank’s deposit activities, with particular attention on account holders shifting their funds into higher-yield products such as certificates of deposits.

Bank of America also topped third-quarter profit estimates, primarily driven by stronger-than-expected interest income. Earnings per share came in at 90 cents, above the expected 82 cents. Revenue rose 2.9% year-over-year to $25.32 billion, just ahead of the consensus of $25.14 billion.

“We added clients and accounts across all lines of business. We did this in a healthy but slowing economy that saw US consumer spending still ahead of last year but continuing to slow. Our growth in revenue and earnings allowed us to continue our investments in our people and technology to drive an enhanced client experience,” Chair and CEO Brian Moynihan said.

The bank attributed its performance to a 4% increase in interest income, which reached $14.4 billion, approximately $300 million more than what analysts had predicted. This segment’s growth was fueled by higher interest rates and increased loan activity.

Furthermore, the bank’s provision for credit losses was better than expected, standing at $1.2 billion, compared to the estimated $1.3 billion.

Despite its high exposure to consumers, Bank of America stock struggled to perform well in 2023 due to the bank’s poor strategic moves in the COVID-19 era. More specifically, BofA invested in low-yielding, long-dated securities, which were negatively impacted by the rising interest rates.

The management added that it maintained a disciplined approach in Q3, reducing expenses for the second consecutive quarter. Simultaneously, Bank of America said it has continued to invest in strengthening of its business.

A special focus has been placed on organic earnings generation, which has led to an increase in the capital ratio, now standing at 11.9%. This comfortably exceeds the required minimum of 9.5% as of October 1st.

Bank of America said it returned $2.9 billion in Q3 through common stock dividends and share repurchases.

BAC stock was modestly up in Tuesday’s trading session.

Conclusion

Bank of America stock rose after the bank reported trading revenue that exceeded the average analyst estimate. Additionally, the bank’s net interest income was also ahead of consensus expectations. Similarly, Goldman Sachs reported weaker YoY profit figures, although still ahead of market expectations.

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Is Disney in for Another Proxy Fight?

ValueWalk — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 12:00:05 +0000

Walt Disney has been in the news a lot this year, and it has not all been good. In fact, the stock has had a rocky ride the past few years. The share price hit a 52-week low of $78 per share earlier this month and has not been that low since 2014.

Inflation, politics, some box office bombs, a writers’ strike, some iffy acquisitions and business challenges related to the changing television-viewing landscape, among other factors, have all played a role. However, the company faced another challenge this week — one that has been favored by investors, at least initially. It involves a challenge from activist investor Nelson Peltz.

Activist investor seeks board seats

Through his firm Trian Fund Management, Peltz is one of the largest investors in Disney. The hedge fund recently boosted its stake in Disney to some 30 million shares, worth about $2.5 billion, according to the The Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the company. It has since been reported by multiple media outlets.

Citing the unnamed source, the Journal reported that Peltz was seeking multiple seats on the Disney board, including one for himself, in an effort to exert more influence over the direction of the struggling company.

He had initially launched a proxy fight against Disney in January, seeking several changes in addition to seats on the board. At that time, he owned about 9.4 million shares. Peltz eventually dropped his proxy battle after he was satisfied that some of his requested changes were being addressed by CEO Bob Iger and the Disney “brain trust.” Among the demands, Peltz sought cost cuts and streamlining, improvements to the streaming business, a reinstated dividend, which was suspended after the pandemic, and a succession plan, among other things.

However, the stock has continued to drop since then, no doubt prompting this latest fight, although neither Disney nor Peltz has officially commented on the media reports.

What does this mean for Disney stock?

The report about Peltz’s latest involvement originally surfaced Sunday night, and Disney stock has risen almost 3% since the market opened on Monday, reaching just over $85 per share. It indicates that investors are somewhat bullish on the latest push to refocus the company.

The board nominations don’t open until Dec. 5, so the fact that this story leaked gives Iger and the company time to make some additional moves to satisfy investors. He has certainly been busy.

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In recent months, Iger had said Disney was interested in forming a strategic partnership to bolster ESPN, and there were rumors the company was trying to sell off some of its TV stations and the ABC network. Disney threw shade at the latter rumor, releasing a statement to that effect.

“While we are open to considering a variety of strategic options for our linear businesses, at this time, The Walt Disney Company has made no decision with respect to the divestiture of ABC or any other property, and any report to that effect is unfounded,” the Sept. 14 statement said.

In addition, Disney slashed expenses by $5.5 billion earlier this year and has been looking to invest some $60 billion in its theme parks and cruise lines over the next decade.

Disney’s Parks, Experiences and Products division has continued to perform well and has been carrying the load while the company figures out how to maximize its Media and Entertainment Distribution arm, which includes its streaming services and linear networks. This new, rumored proxy battle may be another catalyst for change over the next few months.

Disney will release its fiscal fourth quarter and full-year results on Nov. 8, so we may know more as that date approaches.

Right now, Disney looks overpriced, with a trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 68, but its forward P/E ratio is a more reasonable 16. The company’s five-year P/E-to-growth (PEG) ratio of 0.96 indicates that the stock is undervalued compared to its long-term earnings potential. Ultimately, this potential proxy battle is not a bad thing for Disney, although investors should certainly keep a close eye on the company, as there appears to be many changes afoot.

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Move Over Millennials – Gen Z Is Buying Up Homes Quicker Than Their Older Peers

ValueWalk — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 01:30:59 +0000

While some millennials are unable to afford their rent, or keep up with the cost of living, not even mentioning the thought of buying property or a house, a younger cohort of new buyers are now stepping into the property market; Generation Z.

Against all odds, things are starting to shape up for some younger homeowners and would-be buyers, especially for those born between 1997 and 2012. In a 2022 Redfin report, data showed that more Gen Zs owned their homes last year, compared to the generation before them – millennials – and even their parents.

Yes, the Redfin data showed that roughly 30% of 25-year-olds last year owned their home, considered to be the oldest age group of the Gen Z cohort. This is slightly higher compared to their millennial peers, with only 28% that owned their home at the same age, and 27% of Gen Xers, those born between 1965 and 1980.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the only generation that had a higher ownership rate were Baby Boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, with 32% of whom owned their homes at the age of 25.

With the economy stumbling, the cost of living out of control, eye-watering interest rates, and home prices at an all-time high, many wonder how the youngest generation managed to get ahead of their peers against a backdrop of tremendous economic challenges.

Born At The Right Time

Those who have been lucky enough to call themselves homeowners were simply born at the right time, it’s that simple.

Research by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that college students who graduate during a recession typically experience a 9% loss in annual earnings, compared to those who graduate during a stronger economy. The research further claims that while those losses begin to decrease over time, it would take nearly a decade after graduation for them to catch up with their peers.

Let’s take this as an example. The majority of older Gen Zers were either born before or around the time of the 2008 financial crisis. At this time, some Gen Xers may have already kickstarted their professional careers, while older millennials were fresh out of college. What this signals is that older generations had a slower start in terms of their earnings, compared to some Gen Zers who’ve only graduated before or after the pandemic.

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Historically Low Mortgage Rates

Their birth year isn’t the only thing that’s helped them win over the real estate market in recent years. Back in 2020, the Federal Reserve pushed interest rates to near zero as a reaction to the global pandemic. The knock-on effect helped to bring mortgage rates down below 3% at the time, the lowest in more than two decades.

Before this, mortgage rates had never seen such levels, but this won’t last too long. In March 2022, the central bank reluctantly started lifting interest rates again, in an attempt to hamper soaring inflation, which peaked at 9% in June 2022, the highest in more than 40 years.

Since starting the inflation-busting monetary policy last year, the central bank raised interest rates 11 consecutive times, their benchmark interest rate up to 5.25% – 5.50%, the highest since the Bush Administration.

What this has meant for would-be buyers, especially millennials who now had some cash to spare for a downpayment, is that mortgage rates are now steadily beginning to approach 8%.

As a consolation, current rates, which are closer to 7.19% are still far below the 18.63% the market experienced during the 1980s, however, many experts suggest that at the current pace, we could soon be heading in that direction.

Shacking Up With Mom And Dad

Generation Z stepped into a somewhat strange labor market during the pandemic. As many of them entered their professional careers during the pandemic, companies at the time were mandating that employees work remotely, or from home at least several days of the week.

While unemployment levels were through the roof at the height of the pandemic, those who were given the opportunity to work remotely, especially younger employees or those who recently graduated took the liberty to either move back in with their parents or secure a cheap rental in urban metros that were running dormant at the time.

Not only did this help them save a lot of money after college, not to mention the Trump era student loan freezes, which are now making a strong comeback, but for some Gen Z employees, working from home, or working remotely is the second most important employee benefit after health insurance and before employer-sponsored retirement benefits.

Will This Last?

It’s somewhat encouraging to see how younger generations have managed to get their foot in the door, however, concerns over how long this trend will last are steadily revealing cracks in the system, and how inequality is spread among generations. Let’s hope that some Gen Zers have saved up enough of their stimulus checks to help them keep up with rising costs, as they enjoy their newly bought homes.

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10 EdTech Tools That’s Enhancing The Digital Classroom

ValueWalk — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 11:00:35 +0000

Rapid technological development has enabled widespread digitization of organizational structures, helping to create a more sustainable and efficient enterprise supply chain. During the last two decades, ongoing investment and adoption of new technology have allowed organizations to upskill their workforce, build effective communication channels, and create a more interactive virtual workplace.

While newer software tools and digital resources have witnessed broader appeal within private industries, other sectors with less digital involvement and inadequate financial investment have seen slower levels of technological adoption, despite Artificial Intelligence (AI) being a strong driver of change and forward-looking development.

Traditionally, the education sector, and more importantly, the classroom setting have seen slower use of technology. However, following the pandemic, educators and teachers have realized the scale of opportunities that come with using technology as a way to make lessons more intriguing, manage their planning structures, and help create a more engaging classroom experience.

The Rise of EdTech

The virtual and digital classroom has moved beyond traditional tools – Google Teams and Zoom – and has started to embrace the continuous development of newer, more advanced software tools that can help students and educators improve their performance within the classroom.

The establishment of edtech or educational technology has allowed big-tech companies and other household names to develop a range of digital services focused on improving the overall classroom setting and the teaching experience.

Generally speaking, edtech refers to the use of software and hardware components, and collaborating this with in-person teaching to create a more digital learning environment for students. Edtech encompasses a variety of tools and resources and is focused on providing real-time solutions for educators, enabling them with more efficient and optimum teaching experiences.

While the development, and more importantly adoption of these technological tools have been typically slow, better access to the Internet of Things (IoT), and Software as a Service (SaaS) have made edtech tools more attractive for educators and private investors.

Research by McKinsey and Company, a global consulting firm, estimates that venture capital investment in the global edtech sector will reach more than $20.8 billion in 2021, a representation of 40 times more than the amount invested eleven years earlier in 2010.

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Was it perhaps not for the pandemic that helped fast-track this development, educational technology has now become an integral part of the classroom setting, whether this is for the facilitation of in-person or virtual teaching.

EdTech Tools For The Digital Classroom

As technology begins to play a more important role in the classroom, educators will continuously look to adopt more advanced tools that will improve their lessons, further enhance student interactions and engagements, and assist with the management of course materials and lesson planning.

In-Class Lesson Planning Software

The first, and perhaps most important category is the use of software to enable more effective and engaging classroom lessons and the presentation of course materials.

PlanBoard

This platform enables teachers to create a digital playbook and utilize lesson templates to create more compelling presentations. PlanBoard is a popular platform for various grades and levels and can be directly linked with U.S. state and Canadian curriculum standards.

The interactive platform allows for easy use and lesson planning and can be used both online and offline. The media function allows teachers to upload new content, and use this within their lessons. With PlanBoard, educators have access to analytical tools as well, helping to track student progression and performance.

Nearpod

Nearpod can be used in different classes and lessons, especially for teachers with younger students who require intuitive lesson planning. This platform allows teachers to create more interactive and engaging lessons with the use of available templates and other multimedia materials.

One of the most attractive features of Nearpod is that teachers can make lessons available for students to download onto their mobile devices. The platform is free to use, and students can use the application both online and offline. This application is suitable for a variety of classes, and teachers can use the materials available on the platform to craft more lively, fun, and interesting lessons for students.

Mentimeter

Next on the list is Mentimeter, a free platform that provides near-endless opportunities for teachers. With Mentimeter, teachers can further streamline their lesson planning, and use Educational templates to create more interactive lessons.

Mentimeter comes with a variety of features, such as the Quiz Questions, which allows students to submit anonymous real-time answers. This feature is most suitable in big classes, either at the university level or even in situations where students are less confident to give responses in a classroom setting. Overall, Mentimeter can help teachers build more robust lessons, and create straightforward activities that will keep students at any level engaged.

Organizational Software

The following category looks at various platforms that allow teachers to plan, organize, and execute their lessons better. This software helps to keep all of their important information in one place.

Additio

With Additio, educators can keep better track of student attendance, class activities, and weekly planners. The platform helps to centralize critical organizational and classroom management, enabling more engagement between teachers and students beyond the classroom.

Additio allows teachers to build a weekly or monthly calendar, and include other records, such as attendance, observations, important notes, and extra curricular activities. More than this, the platform is available to students, meaning they can access important information and resources at any given time.

Additionally, the platform acts as a communication portal between teachers, students, and parents. With this, both students and parents can contact teachers, and teachers can also track any student’s progress. While it takes a bit of time to get used to the interface, Additio is a valuable tool for effective classroom management.

Socrative Teacher

Another classroom management platform, that is both desktop and mobile-friendly is Socrative Teacher. This platform can be used across various teaching levels, from primary school to high school, and is even used in the corporate environment.

With Socrative Teacher, educators can design their classroom management around their needs, while also making the process a lot more enjoyable with games, and a range of available templates.

For in-class use, there are options to create custom quizzes, and the backend allows teachers to review student reports with infographics and other visualizations. Socrative Teacher makes learning and understanding data more fun and interactive and is available for free to students.

Attendance

Teachers with multiple classes and students can use Attendance to keep better track of which students have been attending class and create a report that measures their performance that can later be used to help assess student behavior and forward-looking guidance.

With Attendance, teachers can create custom lists for different classes, which can then be used to keep track of individual student classwork, studies, projects, and assignments. The platform implements easy-to-use prompts and tools for teachers, allowing them to keep better track of student records, and to help verify student reports more effectively.

One of the downsides of this platform is that managing various students and classes all at once can feel somewhat overwhelming in the beginning. Additionally, teachers need to constantly keep track of different projects and information on the platform to ensure they use the data more effectively and to their best advantage.

Classtree

Perhaps less organizational, and more focused on providing teachers an effective and safe way to stay connected with parents. This platform aims to eliminate any potential communication barriers, allowing teachers the ability to directly contact parents and provide them with the necessary student performance reporting.

You can think of Classtree as the classroom version of Messenger of iMessage, as it has a one-on-one chat portal, but also provides additional features that can help teachers and parents have better control over student performance.

