What’s better than a customer? The same customer coming to visit your store again and again. Repeat customers are a goldmine for retailers and other businesses because they’re far more likely to spend higher amounts of money once they trust your company. They’re also a great source for word of mouth that can help you bring new faces through your doors.
A recent study shows that return customers spend almost double what new customers do, so attracting them can be the difference between struggling and succeeding. While it may take more work to build a network of repeat customers, it’ll pay off in the long run. Here are five ways to attract this massive new revenue stream to your business.
Provide Valuable Products or Services
This one should be easy – if your business isn’t providing something the customer wants or needs, you won’t succeed. Turning one-time customers into repeat customers centers around finding out what they want and providing it. Don’t be afraid to change up your business model if you keep hearing the same thing from your customers about what you should change.
Before opening or making a big investment, try to find out exactly who your likely customer is. If you have competition in the area that’s succeeding, look for what their most popular products or services are. It’s also important to have an accessible array of goods and services, so there’s something for all levels of spenders in your business.
Build a Loyalty Program
What’s the best way to turn a one-time customer into a repeat customer? Give them a reason to come back. This is why loyalty programs are increasingly popular – programs that incentivize your customers to come back in exchange for opportunities or access to new features of the business that they can only get through repeat business.
This is a great way to show appreciation to your loyal customers, and what form it takes will vary per business. Some popular choices include special discounts, early access to sales or new products and services, free offerings after a number of visits or amounts spent, or online-only deals offered through an app or mailing list.
Offer Excellent Customer Service
While your products and services are the keys to long-lasting success, they’re not the only thing that can make or break a business. How you interact with your customers can easily sour someone on a product they like – or give them a positive memory that goes far beyond a purchase and makes them consider you an essential part of your day.
When a customer has a complaint, it can be worth fixing it even it if costs you money to preserve that relationship. This goes even more so when it’s a “high roller” customer with a history of spending a good deal of money at the business. It’s worth investing in CRM software to keep track of your customers and their spending profiles, so you know which customer relationships to prioritize and you have your information in an easy-to-access format.
One of the best ways to hold on to repeat customers is to encourage them to keep tabs on you. Add as many of them as you can to your email list and update them on new sales and products. Not only will this encourage them to come back in, but keeping your brand logo and name in their minds regularly will give you a bigger impact.
You’ll want to have a strong social media profile as well because these public pages are the easiest way to stay in people’s minds even if they’re not subscribed to your email list. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have an audience of billions, and the odds are good your most loyal customers will be on there regularly.
Use Personal Communication
A personal touch can make a bit difference in making people want to come back, even if they have to travel a little further. Make sure that no matter the form of communication – in-person, email, phone, or online – your customer feels like they’re dealing with someone who values them.
Many companies today cut corners by having text-bots respond to their most common questions and complaints. While this is an acceptable method for larger companies, smaller companies trying to build brand loyalty will benefit from having a real person responding to their customers at all times.
Build Your Brand
Getting people in the door is important, but getting them to come back is even more so. Your company excels when you turn your customers into your biggest boosters. That personal touch will make all the difference.
In 2021, Apple’s services helped deliver innovative apps, powerful content, and transformative experiences that enrich users’ lives around the world in more ways than ever before.Apple Fitness+ coached users to stretch, lift, lunge, and meditate their way to healthier days; Apple News kept them informed of pivotal developments in the news and culture; and users started to reexplore the world using the beautiful new Apple Maps. Dozens of groundbreaking originals from Apple TV+ were streamed with family and friends near and afar using SharePlay; hundreds of fun, new and classic games were played on Apple Arcade; and millions of apps were downloaded from the App Store, unlocking powerful ways to communicate, collaborate, and connect. Podcasts like “The Midnight Miracle” and “We Can Do Hard Things” uplifted listeners, books like “The Least of Us” and “The Love Hypothesis” moved readers, and when the sun set at the end of each week, and the Work Focus switched off, it was time to celebrate with the Apple Music Award-winning… “ladies and gentlemen, The Weeknd.”“Apple’s world-class portfolio of services proved essential in 2021, as people worldwide sought new ways to keep entertained, informed, connected, and inspired,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services. “With over 745 million paid subscriptions, Apple continues to connect the world’s developers, artists, and storytellers with users across more than a billion devices, delivering powerful tools, content, and experiences that enrich their lives in profound ways every day.”Now it’s time to reflect on the best of 2021 and look ahead to some of the great new games, music, movies, TV shows, workouts, stories, podcasts, books, guides, and other experiences that await customers in 2022.
Apps and games have become the essential source for the world’s most innovative and timely entertainment. The efforts, innovation, and creativity of the developers who leverage Apple technology to build these incredible experiences, coupled with the power of the App Store’s global platform to connect businesses of all sizes with over 600 million people each week across 175 countries, has led to developers selling digital goods and services earning more than $260 billion since the App Store launched in 2008. This significant number sets a new yearly record for App Store developer earnings while representing just a small fraction of the overall commerce the App Store facilitates, serving as one meaningful marker of how the ecosystem continues to create opportunities and drive economic expansion for entrepreneurs around the world. This holiday season alone, App Store customers spent more than ever before between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, driving double-digit growth from last year.2021 brought a slate of blockbuster launches to the App Store, with the world’s leading entertainment companies choosing to premiere marquee movies like “Black Widow” from Disney+ and “Space Jam: A New Legacy” from HBO Max in-app on the same day as their theatrical release. And in October, the App Store launched In-App Events, timely events within apps and games such as game competitions, movie premieres, livestreamed experiences, and more. Standout moments from just the last few months included in-game events like “The Champions Have Arrived!” in “Clash Royale,” “Space Tour” in “Mario Kart Tour,” and “Pokémon GO Halloween Mischief” in “Pokémon GO,” while popular events such as TikTok’s “Stranger Things Watch Party” and ESPN’s “Man in the Arena: Tom Brady” drew in-app crowds.Whether through games that exploded onto the scene to become global sensations like “Royal Match” from Istanbul’s Dream Games, or social apps like Clubhouse, which opened up fascinating conversations to everyone this summer, many of the year’s most popular apps and games found new and creative ways to bring people everywhere together. Apps like Bumble and EatOkra were recently honored among the 2021 App Store Awards winners for delivering best-in-class app experiences, embodying the year’s trend of connection.Lists of the year’s most downloaded apps and games are available on the App Store.
