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  • Best 15 Sales Intelligence Platforms & Tools to improve Sales and Leads

    Sales intelligence software and tools help companies use internal and external data to increase sales and improve sales processes. Companies use the best sales intelligence tools to improve the quality and quantity of sales leads by using data to find new opportunities and provide salespeople with the information they need to take a leap. This type of software is used by marketing and sales executives to define and implement sales strategies based on their data combined with external data in their CRM software such as lists of prospects, databases of contacts, etc.  In this article you’ll discover the 11 Best Sales Intelligence Platforms and why exactly your business needs a sales intelligence tool.

    What are the sales intelligence tools?
    Why Sales Intelligence Tools?

    Best Sales Intelligence Platforms & Tools

    1. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
    2. ZoomInfo
    3. Adapt
    4. Apollo.io
    5. Clearbit
    6. Seamless.ai
    7. Vainu
    8. Oracle CX Sales
    9. InsideView
    10. Lead411
    11. UpLead
    12. Winmo
    13. Lusha
    14. Crystal
    15. Hunter

    What are the sales intelligence tools?

    Sales intelligence tools monitor millions of data points to identify sales targets and allow the sales team to launch action. It gives salespeople the ability to connect directly with their ideal customers so they can build pipelines, shorten their sales cycle, and close more deals at scale.

    It uses data collection and software to aid salespeople in lead generation, creating an ideal customer profile and data quality management. It uses both internal and external data to increase sales and improve sales processes. It focuses on both the quality and quantity of sales leads by using data to find new opportunities. The Global sales intelligence software market size is to reach US$ 3.4 billion by 2024, at a compounded annual growth rate of 11.4% and is likely to reach US$ 8.4 Billion by 2032.

    Why Sales Intelligence Tools?

    The use of sales intelligence tools includes:

    • Prospecting for new contacts.
    • Augmenting contact records with missing information.
    • Adding company and industry details.
    • Qualifying and prioritizing leads.
    • Tracking email and website interactions.
    • Compiling lead activity in lead records.
    • Gathering contextual data from social media or news updates.

    Best Sales Intelligence Tools

    Here, we take a detailed look at 11 of the best sales intelligence tools and platforms to grow your business. These tools can help to make every step of the sales process more effective—from lead generation and scoring, to insights for better messaging and outreach. So, let’s jump right in!

    LinkedIn Sales Navigator

    LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the best version of LinkedIn for salespeople. Sales Navigator makes it simple to establish and grow relationships with prospects and customers by helping you by tapping into the full power of LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network of 500M+ members.

    sales intelligence tool-LinkedIn Sales Navigator
    LinkedIn Sales Navigator – Best lead Intelligence Software

    With LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can focus on the right people and companies, stay up-to-date on what’s happening with your accounts, and connect to new prospects even if you don’t have their contact information. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is an all-in-one sales intelligence tool unto itself and it leverages LinkedIn’s huge network and adds advanced search features so you can find the right leads and learn more detailed information about them. Sales Navigator also offers extra InMail credits for outreach and recommends qualified leads.

    Also Read: Top 7 LinkedIn Automation Tools

    ZoomInfo

    Another top Sales Intelligence tool is ZoomInfo Powered by DiscoverOrg which combines the world’s most comprehensive business database with best-in-class technology to fuel your go-to-market strategy from start to finish and provide an accurate, 360-degree view of customers, prospects, and opportunities.

    Zoominfo – Best lead Intelligence Software

    With robust features and integrations seamlessly incorporated into your workflows, the company is on a mission to deliver MORE. More leads for sales and marketing teams. It is a sales and marketing intelligence software which helps to achieve more closed deals for sales organizations, efficiency for operations, control for leadership and more profit for everyone.

    ZoomInfo offers solutions to support all of your sales needs – including territory planning, lead scoring, sales prospecting, conducting targeted outreach, and more. With this platform and products, you can increase sales productivity, and scale success quickly so that your team could hit their number each and every quarter.

    ZoomInfo – Sales Intelligence Platform

    Adapt

    Adapt is a global B2B contact and company database provider across multiple industries. Adapt has 250,000+ users and 90 million business contacts, including industry-specific company databases and contact information such as job titles, direct dial, and email addresses. It is one of the best lead intelligence software. Adapt is a unified sales accelerating platform with the industry-leading core products Lead Builder and Prospector.

    Best lead Intelligence Software
    Adapt – Best lead Intelligence Software

    With robust CRM integration and chrome extension, Adapt’s database enables sales representatives, marketing leaders, recruiters, and decision-makers to connect faster, engage seamlessly, and start prospecting without any delay. From finding the right connections to building qualified leads and engaging with prospects, Adapt is built for modern marketers and sales teams to hit the target faster.

    Apollo.io

    Apollo.io was founded in 2015 and it is an all-in-one sales intelligence platform with tools to help to prospect, engage, and drive more revenue from a database of 220 million would-be buyers. It is a  leading data intelligence and sales engagement platform trusted by many customers across the globe and helps rapidly growing startups to global enterprises.

    Apollo.io Clearbit – Best lead Intelligence Software

    It uses advanced algorithms and unique data acquisition methods to help over 5,00,00 sales professionals to enrich and analyze prospects’ data to increase quality conversations and opportunities.

    Apollo.io has raised $110 million in Series C round led by sequoia in 2022. Apollo offers Sellers and marketers to discover more customers and connections in the market and establish a modern go-to-market strategy one of the features is one can see instant email stats, like how many people opened the emails in the last hour and pull the stats instantly.

    Clearbit

    Clearbit automatically updates your sales records with the accurate, verified company and contact data. With best-in-class data at your fingertips, you’ll have better insights into your prospects and get more time to connect with them. Better data also means better targeting. It will set up smart lead scoring and segmented lists, so you always reach out with the right message. It also gives an alert when key contacts visit your site and target them when you’re top of mind.

    Clearbit - Sales Intelligence Tool
    Clearbit – Best lead Intelligence Software

    Finding new prospects is easy, too. Just pick a few filters, and connect with any of over 200M current contacts, all with verified contact details.

    Clearbit offers four main products:

    • Enrichment (Enriching existing contacts)
    • Prospecting (Finding new contacts)
    • Reveal (Translating your website traffic into contact data)
    • Forms (Autofilling your forms based on your visitors’ email addresses)

    Prospecting and Enrichment can be especially useful services for sales managers. Enrichment starts at $99 (for enriching 1,000 contacts) per month whereas Prospecting, integrated with Salesforce, starts at $12,000/year.

    Seamless.ai

    Seamless.AI is an inside sales and lead generation software and lead management solution that helps businesses streamline processes related to contact search, market research, lead conversion, and data importing on a centralized platform. It allows consumers to purchase a product from the company on any channel and then retrieve the product according to the consumer’s desires.

    Seamless.ai- Best lead Intelligence Software

    It integrates with other platforms such as LinkedIn and allows salespersons to utilize the built-in search engine to extract business contact details based on company names, employee designations, roles, and seniority. It also helps sales, marketing, and recruiting teams to maximize revenue, increase sales, and easily acquire the market using artificial intelligence integration.

    Vainu

    Vainu is a sales intelligence, prospecting & account insights platform which helps you to find actionable account insights, identify timely prospecting signals & determine the most valuable sales prospects for your business from a database of over 108 million companies enriched with open data.

    Sales Intelligence Tool
    Vainu – Best lead Intelligence Software

    Vainu helps you to save time and sell more with a better hit rate. Vainu is everything your team needs to give your customers with tailored sales experience. Vainu is powered by technology which collects, reads, and understands all company information ever written, and makes them easily consumable for the salespersons.

    Vainu is built by a team of machine learning scientists, data engineers, designers, strategists, and salespeople. Vainu pricing starts at $7250 per year per user and also has a free version of Vainu.

    Oracle CX Sales

    Oracle CX and Oracle B2B Service help to improve visibility and collaboration between sales and service teams and turn the data into intelligence for personalized experiences. It empowers businesses to deliver exceptional customer experiences—from acquisition to retention and integrate service solutions for enhanced communication and customer service experiences.
    Oracle Engagement Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) provide a comprehensive set of capabilities for retailers to strengthen their merchandising core and help sales leaders for more effective decision-making.

    Oracle CX sales- Best lead Intelligence Software

    It improves seller productivity by automating time-consuming data entry and manual tasks. It gives salespersons a faster path to critical records so they can spend less time making CRM  updates or searching for information and connecting data from back-office and CRM systems. It unifies real-time customer intelligence with data EPR and HR systems to meet and exceed the business goal.

    InsideView

    InsideView helps businesses to drive rapid revenue growth by empowering business leaders to discover new markets, target and engage the right buyers, and manage customer data quality. It is an AI-based B2B data and sales intelligence platform that deliver the industry’s most relevant and reliable buyer signals and combined with InsideView’s data expertise and best-in-class customer support is trusted by the world’s best-performing companies.

    InsideView – Best lead Intelligence Software

    InsideView is all about healthy data and efficiency to get rid of irrelevant and duplicate information to find the right people and companies that really care for your product or service. With this, unified targeting, marketing, and sales intelligence platform you can gain real-time insights into the market that allow you to make the right strategic choices. Insideview’s Go-To-Market Decision Engine helps you to discover growth opportunities for your company.

    Lead411

    Lead411 is a source for verified lead data that includes inbox response through verified emails and B2B Direct dial phone numbers. It allows to build of stronger relationships with b2b leads and helps to close more deals.  Lead411 offers Bombora Intent Data so that one can pinpoint companies and contacts that are actively searching for services and solutions.

    lead411Clearbit – Best lead Intelligence Software

    Lead411 allows for finding new leads by generating data keys and provides growth through sales intelligence. It focuses on quality data by verifying emails that are not only human-verified but also verify data through ESP Activity Confirmation. It has Chrome Extension to find contact data as one searches Linkedin and company websites with Lead411.