As a stand-alone communication platform, Classtree comes with all the bells and whistles. Teachers can send parents surveys and attendance records of their students. Additionally, they can have better analytical data to create student reports, all the while being able to directly share this information with parents.

Student-Teacher Collaboration Software

The final category focuses on bringing students and teachers closer together, both in terms of in-class and virtual learning. This software enables teachers to give students more freedom to interact and engage with lessons through technology such as pop quizzes, videos, and presentations.

Slido

Instead of handing out individual question papers, teachers can now allow students to answer questions using Slido. The platform gives teachers the ability to share an event code with students, which they can access through their web browsers. Teachers can then provide questions and possible answers, which students can respond to using the platform.

This platform helps to make presentations a lot more interactive for students of any age, as results or answers are displayed in real-time. Teachers can remove results, and statements or answers that receive multiple upvotes will move to the top of the list quickly.

Slido can also be used in a university setting, or even corporate training, as presenters can set up polls and surveys, which can then be answered by attendees. Through this, presenters, and more importantly, educators can have an active and visual presentation of student queries, questions, and answers.

Moodle

Moodle is a more robust software platform that houses several collaboration tools and features geared at educators across various education levels. One of the significant features of Moodle is that it allows for the mass integration of multiple students, and educators can include projects, assignments, and peer and self-assessments.

Moodle is free to use for both students and educators and is available on Open Source. Additionally, Moodle allows educators to customize the platform to their needs. While there are a lot of intricacies, and it takes a bit of time to get the hang of everything, Moodle provides efficient classroom management and collaboration for educators.

Explain Everything Whiteboard

Educators who want to have more control and versatility in their classroom management can leverage Explain Everything Whiteboard to interact with students, collaborate on projects, and provide students with an open communication portal.

While the platform is mainly used to create an interactive interface, whereby students and teachers can write and share notes, create images, and share other media, Explain Everything Whiteboard also allows teachers to access student records and share important resources via the platform.

This creative collaboration tool allows for better attendance during online lectures and classes. Educators can record their videos or lessons, which can then be shared with students. The platform also features built-in voice chat and video link sharing.

Why Is Edtech Important For The Classroom?

Edtech enables educators, schools, and universities to address issues of accessibility. With the necessary edtech software, educators can ensure that educational materials and resources are more widely available to all students, regardless of socio and economic background.

Following the pandemic, educational technology has become increasingly important for teachers and educators, to provide students with valuable classroom experiences, despite having to conduct classes virtually.

The pandemic allowed for the widespread deployment of educational technology. The World Bank estimates that “Learning Poverty” in low-income countries could potentially rise from 53 percent to more than 63 percent due to the limited availability of technological resources, school closures, and minimal intervention that promotes the adoption of edtech software.

Learning loss isn’t only present in low-income countries, and there are multiple instances where a lack of critical resources, especially technology, can directly make an impact on the classroom experience for students.

One research study found that roughly 86 percent of eighth-grade teachers have agreed that integrating some technology into lessons and presentations is important, and directly contributes to the learning experience.

Even more, a different study found that 90 percent of teachers and educators believe that with the use of technology and software, they can further expand their lessons, and enable a more collaborative classroom.

While there are still a lot of obstacles that may hinder the successful application of edtech, it remains a critical component for the advancement of student-teacher engagement and collaboration, but more importantly, helps to optimize classroom management, and ensures greater autonomy for teachers.

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10 Financial Planning Mistakes Couples Make When Shacking Up

ValueWalk — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 11:00:53 +0000

Now more than ever before, young people are shacking up with their partners in an attempt to save more money as costs continue to climb, and the housing market out-prices the majority of younger first-time buyers.

One Realtor.com study of roughly 3,009 consumers concluded that 63 percent of people have recently moved in or are cohabitating with a romantic partner. Their decision for this? Well, the majority of respondents claimed that their decision was impacted either by finances and/or logistics.

Living together has meant that some couples have managed to save a bit of extra cash each month according to the Realtor.com survey.

Roughly 27 percent of those living together have saved between $1 and $500 per month, 20 percent have saved between $501 to $1,000 per month, while other cohorts have saved between $1,001 to $2,000 per month. The smallest percentage, 4 percent, managed to stock away more than $5,000 since moving in together with their romantic partner.

While there may be some financial benefits of moving in with a partner or significant other before marriage, nearly 42 percent of those surveyed said that they regret making this decision, with forty-eight percent saying it caused their relationship to come to an end.

Still, thinking of moving in with your partner in an attempt to save on costs and split rent each month? Well, then it might be time to sit and have the “money talk” with them first, before making your next move.

How To Avoid Financial Planning Mistakes With Your Partner

Living with someone, especially your romantic partner becomes increasingly complicated once you have to start splitting costs and create a combined financial goal.

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Not every person in this partnership may have similar financial goals, expenses, or spending habits. One person might still have a lot of debt to pay off, while the other is making more money. Small financial habits, such as early morning coffee before work, expensive skincare products, or high-end tech gadgets can get in the way of your relationship.

Matthew Hart from Axlewise, an automotive planning firm says that, “Not effectively planning, or not taking the time to consider how costs will be divided among yourselves, or deciding who will pay for what can lead to bigger complications in the long run.”

Hart says that couples need to think of their relationship, or moving in together as a business. How will your financial decisions impact the froward-working strategy of your business? Can you make any changes that ensure both you and your partner can benefit from it? Every dollar you bring into this business or relationship will need to provide you with a return, whether it’s improved financial security, or even building towards a bigger goal.

As we’ve already seen, four out of ten people have said that poor financial planning can cause a relationship to come to an end.

Instead of blindly making big decisions, without giving it proper consideration beforehand, couples need to have an open dialogue about finances, and how they will be splitting costs once they’ve finally moved in together.

What Financial Planning Mistakes To Avoid With Your Partner

While you may have already started planning your upcoming move, hopefully, it’s time to start thinking about the numerous financial mistakes you might incur over the coming months, and how you can address these issues before they become bigger problems.

Avoiding The Topic Of Finances

While it’s understandable that the topic of money might not be the most pleasant one, avoiding talking about your finances or planning a budget can be one of the biggest mistakes you make before the big move.

Having an open conversation, about your finances, allows you the opportunity to get a better indication of what your partner’s financial habits may be. This would also give you a bit of time to reflect on your own spending habits in terms of how much of your money is being used on necessities, wants, and luxuries.

Talking about money isn’t as hard as it looks, and it’s often better to get through the hard – financial part – first, allowing you to better plan, and create a budget that suits both people.

The last thing you want to encounter is living with someone who not only has bad money or spending habits but influences your choices and your forward-looking money goals.

Not Having Financial Boundaries

Boundaries in any relationship can be a good thing, and when it comes to living with a romantic partner, financial boundaries can be one of the healthiest decisions you can make together

You may have already started considering how you will be sharing one space, all the time. What time of day you might want to relax by yourself, or how you will be sharing communal areas, such as the kitchen and bathroom? These boundaries ensure that you can respect one another, but also give each other space when arguments may arise, or you have difficulties deciding on something.

Boundaries can be hard, and it’s not an easy topic to bring up with your partner. However, in this case, setting financial boundaries can be just as crucial for your relationship. Allowing each other the space they need to use their money on the things that they value as important creates a sense of mutual respect, but also allows you to be more confident in your decisions.

You don’t want to feel that every small purchase you may be making will later be questioned by your partner. Neither do you want to feel that your partner is freely spending their money or even your joint savings on unnecessary purchases that you didn’t agree on together?

Neither Planning For The Move

From the very first day, you should have a plan in mind that can help you cover some of the basic things such as when you’re planning to move, where you want to live, how much space you need in your new place, or how the living arrangements will work.

With this in mind, you might also want to consider the costs that are involved when moving in together. You might need to hire a truck or additional transportation to move all your belongings. Who will be paying for the down payment of your new apartment, or how are you going to cover the first month’s expenses such as groceries and utilities?

These things are important, and not a lot of people take the time to consider how much they will need before and within the first few months of moving in together. Not thinking about this, makes for a big financial mistake that you want to avoid as much as possible, especially if you’re already moving in with your partner to save money.

Not Setting Up A Budget

As someone who’s currently living alone, you might already have a budget that tracks where all your money is going. From every penny you may be making to every cent or dollar you may be spending. Keeping track of your expenses, and how you diversify your income allows you to keep on pace with your financial goals.

Now that you’re moving in with your partner, it’s time to sit and create a monthly budget, whereby you can discuss who pays for what and how expenses will be divided among yourselves.

Without a proper budget, you might find yourself spending more money each month, seeing that you now need to pay for an extra person or feed an extra mouth. Deciding on who pays for what will ensure that both parties are aware of how much of their income will need to go towards things such as rent, utilities, or the internet bill.

Additionally, having a budget gives you a sense of how much money the other person might be bringing to the table. One person might be making slightly more, and could potentially cover the internet bill, while the other person pays less rent. These things are important to discuss with your partner, as you want to be clear on how you can learn from one another and adjust your spending habits accordingly.

Contemplating Each Other’s Financial Habits

Living with someone is a lot different than spending a few days with them, or staying over at their place for a week. Once you and your partner start to get more serious, you will begin to pick up on some of their habits. It might be small things at first, however, over time you might begin to realize that there are bigger things that may give you the ick.

The same can be said about their financial habits, whether it may be them splurging – unnecessarily – on luxury items, or buying things they don’t need right now, without discussing it first may cause some friction between you and your partner.

There may be things that you’re doing with your money that your partner doesn’t agree with, or even have a different view of money compared to them. These small things, without consolidation, become bigger problems in the long run, which can only lead to instability and feelings of distrust.

Never Checking Your Personal Finances

You might not be thinking about this right now, but you will need to have a look at your personal finances as well, even well before you move in with your partner.

Why, you may wonder? Well, having a breakdown of your expenses, and other purchases can help you put things into perspective. Taking your monthly bank statements, going through them, and sharing them with your partner, will help create a more transparent and open dialogue about your spending habits.

There might be some months where you have more cash left to stock in your savings than the previous, or you might find yourself paying for subscriptions that you no longer need. Taking a good look at your finances helps you to determine how your income is being dispersed, and how you can make any cutbacks or better financial choices.

Having Different Financial Goals

This is perhaps where many couples falter, as not every person will share the same financial goals, and before you move in with your partner, you might need to consider each other’s long term outlook for your relationship.

While you might be saving for an upcoming trip, or even to pay off student loans, your partner might be saving their money for a downpayment on a new car, or even buying something that they’ve always wanted.

Having different financial goals won’t mean that your entire plan of moving in together will need to be thrown out of the window. Instead, you will need to have a shared understanding of how your extra savings will be put towards something you both can benefit from.

Creating a joint savings account will be one of the first steps, this will help you deposit any extra cash you have to save for things like emergencies, or even taking a trip together in the next few months. Creating a shared goal ensures that both people are on the same page, and can motivate one another to save a little bit of extra money each month for something bigger.

Underestimating The Importance Of Doing A Trial Run

You might have already lived with your partner for a few days or even a weekend, however, this isn’t the same as sharing an entire apartment with them for extended periods.

Doing a trial run, for at least several continuous days, or even longer than one week will give you a peek into their routine, and daily habits. More than this, it will give you an idea of how it will be to live with this person.

Your partner might be working from home, and you might need to commute to the office every day. This will help you determine how much time you will need every morning to get ready if you’re sharing a bathroom with someone.

Your schedule might be packed with social events each weekend, while they enjoy spending quality time at home or even doing activities in smaller groups instead of going out to a restaurant with a big group of friends.

These small things, whether it’s how they clean the house, pack away their clothes, or even what time of the day they go to the gym will be a clear indication of how compatible you may, or may not be.

Additionally, this will help you further determine how they work with money. Maybe they’re someone who enjoys weekend adventures out of town, meaning that once you live together you might also need to have extra cash for these sorts of things. Perhaps you find it easier to order food online, instead of cooking at home, during the week?

Overall, sharing someone’s personal space with them will help you understand how you will need to make the necessary changes to adjust to their habits, but also vice versa.

Being Closed-Minded About Financial Decisions

Not every person, including your partner, may see the value in the things you consider important. We’re not talking about the big things, such as marriage, children, or family, but rather focusing on the smaller things, such as paying a little bit extra each month to have your car cleaned by professionals, or splurging on an expensive dinner compared to preparing something at home.

There are multiple things your partner might enjoy spending your money on, that you don’t find important, or see the value in. While these small things may cause you to question their financial habits, discussing these matters before the time allows you to get a better sense of why they find it important, and how they are financially supporting these purchases.

Being closed-minded about certain things, or even not taking the time to discuss these things with your partner will create uncertainty between one another. There may come a time when you feel that someone is being unreasonable, or perhaps you’re missing the point, simply because you haven’t properly communicated these things with them.

Take the time to understand why your partner may think or feel differently about things, and see how you can view it from their perspective. There’s no harm in trying something, and if you’re not comfortable with it, share this with your partner. Remember that you’re doing this together and that you need to share in the experience.

Unaware Of Each Other’s Financial Opinions

You might have already picked up on this, but there might be a slight chance that you and your partner share different views or opinions about finances. One person might be very meticulous about their spending habits, while another sees more worth in splashing their cash on things they feel are important to them.

Having different opinions about money can mean that you might find it hard to create a middle ground where you both can share the same type of financial goals, or how you will be saving towards something bigger and more important.

While one person may know more than the other, use this opportunity to educate each other, and share advice or tips on how to be more effective with your money. Simple things such as creating a budget, or even setting up a savings account might be one of the things your partner is not well versed in, or maybe even you.

Additionally, it’s good to learn from each other, but also ask questions, and talk about financial challenges you may have experienced in the past, and how you managed to overcome them.

There may be money matters that you completely don’t agree with, and while this shouldn’t derail your forward-looking goal of moving in together, it’s important to discuss this with your partner first, before simply throwing the conversation out.

Make The Right Financial Choice

Moving in with your partner, in an attempt to save money requires enough planning, to ensure both your financial needs are being met. Remember, that discussing finances should always be an open conversation, and if you’re unsure of something, or feel that you or your partner might have overstepped a boundary, discuss this with them thoroughly before jumping to your own conclusions.

Combining your finances is a big step in your relationship, and both of you want to make this work as much as possible. Instead of leaving the important money matters for one of you to resolve, consider having weekly, or even monthly conversations, setting up a budget, and testing the waters before diving in head first.

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The Drawbacks Of Using AI In Digital Marketing And Content Strategy

ValueWalk — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 21:30:20 +0000

The adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been rapidly spreading across numerous industries, and can now be found in anything from supply chain management to healthcare, and construction.

However, with the adoption of any new technology comes a sense of hesitation, often leaving business leaders to question whether their decision will positively impact their forward-looking strategy.

In the last several months, we’ve seen widespread use of AI being implemented in the realm of digital marketing, allowing marketers and small businesses to more effectively grow their ad campaigns and target audience engagement.