Last year, Apple Arcade’s award-winning library of games saw its biggest expansion yet, now offering players of all ages over 200 premium, family-friendly games, including brand new releases from the world’s best developers, award-winning titles, and beloved favorites from the App Store — all without ads or in-app purchases.Now, subscribers can enjoy original games like “Sneaky Sasquatch,” “NBA 2K22 Arcade Edition,” “The Oregon Trail,” and the recently released “LEGO Star Wars: Castaways” and “Disney Melee Mania.” Players can also jump into award-winning titles like “Monument Valley,” “Mini Metro,” and “Galaga Wars,” and revisit timeless classics such as “Solitaire by MobilityWare” and “Good Sudoku by Zach Gage.”Apple Arcade games support Apple’s high user privacy standards, and can be shared with up to five family members using Family Sharing with just one all-inclusive subscription. This year, players can look forward to the release of new, highly anticipated games, including “Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis,” and enjoy new content updates added weekly.
2021 was a year of innovation for Apple Music, providing subscribers with remarkable new releases, original content, and product features that transformed the experience of discovering and enjoying music from all over the world. Apple Music offers listeners one of the largest music catalogs ever, now featuring over 90 million songs all available in lossless audio, so that fans can hear music the way artists created it. Spatial audio with Dolby Atmos and support for dynamic head tracking have ushered in the next generation of sound, providing artists the ability to deliver immersive audio experiences with exceptional clarity, while bringing listeners deeper into their all-time and new favorite songs.New features including autoplay, lyrics share, city charts, motion cover art, enhanced search, Shared with You, and the redesigned Listen Now tab make the experience of discovering music a delight, while Apple Music TV on the Apple TV app, Apple Music in Apple News, and support for Apple Music across FaceTime with SharePlay, Apple Fitness+, and Memories in Photos extend the experience across the Apple ecosystem.
Apple Music Radio — which includes Apple Music 1, Apple Music Hits, and Apple Music Country — delivers an award-winning music listening and discovery experience to tens of millions of subscribers worldwide, with exclusive radio shows from the most beloved artists and well-respected hosts in the business. Throughout last year, Apple Music Radio hosts connected with the world’s biggest superstars — including ABBA, Adele, Brandi Carlile, BTS, Coldplay, Kacey Musgraves, Lil Nas X, Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion, Metallica, Mick Jagger, Neil Young, and Silk Sonic — for in-depth interviews and global exclusives. Apple Music also hosted a series of culture-moving livestreams, including Kanye West’s “Donda” release streams; “Rap Life Live” with Moneybagg Yo, Saweetie, and Lil Durk; and the expanded Apple Music Awards featuring The Weeknd, Olivia Rodrigo, H.E.R., Wizkid, Scriptonite, Aya Nakamura, RIN, and OFFICIAL HIGE DANDISM, helping fans stay connected to these history-making moments in music across the globe.Last year, millions of people asked Siri to play music and, last month, Apple Music launched the Voice Plan, a new subscription tier powered by Siri. The Apple Music Voice Plan offers subscribers access to Apple Music’s entire catalog — including tens of thousands of new mood and activity playlists, personalized mixes, genre stations, and the award-winning Apple Music Radio — through a simple user interface for just $4.99 per month.
In a first for music streaming, and as part of Apple’s ongoing mission to support the global artist community, Apple Music leveraged Shazam’s unmatched technology to identify the creators featured in the thousands of popular DJ mixes available on the service so that they can be compensated for their contributions. Apple Music also launched support for record label pages to help listeners find more great music from those behind the artists they already enjoy. Later this year, listeners can look forward to even more global premieres, exclusives, in-depth interviews, livestreams, DJ mixes, and the world’s best streaming experience for classical music with the most beloved features of Primephonic, plus even better browsing and search capabilities, detailed displays of classical music metadata, and much more.
In just two years, Apple TV+ has made streaming history by achieving major milestones in a short span of time. Apple TV+ has been honored with 763 award nominations and 190 wins, including Academy Award and BAFTA Award nominations, 12 Primetime Emmy Award wins across major program categories, Daytime Emmy Awards, SAG Awards, NAACP Image Awards, Peabody Awards, AFI Awards, Critics Choice Awards, Critics Choice Documentary Awards, Kidscreen Awards, and many more.New Apple Original series and films captivated audiences around the world with culture-moving programs such as “Ted Lasso,” which continues to break records and recently became the most nominated freshman comedy in Emmy Award history, landing four Emmys, including Outstanding Comedy Series. Celebrated new Apple Original Films “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” “CODA,” “Swan Song,” “Finch,” and “The Velvet Underground” continue to draw buzz and acclaim with film critics groups, as well as global audiences. Last year, Apple TV+ premiered gripping new original series, including “The Shrink Next Door,” “Invasion,” “Swagger,” “The Mosquito Coast,” “Physical,” “Foundation,” “Schmigadoon!,” “Mr. Corman,” “The Problem with Jon Stewart,” the service’s first bilingual series “Acapulco,” and its first Korean-language Original “Dr. Brain.” This year, subscribers will be able to enjoy even more highly anticipated Apple Originals from internationally renowned storytellers, including “WeCrashed,” “The Afterparty,” “Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock,” “Severance,” and “Suspicion,” as well as new seasons of returning favorites such as “Servant,” “Mythic Quest,” “Ted Lasso,” “Physical,” “Truth Be Told,” and “The Morning Show.”All Apple Original series and films are available on the Apple TV app, accessible from over a billion devices, including popular smart TVs from LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, TCL, VIZIO, and others; Amazon Fire TV and Roku devices; and PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles. The Apple TV app launched on Android TV, Chromecast with Google TV, Sky Q set-top boxes, and Sky Glass TVs last year, and will soon launch on Comcast Xfinity set-top boxes. The Apple TV app also offers viewers a personalized guide to their favorite TV show, sports, and films across other popular streaming services, channels, and pay TV providers. New features, including For All of You, SharePlay, and the Store tab, now make it easier to find personalized recommendations, watch with friends and family, and buy, rent, or stream favorites all in one place.The next generation Apple TV4K, which launched last spring with the all-new Siri Remote, offers customers the best way to enjoy Apple Originals from Apple TV+ and more using the Apple TV app. Apple TV 4K and Siri Remote are available in 24 countries and regions, including Belgium, Hong Kong, and Russia, allowing even more users to interact with Siri in their native language. And, for the first time, customers in South Korea can enjoy Apple TV 4K, the Apple TV app, and Apple TV+ through SK Broadband.