    It has data filters for simple data analysis and also has export options for nearly every scenario. It has various pricing indexes as per the requirements and pricing goes from $75 per month per user to $125  per month per user.

    UpLead

    UpLead is a B2B prospecting platform that provides the highest quality B2B contact & company data. Features include real-time email verification, worldwide contacts in over 200 countries, 50+ search criteria, technology tracking, account-based marketing, competitor intelligence, email pattern intelligence, social profile links, Salesforce & 12 other CRM integrations, robust API, and more.

    UpLead – Best lead Intelligence Software

    UpLead is a powerful B2B data provider and the best enterprise sales intelligence software that let you build targeted prospect lists. You can search for prospects by using over 50 filters, such as job title, technologies used, revenue, company’s location, and the company’s size to get the right data to boost your sales efforts.

    Winmo

    Winmo allows you to easily find the right person to contact by using its targeted contact search. It’s a versatile sales intelligence platform with a lead database which regularly updated and populated by its team of researchers. They do not use any bots and all of the work is done manually. Additionally, Winmo Edge provides you with sales prediction functionality that can inform you early about potential sales opportunities.

    sales intelligence solution
    Winmo – Best lead Intelligence Software

    You can also set up specific alerts and recommendations to avoid missing any hot leads. Connecting the dots between brands, agencies, and the executives who control their purse strings, Winmo paves a clearer path for engaging the right decision-makers at the right prospects. And with integrated news, recommendations and alerts, sales teams can track known opportunities, identify new leads, and execute their outreach for optimal results.

    Lusha

    Lusha helps business professionals to establish a fast and true connection with their leads, contacts, and candidates. B2B engagement is based on trust. Lusha helps you build that trust using simple tools that allow you to enrich and verify business profiles.

    Lusha – Best lead Intelligence Software

    Today, over 2,50,000 sales representatives, recruitment managers, and marketers transform the way they engage customers with their leads, contacts, and candidates by using Lusha on a daily basis.

    Crystal

    Would it help you to know more about the personality of the next prospect you call? Crystal provides you with exactly this kind of data. Based on social media profiles or written texts, the tool uses the DISC approach to assess the personality of a person. In that way, it not only helps you to learn more about the person but also about their connections to other people.

    best sales intelligence tools
    Crystal – Best lead Intelligence Software

    Crystal shows you the best way to communicate with any prospect, customer, or coworker based on their unique personality. You can get started with Crystal for free. For unlimited psychological information and access to personality profiles, Crystal charges $29 per month.

    Hunter

    Hunter makes it easy for sales and marketers to reach out to other professionals with simple but powerful tools. It is basically an email-finding tool that can help you to connect with your prospect easily.

    Hunter – Best lead Intelligence Software

    Hunter crawls the web and indexes publicly available professional email addresses. The data is easily accessible via a simple user interface to find the right person in a company or find how to contact already identified professionals. Besides that, you can easily automate the whole outreach process with Hunter by verifying the emails you found in the app and setting up simple and powerful cold outreach campaigns.

    Hunter provides a free plan for beginners which includes 25 free email lookups and 50 email verification requests. Campaigns, which is a tools for cold outreach, are completely free. If you want to go beyond that, their paid plans start at $49/mo.

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    Conclusion

    In today’s world of information overflow, it isn’t easy to know which information is crucial and which is irrelevant. Having the right data at the right time is a challenge that every company is facing. It’s only when you’re able to understand who you should target and how you can connect with that person, that you’ll be able to drive growth. Luckily there are sales intelligence tools that give us a hand.

    They help us to collect accurate marketing data more quickly, give us valuable insights into the market, and allow us to anticipate future outcomes. By using such software your sales team can ditch the research and concentrate on what they do best.

    FAQs

    What is sales intelligence software?

    Sales intelligence software allows salespeople to conduct pointed searches for companies with a specific set of real-time data points, including both firmographics, technographic and buying signals.

    What are the Best Sales Intelligence Softaware?

    • LinkedIn Sales Navigator
    • ZoomInfo
    • Adapt
    • Apollo.io
    • Clearbit
    • Seamless.ai
    • Vainu
    • Oracle Cx Sales
    • Insideview
    • Lead411
    • UpLead
    • Winmo
    • Lusha
    • Crystal
    • Hunter

    What is lead intelligence?

    Lead intelligence is a form of data that significantly elevates your understanding of your prospects. So you can better address their points, communicate effectively with them, and win their business. When it comes to B2B sales, lead intelligence is invaluable.

    What is meant by market intelligence?

    Marketing intelligence is the practice of gathering data relevant to the marketing efforts of an organization, and then analyzing that data to accurately and efficiently guide the decision-making process of campaigns.

    How much does sales intelligence software cost?

    Sales intelligence tools are typically priced on a monthly subscription model, per user. Free versions are rare given the lift associated with this category of software. Paid plans start at $39 per month per user and increase up to $319 per month per user depending on the number of leads being considered.

  • How to Create a Powerful Customer Experience Strategy?

    A superior customer experience is an investment that can help you earn high customer loyalty and retention. This is why developing a powerful customer experience strategy has become the central goal for most organizations across the globe.

    As per a survey, 44.5% of professionals worldwide consider customer experience as the primary competitive differentiator while 48.5% believe it plays the role of a partial differentiator.

    Hence, customer experience strategy becomes quite a powerful tool to win a competitive advantage for your business. However, with increased digitalization and AI-powered assistants available for help 24X7, customer expectations are increasing every day.

    Keeping your customers satisfied under this scenario can be really difficult, especially for small businesses. Considering this, we decided to analyze the factors that are responsible for creating the most powerful customer experience strategies.

    After thorough research, in this blog, we have brought to you the process of creating a winning customer experience strategy. So without further ado let’s move on to know more.

    What is Customer Experience?
    Why Having a Customer Experience Strategy is Important?
    Are Your Customers Happy with Their Experience?
    Steps to Create a Powerful Customer Experience Strategy
    Tips to Create a Winning Customer Experience Strategy

    Customer Service vs Customer Experience

    What is Customer Experience?

    Share of Professionals Perceiving Customer Experience as a Competitive Differentiator for Organizations
    Share of Professionals Perceiving Customer Experience as a Competitive Differentiator for Organizations

    The customer experience is your buyer’s journey while they are shopping from your brand and the final impression they have of your services. The two primary components that are responsible for creating a customer experience are product and people.

    This means that in the end, your customer will remember your brand only if you serve them a quality product and they receive adequate attention and support from the customer care staff.

    Customers are your most valuable resource for any business. They are not just a source of money but also a medium for growing brand awareness. A loyal customer boosts your revenue in more than one way.

    But today, customers have great power in hand, the power to choose out of countless options available on the internet. Also, the customers are well-informed and educated to make the right choices.

    In this situation, it becomes extremely important to create a remarkable customer experience that lasts with them and they prefer you over other brands every single time.

    A great customer experience can be defined as one where all the needs and expectations of the customer are well taken care of. It should be seamless, memorable, and positive.

    Why Having a Customer Experience Strategy is Important?

    Outcomes for Evolving Customer Experience Strategy for Organizations Worldwide
    Outcomes for Evolving Customer Experience Strategy for Organizations Worldwide

    A customer experience strategy is basically an action plan that takes into account all the aspects of a buyer’s journey. It focuses on creating a positive customer experience right from pre-purchase research to post-purchase follow-up.

    As per a survey conducted by Forbes, around 74% of people buy products based alone on their previous experience with the brand. Moreover, 77% consider customer experience to be as important as product quality.

    This makes having a customer experience strategy very important. It is kind of a roadmap to win the hearts of your customers and also, a reflection of the company’s health.

    Having a well-crafted customer experience strategy would also help your staff, especially the customer care division to understand company expectations while dealing with a customer. This will help them bring their best foot forward while dealing with a situation.

    The success of a customer experience strategy is reflected in the customer feedback as well as your company revenue as happy customers are a great source of brand awareness. Moreover, it results in improved customer retention and reduced churn.

    Are Your Customers Happy with Their Experience?

    Forecast for Global Customer Experience Management Market Size
    Forecast for Global Customer Experience Management Market Size

    This can be a very difficult question. Even if you say yes, the next question is how do you know or can you rate their level of satisfaction? After all only a happy customer can turn into a loyal customer. Although analyzing the customer experience and enhancing customer experience is the job of the customer experience management team but even if you do not have a dedicated team for this purpose, there are simple ways to do that. Using any or all of the tips given below you will be able to understand how well your customer experience strategy is doing.

    • Customer satisfaction surveys: Conducting such surveys on regular basis can give you meaningful insight into the customer’s journey. You can include questions related to different points of their experience. How do they like the project? Or how friendly was the customer support staff? Or even questions like how likely are they to recommend your brand to a friend or some other known person?
      For this, you can use scales like Net Promoter Score (NPS) or track customer satisfaction (CSAT) and ask your customers to rate from 1 to 5. These questions will provide you with plenty of useful data and give a clear picture of how well is your customer experience strategy performing.
    • Rate of customer churn: Customer churn is unavoidable but the rate of churn can be reduced considerably. Looking at the customer churn rate you will be able to avoid reasons that may be responsible for it. Make an analysis of the churn of customers.
      If you are losing a large percentage of customers every month it can really be an issue of concern and there may be a need to look into your customer experience strategy. You can discuss the issue with your team and find out a solution to avoid similar situations in the future.
    • Customer feedback for improvement: The best way to improve is to ask your customers about their expectations. Create forums for your customers where they can place requests for an improved feature or service. Create surveys or community pages where your customers are encouraged to provide their feedback.
      This does not necessarily mean that you follow every piece of advice but, it gives you an idea about the general problems that your customers may be facing. If there are recurring trends, then resolving them is worth your time,       effort, and money.
    • Customer support trends: This is one of the most critical divisions to be taken care of. If the majority of your customers appear to be seeking support regarding similar issues you certainly need to work on them. Review the possible reasons for these issues and come out with practical solutions.
      Also, look at the number of complaints registered every month. Your customer experience strategy can only be considered successful if the number of complaints declines and most of them is marked as resolved.