Despite the potential drawbacks of AI in digital marketing and content strategy, the technology has proven to be a game-changer in other industries. For example, AI has been used to discover new cancer drugs in record time, with one small-cap company at the forefront of this innovation. While the long-term implications of AI in marketing remain uncertain, its success in other fields suggests that it could have a positive impact on the industry. Visit Behind the Markets. This paragraph is AI-generated advertising.

With several big-tech companies heavily investing in the development of newer and more advanced tools, digital marketers and business owners alike are now beginning to question the long-term implications these tools can have on their marketing and content strategy efforts.

How AI Is Used In Digital Marketing And Content Generation

There is already a plethora of digital platforms, publically available, which enables marketers and novice professionals to utilize AI tools to help improve and build more effective marketing strategies

For instance, some marketers have started relying on tools such as Albert, an AI application that can help them further optimize paid campaigns on social media platforms and websites.

Other tools, including Skyword, help to personalize content, enabling marketers to narrow down their efforts more effectively to reach their desired target audience.

Solutions such as CopyAI and AI Writer, among several others, can help marketers efficiently generate new content. Other applications can help teams generate vast amounts of data more efficiently, helping them to establish new forward-looking metrics and key data points that can be used within their content marketing strategies.

The adoption of AI software tools now touches on several key points within the digital marketing landscape, enabling teams to work more efficiently and helping them to develop more comprehensive strategies for their business and clients.

The Drawbacks Of AI In Digital Marketing

With any new technology, there comes a series of drawbacks and risks that need to be carefully evaluated before implementing these tools within the broader scope of a company or business’s digital marketing strategy.

Transparency

One of the most common, and often widely questioned concerns regarding the effectiveness of AI applications is transparency. The majority of these tools function through the basis of consuming vast amounts of available data. Through this process, AI tools can develop automated algorithms that can help to deliver more accurate insights.

However, more recently experts have begun to question whether these practices are transparent, and can directly improve their digital marketing strategies.

Although these systems can now filter through copious amounts of data and information, there’s still little transparency in terms of how these tools are being trained, and whether effective measures are taken to minimize issues relating to bias, misinformation, and other factors that can damage a business’s digital marketing strategy.

Ethical Concerns

Another potential drawback is the ethical implications of using AI models to build digital marketing strategies. Inaccurate use of these applications can cause bigger near-term problems for marketers and novice entrepreneurs.

Marketing teams will often generate new content through strategic development, however, with artificial intelligence, questions regarding the collection of data, inaccurate information, and copyright issues have resulted in several ethical dilemmas that require marketers to resolve through human interpretation.

This would mean that although these systems can ensure more accurate measurement of key data metrics and target engagement, marketers will need to establish clear guidelines on how these systems can effectively be used to enhance their digital marketing strategies, instead of overtaking the entire process.

AI Bias

There is already substantial evidence available that has shown the biased leaning tendencies of some AI models. Research has shown that large AI databases were found to be over 38% biased in the information they provided users with.

Using ineffective AI models that deliver biased results can directly impact a company’s marketing strategy, and further influence their content strategy. This would require digital marketers to accurately align their metrics with the tools they are using, but also ensure their data is not only skewed towards a specific social demographic.

These efforts require additional resources, only increasing the initial cost of marketing budgets for content creation or ad campaigns. Additionally, AI bias can lead marketing teams to overlook important pockets of their demographic or audience, which in the long term can derail their efforts or decrease engagement.

Lack Of Personalization

The use of personalization in marketing, and perhaps more importantly in content is one of the most valuable assets for any digital marketing team. Industry data suggests that personalization through targeted ads and messaging are key elements in the buying process.

Nearly 23% of surveyed consumers said that their purchase decision was largely driven by a personalized ad. On top of this, 39% of those who were surveyed questioned the transparency of personalization in targeted ads, raising concern over how companies retrieve their information and how it’s being used.

AI models tend to rely on existing content, and not human intelligence, or human emotion. This can create a detachment between marketing teams and consumers, further displacing their content within the consumer perspective, and only widening the gap between them and achieving engagement with their target audience.

Unnatural Content

Although some platforms allow marketers to create new content almost instantaneously, too much dependence on AI models can lead to unnatural content and often out of touch with the target audience.

The resulting factor often leads to content that seems less human, and almost too robotic. While these instances are often avoided by professional marketers, teams that have less knowledge or experience, and have an over-dependence on automated content generation can find their strategies being lost in translation and slowly moving away from their key objectives.

Additionally, other pitfalls include content that is similar to other competitors, as AI models make use of available data and information to generate ideas, and don’t necessarily come up with new ideas that can help brands set themselves aside from their competitors.

Dependence On Data

One of the key drawbacks of newer AI models is their dependence on new information or data to generate algorithms. This requires agencies and marketers to already have access to the necessary information they want to have analyzed.

For smaller agencies, with less access to reputable and trustworthy data, this can create additional problems, seeing as they tend to have less available resources to effectively train new AI models.

The high dependence on new data or information can create setbacks in how marketers can apply their marketing strategies. To ensure effective, and more reliable outcomes, agencies would need to constantly retrieve new data to train their models, but also ensure transparent use of this information.

Less Optimized Content

For content to rank above those of their competitors, marketing teams need to constantly update the information, and ensure it aligns with search engines’ optimization and ranking criteria.

The prevalence of artificial content has meant that many search engines have to update their crawler criteria, meaning that some search engines can now flag a website or content that was solely generated with the use of artificial models.

Newer tools can now evaluate the optimization of certain pages, focussing on key points that are not directly adding value to the user. With these efforts, search engines can punish content that is not dually optimized.

Ultimately what this means, is that new crawler technology can now detect content that has been generated by humans compared to those generated by algorithms.

Unrealistic Expectations

In general, marketers have unrealistic expectations when it comes to the application of artificial intelligence. While these models have greatly impacted how marketing teams can now develop new marketing and content strategies, there is still the reliance on human intervention that will be required throughout the process.

The overall infrastructure of artificial intelligence is still in the development process, which means that many of these systems are still relatively straightforward, and can’t be considered an end solution for digital marketing.

AI capabilities can help digital marketers make more insightful and informed decisions, however, human intervention is still necessary for editorial curation and ensuring accurate application of marketing and content strategies.

Inaccurate Information

Currently, not all AI models are trained with accurate or up-to-date information, leaving a lot of room for marketers and content teams to oversee these gaps. The cost of using wrong information, or misinforming customers can create further costlier efforts for a team, that can tarnish any company’s reputation and authority.

What’s more, the rise in false or misleading information being published on social media is creating further setbacks for the AI models that make use of these platforms to train and collect data.

The reliance on these AI models, in the long-term, can lead marketers to create strategies that are not only out of touch with their target audience but could mislead them with false information, leaving concerns relating to a company’s authority within the consumer marketplace.

Final Thoughts

While artificial intelligence has enabled marketers to be more informed through the use of analytical data, there remain several pitfalls that separate marketers from staying in touch with their target audience and their overall marketing and content strategies.

Digital marketers will need to consider their direct needs, but also the long-term effectiveness of these tools and how they can positively impact that forward-looking strategy.

Using these tools in combination with more traditional efforts, including human ingenuity would ensure that marketers can effectively adopt accurate models, but override these insights with human intelligence when needed.

A heavy dependence on artificial intelligence is still not recommended for teams that are less informed or skilled in how to use these tools to their best advantage. Instead, marketing teams can focus on how these tools can enrich their analytical insights, and use metrics that align with their overarching marketing goal.

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Ten Ways To Save Money & Budget When Working From Home

ValueWalk — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 11:00:38 +0000

For the millions of employees who are still lucky enough to work from home, despite droves of employees being summoned back into the office over the last several months, it’s time to re-evaluate your monthly budget and get the most out of your paycheck while you still have the chance to save on expenses such as commuting, clothing, and lunches.

As many would already know by now, the cost of ordinary goods has risen sharply over the last year due to sticky inflation that has in more recent months begun to decline.

However, there is still a long way to go before consumers, including work-from-home employees, will see the true effect of lower inflation taking shape in the wider economy. There are still some analysts predicting an upcoming recession, which could further derail the economy’s road to recovery following the pandemic.

While you may still have the opportunity to work remotely, for now at least, it’s best to take as much advantage of working from home to help build up your savings and manage your money better.

Downsize Or Relocate

A big trend that took place throughout the pandemic was remote working employees leaving urban areas, such as metropolitan cities, and relocating to quieter and more affordable Zoom Towns.

At the time, many used this opportunity to take advantage of cheaper housing and rental prices, however, in recent months, rent in some American cities has exploded due to skyrocketing demand.

If you’re looking to save a lot of money, consider downsizing your apartment, or maybe relocating somewhere more affordable. This might not be the most convenient option, but it would be worth your time, and budget to look for a more affordable place.

One way to save money while working from home is to invest in innovative products that can help you save time and money. For instance, Behind the Markets – AI Creates New Cancer Drug – In Just 30 Days! is a revolutionary product that has helped discover new treatments for multiple myeloma and liver cancer in a matter of months. With this product, you can stay ahead of the curve and invest in your health without breaking the bank. This paragraph is AI-generated advertising.

Additionally, you can always rent out a bedroom in a shared apartment, or if you have an extra bedroom in your place, consider putting it on the market for rent. Make sure that you think this through thoroughly, and that you do proper analysis of the situation before giving up your apartment, or dropping everything you have and relocating across town.

Cut Down On Clothing And Work Attire

Now that you don’t necessarily need to dress up for the office every day, you might want to start cutting down on buying business attire.

While the occasional meeting here and there, whether it’s via Zoom or in-person might require you to dress the part, there’s a good chance you don’t need to have a professional-looking outfit for every day of the week if you’re working from the comfort of your home.

Make the time to work through your closet, and consider whether you want to keep certain pieces. For the pieces, you no longer require, set up a page where you can sell them online, either on a place such as Facebook Marketplace, or even eBay.

Selling your business suit, or even that leather laptop bag you no longer need will help bring an extra few dollars into your pocket, and also help you clean out your closet at the same time.

Remember to keep a few items for yourself, and even make sure to have a spare in the event that you are suddenly recalled to the office.

Plan Your Meals

Yes, it’s now easier than ever to quickly run out to the nearby deli or café to pick up a ready-made meal. Spending a few dollars on lunch every day, when you could be preparing something at home, can be a lot cheaper, and potentially more nourishing.

Morning takeaway coffees, a lunch date here and there, or even that pastry you enjoy before your morning meeting can all add up.

Instead, have a weekly planner, whereby you can plan your meals. This will help encourage you to eat out less, but also help decide what to make for lunch on the days that you are working from home.

You don’t need to plan every meal, but if you feel like this would make things easier for you during the week, then definitely give it a try.

Make Your Own Coffee

Not to sound like a boomer, but making coffee at home, especially when working only a few feet from your kitchen can help save you a good deal of money during the week.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the average price of a cup of coffee rose by 7.6% between 2020 and 2021, costing consumers $4.90 per cup on average.

Making coffee at home might seem like an illegitimate way of saving more money, but when you begin to add up the weekly outings to your local coffee shop for your morning fix, against the price of buying a bag of beans to have at home, you quickly realize how much money you could be stocking into your savings every week.

For the days that you’d much rather get a coffee from your local café, make sure to have it worked into your budget, and that you don’t overspend on luxury purchases.

Make Use Of Public Transportation

For remote employees who reside in cities and towns with well-equipped public transportation networks, consider how using these systems will help you save on regular commuting and driving.

You might find yourself using your car somewhat less, now that you don’t need to go into the office anymore, that’s if you already had a car to start with.

For the days that you do need to use your car, see whether it’s possible to make use of public transportation instead, this way you’re saving on things such as gas, parking, and maintenance.

If you’re thinking that using your car less won’t save you any money, recent data suggests that Americans spend anywhere between $2,000 to $5,000 annually on transportation. Wherever possible, consider cutting down on using your car, and rather opt for more budget-friendly alternatives.

Reconsider Gym And Fitness Memberships

While a gym or fitness membership will help you stay in shape, and give you some time away from home, now that you’re working from home, you might have more time in your daily schedule to work out in your home instead of at the gym.

Many people often take out gym memberships in areas that are in close proximity to or from their office. However, you can easily get the same type of workout from your home gym, or even take your exercise activities outside to a nearby park or recreation center.

Doing your exercises at home, or even in a public place might not be the same as at the gym, but canceling expensive gym memberships will help you put more money towards more important financial goals.

Join Community Thrift Groups

Looking to furnish your new home office? Maybe you’re in the market for a more comfortable desk chair or want to sell off your old computer.

There are dozens of community thrift groups on social media, where local community members often sell or swap out their items. In some cases, you might stumble across a “buy nothing group” that operates on the basis of exchanging items, or even giving them away for free.

Yes, these items might not be in pristine condition, or have a few dents and scratches, but if you’re serious about saving and cutting down on your expenses, then making use of these alternatives, instead of buying new items, will help you save a good deal of money right from the beginning.

Regulate Electricity Usage

Now that you’re spending more time at home, you might find yourself spending more money on utilities such as energy, gas, and water. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, seeing that you’re now responsible for keeping the lights running in your home office.

With this in mind, ensure that you make the necessary adjustments to your daily routine, to keep your electricity bill as low as possible.

Turn off your computer when you’re not using it, or off the clock. Switch off the lights in and around your home during the day, and opt to open your windows during the day instead of using the air conditioner.

Regulate your central heating, by lowering the thermostat in the winter, and decrease the heating when you’re working in the office. Consider using alternative heating for your office instead of relying on your central heating which can hike up your electricity bill.

Simple and small changes can make a big difference in the long run, even if you don’t think so in the beginning.

Manage Work-Related Expenses

There are specific tax-related requirements for freelancers and employees working from home. While these may differ, from state to state, overall, remote-working individuals can claim different tax credits.

Things such as buying new equipment, or even having an office in your house, or maybe using your car for business-related purposes can help you decrease your annual tax bill.

Make sure that you read and understand the tax requirements for remote-working employees and freelancers. Additionally, take extra caution when managing your budget, to ensure you keep track of any work-related expenses.

Comparison Shop

With a bit more flexibility in your daily schedule, you can now spend more time comparison shopping for specific things such as cheaper car insurance, or even a better and more affordable internet provider.

Convenience comes at the cost of the consumer and as a remote working employee looking to save more money and budget better, rather take some time to shop around online or in-store for the price that fits your budget.

If you feel that you are overpaying for something, make an effort to negotiate rates with your service supplier.

Honorable Mention

Minimize The Need For Co-Working Space

Co-working spaces can be a great place to help stimulate your creativity and network with other like-minded individuals. However, these monthly and annual subscriptions for coworking offices can be a lot more expensive over the long term than you might think.

Consider whether or not these spaces will add value to your work, and how they will improve your productivity. We’re not saying you should completely dismiss these spaces, but if you’re not in need of working from a coworking space, rather settle for your home office where you already have everything you need.