As the new year begins, Apple Fitness+ continues to motivate people around the world to close their rings and live a healthier day, both mentally and physically. Today, Fitness+ introduced Time to Run, an audio running experience designed to help users become more consistent and better runners, featuring popular running routes in select major cities; and Collections, a curated series of workouts and meditations from the Fitness+ library organized to help users reach a goal. Fitness+ also introduced the third season of Time to Walk, featuring guests such as award-winning actor Rebel Wilson, advocate and minister Bernice A. King, and actor and comedian Hasan Minhaj. Fitness+ will also introduce new Artist Spotlight workouts featuring music from Ed Sheeran, Pharrell Williams, Shakira, and the Beatles.Every day, users share inspirational stories on how their lives have been changed by Fitness+. Since launching just over a year ago, Fitness+ has expanded its library to feature almost 2,000 studio-style sessions, the largest library of workout content in 4K Ultra High Definition, covering 11 different workout types — including HIIT, Strength, Core, Yoga, Pilates, Dance, Cycling, Rowing, Treadmill (for running and walking), and Mindful Cooldown — with new content added each week. This past year, Fitness+ also introduced guided meditation, a simple way to practice mindfulness anytime, anywhere and improve overall well-being. Workouts and meditations are led by an inclusive and welcoming team of trainers, which continues to expand as the service grows.
Fitness+ also motivated users with Time to Walk, the inspiring audio experience on Apple Watch, with 42 guests to date including Prince William, Dolly Parton, Anthony Joshua, Randall Park, Camila Cabello, Kurt Fearnley, Naomi Campbell, Bebe Rexha, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and more. Fitness+ also introduced custom content designed to help users get started, make progress, or navigate through a season in their life including Workouts for Beginners, Workouts for Older Adults, Workouts for Pregnancy, Meditations for Beginners, and Get Ready for Snow Season, as well as workouts with one of the most sought-after fitness experts, Jeannette Jenkins, to help users mix up their fitness routine and stay motivated. Acknowledging the power of music, the service also launched an Artist Spotlight series featuring playlists by artists such as Alicia Keys, the Beatles, Billie Eilish, Calvin Harris, Jennifer Lopez, Keith Urban, and Shakira. In the same year, Fitness+ introduced new ways to work out or meditate together with SharePlay and expanded to 15 new countries, broadening its global footprint to reach more people around the world.Fitness+ helps users train their body and mind with a one-of-a-kind personalized and engaging experience that can be done anytime, anywhere; intelligently incorporates workout metrics from Apple Watch right on the screen; and motivates users from start to finish with music from today’s top artists. When browsing for a workout, Fitness+ also makes personalized recommendations based on a user’s workout history so that no matter what their fitness level is, it is easy to find a workout with More of What You Do and Try Something New. With new content, more trainers, and greater availability worldwide, it’s easier than ever to get started with Fitness+, and in 2022, there is even more to come.
Apple News
continues to be the number one news app in all markets where it is available. Last year, Apple News launched local news experiences in six additional cities — Charlotte, Miami, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. — and introduced the extremely popular “Read Local” collection that encourages a national audience to engage with the best stories from local publications every week. Each weekday morning, Apple News Today continues to take listeners inside the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world’s best journalists are covering them. And each Saturday, with the new “In Conversation” audio series, Apple News presents insightful interviews with the journalists who are covering some of the best stories available in the app. Last year, Apple News+ subscribers also enjoyed hundreds of new professionally narrated audio stories from outlets such as The New Yorker, People, and National Geographic, and there are many more great stories on the way this year.
Apple One
is the easiest way for customers to enjoy many of their favorite Apple services — Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, Apple Fitness+, and iCloud+ — with one simple subscription at a great monthly price. Apple One subscribers can choose from a range of plans to unlock instant access to the best entertainment, news, games, and fitness experiences, plus storage to back up photos, files, app data, and more across their devices. Apple One Individual and Apple One Family are available in over 100 countries and regions, while Apple One Premier is now available in over 20 countries and regions after expanding to 17 new markets last year, including Austria, France, Germany, Malaysia, Portugal, and the United Arab Emirates. With Family Sharing, Apple One Family and Apple One Premier subscribers can share access to each service among up to five family members.