    All these steps will help you analyze the present rate of satisfaction amongst your customers and bring forward the issues resolving which can help you grow the number of happy customers. Once we know the problems, we can move on to creating a perfect customer experience strategy that understands all the customer needs and ensures generating more happy and loyal customers.

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    Steps to Create a Powerful Customer Experience Strategy

    Spending on Customer Experience Technologies Worldwide
    Spending on Customer Experience Technologies Worldwide

    A great customer experience strategy covers all the touch points across all the channels that your customers move through during their journey of buying a product. It helps you shape the emotions and perceptions of a buyer towards your brand. Below we have listed 5 simple steps that can help you devise a customer experience strategy perfectly suitable and practically applicable for your company.

    1. Clear brand mission: This should be very clear while devising the customer experience strategy. As a brand what do you want to achieve or how do you plan to serve your customers or how do you want your customers to see you in the future?

    All these questions are very important and capable of creating an impression about a certain brand. Therefore, the brand mission should be action-oriented and capable of delivering the impact that you wish to create through your brand.

    A clear brand mission would help you devise a customer experience strategy that supports it to the core. It will decide the way you want to treat your customers as it will decide how they will treat you in return.

    2. Positive employee experience: As per Gallup, a 17% improvement in productivity and a 21% enhancement in profitability were noticed in the companies that gave priority to employee engagement. A happy employee is no doubt a key to a profitable business. Just like the customers, you can use surveys to gauge employee satisfaction levels.

    Take feedback and work towards creating a better work environment and positive employee experience. Prepare your team for future challenges and support them wherever they need it.

    3. Identifying and locating customers: Not everyone in the world can be your customer. You have to identify the target audience for your business and find where they are so you can approach them. Knowing your target audience will further let you shape your customer experience strategy as per their expectations and requirements.

    You can use an omnichannel approach to create brand awareness amongst these customers but make sure not to spam them. Then check their response and decide your future strategy accordingly.

    4. Features to support your promise: When you offer a product to your customers you are actually making a promise to them. This promise can be as simple as this attire would make you look stylish or as tough as a five-year guaranty card.

    Irrespective of what you offer as a brand, you have the promise to fulfil. Make sure you find ways to do that. If the idea is comfort, add features that make your product more comfortable. No matter how small or big changes you make but while doing so, you are actually establishing yourself as a trustworthy brand in the eyes of your customers.

    5. Build your tech support: With the advent of technology nothing can be a better idea. You can use AI support or various other tools available to help you generate a better customer experience. Also, whether or not you are running an online business today, sooner or later you will have to go online with your products and you will need a tech support team for that.

    So it is better to stay future-ready. Moreover, these tools help you create a more personalized experience for your customers. They respond even when your employees don’t and also, do not forget any of their responsibilities.

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    Tips to Create a Winning Customer Experience Strategy

    When your customer experience strategy is ready here are a few bonus tips to keep it updated and create a winning experience with every customer.

    • Understand your customer: You can only provide valuable services to your customer when you understand their needs. You can create buyer personas for this purpose that will help you meet their expectations. This way you can develop a strategy that keeps your customer engaged.
    • Real-time assistance: The world is moving fast and you cannot make your customers wait for your response. Use tools or chatbots to ensure that your customers receive real-time assistance. Also, do not forget to ask for feedback on assistance.
    • Customer loyalty program: Offer special rewards to your regular customers, and make them feel special. This will help you create a personal bond with them and create a superior customer experience.
    • Train your customer service team: This is not a once-after joining but a regular process. Help them work on their communication skills while dealing with customers. This will also help you know about the problems faced by your employees while dealing with the customers and you can work together to find a solution.
    • Track the reviews: This is an extremely important tip. In this world of social media, words spread faster than they are said. Keep track of the reviews provided for your brand on any social media or review site. Respond to them quickly and resolve their issues as soon as possible. Remember even one review can make or break your image and it might take you years to get rid of it.

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    Conclusion

    A strong customer experience strategy can influence how customers view your company. You can increase both your company’s revenue and retention with its assistance. In light of this, developing a strong customer experience plan aids in improving high customer loyalty and reach.

    FAQs

    What is customer experience?

    The customer experience is your buyer’s journey while they are shopping from your brand and the final impression they have of your services.

    How can I analyze the success of the customer experience strategy?

    One can analyze the success of customer experience strategy in the following ways:

    • Customer satisfaction surveys
    • Rate of customer churn
    • Customer feedback
    • Customer support trends

    How to create a powerful customer experience strategy?

    The steps to create a powerful customer experience strategy are:

    • Clear brand mission
    • Positive employee experience
    • Identifying and locating customers
    • Features to support your promise
    • Build your tech support

  • Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About

    Do you know that the global medical coding market size reached 17.05 billion USD in the year 2021? It is expected to increase at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 10.60% in the consecutive years from 2022 to 2027. Also, the global programming language training market is assured to grow by USD 4.49 billion during 2021-2025, progressing at a CAGR of over 15% during the forecast period. These statistics clearly show the increasing popularity of coding worldwide.

    But coding is incomplete without a decent coding platform. Nowadays, several coding platforms have been designed which have pre-built conventional operating systems and allow users, especially beginners, a smooth coding experience.

    It contains assessments, quizzes, challenges, and guidance according to the level of the individual to master coding for different job titles. In this article, discover some of the best coding platforms that every Engineer needs to know about. Let’s dive in to explore what these advanced coding platforms are.

    What is a Coding Platform?
    Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Must Know
    GeeksforGeeks
    LeetCode
    HackerRank
    CodeForces
    CodeChef
    Topcoder
    HackerEarth

    How You Should Practice Coding?

    What is a Coding Platform?

    A developer, programmer, or coder requires libraries, application programming interfaces, and other components for coding. A software platform that consists of all the mentioned elements is referred to as a coding platform. A coding platform allows coders to compile, debug, and implement programs in specific computer languages.

    It specifically contains advancement tools that assist programmers with convenient application development. These platforms are often used for hiring tech employees by evaluating their knowledge libraries, frameworks, tools, skills, technology, and applications of a particular language. It can easily assess the coding of programmers.

    Not only this, but coding platforms also provide quizzes, assessments, and direction to the programmers by identifying their coding level. Advanced individuals are offered advanced coding while beginners face the basic one. These platforms can be used to learn and master programming skills at any stage.

    Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Must Know

    Software Market Revenue in the World (2016-2021)
    Software Market Revenue in the World (2016-2021)

    The following are some of the best coding platforms that will help you learn, practice, assess performance, and master the skill of coding:

    GeeksforGeeks

    GeeksforGeeks - Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About
    GeeksforGeeks – Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About

    Established in 2009 by Sandeep Jain(IIT Roorkee alumnus), GeeksforGeeks has three ultimate motives specifically for CS/IT students. First, it prepares an individual for live interviews via its courses and resourceful articles. Secondly, it ensures that the person gets hired by a leading company. It has a good hiring record for its students. It then offers other advanced courses for further upskilling.

    Being one of the best coding platforms worldwide, GeeksforGeeks have a lot to offer to its coders. It has the hands-on experience to teach data structures and algorithm knowledge skillfully. Its rich library contains regular coding competitions, classrooms, live and online courses, millions of manuscripts, free tutorials, internships, job opportunities, and webinars by top industry leaders.

    There are plenty of options available including Java, Python, JavaScript, C++, C, etc. to choose from as your programming language. It also provides tutorials for UGC NET, ISRO, UPSC, GATE, and more competitive exam preparation.

    LeetCode

    LeetCode - Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About
    LeetCode – Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About

    The LeetCode provides a total of 14 programming languages in its library to make a choice. It not only prepares individuals for tech interviews, but it also collaborates with top companies to find tech talent from the LeetCode batch. There are more than many advantages to learning with LeetCode.

    It provides more than 2500 questions to practice at even its first interaction with individuals. Its significant tool Playground allows coders to write their projects online, test them, and then debug them thoroughly on their own. Thousands of users have already enrolled, signifying the growing vogue of the LeetCode coding platform, in today’s scenario.

    HackerRank

    HackerRank - Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About
    HackerRank – Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About

    Established in July 2009 by Hari and Vivek, the ex-employees of IBM and Amazon, respectively, HackerRank is one of the leading coding platforms in the world. Its marketing statistics speak for themselves. Do you know that there are more than 18 million developers (about 40% of developers worldwide) already present on the HackerRank coding platform? More than 3,000 companies use HackerRank to connect with developers. All this indicates the vogue of HackerRank as a winsome coding platform.

    HackerRank is a data-driven resourceful coding platform that believes in making dependents happier. It has a whole interview preparation kit to assist students to get hired. Its kit contains algorithms, mathematics, data structures, C, artificial intelligence, C++, Ruby, Python, Java, SQL, Regex, functional programming, Linux shell, and databases. It offers different interview preparation kits, including a 1-week preparation kit that contains 21 challenges, a 1 month preparation kit that contains 54 challenges, and a 3 months preparation kit that contains 104 challenges.

    CodeForces

    CodeForces - Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About
    CodeForces – Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About

    Launched in April 2009 by Mikhail Mirzayanov, CodeForces has more than 600,000 active users. The chief focus of CodeForces remains to organize recreational programming contests. The top programmers from all over the world set the concepts and questions of CodeForces contests.