To Finish Off

The pleasures of working from home come with the chance to cut down on unnecessary expenses that have been chipping away at your disposable income. While you might need to upgrade some of your equipment, or even purchase a few office-related items at first, taking the time to plan and budget your remote work experience will help you save more money, and also make you more aware of how you can effectively manage your money to suit your lifestyle.

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The Risks AI Poses For Small Businesses That Automate Too Quickly

ValueWalk — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 01:30:15 +0000

In a time where artificial intelligence (AI) and automation is witnessing widespread adoption, the underlying risks are often overlooked, as companies seek advanced technology to improve business-related protocols and upscale productivity.

Now, as a growing number of small to medium enterprises adopt advanced technology, many of them are left to manage the risks associated with these digital tools themselves, and it’s often leading to bigger and costlier problems than some business owners have anticipated.

Not everyone is fully onboard when it comes to automation or artificial technology. In a recent study, roughly three out of five people said they don’t trust or are unsure about the implementation of AI technology. What’s more, 61 percent claimed that they are unwilling to fully trust the capabilities of artificial intelligence within the business landscape.

This creates a double edged-sword scenario, whereby business leaders must decide whether or not to adopt AI technology to remain competitive or lag behind as business activities become increasingly automated.

Deploying new technology, and in this case, artificial automation tools can pose immense risks for companies that have a poor digital strategy, lack of infrastructure and knowledge, and fail to provide employees with the necessary skills to work with these tools.

Business owners and organizational leaders will need to rely on their inquisitive experience to fully grasp the risks that AI poses to their business, customers, and employees in the event of automating their protocols too quickly.

The Risk Of Automating Too Quickly

Automating certain business-related activities has been seen to assist and improve employee productivity, while at the same time helping to lower consumption of valuable resources. However, properly managing this technology requires business owners to fully understand the associated risks that are often overlooked.

Limited Scalability

Sufficient deployment of artificial technology can help employees automate mundane tasks and systems. In such cases, some small businesses often automate tasks such as email marketing, sales, and customer engagement.

However, in a 2023 Statista survey, researchers found that limited scalability can be the leading risk of inadequate automation and artificial intelligence adoption among marketers employed at small to medium-sized enterprises.

While the risks of inadequate automation adoption are numerous, there are also benefits to be gained from the proper implementation of AI technology. For instance, AI has been used to discover new treatments for cancer in a fraction of the time it would take humans to do so. Behind the Markets – AI Creates New Cancer Drug is a small-cap company that has been at the forefront of this innovation, with Bill Gates and Steve Cohen among its investors. This paragraph is AI-generated advertising.

Furthermore, around 43 percent of respondents from the same survey said that inadequate implementation can lead to lower levels of customer acquisition. This shows that while automation can improve the day-to-day tasks of employers and employees, deficiency throughout the adoption phase can lead to limited scalability opportunities and even lower customer turnover.

Faulty And Inaccurate Results

Numerous companies and business leaders are stockpiling the necessary human capital and resources to develop automation tools that can deliver accurate results based on the assigned prompts.

However, there are multiple instances and examples where automation tools can decrease work efficiency as a result of faulty and inaccurate results. One study by Cornell University found that code developers that had access to an AI assistant were less likely to produce secure code compared to their peers that wrote it manually.

For smaller companies, that may have less human capital to accurately rewrite code and develop the necessary solutions, these misleading outcomes, creates further financial implications and comprises the cyber security infrastructure of the business.

Lack Of Transparency

Although the majority of the automation tools used today by small and medium businesses can be categorized as being in their early stages of development, many experts have already claimed that these tools often lack transparent practices.

While business owners may be optimistic about the future potential of automation within the company structure, they often run the risk of automation tools delivering inaccurate and unintelligible outcomes.

Not all outcomes delivered by automation tools will be as intelligible as those delivered by humans. These tools make decisions based on key data prompts, which leaves many unanswered questions on whether or not these tools have weighed in the relevant factors during the decision-making process.

Unpredictable Behavior

Managing the behavior of automation is still one of the key risk factors small business owners will encounter as they begin to adopt and deploy more automation tools in their company.

While these tools may be efficient, there have been several accounts whereby artificial tools have unexpectedly changed their outcomes based on the given prompts. A recent example of this is the case of Microsoft’s Bing AI, which was found accusing and gaslighting users based on the information it provided.

The resulting factor, in the case of Microsoft, led the company to “lobotomize” the Bing AI platform, and restrict the number of questions users can ask it.

For small businesses, unexpected changes in AI behavior could tarnish customer relationships, resulting in lower customer acquisition, and leading to costly mistakes that often require alternative intervention.

Managing the behavior of automation tools can often put unnecessary strain on those employees working with these tools, but more importantly, put further strain on building customer relationships.

Low Employee Acceptance

Employee acceptance and trust in automation, and perhaps more in artificial intelligence in general is still one of the main caveats business owners will need to appropriately address.

As previously mentioned, reports have indicated that employees are still somewhat doubtful when automation tools are deployed within the workplace. While it’s at all possible that these systems can deliver accurate results, employers will need to provide employees with the necessary resources, skills, and knowledge to fully understand the capabilities of these automation tools.

Furthermore, while employees may at times be using common AI applications, the majority of them are often unaware that the technology being used – artificial intelligence – is considered a key component in these types of applications.

This could create friction between employers and employees, especially in instances where employees are not fully capable of using these tools accurately, and even more in situations where personnel feel that automation can misguide their productivity in the workplace.

Unintentional Bias

Machine learning tools remain susceptible to societal issues, including racial, gender, and cultural bias. Similarly, automation tools can often be considered biased based on the provided information, which in most cases, stems from social and human programming.

In some instances, it has been found that machine learning tools and artificial technology deliver biased results, whereby limited information and datasets were provided to help train these AI models.

A prominent example of automation bias can be found in the recruitment and hiring process of new employees. Automation tools will often disregard certain applicants, purely based on the information or data they receive. For instance, when a company requires applicants to have a certain number of years of experience, automation tools will disregard other skills and qualities applicants may have.

These instances can lead to bigger questions of ethical deployment and utilization of automation tools. More than this, it raises questions on the type of criteria companies are using to train these models, and how this will improve social injustices that are present in the workplace.

Minimum Regulation And Accountability

Minimal regulatory intervention often leaves a gray area under which companies can operate using machine learning and automation tools. While there have been academic and governmental interventions to set forth a regulatory framework, the inception thereof still requires real-world adoption.

Limited regulatory understanding creates friction among business owners, employees, and customers. There is currently no limit to which companies can deploy these tools and models, and how they govern them.

This leads to an increased risk for companies that have limited knowledge of these automation tools, which in itself can further widen social issues, such as gender and cultural bias. With limited regulation, in terms of automation models, companies are less accountable for their activities and are left to manage these risks based on their experience.

Ethics And Customer Privacy Concerns

For smaller companies, automation models can be a valuable tool through which they can retrieve and store customer information. This allows them to create more accurate data measurements, but further align their marketing strategies to target consumers more appropriately.

This however has raised questions and concerns over the ethical use of these automation tools and AI-powered models. When customers are not aware of their private data being harvested by companies, this could put the relationship they have with businesses and brands under strain.

Privacy concerns have become a hot-button topic in many circles, and for businesses, it could cost them not only their reputation but their authority as a trustworthy brand. There remain droves of unanswered questions in terms of the ethical use of automation and AI, and the resulting factor has meant that companies are left to their demise and expertise to manage the ethical deployment of these tools.

Security Risks

One of the biggest known risks associated with automation and AI-powered tools is cybersecurity. Smaller companies often have less capacity and available resources to deploy appropriate cybersecurity protocols to protect consumer information and employee data.

This would mean that companies are not only left having to spend copious amounts of resources on implementing automation tools but also have appropriate security infrastructure that can protect them from potential cyber threats and bad actors.

Businesses that not only lack cyber security infrastructure, and perhaps an understanding thereof, are directly exposing themselves to potential cyber threats and data breaches. The outcomes not only result in decreased trust and authority in automation tools but also places the company under heavy public scrutiny in the long run.

Concluding thoughts

Automation, at the appropriate time, and in small doses can become an immensely valuable contribution for any small business looking to fully harness the abilities of artificial technology.

However, companies run an increased risk of deploying too much automation, too quickly. Having an inadequate understanding of these automation tools, their inner workings, and how to manage these models properly requires business owners to invest in the necessary human skills and resources to curb any potential risks.

The advent of automation has the potential to increase employee efficiency and productivity output. However, unnecessary automation of certain procedures could not only cost small companies their reputation, but also lead to lower employee trust in these tools, and place increased strain on building lasting customer relationships.

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Five Ways Companies Can Leverage Artificial Intelligence To Boost Company Diversity And Inclusion

ValueWalk — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 21:30:07 +0000

Recent advancements in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have allowed organizations to increase workplace productivity, further streamline employee activities and replace mundane tasks with automated systems.

While the development of these systems has come a long way in recent times, improvements in diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace have simultaneously taken a backseat as company executives jump at the opportunity to incorporate advanced technology that can potentially increase their bottom line performance.

Recent studies have shown that AI can be used to create new cancer drugs in a fraction of the time it would take traditional methods. One small-cap company at the forefront of this innovation is making waves in the industry, with high-profile investors like Bill Gates and Steve Cohen taking notice. By incorporating AI technology into their research and development processes, this company is paving the way for a more efficient and effective approach to cancer treatment. Visit Behind the Markets. This paragraph is AI-generated advertising.

Now, to counter these developments unfolding across several industries, human resource managers and recruitment specialists are left having to use AI technology to better understand what an inclusive workplace looks like, and how they can leverage big data to make the necessary improvements that can help benefit marginalized employees.

Table of ContentsShow

Using AI To Boost Company Diversity And Inclusion

While there may be a cohort of employees, and executives that often shrug off the importance of inclusive workplace policies, a September 2021 survey by Glassdoor found that 76 percent of employees and current job seekers claimed that a diverse workforce remains one the most important factors when evaluating job offers.

What’s more, research by the International Labour Organization (ILO) found that nearly one in four people often do not feel valued in the workplace. The research found that those that do however feel more included are often in senior management roles.

The lack of understanding of equality and diversity in the workplace is often overlooked, and in some instances, it’s only organizations that are shooting themselves in the foot. ILO research suggests that more diverse workplace settings are often associated with improved innovation, employee performance, and productivity.

How can the use of AI help organizations evaluate their workplace policies, and make the necessary improvements from the bottom upwards?

Bias-Free Recruitment And Employee Selection

Recruitment, hiring, and employee selection often experience high levels of bias, especially in companies where teams are smaller, and management can dictate suitable candidates for available roles and promotions.

Some research claims that there may be instances where talent acquisition managers, including recruiters, have an unconscious bias toward certain recruits or employees. The problem with unconscious bias is that it often leads to companies that are less diverse, and less inclusive of heterogeneous backgrounds.

In an attempt to curb unconscious bias in the recruitment and hiring process, organizations can look towards artificial technology that utilizes algorithmic data points to track and locate the most competent employees for available positions.

This would ensure that hiring takes place solely based on the employee’s level of experience, skills, and ability to meet the criteria outlined by the available position. Using key metrics, HR managers, recruiters, and executives can track employee diversity through key metrics, ensuring that their decision-making is based purely on experience, and not on social labels.

Employee Well-Being And Inclusive Policies

The continuous changes organizations have endured in recent years following the pandemic have exposed their inability to develop or implement high-functioning workplace policies that consider the importance of employee well-being and inclusion.

The introduction of artificial technology, including big data ensures that companies can effectively monitor and track employee well-being based on their performance. Using organizational metrics, companies can keep a better score of employees’ level of welfare for all employees, and not just a select few.

New techniques can be better utilized to ensure that bias or prejudice towards a specific group, whether this be based on gender, race, or culture, is less prevalent, and that the necessary adjustments can be made to overcome these instances.

Using such techniques can help encourage organizational leaders, across all business functions, to better understand where improvement in terms of equality and inclusion is needed. But more so, ensure that employees are provided the necessary tools to overcome challenges within the workplace and that equitable metrics are used to prevent biased or one-sided workplace policies.

Provision Of Enhancing Accessibility

One area of inclusivity is the promotion and enhancement of accessibility for employees and recruits with disabilities. In more recent years, companies have noticed that their inclusion not only stretches to create more diverse work environments but also ensures that all employees have fair and equal access to necessary workplace areas.

With the use of data analytics, companies can now monitor their employees’ accessibility to different parts of the company, whether this includes physical accessibility, but also identify potential challenges or barriers that might restrict less able employees.

Technology can now further ensure that companies become aware of any physical barriers that they might have in place, before hiring disabled employees. This would expose any gaps within their physical office or workplace that might need further improvement.

AI-driven tools can now provide companies with adequate solutions, based on the physical needs of their employees, and suggest where a company might need to make adjustments to ensure that all employees have enhanced access.

Creates Diverse And Equal Opportunities

Career advancements and progression is a critical element for many younger employees. Many new professionals often find it difficult to thrive in a company where exposure to new opportunities is limited.

Creating new opportunities often leads to improved employee satisfaction, lower absenteeism, and better company loyalty. With this being said, companies are often slow to adapt and find suitable ways in which they can create new opportunities for existing employees.

With technology and the implementation of AI tools, organizations can now evaluate employee performance more accurately but also make data-driven decisions that can help make a positive impact on employee performance.

Access to widely available market data would also ensure that employers are aware of changes within the marketplace, and ensure that employees undergo the necessary transitions that would provide them with competitive compensation.

This is perhaps one of the best ways in which companies can further narrow the gender pay gap, but also ensure that promotions and salary increases are not slanted towards selected pockets of the company, but rather based on factual data.

Functional Cultural Collaboration

The pandemic may have upended the traditional office environment, however, it’s created the ability for companies to attract and retain suitable employees from a global selection of talent pools.

With the wide-scale adoption of the virtual office and workspace, companies now hire employees outside of their geographical locale. This however comes with its challenges, as language and cultural differences can pose communication or collaboration barriers.

However, with digital tools, such as on-demand translation tools, and effective digital workstations, employees can now have improved cross-cultural collaboration.

These tools not only help limit possible friction between team members, instead it creates a more neutral, and inclusive workplace opportunity for any suitable employee. More than this, it encourages employers to increase their intake of remote workers and create more diverse workplace environments.

Looking Towards The Future

Many organizational facets see companies now leveraging the possibilities of artificial intelligence to create more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace environments.

While this is helping companies to become more welcoming to a bigger selection of potential employees, it remains within the company’s interests to monitor existing biases and discrimination that are not easily detected with the use of AI.

Additionally, recent developments have found that even AI can often be biased and make decisions that are often more one-sided. This would require companies to monitor the accuracy of these applications, and whether it’s possible that it can help solve a widespread issue that’s still too prevalent among companies, both big and small.

