Recent Posts by Sasha Banks-Louie

Despite economic slowing during the coronavirus pandemic, India is expected to rebound in 2021, growing its economy by 6%, according to the newly published June 2020 World Economic Outlook report by the International Monetary Fund.  Helping fuel the forecasted growth is Manappuram, an Indian financial services company that provides online and mobile lending services for small businesses and farmers, many of whom are unbanked and don’t have enough financial resources to secure...

After recovering from back-to-back deficits to win their playoff games against the Houston Texans and Tennessee Titans, the Kansas City Chiefs are heading to Super Bowl LIV to determine the National Football League champion.  These thrilling comebacks have given fans an insatiable appetite for all things Chiefs, which only increases the pressure on the franchise’s content and media team.  While a steady stream of game highlights, fantasy football statistics, and clips of...

While plastic is convenient, durable, and cheap, 50% of all plastics (about 150 million tons every year, worldwide) are used only once and then thrown away. Even for those who dutifully recycle our plastic water bottles and sandwich bags, we’re only tackling a small part of the problem. That’s because heavy winds and rain carry huge amounts of plastic waste along city streets and into the stormwater system, where it likely flows directly into creeks, rivers, bays, and...

Car-sharing startup GreenGo offered just 45 electric cars to customers in Budapest when it launched its eco-friendly service in 2016. A year later, the company had expanded its fleet to several hundred Volkswagen e-up! vehicles in the city. Cofounder and managing director Bálint Michaletzky knew the company needed 300 cars in Budapest to reach its profit targets, but what he didn’t know was how the company was going to operate such a fast-growing mobile business. “We didn’t...

As Rohit Sharma led India to a 6-wicket win over South Africa during the Cricket World Cup on June 5, millions of fans hit Reliance Jio’s mobile streaming application to tune in and cheer for Team India. Bursts of viewers ranging from 100,000 to as many as 5 million users would hit the app at the same time, as India’s manic enthusiasm for the sport propelled a total of 20 million subscribers to stream the live match from their mobile phones via Jio, India’s largest mobile...

While its portmanteau of the word for moustache, "mo," and "November" has been a wildly successful branding strategy for the Melbourne-born charity Movember, it has also created some misperceptions about the nonprofit’s true north.  “We want to be known for more than men growing moustaches in the month of November,” says Meaghan Bilinski, director of digital marketing and automation. “We want to be known for the work we’re doing to change the face of men’s health.” So far, the...

Oracle is rolling out a revamped program to court startups, offering free cloud credits and software discounts, plus online mentoring resources and migration assistance to startups of all sizes and stages worldwide. Unlike an earlier startup initiative that required an application and admitted a cohort of select startups for an onsite program, this effort, Oracle for Startups, lets any startup sign up online and start developing immediately. Once enrolled, startups gain access...

Attracting customers and keeping them happy requires companies to do more than just churn out new and innovative products. It requires them to build a deeper understanding of how customers will consume those products, whether to grow their businesses or enrich their personal lives. "This is the essence of the 'experience economy, '" says Oracle Executive Vice President Rob Tarkoff, who is in charge of Oracle’s CX strategy and development. Unlike the industrial and service...