    So if you are a beginner or an expert and you want to assess the concepts of programming you have learned so far, CodeForces assessments tests can help. To register for a CodeForces account, you first have to enter your details. It then organizes virtual participation in learner-level contests, which never affect your ratings, and ranks in real CodeForce assessment contests.

    It then furnishes the rank list which displays the number of right and wrong questions you have attempted. CodeForces blogs are also very resourceful in a furnishing programming language. CodeForces is no doubt, one of the most popular platforms for practising competitive programming. You can also use some additional tools to enhance your competitive coding experience. This list of tools includes StopStalk, Rating Predictor, and CodeForces Visualizer.

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    CodeChef

    CodeChef - Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About
    CodeChef – Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About

    Established as an educational initiative in 2009 by Directi, an Indian software company, and founded by Bhavin Turakhia, CodeChef is an online educational program and competitive programming community of global programmers. It was later taken over by Unacademy in 2020. Its headquarters are in Bangalore, India. The hosting and coding platform CodeChef invites institutes or universities to host their online contests on their platform.

    It provides both external and internal coding assessments. External coding examinations of CodeChef are quite popular and more than 30 contests are hosted every month on its platform. CodeChef hosts three prominent programming contests every month which include Long Challenge, Lunchtime, and Starters and Cookoff. CodeChef also organizes a programming competition (SnackDown) on an international level where programmers from more than 140 countries participate. The following things are accessible with CodeChef:

    • It allows educational institutions and organizations around the world to host programming contests on its platform.
    • You can get access to CodeChef college chapters where you can fetch the series of learning concepts to prepare for competitive-level programming.
    • It also serves as an evaluation platform for educationists as it has collaborations with popular education institutes such as NIT Trichy, IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, NITTR, IIT Hyderabad, and Amritapuri College of Engineering.
    • It regulates CodeChef Certified Data Structure & Algorithms Programme (CCDSAP) exam to calculate the proficiency of students in coding.
    • It has CodeChef for Schools which promotes competitive programming among school students by creating awareness about the International Olympiads in Informatics (IOI).

    Topcoder

    Topcoder - Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About
    Topcoder – Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About

    Topcoder is another top coding platform where data scientists, developers, designers, and competitive programmers from all over the world reside. It was founded in April 2001 and was acquired by Appirio in 2013; later in 2016, Topcoder, along with Appirio, was acquired by Wipro.

    You can read up on UI/UX design, data science, QA and testing, web development, and workforce optimization. It also furnishes case studies, blogs, ebooks, white papers, video repositories, press rooms, and continuous release and updates for its coders. You can even book a demo to explore more about this coding platform.

    HackerEarth

    HackerEarth - Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About
    HackerEarth – Best Coding Platforms Every Engineer Needs to Know About

    Headquartered in San Francisco, US, HackerEarth is a proficient coding outlet for coders that supports mostly technical hiring. The company was founded by Sachin Gupta and Vivek Prakash with its branches in the United States, India, and China.

    Distant video interviewing and technical skills examinations are two of the most performing applications of HackerEarth. It has supported more than 6.5 million developers via data science competitions, coding contests, and hackathons. Besides sharpening your coding skills, HackerEarth also prepares and provides job opportunities to competent coders.

    Conclusion

    Hence, this was all about the best coding platforms every engineer should be aware of. The above-mentioned are the leading platforms where coders from all over the world reside. You can opt for any of them according to your needs and preferences and grind with industry leaders and developers to improve the coding possibilities.

    FAQs

    What is a coding platform?

    A developer, programmer, or coder requires libraries, application programming interfaces, and other components for coding. A software platform that consists of all the mentioned elements is referred to as a coding platform.

    Which are the best coding platforms for Engineers?

    Some of the best coding platforms are:

    • GeeksforGeeks
    • CodeChef
    • CodeForces
    • LeetCode
    • HackerRank
    • Topcoder
    • HackerEarth

    What programming languages do engineers use?

    Programming languages used by engineers include JavaScript, Java, Python, HTML/CSS, C++, Ruby, PHP, etc.

  • Should You Pivot From Your Main Idea? | How Did It Turn Out for Other Startups?

    In the world of entrepreneurship, pivoting means fundamentally changing the direction of the business when the existing products or services are not meeting market needs. A pivot is usually employed to assist a company in improving its revenue or even continue its survival within the market. The way in which a company pivots makes a difference in its perception.

    While pivoting means a change or shift to a new strategy, it doesn’t always entail a drastic overhaul. More often than not, it is only one problem that needs focus and may require a change. Some of the changes within a company that could be considered a pivot are:

    • Simplifying or streamlining a product by removing complex features.
    • A simple product turned into a feature or as a part of another product.
    • Shifting company market position and target customer.
    • Employing a new revenue model to increase monetization.

    Identifying the Need for a Pivot
    Effective Pivoting
    Companies That Pivoted Successfully

    How to Get Startup Ideas?

    Identifying the Need for a Pivot

    Major Challenges Faced by Startups in India (2021)
    Major Challenges Faced by Startups in India (2021)

    A pivot is a move of last resort and must be considered only when every other avenue has been exhausted. There are some signs within the operations of a company that can help an entrepreneur identify the right time for a pivot from the main idea.

    Consistent Under-Performance Compared to Competition

    The world of business is extremely competitive and the company is unable to corner a considerable market for itself due to other heavy-weights who have captured the market with similar products of better quality and lesser price.

    Limited Response from Market

    Low customer traction to the launch of the product or service is usually an indication that the market is unwilling to either accept the product or unwilling to pay the price. While it is possible to generate a buzz with marketing and PR it doesn’t necessarily translate into sales. This is a sign that it is time to either make significant changes to the offering or change the offering itself.

    A Single Feature or Product Gets Traction

    If there is only one aspect, feature, or product of the company that is working and gaining traction while the others are stagnant or slow-moving, it might be time to pivot and capitalize on what is working. It can also mean radically changing or completely ditching what is not working well.

    Company Has Hit a Plateau

    An unmotivated team or an inefficient strategy can easily lull a company to hit a plateau. At this stage, a pivot must be considered. It need not be a radical change, however, an objective analysis can identify areas where a shift is needed.

    Financial Instability

    Businesses need capital to run and startups are especially vulnerable where funds are concerned. If the company’s finances are under stress, it is time to step back and consider a pivot of product or service that may be financially more viable. The aspects of business that need serious consideration are:

    • What are the particular aspects that are putting stress on the finance?
    • Which areas require trimming?
    • What is the future path with the resources left to utilize?

    Effective Pivoting

    Distributions of Startups in India by Sector (2020)
    Distributions of Startups in India by Sector (2020)

    There are numerous considerations that lead to a successful pivot:

    Align Business Goals With Business Operations

    Building and running a successful business is an endeavour that is long and challenging. Hence, it is necessary that the envisioned business goals align with the operations and functioning of the company. A pivot requires a mental reset of new goals that align with business operations.

    “Less is More” Approach

    Pivoting is all about simplifying the product or service in a way that resonates with the end customer. The more features that are introduced, the more it will confuse the target audience. Instead, focus on one feature that is causing the issue and resolve it through simplification.

    Understanding Target Audience and Listening to End Customers

    If the product functions well and is simple to understand and use, then the issue could simply be the wrong target audience. In such a scenario, the pivot might only be the target audience and the marketing strategy and not necessarily the product itself. However, if there is consistent feedback on the price of the product or the complexity of its use, the company might be ripe for a pivot on the product itself.

    Redirecting Current Resources

    It is important to recognise the work and resources that can be salvaged and reused in the new direction. This saves repetitive work since a lot of groundwork may already be done and information readily available.

    Ensure Pivot represents Growth Opportunities

    A pivot that is considered thoughtlessly and without due consideration might prove disastrous for the company’s future. As mentioned earlier, a pivot is a move of last resort and should not be undertaken lightly. If considered, future growth opportunities must be taken into account so as to ascertain a successful pivot.

    Companies That Pivoted Successfully

    These are some examples of companies that pivoted in their early days and found phenomenal success:

    Myntra

    Established in 2007 by Mukesh Bansal, Ashutosh Lawania, and Vineet Saxena and headquartered in Bangalore, Myntra began operations selling on-demand personalized gift items. It operated primarily as a B2B business model in its initial years. However, the growing popularity of eCommerce retail after 2011 forced the fashion brand to pivot. It moved away from gift personalization and began selling fashion and lifestyle products. By 2014, Flipkart acquired Myntra, but it continues to operate as a standalone brand. Myntra has found tremendous success and popularity with its loyal customer base.

    Instagram

    It was actually initially launched as Burbn, a mobile check-in app that was developed by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. What the developers realised was that the photo-sharing feature of their app gained immense popularity among their users. This caused a pivot from their original product, Burbn, and the developers refocused their app on one prominent and popular feature, photo-sharing. They named it Instagram, and the rest is history.

    redBus

    This bus ticketing service app’s initial business model, when it launched in 2006, was to sell bus booking software to bus operators. However, they had an existing way of doing things and no real need to change it. The app makers quickly realized that the customer pain points were stronger and would eventually drive the change. They quickly pivoted their entire business model to become India’s largest bus ticketing platform, bringing convenience and ease of booking tickets to all those who travel via bus. redBus is part of India’s leading online travel company, MakeMyTrip Ltd.

    Conclusion

    There are numerous such case studies of companies that originally began with one idea and pivoted within a short time to find tremendous success. Having said that, a pivot is not a magical pill that suddenly takes away all troubles. It is a considered business move that requires critical and analytical skills as well as a sound pivot plan to ensure that the change brings success.