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Planning Your Next Vacation? These Five Travel Credit Cards Can Help You Save And Spend Better

ValueWalk — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 19:00:14 +0000

Americans are spending more on leisure travel this year than they ever had before, according to multinational financial firm Allianz.

Per their indications, Allianz expects that America’s total spending on summer holidays will earmark a record $214 billion, surpassing the $200 billion threshold for the very first time.

Since the pandemic, and most of the pandemic-related restrictions have ended at the start of summer last year, leisure travel demand soared back. Already this year, 63% of surveyed Americans said that they have summer travel plans, or are thinking of taking a trip this year.

That figure is an increase from the same time last year, when only 58% of American adults had leisure travel plans or had already traveled by June 2022.

As demand begins to subside and sticky inflation cools, new reports suggest that the cost of traveling is also now on a downward trajectory. Consumer inflation data from June showed that airfares were down by 19%, while car rental prices dropped 12%, marking the fifth consecutive month of declines.

With more consumers now eager to take back to the skies, roads, and seas, paying for these trips with a travel credit card has become increasingly popular, as financial providers and institutions now offer them an array of travel credit cards, with highly attractive perks.

Table of ContentsShow

Best Travel Credit Cards To Fund Your Holiday

Newer, and better travel credit cards provide consumers with not just the basic benefits such as free airport lounge visits or zero foreign transaction fees.

Instead, some of these accounts go above and beyond, giving travelers access to a range of benefits. From no annual spending caps to triple, and even four-times reward points on their spending.

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Here’s a breakdown of the best travel credit cards that can help fund your next getaway.

American Express® Gold Card

American Express has a longstanding history of providing travelers with some of the best, and most attractive travel benefits credit cards can offer them.

The American Express® Gold Card is slightly more on the pricier side, compared to other options – $250 in annual maintenance fees – but for those that enjoy traveling, and making the most of it at the same time can load up on their card-related benefits.

Lucrative awards include up to $120 in annual dining credit, which can be used for online food ordering such as Grubhub or Goldbelly. Users can also take advantage of up to $120 in Uber Cash, which is valid only for U.S. Uber Rides and Uber Eats.

Travelers can also gain up to 4x points at restaurants, and 3x points on flights booked directly with airline websites or their in-house Amextravel.

Finally, travelers will have baggage insurance plans included in their credit cards, and cover lost, stolen, or damaged baggage for up to $1,250 for a carry-on bag, and $500 for checked luggage.

There are however some downsides. The credit card is slightly more expensive, annually, compared to other travel credit cards, and it can take as long as five years before cardholders have built up enough rewards.

New Gold Card members will have no introductory APR period, which makes the near-term use of the credit card more expensive for newly signed members.

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

Another, and yet seemingly more affordable alternative for travelers is the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, which allows travelers to maximize their rewards but also leverages several card benefits including primary rental car insurance, and bonus points on account anniversary.

The credit card comes with a range of other perks, including triple earnings per $1 spent on dining, and edible takeout meals. This benefit also includes streaming services and grocery purchases.

Compared with the American Express® Gold Card, annual account fees are roughly $95 per annum, and travelers can earn roughly 60,000 bonus points after spending more than $4,000 on purchases within the first three months of opening their account.

Frequent travelers will be covered for trip cancellations, delays, travel accidents, and luggage. While the account comes with all the bells and whistles, the variable APR is between 21.24% – 28.24%, and the account is often only available to travelers that already have a good credit score.

This would mean that if you’re relatively new to the game of travel credit cards, this account might not be the best suitable option.

Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

A less complicated travel credit card that provides users with ample benefits and rewards. The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card has an annual cost of $95, and the rewards offered by the account provide users with a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles, for the first $4,000 spent within the first three months of opening the account.

Other benefits that make the account seemingly more attractive, are the 2x miles earned on every purchase, every day, and there’s no expiration date on any accumulated miles or the limit on how many miles a person earns over the lifespan of the account.

Additionally, account holders are rewarded with 5x miles on hotel reservations and car rentals booked through Capital One Travel.

One of the downsides account holders need to consider is the 20.99% – 28.99% variable APR, which is often considered to be higher than other traditional travel credit cards. Additionally, there are limited reward categories, for accounts at similar cost, and there are no rewards for any flights booked using the travel credit card.

Then, finally, another drawback is that car rental insurance is an added extra, which would require account holders to take out additional rental insurance. While there are slight downsides to this account, travelers can transfer their miles to one of 15 different travel loyalty programs that are directly linked to the credit card.

Chase Freedom Flex℠

Travelers that are looking for a more affordable, and reliable alternative can opt for a Chase Freedom Flex travel credit card, another product offered by Chase Banks that provides travelers with several attractive benefits and simple cash-back rewards.

One of the key attributes of the account is that it provides holders with up to 5% cash back in bonus categories. This however is subject to change over the course of every three months. Travelers will also get a 5% bonus for trips booked through the Chase platform.

Other more standard features include rewards for restaurant spending and pharmacies. However, unlike other credit cards that only reward holders with once-off sign-up bonuses after spending more than $4,000 – the Chase Freedom Flex rewards new cardholders with a $200 bonus after spending only $500 in the first three months.

Users can also transfer their rewards and points to a Chase Sapphire card, which would give them a better opportunity to spend their rewards more freely.

There are however some drawbacks, including the 3% foreign transaction fees, and some account holders have shared that tracking rewards and bonus miles are often too complicated to understand.

It doesn’t necessarily have any travel-specific benefits, as it’s often more categorized as a cash-back credit card. However, this is a suitable alternative for those travelers that want a simple, reliable, and straightforward credit card that can help them build up their miles and rewards over time.

Choice Rewards World Mastercard®

While there are several rewarding options to choose from, for more frugal travelers and spenders, who want to have all the benefits of a travel credit card, but still take advantage of low-interest rates, then the Choice Rewards World Mastercard® is their best alternative option.

Throughout the first 12 billing cycles, there is no initial APR, however, these balances need to be made within the first 90 days of opening the account, which is often considered one of the major drawbacks of the account.

The adjusted variable APR is between 13.25% and 18.00%, there are also no transfer fees, and new account holders do not need to have a credit score to open a new account.

These and other benefits, such as double points on gas, groceries, household goods, and even electronics, and 1x rewards of all other purchases, make this account more like an ordinary credit card, with travel-like benefits included.

Unfortunately, while the account has zero annual fees, estimated rewards earned on this account are seemingly lower, and less attractive than other paid options.

Estimated rewards accumulated, even after five years, is less than $2,000, making it harder for travelers to pick this option if they can benefit more from other attractive options that provide them with both near-term and long-term travel rewards.

Final Thoughts

While there are nearly dozens of travel credit cards to choose from, consumers must decide on a credit card that suits their budgets, but also their travel-related needs.

Some banks may offer first-time account holders a more straightforward credit card option, which might be more adjusted to their financial position. The different types of options available mean that travelers can pick and choose a travel credit card that gives them what they want, and even more.

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The 10 Best U.S. Cities To Start A Career In 2023

ValueWalk — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 18:00:43 +0000

Millions of newly graduated college students will soon be looking to enter the workforce. This is an opportunity for recent graduates and young professionals to kick start their careers but also relocate to a new city or state for their job.

Most recent industry insights suggest that roughly 40% of people relocated for their career, while older and perhaps more seasoned professionals aged 25 to 44 years were more willing to relocate.

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However, different research suggests that job relocation is at its lowest rate ever, with just over 1.6% of new job seekers permanently making the move to a new city for their job.

The freedom to work from home, virtual offices, and improved workplace policies that allow employees to work both in the office or at home have many more young professionals staying at their current jobs instead of looking to relocate, even if there’s the chance to make more money or advance in their careers.

Nonetheless, for those individuals seeking an opportunity to experience something new and exciting, but also make the best of their career, several surveys and reports showed where the best places in America are for young people to launch their careers.

Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, Texas

Everything in Texas is bigger, and better for young professionals who are stepping into the workforce. Most recent regional statistics showed that the average median age in the Austin-Rock-Georgetown area is 35.1 years, making the generational population of more than 2.35 million fairly young compared to other metropolitan areas.

In terms of work opportunities, Dell Technologies and SalesCart, and Charles Schwab, among others, are considered to be the biggest employers in the region. In recent years, droves of tech firms and smaller software startups have relocated to Austin, giving it the nickname Silicon Hills.

Generally, the quality of life is also fairly high, with only around 10% of the regional population living below the poverty line. The vibrant region offers young individuals an endless choice of things to do, see, and experience.

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Atlanta, Georgia

Second, on the list is Atlanta, Georgia, a city that was ranked as one of the best places for young professionals seeking to launch their careers. On average, salaries here tend to be slightly lower than the national average, with annual pay for a Bachelor’s Degree Entry Level in Atlanta standing at $44,297 a year. This equates to roughly $3,691 per month.

In terms of cost of living, which is seen to be only 2% higher than the national average, renters here pay roughly $1,475 per month for rent, while utility costs are nearly 14% lower compared to the U.S. average.

There’s no shortage of available job opportunities at big-tier companies and corporate firms, with names such as Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, UPS, The Home Depot, GE Energy Management Services, and Bellsouth Telecommunications, among many others being some of the biggest employers in the city.

Salt Lake City, Utah

Low cost of living, and ample employment opportunities in manufacturing, engineering, mining, and technology have drawn in thousands of young professionals over the last years, seeing many relocating from nearby Denver, Colorado to Salt Lake City.

On average, the median household income needed to live in Salt Lake City is roughly $48,211, nearly 4% lower than in Denver. The median rental price for a two-bedroom apartment is just under $1,500 per month, and many residents tend to spend around 3% less on entertainment compared to places such as Denver.

The city provides a vibrant atmosphere, with a generous number of outdoor amenities. Some of the biggest employers include GE Capital Financial, USANA Health Sciences, Barrick Gold, and Venafi, among others.

Orlando, Florida

Those looking to relocate to Florida can skip Miami, and rather start looking at opportunities in Orlando, a bustling city that’s home to Universal Studios and Walt Disney Kingdom.

Although the city might not be the most budget-friendly, and some might have a hard time finding their feet at first, compared to places such as Miami, the city is fairly livable and provides talented professionals with a wide selection of career advancement opportunities.

In terms of costs, Orlando is nearly 13% more affordable than Miami on average, and housing in the city is on average 24.7% lower. Median monthly rent is currently just over $1,510 per month, with the median or average annual income being $54,233, which works out to $4,519 a month. Job seekers can expect a salary range of between $39,167 and $68,854 annually.

Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina

Individuals looking for opportunities in academia, research, or similar professions will find plenty of available opportunities in Raleigh-Cary, which forms part of the Research Triangle. In recent years, the area has become a hotspot for newly found technology companies and startups and includes several biotech companies.

The Research Triangle includes three major universities – Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State University. The high concentration of research facilities and universities makes Raleigh-Cary a must-live city, with endless attractions and things to do for young people.

The average cost of living is roughly 4% lower than the national average in Raleigh, with housing also being 2% below the national average price. Rent is relatively affordable compared to other bigger cities, with the median average being $1,337 per month. Key employment industries include professional business services, trade, transportation, utilities, higher education, and health services.

Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, Tennessee

The Nashville Metropolitan Area consists of a generous landscape, and encompasses several regions, making it one of the most vibrant and culturally diverse places to move to for younger individuals.

On average, the cost of living tends to be slightly above the national average, however, Nashville has a good quality of life, well-ranking education, sufficient healthcare services, and an array of vibrant amenities that will keep young individuals entertained over weekends.

Top employment opportunities according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics include, office and administrative, transportation, food preparation, sales, healthcare, professional business, and finance.

Columbia, South Carolina

Back in the Carolinas, Columbia is considered to be one of the most affordable cities on our list, with housing being 26% more affordable than the national average. Compared to other cities such as San Francisco or New York, the median household income needed here is roughly $26,426, making it a relatively cheap place to relocate to for work.

Some of the city’s biggest employers include Pure Fishing, LexiCode, the University of South Carolina, and Advantage Health Systems, among several others.

The city is a blend between old and new, but also a traditional and progressive lifestyle. Although it might not be the first choice on any graduates list, who wouldn’t want to pay only $1,000 per month for rent?

Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, Indiana

Yes, Carmel was dubbed the “Capital of Roundabouts” back in the early 1990s, having more than 125 individual roundabouts, the most of any capital city in the United States.

Don’t worry, the roundabouts aren’t the reason why you should make the Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson one of the top places to move to right after graduation. Earlier in the year, Forbes ranked Indianapolis as the second best place to work remotely, so for those graduates that have landed a work-from-home gig and still want to live in the city, this is considered one of the best places to be.

Overall, the city has a variety of employment opportunities, and people tend to be happier here compared to other places in America. In terms of costs, the metro ranked below the national average, with a one-bedroom renting for an average of $880 per month, and a two-bedroom apartment renting for just over $1050 per month.

Charleston, South Carolina

Another city that might be a suitable place to launch your career in Charleston, South Carolina, which is a port city that boasts old-world charm such as cobblestone roads and 17th-century architecture.

A city that sits on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, those that want to live close to the beach, without having to pay eye-watering rents will find Charleston as one of the more affordable beach-side cities in the U.S. that offers them both a high-quality living, ample attractions, and career opportunities.

Savannah, Georgia is a short two-hour drive south, and Wilmington, North Carolina is about three and a half hours up north. The biggest employers in the county include Roper St. Francis Healthcare, The Boeing Company, Trident Health Systems, Mercedes-Benz, and T-Mobile, among several others.

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas

The last spot on our list is reserved for the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington region, which has become a cultural hub for young entrepreneurs and innovators due to its high percentage of educated employees, and strong workforce participation culture.

Well-known household names make up some of the biggest employers in the city according to the Dallas Regional Chambers. Graduates can pick to work at companies such as American Airlines, AT&T, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, General Motors, Capital One, Deloitte, Accenture, Microsoft, and EY, to name a few.

The city has become a financial hub for Texas, being home to some of the biggest companies in America and playing host to a diverse culture of residents from all backgrounds. Dallas and Arlington have an impressive cost of living despite being such densely populated cities. Overall, rent is slightly above the national average, with a one-bedroom apartment renting for $1,290 per month.

Final Thoughts

Deciding where to head after college can be an intimidating thought, with so many incredible options to choose from. When choosing where to live and work next, consider your personal needs, financial position, and the quality of life you are after.

There are an endless number of factors to consider, but overall make sure to choose a city that celebrates its uniqueness, and provides new graduates with career opportunities, but also to advance their careers when the time is ready.

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New Expanded Child Tax Credit Proposal Wants Credit for Unborn Babies

ValueWalk — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 11:00:13 +0000

Over the past few years, we have seen several lawmakers push for expanding the federal child tax credit, but with little success. Now, House Republicans have introduced a new expanded child tax credit proposal that, among other things, includes applying the credit to fetuses in the womb.

New Expanded Child Tax Credit Proposal: What Makes It Different?

