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1dc952dcabe7a35984bd988cd24e1762 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/03/the-seven-highly-effective-cloud-platform-attributes-every-cio-should-provide/ | The Seven Highly Effective Cloud Platform Attributes Every CIO Should Provide | The Seven Highly Effective Cloud Platform Attributes Every CIO Should Provide
Photo: Getty
Most organizations have realized that deploying applications in the cloud provides the speed and flexibility they need to stay ahead of competitors. Gartner estimates (via Forbes) that 80% of internally developed software is either cloud-enabled or cloud-native, and Kubernetes in particular has revolutionized application delivery, reducing costs and providing a better experience for customers.
But unlocking the full benefits of cloud-native means providing DevOps teams with a different set of platform capabilities than we were used to in the past. Teams need a modern cloud platform that allows them to deploy and scale apps quickly and easily across multiple cloud environments, independent of the underlying hardware, and to continuously optimize those apps for performance and utilization. This must all happen securely, with strong financial governance to control costs.
Here are the seven attributes CIOs must provide in a modern cloud platform to give DevOps teams the capabilities they need to succeed while ensuring that CIOs stay in control and meet their larger business objectives:
1. A PaaS Experience For Apps And Data
Fundamentally, developers need a GUI-based platform that allows them to ramp up new applications quickly, scale them into production and manage the full application life cycle. The most effective way to achieve this is with a cloud-native PaaS based on containers and Kubernetes.
A Kubernetes-based PaaS provides a self-service environment in which users bring their own application code in a container, which ensures it will run in any environment. Kubernetes and its extensions for security, networking and storage provide an elastic platform for compute, data services and network bandwidth that can scale up and down as new users are added or leave and as new apps are added or removed.
2. App-Granular Control For Apps And Data
In a cloud-native world, managing infrastructure and applications at the machine level is inefficient and costly. Containers allow for a dynamic environment in which apps scale independent of the underlying hardware, allowing for better hardware utilization while still ensuring SLAs.
For this to happen, teams need a platform that allows them to manage infrastructure and applications at a granular level, allowing individual containers or groups of containers to be scaled according to which clusters offer the best mix of cost and performance available, be that in different public clouds or on-premises in a private cloud environment. A Kubernetes-based platform provides this granular capability in both public and private clouds.
3. Pay For Use
A cloud-native environment makes it easy to develop and deploy applications quickly, but that also means costs can add up quickly. An effective charge-back mechanism that can trace jobs to individual users and departments is critical for managing costs and holding teams accountable for expenditure.
4. Multicloud And Heterogeneous
The days of deploying apps to a single cloud are coming to an end. A 2019 survey found that 85% of enterprises are now using multiple clouds as a way to cut costs and leverage the best technologies from each provider. That means CIOs must provide an application platform that supports deployment across multiple public and private cloud environments.
5. Design For DevOps; Scale For IT Ops
A modern platform should include automation for the whole stack, including DevOps and IT Ops. That means providing developers a programmatic interface that provisions infrastructure based on their application and policy needs for security, high availability and other compliance needs. The goal is to remove the manual process of submitting tickets and to allow apps and infrastructure to scale together automatically. IT Ops can then focus on ensuring the right users can access the right resources based on roles and permissions, with encryption to prevent hacking. The platform should be able to support large workload changes without failing and recover automatically with minimal loss of service.
6. Data Life Cycle And App Insights
Apps can’t function without data, and in a cloud-native environment, data must be available to containerized apps wherever they run, across any cluster and any cloud. The platform must also be able to manage high availability, backup and recovery, and compliance across the application life cycle.
A modern cloud platform must also be able to capture app insights to ensure performance and optimization and support a variety of machine learning tools for diagnostics and root cause analysis.
7. Enable Higher Business Value
Your cloud platform should also align with your higher-level business goals, whether that’s accelerating feature delivery, reducing costs or increasing customer insights. It should implement automation at every level possible and enable use of machine learning to mine data for competitive advantage.
These are the capabilities that modern CIOs should aim to provide in their cloud platforms. The cloud has increased the pace at which new software can be deployed at scale and made it much more affordable to leverage data in new and exciting ways. These platform attributes ensure you can unleash this innovation and allow your DevOps and infrastructure teams to take full advantage of technologies such as Kubernetes and containers. The result is a more competitive company and happier customers.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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05e051dacfab6828b08d44766771cf62 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/04/15-game-changing-technologies-you-might-not-know-about-yet/?sh=3554e62129db | 16 Game-Changing Technologies You Might Not Know About Yet | 16 Game-Changing Technologies You Might Not Know About Yet
Photo: Getty
In both the consumer and business worlds, technology is constantly and rapidly evolving. Unique and innovative new business, health and consumer technologies are emerging every day, but sometimes it takes a little time for the “next big thing” to get recognized and catch on. Google, for instance, launched the original iteration of G-Suite back in 2006—long before the cloud computing and real-time collaboration became the standard.
As leaders in the tech field, the members of Forbes Technology Council are always on the lookout for emerging devices, programs and systems that could revolutionize their industry—even if the tech is still in its early phases. We asked a group of them to share the most impressive piece of tech from the last three years that most people aren’t aware of yet. Here’s why they believe these 15 technologies will be huge in the near future.
1. Quantum Computing
Quantum computing has already found niche applications today. In the past few years, more and more funding has become available to take quantum circuits into new arenas, including imaging, sensing and measuring. Quantum computing is a game-changer because it changes the fundamental paradigm in how computation is delivered into many industries—and in the era of Big Data, computation is everything. - Ravi Subramanian, Mentor Graphics
2. Devices That Balance Innovation And Privacy
The nature and uses of data collected via devices and its relation to privacy have been a focus of mine, and privacy has evolved in the past decade. The current COVID-19 crisis is a perfect example of our need to balance research, information and personal protection. Our current regulatory environment stifles innovation and does not truly protect the individual. It’s a lose-lose proposition. - Hillit Meidar-Alfi, Spatially
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3. Transformer Neural Network Architecture
The Transformer neural network architecture has revolutionized natural language processing capabilities (e.g., BERT from Google and GPT-2 from OpenAI). Since 2017, Transformer networks have dramatically advanced performance on tasks ranging from speech recognition to answering questions. This technology has helped lower barriers to activities like personalized tutoring and AI-powered customer support. - Mike Moniz, Circadence Corporation
4. WeChat
The WeChat app is huge in China. Think of WhatsApp, PayPal, FB and LinkedIn all in one, plus more. WeChat has a feature that allows you to shake your phone and it will automatically connect you with someone nearby and/or globally if they are shaking their phone at the same exact time. - William Charles Lee, GQIT
5. Cloud-Based Automated UI Testing
We’ve been using Qentinel, a cloud-based UI testing framework based on robot framework. Qentinel makes testing easy for technical people, and we can add that to our build automation stack. Unit tests have always had the biggest bang for the buck. Qentinel might displace that. - Patrick Emmons, DragonSpears, Inc.
6. Blockchain Security And Compliance Monitoring
The major uptick in cryptocurrency awareness and interest in 2017, when prices reached historic levels, resulted in the need for blockchain security and compliance monitoring to rapidly evolve. These technologies and tools often work in the background (unknown to many) but are critical in safeguarding blockchain platforms as well as in identifying fraud, anti-money laundering and compliance issues. - Jason Lau, Crypto.com
7. FIDO2
Undoubtedly, the most impressive tech that can have an impact on human behavior and cybersecurity is FIDO2. It’s the first solution that makes the most complex authentication technology easy to use from an end-user point of view—even “computerphobes” will be delighted with its user experience. If companies don’t support it, users should inundate the sites’ Support with requests for FIDO2 logins. - Arshad Noor, StrongKey
8. AutoAI
Most people have heard of AI, but most people don’t know about AutoAI, deep learning and reinforcement specifically and how transformational that has been to the industry. It’s game-changing because it democratizes model building to a much broader audience, allowing simple model building and accelerating the pace of AI adoption. - Alyssa Simpson Rochwerger, Appen
9. Anti-Microbial Visible Light
While COVID-19 has brought viral infection to the forefront, we often forget about bacterial infections. Overuse of antibiotics results in “superbugs,” leading to over 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections each year in the U.S. alone. A new wave of products using visible blue light as a first-line antimicrobial will help restrict antibiotics use to when they are truly needed. - Steve Pao, Hillwork, LLC
10. Remote Condition Monitoring
Most people don’t know how huge of an impact technologies that allow for remote condition monitoring can have. Sensors that you can secure to equipment can tell a plant manager when the temperature is too high in critical spots where food is stored. Predictive maintenance technologies are changing the workforce and empowering technicians to prevent “firefighting” activities before they occur. - Ryan Chan, UpKeep Maintenance Management
11. Google’s Automated Phone Calls And Answering Help
Google’s automated phone calls and answering help is impressive. Plus, its availability on Android allows the technology to act as a quasi personal assistant for screening phone calls and basic tasks like setting up meetings, etc. It’s not so much for personal use, but it’s a game-changer for daily business life. - Robert Weissgraeber, AX Semantics
12. Dual Lens Cameras
GoPro has dramatically improved its hardware over the past three years. The GoPro Max is a cross between an action camera and a 360-degree camera. It is the best of both worlds. The camera offers great image stabilization while giving users the ability to edit point-of-view through 360-degree capture. Equipment like this gives people the ability to show unique perspectives of their favorite activities. - Abishek Surana Rajendra, Course Hero
13. Telegram Splitting
Telegram splitting is a new radio approach to long-range wireless communication developed by the Fraunhofer Institute (IIS) and standardized by ETSI. With this technology, for the first time, low-power wide-area networks become highly scalable and robust against interference to enable massive-scale IoT deployment and democratized wireless communication in the license-free spectrum. - Wolfgang Thieme, BehrTech
14. Omniscience And Next-Best-Action Prediction
With the advent of machine learning, marketers can now compile and synthesize vast amounts of heterogeneous data from various sources to identify patterns within their customers’ demographics and journeys quickly. Such data-driven insights are invaluable for designing effective multi-touch attribution models and predicting the next-best-action strategy that entices customers to make purchases. - Christopher Yang, Corporate Travel Management
15. Color-Changing Medical Tattoos
MIT has been working on medical tattoos that will change color when your body changes. One such tattoo measures glucose levels in diabetics to provide alerts when glucose levels are critically low or critically high. This is a huge game-changer for people with ailments that require constant monitoring. In the future, they may just look at their tattoo for a quick health check. - Michael Hoyt, Life Cycle Engineering, Inc.
16. Consumer eSIM
Started with Google Pixel a couple of years back and now widely available in flagship smartphones like iPhone 11/XR/XS and Samsung Galaxy S20, embedded SIM (eSIM) enables consumers to switch wireless plans with a few clicks, without the need to physically change SIM cards. eSIM is a game-changer as it eliminates the hassle and inconvenience of physical SIM cards and gives consumers more choice. - Ahmad (Al) Fares, CeliTech Inc.
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f8801c6692bc6089fd2af571bce71a0b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/05/remote-care-is-here-to-stay-how-telehealth-is-bridging-the-gap-across-the-care-continuum/?sh=475cb5404c91 | Remote Care Is Here To Stay: How Telehealth Is Bridging The Gap Across The Care Continuum | Remote Care Is Here To Stay: How Telehealth Is Bridging The Gap Across The Care Continuum
Photo: Getty
Over the last few months, COVID-19 has challenged everyone to think differently and adopt change at an exponential rate. Manufacturing and distilling companies are repurposing equipment to make hand sanitizers and face masks, people are sewing DIY face masks at home while stringently following CDC guidelines to flatten the curve, and telehealth, previously slowly adopted, shot to the limelight out of necessity, providing needed solutions for health care professionals during this pandemic.
The demand for innovative telehealth solutions has been felt across the entire patient care continuum, as geography, transportation and staff shortages create barriers to delivering efficient, quality health care. At the moment, more than half of U.S. states have imposed strict lockdown measures, restricting social contacts and gathering. To combat this, the health care industry rose to the challenge, undergoing a rapid shift from traditional to remote care.
This shift affords clinicians more opportunities to offer care to an optimum number of patients while streamlining patient-provider interactions at every stage of care delivery. Virtual health care ensures patients can gain access to doctors, physicians can gain access to needed medical training and information, and health care solutions can be provided to at-risk and infected patients — from diagnosis to treatment and recovery.
And with the increased use of telemedicine among patients and their caregivers, we can safely conclude that telemedicine has finally found its beachhead in the ever-evolving health care ecosystem. Here are several remote care companies providing virtual solutions, ensuring patients and clinicians minimize exposure risk with a range of telemedicine solutions.
Tyto Care
Telemedicine company Tyto Care is helping hospitals and health organizations remotely examine and diagnose quarantined and isolated symptomatic COVID-19 patients around the globe. It recently raised $50 million to meet the rising global telehealth demand.
"The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic is strengthening each day and as the virus continues to spread, we are focusing our efforts where we can make the most impact – easing the burden on healthcare providers serving quarantined and isolated patients," said Dedi Gilad, Tyto Care CEO and co-founder. "Tyto Care is uniquely suited to provide the remote exam and diagnostic capabilities required to aid affected populations at scale, fully realizing telehealth's potential during this crisis. It's my hope that this pandemic passes quickly and that we can help flatten the curve."
As the first all-in-one telehealth and modular device platform, Tyto Care provides clinicians with clinical-grade data during remote exams on the heart, lungs, eyes, ears, nose, throat, skin and body temperature. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the company has been globally deployed by physicians as they assess and monitor symptomatic patients who can seek treatment from home while minimizing infection risk.
Immertec
Immertec, a med-tech company, facilitates remote, real-time medical and virtual surgery training for clinicians. Its MedOptic VR platform enables surgeons to continue their training remotely, with their colleagues, from anywhere in the world.
The company is currently working with several medical device companies, medical schools and health care systems. I have recently joined the company's medical advisory board as I see many benefits in Immertec's ability to explore ways surgeons can train and share knowledge virtually without fear of travel or unnecessary risk of infection at surgical sites.
Phox Health
Phox Health connects patients to locally owned pharmacies for same-day delivery, with the meds delivered right to their door. Patients have their prescriptions delivered anytime, anywhere within two hours.
Phox has integrated with multiple telemedicine platforms and health systems to provide in-home delivery of prescriptions and medical equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Agile PT
AgilePT, a physical therapy company with a remote physical therapy platform, is rehabbing patients' injuries from the convenience of home. Within 48 hours, patients receive exercise and treatment recommendations from a board-certified physical therapist. Trained telehealth physical therapists effectively and efficiently triage patients' injuries, providing appropriate stretches and exercises for each patient without any unnecessary travel.
The company caters to patients and employers throughout California, including several large tech firms in Silicon Valley. The group provides PT telemedicine for patients and integrates with health care practices nationally.
COVID-19 has shaken the health care industry to its core. But our systems have held strong, innovative care models have been born and our health care professionals' dedication to giving every patient a chance at life has endured.
So, what will the health care market look like post-COVID? How will patients access care? And which technological advancements will gain traction? It's hard to prognosticate in the middle of a pandemic, but we are seeing several companies rise to the occasion and develop innovative remote care models that are changing how health care is delivered today and in the future.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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4e866272a2fb1748dfc0aa1970b8f487 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/10/why-now-is-the-time-to-go-serverless/ | Why Now Is The Time To Go Serverless | Why Now Is The Time To Go Serverless
Romi Stein is CEO & Co-Founder of OpenLegacy, leading its strategic vision of digital-driven integration for legacy systems.
As CEO of an enterprise technology company, I spend a lot of time talking to technical leaders. Regardless of their industry or company size, many of them share the view that we’re at a unique inflection point in the history of information technology.
The last decade has seen a revolution in IT’s ability to serve as a growth engine for the enterprise, by shifting the core focus from infrastructure optimization problems to business problems.
And while disruption and uncertainty have never been greater, technology leaders have a new toolkit to help navigate the landscape effectively: serverless technology.
The Great Revolution
Technology is the medium by which many companies deliver experiences and innovations to better serve their customers. A bank might build a mobile app to allow customers to easily check their balance or transfer money, for example. An airline might add personalized upgrade offers to its website as part of the check-in flow.
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But keeping up with customers is hard when critical information is inaccessible in systems that don’t talk to one another, when development, deployment and testing are slow and require extensive knowledge of the entire code base, and when technology resources are spent managing infrastructure as opposed to driving innovation.
Over the past decade, three factors contributed to a huge leap forward in the ability of companies to harness technology to better serve their customers: APIs, microservices architecture and cloud computing. Respectively, these represent the what, the how and the where of a shift that has enabled technology leaders to focus on solving business challenges as opposed to infrastructure challenges.
The what in this case was the explosion in popularity and adoption of application programming interfaces (APIs): guidelines that govern how systems interact with each other. APIs have existed since the 1970s but have soared in popularity since the advent of the public web API over the past decade. Suddenly, for example, a hotel chain could leverage information from Google Maps to provide directions to a user for how to reach their destination — even if its core reservation data was housed in a mainframe system.
The how was the increasing adoption of the microservice: small, self-contained pieces of code that execute a business function. Microservices offered an alternative to monolithic architecture, the default approach consisting of a single, unified, indivisible application. Microservices allowed teams to develop and iterate on new features without having to rewrite large portions of the codebase. Because of the ease of integration, deployment and testing that they offer, microservices have seen rapid adoption over the past few years — with Netflix, Amazon, and Google all migrating away from a monolithic application toward a microservices architecture.
Finally, the where is the availability of the cloud as an on-demand resource for data storage and computing. Combined with the on-demand information connectivity afforded by APIs and the agility unlocked by microservices, cloud computing has offered the scalability and cost-effectiveness required to power new applications, even in traditional industries like financial services. According to Gartner, cloud revenue hit nearly $230 billion in 2019.
Collectively, these innovations over the past decade (along with associated trends like DevOps) have positioned technology leaders to serve as drivers of business innovation by nimbly serving customers. Serverless technology is the natural extension of this revolution for a time of uncertainty.
Serverless Is The Next Frontier
The term “serverless” is a misnomer; there is, of course, a server responsible for processing requests. The difference is that the server is provisioned and managed not by the company itself but by one of the providers of cloud computing services (e.g., Amazon, Microsoft or Google).
That isn’t in and of itself unique to serverless. What is unique is the degree to which the cloud provider removes the burden of managing the run-time environment. Unlike microservices containers, which require a server to be provisioned around the clock even if there is no load, a serverless architecture refers to one in which procedures (“functions”) that perform a single service are handed over to a function cloud to run in real time. They execute only when needed, after which time the computing instance shuts down.
Microservices and serverless complement each other, offering different strengths: Microservices are a good fit for long-running or computation-intensive jobs, while serverless is a good fit for event-driven jobs that benefit from automated scaling.
Over the past few months, I’ve heard from enterprises on a nearly daily basis that are increasingly interested in adopting serverless technology. Why would any company want to embrace this paradigm? In many ways, serverless is the perfect technology for a time of rapid change:
• Serverless is cost-effective. IDC currently forecasts worldwide IT spending to decline by 2.7% this year. Serverless deployment enables companies to save substantially in two ways: both on server costs (by only charging for the period of time that the server executes the function) and on the cost of human resources required to manage server capacity.
• Customer behavior is changing. It’s difficult to make long-term investments (planning server capacity based on anticipated load, for example) when customer behavior is rapidly changing. In a time of flux, serverless offers the ability to automatically scale to need.
• Businesses must focus on core capabilities. By moving the burden of provisioning and managing the run-time environment to the function cloud, serverless unlocks teams’ capability to focus on what they do best: delivering innovative customer experiences.
Ultimately, serverless is a continuation of the revolution that we’ve seen over the past few years — and one that is uniquely well-suited to help technology leaders weather a time of disruption and change.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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0050666aafda4fd485ef3008d4f420e9 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/11/lessons-learned-from-executing-successful-virtual-hackathons/ | Lessons Learned From Executing Successful Virtual Hackathons | Lessons Learned From Executing Successful Virtual Hackathons
Steve is the Head of Data Science and AI at Australian Computer Society, a proactive social media contributor and LinkedIn influencer.
Like many of us, we see politicians, scientists and medical professionals racking their brains on how to solve and address some of the biggest problems the world is facing under this pandemic.
However, my team thought: What we can do as ordinary citizens to help create a better society? Can we tap into the innovation and creativity of thousands of software engineers, designers and businesspeople to push us along? We were lucky enough to have our CEO greenlight our hackathon — and we had only nine days to launch it.
My team broke hackathon history by executing the largest online hackathon in APAC to date: with almost 3,000 people involved, all within only nine days and with very limited resources. We completed another hackathon shortly after the first, working with the Australian and New Zealand Defence Forces and involving over 25 defense organizations and industry partners.
Based on my experience as head of data science for ACS, I know how important it is for tech leaders to create these kinds of opportunities, especially during times of crisis, to help drive innovation. Here's what I learned from our virtual hackathons.
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The Hackathon: The Main Objectives And Benefits
A hackathon can be described as a “marathon of invention.” Anyone interested in ideating a solution for a specific challenge attends a hackathon to learn, build and share their creations, typically over the course of 48 to 72 hours. In a nutshell, during a hackathon, teams develop a project from scratch, demo it to judges and win prizes.
Challenges And Considerations With Virtual Hackathons
Managing 15 people on your team is difficult. If you’re a CEO, managing 1,000 people might be a challenge. In our case, having 2,700 completely new faces from 13 different time zones presented its own challenges with the dissemination of information, competing categories, sponsorships, judging and, of course, the deadline of submissions. Here are some important elements to consider when it comes to creating your own virtual hackathon:
• Different Skill Sets And Backgrounds: As countless articles report, diversity in any team produces more innovative, productive and engaged members, and this is especially true when you have to build a team, ideate and ship a product in two days. To the best of our ability, we ensured diversity of skill sets through our capture forms. We worked to understand why mentors and competitors were participating and to optimize the dynamics of team creation, mentor pairing and lead mentor groups. It's important to understand that some joining your hackathon are experienced professionals, while some are fresh graduates.
• Most Participants Are Strangers: The saying “You don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression” holds true in all settings, but it is especially important online. Building and forming trust is the bedrock of successful team building, and we employed many strategies behind the scenes. Some of the most successful experiments we executed were:
1. Creating private channels for teams based on an internal algorithm for ideal team creation.
2. Cross-pollinating data from different channels to give meaningful and interesting resources and requests more visibility to other competitors.
• Innovative Use Of IT For A Successful Virtual Hackathon: A completely virtual hackathon presents its own challenges and perks. But as long as you have rock-solid software and a passionate heart, you can overcome anything. Most importantly, the event doesn’t need to use complex and feature-rich software. In many ways, the key fundamentals of effective communication, private rooms to ideate, and access to qualified mentors and resources are key. To this end, we used:
1. YouTube’s free livestream service to broadcast the opening ceremony and judging.
2. Slack as the primary communication channel.
3. Simple, cloud-based applications for workplace collaboration (e.g., Google forms, Trello, etc.).
4. LinkedIn and Twitter for marketing and social media activity.
5. Zoom for webinars, mentor inductions and workshops for our competitors.
Lessons Learned
Both hackathons varied in their challenge scope, audience size and processes. In each case, our team was able to rapidly ideate, deploy and iterate on new resources, induction methods and timelines for the audience: This yielded amazing results. Based on this experience, here are some lessons learned:
1. For IT, simple is best.
It goes without saying how reliant we are on the basics of IT systems in our day-to-day lives, but that is a conversation for a different day. The key lesson we learned was that as much as hackathon bespoke solutions exist in the market, you don’t need a great deal to execute a high-quality experience — only qualified people in the driver’s seat.
2. Teams can work it out.
Participants are not children who need direction and guidance from a parent. Many are students, managers and passionate individuals who do not need the top-down pressure to remain motivated to ideate the next best solution. Channeling that energy is all that an organizer needs to do: Any more and the experience may start to spoil.
3. Mentoring is critical.
In this same vein, mentors should not be micromanagers who need to time-box or patronize their peers. All true innovation requires for mentors is a light touch, deep expertise in challenge areas and a safety net for when things go sideways.
4. Under pressure, diamonds can form.
There is a reason hackathons are short and provide some of the most effective value-to-time ratios for any organization to begin the process of innovation. With a mix of global anxiety, restlessness, expertise and passion, hackathons have created some of the most amazing products our organization has seen. From 3D printed helmets to children's education tools, our team was astounded by the level of thought and care put into their work.
Final Thoughts
As tech leaders, it's vital that we continue to explore and push ourselves in the hopes of creating truly innovative products. Virtual hackathons provide opportunities for us to come together and explore our capabilities.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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f196595822c1bf87128a4dcdfeeea5cd | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/11/location-intelligence-is-becoming-democratized---heres-how-your-business-can-harness-it/ | Location Intelligence Is Becoming Democratized — Here’s How Your Business Can Harness It | Location Intelligence Is Becoming Democratized — Here’s How Your Business Can Harness It
Todd is the CEO and Co-Founder of OmniSci, the pioneer in accelerated analytics that enables businesses to uncover important insights.
Numbers, by nature, have an abstract quality. Interpretation is required to turn those statistics into actionable insight. Maps, by contrast, can deliver meaning in ways that are not only quickly understood, but also uniquely compelling.
Business intelligence (BI) software is the primary tool for analyzing data in the business world, while geospatial (mapping) analysis has been the realm of geographic information systems (GIS). BI platforms have, to a large extent, already become democratized, thanks to a focus on easy-to-use UX, combined with self-service deployment models, including the widespread availability of these platforms in the cloud. These improvements make it far easier for nontechnical users to explore enterprise data themselves, without having to rely on data analysts.
While GIS and BI were once disparate fields, those disciplines are now merging. Thanks to the introduction of new forms of accelerated analytics, the democratization of BI is coming to GIS as well. The result is an immensely powerful, fast, intuitive technology that empowers business professionals at all levels to explore and map big data at the speed of curiosity.
No longer does a user have to be a specialist to harness data for real-time insight. Questions can be answered as quickly as they’re posed, regardless of the amount of data required to answer them. Even if billions or tens of billions of rows of data are involved, those rows can be interrogated and mapped in mere milliseconds.
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Several developments are making this revolution possible. First, the proliferation of GPS-enabled devices, most notably smartphones and internet of things (IoT) devices, gives businesses a wealth of location-based information that was previously unavailable. Second, many data records possess spatiotemporal (i.e., location and time) information that is only now being leveraged. Third, the recent development of accelerated analytics software allows all this data to be interpreted.
The convergence of spatiotemporal information and big data can unlock tremendous value for a variety of industries. The organizations that harness these combined data stores, merging them with their routine business datasets, will glean huge new insights that provide a competitive edge.
IoT Is A Game-Changer
At least 80% of data records created today contain spatiotemporal data, according to our research — and that figure is even higher for IoT records. From industrial applications to smart cities to personal wearables, IoT has exploded over the last decade — as have the quantities of data collected by these sensors and devices. This explosion has fueled new insights in many industries. Here are just a few examples:
Retail: By geolocating a wide range of data including anonymous information from GPS devices, point of interest (POI) data, visitor foot-traffic, demographic aggregations and more, retail professionals from merchants and commercial realtors to restauranteurs and vendors can improve the accuracy of their decision-making.
Government: State, local and federal agencies can use geospatial information to optimize global logistics operations, identify trends for general readiness or emergency management, and leverage sensor and IoT data for improved battlespace awareness.
Automotive: Fleet operators can better manage their vehicles through real-time route optimization, thereby increasing the performance of logistical operations, shipping and supply chains. Service providers can discover relationships between destinations or driving habits and infotainment preferences. Auto manufacturers and retailers can even analyze the movement of specific cars in a certain area for more accurate ad targeting or to determine who might want to upgrade to the next car model.
Impact Of Social Media
IoT has widely expanded data troves — but it isn’t the only source. Social media provides a wealth of spatiotemporal information, going far beyond the connections and conversations it was originally intended to facilitate.
Many social media posts come from mobile devices that provide location and time information. This data can be combined with trending topics to enable brands to track stories as they spread. Accelerated analytics tools unlock the ability to track this fast-moving data; by cross-analyzing foot traffic and point-of-sale data with social posts, users can gauge sentiments about specific products, gain insight into other brands their customers enjoy, identify gaps in marketing messaging and more, all in real time.
With geospatial analytics tools, any number of complex datasets can be tracked, interpreted and presented visually. Furthermore, because queries take only fractions of a second, it’s easier to forge new inquiries, explore the data more deeply, and look at problems in new and more revealing ways. The combination of BI and GIS allows all sorts of operations to be optimized, from marketing and promotions to customer service, ordering, planning and logistics.
A Priceless Tool
As advanced as the typical analytics platform is today, most are simply not capable of processing the firehose of data that streams through organizations. Moreover, they are not able to draw upon and integrate ad hoc combinations of internal and external data sources to provide additional insight.
The good news is that a new form of accelerated analytics is here. This new capability is driven by the innovative new hardware architectures that are available in modern data centers. These servers employ both the fastest CPUs and enterprise-grade GPUs, both of which have parallel processing speed and memory bandwidth that are orders of magnitude better than previous generations. The increases, in fact, match those that were previously available only from supercomputers.
Using these new capabilities, as well as the synthesis of BI and GIS, business decision-makers have greater insight at their fingertips than ever before. Lines of inquiry that involve whole chains of queries can be achieved in the time that it used to take to answer a single question. The paradigm of investigation, once restricted to abstract fields of data, now can be plotted and visualized in geographic presentations that lend themselves to thousands, if not tens of thousands, of business applications.
For those enterprises willing to embrace the convergence of BI/GIS and the deeper understanding provided by merging these two key workflows, the benefits can be both substantial and immediate. A picture is worth a thousand words — and accelerated location intelligence, allowing the near-instant analysis of thousands of sources of data, visualized and contextualized geographically, can be a priceless tool indeed.
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13b16ba0c6ee0001f9b12e9268a1e50c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/11/marvel-superheroes-major-lawsuits-and-universal-accessibility-on-standardized-tests/ | Marvel Superheroes, Major Lawsuits And Universal Accessibility On Standardized Tests | Marvel Superheroes, Major Lawsuits And Universal Accessibility On Standardized Tests
Photo: Getty
With countless comics, a hit series and a critically panned film, there's still one question that's never been answered about Marvel's blind crime-fighter, Daredevil: What was his LSAT score?
Accessibility Problems On The LSAT
Let's back up for a moment. If you're among the 125,000-plus people expected to take the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) this year, you'll have to navigate its notoriously challenging Logic Games. These elaborate puzzles describe scenarios with multiple variables, such as clowns leaving a clown car. Based on a fixed set of rules, students must order the variables, group them together or both.
Logic Games are usually solved with diagrams. But as Angelo Binno pointed out in his recently settled lawsuit against LSAC (Law School Admissions Council), many blind people can't do that. Blind LSAT-takers have historically used tactile mats, raised-line drawing apparatuses or Excel spreadsheets to tackle Logic Games, but those workarounds didn't help everyone. Now, according to the Binno settlement, within four years, LSAC will have to find a more accessible way to test analytical reasoning skills.
Accessibility Issues Are Widespread In Standardized Testing/Test Prep
One of the biggest challenges with accessibility is that an accommodation for one can be a barrier for another.