    FAQs

    How do you know if your startup needs to pivot?

    You can tell if your startup needs to pivot from the following signs:

    • Consistent Under-Performance Compared to Competition
    • Limited Response from Market
    • Only a Single Feature or Product Gets Traction
    • Company Has Hit a Plateau
    • Financial Instability

    How to effectively pivot from your main idea?

    The following considerations will help you effectively pivot from your main idea:

    • Align Business Goals With Business Operations
    • Redirecting Current Resources
    • “Less is More” Approach
    • Understanding Target Audience and Listening to End Customers
    • Ensure Pivot represents Growth Opportunities

    Which companies have successfully pivoted?

    Myntra, redBus, and Instagram are some of the most popular companies that have successfully pivoted.

  • Will IRCTC Sell Your Data?

    The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation or more popularly known as the IRCTC is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Indian Railways, Government of India. Established as a public sector company on September 27, 1999, the IRCTC is authorised to provide services like online ticketing, catering and selling drinking water on trains and at railway stations for the Indian Railways.

    IRCTC pioneered internet-based rail ticket booking through its website as well as its mobile app. It offers services like the Tatkal scheme, allowing passengers to book tickets on short notice. It introduced pantry cars for long-distance journeys, serving freshly cooked meals to passengers. It also launched an e-catering service in 2014 allowing passengers to pre-order food from partner restaurants.

    IRCTC also operates and manages air-conditioned waiting lounges, retiring rooms, and budget hotels in partnership with private players. It also organizes budget and deluxe package tours for domestic and foreign tourists. In 2020, IRCTC began operating India’s first private train, The Tejas Express from Lucknow to New Delhi.

    In 2019, IRCTC was listed on the National Stock Exchange following which the Government of India’s stock holding in the company was reduced to 87%. By December 2020, the Indian Government further reduced its holding to 67% as it divested another 20% to be publicly traded.

    IRCTC’s Tender Issuance
    The Background

    How to Create IRCTC Account?

    IRCTC’s Tender Issuance

    A total of 100 million users, 75 million of which are active users, make the extensive databank of IRCTC, which has been collecting user data since 2002. It recently floated a tender in a bid to hire a consultant in an effort to monetize its passenger and freight customer data to generate a revenue of INR 1000 crore. The tender document mentions that the data to be studied would include information that was captured by its various applications like name, age, mobile number, gender, address, email ID, class of journey, payment mode, log-in id and password and other personal details.

    An IRCTC representative clarified that as a commercial entity, IRCTC is constantly exploring new business sectors, apart from its existing enterprises like rail ticket booking, retiring room booking, hotel booking, catering service, bus booking, air ticket booking, etc. Additionally, it does not save the client’s financial information on its servers as the control is transferred to the appropriate payment gateway or bank for due process when the client makes an online payment.

    This move by IRCTC, however, has given rise to certain media reports claiming that it is selling consumers’ personal information in an effort to monetize the information. Even as the Railways has since denied these reports, the tender document can be viewed on the IRCTC website.

    IRCTC, however, has withdrawn the controversial bid and told the Parliamentary standing committee on Information and Technology that the intention behind floating the tender was only to leverage the information to improve its own services. There was never any intention to sell the data to a third party. An IRCTC spokesperson has clarified – “IRCTC has withdrawn tender for appointment of consultant for suggesting business strategies using data available.”

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    The Background

    Indian Railways Revenue from FY2017 to FY2023
    Indian Railways Revenue from FY2017 to FY2023

    From the conversations with the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, it seems that its intent is to position India as the World’s Artificial Intelligence Model Making Capital and IRCTC may have aspired to be seen among those with the ‘first mover’ advantage. These include pharmaceutical giants, e-commerce firms and fintech companies which are consistently pushing the boundaries of technology while having unfettered access to personal data.

    The reason behind such a move from IRCTC can be attributed to the outdated privacy protection laws that still rely on the IT Act of 2000, which only states that a person can claim compensation if his data is misused. This law does not specify the ownership of the data, hence an individual can lay no claim of ownership on personal data.

    For close to a decade now, the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill for India has been in limbo, which, if introduced, was finally expected to guarantee the right to privacy and data protection this year. It was shelved as the panel which was studying the bill suggested a total of 12 recommendations and 81 amendments. This has forced the government to completely redesign the bill which is expected to be tabled in the parliament by December 2022.

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    Conclusion

    Data is the new oil and for companies that deal with enormous primary data, it can be relatively easy to monetize it as secondary data without stringent laws to govern it. While the government is responsible for national security and safety and could very well be exempt from this law, IRCTC’s brief tryst with data monetization has stressed the importance and urgency to introduce the Data Protection Bill. It is the hope that the Data Protection Bill will become law by 2023.

    FAQs

    What does IRCTC do?

    IRCTC stands for Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Indian Railways, Government of India and is authorised to provide services like online ticketing, catering and selling drinking water on trains and at railway stations for the Indian Railways.

    How many users does IRCTC have?

    IRCTC has more than 100 million users, 75 million of which are active users.

    Is IRCTC selling user data?

    IRCTC recently floated a tender in a bid to hire a consultant in an effort to monetize its passenger and freight customer data. However, later it withdrew the bid and clarified that the intention behind was only to leverage the information to improve its own services and explore new business opportunities.

  • How Netflix Corrected Its Mistake Called Qwikster?

    Netflix Inc. was founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in 1997 in Scotts Valley, California. It is an American subscription streaming service and production company that offers films and television series library through distribution deals. Its own productions are known as Netflix Originals.

    The OTT platform is available worldwide apart from Mainland China, Syria, North Korea, and Russia. Netflix is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and has played a prominent role in independent film distribution. By September 2022, Netflix’s subscriber base was 222 million strong globally. This included 73.3 million in the United States and Canada, 73.0 million in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 39.6 million in Latin America, and 34.8 million in the Asia-Pacific region.

    History and Growth of Netflix
    What Was Qwikster? – The Error and the Correction
    The Aftermath of the ‘Qwikster’ Debacle

    Hidden Story of Netflix: Why Netflix is Losing Subscribers? 

    History and Growth of Netflix

    Netflix's Annual Revenue Growth from 2011 to 2021
    Netflix’s Annual Revenue Growth from 2011 to 2021

    Initially, Netflix.com was launched as a DVD rental and sales website in 1998 with 925 titles. During the dot-com bubble of September 2000, amidst losses, Netflix offered to sell to Blockbuster LLC for USD 50 million which was rejected by Blockbuster LLC. The year 2001 saw Netflix experience fast growth but the continued effects of the dot-com bubble burst and the terrorist attack of September 2001 resulted in Netflix holding off its plans for an IPO (Initial Public Offering). The company went public on May 29, 2002, and sold 5.5 million shares. It posted its first profit in 2003 of USD 6.5 million on USD 272 million in revenue. A year later, in 2004, the profit had increased to USD 49 million on USD 500 million in revenue.

    Between 2007 and 2012, Netflix transitioned to streaming services starting with recruiting Anthony Wood in April 2007 to build a ‘Netflix Player’ that would allow streaming content to be played directly on a television set. In November 2008, Netflix began offering subscriber rentals on Blu-ray and by 2009, Netflix streams overtook DVD shipments. From here on, Netflix began to grow exponentially by signing deals with Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, and 20th Century Fox to delay new release rentals 28 days prior to retail in 2008, signing a deal to stream movies of Relativity Media in July 2010 and signing a five-year deal worth approximately USD 1 billion to stream movies from Paramount, Lionsgate and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was in September 2010 that Netflix first made its foray into the international market by offering streaming service in Canada.

    In January 2011, Netflix introduced a Netflix button for certain remote controls for easy access on compatible devices. By January 2012, Netflix began its Europe expansion launching in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It launched in Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden in October of the same year. September 2013 saw Netflix launching in the Netherlands and from there on to another 40 countries. A year later, by September 2014, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Switzerland joined the ever-growing Netflix family. Australia and New Zealand were the next to join in March 2015.

    At the January 2016 Consumer’s Electronics Show, Netflix announced its ambitious international expansion plans into 130 additional countries and followed it up by becoming available worldwide except in China, Syria, North Korea, Kosovo and Crimea. Between 2017 and 2020, Netflix branched out and expanded into international productions. By 2021, it began its expansion journey into gaming, Squid Game as well.

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    What Was Qwikster? – The Error and the Correction

    Qwikster by Netflix
    Qwikster by Netflix

    Netflix’s subscription plan that offered access to DVD rentals and unlimited on-demand video streaming for USD 10 was extremely popular and well-received among its customer base. It was in the spring of 2011 that Netflix’s Chief Executive Officer, Reed Hastings, first outlined his plan to separate its DVD operations from its streaming service. Irrespective of the objections from Jonathan Friedland, the then-new vice-president of global corporate communications, Hastings held the firm belief that Netflix was a great bargain and any anger from subscribers would fade quickly. Announcements were made to the subscribers that DVDs and streaming would be separated and each would cost USD 7.99 per month or USD 15.98 for both. This was a 60% hike and the changes were slated to be made from September of that year. Netflix renamed their plan to offer DVD by mail service ‘Qwikster’, and planned to run it as a separate business.

    This move by Netflix did not go as planned. The increase in price as well as the separation of its DVD service caused Netflix’s stock price to drop by 77% and the video streaming service quickly lost 8,00,000 subscribers – all in a space of just four months. The customers had spoken and expressed their outrage quite vehemently. ‘Qwikster’ was a bad idea from the get-go. Three weeks after its announcement, ‘Qwikster’ was shelved, although the price hike remained.