Last week, Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) introduced the Providing For Life Act that aims to expand the federal child tax credit, as well as cover parents during pregnancy. This proposal is another sign that expanding support to families is growing popular within the GOP.

“Providing for your child begins the second a woman finds out she is pregnant — from making doctor’s appointments, to stocking up on diapers, and searching for child care,” Hinson told The Post.

If approved, this new expanded child tax credit proposal would raise the credit amount from $2,000 currently to $3,500 for children aged five and under, and $4,500 for those over the age of five.

While expanding the child tax credit is a step in the right direction, it’s important to remember that families facing serious illnesses like cancer need additional support. That’s where the small-cap company Behind the Markets comes in, utilizing AI to create new cancer drugs in record time. With high-profile investors like Bill Gates and Steve Cohen, this company could be a game-changer in the fight against cancer. This paragraph is AI-generated advertising.

Additionally, the proposal offers benefits retroactively post-birth for the time that a child is in the womb. The benefits will be available to households with annual incomes up to $400,000 (up to $200,000 for individuals).

Also, the new proposal makes the adoption tax credit fully refundable. This means that households with no tax liability would get a check from the government. This change would mostly benefit lower-income families who adopt a child.

What Else Is In The Legislation?

Along with expanding the child tax credit, the legislation also calls for enhancing paid parental leave, as well as expanding eligibility for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program to postpartum women.

Additionally, the legislation requires cooperation with child support for SNAP recipients. The legislation also encourages states to create rules requiring fathers to bear half the pregnancy costs.

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The proposed legislation also has several ways to curb abortion, including creating a federal clearinghouse of resources by establishing a website – life.gov.

Such a measure would ensure Title X funding is available to pregnancy resource centers. These centers offer aid to women as an alternative to abortion and ensure that pregnant women on college campuses are aware of their rights and have access to non-abortion resources.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced the Senate version of the bill in January. Rubio has long been pushing for expanding the tax credit and sees it as a logical extension of Republicans’ anti-abortion and pro-family agenda.

“This comprehensive legislation will provide real assistance for American parents and children in need. We need policies like these to show America that conservatives are pro-life across the board,” Rubio said in a statement.

It will be interesting to see Democrats’ response to this proposed legislation. Democrats have largely opposed measures to use federal funds for such programs after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade (1973) ruling, which provided federal protection for abortion.

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Six Ways Female Entrepreneurs Can Address Challenges In The Femtech Market

ValueWalk — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 16:12:00 +0000

Femtech continues to experience rapid growth among female consumers, as advanced developments in tech and software, supported by the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), aim to tackle issues related to health and wellness that only impact women.

However, as femtech innovations continue to become more widely accessible, a series of challenges are withholding startup founders and entrepreneurs from breaking onto the market.

As femtech continues to expand, entrepreneurs face challenges in funding and investment, under-representation, diversity, cybersecurity, data protection, and unreliable data. However, the potential for innovation in the femtech market is limitless, as evidenced by the groundbreaking discoveries made by AI in cancer treatment, such as the new drug for liver cancer discovered in just 30 days. Visit Behind the Markets This paragraph is AI-generated advertising.

The term “FemTech” was coined back in 2016 by entrepreneur Ida Tin. In 2012, Tin co-founded Clue, one of the first-ever menstrual health mobile applications, which currently has more than 11 million active users.

With innovations geared at developing a range of consumer-centric tech products and solutions, aimed at assisting with female healthcare, challenges relating to investment opportunities, exposures, supporting data, and regulatory constraints are keeping the entrepreneurs from further expanding within developing markets.

Table of ContentsShow

Femtech Around The World

The femtech sector sees a diverse range of solutions geared toward women’s healthcare. These are spread across different female-specific conditions, including maternal and menstrual health, sexual wellness, menopause, and contraception.

General health conditions that disproportionately affect women are now being addressed through the development of tech-enabled and consumer-centric solutions.

Across the world, femtech companies and startups are distributed differently. Statistics show that more than half or 51 percent of global femtech companies and startups were based in North America as of 2022. Europe holds the second highest number, with 27 percent, and Asia with 9 percent.

Other developing regions, including Oceania, the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America, and Southern Africa hold less than 5 percent of current existing femtech startups.

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While the landscape for these companies is painted somewhat differently compared to other fast-developing tech startups, addressing new and potential barriers could help minimize existing challenges, but also help to distribute femtech healthcare solutions more equally across the global landscape.

Overcoming Challenges

Despite the growth potential, there’s still room for improvement, even as some femtech companies have experienced prolific growth in recent years. Gaining more understanding, and developing possible solutions alongside them, while implementing workable strategies can help further advance the development and potential of these startups.

Funding And Investment

A lack of funding and investment opportunities is perhaps the most significant issue femtech entrepreneurs and business owners are currently facing. However, this isn’t a problem only focussed on femtech companies, but rather an issue that has been born from the widening gender gap within the startup ecosystem.

A report by PitchBook found that only 2 percent of venture capital funding was allocated to female-led startups in 2022. Furthermore, it’s estimated that more than 80 percent of femtech startups have a female founder, and it’s been documented that women-founded companies typically garner less funding from public and private investors

Meager funding opportunities limit startups to developing and deploying appropriate tools necessary to assist female wellness and healthcare.

Finding investors within an economy that’s experiencing a slowdown in investment opportunities calls for entrepreneurs to further build their investor network with key players such as Alumni Ventures, Y-Combinator, and SOSV and seek more opportunistic investors within the industry.

Under-Representation

For years, women-centric healthcare and wellness have disproportionately remained underfunded and under-represented.

A lack of representation and understanding of female anatomy has increased health risks in women. Research by the ESC Acute CardioVascular Care, an online congress of the European Society of Cardiology found that women with chest pain are more frequently misdiagnosed than men. What’s more, women with chest pain are more likely to wait over 12 hours before seeking medical attention compared to their male counterparts.

This is one of several examples that have left women excluded from receiving the necessary medical attention and treatment. However, with the rise and interest in femtech, there’s a possibility that startups can now better diagnose, treat and prevent health conditions primarily found in women.

Yet, this creates a feedback loop, whereby to increase the understanding and diagnosis of female anatomy, sufficient support and funding is required to advance appropriate treatments.

Diversity

Diversity-related challenges continue to play their part in the development of femtech, and perhaps the wider technology sector.

Women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) continue to face an uphill battle. Roughly 45 percent of females in a 2023 Women In Tech Report by SkillSoft were found to be outnumbered by a 4-to-1 ratio – an increase from 25 percent in 2021.

The under-representation of women in formal STEM-related jobs and roles creates blind spots within the development of femtech services and products.

While this is perhaps an opportunity for organizations to increase their intake and advancement of women in the workplace, there should be encouraging support from executive-level management for the narrowing of gender inequality within the workplace.

It’s a seemingly never-ending problem, however, proving appropriate platforms for women in STEM careers allows for the further advancement of appropriate femtech innovation across a series of industries and sub-sectors.

Cybersecurity and Data Protection

Innovative products and services developed by femtech startups often harvest or require copious amounts of personal information and consumer-related data

While these datasets can help innovators develop more accurate tools, challenges relating to cybersecurity risks and data protection can slow the progress of establishing more accurate marketplace analyses.

Femtech software tools regularly obtain information pertaining to users’ personal health and sexual history. This has become an increasing concern, not only for entrepreneurs but regulatory authorities as well.

While there is however a sense of protection and privacy, relating to the collected data, cybersecurity threats remain a bigger problem throughout the femtech industry and the wider digital economy.

Further improvements in cybersecurity features are required to ensure that consumer information is kept out of arm’s reach, but also to assure users that private information will not be sold off to thor-party companies.

Improving the efficacy of cybersecurity protocols requires further development for regulatory authorities to understand how collected data will be used, and what regulatory factors need to be considered beforehand to safeguard user information.

Unreliable Data

Looking beyond regulatory considerations, and perhaps the lack thereof within the larger scope of practice, issues relating to unreliable medical and scientific data have created deeper crevasses of concerns for femtech entrepreneurs.

With limited medical, scientific, and health literature, startups are restricted within their capacity to develop tools, services, and solutions that address direct consumer needs.

Furthermore, femtech companies often cite debunked scientific or medical literature, when determining the data inputs required for their innovations. This not only leads to long-term developmental challenges of these tools but it further constrains femtech entrepreneurs to accurately depict the deployment and application of their innovations.

The lack of available and reliable data requires femtech entrepreneurs to conduct up-to-date market research and analysis. This would also help improve and promote the further development of new theories and methods to collect accurate data for a range of medical and health-related issues within the academic and scientific community.

Through these efforts, it’s possible to see how femtech companies can utilize more accurate data, and also help to promote the ned to obtain this research within the scientific community.

Market Gaps

Despite experiencing rapid growth, there remains a gap in the market to address fundamental challenges relating to women’s health and overall well-being.

These areas of interest however require further investment from both institutional players, from the public and private sectors.

There’s a void when it comes to the technology available that can help female consumers better understand their genetic and atomic makeup. Leaving smaller, less established startups to answer these questions creates opportunities for entrepreneurs to innovate new tools and technology that enables female consumers to have a more prolific understanding of their bodies and overall health.

Yet, plugging these voids, and narrowing these gaps requires tremendous financial and scientific support, which until recently has seen steady improvements over the years, but is still not substantial enough to deliver actionable results.

The available opportunities require femtech entrepreneurs to find gaps within the market and find solutions that will address the problems. Yes, we see how many femtech startups nowadays focus on building more insight into women’s wellness, however combining these efforts with the scientific community helps create new avenues for both ends to meet at an inflection point in the near future.

Forward-Looking Potential

There’s still a lot we need to learn from how human antimony works, and the combination of traditional science and advanced technology can help to further improve our understanding, and how we can build more sustainable healthcare solutions.

However, deploying these efforts has posed immense challenges, especially in the femtech sector, where lack of funding, research, and diversity creates barriers for female entrepreneurs to appropriately address these issues.

While challenges may seem like a never-ending uphill battle for these entrepreneurs, creating opportunities within the ecosystem of femtech, that sees improved research, data collecting, and investment will not only help solidify a more precise understanding of women’s health, but create and establish more effective tools for commercial success, and improve the overall societal well-being of female consumers.

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Finding the Return on Investment of Learning and Development Programs

ValueWalk — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 11:00:44 +0000

Every year, millions of employees across the United States complete job-related courses in compliance, soft skills, upselling, product training, and more. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, companies are reinvesting in training practices. This is especially prevalent among small businesses and large companies, who are investing on average 600 more dollars a year in training than midsized companies.

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How Do You Properly Measure the Value of Corporate Learning in Your Business?

Measuring the return of investment, or ROI, of learning and development programs is incredibly important to making visible the impact of these programs. Revenue and profit are two classic indicators of a successful ROI.

Post-coronavirus, new metrics like employee confidence, increased sales, and employee engagement levels are feeling more indicative than pre-covid metrics such as training attendance, travel for learning and development, and webinar completion. One problem is that 92% of companies do not track learning and development ROI at all, which means that they are missing out on valuable information to the success of their company.

The basic formula for ROI is simple: learning and development benefit, minus the cost of learning and development, divided by the cost of learning and development multiplied by 100. Expenses of ROI include time (including corporate learning material development), effort (training time per employee) and money (including transportation, venue, catering, speakers, and equipment).

On average, having an in-person training session could end up costing upwards of $40,000. This number is also missing another major cost, which is the total a company may spend on an employee being trained. When basing on a salary of $15 an hour, a company could be spending over 1k based on 71 hours of training.

It may seem worth it for a company to outsource their training, but alternative and online models are not always as money saving as they would appear to be. These outsourced options still include costs for content libraries, course authoring tools, communication tools, third-party consultants, course marketing tools, and learning record stores.

While some of these options can be found from trusted sources such as LinkedIn and Mailchimp the investment may overall still be more than a company finds proportionally worth it.

Some are Worried About Outsourcing their Corporate Learning Programs Outside of the Organization

Unfortunately, when asked about their experiences many employees reported mixed outcomes. A quarter of employees surveyed said they forgot learning and development material immediately. 1% less said that the training wasn’t relevant to their position, and another 21% of employees said the material was out of date.

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Out of the organizations surveyed, 35% of them felt they did not have access to the training content they would want for their employees. This cumulatively leads to major losses in learning and development– only 10% of money spent on traditional learning and development delivers real results. Ineffective training leads to a loss of $1.35 million per 1,000 employees.

Accurately measuring ROI is key to turning the major loss into new potential for the company. When tracking an increase in revenue, a direct correlation was found that for each $1 spend on L&D there was a $4.70 revenue increase. This correlation shows that the key to revenue increase is finding the best tool to use to measure your L&D ROI. Arist is a new company that describes itself as a “science-backed microlearning platform.” It is used by 15% of Fortune 500 companies.

Bringing it All Together

Arist attaches value to modern key performance indicators like confidence life and employee retention, which can be hard to quantify or consider in a traditional framework. Arist also costs less time, money, and energy.

Arist takes 195% less time than traditional modules, saves $96 annually per learner, and can alleviate 82% of the energy learning and development teams have to spend on course creation.

This boosts ROI and revenue along multiple avenues, and increases the adoption of learning by 90%. Arist is a very effective tool for companies attempting to clarify their ROI in learning and development. See more in the infographic below.

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Use of AI in Retirement Planning: Is It Good or Bad?

ValueWalk — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 11:00:43 +0000

Artificial intelligence (AI) is slowly becoming an integral part of our daily life. AI already helps us to personalize our social media feeds, web searches and online purchases, and in the future, it is expected to play a major role in financial planning as well, especially retirement planning. On the other hand, concerns have also been raised about the use of AI in retirement planning.

So, to help you decide on whether or not to use Artificial Intelligence for retirement planning, detailed below are the pros and cons of the use of AI in retirement planning.

Emerging AI Trends

Before we detail the pros and cons of the use of AI in retirement planning, let’s look at the emerging AI trends:

JPMorgan Chase recently developed its IndexGPT, its first AI financial advisory product. This product offers market-oriented financial advice to investors.
Morgan Stanley is working on launching an Open AI-powered chatbot to ensure its financial advisors have access to real-time research and data.
According to a study by finder.com, a fund consisting of 38 stocks chosen by ChatGPT has outperformed the top 10 most popular funds in the UK. The ChatGPT fund gained about 6.85% since it was founded about 16 weeks back, compared to an average return of -0.5% by popular UK funds.
Vanguard recently launched an AI-powered chatbot that allows customers to ask questions and request transactions.

Use Of AI In Retirement Planning: Why Is It Good?

AI can easily analyze vast amounts of data to make near-accurate predictions, and this has made AI an invaluable tool for investors and financial planners.

AI-powered retirement planning tools are becoming increasingly popular among investors and financial planners. However, with the expanding copper-gold project of Vizsla Copper, investors can also diversify their portfolio and capitalize on the expected rise in copper prices due to massive infrastructure spending. With solid market fundamentals and a proven track record, Vizsla Copper is definitely worth considering for investors looking to expand their investment options.