2021 was the year that podcasts became an undeniable global phenomenon. Listeners around the world now tune in to millions of shows every minute to be entertained, stay informed, connect with their communities, and learn something new. Last year, Apple Podcasts launched the biggest updates since its debut and lead the next chapter of podcasting with Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, providing listeners simple and meaningful ways to discover, enjoy, and support the world’s best podcasts.With redesigned show pages that showcase creators’ beautiful artwork; clearer controls for following, downloading, queuing, and saving podcasts; and the Smart Play button, which automatically presents the best episode to play next, Apple Podcasts makes browsing and playing shows from the world’s catalog of record a delight. Curated groups of shows called channels; enhanced recommendations in the Listen Now tab; new, editorially curated collections featured in Browse each week; and Shared with You, which displays podcasts shared over Messages directly in the Apple Podcasts app, come together to offer listeners the easiest way to find their next favorite show.With Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, listeners can now become subscribers to shows and channels instantly and right from where they listen, unlocking premium content and additional benefits — including early access, extra episodes, and ad-free listening — all while supporting their favorite creators. Subscribers on Apple Podcasts have been treated to the best experiences for many of last year’s top shows, including exclusive access to Luminary’s “The Midnight Miracle”; early and ad-free access to “Smartless” with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett through Wondery+; realtime dispatches from the Elizabeth Holmes trial on “Bad Blood: The Final Chapter”; and bonus episodes from Tortoise Media’s popular investigative series, “Sweet Bobby.”Listeners can look forward to new shows and subscriptions from top creators throughout this year. This month’s launches include “Marvel’s Wastelanders: Black Widow”; NPR’s “The Limits with Jay Williams”; Luminary’s “The Roxanne Gay Agenda”; Univision’s first daily news podcast “Univision Reporta” with León Krauze; the next season of Campside Media’s popular investigative series “Chameleon”; and a six-part narrative series from National Geographic that follows explorer Tara Roberts and a team of Black scuba divers “Into The Depths,” as they unearth stories from the lost shipwrecks of the transatlantic slave trade. This week, Apple TV+ and AT WILL MEDIA will launch “Wild Things: Siegfried & Roy,” taking listeners behind the velvet curtain to reveal the behind-the-scenes story of the world’s most famous magical duo turned pop culture icons.
Apple Books is the best way to read and listen to books across Apple devices, with a library of over 8 million books and audiobooks, including a vast catalog of free titles, now serving more than 100 million users each month. Last year, Apple Books got even better with a redesigned app on macOS and enhanced search functionality on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS that includes recommendations and trends. Now, with the all-new Audiobook Store and $9.99 audiobooks collection, listeners can enjoy the world’s most popular and engaging audiobooks subscription-free across all of their Apple devices. It’s never been easier for readers and listeners to discover their next favorite title with new curated collections, including Audiobook of the Week and Romance of the Week, and First in Series Free promotions in Romance, Mysteries & Thrillers, and Sci-Fi & Fantasy. Readers can browse 2022’s most anticipated books across genres here.
Throughout 2021, Apple Card delivered an award-winning experience for customers, and was recognized as the No. 1 Midsize Credit Card in J.D. Power’s U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction Study.1 Last year, Apple continued to bring transparency to the credit card industry with the introduction of Apple Card Family, offering customers the ability to share an Apple Card account with up to five people using Family Sharing and establish healthy financial habits together. Apple Card Family also allows two people to co-own an Apple Card, and share and merge their credit lines while building credit together equally.Apple Pay provided even more customers with a secure and easy way to pay in-store and online around the world after expanding to nine new markets in 2021, including Colombia, Israel, and Mexico. Today, Apple Pay is available in nearly 60 countries and regions, and works with nearly 9,000 bank partners worldwide.Apple also continues to deliver on its vision of replacing customers’ physical wallets with Wallet, an easy-to-use and secure digital wallet. Wallet helped customers access important information about their health in 2021, with the ability to add and view verifiable COVID-19 vaccination cards, and in Australia, health insurance cards. Digital tickets in Wallet helped venues and their guests create safe, contactless experiences, and last year, customers used 30 million NFC tickets in Wallet for events across music, sports, theater, and more across the US and Canada. The ability for customers to simply tap their iPhone or Apple Watch to pay and ride transit is now available in more than 200 cities across the globe after recently debuting in China (Nanchang and Foshan), Russia (Kazan), and Sweden (Malmo), as well as in San Francisco with the Clipper card. Student IDs in Wallet helped university students in the US and Canada safely and securely get around campus. And for travelers, Apple rolled out the first hotel room keys at select Hyatt properties in the US while also unlocking magical moments for Walt Disney World visitors with Disney MagicMobile passes in Wallet. Users can look forward to support for home keys and corporate badges, as well as state IDs and driver’s licenses, this year.
received its biggest update ever last year with a three-dimensional city experience that features more realistic and colorful details, driving routes with better navigation, immersive walking directions shown in augmented reality, and much more.The new visually stunning 3D map showcases unprecedented detail for neighborhoods and commercial districts, elevation details across a city, custom-designed landmarks, and a beautiful nighttime mode with a moonlit glow that activates at dusk. The detailed city experience is available for iPhone and CarPlay users in London, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., and will be available in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver this year.Maps also introduced an enhanced navigation experience with additional road details that help drivers navigate through cities more easily and safely; powerful transit updates that allow users to pin their favorite lines in Maps, and receive notifications on iPhone or Apple Watch when it’s time to disembark a selected route; and step-by-step walking guidance in augmented reality.With faster, more accurate navigation and comprehensive views of roads, buildings, parks, airports, and malls, Maps makes it easier and more enjoyable to map out any journey across iPhone, iPad, Mac, or while in the car with CarPlay. The new map, built from the ground up, continues to roll out to more countries and regions. Last year, the new map expanded beyond Canada, Ireland, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States to include Australia, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.Curated Guides in Maps make it easy to discover the amazing things to see and do in cities, and in 2021, new Guides were added from trusted resources like Thrillist, the Smithsonian Institution, and FATMAP. Now Maps features Guides from more than 100 trusted resources, so users can check out what authors like Bryant Terry and María Amparo Escandón recommend in their favorite cities, what Atlas Obscura suggests for “The World’s Most Interesting Restaurants,” or what Culture Trip suggests for “Beautiful Hidden Beaches of the World.”