    A customer of Netflix, Willie Williams, reacted to the announcement by posting his comment on Facebook. “Individually your DVD and steaming services do not offer enough to justify their expense. As a bundled service they supplement each other and provide the value that made Netflix wonderful. DVDs allowed you to view newer releases in a fairly timely manner. Streaming allowed for viewing of the older catalogue of movies that come up when you think of it but might not be worth waiting for to arrive in the mail….

    By separating these services I fear you are weakening Netflix as a service and subsequently the brand. Together these services made Netflix a success, separated you lack the availability and pricing of your competitors.” 1877 people agreed with his summation.  

    The Aftermath of the ‘Qwikster’ Debacle

    Reed Hastings had earned the label of being a ‘visionary’ and someone who knew about disrupting businesses. His brainchild ‘Netflix’ had driven out the well-established video rental businesses with the simple premise of an easy-to-use website that delivered DVDs to the customers’ doorstep and entailed no late fees. However, his misstep with ‘Qwikster’ was a massive error that almost caused Netflix its existence. Hastings’ idea, however, was, in fact, sensible. The DVD business was a dying breed, having outlived its existence. He wanted to cause disruption by slowly fading out the DVD business and focus solely on streaming services.

    It was an aggressive move, that was far-sighted and did not consider consumer behaviour. It caused Netflix to stumble precariously as it lost a year while trying to recoup from the loss of subscribers and business. However, Netflix streaming services continued its slow and steady upward trajectory with an aggressive price of USD 7.99 per month or USD 15.98 for DVD rentals and streaming service, by 2012 outperforming Apple, Google, HBO, or Amazon in terms of the volume of content available for the said price.

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    Conclusion

    Netflix emerged from the ‘Qwikster’ blood bath scathed but alive. It was a hard lesson that was learnt brutally and quickly. In the following years, Netflix concentrated on expanding its streaming services and producing and airing original content. Although unsteady for a while, it eventually outgrew its ‘Qwikster’ debacle to emerge as the market leader that it currently is.

    FAQs

    What was Netflix Qwikster?

    In 2011, Netflix announced that DVDs and streaming would be separated and each would cost USD 7.99 per month or USD 15.98 for both. Netflix renamed their plan to offer DVD by mail service ‘Qwikster’, and planned to run it as a separate business.

    When was Qwikster launched?

    Netflix DVD by mail, Qwikster was launched in September 2011.

    Did Netflix face any losses due to Qwikster?

    The increase in price as well as the separation of its DVD service (Qwikster) caused Netflix’s stock price to drop by 77% and the video streaming service quickly lost 8,00,000 subscribers – all in a space of just four months.

  • 4-Day Work Week is Here: Which Companies Shifted to a 4-Day Work Week in India?

    Did you know that the 4-day workweek concept was implemented in the UK, and the researchers estimate that it saves around £ 104 billion for UK businesses in a year? A survey conducted by Henley Business School regarding the four-day week found that 62% of staff reduced their sick leaves, and 78% of them were less stressed than usual. Also, 64% of them admit that they are going to spend one extra day learning and upskilling themselves.

    This clearly shows the effectiveness of this new concept. At the same time, some employees find this work culture inappropriate as they have to work extra hours in a single day which kills productivity.

    In this write-up, we will observe whether the 4-day workweek culture is working for India or not. We will also introduce some top Indian companies that have already adopted this work culture. Let’s dive in to learn more about it.

    The Concept of a 4-Day Work Week
    Pros and Cons of 4-Day Work Week
    4-Day Work Week Companies in India

    4-Day Work Week: How Feasible Is It in India?

    The Concept of a 4-Day Work Week

    The 4-day workweek idea allows employees to work for only four days a week without any reduction in their salaries. It signifies that employees have to work 80% of the time while maintaining 100% of productivity in their work. Fridays will be off and the employees will enjoy 3 days as holidays.

    The world’s largest four-day workweek trial is underway in the UK. Over 3,300 employees from more than 70 companies are participating in this trial. It compares typical employees with 4-day-a-week-working employees to calculate the amount of work done at the same time.

    According to a survey in which 41 of the 70 companies trying out the shorter workweek participated, around 86% of the companies said that they were “extremely likely” or “likely” to consider keeping the four-day workweek policy after the trial period.

    Companies and employees from the United States, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand have signed up to take part in the six-month coordinated trials of the four-day working week as part of the 2022 programme.

    Pros and Cons of 4-Day Work Week

    Anticipated Hybrid Work Changes for Employers and Employees Post Covid-19
    Anticipated Hybrid Work Changes for Employers and Employees Post Covid-19

    Every theory arrives with pros and cons. The pros and cons of 4 day work week are:

    Pros

    • Enthusiasm: The employees feel more motivated or enthusiastic by having only 4 days of work in their minds and spending extra time on other desired things.
    • Reduced sick leaves: A poll reported that there were 62% fewer sick leaves after the 4 days workweek culture implemented in the company. The appointment of doctors can be shifted on holidays.
    • Less expenditure: There is less use of office amenities such as electricity, toilets, printers, or canteens which ultimately reduces the expenditure of the firm. Microsoft Japan reported 60% fewer printings and 23% lower electricity bills when it tried a 4-day workweek.
    • Increased efficiency: It increases efficiency or productivity in completing tasks. Microsoft Japan also reported a 40% increase in productivity among employees when it trialled a four-day week in 2019. Many of them admit that they are expanding their holidays in upskilling, which ultimately benefits the company.
    • Environment conservation: Conservation of paper and electricity, and less use of toilets impact the environment by fewer carbon emissions, resulting in expanding greenery.
    • Employee Retention: The concept retains employees in a particular company for a longer time due to less stress of work and burnout. Moreover, top talents tend to find companies where they can showcase their abilities without workload. 4-day work week culture attracts top faculties of the industry.

    Cons

    • Pre-planning: The clients don’t pay attention to the work culture a company is following. They just need to get their work done. In the case of a 4-day work week, internal scheduling issues may arise in addition to managing client needs. The planned meetings can be scheduled before, but emergency meetings can suffer in this case. The quality of work also endures because every employee cannot be present at the time of urgent meetings and discussions.
    • Task coverage: The 4-day workweek can make tasks suffer. This is because many employees take off on Mondays or Fridays to get a continuous break. If they follow this behaviour in a 4-day work week culture, the missions of the company have to withstand, resulting in decreasing efficiency.
    • Costly in some spaces: A four-day workweek signifies that the employees have to work 10-12 hours per day instead of the traditional 8 hours. If the employees can complete their 5 days of work in 4 days, you are paying adequately. But if it is not happening, then you are paying the extra cost to the employees.
    • Overwork in some positions: The managers and other people in controlling positions will get overworked since they have to schedule every meeting and task in only 4 days.
    • Additional anxiety about completing missions: The employees will keep stressing about completing their work so that they can successfully take their extra day off. This makes them complete the task in hurry and may not be providing the same quality work according to their ability.
    • Contraction of work goals because of varying employees’ behaviour: Every worker may not feel enthusiastic to work at the same frequency on all four days. Human behaviour varies, resulting in a contraction in achieving work goals.

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    4-Day Work Week Companies in India

    Here are a few hefty companies that have successfully enforced the concept of a 4-day workweek in India:

    TAC Security

    TAC Security
    TAC Security

    TAC Security, a global leader in Vulnerability Management has shifted to a 4-day work week concept. It manages more than 5 million vulnerabilities via its Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Vulnerability Management Platform ESOF (Enterprise Security in One Framework).

    The CEO and founder of TAC Security, Trishneet Arora said in a recent interview that their company consists of young generation employees which allows him to experiment with this brand new concept.

    “It’s all about keeping standards of execution high, while still putting the team’s health and well-being first, we are team of young people and young company we can experiment anything possible to ease the team members work life balance. We recognize that it’s important for our leaders to set an example for the rest of their teams by walking the talk,” says Trishneet.

    Employees’ work and life balance is the chief aim of TAC Security introducing this theory. The HR manager of TAC Security highlighted that directing this 4-day workweek concept will take some time because 5 days of working has been a habit since we started working. But he is pretty confident that this concept will be a huge success.

    Beroe Inc

    Beroe Inc.
    Beroe Inc.

    Beroe is a global SaaS-based procurement intelligence and analytics provider. Beroe Inc. introduced the concept of a 4-day workweek on June 1, 2017. Since then, it has become successful in achieving its work goals by consuming fewer days.

    The company launched the Beroe Performance Index in order to measure its productivity when it implemented the 4-day work week. This index measures the company’s performance on the basis of client deliverables and feedback on a month-on-month basis. The report for the first month of the 4-day work week showed outstanding results for Beroe both in terms of client deliverables and feedback.

    “The success of this initiative is purely dependent on how well employees are able to shift from 5 to 4-day work week without compromising on client deliverables and productivity. So far, the results have been fantastic and if we continue with the same rhythm we will make this initiative a success. But, if there is a dip on client deliverables we will have to dial the work week back to 5 days.” says Vel Dhinagaravel, CEO, Beroe.

    Apart from this, during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, many Indian companies and startups implemented a 4-day work week for their employees and reported good results. Swiggy, OYO, MullenLowe Lintas Group, and ad agencies like DDB Mudra were among them.

    Conclusion

    Hence, this was all about the 4-day workweek companies in India. This modern concept tends to work effectively in areas where employees are more dedicated to adding value to their company instead of just spending their precious time. Since top companies have started introducing this concept, it will soon expand its legs to other corporations as well.

    FAQs

    Which company offers a 4-day workweek in India?

    TAC Security and Beroe Inc. offer a 4-day workweek in India.

    Which country has implemented the largest four-day workweek trial?

    The world’s largest four-day workweek trial is underway in the UK. Over 3,300 employees from more than 70 companies are participating in this trial.

    What are the benefits of a 4-day workweek?