For instance, LSAC's 2019 transition from pencil/paper to an all-digital LSAT was praised for "expanding accessibility." Just removing the challenge of holding a pencil helped many test-takers with physical disabilities. But what about invisible disabilities, including ADD and migraines, that can be triggered by staring at screens? And not everyone is comfortable using tablets. Seniors, in particular, may experience anxiety about using unfamiliar devices.
It's not just the LSAT, either. At the undergraduate level, the SAT/ACT exams have also come under fire for discriminating against the disabled, minorities and lower-income students. Colleges that don't consider SAT/ACT scores become more diverse. On the other side the spectrum, after law school, the Bar Exam looms. Blind J.D. graduates have long struggled to find appropriate bar review materials in Braille.
Best Practices For Accessible Test Preparation
The world seems to be moving away from the SATs/ACTs. Perhaps the age of standardized testing is drawing to a close, but it's not over yet. And as long as students with disabilities need to take standardized tests, test prep companies will have a major role to play in ensuring that testing is as fair as possible.
Here are some best practices for test preparation companies/tutors/publishers:
• Listen to students. No two people are exactly alike, even if they share a disability. For example, some people with visual impairments read Braille, while others prefer a screen reader. Instead of leaping to offer every blind student Braille materials, ask what accommodations each individual needs. Don't forget that the process of requesting accommodations needs to be universally accessible, too!
• Understand that disability affects many students. One in five adults has at least one disability. If making a few changes might allow you to serve 20% of students better, there's absolutely no excuse not to.
• Conduct an accessibility audit. Take a moment to review the materials you provide and ask yourself who might not be best served by them. For instance, people with low manual dexterity may not benefit from physical flashcards. Then, consider how to make those materials more accessible. For example, building hands-free digital flashcards (something we've done in our GREMax app) expands the usefulness of these materials beyond able-bodied students.
• Make working for your company accessible, too. The best way to avoid accessibility pitfalls is to have people with disabilities in the room where your decisions are made. One motto of the disability rights movement is "Nothing about us without us!" So, if you care about accessibility, hire people with disabilities, promote them, develop their skills and listen when they make suggestions.
• Consider economic access, too. People with disabilities are twice as likely to be poor as nondisabled Americans. All the accessible materials in the world are meaningless to students who can't afford them. Think about how you can adjust pricing or offer scholarships to ensure that everyone can access them.
Moving accessibility forward requires empathy, collaboration and humility. Together, perhaps we can create a world where standardized tests measure aptitude, not able-bodiedness.
Back To Daredevil…
As for Matt Murdock, he attended Columbia Law School. Ranked No. 5, Columbia Law touts a median LSAT score of 172. That's in the 99th percentile.
The LSAT is so inaccessible to blind students that LSAC agreed to redesign Logic Games, but Matt still managed to ace it. Did he have to use his superpowers? Probably not, at least not if you ask today's visually impaired current/future attorneys. Despite significant barriers to access, blind law students/lawyers are excelling, including at Google and at my own alma mater, Harvard Law.
Imagine what these talented individuals could accomplish if they didn't have to waste time and energy dealing with inaccessible testing formats, unaccommodating test prep companies and other accessibility roadblocks.
Some Final Thoughts
If I've convinced you that accessibility is a key issue in the testing/test preparation space, here are three easy action items to help you get moving on universal accessibility today.
First, start the conversation. Just asking, "Can we take a closer look at the accessibility of our offerings?" may lead to identifying and fixing problems.
Second, get everyone's input. Don't target only visibly disabled employees and students when seeking feedback on potential accessibility improvements. Many disabilities are invisible. Cast the widest possible net when sending out accessibility surveys or asking for ideas. Keep some channels of communication anonymous so people who aren't ready to disclose their disability status may contribute, too.
Lastly, don't wait for a better time to implement changes. There's never a perfect moment to spend time and money improving accessibility. But nobody gets to wait for a convenient time to acquire a disability. If you suspect you have work to do on accessibility, then know every delay leaves some students out in the cold.
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c12deeee9c1a2fcbae51fa2f478dda93 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/11/the-age-of-accountability-in-digital-media/ | The Age Of Accountability In Digital Media | The Age Of Accountability In Digital Media
Marc Porcelli is the Founder and CEO of Curate, a performance-focused growth marketing company in the mobile sector.
The current global pandemic has put immense strain on both consumers and mobile technology professionals, including marketers. Across entire industries — entertainment, finance, retail, CPG, dining and manufacturing, to name a few — watching market volatility occur with seemingly little control seems frustrating at best. For those in digital media, however, consider recent history and a few key data points that will likely mark a lasting turning point for the industry when it comes to acquiring customers.
Worldwide usage of mobile devices is currently at an all-time high, helping to drive growth in internet usage upward of 70%. Increased consumption of digital content from mobile apps to free streaming and gaming are the key drivers in these statistics. That trend is expected to continue, if not accelerate, well through this year as more and more people are socially distanced, consuming content and buying things remotely, as well as seeking entertainment from their couches.
As we sit at a crossroads during a turbulent period as consumers, the same can be said for digital media and mobile tech professionals. History is instructive right now, and this is arguably a major turning point for marketers aiming to reach customers where they most often are: on their mobile devices.
The financial crisis in the late 2000s offers us the best and most recent comparison to the times now. Though these times are significantly worse given the very nature of a global pandemic, there are still parallels: incredible market fluctuation across the board, a spike in unemployment and consumer confidence at near-record lows. For professionals who embrace technology as the backbone of their profession, such as digital and mobile advertisers and app developers, there are important signals to see based on what we already know.
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Of that recession over a decade ago, Forrester Research told Ad Age that one of the key takeaways for the technology sector was that "there's already a call for more efficient, measurable media." Additionally, we saw market conditions and pricing become advantageous for media buyers. According to Ad Age, demand (driven from internet usage by consumers) was high, as it is now. Though global advertising spend declined by 9% (and 12% in the U.S.) a decade ago, there was a greater need for accountable media as spending was squeezed. In essence, there was a shift in budgets toward accountability and the need to know precisely how a dollar spent performed.
With budget cuts already at play for marketers nowadays, digital media and, most importantly, customer acquisition with an ROI focus becomes a necessity rather than just a 7% to 10% budget allocation. It's the promise of technology all over again: the ability to track and measure immense amounts and types of data and put that to work for smart, effective customer acquisition.
What else do we know about today's climate? The trends and opportunities for customer acquisition that we saw beginning a decade ago will likely be magnified today. Mobile internet has grown 504% in daily media consumption since 10 years ago. Also 10 years ago, there were 65,000 apps available in Apple's app store. In 2019, there were over 3 million, with over 900,000 of them being gaming apps. Accountable media, including performance-based marketing, has seen double-digit percentage growth in each of the last five years prior to this recession. One can easily envision this trend accelerating, as it should, if history is any indicator. The differences in the scope and scale of the platform then versus now are night and day.
The promise of digital media and marketing through mobile technology has always come down to accountability and the ability to track key metrics while providing professionals with clear data with which to make informed decisions quickly. When considering ways to engage with customers who are increasingly mobile, it is critical to understand that the very nature of technology is to be able to know for certain how effective a dollar spent is in winning a customer, establishing brand loyalty and reengaging the audience.
The global health crisis has changed parts of almost every industry, and the same will be true for us. The technology sector, and specifically the digital media sector, is uniquely positioned to take the lead in effectively capturing consumer demand now more than ever before. The keys will be to communicate and educate the shift that is occurring, draw upon statistics and historical trends where applicable, and embrace the changing landscape.
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4649c6bb82a6b9f803e80f58ca0236c3 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/15/understand-your-business-processes-or-risk-failing/?sh=4b4d959e50d5 | Understand Your Business Processes Or Risk Failing | Understand Your Business Processes Or Risk Failing
I write about AI, innovation and how global enterprises can leverage their people, process and content to achieve a competitive advantage.
Automation has fundamentally transformed the enterprise. From streamlining workflows and increasing operational efficiencies to improving the customer experience, automation enhances business-critical functions and accelerates digital transformation initiatives. Robotic process automation (RPA) technologies, in particular, free employees to focus less on mundane tasks and more on high-value, creative and relationship-oriented responsibilities that directly influence the bottom line.
However, despite its significant benefits, RPA technologies by themselves aren't enough to deliver automation's full potential.
This point is emphasized in a report (paywall) published by Gartner, Inc. that predicts that by 2021, 50% of RPA implementations will fail to deliver a sustainable return on investment without being combined with other solutions. Complementary technologies such as digital intelligence solutions equip RPA's digital workers with cognitive skills to understand the context and meaning of content and provide insight into business-critical processes.
They're becoming increasingly pivotal in driving the success of enterprise automation projects. In fact, Gartner (via Ernst & Young) believes that "by 2022, 80% of RPA-centric automation implementations will derive their value from complementary technologies" such as process analytics and machine learning for intelligent, scalable and high-value enterprise automation.
Choosing the right processes is key.
However, I caution leaders not to go blindly into automation projects. Business leaders need to know how a process is performing before jumping in to try to achieve hyperautomation, which Gartner dubbed as one of the top strategic technology trends of 2020.
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According to our "State of Process Mining and Robotic Process Automation" report, which surveyed 400 senior executives in the U.S., U.K., France and Germany, a strong understanding of business processes was the primary success factor driving automation implementations, with 70% of U.S. decision-makers citing this as the main reason for their RPA initiative's success.
It's imperative to understand how business-critical workflows are performing and which processes are a good fit for automation initiatives. After all, automating a bad process doesn't fix the process. Doing so usually makes things worse and causes bottlenecks and backlogs, which can be costly and drain resources. Process mining and analytics technologies are needed to provide an accurate and real-time view into operational workflows and attain visibility into which processes are the best fit for enterprise automation projects.
One of the most important first steps is to develop an understanding of how business processes are functioning holistically across all departments, technology systems and silos. Too often, business leaders simply guess which processes would be best to automate without leveraging real data. This is one of the primary reasons for RPA project failure. A report published by Ernst & Young revealed that as many as half of RPA projects fail initially. While a variety of factors can contribute to RPA project failure, targeting automation at the wrong processes is a key reason.
According to our report, 39% of decision-makers in the U.S. cited not fully understanding intended automated processes as the primary reason for an RPA project not realizing its objective. Forrester concurs that attaining a true understanding of business processes is where many organizations have failed over the years when it comes to RPA projects. The initial process assessment stage is fundamental.
To further hone the point, pairing automation platforms with process intelligence solutions can lower operational costs by as much as 30%, according to Gartner. Process technologies are key for optimizing business operations, choosing the right workflows to automate and evaluating the effectiveness of RPA initiatives across the enterprise.
Strive toward a new gold standard.
It's been said that an integrated approach to automation will be the new gold standard. Getting there, however, can seem challenging, particularly for organizations that are early in their digital transformation journey. Business leaders can strive toward this new standard by implementing a higher level of digital intelligence within the business processes in five ways.
1. Start with moving beyond siloed and ad hoc projects to enterprise-wide, mission-critical use cases. Digital intelligence delivers the insights and technologies to deliver the necessary understanding of both process performance and content meaning. These insights act as the glue connecting and enhancing RPA, BPM, ECM, ERP and other business systems, enabling you to achieve hyperautomation.
2. Understand your processes and where automation matters. As mentioned earlier, real-life business processes never follow the blueprint. A thorough, real-time, end-to-end analysis of business processes is the key to achieving the expected results.
3. Extract meaning and value from content. Most business processes are fueled by documents, content and meaning. Achieving true automation and straight-through processing without humans in the loop is only possible if automation tools and business systems can access and understand the information contained in these documents. Since most enterprise content is unstructured, it's necessary to leverage OCR, machine learning and natural language processing technologies to transform data into actionable information.
4. Augment human resources with self-sufficient digital workers. Digital workers empowered with the skills to read, understand and extract data from content can truly augment your human workforce by independently executing high-value, content-based business processes.
5. Use the newfound knowledge to increase customer service quality. While many think of digital transformation and business process automation as an opportunity to save costs, the true value comes from the impact it can have on an organization's ability to serve customers faster, easier and simply better. Using the powerful insights into the business operations provided by digital intelligence, organizations can serve their customers in innovative and scalable ways while simultaneously optimizing cost, efficiency and return on experience (ROX).
The future of automation is integrated and intelligent.
Successful digital transformation initiatives that have the highest impact require more than just RPA tools; after all, RPA does the easy job of automating tasks.
The future of business process automation in the enterprise will be shaped by the convergence of RPA with AI-enabled technologies, including process mining and content intelligence to improve process bottlenecks, strengthen operational efficiencies, enhance the customer journey and free employees to focus on engaging and meaningful responsibilities.
Integrated and intelligent automation is indeed the future of automation. Just have a process-first approach.
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2602c08ec1ddb8bb06f6c33a6db6a8c2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/16/moving-toward-a-new-normal-with-technology-transformations/?sh=46b1911a55ff | Moving Toward A New Normal With Technology Transformations | Moving Toward A New Normal With Technology Transformations
Photo: Getty
How will your business prepare for business as usual?
As companies consider the next phase of their operations, many realize that plans to revert back to their traditional infrastructure are no longer an option. For instance, a recent Garter survey found that 88% of companies have employees working from home, and nearly all (97%) of organizations have canceled work-related travel. The need for technological innovation within your company is undeniable. The good news is that cloud technology offers the ideal vehicle to help your business grow amid global and organizational change.
Now is the time to rebuild your infrastructure to challenge conventional wisdom. As we consider three factors that are likely to remain after the crisis, let's look at what technology can do to help transform your business operations to best meet those changes.
1. Social Distancing
A recent Harvard study estimates that social distancing restrictions are likely to remain in place long-term. "Researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health have warned that, in the absence of a vaccine or an effective treatment of the coronavirus, social-distancing measures may be required through to 2022," reported CNBC.
But businesses are edging closer to reopening, which means remote work models may become a permanent work condition for many companies, along with the dilemma of personal engagement versus encounters that can best be conducted online. "The comfort of being in the presence of others might be replaced by a greater comfort with absence, especially with those we don't know intimately," said Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. "Instead of asking, 'Is there a reason to do this online?' we'll be asking, 'Is there any good reason to do this in person?'"
In truth, flexible schedules were on the upward trend even before the COVID-19 crisis, with experts estimating that almost half (44%) of today's workforce had transitioned to a remote work environment over the last five years.
The need for automation that enables employees to access data anytime and from anywhere has gained exposure over the past few months and has boosted cloud computing use across the board. Experts estimate that the cloud computing market is set to reach $295 billion by 2021.
"Businesses are using the cloud effectively to create resilient and disaster-averse systems anywhere across the globe to cater to a remote workforce and protect data and business application integrity as well," reported MarketsandMarkets in the press release linked above. And nowhere is that more apparent than in tracking your customer's buying cycle.
2. Billing Agility
The key to staying competitive in your industry needs more than just providing a great product; it requires efficiency. The fact is, your business simply cannot compromise on using a system that is quick to adapt to market changes and ensure your customer's experience is secure by providing a hassle-free, accurate and rapid response to their expectations.
For many companies, CPQ (configure, price, quote) fulfilled those needs. According to a Gartner 2019 report, almost half (40%) of B2B e-commerce websites were using CPQ tools to calculate and deliver product pricing. And they predict a market with an annual growth rate of 20% in 2020.
One of the reasons why CPQ is so effective is that it caters to an off-premise billing system that doesn't rely on a traditional infrastructure. These no-touch billing capabilities mean the customer's invoice is automatically matched against a supporting document, such as a purchase order or contract, and sent for payment with no need for physical, manual handling. The advantages? Shorter lead time for customers and less data entry for your sales and finance teams. And by providing a central hub, users can access CPQ from any platform and coordinate with coworkers and customers from all over the world.
3. The Customer Remains King
While a customer's environment may have changed due to the impact of the coronavirus, the desire for positive customer experience remains stronger than ever. Based on Salesforce data, 76% of customers think companies should understand their expectations and needs. But to connect with consumers, you need advanced analytical tools that can transform data into a customized experience and provide your sales team a comprehensive view of the customer's profile to anticipate future needs.
"Digital-led experiences will continue to grow in popularity once the coronavirus is quelled, and companies that act quickly and innovate in their delivery model to help consumers navigate the pandemic safely and effectively will establish a strong advantage," explained Rachel Diebner, Elizabeth Silliman, Kelly Ungerman, and Maxence Vancauwenberghe at McKinsey. "Now is also the time for customer experience (CX) leaders to position themselves at the forefront of the longer-term shifts in consumer behavior that result from this crisis. Keeping a real-time pulse on changing customer preferences and rapidly innovating to redesign journeys that matter to a very different context will be key."
Automating essential steps in the buyer's journey — such as pricing, quotes and order fulfillment — creates a win-win experience for you and your customers. With the recent changes in global commerce, customers, particularly those who purchase digital products or subscription-based services, have come to appreciate self-service options. And with customized self-service features such as those that include CPQ, your customer's experience will be an effortless process providing access to order information or customer support when they want it.
Ultimately, you might need more than just automation of a few business processes. It's more about an entire digital transformation. The journey is complex, and you will likely benefit from outside help. Here are a few tips to choose a partner:
• Find a partner with expertise in your vertical.
• Look for creativity and adaptability.
• Examine the partner's internal resources and technical acumen.
As organizations venture into this new definition of "business as usual," one thing that remains clear is the need for digital transformation. By using technology to navigate collaboration, using a streamlined billing process and designing an updated customer-centric strategy, your organization will be able to position itself for certain growth amid uncertain circumstances.
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58bb02eae0683a4f9f93549a8e94f4dd | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/17/the-12-commandments-for-hosting-a-great-webinar/?sh=257ced6c1066 | The 12 Commandments For Hosting A Great Webinar | The 12 Commandments For Hosting A Great Webinar
Founder & CEO of Weavy - the complete white-label framework for in-app messaging and collaboration.
The world has changed, and we as business leaders have had to follow suit and adapt.
The most tangible change has been the shift to remote work. The appetite for a big in-person event is not there anymore, and I'm not sure it be ever again.
This is why webinars — which provide the benefits of less travel, less stress on a city for a specific big event (Dreamforce, MWC, etc.) and lower costs — may become more essential going forward.
At our company, we shifted rapidly to remote work for our whole team both in the U.S. and Europe, but we also shifted our focus regarding marketing and sales. We both sponsor and participate in relevant online events and are now ramping up our own production with webinars, hackathons and online sales meetings.
So, we created the 12 commandments for hosting a great webinar and wanted to share them:
1. Keep it short.
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Let's be honest: Webinars usually suck. They are all the same and not attractive. So let's never do a webinar like that.
Never do a webinar that's an hour long. In fact, keep it to a 10-minute maximum. If you can't deliver your message in 10 minutes, your pitch is wrong.
Record your full practice pitch, and then edit it down to a “spot-on” infotainment segment about your product that will snag full-length views on YouTube.
2. Captivate your audience first.
We don't log into a webinar because we are interested in who the presenter is (unless you're a guru of sorts).
Don't start with a personal presentation — it's just not interesting. Start with a captivating question that is left unanswered until the very end of the webinar.
This question is your red line, cliffhanger or hasta la vista. That is the sole reason your audience should listen to your webinar (e.g., "Do you know how much time your team spends in your collaboration tool?").
3. Have a short, clear plan.
The beautiful thing about a webinar is that it has an unlimited number of audience members.
The ugly thing is that you have no control over if the audience is attentive. So make sure you get control. Give a concise but direct agenda (e.g., "Today, we will talk about how to do X and what happens if we do Y, and we’re going to do in 10 minutes").
4. Introduce yourself.
Give a warm welcome and a short introduction. Refer your audience to your LinkedIn profile. Add something fun.
5. Direct the audience’s attention.
The presentation is essential. Remember, no one can see you as if you were giving an on-stage performance. Add pointers, underlines or anything in your introduction that emphasizes the key points you want to make. Use functions like fading screen and studio view in and out for the same effect.
6. Remember that text is unnecessary.
If I want to read text, I buy a book. If I want to get information about a product, I usually watch videos or reviews.
Get it? Text is evil! Show a lot of text, and people will try to read it all and listen less. Remember, your audience can read five times faster than you can talk.
Use as little writing as possible, and focus on the spoken word. Use text to emphasize and strengthen your message.
7. Design the look.
The design of the webinar is more important than you think. It's essential that the design is representative of your message. Always make an interactive design that can be used for offline viewing. Test the design in good time before any webinar to make sure all graphics run smoothly.
8. Create a script.
Since no one is looking at you all the time, there's no need to memorize all the webinar contents. Create (and use) a script that is a timeline over the webinar, but don't overdo it — leave room for spontaneity.
9. Don't get stuck.
Slides or video chapters, no matter which one you choose, help prevent you from getting stuck.
Pace the segments of your webinar or video demo in sprints of a maximum of 15-20 seconds. The important thing is having a smooth, well-paced tempo. If the audience misses anything, they can always rewind.
10. Use graphics and animations.
Use tools to enhance the webinar. These will raise interest (e.g., statistics presented during the flow and lap over effects), but remember to keep it simple.
11. Deliver the kill.
The most critical section of the webinar is the wrap-up and the kill shot. Conclude with the key knowledge shared with the audience and their next step after the webinar.
The call to action is supreme here. Make sure it happens and is on point!
12. Take questions and give handouts.
Questions should come last and in a standard free-form Q&A flow (if it's a live webinar). Give the audience a handout (e.g., a link to the recording or demo).
Conclusion
Webinars will become increasingly important for all businesses. They will transition from people just signing up to watch video recordings later to actually participating, asking questions and interacting because the live, in-person, on-location event is no longer a reliable option. Follow these suggestions as you get your webinar schedule up and running.
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3b098fd75c5a600672ac09750f249343 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/18/how-technology-is-helping-increase-diversity-in-clinical-trials/ | How Technology Is Helping Increase Diversity In Clinical Trials | How Technology Is Helping Increase Diversity In Clinical Trials
Photo: Getty
There is still a considerable disconnect between the research and development being done in health care and the diverse populations around the globe, which the industry aims to serve. Diversity in clinical research goes far beyond a language barrier. It's about understanding the mindset of a patient within a larger context of culture, gender, ethnicity, religion and socioeconomic realities. And it's something that remains a major obstacle when it comes to clinical trials and drug development.
This is a problem for two reasons: New treatments need to be tested on diverse populations to provide an accurate indication of its efficacy, and all individuals, regardless of background, should be given the opportunity to partake in clinical trials and gain access to new drugs in development. For example, only 3% of adult patients with cancer have access to participate in clinical trials and, therefore, access to potentially life-saving drugs.
Saving Lives With Diversity
Having a diverse patient population in clinical trials is important because medicines can affect people differently. This, coupled with the fact that health systems around the world are entering the era of genomics and precision medicine, means it is crucial to test as many patients as possible. Given that the average timeline of getting a drug to market is 10 years, this is something that needs to be addressed immediately — and even then, we will only see a true impact in a decade's time.
Without adequate diversity in the clinical trial process, the outcome is undoubtedly flawed and misrepresentative. Early studies of the Alzheimer's disease biomarker APOE overstated its health impact because the clinical trials focused on white men. When you don't have the inclusion of diverse communities, you run the risk of making assumptions about drug safety and effectiveness that may not be accurate.
Participation in clinical research also opens the door to potentially life-saving treatments. Being part of a clinical trial gives someone access to a new drug or treatment that could save their life. That's something everyone of any ethnicity, background, social or economical standing could be given the opportunity to take.
Challenges To Overcome
Addressing the diversity issue is not straightforward; there is a multitude of barriers and challenges. They include everything from geographical limitations and inability to get to a site through to financial barriers, and a lack of resources for patients and clinicians to support clinical trial enrollment and retention.
There are huge disparities in what facilities are available and in what region. The prevalence of refrigeration can be an issue, for example, while some areas have difficulty achieving diversity simply because the population set doesn't lend itself to it. Additionally, communication around which trials are being conducted and are available, as well as a clear understanding of how to participate in them, is far from consistent.
Luckily, we're seeing a big drive from both researchers and regulators to address these issues.
Role Of Regulators
Although the number of countries submitting clinical trial data to the FDA has doubled over the past two decades, the proportion of white participants declined only modestly, from 92% to 86%. As a result, measures have been put in place to ensure more diversity and inclusion in the clinical trial process.
Over 25 years ago, the U.S. National Institutes of Health mandated proportional representation of patients by race and ethnic group. More recently, a law passed in 2012 required the FDA to report on the inclusion of demographic subgroups in clinical studies. Last year, the FDA issued draft guidance on how the industry could increase diversity in clinical trials through trial design, adjusting eligibility criteria and improving enrollment practices.
Technology Creating A Tipping Point For Trials
One of the main reasons participation in clinical trials has come such a long way is because of the prevalence of technology to measure and capture health-related data. According to IBM, the average person is likely to generate approximately 1 million gigabytes of health-related data in their lifetime.
While not a direct driver of this vast amount of information, the impact of wearables on the global health care industry cannot be understated. This year, approximately 460 wearables studies are underway, and 70% of clinical trials are expected to incorporate sensors by 2025. For patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, making the decision to invest in a wearable device is now often the first step in taking an active role in their health, which has clear benefits and can have an immediate impact.
This boom in wearable health tech has coincided with the rise in remote trial participation. The commonality of smartphones and tablets has made these devices legitimate and accepted sources to collect reliable clinical data remotely, without a clinic and without supervision. Many trials can now be conducted entirely on a virtual basis.
Social media is also making a difference by providing a new gateway for connecting with larger and hard-to-reach population groups about research opportunities. These platforms not only allow improved communication between researchers and patient groups but also act as virtual support networks that can help encourage others to partake in trials. This is important, as patient recruitment is one of the most challenging issues for researchers.
More recently, the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened public awareness and understanding of clinical trials and drug development, and the importance of getting involved. The world has grasped the "we're in this together" mantra, and thousands of people have signed up for antibody testing and analysis as we look to obtain long-term assurances over vaccination and prevention.
Diversity: Key To The World's Health
When it comes to our health, diversity matters, and while much is being done to ensure it has a rightful consideration at the forefront of drug development, more needs to be done. Technology is helping to drive better research and development of treatments and ensuring that historically excluded communities are given the same access to medical advancements and progress.
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b07ea9835a3a264187a84687f147298f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/19/remote-work-is-here-to-stay-heres-how-it-will-impact-devops/ | Remote Work Is Here To Stay: Here's How It Will Impact DevOps | Remote Work Is Here To Stay: Here's How It Will Impact DevOps
CEO and Founder of ShiftLeft, reimagining software security.
In the age of COVID-19, working life looks very different for millions of people around the world. While workers in some regions, like Hong Kong, have slowly started to return to offices, a majority are still working remotely to abide by stay-at-home orders. Eventually, however, companies and economies will reopen, and while many of those logistics have yet to be determined, one thing is certain — remote work is here to stay.
Many large companies, like Facebook and Amazon, have already announced that workers won't be back in offices until late 2020 (if at all), and some are talking about establishing permanent work-from-home positions and policies. Not only does this make sense financially, as companies can reduce office footprints and, therefore, costs, but many already had flexible work arrangements and infrastructures in place to enable workers to be productive and efficient at home. As this pandemic has proved, many workers have no reason to go back into an office after it's over.
But as we well know, remote work is not without its downfalls. There are many areas of the enterprise that will take on increased pressure and scrutiny as remote work becomes the norm — in particular, I believe we will see the impact on DevOps.
With more organizations and employees working remotely, it's no surprise that a higher percentage of business is being done online. This means web properties and applications are playing a more important role in digital transformation. While the proliferation of cloud is already widespread, cloud and SaaS adoption is only going to continue. Businesses need to find ways to enable their employees and customers, and the cloud is a critical part of that equation.
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As more customers engage with businesses virtually, they're going to demand more features and services. This means developers will be tasked with bringing new software to market faster, and when development cycles increase, so do the chances for security vulnerabilities to make it into production. As remote work continues, organizations will need to embrace DevSecOps tools and agile strategies that can keep up with the speed of software development.
Additionally, despite the success of remote work, many businesses — physical and digital — have been negatively impacted by the closure of economies and market downturn. Many organizations have cut budgets and reduced headcount, forcing security teams to do more with less. And as with the 2008 recession, we've seen an increase in cybercrime during the COVID-19 pandemic. New phishing and malware campaigns are taking advantage of COVID-19 news, and many of the technologies that facilitate remote work, like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, are being picked apart for security vulnerabilities.
These two factors — increased development cycles and cybercrime — will accelerate the adoption of application security.
But even with this acceleration, implementing a successful application security strategy isn't an overnight process. First, it's critical that organizations take stock of their needs and preferences, including how their development teams operate and how many applications they have. Further, which programming languages are being used, and which tools are developers already using? By taking a state-of-the-state, organizations can more effectively consider the application security solutions that are right for them.
This is particularly important when you consider that most application security programs fail to achieve their goals because they negatively impact developer productivity, reducing the velocity in which new releases get to customers. Security and productivity must coexist. To do this, application security tools must seamlessly integrate with developer workflows, automate security requirements and more — all with swift speed and accuracy. Developers simply don't have time to wait for application security results, and thanks to the significant developer-to-application security ratio (as high as 200-to-1), triaging false positives isn't a viable option, either.
Arguably, this is even more critical in the new normal of remote work. Tools that can be easily integrated into workflows and automatically generate results — while enabling team collaboration — are going to be embraced. Tools that make developers' jobs more difficult will likely be quickly disregarded.
For many well-intentioned reasons, some security organizations have been reluctant to embrace the cloud at the expense of efficiency. However, the pressures to do more with less will push many to embrace cloud-based security solutions.
For example, more tightly integrating security into developer workflows will greatly increase the frequency of security scanning. This impacts load on the physical server and pricing, as many on-premises solutions are sold on a per-server (or CPU) basis with premium charges for concurrent scanning and/or high availability pairing. SaaS application security solutions, as opposed to on-premise solutions, can also be easier to manage and can more effectively scale as organizations embrace modern software development life cycles.
As employees and customers consume more software and applications — and malicious attackers continue to target those services — application security is going to have to keep pace.
Widespread remote work is here to stay, and we'll continue to see ripple effects across the enterprise. Software and SaaS offerings are enabling employees to continue to do their jobs and keeping many organizations connected to customers and facilitating business. But this increase in software invites security issues — both in development and through malicious exploitation — and organizations need to prepare. In the weeks, months and potentially years ahead, I predict application security will be a critical factor in ensuring organizations can meet the new world of remote work head-on.
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5885abe02062e3edad7613a122862ccc | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/22/how-small-manufacturers-can-think-big-to-stay-in-the-game/?sh=552d9c37785d | How Small Manufacturers Can Think Big To Stay In The Game | How Small Manufacturers Can Think Big To Stay In The Game
CEO of Priority Software, a leading ERP solutions vendor with offices in Israel, US, UK, and Belgium and customers in over 40 countries.
Every industry is hurting from the global pandemic. But despite the many uncertainties as we venture into the unknown, this new reality will have both short- and long-term effects on the manufacturing industry, and more so on small manufacturers.