iCloud has always kept a customer’s important information like photos, documents, app data, and notes safe, up to date, and accessible across their devices. The introduction of iCloud+, a new paid subscription, combines everything customers love about iCloud with powerful new features for paid subscribers, all for the same low prices.2 Features of iCloud+ include iCloud Private Relay, an innovative new service that protects privacy online; Hide My Email, an easy way to create a unique, random email address that forwards to a personal inbox; expanded HomeKit Secure Video recording so customers can set up all the cameras they need to keep an eye on their home; and Custom Email Domain, so customers can personalize their iCloud email address. All plans can be shared with people in the same Family Sharing group, so everyone can enjoy the new features, storage, and elevated experience that comes with iCloud+.
Project management often forms the most integral part of almost any business. It is a standard process that mainly involves formulating and executing a workable plan to accomplish projects and achieve specific objectives within budget and agreed timelines.
Project management often covers a wide array of topics. While you do not need to be a project manager, juggling between different project elements often makes project management a difficult task for beginners.
Luckily, there are many tools available that you can use to make things easier.
What is Project Management?
Project management is an application process of skills, methods, expertise, and experience designed to complete projects and fulfill specific business objectives. Unlike management, project management is not an ongoing process because it features a finite timeline and final deliverables.
Why is Project Management Important?
The ultimate purpose of project management is efficiency, and its importance to your business cannot be overstated. When done right, project management often helps streamline different business processes and allows your project team to focus on work that matters. Learning the basics of project management and implementing them in your business should help keep tasks on track, project budgets in control, and eventually improve your organizational bottom line.
Here are more reasons why project management is essential:● Ensure alignment between teams: Deviation is one of the leading reasons most projects fail, and this mainly happens when the project team is out of sync and not working towards a common goal. In addition, this happens when businesses fail to use a project management plan in their operations. An effective project management plan will help keep your teams aligned throughout their lifecycle, maximizing your chances of success.● Smooth communication: Communication is a critical component of project management, as it helps run successful engagements and foster seamless cooperation between teams. Project management processes help smoothen communications between team members, keeping unnecessary confusion and conflicts from bogging the project down.● Improves planning: It is through planning that projects often come to life. Having the slightest sense ofproject management basics usually means that you can set proper project expectations around key project deliverables based on the available resources at your disposal. In other words, project management often informs planning and ensures your projects are within budget and delivered on time.● You can learn from past projects: Project management often provides a unique chance to learn from the failures and successes of past projects. You can use this chance to review what worked and what did not work. This knowledge will help prevent repeating the same mistakes repeatedly but rather improve your approach for the next project.● Ensure task completion on time: Project management works to boost efficiency. It is an orderly process that ensures that teams know who is doing what, how to do it, and when it is due. This way, it helps to clarify roles, streamline input and ensure that tasks are completed on time.
What are the Phases of Project Management?
Finding a Software that Works for You:
Project management often involves balancing various elements of a given project, meaning that you are constantly exposed to a wide array of unexpected challenges to overcome. While it is not necessarily hard to learn how to manage a project, mastering the skills involved makes project management difficult.
Lucky for you, there are numerous tools that you can use to make things like budgeting, monitoring, and scheduling a breeze. Aproject managementapp essentially offers the most effective way to automate project planning, tracking, and delivery.
Whether you arebeginning project management or not, these tools will help you hit the ground running. But you need to ensure that you first find one that works for you. To do so, you will need to keep an eye out for top features for collaboration, file sharing, task management, and reporting.
Initiation Phase
The initiation phase often entails defining the project. It involves sorting out the project goals, shaping its scope, assessing the resources needed, assembling the team, and determining their roles. Clarifying project expectations at this stage will help give your team direction, ensuring that they are all aligned towards attaining the same goal.
Planning Phase
The planning phase often forms the backbone of project management because it lays out its roadmap. In other words, it is where you determine the necessary steps to follow to achieve your project goals fully and complete the project.
Here, you will need to establish timelines, estimate budget, set up milestones, and source essential resources. It further involves detailing communication protocols, predicting risks, and preparing a contingency plan. You also have to decide and assign milestones to your team in this phase.
Execution Phase
The execution phase is where the project comes to life, as teams work on different tasks. At this stage, you will swing your plan into action, provide your team with efficient workflows, track progress, mitigate risks, manage quality, and foster more collaboration. In addition, you can take advantage of the project management software you choose to help you make things easier.
Closure Phase
This phase often marks the end of a project and is where you bring all project activities to a conclusion and turn in the deliverables to the client. Many usually use this stage to assess the successes and failures of the approach used and celebrate their achievements.
Become a Project Management Pro
Project management often helps prevent chaotic management and ensures that projects are completed on time and within budget. However, it usually involves many moving parts, making it hard for beginners to master. While numerous tools are designed to make things easier, learning the basics of project management will help give you a quick head start.
Did you know that the numbers in the game sum up to exactly 666, known as the devil’s number? So don’t panic, and don’t close this page thinking you’re sinning.
We’re going to show you that you can use it as a strategy to improve your chances of winning at roulette.
Also, we offer you other systems to bet on roulette and reduce the house edge. Each of those tactics you may try on the best sites. To select the best, use the expert view like this page:https://isurfireland.com/casino/paddypower-casino-review/.
The roulette wheel: 666 in roulette history
As we know it today, you may know that roulette was invented by Pascal in the 17th century. But, before that, people from different cultures already knew several prototypes of basic games with a wheel.
The French scientist designed the wheel with 36 numbers by determining the position of each number by applying strict mathematical considerations.