    The benefits of a 4-day workweek include:

    • Reduced sick leaves
    • Less expenditure
    • Increased efficiency
    • Environment conservation
    • Employee Retention

    What are the cons of a 4-day workweek?

    The following are the cons of a 4-day workweek in companies:

    • Costly in some spaces
    • Overwork in some positions
    • Trouble in task coverage
    • Additional anxiety about completing missions
    • Contraction of work goals because of varying employees’ behaviour

  • What Is Bottom-Up Business Model? | Why Do SaaS Companies Prefer This Business Model?

    A business model typically refers to a company’s plan to make a profit. It identifies the products or services to be sold, its target market and its anticipated expenses. Typically, the top-down business model is one of the oldest and the most familiar model. This business model begins by identifying and engaging key decision-makers and targeting a few large accounts that match the ideal customer profile. Historically, most businesses, including SaaS (Software as a Service) companies, follow the top-down business model.

    However, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, business operations transitioned to a new phase where capital efficiency mattered as much as, if not more than, profitability and growth. Enter the bottom-up business model that has quickly become the go-to model for thousands of SaaS companies.

    What is a Bottom-Up Business Model?
    Why Do SaaS Companies Prefer Bottom-Up Business Model?

    SaaS Business Model and Metrics

    What is a Bottom-Up Business Model?

    Simply explained, a bottom-up business model drives a company’s revenue without a sales team. It is a self-service model that allows end users to try a SaaS product before purchasing it. This concept has been made possible by the rise of cloud-based SaaS. It is a newer and more flexible approach that is more commonly found in industries where disruption and innovation are a priority.

    Unlike vertical SaaS, the bottom-up business concept is not restricted to any specific niche and is best suited for individuals. This type of business model answers a few key questions for SaaS companies, like:

    • Less spends on sales as well as decouple revenue from sales headcount.
    • Achieve a precise understanding of CAC (customer acquisition cost) and LTV (customer lifetime value).
    • Scale in a way that sustained growth becomes predictable and repeatable.

    Zoom, Slack, Notion, and Airtable are some prime examples of SaaS companies with a bottom-up business model. Rather than a fully functional sales team of a top-up business model, these companies use a business strategy, known in the industry as ‘freemium’. Users are allowed to use the product with limited features to get a feel for it before they decide to upgrade.

    Zoom, which started as a small SaaS company in 2011, focused on creating a brilliant product that quickly became a need for consumers. Their marketing strategy includes a popular freemium model that allows the user to host 40-minute video calls free of cost. Zoom was valued at more than USD 17 billion even before the Covid-19 pandemic.

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    Why Do SaaS Companies Prefer Bottom-Up Business Model?

    SaaS End-User Spending Worldwide (2015- 2023)
    SaaS End-User Spending Worldwide (2015- 2023)

    In a bottom-up business model, the sales are directed at the users which lessens resistance, making it simpler to achieve high usage and adoption numbers. This also allows the company to save money on sales activities diverting that cash towards research and development to make their product better and user-friendly. The business is more sensitive and responsive to the needs of its consumers. There are other reasons that SaaS companies are increasingly adopting the bottom-up business model.

    Wider Audience Reach

    Bottom-up SaaS businesses are not restricted to any specific niche and enjoy a wider audience to market and sell their product. Their freedom of market also allows the companies to conduct large-scale campaigns and strategies to entice as much audience as they possibly can.

    Revenue Source

    Though the revenue per customer is smaller in value, SaaS bottom-up businesses have a greater number of customers as compared to an enterprise client. This also means the companies enjoy higher recurring revenue. The transaction time is shorter due to the direct connection between the company and the customer. This also allows the companies to focus more on improving customer experience and also build deeper customer relations.

    Reduced Overhead Expenditure

    Advanced technology has made signing up and payment methods easier and faster. This makes the bottom-up sales funnel automated allowing SaaS companies to downsize their sales teams or even integrate their sales, marketing, and customer service into one team.

    Customer Rapport

    Bottom-up companies are more able to focus their resources on building a dedicated team for product development and customization for their customers. This team can act quickly to provide solutions to customer complaints and issues and implement quick-fix to persistent bugs. This paves the way to customer satisfaction and customer retention. It can also act as a word-of-mouth advertisement for their product.

    Faster Innovation

    A bottom-up business model is not dependent on instruction from top executives. In an industry that is quick on innovation, creative teams with the freedom to brainstorm are empowered to capture and implement innovations quickly. This also boosts employee morale.

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    Conclusion

    In the uncertainty generated, especially in the world of economy, post the Covid-19 pandemic, companies reacted predictably by cutting expenses, shelving expansion plans, and reducing headcount. This was all in an effort to conserve cash and extend their runway.

    However, it also provided the business world with better clarity to employ capital funds and further improve business operating methods that increase funds efficiency, operational efficiency, promote organic growth, as well as build better relations with the end consumers. Currently, the bottom-up business model is fast becoming the preferred way for SaaS companies. It is highly probable, that this will become a preferred method of functioning for other industries as well.

    FAQs

    What is a bottom-up business model?

    Simply explained, a bottom-up business model drives a company’s revenue without a sales team. It is a self-service model that allows end users to try a SaaS product before purchasing it.

    Why do SaaS companies prefer a bottom-up business model?

    SaaS companies prefer a bottom-up business model for the following reasons:

    • Wider Audience Reach
    • Revenue Source
    • Reduced Overhead Expenditure
    • Customer Rapport
    • Faster Innovation

    Which SaaS companies have a bottom-up business model?

    Zoom, Slack, Notion, and Airtable are some prime examples of SaaS companies with a bottom-up business model.

  • Why Did Yepme Fail? | Reasons for Yepme’s Failure

    Vivek Gaur, Sandeep Sharma and Anand Jadhav, three veterans of the e-commerce and retail industries got together and launched Yepme.com in April 2011. The e-commerce company specialized in online retailing of men’s and women’s garments and accessories and was headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana.

    In a 2010 interview with Bloomberg UTV, the founders said they saw immense growth potential in India’s online shopping market, which was then dominated by the travel sector. As an online apparel retailer, Yepme shifted focus to private label fashion wear in August 2011 from brand apparel. They began promoting Yepme as a private label apparel brand with the main customer focus on tier 2 and tier 3 towns and cities.

    Yepme Funding
    Growth of Yepme
    Yepme and Competition
    Why Did Yepme Fail?
    Reasons for Yepme’s Failure

    10 Reasons Fashion Brands Fail and How to Avoid Them?

    Yepme Funding

    In the financial year 2011-12, through Series A funding, Yepme raised USD 8 million from venture capital firm, Helion Ventures Partners. The India-focused early to mid-stage venture fund witnessed the growth and came forward in the second round of funding totalling their investment to USD 20 million. Another USD 75 million was raised in September 2015 from investors led by the Malaysian state fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad. As per Tracxn, Yepme has raised a total funding of USD 89.1 million.

    Growth of Yepme

    Yepme.com began in 2011 with a great marketing strategy of targeting customers from tier 2 and tier 3 towns where the big brand retail stores were absent. Within a short span of time, it established its brand in the online fashion industry within the country with over 6 million fans on Meta (erstwhile Facebook) and approximately 4000 fans on Twitter in 2015.

    Its success run continued with the business magazine Forbes rating it among the top 5 eCommerce startups. Yepme won the “Web Only Brand of the Year” award in 2014 from e-Tailing India. It was recognised as one of the top 20 brands in the world by Stylophane, a digital marketing services company.

    In 2015 Yepme entered into a contract with Flipkart and Snapdeal, the eCommerce giants, to sell its products. In a bid to build a deeper connection with the customers, Yepme expanded its presence by opening its first offline store on January 14, 2016, at DT City Centre Mall, Gurugram. The store served as a place where customers could come and try on the clothes to get the best fit. They could then buy the clothes from the physical store or the Yepme online store at the same price.

    A company spokesperson had said in a statement – “The physical store serves as a shopping zone for customers and a starting point for purchases. And if the range at the store is not enough to decide, the customers can also browse the online store and place their orders right there.”

    Additionally, the CEO and Co-Founder Vivek Gaur said – “The brand is taking a step to get closer to our customer, as customers can now experience the touch & feel of the product and the diverse range of the fashion collection for both men and women. They can also try their best fit to make an intelligent purchase online or at the store.”

    From then on, Yepme’s offline presence grew to 4 stores, with 2 stores in Noida and 2 in Gurugram.

    Yepme and Competition

    Yepme was enjoying more popularity and sales than other similar private label brands like Zovi and Freecultr due to their winning business strategies and easy shopping experiences.

    • The website offered the use of regional languages like Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada apart from Hindi and English for ease of shopping.
    • They offered a wide range of products.
    • Their delivery module ensured timely doorstep deliveries.
    • The back-end customer support was prompt in solving customer queries.
    • Their multi-channel marketing was reaching a wide audience.

    Why Did Yepme Fail?

    Yepme Financials (FY2014-15 to FY2015-16)
    Yepme Financials (FY2014-15 to FY2015-16)

    In spite of witnessing such growth and popularity, disaster struck in early March of 2017 when a group of the company’s employees approached the Labour Commission complaining of unpaid salaries. The employees further blamed the management for putting undue pressure on them to resign and return company assets.

    Increasing expenses forced Yepme on a cost-reduction spree, by shutting their four offline stores and shifting their warehouse to a much smaller facility from Bilaspur in Gurugram to Kabulpur in Faridabad. Yepme also fired some employees in the process.

    By mid-September 2017, Yepme had shut down two units – warehousing and quality control and had fired more staff. By this time, the news was already circulating about the impending bankruptcy and Yepme was on the verge of permanently closing its operations.