Many small businesses have gone into survival mode, while others are scrambling to revamp their operations and produce desperately needed health and hygiene products. But what's to become of smaller manufacturers as their production lines slow down, or worse, grind to a halt when shop floor employees can no longer work on-site? Beyond maintaining product production, plant managers and factory owners are now looking to secure inventory, warehouses and distribution. To achieve this, they will need far better control of their entire supply chain — from the shop floor to the customer's door.
Small manufacturers need to change their mindset and then rethink their production processes if they want to stay afloat and remain competitive. As the world struggles to become exceedingly more agile, production workflows will, in turn, have to become more flexible, with manufacturers turning their attention to digital solutions to drive their business forward.
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Digital business management solutions, such as ERP, CRM and others, can increase business productivity and efficiency, which results in decreased operational costs, resources and time-to-market. But for small manufacturers that are primed and ready to go digital, onboarding new and often complex business management systems raises some important concerns: namely, the expense, implementation time, employee learning curve and just how quickly ROI can be achieved.
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According to Thomas G. Cummings and Christopher G. Worley, the speed of implementation is faster than the speed of behavioral change. This is because small business owners can't make such large-scale budget decisions on the fly and because a company's philosophy and vision can't change overnight. What small manufacturers can do to save their business is to embark on their digital transformation journey from the top, down. Any new IT system implementation has to start with the CEO and the management team: Realize their pain points, understand the technologies they need to invest in and ensure that their workforce can adapt to change.
The digital transformation process is much like building that proverbial bridge, as it, too, demands a strategic plan and a strong foundation. Today, small manufacturers need to consider the risk of losing their ability to compete and weigh it against the cost and time involved in onboarding a manufacturing management solution.
The market is flooded with manufacturing ERP software products, many of which promise to make the production process, stronger, better and faster. If traditional ERP seems cumbersome, complex and costly, an agile and flexible ERP solution designed to support small and growing manufacturers can be a refreshing alternative.
Stepping Up To The Plate
At the very start of the pandemic, we witnessed a surge in panic buying; suppliers just couldn't keep up with consumer demands. If ERP vendors have learned anything these past months, it's that their small manufacturing customers need to be as focused on their supplier's capabilities as they are on their shop floor. ERP can help by going the extra mile for small manufacturers, enabling them to mitigate supply chain risks, regain control of their business and grow.
ERP systems help manufacturers address one of their biggest challenges — flexibility across the supply chain. They manage and control the supply chain on two distinct levels: the actual supply chain where the products are, and the digital supply chain that holds all the business data. ERP synchronizes both supply chain levels, seamlessly integrating its workflows with all manufacturing, distribution and procurement processes.
But for small manufacturers to reap the full benefits of ERP, and ultimately transition to becoming more agile, supply chains need to be powered by software that's more than just a vehicle for information storage and retrieval. Today's ERP systems, for example, give manufacturers a holistic view of their production facility and real-time alerts at every stage in the production process, enabling them to better understand and, in turn, better prepare for unprecedented supply chain nightmares, the likes of which they're experiencing now.
Vendors are now reaching out to support small manufacturers in their time of need, by freely providing remote collaboration tools and cloud-based ERP solutions. They're also meeting the increased demand for mobile ERP applications to enable full access to core business processes in the field for onsite technicians, sales reps, warehouse management and distribution.
The mounting pressure for manufacturers to grow, transform and adapt their business processes is, and will continue to be, front-page news. Industry analysts predict that post-pandemic ERP will increase manufacturers' spend, with a focus on supporting the supply chain, stock availability, inventory control and supply chain management. There are positive signs and increased IT and, in particular, ERP spending with an upsurge in cloud and mobile solutions to support remote working. What's the big message for small manufacturers? Get on board — and get on board, now.
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20e6ad735cd8cbda3cda80b00a4ed793 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/23/how-to-hire-the-best-tech-people-whove-been-laid-off/ | How To Hire The Best Tech People Who've Been Laid Off | How To Hire The Best Tech People Who've Been Laid Off
Co-Founder and President of OptinMonster. Expert software architect with a deep knowledge of building products for the mass market.
With so many people getting laid off during the pandemic, it's hard to imagine that there are sectors of the economy that are still hiring. Many tech companies are still hiring, however, as much of the world is relying on technology to keep them connected. Employment review and job site Glassdoor found that tech job postings even rose in the last half of April, showing that some tech industry segments are still growing.
Tech companies in e-commerce, remote work software, cloud computing, telehealth and other online services are continuing to see an increase in job postings as they try to meet the needs of a more mobile workforce. Companies are starting to rethink how they can operate outside of the latest restrictions, so the need for software skills is likely to extend beyond the tech sector in the future.
With more candidates available right now, how can your tech company ensure you're hiring the best ones?
Do More Prescreening Up Front
Tech companies are used to hiring people remotely, but with more people available right now, you may be getting more applications to each posting. You'll need help managing and assessing those candidates more quickly.
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Applicant tracking systems (ATS) like BambooHR or SmartRecruiters can help you track candidates, handle video interviews, and even get your entire team involved in the hiring process. Ensure that candidates truly want the job by asking more specific questions about how they can handle the various aspects of the role. For example, ask about their home office setup to ensure they can work extended periods there comfortably.
Get Creative About Culture-Fit Assessments
Phone interviews aren't new, but video interviews are. And getting a read on a candidate might be harder to do if you're not used to handling interviews this way (such as in the second- or third-level interviews, which are traditionally done in-person).
Culture fit is still vital to determine even when people are working remotely. Ask more open-ended questions during interviews to get a better sense of the candidate. Questions like, "Tell me about a typical workday for you at home," or, "Tell me about your day today" can reveal a lot about a candidate. You'll find out if they're flexible and adaptable, if they're able to be self-directed and can work without a lot of direction, and more.
Some companies are relying more on references than they might have in the past. Previously, they might've reached out merely to ask if the candidate had worked there before and how long they were in the role. Now, they're asking more pointed questions about how candidates deal with specific job situations, how well they worked with other team members and more. Again, open-ended questions will help you get to the heart of whether the candidate is a good fit for your team.
Rethink Your Company Perks
Tech companies are famous for all the fun perks they offer, like free lunches and company game rooms, but the new-hire pitch today needs a serious revision. Aside from the fact that many of them don't translate to a remote workforce, candidates themselves are looking for different things from their employers.
Culture, social responsibility and work/life balance are more important than ever today, but especially for remote workers. Tech companies have to get creative to differentiate themselves from the competition and demonstrate what it's like to be on the team without stepping into an office.
For example, you could:
• Create a virtual office space in videoconference calls by offering everyone a picture of different areas of their physical offices that they can use as their background.
• Send lunch to a candidate's home to invite them to a "lunch meeting" where you can informally talk about the position and the company.
• Offer employees memberships to a corporate perks program, like Abenity or Perkopolis, so they can take advantage of discounts and other perks wherever they are.
• Give candidates a taste of what life is like in the office with a "life at our company" video (if you've filmed one already).
• Send candidates on a virtual tour of the office by filming someone (safely) walking through the offices right now.
Streamline The Hiring Process
Finally, to ensure you're hiring the best tech candidates out there, you'll want to streamline your hiring process. With so many companies looking to hire and all the available candidates, people may have more choice in employers than they previously did. You'll need to move people through your process quickly enough to assess them adequately for your needs and efficiently enough that you beat your competitors to the offer.
Use HR software to move candidates through the workflow, notify internal employees who need to get involved and aggregate the information in one spot for everyone. Candidates will appreciate the speed and thoroughness of the process, and it may help you snag top-quality tech people faster.
As much of the sector shrinks, some technology companies are looking to fill hundreds of positions. Everything from customer support and success through developer and quality assurance roles and company administration (like HR.) On the other side of the equation, there are many more unemployed tech people to choose from, so companies have to be more efficient, thorough and thoughtful in their hiring process.
By paying closer attention to how and who they hire, tech companies will rebound nicely from this downturn, and ensure their success long after this pandemic passes. They'll create companies people will want to work for today and in the future.
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351d6852e261effa2e0545ad61cacddf | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/23/how-to-maintain-work-life-balance-when-working-from-home/?sh=d4879ec76e89 | How To Maintain Work-Life Balance When Working From Home | How To Maintain Work-Life Balance When Working From Home
CEO and CTO at Lokalise, the translation management system.
For my company, just like for millions of others, the requirement to switch to working fully remotely was swift and unexpected.
This sudden change left my company's management board concerned not only about ensuring effective workflow but also about maintaining employee productivity. However, a few weeks into the new circumstances, we realized that the problem was the exact opposite.
Instead of struggling to find the motivation to work from home and stay productive, employees were actually having a hard time preserving healthy boundaries between professional and personal lives.
In fact, many of the team members continued to work after the official work hours had ended, sometimes sending emails as late as 10 p.m. This had an unintentional snowball effect on other employees who felt compelled to respond right away, even when the emails were not urgent.
Do longer hours mean higher productivity?
I asked my more than 50-person team where they felt more productive: in the office or at home. The results showed that more than half 58.3% felt more productive working from home, while 41.7% said they are better off when working from the office.
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If you think about it, the results are kind of logical. If at home you dedicate more hours to your work tasks, you may get more done and that can give you the sense of being more productive. The problem, however, is that in the long term, long working hours aren't the road to higher productivity. Study after study has shown that regular after-hours work eventually leads to job burnout and decreased productivity.
The last thing we want is for people to come back to the office burnt out and tired when the lockdown is over. So, we started to encourage our colleagues to set boundaries and take care of their well-being.
Here are four ways to unplug from work when working from home:
1. Have separate areas for work and play.
It is recommended to have a dedicated workspace to help you stay focused when working remotely, but this is as important for switching off when the workday is over. Having separate areas for work and play also makes it easier to mentally move from work mode to home mode.
If you live in a one-room apartment, you can still create dedicated areas for different activities. More important than having walls that separate each area is what functions you assign them in your mind.
2. Don't use your work computer in your free time.
Just like having different locations for work and private life, it's important to separate your work tools from your play tools. The most obvious example is your laptop.
Some people have two laptops instead of one: one for getting your work done, the other one for leisure that doesn't have any access to business correspondence and work tools.
3. Go for a walk after the workday is over.
Unless you live in an area where you're not allowed to go outside during the lockdown, go out for a walk or for a bike ride as soon as the workday is over. This will help you mentally switch to "home mode" by getting you focused on a different activity, thereby relaxing your mind.
If you cannot go out, do some exercises or stretches at home. Not only will physical activity help you divert your mind from work, but it will help you stay in shape and help you relax.
4. Plan your after-work time.
When everyone is locked in and there isn't much life outside your home, it's difficult to break yourself away from work. You have to leave your desk at a specific time to bring your kid home from kindergarten, meet a friend for a drink or catch a class in the gym.
In order to not get stuck at work for longer than needed, it is now more important than ever to plan your after-work activities. These can be activities like having an after-work run, preparing dinner or scheduling a call with a friend at 5 p.m. sharp. By making plans after your office hours, you'll have a specific reason to "leave" work on time.
Bring these work-from-home habits back to the office.
It's clear that the COVID-19 crisis will redefine what "normal" means in the context of work. And even though we're not planning to go fully remote when the lockdown is over, there are several things that the team plans to bring back to the office.
For one, we'll be rethinking our meeting policies and everyday communication with teammates. Remote work has taught us not to disturb teammates with every question we have because they're not sitting in front of us.
Reports have shown that it takes as much as 23 minutes to get back into the workflow after such distractions, which shows how big of a productivity killer such small questions can be.
The same goes for meetings. Remote work can help a team start thinking about which meetings could be turned into emails so that the actual meetings can be used for more complex issues.
Note taken, and we cannot wait to try these revelations in our office life.
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db0e47de67de691054a77c37b27b6973 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/06/30/securing-the-future-of-telemedicine/?sh=1dabbda71d71 | Securing The Future Of Telemedicine | Securing The Future Of Telemedicine
Andrew Peterson is the CEO and Co-Founder of Signal Sciences.
As the Covid-19 outbreak sparked a widespread shift from in-person medicine to telemedicine, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) eased some HIPAA security rules to facilitate the transition. Even as businesses begin opening back up, we're likely to see this trend continue. Having experienced telemedicine for the first time, many people have come to appreciate the convenience of the remote care experience. The ability to limit exposure in clinical settings will also remain compelling as the reopening progresses. With telemedicine here to stay, it's important for health care organizations to consider its implications for security as an ongoing part of their operations — not just during a possible resurgence of the pandemic or other emergency situation, but during ordinary times as well.
While companies no longer face the same compliance requirements or penalties as they did before the pandemic, this doesn't mean they can lower their vigilance about ensuring patient privacy and safeguarding their electronic protected health information (ePHI), personally identifiable information (PII) and financial data. Regulations notwithstanding, data breaches will still lead to victimized individuals, lost trust and pain for both the organization and its customers. Avoiding such incidents and maintaining trust will be critical to continue the benefits of telemedicine for providers and patients alike. As patients use new technology platforms for telemedicine for the first time, the impression they gain of their security will have a lasting impact.
So, how can health care organizations ensure security and confidentiality while supporting increased telemedicine?
Covid-19 Is Reshaping Health Care — And Security
Under social distancing, many health care organizations have been unable to offer in-person care for anything but the most urgent or serious conditions, while patients can be reluctant to risk visiting a facility even if it is open. Together, these factors have driven a rapid expansion of telemedicine. Tools to deliver care remotely have long been available, but this type of practice represents new territory — and a steep learning curve — for many providers. Meanwhile, technology companies, including startups, have been rushing to provide telemedicine portals.
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During this exceptional time, a focus on patient health and physical safety has led health care organizations to use less secure workarounds than they would ordinarily consider — a shift in priorities mirrored by many telemedicine portal providers and communication tools. Still, we shouldn't allow the urgency of the situation to bring lax security and privacy.
The latest HHS policy reassures health care organizations that they won't face punishment for compliance lapses resulting from well-intentioned efforts to provide care using non-public-facing remote communication services like FaceTime, WhatsApp and the free consumer versions of apps like Skype and Zoom. In the event of a data breach, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will now "exercise its enforcement discretion and will not pursue otherwise applicable penalties for breaches that result from the good faith provision of telehealth services during the Covid-19 nationwide public health emergency." It would be easy to mistake this as a de-emphasis on security. On the contrary — this policy, an act of good leadership and flexibility in the face of a crisis, reflects a recognition that compliance doesn't necessarily equal security.
In reality, it's entirely possible that tools that have not yet met HIPAA compliance are actually quite safe. As the HHS notes in its guidelines, many existing products already include security features to protect ePHI in transmission, and many vendors provide assurances they will protect ePHI by signing a HIPAA business associate agreement (BAA). Still, the onus is on health care providers to make the right choices.
Remaining Vigilant In The Face Of Ongoing Threats
Health care organizations can't afford to let eased regulatory enforcement lead to a casual attitude about security. According to the FBI, cybercrime complaints have risen more than threefold since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and cybersecurity companies have reported huge increases in hacking. Health care organizations have been at the forefront of these attacks, including the World Health Organization, hospitals and other health care groups, and even the HHS itself.
This increased threat is understandable. Hackers see a clear opportunity as the health crisis diverts attention from security while increasing electronic activity through telemedicine portals and other channels. Distracted or confused consumers will be more vulnerable to exploits such as phishing — for example, emails from cybercriminals posing as their health care provider inviting them to sign up for a bogus portal using their personal information. Hackers might also target newly introduced, less secure portals with web application attacks.
For health care organizations, the danger is clear: If you don't have visibility into attacks against your portals, you're unlikely to detect incidents such as a remote code execution attack leading to a breach of ePHI. Even without regulatory penalties, victimized patients would lose faith in your ability to protect their data — and you'd end up in the inevitable news reports about how the rise of telemedicine has led to damaging data breaches.
To prevent this scenario, it's important for telemedicine portals and communications tools to demonstrate that they are making earnest efforts to secure their customer portals and data, specifically ePHI, through safeguards such as incident reporting, alerting and monitoring of security events, vulnerability management, enforcing strong levels of encryption, and strengthening their security stack with a next-generation web application firewall (WAF) or runtime application self protection (RASP). On an organizational level, health care providers should also take steps such as employee training on security best practices and the implementation of two-factor authentication, strong passwords and full-disk encryption for laptops.
Regardless of temporary changes in regulatory policy, security remains as critical during a crisis as it would be at any other time. While health care organizations have been given the latitude to use non-HIPAA compliant platforms for the time being, you can still check these solutions for compliance with other certifications to demonstrate that they're treating data with security and care. Regardless of the actual compliance rules in place at a given time, proper security is critically important to safeguard patient ePHI — and to protect both patients and health care organizations from risk.
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e5f65a0fa983c3545cd0c53f9b7856ad | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/02/comparing-proposals-dont-fall-victim-to-empty-promises/?sh=ae4501f71303 | Comparing Proposals: Don't Fall Victim To Empty Promises | Comparing Proposals: Don't Fall Victim To Empty Promises
Co-founder & CEO of STRV. Forbes 30under30. Startup-minded entrepreneur passionate about cutting-edge technology and adventurous lifestyle.
If you're planning a new app, web or digital solution and are requesting proposals from multiple potential partners, get ready. You're about to be hit with a number of empty promises verging on scams, coming at you in a whirlwind of buzzwords.
As CEO of a software design and engineering company, I've seen many clients struggle with evaluating proposals. It can feel overwhelming, but it doesn't need to be. You just have to know what to arm yourself against and what to look for. And that goes way beyond an appealing cost and time estimate.
The first thing to know is that a company establishes its pricing policy based on reputation, internal expenses and desired business goals. Learn how to analyze what makes these factors fair and you've got a clear path to picking the right partner — one that you feel confident will deliver the desired results.
The Devil Is In The Details
If a company's main objective is to close a deal fast, you'll see gaps in the proposal. Did they take the time to understand what you want to build?
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At STRV, we break down every single feature and component of what needs to be developed. This tells a client how we plan to build their product, and how much time we expect to spend on specific activities. If this info isn't included in a proposal, it's either a moonshot or you're just being given a rough ballpark number that someone will have to tackle when building a roadmap. Always insist on having a full breakdown and product specification included in a proposed quote — especially if you are budget-conscious and don't know exactly what team you need.
A good proposal won't be ready overnight. My team takes about a week. We consider all information a client has provided, plan for efficiency and have the numbers validated by relevant experts, from product architects to designers and engineers. Our goal is to present an estimate we can commit to (+/- 10%) unless there are some major changes down the line.
A Reputation Stands On Effort
I've been asked many times if STRV could build a mobile app for, say, $50,000. Sure, we could. But do we want to? No. Because that price doesn't allow for the time and resources to build something that we would be proud of, something we'd love to showcase and will bring us business later down the road. Estimates should be on par with the level of effort that meets a company's standards.
The better the company, the more effort is applied to every project. Why? Because it's a long fall from the top. An established company has a lot riding on every delivered product. It needs to protect its good name and attract clients who look for more polished, robust solutions. Plus, with a team of top professionals, every product is someone's personal calling card. You can bet they want to show off what they can do.
Do They Actually 'Get' You?
You're paying for what a company believes you need. When preparing estimates, companies rely on professional assumptions. But jumping to brash conclusions that disregard your ambitions is unacceptable.
As you review a proposal, ask yourself: What's the endgame? What's the composition of the team? What are the expected hours per individual and per platform? All of these must be reasonably justified. Go over which company may be leaving out information. Notice time estimate discrepancies. If a few estimates stand out, maybe one company understands you a little more. Or it's the opposite and you can start eliminating.
Look For Confidence Backed By Results
This is where references come into play. Read the case studies. Contact past clients. Confirm that the positive reviews are based on meaningful partnerships. What's the level of communication? Will you have access to the whole team, or will it be more like a black box that spits out something once a week?
You'll notice that companies with solid reputations provide the most comprehensive proposals. A lack of experience is revealed straight away, often in big statements that lack clarity and depth. Meaning, you get an extra set of hands at a low price, but you may be left to your own devices or a malfunctioning product that may not even make it to launch.
If It's Too Easy, Think Twice
Oftentimes, clients say that they need something to be done within, say, two months. If a company is hungry enough, it'll claim it's possible — even if it has a negative impact on the product. That's a huge warning sign. I'd rather lose business than promise something unrealistic or that can only be done by jeopardizing the outcome's quality.
I'd also warn against fixed prices. They often result in poor quality, leaving you with a product that isn't able to respond to new ideas and circumstances. Most companies go by an hourly rate because it allows them to tailor their offer to your exact needs. Building digital products is a very agile undertaking, and flexibility is an irreplaceable tool.
Look Past The Brand, At The People
While you're still feeling a company out, meet and ask about the team. How do they identify top talent? Do they contribute to their community via open source, conferences, workshops? Check out their published material. And make sure you actually like them. Listen to your gut.
The quality of talent that companies like ours have is one of the greatest benefits of working with external teams. Because if designing and building software is not your core business, it's extremely hard to create an environment that supports the level of growth and learning that these experts require to stay ahead of the game.
What it comes down to is always compare references. Understand what you may be sacrificing if you choose something cheaper and/or faster. Check specifications to make sure your potential partner's plans parallel your own. Really get to know the people you'll be working with. And always, always think long term. Because the end goal is to have a product that sticks around.
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5200aee2a8439ad1ef83e9661ac946c6 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/03/its-time-to-break-the-final-barrier-to-digital-transformation/ | It's Time To Break The Final Barrier To Digital Transformation | It's Time To Break The Final Barrier To Digital Transformation
CEO of Tricentis, manages all business-related functions and operations to achieve business profit and sales objectives.
Covid-19 thrust us into a new world where digital business is now often the only business. In response, longstanding digital transformation barriers — from regulatory compliance to internal resistance — were dismantled, and digital transformation is now more accessible than at any time in history. There's a tremendous opportunity to take this momentum and run with it, as long as one of the most common threats to rapid innovation isn't still holding your organization back.
Breaking Through Barriers
As CEO of a testing and automation platform, I'm keenly aware that the great impact on digital transformation is an unexpected byproduct of the pandemic. Often, crisis-related projects create a boot camp-like scenario that pushes enterprise organizations to their limits, revealing their agility to deliver software much faster than ever expected. Decades-old systems with all sorts of complex interdependencies and brittle code nobody understood couldn't be updated fast enough until there was no other option than to update immediately.
Many organizations and agencies have risen to the challenge. From manufacturers shifting to the development and distribution of entirely new product lines to longstanding brick-and-mortar retailers making an unexpected leap into e-commerce, teams have proven fast innovation is certainly possible at the enterprise level.
In some industries, the most menacing digital transformation barriers have long been a complex web of governmental regulations. For example, across Asia, purchasing insurance policies has long required face-to-face meetings. With Covid-19, those restrictions were lifted to make core services accessible without physical interaction, enabling organizations to launch a much-anticipated digital transformation.
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The sudden pivot to remote work also removed any lingering doubts about the value — and necessity — of migrating applications and workloads to the cloud.
In a mid-March 2020 survey of CIOs, 68% reported that moving to the cloud would become a higher priority. Though IT leaders used to consider cloud a major risk, they now recognize cloud's benefit toward flexibility, scalability and speed to market, all of which are essential for digital transformation.
Digital Transformation: Full Speed Ahead?
With these barriers removed, it should be much simpler to move forward with starting or advancing your digital transformation. Take this new freedom and run with it — right?
The fact that many enterprise organizations managed to release successful Covid-19 response applications extremely fast shows "quality at speed" is feasible. The same could be said about the achievements of leading enterprises that modernized their entire application delivery process in order to release innovations faster than their competitors. However, the constant stream of software failures hitting the daily news feeds shows it's certainly not easy.
One formidable barrier remains: software testing.
If you're currently balancing software testing between expedited development and release processes, you're forced to choose between two bad options: Release fast with inadequate testing or lose your time-to-market advantage. In fact, software testing is routinely cited as the top enemy of application delivery speed. Most recently, the GitLab Global Developer Report found developers cite testing as one of the biggest sources of delays — more than actually implementing the code or planning what to develop.
Making matters worse, testing is incredibly expensive. The latest World Quality Report found 23% of an organization's application development budget is spent on testing. Why is most testing so slow and costly? Largely, because it lacks its own digital transformation. The World Quality Report has found the vast majority of testing is still performed manually. As former Merck CIO Clark Golestani so memorably put it, "I have more automation in my coffee maker than most enterprises have in their testing processes. This is not only expensive; it also holds back innovation."
Fixing Software Testing: Three Takeaways For IT Leaders
I'd like to close by sharing how IT leaders can stop software testing from endangering this unprecedented opportunity to advance your digital transformation:
1. Stop manual testing.
You simply can't release quality applications quickly unless most of your testing is automated. Manual testing can't keep pace with the highly accelerated release cycles required for digital transformation. Testers should focus on designing effective tests and performing the "exploratory" testing that truly requires human creativity. Automate the rest.
As a first step, find out how much time and money your organization is spending on manual testing (often via outsourcing), then build an attack plan from there.
2. Align testing with business risk.
There's no point in spending time and money to design, implement, run, review and maintain tests that don't matter. Yet, my organization analyzed the tests at most enterprises, and we found you could eliminate 67% of tests without increasing your risk exposure at all.
To streamline testing, ensure that the business priorities are driving testing; the focus should be on covering your top business risks as efficiently as possible, not creating a certain number of test cases. Also, support the adoption of "change impact analysis" technologies that pinpoint exactly what tests are needed for due diligence on each release.
3. Provide executive support for testing transformation.
Change is hard. Manual testing practices have probably been entrenched in the organization for years, and they can't be replaced overnight. Getting the results you need in terms of speed and agility requires more than equipping the organization with new technologies. You also need to foster a new mindset, establish new processes and allocate the resources required to lead that transition.
There will inevitably be bumps along the road — but the best way to keep the initiative moving forward is to ensure it has strong executive support from start to finish. Communicate why it's critical for top-level goals, begin with a clear roadmap for the path forward and ensure progress to key milestones is measured — and recognized.
Bottom Line
The current crisis will subside, but the need to rapidly respond to uncertainty and unexpected changes will not. Take this opportunity to advance your digital transformation and run with it, but don't forget about transforming testing. Modernized testing can act as a catalyst for your transformation — enabling you to release innovations faster, and at a lower cost.
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028ed434ca044e9a935c321836160e0a | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/06/is-grocery-e-commerce-here-to-stay/ | Is Grocery E-Commerce Here To Stay? | Is Grocery E-Commerce Here To Stay?
CEO & Founder, Boomerang Commerce and CommerceIQ, powering intelligent commerce
Anyone involved in e-commerce knows that Covid-19, with the resulting stay-at-home orders, has created huge spikes in e-commerce sales. Some categories that have seen particularly large growth include health and beauty, household items such as toilet paper, and groceries. Just this month, Instacart raised a $225 million financing round, increasing its valuation from $8 billion to nearly $14 billion. And DoorDash is now valued at $15 billion (paywall).
In this post, I'm going to focus on the upswing in grocery e-commerce sales. It's particularly interesting to me, not just because of the massive growth, but because of its history. I think that there's a lesson to be learned in how particular circumstances can change what was once a failure into an opportunity.
A Bumpy Start
Online grocery shopping made its first appearance in the late '90s and early 2000s, with a rather bumpy start as part of the dot-com era. Two of the best-known grocery delivery service bankruptcies were Webvan and Kozmo.com. Webvan promised to make grocery deliveries within a 30-minute window that customers could select. Kozmo promised free one-hour delivery of all sorts of impulse purchases, such as DVDs, video games, coffee and food.
Both companies received massive amounts of venture capital and both companies failed spectacularly. Today, we read about these textbook failures in MBA programs, where they're treated as prime examples of what went wrong during the dot-com bubble. Since then, grocery has been seen as one of the toughest e-commerce areas to crack in terms of adoption. Both investors and grocery companies have been reluctant to consider delivery services as viable opportunities. But times change. Even the founder of Webvan is taking another swing at online grocery.
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2020: A Defining Event
Nearly 20 years later, Covid-19 has been a defining event for e-commerce — it has accelerated the e-commerce adoption curve. Consumer behavior has changed for all categories, including the toughest of all segments to penetrate — grocery. Recent data I've seen from brands that use my company's commerce intelligence services, tells me we are seeing huge demand spikes in the purchase of grocery items leading to corresponding out of stock (OOS) levels.
Two examples are dairy and cheese. In May, we saw week-over-week demand for dairy up by 1,200% and OOS up by 31%. For cheese, the demand was up by 500% and OOS up by 56%.
While I don't expect online grocery sales to be as strong post-pandemic as they are now, I do expect a high level of "stickiness." Today, the world of e-commerce in general, and for groceries in particular, is radically different than it was in the 2000s. Back then, home delivery was really only something for early adopters who enjoyed the novelty of shopping online. Today, because of the pandemic, shopping online for groceries has become commonplace. It's a habit many people have developed, whether they use home delivery, curbside delivery or buy online and pick up at the store.
To give you just a few numbers that speak to this trend, according to a Supermarket News article, Coresight Research has found that online grocery sales could grow considerably this year. Their research showed that, for 2019, U.S. online grocery sales grew 22%. This year, spurred by the pandemic, it stands to grow by 40%. Their projection for this year is that 62.5% of the people they polled expected to buy online. This is 10.5% greater than what was originally projected.
The Need For Machine Learning And Automation
I can't overemphasize the importance of machine learning and automation for brands that want to succeed in the algorithmic world of e-commerce. With millions of "digital shelves" being created every second, one of the only ways to remain competitive is to use machine learning to generate insights and recommendations and to automate thousands of actions in near real time to win at the moment of purchase and drive profitable market share growth.
Challenges To Adopting Machine Learning And Automation
I believe the main challenge of adopting an algorithmic approach to selling groceries online is the same as it is for any other type of e-commerce. It's inexperience and what I've mentioned in previous articles — fear of automation.
The algorithmic approach is new to many brands who are used to the world of brick-and-mortar, where shelf space is won by personal relationships between the brand and the retailer. Automation can feel very abstract and removed.
There is also the age-old fear that automation will take the place of human beings. As I've said before, automation relieves teams of repetitive tasks and actions that need to take place in CPU rather than human time. An example is the ability to dynamically generate ads to capture impulse purchases. That's a job best done through automation and machine learning. Strategic planning and setting goals are jobs for humans (and they'll do those jobs better with the timely data and analyses that an algorithmic approach provides).
Tips for Success
I have a few suggestions for brands that are entering this new world. Ask yourself:
• Is the solution both deep and wide? Does it give you a holistic view of your business rather than focusing on just one aspect, such as content or inventory?
• Are the services offered integrated? Are all the variables that affect the point of sale accounted for? For example, an ad campaign needs to be tied to the supply chain. You don't want to promote an item that's out of stock or that has low inventory.
• Do you trust the people? Are they accessible? Do they have the expertise to help you know how to best use all the new data and analyses that will be coming your way?
Bottom Line
Businesses wishing to succeed in grocery e-commerce stand a better chance of remaining competitive if they leverage key technologies, such as machine learning and automation.