However, the numbers 1 to 36 added to precisely 666 did not go unnoticed by superstitious gamblers. Nevertheless, the fear of the number 666 has faded. Today the roulette is one of the favourites, and there is even a wide variety of online roulette sites.
Why do roulette numbers add up to the number?
Like other superstitions that casino gamblers believe in, the fear of the number 666 makes many people feel anxious. They even avoid playing roulette, believing that the coincidence with the devil’s number will make them addicted or ruined.
However, we are more inclined to believe the arguments presented by science. First, let’s remember that Pascal placed the numbers following specific mathematical rules. Humanity knew that long before the emergence of Christianity, fearing the 666.
666 strategy in roulette and other betting systems
Players are constantly looking for betting systems to improve the odds and reduce the house edge.
With the 666 strategies, you don’t have to do the odds calculations needed in some blackjack strategies.
Generally speaking, you should use different bets to cover as many numbers as possible. I.e., wager on red or black and then use other stakes to cover all but 4 numbers. This strategy is applicable in land-based and online casinos.
At first glance, it may seem that your chances of winning are significantly increased by covering almost the entire table. This is not entirely true, because the ball only lands on one number. So you may only get back a part of the amount you bet.
It’s also possible that the winning number could be among the four you left uncovered, and if you’re superstitious, you might blame the devil.
Roulette betting strategies
So, we provide other strategies that may be helpful:
Progressive Labouchere, with the possibility of adjusting risk on even bets. There is no balance between winnings and losses.
Progressive Martingale, with high risk on outside bets. There is no balance between profit and loss.
Progressive Reverse Martingale, with high risk on outside bets. There is no balance between profit and loss.
D’Alembert System Progressive, with low risk on outside bets. There is no profit/loss trade-off.
Fibonacci Progressive, with low risk on outside bets. There is no profit/loss trade-off.
James Bond roulette strategy – non-progressive, with low risk and small winnings.
We will never know if there is a link between the number 666 and the devil. But what is certain is that superstitious people will continue to look for such associations in anything that seems suspicious and makes them anxious about the possibility of meeting Lucifer.
If roulette seems too risky to play, there are plenty of other games of chance offered at slot or blackjack sites.
Are you looking to make your company greener in the new year? It is clear that now is the time for taking action, and there is a lot that businesses can do to reduce their environmental impact. This is important not only from a social and ethical standpoint but also so that you can improve your reputation and appeal to today’s eco-aware consumer. Additionally, you will find that often you can make savings too. So, if you are looking to go green in 2022 but you are not sure how to, then read on for a few suggestions that should help.
Solar Panels
One of the best upgrades that you can make is solar panel installation for your commercial space. Solar panels will allow you to generate clean electricity from the sun, which not only can reduce or eliminate your need to rely on power from fossil fuels but also slash or eliminate your electricity bill. You can make enormous savings in the long term by switching to solar power while also going green.
Remote Work
If possible, you should allow for your staff to work remotely, at least on a part-time basis. Remote work will reduce your energy usage each month while also preventing your staff from having to drive into work. This can also lower your costs while improving morale and, in many cases, productivity.
Use A Recycling Baler
It is important to recycle as much as you can, especially if you are a business that creates a lot of waste. This can be a difficult and time-consuming process for your team, which is why recycling balers are a good investment. Recycling balers allow your team to simply feed the machine, which then compresses the recyclable material into an easy to manage bundle. This will help you to increase recycling and prevent landfill while also lowering your waste costs as well. Make sure to invest in one today to start helping the planet sooner rather than later.
Go Paperless
These days, you do not need to use paper in the office as everything can be digitized. Going paperless is a smart way to reduce your environmental impact while also freeing up space in the office and making it easier to find what you are looking for. You can also make savings on printing and supplies too.
Use Energy-Saving Equipment
You should also use any energy-saving equipment and tech that is available. This will include things like a smart thermostat, LED lighting, water meters, and energy-efficient equipment. These upgrades are worth the investment because they are a great way to make your business green and could help you to make big savings over the course of a year.
If you want to make your business greener in 2022, then these are a few of the best ways that you can do this. Now is the time for action, and businesses can do a lot to reduce their environmental impact, which will also help you to improve your reputation with today’s eco-aware consumer and reduce your costs.
In the last decade, over a million people have relocated from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe. Unofficial numbers could be much higher: according to surveys, every third in such overpopulated countries like Nigeria is planning to move to the wealthy lands of the EU or North America in the near future.
The consequences are harmful to both donor and recipient regions. African countries lose labour force which can improve their own economy, while the Western social system is about to crash, unable to house such a number of new inhabitants. Moreover, most migrants remain illegal, often with a lack of basic civil rights. Despite that, the migrational wave rises: the COVID-19 pandemic has made millions unemployed so they have no choice but to run.
But the international startup CGU (Crypto Gaming United) offers people from non-Western regions — such as Africa, Asia, or Latin America — a unique platform to earn money without leaving their homeland. All you need is a stable Internet connection and dedication to computer gaming.
CGU works like a marketplace to connect buyers and sellers of virtual gaming items — such as game characters or game armory.
In lots of RPG-style games, to level a high-ranked character, you need to play for days or weeks. But many users, instead of wasting time, prefer to acquire their powerful game item from other gamers. Also, some rare game characters are unable to be acquired without money.
This is the key of the CGU’s ‘play-to-earn’ concept: growing such goods, like a farmer grows his grains for sale. In the Philippines — one of the countries of its first appearance — CGU unites over 1200 gamers. On average they earn $15 a day. The most successful players, after months of training, can achieve much more: up to $200 a day. Moreover, this platform lowers the threshold to enter these games: some high-ranked game characters cost a lot, and now you can just borrow them from CGU, like taxi drivers borrow cars from Uber.