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    Reasons for Yepme’s Failure

    The mortality rate in the online fashion sector is high and Yepme was a prime example. There were multiple reasons for the online fashion business’s failure:

    Too Early for Private Labels

    The founder of the now-defunct eCommerce platform Yebhi, Manmohan Agarwal observed, “They didn’t realize that private label comes at an evolved stage, not at the beginning.” Private labels are usually introduced extremely discreetly among an array of well-known brands. Big players like Myntra, Pantaloons and Shoppers Stop brought in private labels only after they established strong relationships with their customers.

    Low Average Cart Size

    The average cart size of customer shopping within the Indian framework is between INR 700 and INR 900. This plays havoc with the unit economics. The second big concern is custom fitting with private labels. And another concern was that people shifted comfortably to online shopping only post-2015. Yepme was launched in 2011.

    Big Horizontal Players Monopolize the Market

    The Indian eCommerce marketplace boasts of big players like Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, etc., which were monopolizing the market even back in 2015. Secondly, the market size for unique collections is very small.

    Pravin Sinha says – “Branded online fashion space has been taken away by large horizontal players. If someone is eyeing to aggregate branded fashion, nothing is left for them now.” He was heading Jabong Operations till it got acquired by Flipkart.

    Conclusion

    Yepme, while a brilliant startup idea, was simply ahead of its time. They tried too much too soon and paid the ultimate price. However, there is no doubt that the online marketplace for fashion is ruled by a few eCommerce giants, and the competition for survival is fierce.

    FAQs

    Who founded Yepme?

    Yepme was founded by Vivek Gaur, Sandeep Sharma and Anand Jadhav.

    What happened to Yepme?

    Increasing expenses forced Yepme to go on a cost-reduction spree, by shutting their four offline stores and shifting their warehouse to a much smaller facility from Bilaspur in Gurugram to Kabulpur in Faridabad. Yepme also fired some employees in the process.

    What were the reasons for Yepme’s failure?

    The reasons behind Yepme’s failure include:

    • Too Early for Private Labels
    • Low Average Cart Size
    • Big Horizontal Players Monopolizing the Market

  • Top 7 Best Public Speakers in the World

    Also known as Oratory or Oration, public speaking has traditionally meant the art of speaking face-to-face with a live audience. One of the many scholars associated with public speaking, Confucius, believed that the words and actions of someone of power can influence the world. Developed as a primary sphere of knowledge in Greece and Rome, public speaking was codified as a central part of rhetoric by prominent thinkers.

    The art of public speaking is usually presented as a mixture of teaching, persuasion, and entertainment and is used for many different purposes. Today, public speaking has been transformed and expanded from the traditional live audience addressing to technologically available avenues like video conferencing, multimedia presentations, and other non-traditional forms.

    Public Speaking Skills
    Best Public Speakers in the World

    Tips to Help You Improve Your Public Speaking

    Public Speaking Skills

    Dale Carnegie wrote the book on public speaking. His techniques have helped an entire generation of public speakers grow from nervous beginners to confident professionals. The art of public speaking is precise and in equal parts verbal and non-verbal.

    There are key skills involved in effective public speaking:

    Understanding the Audience

    This is the first step towards public speaking engagement and is similar to a marketing gimmick. Knowing the type of audience that is in attendance helps to determine the choice of words, the level of specificity, and the speech organisation of the presentation. It is important to learn as much as possible about the listeners.

    Speaking from an Outline

    There is a reason why public speaking is referred to as an art. Reading directly from a slide without any additional information is a crucial error and the fastest way to lose an audience. The key is to put together an outline of the main topics that can be elaborated on in person during the presentation. This keeps the audience engaged and captivated while channelling their attention to the spoken words rather than reading off a slide.

    Tell a Story

    Public speaking and storytelling are complementary. A short personal story conforming to the outline of the presentation and relating to some points can establish a connection with the audience. It goes a long way in painting a mental picture for the listeners. Explaining the value proposition and recanting a relatable situation creates a bridge of trust with the audience, leading to an effective presentation.

    Utilizing Inclusive Language

    As societal norms continue to change, evolving with technology, it is critical for public speakers to understand and adapt to the appropriate vernacular. The speaker must utilize language that is easy to understand and follow, avoiding gender-specific and all-encompassing words as well as antiquated naming practices.

    Prepare for Questions

    Last but not least, this is an important part of the presentation that may happen during or at the end of the speech. Knowing the subject matter is only half the equation. The success of the presentation may well rest upon how well the speaker is able to address queries from the audience. The confidence with which the questions are dealt with establishes the credibility of the speaker. It is prudent to understand the query clearly and thoughtfully construct the response.

    Best Public Speakers in the World

    Over the years, the world has seen many public speakers touch on a wide variety of topics. Needless to say, some have been more effective and successful than others. Some great names in the public speaking arena possess more than just adequate knowledge of their chosen topics. They possess those little extra skills and talents that pull their audience into their speeches, include them as an essential part of the presentation, and are able to answer most unspoken queries through effective presentations and stories. They are able to connect with their audience emotionally.

    Chris Gardner

    Chris Gardner - Best Public Speaker in the World
    Chris Gardner – Best Public Speaker in the World

    An American businessman, Christopher Paul Gardner, struggled with homelessness while raising a toddler son before becoming a successful stockbroker. He describes himself as a 67-year-old start-up. His inspiring keynote speeches focus on messages of perseverance and personal responsibility in times of crisis. He communicates these themes through his own story of struggle and homelessness with his son, and his subsequent success as a stockbroker, CEO, single father, and best-selling author.  

    Nick Vujicic

    Nick Vujicic - Best Public Speaker in the World
    Nick Vujicic – Best Public Speaker in the World

    His was a life that started with a rare and almost debilitating disadvantage. Nick was born without arms or legs. He turned what was an impossible existence into one that is inspiring and motivating. He earned a double bachelor’s degree, majoring in accounting and financial planning. Facing tremendous challenges, Nick found his purpose in inspiring and equipping the world to rise above adversity and overcome every disability. His engaging speech has given strength to millions of people to overcome challenges. Nick runs his own motivational speaking company, ‘Attitude is Altitude’.

    John O’Leary

    John O'Leary - Best Public Speaker in the World
    John O’Leary – Best Public Speaker in the World

    In a fiery explosion that burned 100% of his body at the age of nine, John O’Leary was given only a 1% chance of survival. He lost all his fingers and had to re-learn how to write, walk, and feed himself. Having fought extraordinary odds and persevered through such a harrowing personal experience, he is able to share his life lessons with audiences all around the globe. John O’Leary speaks about living life to the fullest, embracing each moment and celebrating the joy of life. He has authored his life experiences in the best-seller, ‘On Fire’.

    Tony Robbins

    Tony Robbins - Best Public Speaker in the World
    Tony Robbins – Best Public Speaker in the World

    He is, perhaps, the most well-known leadership speaker in the world. He has been an entrepreneur, best-selling author, philanthropist, and life/business strategist for the last four decades. He conducts life training programs that deliver messages of empowerment to more than 50 million people from 100 countries. His non-profit foundation has awarded more than 2,000 grants and other resources to health and human services organizations.

    Robin Sharma

    Robin Sharma - Best Public Speaker in the World
    Robin Sharma – Best Public Speaker in the World

    He is considered one of the world’s premier public speakers on leadership and personal mastery. Throughout his career spanning 20 years, he has provided insights into world-class companies like Nike, GE, Microsoft, FedEx, and PwC to NASA, Yale University, and YPO. His books have topped international best-seller lists and he is ranked as one of the Top 5 Leadership Experts in the world in an independent survey of more than 22,000 business people.

    Brene Brown

    Brene Brown - Best Public Speaker in the World
    Brene Brown – Best Public Speaker in the World

    Brene Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington – Brene Brown Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. She has devoted the past two decades to the extensive study of courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. She hosts the Unlocking Us podcast and has authored 5 best-sellers – The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness, and Dare to Lead. Her TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability, is one of the top 5 most viewed TED talks in the world.

    Jay Shetty

    Jay Shetty - Best Public Speaker in the World
    Jay Shetty – Best Public Speaker in the World

    He served as a monk for three years and came back with one mission – to make wisdom go viral. With 7 billion views of his YouTube videos, he has over 29 million fans on Facebook alone. ‘On Purpose’, his podcast is among the highest ranked in the health category and explores the topic of work, love, self and service. He makes ancient wisdom relevant through modern science. He combines his experiences as a monk living in India, business school, and working as a digital strategist to formulate practical and accessible leadership techniques.

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    What makes these people such leaders in their chosen field of public speaking? It is the very essence of their talks that draws inspiration from their life experiences that gives their speeches the ring of truth. The lessons they highlight are self-learnt and, sometimes, hard-learned. Their philosophy is derived from their struggles, and their character traits are defined by the obstacles that they have overcome.

    Conclusion

    The stories of these public speakers are engaging, ringing with clarity, and filled with anecdotal references to the importance of personal values and responsibility. They speak of the path they have travelled and have chosen to now become the light that guides others who seek to follow the same path.

    FAQs

    What is public speaking?

    Also known as Oratory or Oration, public speaking has traditionally meant the art of speaking face-to-face with a live audience. The art of public speaking is usually presented as a mixture of teaching, persuasion, and entertainment and is used for many different purposes.

    Who are the best public speakers in the world?

    Some of the best public speakers in the world are:

    • Nick Vujicic
    • Chris Gardner
    • Robin Sharma
    • Tony Robbins
    • John O’Leary
    • Brene Brown
    • Jay Shetty

    Which skills are required for public speaking?

    The most important public speaking skills include:

    • Understanding the Audience
    • Tell a Story
    • Utilizing Inclusive Language
    • Prepare for Questions
    • Speaking from an Outline