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229482dfb714cadd7c5997f9e08816e8 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/07/how-the-past-is-coming-back-to-haunt-your-digital-transformation-initiative/?sh=7ebdc0095dfb | How The Past Is Coming Back To Haunt Your Digital Transformation Initiative | How The Past Is Coming Back To Haunt Your Digital Transformation Initiative
Chief Product Officer at IFS with a passion for developing and adapting technology that adds differentiating value for businesses
The past coming back to haunt us is a common theme in literature. Tales of fiction can explain a fundamental truth about business technology: What we did in the past has the power to determine our present and future. As is the case in gothic tales like Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," when we try to bury the past instead of going back to make it right, it resurfaces when it is least convenient.
As businesses around the globe seek to transform and embrace disruptive technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT) and augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR), the past shortcuts and half measures of the business technology industry will reveal themselves. It is time for the software industry to make these things right and clear the path for their customers' digital business transformation.
The ERP Graveyard
In business software and technology, the past 20 years have been characterized by extensive merger and acquisition activity. Industry insider Ned Lily even kept an ERP Graveyard scorecard to track who had acquired various enterprise resource planning (ERP) companies.
Over many of those years, I was with Microsoft, having come to the company through their acquisition of Navision in 2002. At Microsoft, I was intimately involved in rationalizing software acquisitions, including Solomon, Damgaard/Axapta, Great Plains and various customer relationship management (CRM) products.
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But the same thing has been happening at other enterprise software vendors, including Oracle, with their acquisition of PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards and, more recently, NetSuite, Taleo and Hyperion. Even SAP has collected its share of acquired products, including SuccessFactors for human capital management (HCM), Hybris for web channel experience, Ariba for procurement, Concur for expense management and TopManage, which would later become SAP Business One.
My company, IFS, has also been acquiring other software companies. Our recent acquisitions include field service management vendor Astea, aviation maintenance company Mxi, field service management provider Metrix, and AI customer experience vendor MPL Systems. Additionally, software-as-a-service (SaaS) ERP vendor Acumatica has become IFS's sister company under our parent, EQT's, banner.
You can argue that one software company's acquisitions are better rationalized or more strategic than another's. But if our industry wants to facilitate customers' digital transformation journey, it must make the investments necessary to make it right — and provide a pure-play, consistent architecture despite past acquisitions.
The Past Is Not Forgotten
While these acquisitions fade into distant memories, the software products that came in the acquisitions refuse to be forgotten so easily. Companies intent on digital transformation will find that their software is like Frankenstein's monster: A sum of cobbled-together spare parts that will be unearthed as they try to evolve their organizations toward digital transformation.
Why is this so problematic? While technologies like AI, IoT and AR/VR are currently featured in certain parts of software suites, true disruption will require that they permeate the enterprise. In the current paradigm, this would need to cut across several different product architectures and data structures. Software providers would have to make significant investments in not one, but many technology stacks and functional sets or risk orphaning these products and the customers running them.
Companies that thought they had a unified application suite will find they are, in fact, running multiple software products behind a common interface — an unpleasant surprise for the technologists charged with achieving their company's digital transformation goals.
Making It Right
Some software companies have made attempts to unify their various products with mixed results. Most notably, in 2005, Oracle announced its planned 2007 launch of Fusion, a unified product suite that would combine its acquired ERP products on a single platform. What they eventually developed was a middleware offering and some net-new applications, which should indicate exactly how hard a task the enterprise software industry has before them.
Other software companies, including SAP and Infor Global Solutions, have obscured their fragmented product portfolio behind a single interface. But the underlying technology and data structures are all different, which again will come back to haunt companies that rely on these products as they try to significantly evolve their business.
I am convinced that in 2020 and beyond, companies will look increasingly to their software providers to truly give them that consistent technology environment and eliminate the deadwood of years of acquisitions. Not only can this improve the user experience, but also it can deliver the structural predictability bots, AI cognitive services and the other automation technologies needed to evolve the business on a foundational level.
Companies intent on digital transformation will either receive the support they need from their software partner or will find themselves following their software vendors into the ERP graveyard.
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b0015fd17de6e1310f5aafacde440706 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/09/how-to-take-your-business-online-during-the-pandemic-and-beyond/ | How To Take Your Business Online During The Pandemic And Beyond | How To Take Your Business Online During The Pandemic And Beyond
Founder of Ucraft, an intuitive website-building platform and e-commerce solution for business owners and entrepreneurs.
During the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a huge increase in e-commerce. Most business owners know this virus is the tipping point that will ultimately drive digital transformation. Put simply, most businesses will not survive in this economy if they’re not digital.
Just as this pandemic has infiltrated nearly every part of the developed world, digital transformation must happen globally, too. Even in post-Soviet states like Armenia, where conservative culture has been slow and reluctant to adapt digital technologies, we’re seeing a spike in e-commerce.
In countries hit hardest by Covid-19, like the U.S., where 90% of the population was under stay-at-home orders during the first wave of infections and a second wave is looming, every small business must rely on e-commerce for take-out and deliveries. As evidence, American and Canadian e-commerce orders experienced 129% year-over-year growth as of late April and 146% growth in online retail orders.
Even before the pandemic, a growing gig economy drove an increase in entrepreneurs, freelancers and independent designers over the past decade. Now, with unemployment at an all-time high since the Great Depression and nearly 40 million jobs lost in the U.S. alone, the number of freelancers and solo entrepreneurs is bound to increase.
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For those who are taking their businesses online for the first time, as well as those who are starting entirely new businesses during the age of social distancing, the process of creating a website and generating your first online sales can seem overwhelming – but it doesn’t have to be. Here are some guiding principles to help you get started.
Leave design to the experts.
38% of consumers will stop engaging with a website if the layout is unattractive.
While many business owners feel overwhelmed by the thought of designing their first website, others have strong opinions about how their website should look and feel. The problem is that even the most savvy entrepreneurs might not know to reach the best results for their needs by using web elements and typography.
Using a template is a great way to customize your website while adhering to good design. If you own a restaurant, for example, selecting a restaurant-specific template can help you get your website off the ground with all of the bare essentials and little risk of content overload. More often than not, less is more. The more complex your website is, the longer it will take to load, which is a deal-breaker for 39% of visitors.
New AI technology may offer an even better solution than templates. Since templates are customizable, it’s still possible to start with a good design and end up with something much less effective. Using an AI bot to guide each design decision based on proven principles that will appeal to the most users offers a more precise, hands-off alternative.
Optimize for mobile.
A recent study of over 3,400 consumers revealed that people are 30% more likely to make purchases online in 2020 than they were in 2019. Using a mobile device is becoming the preferred shopping method; 72% of consumers use mobile devices to help them shop in-store during the age of social distancing.
Mobile shopping has become so dominant that websites should be designed to optimize the mobile experience over desktop. Think about the most important features of your website and how they will appear to shoppers on their devices. Minimize or eliminate video and Flash multimedia that smartphones can’t load.
Make sure you have support.
When selecting a website building service, make sure you have access to adequate customer support. You should be offered a thorough onboarding process that guides you through the steps of building a website and educates you on basic search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, as well as how to generate traffic through different social media platforms.
Select a service offering 24/7 multi-channel support, if possible. When most or all of your business is shifting online, your website’s around-the-clock functionality is crucial. When issues arise, you should be able to access your service’s technical support within minutes – not hours or days.
Write human content.
Selecting the right SEO keywords is invaluable. However, it’s important to write your website’s content for users first and then optimize it for search engines. While a solid SEO strategy can attract people to your website, it won’t generate sales unless your content resonates with people on an emotional level.
If your web content reads like it was written by robots for robots, it may do your business more harm than good. On the other hand, writing engaging human content – via blogging, for example – can be an excellent way to convert your website’s visitors to customers.
It’s a good idea to select a web template with a blog. According to data from HubSpot, even before the pandemic, businesses that blogged regularly had 55% more visitors, 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages. During this time of social isolation, frequently and regularly communicating with your customers about business and product updates is more valuable than ever before.
Devise a complimentary social media strategy.
Social media is a great way to engage with your customers and build your brand, but very rarely is it enough to drive sales. If you’re a small business in a small country, you might be able to get away with selling primarily on social media. But if you have or are trying to establish a serious business, you’re going to need a website.
A professional website not only instills trust in consumers; it gives you access to real data that allows you to A/B test different sales and promotional strategies to see what’s working. By prioritizing your website first, you can then truly gauge the effectiveness of social media campaigns. Remember that a website is your business’s bread and butter, while social media is the icing on the cake.
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00fcc926bf401dde53afd6317d089c84 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/09/the-next-normal-seven-trends-redefining-business-priorities-in-a-post-crisis-world/?sh=76bffaeb63df | The Next Normal: Seven Trends Redefining Business Priorities In A Post-Crisis World | The Next Normal: Seven Trends Redefining Business Priorities In A Post-Crisis World
Managing Partner at OGx, partnering with clients to lead large scale organizational transformations through the use of data-driven insights.
With the majority of the world under quarantine or stay-at-home orders, wrapping our minds around the momentous changes happening every day is a challenge. As we sit at home, traditional economic and social orders are being overturned, forcing millions of businesses to change how they work. Every enterprise, from a neighborhood bar to a Fortune 500 company, is rethinking its business strategies and adapting to what many are calling the next normal.
We'll be looking at seven ways global business priorities are shifting as we move into the post-COVID-19 era — and how these changes will shape our lives.
The Origin Of The Next Normal
Informed by my personal experience during the time after the civil war in Liberia, the "next normal" refers to the way that businesses, organizations and individuals will operate post-COVID-19. In Liberia, people took to calling the time before "war time" the "normal time," after which came "current time."
They were unable to consider anything after the war normal. We believe we may be on track for a similar situation here — life after COVID-19 will be so different that calling it the next normal almost seems appropriate.
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Seven Trends Redefining Our Business Priorities
Businesses must make strategic changes in order to adapt to this next normal. The most agile and thoughtful have already done this, such as instituting new work-from-home policies, making payment processing available online and leveraging robotic process automation.
The following seven trends are shaping the way businesses are redefining themselves and their priorities post-COVID-19.
1. Retooling Business Strategy And Business Models
In order to survive and thrive, businesses must immediately redefine their business strategy and operations. They should take into account both short- and long-term challenges from, say, securing personal protective equipment for their on-the-ground workforce or responding to changing consumer demand.
We'll likely see a huge shift in the way that we view hygiene, as well as physical proximity. These attitudes will change how everything, from restaurants to retail, operates. Past and present resilience is a good indicator of how well they'll rebound.
2. Rebuilding For Agile Operations
In addition to resilience, businesses will need to prove they can be agile when faced with challenges like a disrupted supply chain or a COVID-19 outbreak among their staff. Businesses that are able to quickly pivot their operations will be the most successful.
A survey from PwC done in early May 2020 found that only 30% of CFOs surveyed were confident they could identify new revenue opportunities for their company. Creativity and agility are going to be highly prized moving forward, and it's likely some companies will struggle.
3. Reliance On A Decentralized Workforce
The best managers and CEOs will tell you that people are a company's greatest asset. In order to safeguard them, many businesses have moved to a work-from-home model while social distancing restrictions are in place. Some businesses, like Twitter, plan to keep work-from-home as an option moving forward.
Allowing employees to work from home demonstrates trust, but it needs to be done right. This involves deploying collaborative applications such as Microsoft Teams, Slack or Zoom, as well as instituting robust security policies and procedures for work-from-home employees. It remains to be seen whether companies will continue to embrace the cost reductions, efficiencies and employee engagement benefits of maintaining a remote workforce.
4. Resilient Supply Chain
We are reliant on a manufacturing network that spans the globe. Since the beginning of COVID-19, many links in the global supply chain have been disrupted by both illness and a rapidly expanding network of quarantine zones that slowed and, in many cases, halted movement.
In the future, more resilient supply chains will be required to ensure that businesses can operate uninterrupted. Steps toward a resilient supply chain include reshoring, restructuring and reducing reliance on China.
5. Reimagining Digital Transformation
Many companies that may have put digitization of operational processes on the backburner are quickly realizing that this task has never been more important. "This is how it has always been done" doesn't cut it anymore.
Remote working has shifted everyday processes online, and it's vital to ensure people can safely and securely access work documentation from home.
This is forcing businesses to rapidly adopt digital tools and technologies to support their operations. Some are deploying blockchain to manage contracts and complexities — and to create transparency within supply chains. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are being used to identify inefficiencies and drive them out of operational and administrative processes, reducing costs and improving outcomes. Additionally, utilizing digital workers or robotic process automation can lower operating costs, with the added benefit of lower — or zero — error rates.
6. Rethinking Enterprise Risk Management
COVID-19 has put different approaches to enterprise risk management into perspective. Some companies responded immediately to employee or supplier sickness, while others took a more cautious, wait-and-see approach.
In times of economic growth and prosperity, considering ERM becomes rote. However, health crises force businesses to ensure their ERM strategies are geared toward serving their long-term needs.
7. Refocusing on Continuous Improvement And Innovation
Many businesses are already working hard to build lean organizations that drive innovation. This means all possible waste is eliminated, costs are trimmed and workflow is simplified and streamlined.
Forward-thinking business leaders are empowering their employees to find improvement opportunities that can accelerate performance and spark innovation within their business units. These efforts and initiatives are becoming the mainstay for businesses as they navigate the post-COVID-19 era.
What Will These Trends Mean for You?
The scale of operational transformation brought about by COVID-19 is immense.
Over 40 million Americans have lost their jobs in the last 10 weeks. Unless companies can identify and leverage some of these trends redefining business priorities, there will be many more to come. The scale of the next normal is still being determined.
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8d7bd960611ce59eaded10953ada2f69 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/10/can-ai-improve-your-job-search-it-already-has/?sh=1ce1dad53527 | Can AI Improve Your Job Search? It Already Has | Can AI Improve Your Job Search? It Already Has
CEO at Lensa, Inc. Passionate advocate for recruiting and human resources technology that puts people first.
Have you ever been recruited by a robot? The odds are high that you have.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is now as much a part of job search as spaceships are of Star Wars. But how big a role does AI play in the recruiting and hiring process? The answer depends on how closely you look. From creating targeted recruitment ads to predicting an applicant’s cultural fit with the company, the more granular you go, the more robots you see.
Whether or not AI is your preferred mode of science nonfiction, it is already an invaluable asset for recruiters and job seekers — the secret behind both how jobs find you and how you find jobs.
More Than Meets The AI
Regardless of what you think about the ethics of AI, it’s hard to argue with the innovation it has brought to the job search process. AI only needs access to basic data — location, background, recent searches and job history — to identify which jobs an applicant is most qualified for.
In addition to the wide variety of online applications that help job seekers improve resumes and target relevant jobs, there’s the underlying technology that makes modern job boards possible: the Amazon Web Services cloud infrastructure, which has grown from an internal network into an operating system for the internet. AWS’s use of AI to predict server usage enables job boards to quickly show job seekers geotargeted openings that align with their profession, skills, interests and career goals.
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On the employer side, platforms such as LinkedIn Recruiter provide a path to the ideal candidate based on work experience, skills, location, responsiveness and other identifiers of recruiter intent.
Interview With A Robot?
Unconscious biases pop up throughout the recruiting and hiring process, no matter how well intentioned a company's HR department is. AI can go a long way to protecting candidates from prejudices. Not only that, but machine learning also enables thousands of applications to be processed in a tiny fraction of the time it would take humans to do so manually.
In Sweden, a robot named Tengai is making waves by conducting job interviews. The brainchild of artificial intelligence and social robotics company Furhat Robotics that was four years in the making, Tengai is designed to conduct unbiased interviews in as “human” a way as possible.
HireVue and Pymetrics, both talent matching platforms with hiring intelligence, use the behavioral data collected from interviews to evaluate candidates in the form of game-based challenges and video-based assessments.
Companies such as Heinz and Unilever are incorporating these games in their hiring processes to assess applicants’ problem-solving abilities and styles. AI-based games use behavioral assessments rather than questionnaires and resume-scanning to evaluate applicants’ work behaviors.
Proponents of AI find such developments exciting, but the efficacy and ethics of automated decision-making in the recruitment process are controversial. Polls suggest that the wider public opposes the use of machine learning in recruitment and criminal justice.
The problem here is not that AI does not lead to less biased decisions. Algorithms are only as objective as the humans who create and implement them.
This is why it is crucial for humans to insist on better AI and for citizens in democratic societies to play an active role in shaping public policy on where, when and to what extent machine learning can be used.
AI Is Here To Stay
While there is cause for skepticism regarding automated decision-making in the workplace, the changes AI brings to the recruiting and hiring process, if used right, can drastically improve both how individuals find jobs and how companies hire. AI-driven application processing is not only becoming more creative and effective over time; it also frees up time for recruiters to focus more on getting to know their top applicants and hence making more informed hiring decisions. They now have access to both more, and better, job candidates than ever before.
Interested in really harnessing AI's power? My advice is to try advanced tactics. If you are an employer, for example, don't limit yourself to only interviewing candidates who were either referred by an employee or recommended by your ATS. Instead, prescreen applicants using automated video interviews, and have them play games that analyze their cognitive abilities and decision-making styles to find the best match for your company culture. If you're a job seeker, on the other hand, why not up your AI-driven game by identifying which companies you would love to work for and adding your CV to their ATS? Many companies make their systems easy to find and access online.
As the range of AI tools increases, so do the uses of this technology. Expect (but also demand) to see more benefits and less bias in future machine learning applications.
Ignoring or avoiding AI in job search, hiring and recruiting is no longer an option. But this doesn't mean that the future belongs to robots.
It belongs to the humans who shape them.
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1e2f6e5b790d31657c19535003f0b63f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/16/the-future-of-manufacturing-is-almost-here/?sh=28967b2238d1 | The Future Of Manufacturing Is (Almost) Here | The Future Of Manufacturing Is (Almost) Here
VP of manufacturing, technology and innovation at Jabil. Over 20 years of experience helping global teams deploy cutting-edge manufacturing.
The future of manufacturing is closer than you think. In fact, smart manufacturing is taking shape rapidly, thanks in large part to improved consensus building across the vertical segments of the electronics manufacturing industry — semiconductors, outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) and printed circuit board assembly (PCBA). Converging technologies, standards and service offerings throughout these crucial sectors offer a valuable smart manufacturing technology road map for the rest of manufacturing to follow.
According to TrendForce, the global market scale for smart manufacturing will reach nearly $370 billion by 2022, spurred by the development of large-scale smart factories and intelligent digital supply chains. Major advancements in technologies will improve manufacturing efficiency, safety and productivity by incorporating real-time data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). Ultimately, customer experiences will be improved as a result of increased connectivity, along with greater visibility and traceability of key processes and outcomes.
From Sand To Systems
Because the starting material for all electronics is sand, a holistic view of the industry should focus on the journey from sand to systems — encompassing both front-end and back-end processes, PCB fabrication, PCB assembly and final systems production. This is the best way to see opportunities to integrate enabling building blocks and share information across the semiconductor, OSAT and PCBA value chain.
In May, I joined my friend and former colleague Ranjan Chatterjee, executive vice president and general manager of smart manufacturing business at Cimetrix, to share insights from a smart manufacturing technology working group that we lead on behalf of the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI).
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Through road maps, technology working groups and product emulator groups, iNEMI strives to eliminate gaps in technology and infrastructure while facilitating real-world projects, standards development and collaborations. Chartered with providing a new chapter to the latest road map, the smart manufacturing group identified technology enablers for building strong, agile and scalable electronics manufacturing foundational platforms.
By identifying key technology enablers, we discovered a convergence across key verticals, driven by common challenges and consolidation of service offerings. Boundaries in the electronics manufacturing industry are blurring as organizations respond to increasingly complex business requirements and evolving market dynamics.
Faced with steep financial growth targets and declining margins, all sectors are seeking ways to take advantage of smart manufacturing technologies to boost both process and equipment reliability, capability, productivity and cost savings. Additionally, evolving supply chains are causing major shifts in the traditional flow of materials, which is exacerbating the need for a digital thread that connects end-to-end manufacturing operations.
Digital Building Blocks
Each electronics industry segment operates at a different maturity level when it comes to smart manufacturing. Thanks to Moore’s Law, semiconductor advancements continue to outpace all others, continually driving demand for increasingly sophisticated, automated and connected manufacturing processes. Still, there’s little reason OSAT and PCBA cannot benefit from these innovations, even if it takes more time and continued investment to catch up.
As different stakeholders participate in technology working groups and product emulator groups, we have the opportunity to reach consensus in an open, safe and collaborative environment. Not only will this accelerate results, but it will also provide a real-world perspective for analyzing costs, risk profiles and returns on investments. This approach also offers an excellent example of cooperation for other industry segments to follow.
Every electronics sector can benefit from accelerated deployments of IoT sensors, AI and machine learning. There are also growing opportunities to leverage digital twins, which bridge the physical and digital worlds with virtual representations of manufacturing processes, product designs or system performance. Equally important are building blocks that guide materials flow and conversions, security, data analytics and interconnected solutions to improve manufacturing machine control, process traceability and factory-floor automation.
Making Manufacturing Even Smarter
Real-world projects from smart manufacturing groups will likely drive the development of reference architectures, structured dataset formats and robust technologies to speed up process optimization and adoption. Ultimately, these projects will set the stage for standardization and guidelines for improved connectivity and communications.
In a post-pandemic world, it is highly reasonable to expect a greater focus on plugging in customers to what is happening on factory floors or at global innovation centers without them having to be physically present. A focus on experiential innovations likely will gain ground as it becomes apparent that what happens within four walls must be extensible and visible to others, regardless of where they — or the facilities — are located in the world.
In some cases, organizations today can already leverage a powerful digital thread to connect people, processes and technologies for exceptional, end-to-end experiences. It will take time, standardization and continued collaboration to ensure open, remote access and real-time visibility across the entire ecosystem, but we will get there together. The future of smart electronics manufacturing depends on it.
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ce6b70575bb6e464acefac81142a599a | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/16/working-from-home-has-taught-us-the-importance-of-casual-office-interactions/?sh=90032c87ffbb | Working From Home Has Taught Us The Importance Of Casual Office Interactions | Working From Home Has Taught Us The Importance Of Casual Office Interactions
Chief Executive Officer at UberMedia, a mobile location data and insights company.
Despite dominating the streaming industry since streaming was a thing, Netflix now faces some serious competition and may lose its title as the reigning leader in streaming video content. Part of the reason it may be relinquishing its crown is because Netflix is losing The Office, which will join NBC’s owned and operated streaming service, Peacock, in 2021.
The Office is not only the most popular licensed TV series on Netflix, but it’s reportedly the most popular series on the platform, period. The popularity of the series is largely due to the fact that the show focuses on the common experience of forging relationships at the workplace. The pandemic and transition to working from home has highlighted just how important those connections are.
Workers often take their office relationships for granted. The term “watercooler conversation” has a negative connotation. It’s used to describe workplace interactions that many people consider superficial and tedious — or painfully awkward, at worst.
Meanwhile, some managers actively discourage their workers from engaging in too much casual conversation because they think of it as a waste of time and a sign of slacking off.
The reality is that there’s incredible value in our casual office encounters, both from a mental health standpoint and a workplace productivity standpoint.
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The pandemic and the corresponding shift to remote work has ignited a fierce debate about the relative benefits of working from home and going into the office. Many people who are working from home for the first time are discovering its perks, such as saving time by not commuting, spending more time with their children and increased productivity because they’re not distracted by needless office meetings.
The vast majority of workers miss the workplace, however, according to a recent study conducted by career advancement website Glassdoor (via SHRM), and their top reason for wanting to go back to the office is they miss socializing with their co-workers and the benefits of in-person collaboration.
Whether you prefer the interactivity of the office or working from the comforts of your living room couch varies by personality and the type of work each person does. Software engineers, who require hours of intense solo work to finish their tasks, are more likely to prefer working remotely, while sales and marketing professionals, who are more collaborative in nature, tend to thrive better in a traditional office setting.
Research shows that all employees benefit from in-person interaction with their colleagues, regardless of their job or personality.
Take, for instance, Bank of America, which used to have its customer service representatives take lunch at different times to avoid having a shortage of people fielding customer service complaints. But an audit of the company’s operations showed that productivity increased when employees ate lunch together and socialized with one another. Workers were happier, and that translated to better performance on the job. The same rule applies to software developers and other jobs that require lots of solo work, according to Humanyze, the consultancy that conducted the audit.
We get these casual interactions all the time when we’re in the office — when we ride the elevator up to our office floor, when we refill our coffee, when we see someone in the hallway on our way to grab more staples. It’s impossible to duplicate these chance encounters when everyone is working from home.
It’s likely we won’t see a return to normal office life for six months (and that’s an optimistic guess). We have to find ways to induce casual interactions using technology. Zoom happy hours are commonplace now, but jumping into a companywide Zoom call can be daunting for any introverts on staff. Instead, companies should schedule casual small-group teleconferences.
Managers should schedule nonchalant one-on-ones with their workers — meetings that don’t involve any performance reviews but are a chance to chat off the cuff. Teams within the organization should meet on their own or in groups of two to three. And casual phone calls between senior-level management and entry- to midlevel employees should be encouraged so as to increase communication and cohesion across the entire organization.
The Office is iconic because it touches upon a universal truth for people with white-collar office jobs: The office is a sort of a haven from the stresses of our personal lives, and when you work at a place long enough, your co-workers can become something of a second family.
Technology can’t recreate those real-life connections, but in the meantime, we can do our best to try.
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a88eb8a28fd7faf3958da93bc0d9e4a6 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/17/building-a-successful-e-commerce-grocery-business-order-fulfillment/?sh=30d619e65e00 | Building A Successful E-Commerce Grocery Business: Order Fulfillment | Building A Successful E-Commerce Grocery Business: Order Fulfillment
Founder & CEO at GrocerKey, eCommerce Grocery Technology & Operations.
In my last article, I covered the key considerations necessary to develop better customer acquisition and retention when it comes to building a successful e-commerce grocery business. This article will detail some best practices to consider following to ensure successful order fulfillment.
Given the rapid increase in e-commerce grocery consumer demand as a result of Covid-19, it’s more important than ever for retailers to efficiently handle order fulfillment that ensures a convenient and high-quality experience for consumers.
Most grocery retailers that offer e-commerce are utilizing their stores to fulfill orders today. While there is plenty of discussion around deploying automation through the use of a micro-fulfillment solution, this is not a requirement in order to achieve profitability and meet consumer demand.
That said, many stores are not optimized for e-commerce order fulfillment, and therefore there are a number of key considerations that need to be accounted for in order to properly drive efficiency and ensure that the experience after the customer has placed their order meets expectations.
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To truly make the most of e-commerce grocery order fulfillment utilizing brick-and-mortar stores, grocery retailers need to optimize their stores, be mindful of the customer experiences and leverage technology to gain efficiencies. The following are my top best practices and targeted guidance for grocers looking to build a successful online order fulfillment experience.
Optimizing The Brick-And-Mortar Store For E-Commerce Fulfillment
Store Mapping: In order to reduce time spent by your personal shoppers searching for items as they’re assembling e-commerce orders, it’s critical that your stores are well mapped. Ideally, retailers should be able to reliably indicate the aisles and shelf locations of specific products.
Efficient Staging Area: It’s easy to get carried away with purchasing expensive refrigerators and freezers to ensure the products are safely kept at the proper temperature in a staging area after products are picked from shelves and awaiting pickup or delivery. The reality is this not only costs far more than necessary, but it also takes up a lot of space and often doesn’t scale very well. By leveraging smaller, more manageable solutions, such as temperature-controlled, insulated totes, retailers gain a number of significant advantages:
• Improved Food Safety: Product never breaks temperature from the time it’s picked until it’s in the consumers' hands.
• Space Savings: This removes the need for bulky refrigeration and freezers.
• Cost Savings: Based on my experience and estimation, temperature-controlled totes can be significantly cheaper than refrigerators and freezers, usually starting at roughly $2,000 per store versus $10,000+ per store.
• Modular: Starter staging areas can usually accommodate 50+ orders a day, easily scaling by adding incremental totes.
• Scalable: This system is designed to scale by ensuring quality, reducing cost, saving space and making it easy to add capacity.
Batch And Zone Picking Capabilities: Similar to delivery efficiency, picking efficiency is all about building density. There’s no greater way to build density during in-store picking than batch picking (i.e., assembling multiple orders during one pick session) or zone picking (i.e., breaking up the store into several zones and having personal shoppers specialize in picking an individual zone).
Technology Considerations
Product Verification: Given the broad assortment of most grocery retailers' stock, it’s critical that personal shoppers are able to verify that they’ve selected the correct item by scanning and verifying the barcode.
Product Substitution Recommendations: Out-of-stock items are inevitable when fulfilling orders from stores, so it’s important to account for this by equipping personal shoppers with high-quality substitution recommendations to remove subjective decision-making in-aisle. This saves time and improves customer satisfaction.
POS Integration: Rather than running items through a physical POS lane, retailers can integrate their picking app into their POS and benefit from reconciling e-commerce transactions in an automated manner.
Customer Experience
Real-Time Customer And Store Alerts: It’s important that customers are notified when their orders are available for pickup or on the way for delivery. Similarly, store staff needs to be notified when customers (or third-party delivery services) are on their way or have arrived at the store to pick up an order.
Order Pickup Parking Stalls: To reduce wait times, customers and third-party delivery services should be able to easily identify where to pick up an order.
Staging Area Location: Staging areas should be located in very close proximity to order pickup stalls, ensuring minimal wait time for both customers and third-party delivery services in receiving orders.
Final Thoughts
If implemented properly, the best practices for order fulfillment detailed above can help retailers drive e-commerce profitability without making significant investments. In the next installment of this series, I will dive into the topic of digital merchandising, sharing best practices for presenting a grocery assortment in a digital environment, in addition to how to monetize digital assets through a retailer-specific digital media business.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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9b13524d5f30a5f05d7e39825fa58de8 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/22/slow-summer-15-tasks-to-tackle-during-your-teams-downtime/ | Slow Summer? 15 Tasks To Tackle During Your Team's Downtime | Slow Summer? 15 Tasks To Tackle During Your Team's Downtime
Summer is a slower time for many companies. As team members and clients alike are gone on vacation, the workload tends to decrease. As a result, tech teams may also face fewer internal and external requests during these warmer months.
If you and your IT team find yourself with fewer fires to fight, you can capitalize on this free time by tackling your backburner tasks—or even getting ahead before the inevitable pickup in the fall. Below, the members of Forbes Technology Council share their favorite strategies for taking advantage of downtime.