And now Crypto Gaming United is coming to Africa.
Just like many residents of Africa, the creators of CGU had faced poverty, hunger, and disappointment in some periods of their lives.
’I came from the poorer part of New Zealand’, Maurice June, a CGU co-founder, recalls. ‘I was raised around drugs and violence. At the age of 17, thanks to the guys from the social service, I managed to break. It changed my destiny and thereafter I dedicated my life to help people achieve their dreams’.
Another CGU co-founder, Sergei Sergienko, used to live in a poor migrant camp the first months after his family had relocated from Russia to Australia in the 1990s. Then some of his startups failed and the young entrepreneur faced losses. But the CGU project was launched with such success, raising $5 million from seed investors and an additional $10 million pre-IDO, the project now generates over $15K a day.
At the moment CGU has already come to Zambia, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Morocco, its most successful market in North Africa. Here, the main game CGU is working with is Axie Infinity: a game where users breed, raise and train their virtual creatures looking like axolotls which could be bought or sold for SLP, a cryptocurrency for internal payments within the platform.
‘Initially, I said to the African community: ‘we are here to help you to earn and maximize your opportunities,’ co-founder Marco Selorio recalls. ‘In Zambia, the members of our community began from 20-30 SLP per day, and one of the guys has hit 106-107 per day after 2 weeks of training, so I thought: ‘Oh my God, it is working!’
The next destination is Rwanda. CGU is looking for gamers, community leaders, and ambassadors. Additional information, including the instructions of how to join the community and start Playing-to-Earn, is available at its website: https://www.cgu.io/ Also, interested players can join CGU on its server on Discord, a famous communicative platform for gamers: http://dsc.gg/cgu/
Will an ambitious startup triumph in the Country of a Thousand Hills? The founders of CGU don’t want to exploit Africa — as you see, they’re just seeking to help African people to fairly earn with the rest of the CGU world community. They hope that with an opportunity to gain money thanks to new digital technologies, a person could stay in his beloved homeland instead of abandoning it.
CGU is a cryptoplatform that promotes the play-to-earn business model. The company has gathered over 100 thousand community members from over 30 countries, with over 5.800 active scholars (by applying for scholarships, players will also be able to set goals and measure their performance by checking their daily earnings in gaming tokens) earning tokens at this moment, after its successful IDO, during which $2.5 million worth tokens were sold in a record 6 seconds. This made it possible for the company to become the world’s biggest play-to-earn gaming guild. Its players are primarily based in developing countries, where an opportunity to earn in NFT-games becomes an alternative to unemployment and small wages.
NFT-games are games that integrate NFT-technology with content creation (characters, items, maps, etc.). They also provide the users with in-game currency which is based on, or directly correlates with an existing cryptocurrency (most often ETH — Ethereum is a blockchain platform with its own cryptocurrency, called Ether (ETH) or Ethereum). The games are based on the “play-to-earn” principle. The more time a player spends in the game performing certain actions (for example, fighting other players), the more in-game currency (tokens) he or she collects and the more real money they get.
IDO — Initial DEX Offering. It means the project is launching a coin or token via a decentralized liquidity exchange.
CGU was founded by natives from countries all over the world: Maurice June from New Zealand; Sergei Sergienko, an immigrant from Russia to Australia; Marco Selorio from Philippines; Mark Carnegie from Australia and Raman Nambiar, also Australian born of Indian and Polish descent.
Outbox and UNICEF Uganda have partnered to present the second call or Cohort 2 of the UNICEF Uganda Innovation Fund Challenge. According to a press release, the UNICEF Uganda Innovation Fund Challenge that was launched in December 2020 is in place to support “entrepreneurs, civil society organizations and startups with innovative solutions and ideas” that the partner entities believe will be able to solve the challenges that are being faced by children and adolescents in Uganda today, through what has been termed as “social innovation”.
In the second call, the partner entities hope that the initiative will be able to address any challenges to access to basic education and the adolescent girls and boys who are aged between 3 – 19 years. This is intended to enable the achievement of appropriate learning outcomes, enhancing and improving child survival and the development of newborn children, children and adolescent boys and girls. It would also be able to ensure that children are not subjected to any forms of violent abuse, neglect and exploitation.
From the start of the initiative in December 2020, the entities identified four startups for consideration in the first call and these were 1) SeatPack which provided “affordable classroom furniture by providing a school bad that turns into a mobile bamboo classroom chair with a writing surface”, 2) Safe Water Harvester, which is a solar powered device that traps humidity/water vapour from the atmosphere and consequently provide clean and affordable water to the communities that were underserve, 3) Fine Reed Limited, which promotes the use of biofuels that are made from sugarcane waste which are environmentally sustainable while making cooking affordable and 4) KAINOafrica, an education technology product that provided nursery schools and parents with access to quality curriculum that are aligned with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).
Among the startups that are qualified, the most promising will be given an opportunity to further co – create their innovations in partnership with Outbox, UNICEF and also receive technical assistance over 6 months. This would include mentorship, social business, linkages to partners and market in order to enable the start ups realise, implement and scale their ideas, products and solutions.
The most promising innovations will have an opportunity to further co-create their propositions with Outbox, UNICEF and subject matter experts, receive technical assistance over a six month period that includes mentorship, social business training, linkages to partners and market to enable them to realize and implement their ideas as well as scale their products/solutions
According to Dr. Munir Safieldin, the UNICEF Representative in Uganda,
“At UNICEF, we believe that innovation is about doing new things to solve problems and improve the lives of children around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us to continue working with partners to innovate and match today’s challenges with tomorrow’s solutions.
He further adds that;
“We see progress being made by the winners of the first cohort who not only received a seed pack but mentorship sessions to bring to life their ideas. The winners will continue to be supported by our implementing partner and other stakeholders to ensure that their ideas contribute to the well-being and protection of Ugandan children, especially during these COVID-19 times.”