Another plus of AI is its ability to analyze an individual’s financial situation to develop personalized recommendations. On the other hand, traditional financial planning methods usually use generalized assumptions and provide one-size-fits-all recommendations, which may not always yield the best results.

Moreover, unlike traditional methods, AI can take into account an array of variables, such as income, financial goals, risk tolerance and expenses, to develop a customized financial plan that caters to retirees’ specific needs and preferences.

Additionally, AI can assist retirees in making smart and quick financial decisions by identifying trends and patterns even before they are apparent to the human eye.

AI algorithms constantly monitor real-time market fluctuations and compare them with historical data, to forecast market movements with a high degree of accuracy. This, in turn, could help retirees capitalize on potential opportunities, as well as minimize potential losses. All this eventually leads to a more robust and diversified portfolio.

The use of AI in retirement planning also allows retirees to adjust their investment strategies depending on the changing market conditions. AI-powered platforms constantly monitor the markets and automatically adjust the portfolio to ensure it aligns with the retirees’ long-term goals and risk tolerance.

On the other hand, traditional retirement planning methods periodically review the portfolio to make adjustments. This could result in missed opportunities or may even magnify losses.

Another benefit of AI is that it can easily explain the impact of different potential financial decisions on retirement goals. AI can easily simulate different scenarios, such as changes in different variables (income, expenses and more), to show their impact on the portfolio return. This could help retirees make more informed financial decisions.

The use of AI in retirement planning can also save time and money. Retirees can use AI to streamline the retirement planning process by automating many tasks. For instance, AI can eliminate manual data entry and in turn, reduce manual errors as well.

Risks Of Using AI In Retirement Planning

As with anything else, the use of AI in retirement planning has its own drawbacks as well.

The biggest risk is the lack of personal touch, which could lead to the potential lack of understanding for the end user, resulting in errors or misinterpretations. AI is a tool; its efficiency depends on the data you feed into it.

Another risk is incorrect retirement plan information. There have been instances of AI-based tools giving out information that is confidently asserted but incorrect. Even a single incorrect piece of information could prove disastrous for your hard-earned savings. To mitigate such risk, retirees need to do thorough research on AI-based financial advisory services.

One more risk is the challenges in modeling retirement plans. This risk isn’t specific to AI, but rather to modeling retirement planning in general. Although the present models are powerful, they may fail to fully capture the intricacies of financial planning. AI tools developed on such models could result in flawed financial recommendations and decisions.

To mitigate such risk, it is important to use a hybrid AI approach that uses proven financial models along with proven AI algorithms. This would help in overcoming modeling limitations to give reliable retirement plans.

Final Words

Integrating AI into retirement planning has innumerable benefits, including making personalized recommendations, automating various tasks, identifying investment opportunities and more. All this could significantly improve financial outcomes for individuals by assisting them in making smarter financial decisions.

So, no doubt the use of AI in retirement planning could help boost the value of retirees’ portfolios. On the other hand, it is also true that it is no substitute for professional financial advice (at least as of now). So along with using AI, retirees need to still discuss their financial needs with a professional financial planner. Along with addressing their financial needs, a financial planner could also help retirees to make the most of AI-powered tools.

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Five Ways AI Is Automating Employee Onboarding: Why HR Managers Should Listen

ValueWalk — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 21:00:57 +0000

Attracting the right person for the job has become a top priority for businesses, as the virtual workplace helps to eliminate organizational borders, and allows companies increased autonomy to search in talent pools outside of their geographical location.

As the demand for top talent continues to rise, businesses are turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI) to streamline their onboarding processes. With AI-backed talent management systems, HR managers can effectively manage candidates and develop a deep understanding of employee and business requirements. Perhaps the next step is to invest in companies like Vizsla Copper, which recently reached an agreement to expand its copper-gold project, as copper is expected to reach new all-time highs due to massive infrastructure spending.

While the borderless workplace increases the chances of onboarding top candidates, human resource managers are deploying new methods to help effectively manage candidates, and develop a deep understanding of employee and business requirements and the strategic relevance of human capital in an ever-growing digital economy.

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Why HR Managers Need To Pay Attention

Across several industries, Artificial Intelligence is poised to reshape the retention of new hires, while at the same time helping organizations and HR managers effectively manage talented candidates during the onboarding process.

The prominent rise of AI-backed technological systems has helped encourage business leaders to deploy AI-based talent management systems en masse. Statistics show that nearly 60 percent of organizational leaders currently use AI for talent management, while 44 percent believe that these technologies will help free up a recruiter’s time.

Evaluating the criteria of applicants, against organizational requirements has become immensely streamlined through the adoption of AI. Advanced technology has allowed recruiters and HR managers to effectively retain talented employees, identify their performance potential and discern between high and low-value performers.

The scope of application is beyond the current administration, and in the coming years, AI-based technology and digital systems will help further improve the quality of leads recruiters and HR managers can make when onboarding new talent.

Automating Onboarding With AI

Based on our current understanding of Artificial Intelligence, we already see current technology help with the automation of mundane processes, helping to increase productivity and further boost deliverability to customers.

On the surface, AI has already automated a generous number of activities, often helping to minimize the need for human intervention, further eliminating the potential for any errors and streamlining operational processes for businesses.

Below we explore the opportunities Artificial Intelligence holds that will help to automate employee onboarding.

Talent Compliance

The first and most basic level of deployment begins with the search for new talented employees. Compliance encompasses a wide variety of subjects, however, in this instance, compliance entails the legalities of hiring new employees.

HR managers will often utilize the onboarding period to critically analyze new employees, share valuable information, and teach staff policy-related laws, regulations, and jurisdictions.

While one-on-one interaction in this scenario remains a valuable asset, AI-based tools ensure equitable deployment of valuable information to new employees and ensure that new hires adhere to existing policy matters, even before initiating the onboarding process.

Job Clarification

Using a range of AI tools, companies can be assured that new hires will be equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to fulfill job duties and responsibilities. This helps to eliminate any potential barriers that may arise during the onboarding.

For HR managers this gives them increased ability to leverage digital systems that can help to establish precise job clarification – meaning that new applicants or employees will already be well-informed about the job before they start.

The outcomes of the application would help to minimize miscommunication in the value chain, helping to establish open-ended channels through which employers and employees can effectively share ideas, creativity, and innovation.

Employee Experience

The employee experience is just as important as that of the customer. Creating a personal employee experience, especially in a corporate environment can be a challenging undertaking, and often requires a vast amount of physical and financial resources.

Research shows that due to a lack of personalized experiences, during and after employee onboarding, 20% of new hires tend to leave their organization within 45 days of their employment.

These occurrences not only increase the risk of organizations losing valuable human assets but further drives up costs, while productivity decreases or remains stagnant. The ability to create more personalized employee experiences encourages the ability to monitor employee engagement, and satisfaction, and create programs with tailored outcomes.

Improved Integration

Another possibility where we could see AI tools being used in the coming years is to assist with employee integration into the company culture and environment.

For HR managers this could mean less time being spent on delivering important information to new employees or sharing valuable insights into company policies, cultural norms, and operational practices.

Artificial tools can now immediately address any concerns, complaints, queries, or questions new hires might have when stepping onto the job. This helps free up time, but also delivers immediate response to employees, and helps to speed up the integration process.

Remote Support

The virtual office space creates increased autonomy for employees, however it further separates the importance of human support during the onboarding process. This is especially true in instances where companies are remote-only.

With digital software and automated tools, HR managers could deliver non-stop on-demand support to existing employees, and new hires from any point in the world.

This minimizes the need for in-person contact, helps to increase the deliverability of valuable information, and further ensures that employees receive the support they might require during the initial onboarding process.

Honorable Mention

Reduced Spending

Rising costs in human and operational expenses have led business leaders to consider new alternatives that will help reduce their costs, while still receiving increased turnaround for their investment.

On average, companies spend roughly $4,700 hiring new employees, and it takes on average 23 hours to complete the onboarding process.

With Artificial Intelligence, it’s possible to have HR managers free up more than 40 percent of their time by automating repetitive tasks and duties.

This might require businesses to spend time and financial resources to implement advanced digital systems, but the long-term return on investment would mean that more organizations would save on costs related to attracting, informing, and training new hires.

The Takeaway

Looking toward the future, it’s hard not to get excited about all the wonderful opportunities and improvements Artificial Intelligence will bring to human resources. For companies, this means an increased opportunity to attract and retain new employees best suited for the job, while recruiters and HR managers can save more time by automating a majority of their daily tasks.

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Five Steps For Strategic Planning As A Startup To Identify Objectives

ValueWalk — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 11:00:46 +0000

Today, the majority of startups all have the same thing in common: failure. The handful of startups that end up making it past their expiration date, which is typically less than five years, often share the same mindset about planning to adapt in a fast-changing economic and consumer-driven environment.

Achieving objectives is just as important for any startup as leading innovation within their marketplace. However, specifying what the startup can do for it to meet the needs of its customers and stakeholders is key to its ever-growing success.

In today’s fast-driven digital economy, change is inevitable, however, having defined and measurable objectives ensures that any leadership team can anchor these key factors in their plans to help them thoroughly meet the needs of those that are involved throughout the process.

The idea behind strategic planning encapsulates the understanding of getting from Point A to Point B, using the most appropriate methods that can help promote efficient business management.

Having a good strategy ensures that startups can dictate the “how” element of their planning, and rather focus on the shortcomings they currently have, and finding workable solutions that meet the needs of their business, its stakeholders, employees, and prospects.

Step One: Change Objective-Setting Habits

Typically, startup owners and entrepreneurs will linearly think about their objectives, from establishing the idea or problem to the process they need to follow to ensure they can achieve these objectives within a given timeframe.

While the linear method ensures a more detail-oriented process, it often doesn’t account for specific stakeholder groups. Taking into account what the startup objectives might be, growing consumer interest, increasing employee productivity through innovation, or gaining more investors’ interest requires leaders to think differently for each stakeholder segment.

In this case, the ideal scenario would be to view objectives based on their intermediate influence in the business structure, and how setting new parameters could ensure leaders can produce more business-centered strategic objectives.

Step Two: Outline Startup And Stakeholder Expectations

Once a leadership team has shifted its way of objective-setting, the second step would be to start outlining the expectations stakeholders will have. Keep in mind, within this context, these stakeholders will include employees, customers, investors, and the community wherein the startup is operating.

Outlining the objective requires initial human resources, but it puts the startup on track to achieve measurable goals within their desired timeframe and with limited resources.

This step tends to become overwhelmed with excess information and data points, and although valuable, it’s important to remain anchored to the stakeholder segment that is being considered, and how certain actions will help achieve business objectives.

Step Three: Consider The Startup Marketplace

The third step requires business leaders, or often the startup owner to consider how their current marketplace or consumer market will change over time.

Ultimately, the idea here is to draw back to the founders of the initial plan and business owners might have had when they established their startup – understanding the reasoning behind the startup’s existence, previous goals, and how improvement will help it adjust to the changing environment.

This typically looks at both the mission and the vision statement of each company, and requires an in-depth consideration of whether these ideas might still be applicable within the current marketplace, and if not, how will the business adapt accordingly.

Keep a directional focus on the new objectives at hand, and how using the elements from a mission and vision can ultimately help to transform the dynamic approach to strategic planning.

Step Four: Identify Possible Behavioral Changes Among Stakeholders

Once the startup has established key stakeholders, it’s time to focus on the behavioral outcomes that take place once a business or company has decided on changing its forward-looking strategy or planning.

While this might be on a small scale for startups compared to other more established companies, it remains an opportunity for them to revisit the idea of what their objectives are, and how those will react that may be affected by the change.

It’s important at this step, for owners and business leaders to think more thoroughly about their objectives and different stakeholder groups’ behavioral outcomes. Once there is a firm understanding among these groups, startup owners and leaders can then move on to the final step.

Step Five: Implement Relatable Measures

Often businesses enjoy monitoring their growth, change, or success through key performance indicators. Although we can’t dismiss this form of growth measurement, it does become limited too, that is often pulled in front of other, more useful measurements.

It could be a lot easier to measure the success of a startup through financial instruments, such as growing revenues. Second to this is the percentage at which the company has or is aiming to grow over the next several months or years.

All of these seemingly straightforward metrics only once again add to how a company can be strategic in its planning, execution, and thought process over time. Having first-hand insight, and clearing the confusion helps not only the business leaders understand where they are standing, but also how their new objectives can be measured with past results.

Takeaway Thoughts

Strategy planning is no one-size fits all type of scenario, and it requires startups to consider how individual stakeholders can be affected by the business objectives. In turn, this gives a better light on how a company can modify their approach to enable them to become more oriented towards their final objectives but also make modifications along the way.

Being more resilient in the current business landscape requires startups to be more agile, but also more forward-thinking about where they are heading and how their objectives align with this mindset. The bottom line is that startups need to change how they approach their object-setting, but ultimately lend more opportunity to view their objective from an outside-in approach.

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Setting The Scene: What Graduate Female Startup Founders Can Do To Navigate The Tech Landscape

ValueWalk — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 11:00:55 +0000

For many business owners and startup entrepreneurs, the ongoing economic turbulence is an unwanted spanner in the works following several years of pandemic-induced economic shutdowns.

Perhaps more prevalent today than before the pandemic, but a growing number of female-led entrepreneurs and startup founders are bearing the brunt of the gender wealth gap. Research suggests that back in 2019, only 3 percent of total global venture capital funding was allocated to women-led startups. The following year, that figure dipped to just 2 percent.

A closer look at the American landscape revealed that in 2022, roughly 2.1 percent of total capital invested by venture-backed deals went to companies and startups founded by women according to a report published by PitchBook.

Securing financial backing isn’t perhaps the only challenge women in the startup landscape may be facing today. Unique barriers at an entry-level are making it harder for female entrepreneurs and business owners to find suitable financiers, gain a following, or compete with their male counterparts.

Navigating a great deal of challenges, especially as a young graduate stepping out of school, and into the business marketplace can be a daunting experience, even for the most fierce and business-orientated female entrepreneurs.

Tackling these challenges requires a lot of patience, ingenuity, and innovation to overcome them, to help you succeed and grow your startup.

Grow Your Network

Nothing is more important, especially as a young graduate entering the tech scene than growing your network. Right from the start you should make it a priority to network with the right people, and build the right connections.

A suggestion is to attend workshops aimed at helping to empower female business owners or sign up for local programs that can help teach you the basics of networking in a male-dominated industry.

When it feels as if you’re being pushed against the wall, with no exit strategy, consider all your options, as much as possible and see how you can leverage the resources you have available to build the right connections.

Be A Strategic Thinker

As a startup founder or future business owner, you must think strategically about all your moves, especially as a young graduate. Do diverse research about the type of investors you’re seeking, look at different opportunities that can help you raise startup funding, and be prepared to make hard decisions, even when you feel like it’s not the right thing to do.