1. Work On Documentation And Training Resources
Downtime is the perfect time to work on documentation and training resources. Tasks that don't fit the bottom line but transparently affect efficiency are great for lulls in demand. Aim for things that are okay to be derailed when demand pops up but that help the business. - Tim Conkle, The 20
2. Evaluate Your Capacity To Deliver
It’s essential to use slower times to improve agility, reduce bottlenecks or evaluate any deficiencies in your capacity to deliver. Look at the projects you've put on hold in the past. It’s also a good time to look at reducing the technical debts of your code. Another great way to use the time is to keep up-to-date with technology or even get a certification. - Bruno Guicardi, CI&T
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3. Understand The 'Why'
I would point to the strategic initiatives that were agreed upon at the beginning of the year and selected as the major boulders to be accomplished. There should never be a doubt in anybody's mind as to what should be done at any time of the year if proper planning and prioritization took place in advance. Knowing the "what" is important, but knowing the "why" is imperative. - Danny Acuna, Logica Ratio
4. Revisit Your Creativity
Summer is the best time for creativity and R&D. Pick your project and push it forward. The true test comes when fall comes around, followed by the end-of-the-year holidays and New Year’s itself. What can you do in the summer that can make a difference a few months down the road while constantly evolving your primary product? This is the perfect time to find out. - WaiJe Coler, InfoTracer
5. Start The Process Of App Rationalization
After ensuring that the IT strategy is aligned with the organization’s overall strategy, start the process of app rationalization. Firm up the app governance in place, establish a trustworthy application inventory, deep-dive the value that each app adds, compile app costs from end-to-end, identify those apps that should stay and those that are candidates for migration. Tip: Include the CFO. - Will Conaway, The HCI Group/Tech Mahindra
6. Refine Your Processes
Teams are only as effective as their processes. Slow times offer a perfect opportunity to implement lessons learned from prior projects, especially lessons no one can find time to address normally. This could be process enhancement or creation, training, etc. This will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the team when crunch time comes. So, the team will be working smarter, not harder. - Jay Marshall, Eyelock LLC
7. Fine-Tune Products And Network
At Microsoft, we scheduled product launches for September or October so we could use the summer to fine-tune and test our solutions. I also enjoyed having the largest partner (Inspire) and tech employee (Ready) events in July. It gave ample time to network with colleagues and partners, learn about the next fiscal year's focus areas and finalize annual business plans with feedback from stakeholders. - Didem Un Ates, Accenture
8. Plan Future Objectives
During the summer, when the workload significantly decreases, it is important for team members to spend time meticulously planning future objectives and what it takes to achieve them. When the workload picks up, this strategy will allow them to hit the ground running and be as productive and efficient as possible. - Ashwini Choudhary, Recogni
9. Own The Trends
Create a trends report by studying the industry, the market and the news cycle and establish a regular report of some kind—either a newsletter, a short deck or even a simple email that can be circulated to your team and clients. Act as the industry leader and go-to source both internally and externally, positioning your company and employees as the most cutting-edge resource. - Frank Speiser, Talla
10. Flatten The Curve
During the slower times, reach out to your team members and ask them proactively if they have any feedback or feature requests. Start completing your own pending tasks that are marked as "important but not urgent" like updating underlying software, plugins, etc. before they start breaking. Try moving any task that you can to the slower times. - Vikram Joshi, pulsd
11. Acquire New Skills
Replace work with studying. Using downtime for acquiring new skills is one of the best things that we can do while everyone is resting. Reading books, listening to podcasts and watching webinars are some of the best ways to not let yourself get lazy. Plus, when the pickup comes, there is going to be no need to waste the time on this, so there are going to be no disruptions to the workflow. - Daria Leshchenko, SupportYourApp Inc.
12. Focus On A Preventive Maintenance Schedule
A pause in production for manufacturing companies provides the opportunity to focus on a preventive maintenance schedule. Now is the time to focus on small inspections and checks you could perform on expensive equipment to make sure they are in strong working condition to prepare for the upturn. Preventive maintenance reduces often unnecessary spend on reactive maintenance or replacement. - Ryan Chan, UpKeep Maintenance Management
13. Gamify Creative Ideas And Innovation
Gamify creative ideas and innovation and reward leading ideas. Carve out time for research and encourage collaboration on process-related topics versus tactical delivery. Encourage innovation and testing. Leverage technology partner sales opportunities to increase technical awareness in strategic technology. - Siva Saravanan, Wavestone
14. Pay Down Your Technical Debt
Every company, no matter the size, has technical debt that they accumulate over time. This debt results in slowing down the release of new features, and causes bugs and downtimes. When the new requests are slower, these technical debts can be resolved by refactoring, creating documentation, etc., which will help in making new releases faster and bug-free. - Vishal Agarwal, ItsaCheckmate.com Inc.
15. Give Employees Time To Pursue A Personal Project
Leveraging downtime for creative pursuits is a great way to increase innovation. Give your employees a half day off per week to pursue a personal project. This doesn't have to be related to any current project. Then have them come together in the fall and present what they did. Think of it as a long-form hackathon that spurs the creative juices and introduces new ideas through the presentations. - Gerald Morrison, SigmaSense LLC
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bf1377cdf99d90a29017afd7290b68c2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/22/with-proper-planning-rpa-can-change-the-game-for-your-business/ | With Proper Planning, RPA Can Change The Game For Your Business | With Proper Planning, RPA Can Change The Game For Your Business
Ali Siddiqui is Chief Product Officer for BMC.
Robotic process automation (RPA) is here to stay, and it's experiencing exponential growth. According to a recent Gartner, Inc. report (paywall), "the RPA software market grew 62.9% in 2019 to $1.4 billion and held its position as the fastest-growing segment in the enterprise software market for a second year."
What Is RPA?
RPA can have different meanings depending on how it's deployed, which in turn can create unclear business expectations from your customers. In the most basic terms, it's about automating business processes to achieve maximum efficiency and productivity. Encompassing the areas of intelligent automation and hyperautomation, it's an ideal problem-solver, and it's one of the tenets of the autonomous digital enterprise — a forward-looking business ideology that views technology as a complementary business function that works with, not in place of, human workers.
Define Your Terms
RPA, and automation in general, have great potential. But if you're ready to implement RPA, it's important to ask a few questions to get off on the right foot.
1. What do you want it to do for your business? There isn't a one-size-fits-all RPA solution.
2. What is your use case? Do you need core back-end business process automation? Do you need to convert paper-based processes into digital? Do you need to leverage automation to improve day-to-day employee productivity? The possibilities are endless.
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3. What are your prospective automation areas? If you don't yet know, process discovery can help. From there, you can select the appropriate tools.
4. Would a unified, self-service experience complement your existing employee channels? Would voice or chat tools wholly fulfill their requests through back-end automation?
Understand Your Challenges
Once you've clarified what you want to achieve and the RPA tools to help you get there, it's time to recognize and address some of the potential hurdles and organizational challenges that can arise around lack of governance, assigned personnel and maintenance. Keep these things in mind:
• Pay attention to compliance requirements as you develop and deploy automated tools like bots.
• Clearly define and enforce roles and responsibilities for proper bot life cycle management.
• Take advantage of service management workflows for enforcing bot release and change processes.
Identify Key Players
As you move to an RPA environment, involve staff at multiple levels — business process owners, business analysts, developers and IT — as automation outcomes are higher the closer designers are to the processes. While not all staff will have the right RPA skills, no-code content publishing solutions for business owners can help minimize ROI risks.
Apply Continuous Maintenance
Avoid unmatched business cases as processes and technology evolve with continuous maintenance that keeps your automated workflows up to date. Insights into RPA adoption driven by data, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can also help with governance, workflow complexity issues and the proliferation of required updates.
Ensure Business Insight Into RPA Deployments
RPA KPIs (financial, business and operational impact) that are used to build the case for automating business processes must be regularly assessed to measure RPA efficiency, potentially correct the implementation and realistically plan future expansions. Beyond ROI, consider measuring adoption rate, accuracy, compliance and user satisfaction.
Address Technical Challenges
The technical aspects of an RPA implementation can also present challenges. Here's how you can get ahead of them:
• Look for an RPA solution that provides out-of-the-box integration with key organizational systems and workflow templates. This will ensure comprehensive automation coverage and drive more content focus from vendors while reducing costs.
• Once your RPA solution becomes more business-critical, make sure it also meets your scalability, performance and security requirements.
• Be mindful of due-diligence requirements if you consider software as a service (SaaS)-based RPA tools, and be ready for reversibility to avoid vendor lockout.
Conclusion
RPA can help business managers achieve functional hyperautomation, bridge IT automation and business automation processes, and streamline scheduled IT delivery. As long as it's affordable, business-user accessible and maintains — or even improves — levels of governance, RPA may be just what you need to take your business into the future and transform into an autonomous digital enterprise.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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96b31c302217fe12ebba131d5186d11f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/28/how-ceos-can-manage-a-global-workforce-remotely/ | How CEOs Can Manage A Global Workforce Remotely | How CEOs Can Manage A Global Workforce Remotely
CEO and Co-Founder of CloudBees, the enterprise software delivery company
While most organizations have made the adjustment to working from home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been fortunate enough to lead a company in which a distributed workforce has been part of the organization's DNA since day one. We started 10 years ago with five co-founders spread across three continents and have grown and scaled to become a workforce that spans 18 U.S. states and 18 countries worldwide, with 70% of our workforce distributed.
The use of the word "distributed" instead of "remote" when talking about our team might seem like a small distinction, but it's been one of the keys to our success. Typically in a remote model, employees working from home are the exception, not the majority. They are not part of the "cool kids club" and feel excluded from conversations around the water cooler. In a distributed company, every employee is equal, information is shared online, and decisions happen online and are accessible to everyone.
While a distributed workforce has a number of advantages like access to a wider talent pool, more flexibility and the opportunity for greater cultural diversity, it also comes with its own set of challenges, especially in communicating information throughout the organization. Much of our formal communication isn't too different from any other company — we organize all-hands calls and send company-wide email communication — but I've found that nothing replaces face-to-face meetings for big decisions to better encourage high-bandwidth discussion in the room.
Informal discussions that would usually happen at the coffee station or in the cafeteria make up a key part of a company's culture and social fabric. To ensure that employees near and far feel they are supported from the top — now more than ever — here are my recommendations for building and maintaining a strong global workforce:
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• Look at the big picture. A CEO constantly gets involved in many day-to-day discussions, ranging from engineering to sales, recruitment, marketing and finance. CEOs typically become very good at switching tasks. While all of this is important, you should always try to find a way to have quality time to step back and put things in perspective. Being solely focused on day-to-day operations can lead you to miss big strategic wake-up calls. Furthermore, as a CEO with a global view of the activity within your organization, it is important that you regularly share those observations with the rest of the leadership team and guide them to see the big picture beyond their core tasks and responsibilities.
• Provide a forum in order to listen. One of the activities I've implemented as a CEO is to set up a weekly virtual "water cooler" session in which I send a short video to the company on business, branding or more general-interest topics, share my views and ask for feedback. The next day, I schedule two 30-minute blocks to cover all time zones and invite all employees to openly interact directly with me or anybody from the executive team on that topic or any topic. These sessions are relaxed; people make jokes, share observations or challenge me on decisions.
This is our real distributed cafeteria, and it's a truly refreshing and eye-opening experience for me that I love leading every week. It's important that I create a medium where employees feel heard and where I can listen since there are many good things you can learn and adapt based on these discussions. As a CEO, it is your responsibility to find your way through that maze, compile the feedback you receive, integrate what makes sense into your business and trust your instincts that you made the right decisions.
• Don't forget to be a cheerleader! Your team is solving hard problems day in and day out as part of building and growing a company. Yet when individual teams are spread across the globe, they don't always see how their actions fit into the overall context of the company's success. Most teams don't have visibility into the organization's overall strategy and how they are executing against it.
As a CEO of a distributed workforce, one of your key roles is to remind everybody of where they stand in the grand scheme by continuously communicating the progress and success achieved. There are always things to improve upon, which is why it's imperative for CEOs to remind everybody of the importance of the company mission and that this is not just "nice" to do, it is critical.
As organizations continue to learn to work in new ways, operating with transparency and open lines of communication to ensure the entire company is on the same page is of the utmost importance. As CEO of a distributed workforce, I have to trust my employee base — I can't micromanage 500-plus people all over the globe. Providing open, honest communication to employees and expecting the same in return is critical to maintaining this trust and ultimately helps us achieve success as a global organization.
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3671077f33515a7979f0e3aa2a987fb7 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/28/overcoming-legacy-infrastructure-obstacles-to-enable-digital-transformation/?sh=f269dbe10baa | Overcoming Legacy Infrastructure Obstacles To Enable Digital Transformation | Overcoming Legacy Infrastructure Obstacles To Enable Digital Transformation
Romi Stein is CEO & Co-Founder of OpenLegacy, leading its strategic vision of digital-driven integration for legacy systems.
As a technology leader who has spent decades working with organizations with legacy infrastructure, particularly mainframe and midrange systems, I've seen the challenges of digital transformation firsthand.
I use the broad catchall term "digital transformation" here to denote everything from modernizing architecture (e.g., moving to the cloud) to software development practices (e.g., DevOps) to product offerings (e.g., development of new digital services) in an effort to better serve customers. This can be a particularly harrowing journey for organizations with extensive legacy architecture.
Legacy systems are often essential pieces of infrastructure, but maintaining them comes at a steep price. As a rule, they are highly complex and weren't designed to interface well with other pieces of technology. Consequently, many enterprises end up with a multilayered architecture of middleware and connectors designed to enable them to build on top of core technology, which was designed in a different era, to solve a different set of challenges.
For example, I recently worked with a leading bank that has a precarious set of middleware connecting their mainframe system to an enterprise service bus (ESB), atop which they've painstakingly built and deployed a set of REST APIs. The system is brittle, development is slow and manual, and the bank ultimately realized that they needed a new way to manage their legacy assets.
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While it's gratifying to see organizations finally succeed in building digital APIs from their legacy architecture — enabling them to scale microservices and serverless adoption and unlock the possibilities of digital innovation — unfortunately, not all are able to fully achieve the promise of digital transformation. Where do enterprises run into stumbling blocks when they try to roll out such a strategy, and what strategies can they adopt to solve for these obstacles?
1. They struggle to catalog and coordinate what they're doing.
Enterprises with legacy infrastructure (like the bank described earlier) may be accustomed to cumbersome, manual API development and deployment. As a result, when given the tools to rapidly build APIs atop legacy assets, these organizations typically experience a rapid democratization of development and a flourishing of new activity. But it's hard to coordinate all of the development that's being done without a central repository or "source of truth" — leading to duplicative or conflicting development efforts. The most successful enterprises maintain a centralized and up-to-date catalog of validated digital services, ensuring that developers can build on existing innovation and harmonize their efforts with the broader digital strategy.
2. They make big bets on a single technology.
Even for far-sighted technology leaders, it's impossible to predict the evolution of the technology landscape. Deployment environments and languages are constantly evolving; even a technologically superior option might fall out of favor if it doesn't secure wide industry adoption. For organizations that are looking to rapidly modernize on top of their legacy core, it can be tempting to accelerate by tying to a single set of design choices (e.g., to purpose-build APIs for Kubernetes deployment). But these organizations quickly find themselves locked in to a particular environment, which significantly limits flexibility and agility down the road.
The most successful organizations, in contrast, use technologies and frameworks that are interchangeable and only loosely coupled to a specific technology stack, so they can be continually reused and adapted.
3. They rely on tribal knowledge.
One of the most significant costs born by enterprises with legacy technology is the systems' complexity, demanding significant domain expertise built up over the course of an entire career. It's not uncommon for an organization to have a small handful of employees who collectively represent a "single point of failure" for a legacy system.
The organizations that have been most effective at building a true end-to-end legacy strategy acknowledge that this is both a development bottleneck and an existential risk. They invest in systematically capturing metadata and documentation on their legacy systems to democratize development efforts.
Conclusion
Ultimately, integration with legacy assets like mainframes and midrange systems is just the first of many challenges that these organizations must overcome in order to build a true legacy strategy: a systematic plan to leverage the value of the information housed in legacy systems to accomplish a set of business objectives. The enterprises that succeed in going beyond ad hoc API generation to digital transformation are those that invest in an end-to-end system for managing their legacy assets.
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b3bf18e1e4bf8c32d9f82fc00bf193a5 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/03/fed-up-with-corporate-cybersecurity-failures-consumers-want-ceos-punished/?sh=74e9971d125e | Fed Up With Corporate Cybersecurity Failures, Consumers Want CEOs Punished | Fed Up With Corporate Cybersecurity Failures, Consumers Want CEOs Punished
Founder of Allure Security and professor of CS at Columbia University.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed everything, including the way we work, think, shop and socialize. And many Americans are feeling particularly insecure with all of these changes happening so quickly. Unfortunately, adjusting to the current global health crisis has put new strains on computer networks and defenders, as millions of U.S. employees have shifted to working from home and opened the door for fraudsters to take full advantage of vulnerable home networks.
This is bad news for corporations that are fighting harder than ever to earn limited consumer dollars in an unstable economy. Consumers are paying more attention than ever to how companies are treating their customers. They don't want well wishes and trite expressions like "We're all in this together" from brands. They can see right through them. Consumers want evidence that companies are doing more than just talking about helping — they want action, not platitudes.
When the pandemic subsides and consumers have money to spend again, one thing is certain: They will be more mindful about which companies they support with their dollars. And companies that haven't done enough to protect their customers from online scams and fraud will be among the first crossed off the list of brands they'll do business with.
Go to jail: Nearly one in four consumers want CEOs imprisoned for data breaches
But it doesn't end there. A growing number of consumers would like to see leaders of companies who fail to protect customer data punished.
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In an April 2020 survey commissioned by Veritas, 79% of consumers said they expected companies to use security software to protect their data. A full 71% of respondents said they expect companies to "stand up to cybercriminals," and 65% of consumers said they should be entitled to financial compensation by companies that expose their data.
Most concerning of all is that 40% of consumers blame CEOs personally for cybersecurity breaches, with 35% stating that a CEO should be forced to pay a fine in such a situation. Another 30% said the CEO of a company involved in a data breach should be banned from running a company, and 23% indicated that a CEO should go to prison.
We have already witnessed several CEOs step down from their companies after a major data breach, such as Target, Equifax and Imperva. The decisions to remove these leaders were largely driven by shareholders. But in this new era of consumer vigilance, CEOs and other leaders will be ousted by public demand.
Stop blaming consumers for phishing attacks
It's easy to see why consumers are fed up with the status quo. Just take a look at phishing attacks. They've been around for decades, and they still work. In fact, phishing attacks are on the rise right now, as fraudsters seek to take advantage of fear many people are feeling during this pandemic.
Phishers are happy to pounce on any topic in the news to launch a new scam. Knowing that many are searching for reliable Covid-19 information and are also worried about their financial future, phishers are launching attacks that prey on consumers' worst fears about the pandemic. Americans have already lost an estimated $77 million due to coronavirus-related fraud. Researchers have reported an upward surge in malicious emails that lead to phishing websites with promises of "financial relief" during the coronavirus pandemic.
Organizations that get caught up in these schemes will ultimately pay the price. Nobody wants to be the company whose customers were fooled using the coronavirus as a lure. CEOs have long procrastinated in dealing with phishing and web spoofing. They've left it to the IT security department to figure out. But executives are going to be in for an ugly surprise when their brands are targeted by fraudsters who leverage the pandemic as bait.
Protect your brand by protecting your customers
Companies spend millions of dollars building and protecting their brands. But when it comes to taking responsibility for protecting customer data, they often fall short. Organizations can't seem to connect the dots between consumer data breaches and brand reputation. But soon, they will have no choice but to do so.
For too long, corporations have pushed responsibility for cyberattacks, like phishing, onto their customers. If end users fall victim to a phishing scam, the common response is, "You need to be more vigilant." This puts too much burden on the users. Organizations cannot assume that the average consumer has been trained to recognize when they are being scammed. The phishers and fraudsters are that good.
Cybercriminals are using fear and uncertainty to trick people and make a profit. It's time for businesses whose websites are used in phishing attacks to do more. As the data indicates, customers are tired of taking the blame. They are demanding justice from companies who didn't take the proper precautions to protect their personal data. It's time for business leaders to stop pushing the responsibility on to consumers and step up.
CEOs must start recognizing that cybersecurity failures are devastating to their businesses on a number of fronts. There's just too much at stake to leave cybersecurity to the CIO and IT department. This is now a boardroom issue. Make no mistake: A major data breach, caused by phishing attacks on customers, has the potential to ruin an organization. A company's bottom line, brand reputation, stock price and future health are all in the balance.
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ce8d890b94ffe726a1abc108b6489e5b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/06/standardizing-robotics-through-modularity/ | Standardizing Robotics Through Modularity | Standardizing Robotics Through Modularity
CEO at Advanced Intelligent Systems, a practical autonomous robotics company with software and hardware modules.
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When people want to understand something, they compare their observations to an established standard. Standards give people structure around which they can thrive while aspiring toward even greater accomplishments and upgraded standards.
Productivity depends on standards, even as innovators seek to redefine them. Formalized standards are documents, both print and online, that include specifications, procedures and morphologies that detail assurances for the reliability of products and their composite materials. Standards represent the protocols that producers and consumers alike can trust as they strive to understand the world and its inherently competitive landscape.
Technology standardization
Through the centuries, technologies have gone through cycles of innovation, standardization and occasional ossification. Manufacturers are always seeking to improve productivity, and entrepreneurs will often distinguish themselves from competitors by adopting or developing innovations in technology.
The automobile industry exemplified the Second Industrial Revolution. Standards in manufacturing processes, parts specifications and related products, such as refined petroleum and roadways, paved the way toward expanded human progress. When consumers became confident they could top off their tank at any filling station and hire qualified mechanics wherever they happened to be, entire continents opened up for greater exploration.
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Today’s businesses are increasingly digital. Characteristics of the Fourth Industrial Revolution entail a harmony of things physical and virtual, encouraging enterprises to pursue operational advantages that include:
Rapid prototyping of research and development (R&D) discoveries. Process agility and ease of redesign. Greater precision. Transparency and accountability within supply chains. Marketing flexibility. Improved customer satisfaction and personalization.
Standards provide a kind of travel guide for modern innovation, navigating for entrepreneurs as they explore their immediate surroundings and peer over the horizon with eternal curiosity. Among emerging industries, the evident trailblazer is robotics, and standards that evolve alongside its myriad discoveries are mapping out new territory to make bleeding-edge research more practical and accessible to tentative consumers.
Standards and modular robotics
Robotics is intriguing because its products mimic the very human actions that led to the development of robotics. There are robots whose entire purpose is to manufacture goods that we once labored to produce ourselves and to perform chores that took so much valuable time away from us. Robots are even creating other robots, with potential impacts on economies and culture being debated among those whose lives have already adapted to the point that they can afford to engage in more inward-looking pursuits of philosophy and debate.
As we push ourselves to refine the form and function of robotics, we are moving beyond ancient fantasies of perfectible humanity to become caretakers of artificial agents that we hope will refine us in turn. To keep the madness out of the AI scientist, though, standards are essential for helping us plot a course through successive versions of hardware, software and intermediary operating systems that will define our relationship with smart machines.
Formal standards in robotics pertain to manufacturing process guidelines and consumer safety assurances. Organizations and federations have risen to address the rapid pace of innovation for both industrial robots and consumer robots. And entire communities have formed around the mutual interests of motivated members.
In parallel with formalized standards, some informal standards have grown out of innovation itself. For decades, researchers anticipated a robotic transformation from simple programs manipulating electronic appendages into autonomous agents of decision trees and mobility, but only in recent years have developments in homogeneous and heterogeneous robotics turned academic suppositions into practical solutions.
Foremost among this transformation toward robotic autonomy is the recent emergence of modular robots. As within the automobile industry, the design and manufacturing of practical modular robots are consolidating into standardized processes that promise reduced costs and enhanced consumer satisfaction. By the middle of this century, mobile robotic devices will be exploring continents as humans did during the previous century. Affordable robot components will be more interchangeable than ever, and owners will trick out their autonomous rides like they’re the roadsters of bygone days.
Advancements in component modularity and associated robotics interoperability are also helping to minimize difficulties with sustained innovation, thereby lowering barriers of entry into the marketplace and encouraging healthy competition to benefit consumers. Global trade will receive a boost from an expansion of automation, ranging from factory lines to distribution and delivery mechanisms.
Standards to complement modular robotics
Functional hardware and software are not the only components of modular robots. Manufacturing supply chains need their own standards of dependability, as do complementary technologies like wireless and cellular as well as compatible internet of things (IoT) devices.
Modular robots also benefit from domain-specific complements such as standardized platforms and robots as a service (RaaS). With independent and interchangeable modules, customized robots for industrial and personal use are now offering practical solutions for every task.
Conclusion
Both formal and informal standards are helping to make practical robots more autonomous and affordable. Innovations such as soft robotics, autonomous self-reconfiguration and autonomous self-replication keep raising the bar for tomorrow’s standards, which will fuel the energies of future entrepreneurs.
Startups innovate by necessity. Sometimes their innovations become standards; sometimes their financing runs dry. Fortunately, standards for young industries benefit from startup innovations as well as from the R&D contributions of existing enterprises. The excitement and uncertainty surrounding these early days of modular robotics will settle into a robust environment of pervasive standards and a competitive atmosphere of practical solutions.
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95b019113c6e4a0d4f8d05c460e977a4 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/10/how-business-can-use-quantum-computing-right-now-not-10-years-into-the-future/?sh=bdeb86b50ad7 | How Business Can Use Quantum Computing Right Now (Not 10 Years Into The Future) | How Business Can Use Quantum Computing Right Now (Not 10 Years Into The Future)
CEO of PCIS. Entrepreneur with a deep focus on technology. Helping companies strategize, innovate and grow.
getty
Can quantum computing help business leaders make effective decisions — and a lot of money? That’s the trillion-dollar question. I have good news. The answer in our present state of reality is yes. In fact, doing so will allow you to make a quantum leap over the competition.
This may seem hard for some to believe. So many people, even people working for companies selling leading-edge technology, think that quantum computing is like a fusion reactor, faster-than-light travel or cloning dinosaurs for a real-life Jurassic Park. It’s theoretically possible. However, as the decades pass, it is always another five, 10 or 20 years away. The scientists are always “working on it.”
In contrast, the quantum computing era is here, and it may matter quite a lot for your business going forward. Early adopters will be able to out-compete others that don’t adopt it.
Companies that have the mindset to prepare for the next big thing should be looking very closely into this area. I’m not saying that quantum computing will deliver instant miracles for your bottom line. But the barrier to entry is not the technology itself — it is understanding how it can be used. Even if quantum computers are not better or faster than classical computers right now, it is only a matter of time before the technology gets there.
Using quantum computing, you can get answers to critical business questions faster than companies that don’t use it. The early adopters can enjoy a “first-mover advantage” over their competitors.
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I compare this to how we used to talk about big data and machine learning only a few years ago. Before, the question was, “Should we start looking into machine learning for our business?” Today, companies are asking a different question: “How do we implement AI or machine learning for our business as soon as possible?” Let me run you through that.
How companies can actually use quantum computing?
This may seem very abstract. Let me show you some examples of how companies, right now, are using quantum computers for profit.
Quantum computers help innovators find solutions where the number of options is so great that it is not feasible to calculate with today’s technology.
That’s why biotech is particularly interested in quantum computing technology. For instance, Menten AI, aside from looking for a cure for Covid-19, is looking at discovering new drugs that sit between small molecules and large biologics.
Going beyond what classical computers can solve, among other problems, the knapsack problem — basically, trying to fit the most (or best) stuff efficiently into a limited space — applies to logistics companies, loading container ships, packing aircraft, financial institutions and more. For instance, Amazon is providing access to the technology and providing the collaboration environment between industry and academia.
For logistics companies, you then have the facility location problem: Even if you aren’t interested in mathematics, the problem is often exactly what it sounds like. Where should you locate a warehouse so it can most efficiently take materials and distribute them to retailers or end users? Did we say distribution? Optimizing the whole supply chain management can save the operator millions (and also reduce costs and annoyance of the people whose trips are minimized).
Who are the players in quantum computing?
I have made a very large claim that you can start using quantum computing today, and I have provided examples of problems that fit into the new paradigm. The next question many business leaders would ask is very straightforward: “If I want to buy quantum computing technology (or hire a service provider to do it), where do I get it?”
After all, if you wanted to buy a smartphone, you might name Samsung, Apple or any number of companies. If you want to buy a computer, you might buy it from HP, Lenovo, Dell, etc. If I am correct that quantum computing is not just available but ready for your company, who could you buy this quantum computing technology from?
You have many choices, though not all quantum computing companies are the same. Quite to the contrary, there are many different offerings. However, I can quickly give you a lay of the land.
IBM Quantum partners with companies like Daimler, which is using quantum computing to develop next-generation batteries. Honeywell claims to have built the highest-performing quantum computer to date. Google has made similar claims of a major breakthrough in this space. Microsoft has built Azure Quantum, letting companies test out new innovations such as in cybersecurity. There is D-Wave, which is looking to disrupt automation in the world of car manufacturing. And engineers at MIT have created the world’s largest quantum chip.
My point is simple: If you want to get ahead of your competition, there are ways to get started right now: Test out innovation on a quantum computer through the cloud, and build an internal team to start solving difficult problems.
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1c57f8888662b569220ea13d1e757232 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/10/is-the-future-in-anonymous-social-apps/ | Is The Future In Anonymous Social Apps? | Is The Future In Anonymous Social Apps?
CIO of FunCorp, a mobile entertainment app development company, oversees the growth of UGC platforms with AI/ML content feed aggregation.
getty
We are seeing more and more criticism surrounding traditional social networks, especially from those who have profiles on Facebook. Specifically, this criticism is regarding the lack of personal data security and the unethical use of data in advertising and marketing.
According to a recent study by Acquia, 65% of respondents would stop using a brand that was dishonest about how it was using their data. For example, huge corporations often use it to create ideal consumer goods, which is not always a good thing, especially when it comes to products and services that are not healthy.
We have been living in such a world for more than 10 years. But in the last two or three years, there has been a growth in anonymous content products, allowing communication with a wide array of users. These are not yet products for the masses, like current social networks, but they are rapidly gaining popularity. Some of them you've used; some you've heard about in the media, and others you've never heard of — but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
In the U.S. and other tier-one countries, some of the leading players include Reddit, iFunny (Full disclosure: iFunny is a FunCorp brand.), Telegram and Discord. Their total audience may very well compete with the most significant social networks. So, why do some people know very little about them?
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Currently, these products are attracting innovators/early adopters. But public dissatisfaction with traditional products and the change in the content consumption paradigm may significantly shift the power balance in this market.
Traditional social networks use the user's social graph, or network, as the basis for creating content feeds. In short, the feed wants you to be in one content bubble with your friends, colleagues and relatives. With anonymous social apps, even if your interests aren't always the same, the content that feeds into the app is typically generated based on the user's attention. In iFunny's case, we understand this only by using machine learning algorithms that learn from the actions performed within iFunny. We know absolutely nothing about the user's offline life, except the phone model and OS version.
Uniting users in the content bubble is based only on interests. In reality, these could be people who would never meet or communicate in ordinary life. We bring together not only physical people, but also their virtual avatars, erasing concepts such as gender, age, skin color, orientation, financial status and other distinctive features of a human being.
So, is this good or bad for society? Which content model makes people happier?
It's impossible to draw a definitive conclusion. Social networks entered our lives less than 10 years ago, but we felt their real impact within the past few years when the authority of content creators in social networks outdid traditional TV and media. The original idea of blurring the boundaries in society resulted in even greater social disintegration; the degree of negativity and hatred exceeded all possible limits. Jealousy, politics, propaganda, fake news — that's what fills the services that were supposed to bring the world closer.
This has undoubtedly contributed to the development of anonymous social networks. Such services as Discord, Reddit, iFunny and Telegram are experiencing audience growth, but it is still unclear whether they will repeat the fate of the groundbreakers or bring a more positive contribution to society.