Richard Zulu, the Founding Partner and Outbox Hub Lead, the initiative is motivated by “the persistent COVID – 19 pandemic” which is said to have amplified many inequities in education of children, access to health services for women and girls and access to protection services for children, which has been common to low income communities like Uganda. he hopes that the Challenge will “continue to provide a platform for various actors to work together to address these challenges innovatively and sustainably”.
To be part of the initiative, only applications submitted through the UNICEF Uganda Innovation Fund Challenge web portal at https://www.unicef.innovationchallenge.ug will be eligible for consideration.
Ortus Africa Capital, together with global impact investor Idea Foundry, are hosting a pitch competition for Ugandan-based startups dubbed “Pitch to Save The World” where three winners will take home a combined Ugx25M.
The event is meant to bring together the most innovative and impact-focused startups based in Uganda that aim to tackle the world’s most pressing problems as outlined by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
With a month-long application period, more than 100 local startups are expected to apply with the focus centered around companies meeting at least one SDG.
“The competition is expected to draw the best talent from the ecosystem, highlighting both existing and newly formed technology companies beyond the idea stage,” said Kenneth Legesi, the CEO Ortus Africa Capital.
The top 10 companies will be selected to pitch at a live digital event to a local as well as global audience in January 2022 and the top three winners will take home a share of UGX 25M in no-strings-attached award money.
However, the others will not go empty handed as there are plenty of gifts up for grabs. Companies will be selected based upon the merits of their company, their ability to sustainably scale their impact-focused solution across Uganda and other markets, and the quality of their application.
Criteria to be part of the competition:
– You must be a technology enabled company operating in Uganda.
– You must be registered, revenue generating and for profit.
– The company must address at least 1 UN SDG.
– Female led or focused enterprises are encouraged to apply.
Applications to the pitch competition will be accepted from 3rd November and the deadline for applications is 3rd December.
As Africans, land and real estate are often our most popular investment options. And that’s okay. Followed closely by more formal options such as good ole stocks, treasury bonds, T-bills, and fixed deposits.
Now here’s the thing.
These investment options are often big-ticket investments and require a significant cash outlay from investors. This means first-time investors—usually the younger population— can’t build wealth this way as they are either still dependent on their caretakers or simply don’t have enough disposable income to spare.
But that’s about to change
Fractional shares, the new kid on the investing block, are crucial to making investing in stocks easier and more accessible, especially for African countries with lower valued currencies.
“Today, we’re launching a revolutionary product, U.S. fractional stocks,” says Ham Serunjogi, CO-founder and CEO of Chipper Cash. “This product is probably our most impactful product since the launch of the original Chipper app just three years ago.”
“For the first time ever, Ugandans of all economic backgrounds will be able to invest as little as $1 or 3,500 Uganda Shillings in the world’s largest public companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange – when we talk about unlocking global opportunities, this what we mean. As a proud Ugandan, it means so much to me that we get to launch a product that will empower my fellow countrymen and women,” he continues.
With the launch of Chipper’s Global Stocks Investing product, Ugandans (both old and young) can easily invest in publicly traded global companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, Netflix, etc.
Chipper Cash is the first company to offer fractional stock investing in Uganda. And the African fintech startup is licensed and regulated by the Capital Markets Authority.
There has been an uptick in the awareness and demand for safe investments by Ugandans in recent years. And while goal-based saving has taken center stage (with many banks, insurance companies, and SACCOs offering this service), investments in equities is key to achieving financial independence and building long-term wealth.
“Wealth creation is one of the most powerful ways of driving economic and social development in any country. For too long, many tools that offer the ability to generate and store wealth have remained inaccessible for too many, for too long. This product, the Chipper fractional stocks product, fixes precisely that problem,” says Ham.
Through its partnership with DriveWealth LLC, a pioneer in fractional investing and embedded finance, Chipper Cash empowers the average Ugandan to build long-term wealth with safe and affordable access to the U.S stock markets.
You can watch the launch below
What exactly does this mean?
Previously, investing in U.S equities required high minimums and was only accessible by high net-worth individuals. This effectively priced out first-time investors.
With Chipper Cash, users can invest on a dollar equivalent basis (i.e., fractional shares) in over 6,000 U.S. securities and ETFs, with little or no minimum requirements.
Yes, you heard that right; anyone can invest. The entry point is $1. And with over 1,000 global companies listed on the Chipper Stocks, you can invest in U.S./international equities and build a global portfolio that lasts through time.
The best part, watching your money grow as these businesses grow!
Chipper Cash is blazing the trail in using technology to drive financial inclusion in Uganda and the continent through its overall value proposition of local and international transfers, crypto offerings, airtime, data, and bill payments. Now, users can also take advantage of its easy-to-use and affordable investment product.s
Facebook rebrands as Meta. Courtesy Facebook/via REUTERS
Facebook has announced plans that it is changing its parent Company name to Meta, in what the company’s founder Mark Zuckerberg has called “the next chapter for our company”.
Amidst the parent company rebranding to Meta, some users have taken to social media platforms to make memes and discuss how it will be difficult for people to get used to the name Meta.
This isn’t the case as the Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp apps will maintain their names.
You shouldn’t worry about your older family members asking you for ‘tech support’ as their will retain the familiar names they have always possessed.
What has changed?
The company name Facebook Inc has changed to Meta.
Meta will start trading under the new stock ticker MVRS, on December 1,2021. This will replace the old ticker which was FB.
One of the changes that we speculate to see, will be a change on the splash screens on Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook mobile apps that might have the reading “from Meta” rather than the current branding which shows “from Facebook”.
So don’t worry, the app you are used to will still be called Facebook and remain under the domain Facebook.com.
The arrangement will be similar to when Google changed its parent company to Alphabet.