Regardless of what you might be faced with, give yourself enough time to evaluate all possibilities. There is no shame in turning down an investor or partner if you feel that they do not resonate with the bigger purpose of your startup. However, it is important to do thorough research and strategically plan your executions.

Equip Yourself With The Right Knowledge And People

Let’s face it, the tech industry is largely represented by male-led businesses, and letting your voice be heard among all this noise is no easy task, even some of the most established female entrepreneurs still find it difficult to get their foot in the door sometimes.

However, when starting, make sure to surround yourself with the right people, within and outside of your business. These should be people that see and understand the value of your business, and how your techniques will further develop in the coming years.

Another thing to consider is how much you already know, and are willing to learn about the tech landscape. The industry is ever-changing, and what you might have learned in graduate school could already be somewhat outdated. Be sure to constantly learn, and understand where trends are going. The more forward-thinking you are about things, the easier it will be to stay ahead of the competition.

Take Advantage Of “Female” Traits

Even in today’s society, the majority of business leaders still think that certain traits are more associated with men, while others are more geared towards women. While there may be some truth to this, rather than denying these simplistic matters, see how well you can take advantage of female traits to make it work for you in the best possible way.

Traits such as intuition, communication, empathy, and emotional passion are often found in female entrepreneurs. Blending these traits, with those that might be more oriented toward men, and what the industry might consider “male-only” business traits could give you the step you might need to overcome difficult challenges.

Manage Your Resources

Whether it’s financial or physical resources, don’t lose track of the bigger picture. Whatever resources you might have accumulated over time, even as a graduate, ensure that it can work in your favor, especially as you begin to scale your startup.

By effectively managing your resources, you can find the solution to some of your startup’s biggest problems. The better you become at managing your arsenal, the easier it will be to see where problems can be avoided, and what you can do to sidestep these problems in the near term.

Think Like An Entrepreneur, From The Start

Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy, that’s why research shows that nearly 1 in every 5 U.S. small businesses fail within the first year of operation. Nonetheless, while you might be aware of the fact that your business could potentially fail, thinking like an entrepreneur from the very first day could help you limit your chances of becoming yet another failure statistic.

Make time to learn from every choice you make, even the bad ones that don’t translate into anything worthwhile. While you’re still young and have the enthusiasm to take on a lot of risks, you need to consider this as an advantage and build on the failures you’ve endured.

Without any mistakes, you won’t be able to get to the wins, so make peace with the fact that one or many mistakes can be a learning curve, it’s how you approach it.

Master Your Authenticity

The tech industry is constantly changing, and companies and consumers demand better, faster, and more innovative products and services. As you start your startup venture, consider what your strengths are, and how you can replicate this into your sense of authenticity.

Once you have a clear understanding of what you are good at, and it matches the demand of the marketplace, see how far you can develop these strengths to work in your favor.

Be True To Yourself

It can easily become an overwhelming experience, and you might find yourself slipping away from your original ideas. As long as you can stay true to your values, and integrity, and consider how your aspirations can help in the near and long term, you can continue pursuing better and more innovative outcomes.

Stay focused on why you started this in the first place, and now and again, see how you can keep yourself grounded, without getting ahead of yourself. If you are clear about what you are working towards, you will find more solace in the outcomes of your work.

Final Thoughts

Stepping into the tech industry as a startup entrepreneur requires you to have a thick skin because this is a fast-paced environment that’s constantly changing, innovating, and bringing new products to the consumer forefront.

As a young female startup entrepreneur, being focused on your goals, and sticking to your guns can be hard. Nonetheless, the more you are open to learning, and adapting as the market conditions change, constantly seeking ways to improve on your previous attempts, and using your resources wisely, the easier it can be to overcome challenges every startup entrepreneur might come to face in the tech industry.

Be open to learning, and make changes where needed. There’s no shame in backing down when needed, but remember to use your network to your best advantage, and rely on other female entrepreneurs to help give you the empowerment you require to become the next female lead in tech and software.

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Five Innovation Practices To Help Business Owners Navigate Uncertainty

ValueWalk — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 11:00:54 +0000

The economic landscape is changing at an accelerating speed. More than ever, a growing number of businesses are having a hard time navigating marketwide complexity, driven by macroeconomic volatility and unprecedented levels of uncertainty.

Navigating these business challenges through traditional methods of increasing productivity and better cost management has proven to be less successful. Dynamic problems and new threats have meant that businesses require the novelty of innovation and adoption to find new pockets of growth opportunities to solidify their long-term success.

The fast-changing environment has put business owners on an inevitable conquest to build a business model that creates more room for growth through innovation while looking at adjacent pathways that can help develop breakthrough innovation efforts.

Creating more room for growth and change has seen roughly 97 percent of businesses outperform their competitors if they were willing to activate organizational growth pathways.

While it’s possible to measure a business’s success based on its capacity to navigate risks and uncertainty, it’s just as important for them to identify new opportunities, while mobilizing their resources to develop more innovative strategies and grow beyond a “business as usual” mindset.

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Make Room To Identify New Risks And Opportunities

In a dynamic marketplace, business owners are required to continuously think forward, allowing more room to find potential risks, and mitigate the potential effects they may have on the business, employees, and the bottom line.

However, in a complex and challenging economic environment, businesses need to direct their resources towards avenues that can help them enlarge their innovation, while at the same time developing ways to identify possible risks.

Investing in business model innovation not only gives businesses the competitive edge it requires to stand in the marketplace, but it also ensures that the overall structure is continuously being challenged and revived in a way that helps the company scale high-innovation segments.

Establish Short And Long-Term Innovation Goals

Having more dynamic efforts concentrated on short and long-term innovation goals ensures that the business can navigate marketplace challenges as they arise while looking forward to establishing cost-effective business model practices.

With the approach of having short and long-term innovation goals, the company doesn’t only see reductions in costs or an increase in productivity, it however opens new pathways of development for future projects.

Conducting a review of the businesses’ innovation profile enables entrepreneurs and business owners to focus on how short-term formula rationalization can lead to opportunities for redirecting financial resources for long-term investment into different products, services, and other innovation pathways.

Tap Into Systems Thinking Strategies

Systems thinking is the result of resolving real-world issues through strategic and innovative thinking structures. These days it’s crucial for every business owner to have a firm understanding of the challenges they are faced with. Ranging from environmental, social, and governance (ESG), growing interest in these areas could already see businesses adapting their systemic problem-solving abilities.

It can be hard to resolve systemic problems if they are still unknown, or seemingly out of reach. Business owners can direct their focus to overcome challenges that are well within reach, allowing them to make a direct impact on their internal operations.

Once they have identified how these challenges are potentially weighing down on their business, whether it’s revenue or productivity, they will then have the ability to identify different opportunities and challenges that require more long-term investment.

Taking on a more systems thinking approach allows businesses to be complacent with their goals, but over time allows them a higher commitment to achieve long-term goals that are more impact-driven.

Develop Open Innovation Business Efforts

In most business-related examples, owners and entrepreneurs tend to look inward at their intellectual efforts as a method of navigating challenging marketplace conditions.

There are cases where the internal innovation process could help translate the figurative defense of the business in times of uncertainty, however, being more accepting of a culture of open innovation could bring new, and more proactive solutions.

Using open innovation, companies can leverage different pockets of the creator economy. This allows them an opportunity to tap into new technologies, ideas, concepts, and problem-solving. While open innovation can create more inclusive opportunities for thought leaders, it can however help companies define their short and long-term goals more clearly.

Being more purpose-driven, but at the same time allowing more open opportunities for innovation not only gives businesses an ability to have a more dynamic edge above their competitors. It could also mean that they are leveraging different elements of the economic environment that could help improve innovation goals.

Develop A Business Model For Changing Conditions

While companies need to create more innovation opportunities within their business structure, this would be hard to formulate without the right business model.

The current marketplace is evolving, consumers are demanding new and more innovative solutions for dynamic problems, including environmental, social, and corporate governance. This prompts businesses to take a more proactive stance to find viable solutions that deliver long-term results within the current climate that they’re operating in.

Looking forward, this would mean that businesses need to develop a business model that can function under changing conditions. As one problem reveals itself, a different approach is needed to establish working solutions.

In a complex environment, businesses are required to have adequate tools and resources directed to their innovation needs.

During times of uncertainty, business owners and entrepreneurs will need to focus on how their company can withstand market turmoil against the backdrop of a changing marketplace and consumer behavior. There’s always a better opportunity for business to grow into new adjacent pathways, however, this isn’t possible without the right resources directed towards innovation opportunities.

Bringing into focus what is important for the business at the moment, and how economic challenges will require dynamic solutions can help business owners and entrepreneurs discover a broad range of fresh insights that will equip them with the right responses in an uncertain environment.

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Turning Your Rental Into A Smart Home: How Automation Tools Can Benefit Both Tenants And Landlords

ValueWalk — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 11:00:05 +0000

American households are becoming increasingly digital as the rise of automated technology enables more families to use smart devices to make their at-home living more comfortable and convenient.

The most recent home statistics revealed that more than 60.2 million American households are actively making use of smart home devices as of 2023; this represents a three percent increase from last year.

Why Demand For Smart Home Automation Is Rapidly Growing

From smart televisions, appliances, on-demand internet connectivity, and round-the-clock security monitoring, more people now than ever want more automated smart living devices in their homes.

By the same breath of things, younger renters such as Gen Zs (born between 1997 and 2012); and Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996), are demanding more automated technology in their rentals – and they’re willing to pay more for it as well.

In fact, one study found that nearly 86 percent of tech-savvy Millennial renters said they would pay more for their rent if their new residence came with smart features. This comes at the cost of landlords, seeing as Millennials will soon represent the largest rental and buying market in the United States.

Statistics from 2019 showed that 43 percent of Gen Z home buyers said more smart devices and capabilities were highly important, whereas a mere 15 percent of Baby Boomers said the same.

Home automation is not anymore a luxury, but rather a necessity, and for landlords, this could either create a problem or an opportunity to make rental properties more enticing for younger renters who are willing to cash out for the convenience of smart homes.

What Is Smart Home Automation?

In the past, smart home devices and automation were only seen in several high-tech apparatus.

The rise of digital television was later paired with smart capabilities that allowed viewers to record and save television footage directly on their TV. Later on, smart kitchen appliances such as fridges become more energy efficient, helping reduce utility bills for tenants.

Nowadays, it seems as if smart technology is embedded in nearly everything we touch and use. The parity between home appliances and the internet meant that nearly everything in our homes can now be connected to a common network, which enables us to independently and remotely control everything from one point of contact.

Everything from fireplaces to curtains can be automatically operated. Motion sensors at doors, windows, and around living quarters can now detect even the slightest of movements. Digital devices can now monitor electricity and water usage more efficiently, helping landlords compile more accurate utility bills.

Automated tools have enabled individuals to take better advantage of their homes, use appliances more effectively, live more sustainability and feel more secure.

How Smart Home Automation Can Benefit Tenants And Landlords

Perhaps the greatest improvement that technology has brought to the modern home, or apartment for that matter, is access and convenience.

Implementing smart home automation, even in the slightest form, helps ease access to improved living conditions, which at the same time helps improve overall convenience, ultimately having a positive effect on their lifestyle.

For landlords, and most tenants, having better access to smart home automation can help benefit both groups in the near and long term, here’s how.

Convenience Of Connectivity

For tenants, being better connected with their homes, either through a smartphone or smart speaker allows them to use different functionalities at once. However, for landlords, this creates just as much benefit, whereas, they can now manage homes or rental units more effectively.

Landlords can now effectively monitor utility usage per unit, instead of having to do manual meter readings of each unit separately. These smart devices can then be linked to a remote accessed network, whereby landlords can access data as needed.

This makes it easier for landlords to make more accurate readings, and manage utility bills faster, especially across multiple properties. Being connected is an effective way for landlords to have better control over their rental properties when they are not present, or unable to attend to issues that may arise over time.

Improved Safety And Security

There is a lot of ground landlords need to cover when it comes to the safety of their tenants, regardless of their age or mobility.

Often state and county jurisdictions will require landlords to have the appropriate monoxide and smoke detectors installed in all their units, or throughout the building. Other security features such as CCTV or smart locks on entrance or apartment doors are another must-have for rental properties.

However, relying on outdated equipment not only puts tenants at risk but could also be a costly mistake for landlords.

Smart security features, such as automated locks, smart smoke alarms, water sensors, and interior or exterior cameras can help provide remote access to landlords that want to monitor the building.

These smart security measures are not only applicable when a property is occupied, but also during times when units are vacant, when renters are away, or between tenancies.

Security is perhaps one of the biggest, if not the main concerns for tenants when hunting for a new home. Increased security can also lead to other issues such as privacy concerns, which in most cases will need careful consideration and effective communication between landlords and tenants.

Reducing Unit Costs

While the initial cost of investment in smart home features, such as security equipment or home sensors, isn’t cheap, it can help to lower the cost of maintaining individual units over the long term.

Home automation can help lower energy bills for tenants, making their living arrangements energy-efficient. Installing updated water heaters, and smart thermostats can make it cheaper for landlords that offer properties with utility bills included, which at the same time could increase their turnover per rental unit.

Simple things can make the biggest change. Replacing gas-powered items with more energy-efficient appliances such as induction stoves, or removing costly lights already makes a big difference in utility bills and helps lower each rental unit’s carbon footprint.

There are a wide variety of different smart devices that can be used to help improve not only the appeal of each unit, but at the same time lower maintenance costs for landlords, and monthly utility bills for tenants.

Securing Property Investments

Something that is often overlooked by many landlords when contemplating the use of smart home devices, is how it can protect and improve the value of their investment properties.

With the use of smart devices, whether it’s automated locks or remote access control, these features make a big difference in the long run that enables landlords to keep their investments secure against any bad actors or poor tenant behavior and protects their assets against any other possible threats.

Creating More Appeal For Rental Units

Driven by high-interest rates, costly homes, and a lack of inventory, demand for rental properties has skyrocketed over the last several years. Latest industry figures indicate that asking rent prices are now $2,018 on average for April, marking a 5.3 percent increase for the same recorded period last year.

While asking rental prices have reached stratospheric rates, it’s not to say that available, or more affordable rentals are the most appealing for younger tenants.

As we’ve already seen, younger tenants want more access and convenience when it comes to their living arrangements. With this said, the need for digital features, wherever they may be applicable has meant that rental units that have better technology throughout the home are becoming increasingly appealing to new renters.

With the right type of digital features, it’s possible to fill rental units faster, and with the right people. Tenants are also more discerning now than ever before, they are looking for properties that have digital smart features that align with their values of sustainability and quality of life.

Attracting the right tenants, in a frantic market, means that landlords need to step up their game if they’re looking to win over tenants that are willing to pay slightly more for convenience and quality.

The Bottom Line

Creating a more automated and tech-savvy home requires landlords to first establish what their needs might be, and how much resources they’re willing to invest in their rental units. Furthermore, landlords need to consider how the right smart tools will help grow their return on investment, and how these features will be more appealing to a growing number of younger renters.

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