It's difficult to predict because on the one hand, there are advantages to never being personally criticized or harassed. You can be more candid in communicating with like-minded people without the fear that your profile will be linked to you in the real world. But at the same time, it makes some users think that anonymity equals impunity. Context pre-moderation and post-moderation are some of the most serious challenges for developers because the specificity is the absence of defined characteristics; therefore, it is not always fully and successfully automated, and human labor in this matter never has a 100% success rate.
While such projects are at an early stage and have not yet reached the scale of their predecessors, it can already be concluded that they have the ability to be more balanced, less toxic, safer and less susceptible to political propaganda, but at the same time, they require additional moderation controls.
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4095eb914fbdbd4201ece255aaf1efd5 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/10/telehealth-and-the-future-of-the-us-health-care-industry/?sh=512d8a8266d6 | Telehealth And The Future Of The US Health Care Industry | Telehealth And The Future Of The US Health Care Industry
Dr. Alexandro Pando is a multinational serial entrepreneur, innovator, consultant, and CEO.
In the wake of a pandemic that has transformed the U.S. and indeed the global health scene, telemedicine seems to have found a firm footing. At this point, I believe it is a critical component of the global health care delivery framework. While that status is directly correlated to the new circumstances brought on by the novel coronavirus, the mainstream usage of telehealth continues to provide insights into how it will affect the future of health care.
Papering Over The Cracks
Per the Association of American Medical Colleges, come 2033, the United States could have between 54,100 and 139,000 unfilled primary and specialty health care physician roles. This projection puts a perspective on what is now a looming physician shortage crisis. According to a survey from Merritt Hawkins (via Arista MD), Americans living in large cities had to wait 29 days on average to see a family physician in 2018: That's 50% more than the average wait time in 2014.
Telehealth debuted as a situational fix to this structural problem. By breaking down traditional doctor-patient boundaries, it can improve physician coverage and allow physicians and other health care providers access to more patients. On full throttle, this has the potential to shore up the growing shortage of health care providers in the country, and going forward, it's a strategy many consider effective.
If policymakers gear up to ease the path for telemedicine, it's crucial that stakeholders follow the same proactive route in setting up camp to provide both the infrastructure and service needs required to orchestrate a full-scale telehealth network. Much earlier this year, when the pandemic broke out, we saw a demonstration of how this could be done. Microsoft, for instance, bolstered its service line-up (paywall) for hospitals and doctors. Teladoc Health hired more telemedicine doctors to cater to increasing demand.
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Accessible Health Care
Many patients do not have a primary health care provider, and some patients must turn to the ER for health care services. ER health care doesn't, however, come without a price, even if it's for routine nonemergency health services. According to one 2019 estimate by UnitedHealth Group, the cost for accessing treatment for nonemergency illnesses like the flu and sore throat go up by more than $1,800 when patients go to the ER instead of a primary care provider. The cost of emergency room and urgent care services likely contributes significantly to the problem of rising health care costs in the United States.
In the future, as telemedicine becomes more well-established, I expect these costs to shrink. That's because when it's implemented correctly, it addresses the problem of primary health care during off-times. Doctors can remain connected to patients virtually even when they're not physically present in a primary health care facility. In 2019, Americans spent well over $32 billion on unwarranted ER visits. Many of these visits that would have been otherwise treated better by primary health practitioners could end up being ineffective for patients. I believe telehealth, as a service that provides primary health care to those who need it, invariably positions itself as a conduit for this $32 billion.
Patient Outcomes
As telemedicine continues to expand in terms of reach and adoption, a lot of discussions have come up about its impact on patient outcomes. At this point, the telehealth experience is palpably different from traditional physical doctor-patient appointments. Some argue (paywall) that this difference affects doctor-patient interaction in ways that might reduce the physician's ability to properly assess the patient.
To quote David Blumenthal, former National Coordinator for Health Information Technology:
"I also know that well-trained clinicians use all their senses — not just hearing and vision. They appraise the whole patient: Is there a new limp, a shift in posture, a new pallor? Often, it's what patients don't notice or complain about that is essential. And there is no diagnostic test more cost-effective than the laying on of hands. I have found treatable cancers multiple times in routine exams that would be impossible to replicate in the virtual world. Could a Zoom visit detect a lymph node too firm, a spleen or liver too large, or an unexpected prostate nodule (with a normal PSA)?"
These considerations put into perspective the inherent limitations of telehealth as an avenue for providing improved health care. But as is consistent with any industry that uses technology as a driver, a stroke of innovation is all it takes to reduce the severity of these limitations. For business leaders with a knack for innovation, the goal now would be integrating novel or existing technologies into the traditional telehealth cocktail to create integrated solutions that address the specific limitations of existing telehealth technologies.
A Revision Of The Law
The democratization of tech, or the growing access to technology and its correspondent ease of use, has propelled telehealth to new heights in the last few years. Last year alone, American Well (via PRNewswire) found that 8% of Americans (about 26.3 million people) have had a telehealth visit with a doctor. However, there's a potential for the industry to reach even greater heights if the legislation currently governing health care as it relates to telehealth is revised to better suit telehealth's unique use scenarios.
The U.S. operates a state-based health regulatory framework, which has its positives and negatives. Curating and making sure the healthcare citizens get is high quality is very important and is rightfully a priority. At the same time, this system also makes it difficult for physicians to expand beyond their state lines. It's something of a bureaucratic bottleneck, and even though a number of policies have been put forward to ease the situation — for instance, as of 2016, 17 states had joined a coalition (paywall) to expedite the license acquisition process for physicians — it's still an issue all key telehealth stakeholders must contend with as they participate in the sector.
Evidently, there's a lot to consider about the effects of telehealth on the U.S. health care industry and how these effects will come to manifest. With 2020 acting as an accelerator year, however, the perspective continues to become clearer. As always, the most proactive and innovative actors will be the major winners.
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2c72fa7bfe7ea842af235c54c847c23d | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/11/great-catch-perfect-match-why-companies-crave-for-adtech-startups/?sh=4ca06f802a2b | Great Catch, Perfect Match: Why Companies Crave For AdTech Startups | Great Catch, Perfect Match: Why Companies Crave For AdTech Startups
CEO of Bidease, an AdTech startup on a mission to bring fully transparent, value-driven advertising to the mobile world.
AdTech startups have always stood out from the crowd. As soon as you become a trendsetter and not only outperform your customers' expectations but also implement various innovative features into their daily lives, your advantage over other market players starts to grow exponentially.
In these endless attempts to find the most effective and extraordinary ways to reach company goals, it is very important not to lose your business acumen and be the first one to recognize and get a development masterpiece. As the leader of an ambitious company, you will always strive to increase your capacities and seize opportunities.
Until now, 2020 had been full of all kinds of surprises: The Covid-19 pandemic came out of the blue, the OPEC plus deal was necessary to help ease tensions and the stock market crashed, to name a few. Altogether, they wreaked havoc on the global economy, so it is expected that many investors took a wait-and-see attitude and were in no hurry to make any decisive steps or take on any additional risk.
According to the Luma's Q1 market report for 2020, AdTech saw a decline in deals across the board, with approximately 50% fewer deals relative to Q1 2019. However, despite the massive global shakeup, there were some notable AdTech deals, which took part in the first half of 2020.
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Here they are:
• Twitter acquired CrossInstall, a mobile-only DSP and a leading creator of programmatic interactive mobile ads. The deal price wasn't disclosed. CrossInstall uses its own in-house bidder to effectively acquire users and is well known for its various creative opportunities.
• SiriusXM announced the acquisition of Simplecast, a modern platform for podcast hosting and distribution, that also provides the opportunity to measure content. Empowered with the AdTech subsidiary of SiriusXM, a monetization platform called AdsWizz, Simplecast becomes an all-in-one solution that remains the easiest way for podcasters to create, publish, analyze content and generate revenue.
• Tremor International, a global leader in video advertising technologies, acquired Unruly, a programmatic video ad network, from News Corp.
• Media and Games Invest (MGI) acquired the assets of Verve, a location-based mobile marketing platform that combines location intelligence and premium inventory with display and video advertising experiences.
And here are some remarkable AdTech deals of 2019:
• Blackstone, one of the world's leading investment firms, acquired Vungle. This deal was a great synergy of the world-known investment company and the performance marketing platform that specializes in in-app ads.
• IronSource raised between $400-450 million in funding. IronSource is one of the leading video ad networks and a well-known UA source for mobile app publishers. The money was invested by CVC, which has gotten a minority stake in the business in this deal, valuing the company at over $1 billion.
• Two AdTech startups — Taboola and Outbrain, which operate advertising based content recommendations engines for publishers — merged in an $850 million deal. The combined audience scale and reach increasing will give them an opportunity to continue making ad revenues on their own sites, and off the networks of companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon.
• Nike acquired predictive analytics AI platform Celect to bolster its direct-to-consumer strategy. Integration of this technology into Nike's mobile apps and website will help the worldwide famous shoemaker to better predict the preferences of its consumers. Like what exactly, when and where (via store, app or site) a specific customer can purchase.
The above-mentioned deals once again confirm major trends in the AdTech industry. So here they are:
As everything in advertising is strictly related to consumers and a better understanding of a target audience, brands recognize some growth points and bring their attention to them.
Using third-party data can lead to unpleasant consequences, since getting this information does not always happen with the consent of the consumer. In this regard, the collection, systematization and storage of users' data go to a new level, and first-party data is becoming even more important due to existing and upcoming privacy regulations.
ML and AI technologies are gaining even more popularity in order to get the most from customer data. These technologies not only help to run programmatic advertising and optimize bids, but they also help to automate consumer behavior tracking. And knowing your audience helps to show them the most relevant ads in the most relevant sources.
Creating unique and high-quality creatives is already as important as user acquisition. Consumers are exposed to advertising 24/7. While brands have been improving their UA sources, the creative part was forgotten and became pretty monotonous, which led to banner blindness. Many advertisers are aware of this issue and try to give creativity a second wind.
Merging CDPs and anonymous DMPs is becoming a priority and hopefully will give brands and marketers a better customer journey understanding.
The AdTech market will always have something to offer to brands and advertisers. And there is no doubt that it will continue the exponential growth. One of the main reasons for it is that Facebook and Google have been monopolists for too long, and now businesses are looking to diversify their ad spend and are open for new opportunities to grow (i.e., programmatic).
Just in the United States, programmatic ad spending is expected to reach $78.943 billion in 2020, which is 85% of all digital ad spending.
In comparison with 2019, 2020 seems to face some kind of hurdle in the AdTech space in terms of deals. However, wherever there is uncertainty, there is an opportunity. In the upcoming months, I believe we can expect to see a number of M&A deals. As the market is becoming more and more advanced and sophisticated, it seems that more and more companies are looking to join forces and become stronger and better together. I believe this will be the primary trend for 2020 — more consolidation and M&A activity instead of big-investment deals.
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c292e7b8a6316e76ecd50b3b30ac1d45 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/11/how-to-bolster-customer-experiences-with-business-agility/?sh=2bf713b27662 | How To Bolster Customer Experiences With Business Agility | How To Bolster Customer Experiences With Business Agility
Paul Jarman is the CEO of NICE inContact.
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Agility and continuous improvement have long been defining attributes of successful businesses. Typically powered by the immediate access of data, organizations can quickly identify, understand and act upon opportunities and challenges in near-real time. In today's world of constantly shifting customer expectations, that agility is vital for achieving consistent, sustainable growth.
In the wake of global disruption stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, these attributes have also proved to be an effective facilitator of organizational continuity. Whether it's migrating an entire workforce to work from home or ensuring access to critical customer information and context, businesses need a strong foundation regardless of whether or not staff can come into the office. As contact centers rethink their notion of business continuity through Covid-19 and beyond, there is an underlying need to address strategies for unplannable emergencies and which tools are at hand to support this.
If you're looking to minimize disruption for your business through greater agility, keep the following in mind:
Understanding And Eliminating Variables
In planning for business success, an important step is identifying controllable and uncontrollable variables. For example, when you have staff centralized in an office, you can ensure basic needs like internet, access to customer information or telephony. However, that changes when your staff needs to work from home. The more variables you have, the more opportunities there are for a single disruption to cascade through the organization.
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That's why there's been a pointed shift away from on-premise, legacy infrastructure through Covid-19. In fact, a survey we conducted found that 66% of global contact centers that are not using cloud today are planning to accelerate their move to the cloud as a result of the pandemic. On-premise is typically a patchwork of multiple point solutions that are managed on-site to fit the needs of the business. However, if a single failure occurs, that can disrupt the entire contact center.
Solving for this requires bringing together disparate systems into a single, unified approach, most commonly accessible via cloud solutions. A unified cloud infrastructure can inherently reduce the number of possible point failures through things like automatic updates and dedicated service management. The process of making this transition begins with a thorough audit of systems infrastructure and identifying where the greatest pain points exist within that ecosystem. Is there a consistently faulty network? What can you not live without? Start with the mission-critical items and expand outward. Now is the time to review and evaluate where potential problem areas lie and put levers in place to ensure stability.
Addressing Unexpected Needs Of Customers
Business continuity is often addressed in internal terms, such as weather disasters affecting a contact center location or a network disruption bringing the systems down. We've learned just how quickly widescale societal changes can affect customer needs and behavior.
Social distancing and stay-at-home orders have resulted in a major spike in e-commerce, as many retailers transitioned online. Furthermore, consumers are relying more heavily on self-service and digital channels for customer service, as our survey found that 68% of contact centers in the U.S. reported an increase in digital interactions. If having a seamless and engaging online customer experience wasn't previously a must-have, it's now a requirement for doing business.
Businesses and contact centers need to be able to adapt on the fly to rapid-fire shifts in customer preferences. Flexible infrastructure gives businesses the sandbox they need to create perfectly tailored experiences. For example, how have recent guidelines affected purchasing processes for your business? Quickly adding new information via FAQs, chatbots or interactive voice response (IVR) menus could help you get ahead of customer questions before they arise. This way, you can deliver the model that yields the highest value to customers.
Rethinking What Success Looks Like
Standardizing metrics and success levers are among the trickiest of tasks for contact centers — it's all about context. Depending on the industry and the unique needs of customers, businesses could have entirely different relationships with typical units of measure like average handle time (AHT) or net promoter score (NPS). This is further complicated by outside influences; during a period of crisis, seeing a higher volume of phone calls might not necessarily indicate lower customer satisfaction.
As businesses look to increase their agility, it isn't just a matter of changing process but measuring how those processes are working. They need to be able to deploy new capabilities to cater to different measurement systems on the fly — for example, increasing agent chat capabilities as a result of spikes in chat usage among customers.
Acting upon this requires close alignment and understanding of customer needs as they evolve. What processes do you have in place to capture customer sentiment and quickly translate that into metric adjustments? While this can be complicated by inconsistent reporting and rapidly changing social environments, monitoring long-term trends can be a powerful indicator. Even if that ultimately shifts further, businesses have rarely been wronged by following the needs of their customers. That flexibility and agility can ensure positive outcomes for customers regardless of outside circumstances.
Laying The Foundation
The world is unpredictable; there's no way to effectively plan for the unknown. However, the cloud can be a powerful bulwark against disruption by handing businesses and contact centers the tools to adjust course on the fly. Being prepared for anything means laying in place the tools to adapt and keeping them well within reach.
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ff0e0179df374606dd02939378fe4b7c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/13/will-voice-assistants-change-the-way-we-use-our-phones/ | Will Voice Assistants Change The Way We Use Our Phones? | Will Voice Assistants Change The Way We Use Our Phones?
Dennis is Co-Founder at Palm, Board Member. Past: VP, Head of Studio at Samsung. Head of Design, Special Projects at Google.
getty
Samantha: Is that weird? You think I'm weird?
Theodore: Kind of.
Samantha: Why?
Theodore: Well, you seem like a person, but you're just a voice in a computer.
Samantha: I can understand how the limited perspective of an unartificial mind might perceive it that way. You'll get used to it.
[Theodore laughs]
Samantha: Was that funny?
Theodore: Yeah.
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Samantha: Oh, good. I'm funny!
Since those words were first spoken on screen in the Spike Jonze film Her back in 2013, voice assistants have become a big part of everyday life for millions of people around the world. With the introduction of products like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant, we’re quickly evolving and changing the way we interface with our digital lives, all with the sound of our voice.
My children, now 11 and 8 years old, have grown up with the presence of Alexa and Google in our home, speak to them as if they’re virtual people and, in some instances, even apologize to them if they feel that they’ve spoken to them in a harsh tone.
Before my kids could even spell or type, they were performing complex searches with their voice, playing their favorite songs, researching their next science project or listening to a favorite bedtime story.
When my aging parents and in-laws visit my home, it has become routine for them to use their voice to turn on lights or watch TV. Both sides of parents are immigrants from Italy and Yugoslavia, and although their heavily accented voice commands are comedy gold, they work flawlessly.
We are at a tipping point. Voice is revolutionizing the interface in the same way the touch screen revolutionized the mouse and keyboard.
How design can shift behavior
The reinvention of Palm was shaped by insights like this and was largely inspired by the movie Her. Can a credit card-sized device that fits in your smallest pocket, with an emphasis on elevating voice-first experiences, help push the future of mobile?
In the early days of developing Palm, we envisioned a future where quick voice actions would save us seven or eight taps every time we wanted to unlock our smartphone screen and perform a task. Our theory was that a majority of the things we did on the go could be done simply with a voice command.
We started by carving out small credit card-sized blocks of wood, sizing and shaping them to fit in our everyday wear. It was important for a device to go everywhere, from fitting into a coin pocket to the tiny sleeve in yoga pants to a small fold in a wallet. We ventured into the world with tiny blocks of wood and pencils, leaving our smartphones behind, and jotted down every action we wanted to perform as we navigated our day.
What we discovered was quite intriguing. Although we are decades away from falling in love with a computer-based AI like in the movie Her, we saw that many of the everyday tasks depicted in the film can be done today simply by using our voice. From playing music to sending messages to starting a workout to calling a rideshare or navigating to our next latte.
Another lesson learned was to rethink the Android experience to drive a new type of behavior away from heavier screen use. Our research showed that by putting emphasis on accessing features that were quick and action-oriented and less on heavier screen consumption, most activities like social feed scrolling, long-form reading and heavy productivity could wait, which made smartphone use on the go more utilitarian rather than all-consuming.
Fast forward to over a year since our launch and applying our research, and the behavioral data from the vast number of Palm devices out in the wild is eye-opening. On average, customers use voice assistants five times more than a standard Android smartphone, take 30% more photos and listen to two times more music than average. What's just as interesting is what customers do far less: They spend 50% less time on social media and 84% less time on long-form consumption, and they perform 40% less email and work-related tasks on their smartphones.
Connected but not consumed
In addition voice being a way to save time and make our lives easier, voice drove ways for us to live happier and healthier digital lives by curbing our addiction to screens. Case in point, how many times have you unlocked your phone to perform a simple task and gotten sucked into one of your social feeds and began scrolling mindlessly? Recent research by Asurian shows that on average, Americans check their phones nearly 100 times per day — that's once every 10 minutes. This is a 20% daily increase from a previous survey.
Smartphones have evolved into mini tablets, giving us access to entertainment, productivity, gaming and social media all at a moment's notice. Many also assume that having access to everything, anytime, anywhere means that it's also socially acceptable to do so. These behaviors are rewiring our brains, creating dopamine dependencies similar to drugs, and taking a heavy toll on our well-being and relationships inside and outside of those screens.
Ultimately, there is a time and place for certain behaviors. However, since smartphones have evolved into supercomputers in our pockets, we’ve blurred those lines. A voice-first approach in mobile means there is an opportunity to take control of technology again, rather than have technology control us.
With a little help from our virtual friends, maybe we can stay more engaged in the real world by being connected with — but not as consumed by — our screens and technology. Our overall well-being and relationships will thank us for it.
By leaving our devices tucked away and letting our assistants do the dirty work, we just might become more human again and spend much more of our quality time looking up.
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5d95ac97ce19f10b852c8f4f12df7984 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/18/to-be-secure-enterprises-need-to-really-understand-the-clouds-shared-responsibility-model/?sh=4517f0ee712d | To Be Secure, Enterprises Need To Really Understand The Cloud’s Shared Responsibility Model | To Be Secure, Enterprises Need To Really Understand The Cloud’s Shared Responsibility Model
Anupam Sahai is vice president and Cloud CTO at Unisys. He leads the cloud business and product/tech strategy for the company.
The work-from-home movement prompted by the pandemic has accelerated the move to the cloud. More businesses now rely on the cloud to support remote workers and keep operations running. While the cloud has been extremely beneficial in enabling business continuity, cloud expansion also has amplified the cloud security challenge, which was already huge.
One of the biggest issues with cloud security is that it hinges on a shared responsibility model, which is a big cause of confusion. In this model, cloud providers assume some responsibility. The rest is up to the customer. This is very different than the on-premises data center model, in which companies have complete control of their infrastructure and data and how to secure it.
The shared responsibility model creates confusion because it changes depending upon the infrastructure and cloud services type. The three V's in the cloud — volume, variety and velocity — only compound this challenge by dramatically increasing the attack surface.
A Very Vexing Venture
The volume and variety of data are humongous. People and machines are uploading “a staggering 24,000 gigabytes” of data to the internet every second.
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Last year, the World Economic Forum published an article that said “the entire digital universe is expected to reach 44 zettabytes by 2020.” This was before Covid-19, which led to new data collection efforts and which McKinsey said "vaulted" digital adoption five years forward.
Meanwhile, the technologies replacing traditional infrastructure are increasing cloud velocity. Virtual machines, which will seem old school in a few years, last for days, weeks or months. Containers last an average of nine hours. Serverless functions may exist for just a few minutes.
That’s an extremely dynamic environment to get a handle on, especially considering the cloud doesn’t provide you with total control. It’s up to the enterprise to keep up with these changes and make sure someone is addressing the security and compliance challenges they present.
A Learning Opportunity
The first step to doing that is education. You need to work to understand where your cloud service providers’ boundaries end and where your boundary of responsibility begins.
You’ll want to assign responsibility for application-level controls, client and endpoint protection, data classification and accountability, host infrastructure, identity and access management, network controls, and physical security. Do this exercise separately for infrastructure as a service (IaaS), on-premises, platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS).
A House Of Security
Every good information security program includes closed-loop security. The closed-loop approach to security is important because no security mechanism is foolproof.
This concept is akin to the security in a house. A house has doors and windows, which we can lock. The second level of protection is using heat sensors and motion detectors to monitor for intruders. If an event suggests that remediation is required, the monitoring system can trigger an alarm to call the police, providing a third level of protection. I call this the “house of security.”
The closed-loop enterprise house of security starts with assessment. Cybersecurity threats are always evolving, so you need to evaluate your security landscape continuously. Intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS and IPS) can help with this first level of cybersecurity.
Monitoring and remediation are the second and third levels of protection. Monitoring involves using security monitoring tools such as security information and event management (SIEM) and cloud-native log management tools with business logic to flag incidents and raise alarms. Remediation entails understanding and using risk assessments to prioritize and fix the incidents that triggered the alarms.
An Assessment Of Risk
Risk assessment should be part of any robust information security and/or compliance program. This exercise involves trying to make sense of security-related events to better prioritize which ones are most important and how you are going to deal with them.
This starts with identifying what’s important and what’s not. You need to know what assets are critical so you can protect them against threats. Also, work to understand which threats and threat actors are important. You’ll want to consider your ability to detect and respond to threats as well. Likelihood and impact are import factors in assessing enterprise risk.
You can’t solve for everything, so you need to first prioritize and then address problems.
A Means To Scale
It’s also impossible to adequately address cybersecurity manually. Speed and velocity are critical for cloud security success because hackers can steal data within minutes or seconds.
Yet it typically takes companies about nine months to learn about and contain a breach. The volume and variety of data, and the velocity of the cloud, make locating the source of a breach like finding a needle in a haystack. So, automation is key in enabling effective cybersecurity.
You need sophisticated, fast-acting tools operating at cloud speed to contend with today’s gigabytes-per-second world and avoid the financial and reputational damage that cybersecurity events can create.
A Way To Divide And Conquer
Organizations can reduce the attack surface, secure critical applications and improve their regulatory compliance posture with microsegmentation. This method also addresses the fact that attacks do not always come from the outside. Attackers increasingly are gaining access to IT networks and then moving laterally to find a target.
Microsegmentation spreads the network out into individual sections so that someone can easily monitor and control traffic. Security teams can then establish controls and deliver services for each unique segment — or community of interest — of the infrastructure.
A sound microsegmentation strategy allows for consistent implementation of security policies across data center and cloud platforms.
A Myth Debunked
Many people think the cloud is secure. That’s a myth.
If you don’t understand and address cloud security, your organization will be exposed.
With the cloud, you don’t have full control over your infrastructure. That’s why the shared responsibility model exists. You need to take control by understanding this model in detail.
At the end of the day, security is your responsibility.
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85ef32422c3958ddc1a1b3b5fc22f9fd | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/19/the-ctos-yearly-checklist/?sh=6f3eb0aa6d00 | The CTO’s Yearly Checklist | The CTO’s Yearly Checklist
CTO and Technical Due Diligence Practice Lead at Silicon Valley Software Group.
getty
In a startup, as in any adventure, one needs to raise one's head toward the horizon once in a while to ensure that one is still headed in the right direction. Well-run companies typically hold quarterly executive off-sites, and at least once per year, the product road map is refreshed.
This is the perfect impetus to refresh everything in engineering: technology stack, tools, methodology, team and employee roles. Technology, tools or processes that used to work may become inadequate, or even break, as the company grows. A well-executed yearly review will identify the key challenges and opportunities for the following year, and thus allow you to identify the key decisions to be made inside engineering and to prepare for these decisions.
While the executive review of the product road map will focus on the execution part of the road map, it is equally important to lead an innovation review within the engineering team to ensure that you retain your technology leadership against the competition.
Finally, in order to have an effective yearly review, a lot of work must be done prior to the review (in order to inform the product road map decisions), as well as after it (in order to reflect the new product road map).
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Before The Product Road Map Review
During the product road map review, the executive team will usually concentrate on customer-facing features and will ask for dates for key deliverables. In order to make this discussion as effective as possible, you need to research what the likely top requests will be. In addition, you need to identify technical debt, as well as noncustomer-facing features (quality, robustness, performance, business continuity, compliance/security) that must be addressed — and build a business case for each of these, along with timing and resource allocations.
Because your development capacity, velocity for paying technical debt back and customer-facing work are determined by the resources available, you need to negotiate your budget for the coming year, parallel to building our future plans. Conversely, making commitments to a product road map without a clear idea of resources available will lead to uncomfortable discussions later.
With a good idea of the major engineering projects in place, you can refresh your technology road map and discuss the new technologies you need to acquire in order to deliver next year — whether this technology is inside the product or part of your internal tools. For example, have there been any significant advances in AI, cloud computing or analytics that will improve your efficiency or increase your competitive differentiation?
Finally, a good retrospective of the team will complete the preparation for the annual review. Based on this year’s accomplishments and next year’s objectives, how does the team need to evolve? How do you need to evolve? Do you need to radically improve quality? Will your market demand a step up in security? Who on the team has delivered beyond expectations? Do you need to take new classes or get a mentor? A thorough retrospective should involve a broad consultation with people inside and outside the engineering team.
During The Product Road Map Review
Product road map review meetings — particularly when part of an executive off-site — are usually intense affairs with lots of passionate discussions (usually a good thing). As CTOs, we must accomplish two critical objectives:
1. Avoid committing to any delivery dates on the spot, unless we have absolute clarity on both requirements and resources availability. However, you must provide estimates of scope for key features to inform decisions on priorities.
2. Ensure that the most important deliverables on the road map have well-documented business cases, from which it will be straightforward to extract precise requirements.
After The Product Road Map Review
Even when the yearly product road map review does not bring major surprises, the aftermath always entails a lot of work, which consists of delivering the actionable product road map and figuring out the changes necessary to execute this road map — beyond writing the code.
An actionable product road map is a commitment from the engineering team to deliver certain features by certain dates. This implies that the budget has been finalized, requirements and resources are clear, and you have done a detailed-enough design and task breakdown to make these commitments with enough confidence and buffer that you will not disappoint your customers.
In parallel, you must solidify our plans to refresh how you innovate, as well as how you execute.
On the technical side, you need to complement the customer-facing product road map with your internal technology road map, your technical debt payback plan, and your tools and infrastructure upgrade plans.
Finally, and too often forgotten, the organization must be refreshed: Team structure, culture, metrics, methodology, communication processes, technical skills and talent all need to be reevaluated with the active contribution of the teams’ leaders.
This massive effort culminates with extensive communications: The product road map, once it has become actionable, is shared with the business teams inside the company. In addition, when sharing the road map with the engineering team, it is critical to highlight the planned improvements in engineering, which will make this road map realistic, along with associated growth opportunities for each individual. This communication must be well orchestrated through all-hands, team and individual meetings so that every single engineer continues to be motivated, challenged and rewarded by the year ahead.
Finally, you need to give your team the tools for success, whether building up your direct reports and delegating more, defining new challenges to feed your continued motivation, learning new ways to lead, or implementing new technologies.
It is a lot of work to properly prepare and execute this yearly review. Yet, like most planning exercises, it usually bears fruits from the process itself of thinking about the future. Going into a new year with a well-thought-out and well-communicated actionable product road map provides a guiding path for everyone inside, and outside, the engineering department.
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327c2640d78bc65e3d2ac52f320600df | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/24/getting-a-handle-on-no-touch-software-sales/ | Getting A Handle On No-Touch Software Sales | Getting A Handle On No-Touch Software Sales
Dr. Zvi Guterman is chief executive officer of CloudShare
Despite the unpredictability of the pandemic, businesses are reopening, greeted by a new "abnormal" requiring drastic changes across workplaces. But while social distancing is disrupting nearly every aspect of business life, some procedures that organizations were forced to implement have proven quite effective and will likely remain long after restrictions are completely lifted.
Software companies were probably the most suited to adjust to the new realities imposed by Covid-19. Most have employees versed in working remotely and can maintain high levels of productivity. However, when it comes to sales, they are no different than other companies. In fact, due to the complex nature of their products, face-to-face time is even more critical for educating prospects.
As CEO of a cloud computing provider specializing in sales enablement environments, I know how important it is that software vendors carefully explore their options when it comes to pre-sales efforts to close deals. Software companies need to rethink strategies and processes across the entire buyer journey.
Engaging Without Touching
Most software vendors rely on high-touch sales models that leverage in-person interaction to close deals and build long-term relationships. It's very effective in the pre-sales stage where a hands-on experience can make all the difference in converting a prospect into a customer.
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Conducting on-site product demos and proofs of concept (PoCs) are the most effective high-touch pre-sales methods for software companies to showcase the value proposition of their products. Demos are particularly important these days as IT environments continue to grow in scale and complexity, and customers need to understand how software will operate before it can be trusted in production.
In the post-pandemic world, with on-site demos and PoCs not feasible, the need for new pre-sales tactics is clear. The first option that comes to mind is the likes of useful tools like Zoom and WebEx. But videoconferencing does have its limits, and there are better ways for software companies to engage. Software vendors should evaluate these methods based on two key parameters that influence their ability to support different pre-sales scenarios:
• Accuracy: The ability to test and experience software in conditions as close as possible to the prospect's IT environment. The more authentic and realistic, the better the chances to convert.
• Simplicity: The ability to set up and conduct demos and PoCs repeatedly with as little effort as possible. Complexity usually translates to heavy investments and allocation of significant time, equipment and human capital resources.
Accuracy Versus Simplicity
Accuracy and simplicity tend to trade-off with each other. The traditional way of running a demo on dedicated hardware at a prospect's site provides a realistic experience as it allows for testing software in the environment where it is supposed to be deployed. However, on-site demos are costly and not scalable due to the need to bring along equipment and technical staff to install and run the software — an effort that must be repeated for each demo.
On-site demos are useful for selling heavyweight enterprise applications or IT infrastructure software (e.g., networking, security, storage and system management). Because of the complexity of such systems, their mission-critical role and the high costs involved, conversion is more difficult. Hence, an on-site demo can be an effective way to address prospects' concerns and convince them to make a purchase.
Software vendors wanting to reduce customer acquisition costs and shorten sales cycles will favor lower-touch models. Included in this category are video tutorials and tools to create and personalize sales content, demos and walkthroughs. Further, video and collaboration platforms support a low-touch, simple and cost-friendly pre-sales model for applications or cloud services that are relatively easy to deploy.
Still, while providing simplicity and scalability, they likely don't deliver the desired accuracy and experience of on-site demos and don't allow prospects to evaluate how the software will perform in production.
Virtual Alternatives
For software vendors reliant on high-touch, there is an alternative that can allow for conducting demos in an environment that does offer this accuracy.
Virtual IT labs enable software companies to set up a complete IT environment for prospects that can be managed in the cloud as a single entity. This way, software vendors can make one or more versions of their actual products available in a virtualized, cloud-based environment, supporting complex scenarios that simulate infrastructure in an accurate manner.
Though compelling, there is a caveat; some traditional labs lack capabilities to serve as a primary sales vehicle for software vendors in a post-pandemic world. It is vital to find a solution that can handle distributed SaaS apps at cloud scale and speed.
If considering virtual lab solutions, look for features that emphasize self-service, flexible access and usage privileges, integration with customers' CRM tools and processes, in addition to advanced analytics for insight into prospect usage and behavior. When it comes to a PoC, knowing who within a company actually gave your solution a try can be very useful. Being able to see key features they may have overlooked, or where they may have stalled, provides additional opportunity to offer assistance and close sales.
Consider solutions that speed up sales enablement, particularly by automating and simplifying tasks so more time can be focused on content quality and generating greater production. If your company mandates the use of a large commodity cloud, look for a business acceleration one that can sit on top of it to provide users with the purpose-built power they need to compete today. It's capabilities like these that have created new alternatives and standards in no-touch sales.
The Post-Pandemic Opportunity
Social distancing isn't the only reason for the infeasibility of high-touch processes. In times of a slowing economy, vendors look to reduce the cost of sales. Market conditions may further drive software companies to reduce the price they charge for products, which could put many under pressure to close more deals, faster, using fewer resources.
To accomplish this, software sales leaders should consider options that break the trade-off between accuracy and simplicity, while closing widening personal gaps. Better to be prepared, adaptive and in a position to seize new opportunities no matter what may come.
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e0012c351ef71719e44566d0169f9bb5 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/24/how-a-mathematical-optimization-model-can-help-your-business-deal-with-disruption/ | How A Mathematical Optimization Model Can Help Your Business Deal With Disruption | How A Mathematical Optimization Model Can Help Your Business Deal With Disruption
Edward Rothberg is CEO and Co-Founder of Gurobi Optimization, which produces the world’s fastest mathematical optimization solver.
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The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered a wave of severe economic disruption around the world, causing widespread chaos, profound changes in the business landscape and overwhelming operational challenges.
A recent survey by Gartner revealed that 84% of organizations are facing disruption due to Covid-19. Virtually no industry has been immune to the impact of the pandemic. The question is: How can businesses today navigate these uncharted waters and find new pathways to profitability amid a sea of uncertainty?
Many companies utilize AI tools such as machine learning and heuristics to help them manage their operations and make data-driven plans, predictions and decisions. But the problem is that many of these tools depend on historical data, and given the unprecedented nature of today’s economic challenges, past performance is not a reliable indicator of future business outcomes.
To deal with today’s disruption and chart a course to profitability amid such immense uncertainty, companies must have AI tools that take into account their current business situations, challenges and constraints — and mathematical optimization is such a technology.
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With mathematical optimization, you can:
• Represent your complex business problems as mathematical models, which you can adjust to accurately reflect your company’s present-day reality.
• Use those models (along with up-to-date data and a mathematical optimization solver) to help you tackle your real-world business problems and make the best possible decisions.
By relying on models of your real-world business environment and running on the latest available data, mathematical optimization technologies help you explore and understand your business situation today, so you can react effectively to changing conditions and disruptions.
What Is A Mathematical Optimization Model?
A mathematical optimization model is like a digital twin of your real-world business situation; it mirrors your actual business landscape and encapsulates your unique business processes and problems in a software environment.
Technically speaking, a mathematical optimization model is a mathematical representation of your real-world business problem that is made up of three key features:
• Decision Variables: The decisions that you have to make.
• Constraints: The business rules that you have to adhere to.
• Business Objectives: The various (and often conflicting) business goals you are aiming to achieve.
To give you an example that is particularly relevant today, a hospital network whose business problem is equipment and facility capacity planning during the Covid-19 pandemic could create a model that captures that business problem's:
• Decision variables such as which medical equipment, including testing kits, PPE and ventilators, to distribute to which hospitals and which ICU wards, beds and operating theaters to allocate to which patients.
• Constraints such as conventional, contingency and crisis capacity levels for PPE across the hospital network and regulations regarding which wards and beds need to be reserved for patients with various conditions.
• Business objectives such as maximizing resource utilization and service-level performance while minimizing operating costs.
This hospital network’s model would probably have millions or more decision variables and constraints, and these inputs could be adjusted at any time to accommodate changing conditions in the operating environment and shifts in supply and demand dynamics.
There are countless other challenging and critical business problems today, from food production to shipment routing to electric power generation and transmission to classroom seating assignments (while respecting social distancing), that can be captured in mathematical optimization models.
A mathematical optimization model is a dynamic digital representation of your current business situation, encompassing all the complexity and volatility that you are facing today.
How Can A Mathematical Optimization Model Help You Handle Disruption?
The act of defining your business problem as a mathematical optimization model can enable you to attain a greater awareness of your business conditions and challenges, but how can that model actually be used to help you deal with disruption? To do this, you need to feed your model up-to-date data and integrate it with a mathematical optimization solver that:
• Automatically processes the data and reads the model.
• Combs through and considers an astronomical number of possible solutions to your business problems.
• Finds the optimal solutions that you can use as the basis to make your business decisions.
With up-to-date data and a solver, a mathematical optimization model becomes much more than merely a representation of your business problem; it becomes an integral part of the solution to that problem.
Combining these three elements (your model, your data and a solver) in a mathematical optimization application gives you the power to:
• Visualize: Get a 360-degree, bird’s-eye view over your operations and gain a deep understanding of the dynamics and disruptions present in your business landscape.
• Analyze: Explore various scenarios and gauge their potential impact on your business so you can identify risks and opportunities.
• Decide: Rapidly generate optimal solutions to your business problems and use those solutions to determine courses of action.
By fusing your model with a mathematical optimization solver and fueling it with up-to-date data, you get visibility and control over your operational network. No matter how profoundly the business world changes, your mathematical optimization application has the flexibility and robustness to consistently deliver optimal solutions.
A Technology For Today
The unprecedented economic disruption triggered by Covid-19 has set off a seismic shift in our business dynamics and data. Companies must continue to leverage AI tools to enable data-driven decision making, but they cannot solely rely on those tools (like machine learning) that use data from the past to make predictions about the future.
The most valuable AI tools for companies today are those — like mathematical optimization — that run on up-to-date data, encompass the present-day reality, and empower decision-makers to respond to disruption in the most efficient and effective manner possible.
To get started, imagine what it would mean to your organization to be able to model and understand your business situation today. Then, identify which business problems you have that could be addressed with mathematical optimization. From there, you can start to figure out how your organization can use mathematical optimization to deal with disruption and drive improved decision-making and business outcomes.
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4df5743ad067b60d6e4db39c599f1c5b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/24/leaning-on-automation-in-lean-times/?sh=3fd5c0912444 | Leaning On Automation In Lean Times | Leaning On Automation In Lean Times
Malinka Waliyadde is Co-Founder & CEO of Alpha Health, the first Unified Automation company for revenue cycle management in healthcare.
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In a matter of a few weeks, we saw almost everyone on this planet change the way they live or work.
The velocity and scope of that transformation is unprecedented in history. While we know the current coronavirus pandemic will eventually end, everything is not merely going to go back to what it was before. The world has changed, and so have we — and we all know we can work differently.
Looking Back To Look Forward
For a hint of what is coming, it's often helpful to look back.
History shows that financial crises and recessions have always been accelerants for adopting automation. From Black Monday in October 1987 to the 2007-08 global financial crisis, companies reeling from economic shock, pressed to tighten budgets, turn to smarter ways of working. Expect the same but more so now. This pandemic is not only different in its scope; it is beyond anything we've seen before. The size of this impact, and the simple fact that the virus has forced companies into remote work and automation for public health and safety, only adds momentum to the adoption of automation.
This move toward automation has been happening for years now. We have food delivery robots, warehouse-stocking robots, manufacturing bots and the artificial intelligence used to power these machines. Even before our current crisis, many executives projected that the number of companies rolling out automation would double over the next two years, according to a survey by Bain & Company.
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Now, the pandemic has become an accelerant to automation as companies look for a way forward. David Autor, a professor of economics at MIT and co-chair of the MIT Work of the Future Task Force, called the current recession "an automation-forcing event."
The Human Touch
As ominous as it sounds to some, the coming wave of automation does not mean we will have a dystopian future where robots take the place of humans. Although there is a risk for the kind of jobless recoveries we have seen in past recessions, it doesn't have to be that way. Indeed, most well-known automation technologies may have disrupted labor, but they didn't replace humans. When William Seward Burroughs created the modern-day calculator with his "calculating machine" in 1885, he didn't wipe out the work of accountants.
There is something called the automation paradox — automation reduces the costs of a product or service, lowering prices, which then increases demand. That, in turn, creates more opportunities for workers and for new kinds of labor. The goal of automation is to increase efficiency, reduce costs or improve a service. Automation can also create a bulwark of resiliency against future crises. The purpose of automation is not to eliminate jobs, but to give workers and businesses the tools for better performance.
As the CEO and co-founder of a company that uses automation at the crossroads of AI and healthcare, I know the key to our success is the human touch. We call this "unified automation," and it blends human judgment and subject matter expertise with machine learning to efficiently deliver better service. It also frees up people to focus on more meaningful work. Ultimately, it's good for business, workers and customers.
Fits And Starts In Demand
As we slowly reopen our economy, consumer demand will come back in fits and starts. Businesses that have invested in automation will be equipped to manage that volatility in demand. Each company faces unique demands, making it difficult to predict workloads over the next year.
In healthcare, which I know the most about, health systems should face waves of pent-up demand from patients who have held off on elective or noncritical care. We commissioned a survey that found a majority of Americans will wait between one month to over six months to return to hospitals for routine care. This will require staffing flexibility that can be easily ramped up and down to respond to irregular spikes in demand.
This is different from other kinds of consumer and service industry businesses. While most industries will see surges after stay-at-home restrictions are lifted, they may be less acute. People will return to eating out, but dinner dates canceled during the pandemic don't accumulate. Neither do missed haircuts or trips to Hawaii. This is not the case in healthcare, where many of the canceled procedures are necessary and will come back.
While each business must navigate its own course out of this crisis, we all share the same need to find the smartest way to change our cost structures. Investing in automation could offer the best opportunity for that as well.
The Operational Stress Test
Past crises revealed vulnerabilities we either hadn't seen before or simply ignored.
After the 2008 financial crisis, a series of regulations were passed to protect the American public and the financial system. One of those was a "stress test" for banks to ensure they had sufficient capital reserves to ride out future financial crises. If we'd had these stress tests in place before the crisis, an analysis showed we would have been better prepared, perhaps shortening the recession.
Perhaps for this crisis, we should create an "operational stress test." This would be to ensure businesses have an operational failsafe system to provide continuity during black swan events. Some of that may involve "virtual workers," machines, bots or artificial intelligence to help workers and businesses continue performing consistently no matter the crisis.
The Future Of Automation
So if history should repeat itself once more, and this recession serves as an accelerant to the adoption of automation, that will likely be a good thing for all of us. We at Alpha Health are certainly seeing this trend play out for health systems and provider organizations in the healthcare market today.
By leaning on automation in these lean times, we can not only better navigate our current environment, but also set up a fundamentally more efficient and more effective operating model for when we've all recovered so we will be better prepared and nimbler when the next recession rolls around.
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c5f591eaeec5e5a2b8fc2cf75613b6c4 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/24/three-ways-to-improve-remote-work-in-2020/?sh=7c52d6c945f9 | Three Ways To Improve Remote Work In 2020 | Three Ways To Improve Remote Work In 2020
David is CEO of Capacity – a secure, AI-native knowledge sharing platform to help teams do their best work.
Because we’ve spent most of the last few months in quarantine, it’s hard to believe we’re already more than halfway through 2020. While the sudden work-from-home mandate was a novel concept for some, remote work has been gaining traction among knowledge workers for some time. Over the last 10 years, the number of remote workers has grown 400%.
Although there are proven benefits to working remotely, including more flexibility and fewer interruptions (for some), it also comes with its own set of challenges. As more organizations embraced remote work earlier this year than ever before, those challenges were laid bare.
Here’s what we learned from widespread remote work and how we can apply those lessons to improve remote work in the future.
Communication
Communication in a remote work environment is much different from how we communicate in an office setting — team meetings have been moved to Zoom calls, and status check-ins now happen via Slack. While these tools have made our transition to remote work easier, we are still acutely aware of the complications of a dispersed workforce.
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In part, productivity loss is a result of poor communication. Over the last few months, organizations have found it challenging to manage communication without inundating their team with calls, chats and emails. The increased use of collaboration tools can create a workday full of constant interruptions, but many believe they’re necessary to ensure nothing falls through the cracks. The key is in finding the right balance of team collaboration and workflow.
A few ideas include:
• Scheduling meeting blocks: Tackle a significant amount of team communication at once to avoid those small interruptions in your team’s workflow.
• Creating a virtual communication policy: Include what, when, where, why and how teams communicate to ensure everyone is on the same page.
• Using the right number of communication tools: Allow your team to effectively communicate without toggling through a bunch of different tools to do so.
• Setting a ‘do not disturb’ status: Ensure that you can go heads-down on a project.
Work-Life Balance
It’s only natural for business leaders to want their team to be as productive as possible, but they also need to keep a pulse on their team’s well-being. A healthy work-life balance is crucial to avoiding stress and burnout. Poor performance, heightened emotions and absenteeism are all indicators of burnout.
The challenge in a remote work environment is that team members no longer have a designated stopping point to their workday, so your team is more likely to work longer hours. While many managers worry their team members will be less productive in a remote setting, workers actually spend an additional three hours per day on their computers.
There are a number of ways to help your team establish a healthy work-life balance while remote. A few include:
• Encouraging breaks throughout the day so your team can set aside personal time for running errands, making lunch or exercising.
• Scheduling time for your team to talk about life. This could be a weekly sync or even a quick end-of-day recap, but providing time for team members to connect about things outside of work helps them establish a more concrete line between their work life and personal life.
• Suggesting teams separate themselves from their workspace to make the line between home and work more distinct and to help them avoid the temptation of logging back on after hours.
Culture
Business leaders in all industries pride themselves on having a great corporate culture — it is the glue that holds a company together. A well-defined, positive culture is a critical part of business operations, employee satisfaction, brand perception and revenue growth.
Perks we previously implemented in the office to boost our culture like Wednesday night work-late dinners and unlimited snacks and specialty coffee have been traded for Zoom happy hours and virtual “Nailed It” baking contests. When 88% of employees believe a distinct workplace culture is important to business success, it is crucial for organizations to focus efforts on this front despite working off-site. When evaluating your strategy for amplifying a virtual culture, remember to:
• Recognize your team members for the big and little wins.
• Encourage an environment of open, honest communication.
• Create a virtual “watercooler” for your team to connect.
• Bake team building into your workflow.
As we navigate through what Time magazine has dubbed “the world’s largest work-from-home experiment,” we have to prepare for the new work life to follow. Remote work is here to stay. By applying what we’ve learned in the last few months, we can create a better experience for the future of work — whether that be in an office, by a pool or at the kitchen table.
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8ea588cf60bd4f3dffafcffb201d3957 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/25/meet-avatar-dan-what-the-future-of-manufacturing-could-look-like-with-arvr/ | Meet Avatar Dan: What The Future Of Manufacturing Could Look Like With AR/VR | Meet Avatar Dan: What The Future Of Manufacturing Could Look Like With AR/VR
VP of manufacturing, technology and innovation at Jabil. Over 20 years of experience helping global teams deploy cutting-edge manufacturing.
getty
For the past five years, excluding the last five months, I have worked at a high-tech lab co-located in a Silicon Valley innovation center. Going to work was an opportunity to be fully immersed in a continuous learning environment with cutting-edge technologies and some of the best minds in engineering, science and manufacturing. Until, of course, the day we shifted to a work-from-home model.
Overnight, we were separated from each other as well as our vital lab hardware, software and tools. Yet we still are developing dozens of critical manufacturing processes, many of which have been transferred, deployed and audited in factories and facilities all over the world. How did we move on despite the pandemic? To ensure seamless collaboration and accelerate innovation, we collectively reached for our augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets.
These tools already have proven indispensable for training production-line operators while guiding them through complex manufacturing operations. In Singapore, for instance, a team of engineers working in our additive manufacturing center uses AR to reduce training time by 50% on complex 3D printers. Similarly, AR helps speed maintenance instruction training and facilitates remote support.
Building Cyber-Physical Bridges
During Covid-19 office closures, AR/VR adoption surged as global teams at all types of companies sought new ways to connect people, places and things. The semiconductor industry, among other top tech sectors, embraced AR to help maintain machines on factory floors. For example, Porsche technicians used three times more AR in February and March alone as dealership technicians pulled in remote experts to help solve problems that could not be easily diagnosed.
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Aside from typical remote training and maintenance applications, everyday use of AR/VR to boost productivity is growing at legions of tech companies, including Google, Amazon, Twitter and Facebook. As organizations extend and expand work-from-home policies, bridging physical, technological and communications gaps are hugely important. The same rules apply for innovation centers, especially as persistent travel restrictions dramatically alter how we interact with them going forward.
Each physical experience will need its own virtual counterpart that aligns and complements it to transfer knowledge while fostering a culture of continuous learning. This not only will transform how we currently work and learn in traditional office environments, but it will dramatically alter the very nature of innovation centers.
Innovation Without Boundaries
Instead of envisioning innovation centers as standalone destinations that showcase exhibits of past accomplishments, they will come to be seen as crucial cogs in an ever-turning wheel of technologies, advancements and learnings. As much as I enjoyed visiting 3M's Innovation Center in St. Paul, Minnesota (mostly because I got to see firsthand the innovations behind Post-It Notes and the synthetic materials used for the soles of Neil Armstrong's moon-walking boots), I now realize a virtual visit would have been equally rewarding.
The world becomes much more accessible when AR/VR is used to close gaps and cross boundaries. In the future, our virtual conduits will connect explorers, engineers and entrepreneurs at factories and individual labs worldwide to examine theories, stress-test processes, and engage in out-of-the-box thinking.
I foresee a group of virtual guides who can help expand our vision of what is possible by bringing together innovation center employees, visitors and partners for new experiences across time and space. If that sounds a little too sci-fi, then imagine the power of having your own personal avatar that immerses you fully into experiential learning.
Advancing Innovation With Avatars
I cannot wait to work with my avatar, who I am confident will be a tremendous innovation partner. I'm excited for the day when applications like the one from Spatial let me create a lifelike avatar and work right alongside him. "Avatar Dan," as I will call him, can take me into the middle of a new product design site in Shanghai after stopping by our learning academy in Marcianise, Italy, to observe breakthroughs in optical communications. My globetrotting avatar and I will have access to the latest hardware, software and tools needed to develop factory-of-the-future breakthroughs of all kinds.
What's more, my personal avatar and I will work in parallel (sometimes in simultaneous) workstreams to balance both physical and virtual experiences. Bidirectional input will flow easily and organically as we coordinate and collaborate with other physical and virtual teams in other innovation centers and labs, on factory floors and at customer and partner locations around the globe.
Ultimately, we will create a huge innovation sandbox that will make it easier to share knowledge and create a robust talent pipeline to speed the delivery of manufacturing advancements into global factories. And not only will my avatar be highly creative and productive, but he will be fashion-forward too, especially now that avatars are joining forces with leading fashion brands, like Louis Vuitton and Gucci.
The more I think about it, the more excited I get about working with Gucci-attired Avatar Dan — I hope it happens soon.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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6a0fe6dcf7a066530e247c8a7ed18637 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/25/updating-legacy-technology-16-strategies-for-success/ | Updating Legacy Technology? 16 Strategies For Success | Updating Legacy Technology? 16 Strategies For Success
As both technology and your business evolve, it’s essential to stay on the lookout for new tech solutions that best suit your needs. In some cases, your company will need to clean house and start from scratch. However, other circumstances may simply warrant an upgrade of your current technology.
If the latter is the case for you, you’ll need a plan to update your existing tech stack with minimal interruptions to your current workflow. That’s why we asked the members of Forbes Technology Council to share their best strategies for successfully modernizing legacy technology.
Members of Forbes Technology Council share important considerations when updating legacy technology. Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Envision your business’ future state.
Technology transformation is often married to digital transformation. Both require a clear vision of a business’ future state and new ways of working. It’s a great opportunity to spring clean and jettison systems that aren’t aligned to that vision. When executing the transformation, excellent change management is the key to ensuring that everyone is aligned and contributing to a shared goal. - Ivan Harris, Kraytix
2. Make decisions based on activity.
We have production installations in the largest enterprise on the planet. There is no such thing as “starting from scratch.” The key to modernizing is understanding what is actually used and what should/could be transitioned. Making decisions based on whether something is “legacy” is a poor way to find your way. Making decisions based on live activity/data will enable a more efficient modernization. - Chris Holmes, Decipher Technology Studios
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3. Move to the public cloud.
Be like Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, who is taking his legacy applications at JPMorgan and moving them all to the public cloud. He is refactoring his legacy applications by ripping and replacing large components with open source, modern and, in some cases, dramatically fewer lines of code. The result is your old legacy application has less tech debt, is easier to maintain and is now upgraded (and in the public cloud)! - Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
4. Continually improve your codebase.
A codebase that’s proven to work effectively, mastered with automation to build, test and deploy, is a precious asset for competing in the age of software. Continuously improving the way you do daily work can transform the future value of legacy codebases and allow businesses to build new capabilities—on what’s already proven to work well—better, cheaper and faster. - Christopher O’Malley, Compuware Corporation
5. Examine potential agility gains.
It’s always important to understand how critical a technology is to the business and what gains can be had from agility if an application is modernized in a way that allows much more rapid future change. Put the effort and risk into modernization via rewriting/re-platforming when there are significant gains; when dealing with apps where the function will be static, focus on stability and cost. - Matthew Wallace, Faction, Inc.
6. Place a digital layer over your legacy landscape.
Many companies have a vast amount of legacy technology and debt. The best approach is a new mindset. Modernizing legacy is about moving workloads, not replacing a legacy application with a new one. To accomplish this, a digital data layer can be put over the legacy landscape and a PaaS cloud layer built on top as a place to move workloads. Now embrace a workload mindset to whittle away the debt. - Kerrie Hoffman, Get Digital Velocity
7. Develop a comprehensive testing strategy.
The test strategy is crucial. When modernizing legacy tech, a typical approach for the initial release is to upgrade the tech, leaving the capability as-is (no rationalization yet). So it is critical to have a comprehensive testing strategy to validate the capabilities function as required. - Thiru Sivasubramanian, SE2, LLC
8. Perform a thorough data audit.
Start with data. Most legacy system modernization projects fail because data is not migrated or updated correctly. Before starting a modernization project, it’s important to perform a data audit to understand how the modernization changes will affect your data needs. Once you do this, make sure they become part of the modernization project and are constantly revisited to account for changing needs. - Carlos Melendez, Wovenware
9. Adopt a hybrid architecture approach.
Companies must adopt a hybrid architecture approach where different technologies can provide different business functions and features. This will allow businesses to modernize their legacy technology through a continuous cycle of new business value creation and technology upgrade flow. - Sergei Anikin, Pipedrive
10. Look at data protection and efficiency.
Address these areas before upgrading: Will the system and data be adequately protected? Is the legacy system less efficient than the systems it integrates with, increasing downtime risk? Does the talent still exist to support the older system? Will it meet the needs of customers today—and the customers you want tomorrow? Your answers define a successful upgrade or indicate a need to rebuild. - Anna Frazzetto, Harvey Nash/NashTech Global
11. Analyze the support needed for your legacy tech.
The team that built your legacy technology needs to be around for the long term to support it as it ages. People don’t realize or run the numbers to understand (based on the size of the codebase) how much maintenance support they will need for legacy technology. It’s essential to run these numbers, as well as the opportunity cost from new tech, to continue using legacy technology properly. - Allan Wintersieck, Devetry
12. Upgrade a little at a time.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Identify small, discrete parts of the technology platform that can be upgraded. Leveraging contemporary cloud technology and micro-services can be very helpful in allowing a clean separation of the old from the new. Finally, be sure to prioritize business value. Many legacy features are likely not leveraged by a majority of your users. - Dave Todaro, Ascendle
13. Identify problem areas and invest accordingly.
The first thing is to accept that even though any given legacy system may not be “broke,” it likely needs fixing. Independent pharmacies, for example, are often holdouts in making upgrades in technology, but the general move from license-based software to cloud-powered architecture is undeniable. Take 90 days to review where you stand, identify problem areas and invest accordingly to solve them. - Meghann Chilcott, XIL Consulting
14. Assess the maturity level of your cyber defense systems.
First, you’ll want to do a maturity level assessment of your current cyber defense systems. There’s a cost associated with each choice, and what you don’t want to do is simply make your decision on just one tool. A maturity assessment helps you take a holistic view of how changes will impact other systems. But you don’t want to delay the inevitable. If you need to build it, you need to start now. - John Shin, RSI Security
15. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
You must ask yourself what components can be upgraded, reused, recycled or just altogether thrown away. There’s a term called “reinventing the wheel.” If you don’t have to, don’t. You can evolve the wheel already built, refurbish it and put it into a modern system. Often, people get trapped with scrapping and rebuilding only to realize a deficiency much later on. - WaiJe Coler, InfoTracer
16. Know why you’re modernizing your technology.
It’s essential to understand why you’re modernizing your legacy technology before starting. Is it because the tech is failing? Is it outdated, or has its functionality been superseded by another piece of technology? Consider also the business objectives for modernization and ensure your replacement tech still meets or exceeds them. - Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
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cbd5bd9ef9b43ce4eef94e843a88a68b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/31/how-covid-19-is-changing-healthcare-for-good/?sh=5d9fee427620 | How Covid-19 Is Changing Healthcare For Good | How Covid-19 Is Changing Healthcare For Good
Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer at PlushCare, a virtual medical care platform.
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As the Covid-19 pandemic continues, new and unprecedented demands are being placed on healthcare systems around the world. Now more than ever, we need effective, reliable and immediate care for those in need. Telehealth is not a new industry, but the circumstances of this pandemic have placed it at the forefront of our global healthcare response.
You might have never heard of telehealth before these past few months, but the pandemic is proving to be the tipping point for the industry. Like never before, digital information, remote monitoring and online appointments are critical to protecting patient health and providing for patient needs.
According to a report published by Global Market Insights, the telehealth industry is projected to exceed $64.1 billion in the U.S. by 2025 Additionally, a National Business Group on Health survey found that 96% of U.S. companies said they would provide telehealth coverage within their health insurance benefits plans, and the American Hospital Association noted that 76% of U.S. hospitals currently use telehealth to connect patients with providers. As the industry continues to rapidly evolve into a critical feature of our national healthcare services, it's crucial that businesses and consumers alike understand telehealth and how to use it.
How To Use Telehealth
Telehealth can be a great solution whether you're an individual seeking care or a business offering employee health benefits. Telehealth cannot replace the immediate care necessary for acute and life-threatening emergencies, but it can serve as an easier and more convenient way to access many traditional health services.
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Primary care — the day-to-day healthcare provided by general practitioners or family physicians — can be transferred into an online service while improving the quality of care and patient experience. For many with chronic conditions, such as diabetes or hypertension, seeing a doctor online for ongoing care and prescription refills can be more convenient than frequently going to their doctor, especially when going to the doctor's office can be a risky outing.
Similarly, many urgent care needs can be diagnosed and treated through online services. Two of the most commonly treated urgent care conditions at my virtual healthcare company are strep throat and urinary tract infections, both common illnesses that are typically easy for patients to recognize and for doctors to diagnose and treat.
Mental healthcare is another area of telehealth where we've seen a consistent rise in popularity. Receiving talk therapy and psychiatric medication online can be highly effective and efficient. Patients have been quick to pick this up and continue to book virtual appointments for mental healthcare. We are in the process of expanding our mental health program so we can offer more specialized psychiatric care to meet patient demand.
Telehealth is also especially useful for those in remote locations, those who don't have time to see a doctor frequently, those who are uninsured and the elderly. These demographics are typically the most likely to benefit from the convenience of online appointments at lower costs. However, we're currently seeing telehealth benefit just about everyone during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Telehealth And Covid-19
Social distancing guidelines and the demands on our healthcare system have made routine medical services difficult to conduct. Telehealth can eliminate the risk of infection by removing the need for face-to-face interactions between doctors and patients. Many patients have quickly adjusted to receiving care online; during the pandemic, we've seen a 460% increase in patient sign-ups, and our patient base continues to grow rapidly.
Further, in response to the pandemic, Medicare has been expanded to cover telehealth reimbursements nationwide. Covid-19 risks are much higher for elderly patients, so telehealth is now the preferred method of care. As patients continue to adjust to digital healthcare, we expect many to continue to use telehealth as their primary method of care long after the pandemic.
The Challenges With Covid-19 And Telehealth
While telehealth has been having its moment, there are several challenges. As private practitioners quickly transition online, some may be compromising cybersecurity and HIPAA compliance. Providers need to provide patients with answers regarding how personal medical information is being protected. Another challenge many telehealth companies face is effectively scaling services to meet increased demand. While we are onboarding more doctors than ever before so we can efficiently work with more patients, not all companies have been able to scale, resulting in reports of longer wait times, missed appointments and customer dissatisfaction.
From a clinical point of view, the lack of remote Covid-19 testing and other diagnostic tests (i.e., flu testing) has been challenging. We're hoping for FDA-approved at-home testing in the near future so patients can be safely diagnosed and treated from their homes. At-home testing can not only prevent spread but additionally increase access and ease of testing.
Lastly — and this is not a new challenge — telehealth requires patients to have the proper technology. For some, a reliable internet connection, smartphone or computer may be out of reach. The industry must work to solve these accessibility issues so we don't leave patients behind.
The Need For Telehealth
As the Covid-19 pandemic limits our access to public places, I believe telehealth is needed now more than ever for individuals, companies and care centers to provide necessary medical treatment. From needing a routine prescription refill to life-saving remote patient monitoring, telehealth can take care of these needs while keeping providers and patients safe.
Telehealth can be faster, cheaper and more convenient for both patients and providers than traditional care. Providers agree; according to a Deloitte survey, 90% of physicians find telehealth beneficial in terms of increased patient access, communication and satisfaction. Further, all of this is achieved while maintaining health standards; 97% of our patients are treated successfully on the first visit.
As more people have positive experiences with telehealth, the industry should continue to grow and become more intimately integrated into our healthcare system. Patients and providers who don't get on board may find themselves receiving and offering care that is not up to new quality standards.
Telehealth is a big step in the right direction to providing everyone with the healthcare they deserve, and it's time we all reap the benefits.
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5b6c2b1d8d1f4ad2adf878b5d5378716 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/01/the-new-era-of-saas-is-here-and-ai-is-leading-the-charge/?sh=107237604b24 | The New Era Of SaaS Is Here, And AI Is Leading The Charge | The New Era Of SaaS Is Here, And AI Is Leading The Charge
Pekka Koskinen is the CEO & Founder of Leadfeeder, a lead generation software.
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Starting in 2002, I've founded five software companies and made three exits to date. Along the way, I’ve witnessed tectonic levels of change since launching my first company.
In the fast-paced world of software as a service (SaaS), the pool of competition has continued to evolve, and alongside it, so have buyer expectations.
As pointed out by a SaaS economics study from Price Intelligently, SaaS companies “that started five years ago faced an average of 2.6 competitors in their first year of business. Those founded a year ago were up against 9.7.”
Right now, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are bringing a wave of disruptive change.
And I believe the SaaS companies that ride its crest will out-market and outperform competitors. This post will show how they’re doing it already.
Hyper-Personalized Marketing To Leads
Customer expectations have evolved. Many consumers are willing to relinquish small portions of privacy in return for relevant recommendations.
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They also expect brands to offer personalized experiences and products. This change has rippled into the business-to-business (B2B) industry, a place where longer sales cycles and multiple customer touchpoints are expected. According to research by Salesforce, by 2020, 75% of B2B customers expect suppliers to predict and pre-empt their needs before they initiate contact.
With powerful pattern recognition and predictive analysis, AI and machine learning are helping SaaS companies meet the levels of personalization that consumers — regardless of being B2B, business-to-consumer (B2C) or direct-to-consumer (DTC) — are conditioned to expect.
This was the case for WalkMe, a digital adoption platform catering to B2B and enterprise companies. With such a broad target market spanning across multiple verticals and different sized organizations, they have a dynamic range of buyer personas.
For the sales and marketing team, this proved problematic in two ways:
1. How were sales and marketing going to agree on the quality of a lead?
2. How would they tailor their messages and personalize campaigns to separate personas with different needs?
To avoid wasting the effort of sales reps and improve conversion rates, they partnered with a predictive learning and AI-powered lead-scoring platform.
AI helped them identify the top 40% of leads contributing to 80% of the company’s revenue.
With that data, WalkMe’s marketing and sales team were able to tailor campaigns and meetings around leads with the most potential. This resulted in an 11% higher deal quality, twice as many scheduled meetings and 50% more opportunities.
Effective Automation And Significant Support
At the helm of a two-person SaaS startup, Pardeep Kullar and Joe d’Elia were stretched thin between sales, marketing and customer support for Anymail finder (an email verification software).
The pair were barraged with repeated questions and were forced to manually respond to each inquiry via email.
After turning to an AI chatbot provided by another SaaS company, they were able to optimize the entire customer support and sales process with pre-written resolutions to common problems.
The bot also provided useful messaging metrics — like which automated responses were the most effective.
With meaningful metrics for optimization, and the bot handling the bulk of high-volume service demands, the two-man team lowered the average response time down to three minutes.
According to cofounder Pardeep, this generated 60% more revenue, with 9 out of 10 “big buyers” using the chat system before making a purchase.
Anymail finder’s story shows that for SaaS companies with nimble teams and tight budgets, AI is lending a huge helping hand with customer-facing support, lead qualification and even sales.
Scaling The Unscalable And Disrupting Industries
In 1962, the United States made its first attempt to send NASA’s Mariner 1 spacecraft to Venus.
It was a groundbreaking mission for space navigation — one that, unfortunately, met an anticlimactic and costly end.
After launching, the spacecraft skewed off course, and after failed attempts to recover it, NASA was forced to blow up the $18-million spacecraft. The cause of the trajectory error? A shockingly minor coding issue: There was a missing hyphen in the code.
While the NASA story might lean on the extreme side, it exemplifies the potential real-world cost that software bugs and coding errors can incur.
For SaaS companies, this might mean poor user experience, higher churn or a dramatic drop in revenue.
But what if, instead of waiting for a bug to get flagged then assigned via a task management system and a dev to dedicate time to fix it, your software could identify and correct bugs without human intervention?
It might seem like a far-fetched and futuristic dream, but Microsoft has already used AI and machine learning to create self-coding software capable of fixing errors and bugs.
This ability to scale the unscalable has birthed (and will continue to spawn) disruptive AI-centered SaaS startups.
Founded in 2014, Tractable, an AI-centered SaaS solution for automobile insurance companies (which has raised a total of $34.8 million in funding), is another example.
With their deep learning software, the company uses computer vision to analyze accidents that motorists have.
It can then predict repair costs in real time, just like an actual expert would, thus allowing insurers and repair shops to quickly review auto claims at a massive scale, with a high degree of accuracy.
The New Era Of AI-Centered SaaS Is Here
AI represents the onset of a new era for businesses and consumers — one that empowers companies to be more efficient in high-volume manual processes and attentive to customers.
It’s also inspiring disruptive SaaS products by scaling human-like expertise to solve previously unscalable bottleneck problems.
In an industry that evolves and adapts at warp speed, SaaS companies that want to crash shores before competitors must spare a seat for AI and machine learning in their tech stack.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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59f6b1ff3e98a1cca617f28a272f7c27 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/03/12-tech-leaders-on-the-biggest-challenges-facing-their-industry/?sh=3bf21ad71bce | 12 Tech Leaders On The Biggest Challenges Facing Their Industry | 12 Tech Leaders On The Biggest Challenges Facing Their Industry
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Budgets, talent pipelines, cyberthreats—there’s no shortage of challenges facing tech leaders and their teams now and in the near future. And as the pandemic has shown, tech leaders and their teams are often called on to provide needed solutions for industries and communities at the drop of a hat.
However, as most tech professionals know, it’s not always about having all the answers, it’s about prioritizing the most pressing issues. Below, 12 tech industry leaders from Forbes Technology Council discuss the most pressing challenges that tech leaders and their teams face today and in the near future.
1. Adapting To Customer Changes
In today’s challenging environment, tech teams are facing hurdles in product focus, budgets, timelines and team dynamics. The greatest difficulty for all tech teams will be to adapt to how their customers are changing. The most successful tech companies understand their customers’ needs, and we’ve never seen such an aggregate change in customers’ buying habits, needs and retention as we are seeing today. - Russell P Reeder, Infrascale
2. Onboarding New Tech And Processes
Because of Covid-19, many companies have had to accelerate the shift to digital tools for remote collaboration. Quickly onboarding new technologies and processes creates growing pains that you need to make sure are addressed before they hinder productivity and lead to disgruntled employees. The best way to do this is by taking small steps where possible and bringing your team along on the journey. - Saar Yoskovitz, Augury
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3. Automating Security Detection And Response
Organizations should prioritize reinvesting in their security teams. For years now, we have lived in an age of alert overload, with security and response teams overwhelmed by the data points they receive. All too often, events slip through the defensive net. To combat this, organizations need a foundation of behavioral analytics that can help detect attacks and automate incident response. - Stephen Moore, Exabeam
4. Educating Employees About Cyberthreats
Enabling employees to work from anywhere, but securely, will be a big challenge. Research shows that 48% of employees are less likely to follow safe data practices when working from home. As remote working becomes the norm, tech teams must educate employees on threats like phishing and adopt new policies and solutions that can protect data from risky work-from-home behaviors and incidents of human error. - Edward Bishop, Tessian
5. Delivering Better Software At Scale
Roughly $300 billion is lost every year in software development productivity as a result of a lack of access to senior talent and complex software systems. This is impacting technical leaders and their businesses dramatically by increasing the marginal cost of software delivery. Tech leaders are faced with a major challenge in understanding how automation can enable their teams to deliver better software at scale. - Kyle Campbell, CTO.ai
6. Budget Constraints Causing Automation Delays
Budget constraints are causing delays in automation projects, which in turn causes employees (on potentially downsized teams) to take on more day-to-day tasks. This occupies mind space and reduces the ability to deliver business value. Companies need to focus on two things: ruthless prioritization of high-value automation use cases and pragmatic application of the right AI method(s) to realize value. - Ram Chakravarti, BMC Software
7. Tech Teams’ Complacency
The biggest challenge facing tech teams is complacency. Technology is growing at an exponential rate, and if your teams do not stay on top of the latest tools and techniques, your organization will lose its competitive advantage. Keeping abreast of emerging technologies and creating prototypes will ensure that you are ahead of the curve and will advise your customers about adopting them. - Swathi Young, Integrity Management Systems Inc.
8. Misaligned Technology Expectations
Expectation alignment is the single biggest problem in technology organizations and their relationships with business. If expectations are not aligned, it causes frustration and budget constraints and exposes unintended risk. When IT can focus on establishing business expectations of technology, things like budgets, projects, talent, etc. all become easier to tackle, as you have a partner in business. - Robert Chapman, 101 Solutions
9. Obsolescence
Obsolescence is the biggest threat to tech leaders. Given all that is available on demand thanks to the cloud, most tech leaders could soon find themselves being rendered redundant. The only way to remain relevant is to keep learning—especially in light of all the new talent that keeps coming into the workforce. We are only as good as the value we can bring to any conversation. Otherwise, we are only overhead. - Samiran Ghosh, Rockmetric
10. Sourcing And Retaining IT Talent
Sourcing, hiring and retaining top IT talent will always be a major challenge in the IT industry, especially for companies that limit their teams to the local talent pool. Embracing remote methodologies and staff augmentation strategies can change this. I’m certain we will be seeing many more extended teams of expert developers in the near future. - Nacho De Marco, BairesDev
11. Keeping A Secure Work Environment
With the new norm of remote work, the biggest challenge facing tech teams today is how to maintain a productive and secure work environment. Recent major hacks, such as that of Twitter, have proven how unsecure remote work can be. Using dedicated wireless broadband on top of security tools (like virtual private networks, IP security and two-factor authentication) can help tech teams avoid online vulnerabilities while working remotely. - Ahmad (Al) Fares, Celitech Inc.
12. Achieving Balance Between Routine And Long-Term Tasks
The biggest challenge is to achieve a healthy balance between routine tasks and long-term strategic initiatives. Cyberthreats, technologies and business objectives are changing, and to keep up with the competition and an evolving threat landscape, tech leaders must ensure that strategic tasks are not buried under routines. It requires continuous communication with management and a willingness to learn. - Ilia Sotnikov, Netwrix
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4be104d5c838ae5a6cf3bfdf32175415 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/04/13-reasons-devs-leave-companies-and-how-to-turn-them-around/ | 13 Reasons Devs Leave Companies (And How To Turn Them Around) | 13 Reasons Devs Leave Companies (And How To Turn Them Around)
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Even in the current economy, finding and keeping the best dev talent is a problem multiple industries are facing. Learning what attracts and keeps tech professionals—and what pushes them away—is vital.
As with any other hire in a company, developers are affected by factors both inside and outside the enterprise. Below, 13 experts from Forbes Technology Council explore the most common reasons developers leave a job and how companies affected by these issues can turn the tide.
1. They don’t feel like they’re making a difference.
It is important for smart people to feel that they are making a difference. Nothing demotivates faster than realizing that features or products that you have developed will not be used or noticed by anyone. We encourage our people to think about business outcomes. We also encourage them to understand how a customer uses the product to make decisions, as well as the impact that it has on their business. - Shashank Garg, InfoCepts
2. They aren’t inspired.
Good developers leave when they are not inspired or they feel a lack of purpose. Keep them excited by a vision that has a clear sense of purpose, and they will never leave—assuming you are paying them well and treating them with respect. - Alok Ojha, Box, Inc.
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3. They don’t understand how their work is contributing to company goals.
Talented developers enjoy writing code to solve meaningful problems. If they do not understand how their work relates to the organization achieving its goals, then they will lose interest. Another common mistake is to place too much emphasis on process, meetings and documentation. If they have little time to code, they’ll hate their job. The primary measure of progress is working software. - Geoff Bourgeois, HubStor Inc.
4. They feel stifled creatively.
I’ve found that developers will often leave a job due to being stifled, which can accompany a lack of innovation within an overly rigid development practice. Most developers I know thrive in open spaces that allow their creativity to flourish, so having a clear part of the week to carve out and allow for free-flowing ideation and development is important. - Dan Maycock, Loftus Ranches
5. Roadblocks are keeping them from delivering new capabilities.
Every organization is now a software organization, regardless of its underlying mission and purpose. They recognize the critical nature of dev productivity. If roadblocks keep developers from delivering new capabilities, they’ll leave. Companies organizing around “one pizza” dev teams focus on easy-to-use solutions for end-to-end software delivery. Marketing such desirable customer experiences is critical to attracting and retaining talent. - Simon King, Synopsys
6. The management and/or compensation is poor.
“Employees don’t leave the company, they leave their boss.” Each person has their own needs, and those needs are fluid. Managers have to identify those needs quickly and take care of them. When the boss pays enough attention to their level of engagement and proactively does something about the issues the devs have, the chances of retaining people are high. Competitive compensation is critical. - Marcelo Tribuj, Truelogic Software LLC
7. There are no opportunities for personal development.
Developers are keenly interested in personal development. A lack of new technologies and challenging tasks on projects often becomes the reason for quitting a job. Certainly, not all projects require using new technologies, and boring tasks still need to be done by someone. Company managers need to balance the developer’s workload between new and old technologies and challenging and trivial tasks. - Dennis Turpitka, Apriorit
8. They don’t feel recognized or appreciated.
Highly skilled workers leave when they don’t feel appreciated or recognized. We all need to feel psychological ownership of our work to give our best. Effective managers create a sense of belonging and ownership by involving employees in setting goals, letting them choose how to tackle tasks whenever possible and sincerely acknowledging them when they step up to a challenge. - Miron Lulic, SuperMoney
9. They’ve lost faith in their ability to deliver value.
As a 20-year developer who has run many development teams, the reason most developers quit is very qualifiable: It almost always happens because they lose faith in their ability to deliver value. Software organizations that want to attract and retain the best talent should focus on Lean DevOps automation to empower their developers to do their most impactful work every day. - Kyle Campbell, CTO.ai
10. They’ve lost their passion for the work.
One key reason most developers (or any other employees) quit is that they’ve lost the passion for what they do. The reason this occurs is usually due to a failure at the leadership level—not recognizing the individual’s passions and motivations and failing to align work to keep the individual motivated. To avoid this, leaders must manage key talent at a micro level, where they align vision to individual mission. - Tanvir Bhangoo, Freshii Inc.
11. They feel like cogs in a machine.
Developers often quit jobs because they end up feeling like cogs in a machine. But this couldn’t be further from the truth, and you need to remind them of that! Make sure your developers understand the meaning behind the work. They must feel emotionally connected with your mission. To achieve that, remind them of the impact they’re making—not just on the company’s bottom line, but on the world. - Marc Fischer, Dogtown Media LLC
12. They’re stuck doing minor upgrades and maintenance.
The most common theme we see is that developers are hired with a promise that they’ll be focusing on new initiatives and exciting things, yet when it comes down to it, they end up doing maintenance work and/or minor enhancements. We find the best way to balance this is to rotate our developers around projects to offer them newness, as well as providing cross-training opportunities and removing siloed knowledge. - Robert Chapman, 101 Solutions
13. The culture is restricting and toxic.
Developers are the most critical asset in the digital economy. They tend to leave due to several reasons, including the challenges not being interesting or relevant enough, a loss of their autonomy or freedom to experiment, and a toxic culture. Organizations must foster and reward an honest and transparent culture and deploy excellent leaders to preserve these assets and provide them with growth opportunities. - Beenu Arora, Cyble Inc.
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3431317d652607eb1dd524f5c339270d | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/11/how-data-reuse-can-help-drive-digital-transformation/?sh=6b9c3bad1ef5 | How Data Reuse Can Help Drive Digital Transformation | How Data Reuse Can Help Drive Digital Transformation
CTO & SVP Product Strategy at Veeam Software - responsible for the cloud and alliance strategy.
Today's enterprises have gold mines of data sitting around collecting dust. This might sound surprising because studies show that companies of all sizes and scopes consider data a critical component of their digital transformations (DX). After all, the more companies learn about their customers, competitors, markets and own internal operations, the more they should be able to apply those insights to DX initiatives.
However, data reuse, broadly defined, isn't generating the impact that it could. While data volumes keep growing, companies aren't taking advantage of the data they've already stored when they have to make decisions about how to transform their operations. They're going mainly on gut instinct. To connect with customers in more meaningful ways and deliver maximum value to the bottom line, organizations need to do a better job unleashing the data they've gathered and stored in backup systems.
Unleashing data requires a series of skillful hand-offs in the third phase of a long process, and the first two phases — protecting and managing the data — take a lot of work. Companies start by collecting their data and protecting it with snapshots, backups, replication and long-term retention. The next stage is to position the data as more than just an insurance policy, turning it into an asset that's fully integrated into the organization. This can be achieved through integrations, data services, governance, data migration, policy-based automation and orchestration, and the ability to copy data for reuse. The final phase culls the data for insights to do things like improve customer experience, enable new products and services, or improve customer intimacy.
Companies are motivated to take the next step. According to a report published by IDC, spending on DX initiatives is growing by 17.5% a year and is expected to hit $7.4 trillion by 2023. The problem is that according to a recent Veeam survey, almost half of all global organizations' DX journeys are being held back by unreliable legacy data protection technologies. Data isn't just in data centers anymore. It's spread all over the place — in data centers, in the cloud and in shared storage systems. Legacy tools designed to back up files and applications on premises can't handle the data requirements in today's hybrid and multicloud world. These tools are also inefficient, and they're putting companies' data at risk.
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Reusing production data that's stored in backups and replicas is an effective way to make better decisions about your business. Information in these backups can be used to classify data, scan for security threats or accelerate the delivery of new business services. If this expertise is not internally available, you can provide copies of your backup data access to third-party experts to scout out patterns or discover anomalies that generate valuable insights.
Here are a few ways to unleash backup data to transform your business:
• Crack open the backups and look for malware. Vulnerability scans that companies perform often don't find sophisticated and targeted malware that sits dormant on systems for weeks at a time before spreading suddenly across thousands of machines. Rather than having to shut systems down, set up automatic, scheduled scans that look inside data backups to detect malware before it has a chance to act.
• Data classification. Organizations have shifted from the days of security being the primary driver of data governance and compliance to a more privacy-regulated environment. Customers now have control over their own data, including the right of data access and the right to be forgotten. The enterprise can open backups to determine what kind of data is in the dataset and do a more strategic job of managing and classifying the data as personally identifiable. This type of data classification has the added value of reducing costs of long-term storage for less-valuable data, as well as reducing risk. Data should never be retained for a longer duration than is necessary.
• Improving workflows. Many companies mine their own data to monitor how users click on buttons within their software. They track the sequence of events that customers click on. If a company applies that insight on a mass scale for hundreds of thousands of customers, it can determine that one particular workflow requires everyone to accomplish a task in six clicks. Can the software provider streamline that process to get it down to four clicks? That's an insight you can generate by taking a copy of it and inspecting people’s workflows as they click through the software.
Digital transformation is a long and complicated journey but can deliver significant value. To start preparing for a shift toward reusing production data, organizations should first implement a program around data life cycle management that includes setting data scopes and classifications. From there, the next step is putting protocols in place that dictate who gets access to data and for how long. Usually, not everyone in an organization needs access to every piece of data. Think through which teams — both internal and external — need to access which datasets, and grant access as needed. Timelines around data are also important because organizations need to consider what will happen to data after it passes its set expiration date. Will it be deleted or validated?
Taking these steps can help businesses prepare for a shift toward data reuse, ultimately empowering them to meet emerging market demands, deliver improved business outcomes and provide a valuable competitive advantage.
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4ad60320c85db2e77de1a7a2ae77d7d7 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/11/options-for-retailers-considering-point-of-sale-financing-to-win-and-keep-customers/?sh=6e6b5d5c1260 | Options For Retailers Considering Point-Of-Sale Financing To Win And Keep Customers | Options For Retailers Considering Point-Of-Sale Financing To Win And Keep Customers
Co-Founder of TurnKey Lender, a provider of award-winning AI-based loan origination and management software for banks and non-bank lenders.
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Point-of-sale (POS) financing was at the forefront of a retail revolution well before the novel coronavirus swooped down to disrupt business plans and household budgets around the world earlier this year. Now, with the additional spur of the pandemic, retailers are increasingly eager to reduce sales friction and attract customers by providing installment plans to fund purchases.
Businesses considering this model — in part, a digitized throwback to purchasing habits in vogue before credit cards became big in the 1970s — should first consider how best to provide credit at cash registers, real and virtual.
In the U.S., POS financing — which helps buyers finance specific purchases or spend up to predefined amounts with a specific retailer, typically repayable in installments — already surpasses $100 billion a year. It’s fueled by five principal factors:
Convenience: Credit application occurs before the actual sale, either at the register, via a mobile device or as a prelude to self-directed online purchases. Fintech innovation: Lending-tech makers have improved credit origination and processing with artificial intelligence and dynamic scoring models, in addition to automated administrative functionality. Broadening acceptance: Consumers and retailers are more aware of POS financing options, especially for large- and medium-ticket items. Disenchantment with credit cards: Younger consumers, many of them struggling to pay down student loans, view credit cards with more suspicion and hostility than their elders. Covid-19: Broad-based shutdowns have slowed global business activity, inspiring some retailers to offer customers more purchasing options.
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Though goaded now by an acute public health crisis, POS lending was on its way to mainstream acceptance among consumers and merchants alike.
Third-Party Providers For A Hands-Off Approach To POS Financing
U.S. retail purchases under POS arrangements grew in value from $49 billion in 2015 to $94 billion in 2018, representing a compound annual growth rate of 24%, according to McKinsey & Company. In its two-year-old take on the POS-financing market, the consultancy predicted that U.S. POS lending would account for $162 billion by 2022, a further compound annual growth rate of about 20%. Globally, this market may already have topped $400 billion in the run-up to the pandemic, according to other industry sources.
Retailers keen to offer installment financing to their customers at the point of purchase must make an important decision around implementation. Should they work with a third-party lender or engage a white-label in-house option provided by a lending-technology specialist? The answer can, and should, differ from retailer to retailer in accordance with a careful assessment of business needs and priorities.
Among the advantages of working with a third-party lender are:
No waiting for the cash equivalent of the purchase amount. The loan settlement is between the consumer and the third party, with the retailer now largely out of the loop and entirely off the hook. The ability to remain blissfully ignorant of credit underwriting. The absence of credit risk.
Tech-Enabled, In-House Options Enable More Control Over POS Programs
In this light, extending credit without third-party help looks challenging. Still, a growing cadre of retailers choose cloud-based lending technology for POS financing. This option offers several advantages, including:
Improved client-data integrity and security. All client data is held strictly between your business and its customers. Because customer data isn’t shared with third parties, you can cater to clients who demand complete confidentiality — as with some medical procedures, for example. Further, you can avoid the risk of customers getting poached by competitors introduced to them on the loan-servicing webpages of third-party lenders. Higher conversion rates during online checkout. Customers go through a simple checkout without submitting additional credit application forms to a third-party lender (which can significantly increase incidents of customers deciding not to complete transactions). In-house underwriting rules. The retailer sets its own criteria for credit decisions and controls which customers they want to approve while ensuring that your interest rates are both profitable and adequate through risk-based pricing. Ability to use customers transactional data for more accurate credit decisions, resulting in: Increased operational efficiency that’s supported by AI to enable fast, smart decisions. Optimized portfolio yield with technology that helps retailers identify the most profitable customers on the most favorable terms. Saving on transaction fees otherwise payable to a third-party lender (which can be as high as 15%).
An in-house approach to POS financing can also enhance brand loyalty. Using fully supported white-label technology, you don’t have to worry about customers getting confused by third-party documentation. In this model, touch points between the retailer and its customers can be opportunities for upselling and cross-selling, as well as enrollment in loyalty programs.
In-house lending can also bring artificial intelligence to bear on credit decisions. This can, in turn, provide more scope to approve loans in low-credit-risk retail sectors, such as healthcare. Third-party lenders can cost their clients on this front, rejecting applications with a historically strong likelihood of tipping into default.
This consideration highlights the fact that, along with points in favor, there are cons endemic to both approaches.
Using a third-party lender can mean depending on that company’s underwriting criteria with no control over such decisions. It can also compromise brand loyalty, lead to higher drop-off rates in reaction to onerous and time-consuming applications and hamper a retailer’s ability to use data derived from many transactions to improve customer experiences.
Using an in-house lending solution means carving out an in-house credit department. And instead of collecting the purchase amount immediately, payment in full is deferred until the loan is retired.
Final thoughts
POS financing isn’t a panacea. Retailers face headwinds from the coronavirus, measures to prevent its spread and an economic recession of uncertain depth and duration associated with these realities. Giving customers the option to pay for items, especially larger-ticket items, over time through POS installment financing can reduce ticket shock, build loyalty and help retailers close sales.
In implementing POS financing, however, retailers should consider whether they’re best served by outsourcing the program or working with a lending-tech vendor to retain more control.
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5d14eecb8e9e71e8b309b4cc2dee1ada | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/11/the-future-of-digitized-workflows-in-corporate-finance/?sh=6609c3af42e6 | The Future Of Digitized Workflows In Corporate Finance | The Future Of Digitized Workflows In Corporate Finance
Havell Rodrigues, Fintech Entrepreneur and Co-Founder/CEO of Adjoint Inc.
The Covid-19 crisis is clearly accelerating digitalization. It is forcing managers to rethink the role of technology in automating multiparty workflows, ensuring teams can work efficiently from anywhere and with the highest possible data security. It is an opportunity for them to create flexible and secure processes that enable them to be nimble and play a strategic role in their organizations as they navigate their way out of this crisis.
Legacy Issues
Corporate finance teams have chugged along with old legacy and rigid systems with all sorts of workarounds, using spreadsheets and emails to get the job done. Where things stand, in terms of a process, is often in the heads of the team members, as opposed to a dashboard that's accessible to all stakeholders. In some cases, like intercompany loan documents, paper documents are filed away, and only the folks who were involved in the process have knowledge of their existence.
Often seen as a cost center, they have been deprived of innovation and investment. Companies are further dependent on armies of expensive implementation consultants to make changes to these systems as their organizations evolve. This is time-consuming, expensive and impractical in a post-Covid-19 world where on-site access is often required to make changes.
RPA Is Not Enough
Robotic process automation (RPA) has helped deal with legacy systems by automating simple, repetitive and mundane tasks. However, RPA falls short of truly automated complex processes that require interaction with other systems through application programming interfaces (APIs) and involve multiple parties signing off on transactions. It's not very scalable or reliable because it cannot adapt to user interface changes.
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RPA also has security issues when it comes to the storage of passwords and credentials, and often, a ready audit is not available to understand what RPAs are doing inside an organization. While they do create value in the short term, they can create technical debt in the long term.
The Need For Truly Digital Business Process Management
Covid-19 has put liquidity management front and center as the survival strategy for corporations. This has, in turn, put the onus on CFOs to ensure they have the right processes in place to manage their financial operations and invest in optimal technology solutions.
So, to future-proof their investments in modern digital process management tools, what should CFOs look for? Here is a brief checklist:
No-code methodology: Ideally, it should allow finance professionals to create workflow templates. This is a good requirement for finance departments to attract and retain millennial employees who can take initiative to modernize their organizations.
Finance-friendly: For example, the data captured should be able to be used for calculations, and formulas should be able to be expressed. Loan amortization schedules, tax calculations, etc. can be automatically generated. Basically, eliminate the dependency on Excel spreadsheets.
Visualization of workflows: Stakeholders should be able to visualize the steps while creating workflow templates to provide full transparency into the workflow process. Workflow templates can then go into production after the CFO or controller approves them.
Contract templates: Contract templates provided by the legal department should be accessible by the workflow. The templates should have metatags that are filled as part of the workflow execution. For example, principal, interest rate, repayment dates, etc. can automatically populate a contract template so that the template can be executed within the workflow, with signatures incorporated into a final PDF that is stored on the platform.
API-friendly: The platform should be able to pull and push data from existing systems, especially ERP systems. No more copy-and-paste or manual entries. This is especially important when a particular workflow generates accounting entries or to allow workflows that use ERP-based data to be triggered (e.g., multiparty invoice payment approvals).
Cross-department, role-based access: This is needed to enable cross-department (finance, treasury, legal, compliance, etc.) processes, as well as to ensure the "four eyes" principle is incorporated as a guardrail for fraud prevention.
Automated notifications: Stakeholders involved in a workflow step should be automatically notified via email or SMS to ensure smooth executions or to unstick processes. Dashboards can also be used to keep track of workflow executions.
Audit-friendly: All workflow interactions by individual stakeholders should be time stamped, with all comments captured (instead of sitting in emails) and all documents used in the process made accessible as part of the executed workflow.
Cloud accessibility: This is important for remote workers, especially after Covid-19. It also future-proofs applications for machine learning.
SaaS-delivered: This allows new security-approved features and functionalities to be automatically delivered.
The initial steps to take include testing such types of digitized workflows in a sandbox environment with simple workflows and a limited set of users. After piloting it internally and getting comfortable with the platform, the finance department can look at using the same platform to execute workflows with external parties, unlocking more value from this investment. The data generated from this platform can also be used by machine learning algorithms for fraud detection or to serve as a recommendation engine.
Going through the process of digitizing automation is a good opportunity to revisit the "job to be done" (JTBD). What stakeholders are trying to accomplish in a given circumstance has to be considered. There is no point in digitizing a process just because "that's how it's always been done." Remember, you are not trying to get a robot to do a job that was previously done manually. The "what" and the "why" are important and should come before the "how."
It’s time corporate finance departments take a good look at their internal operations to understand what can be automated, what processes need to be put in place that can be digitally tracked and, once automated and digitized, what additional value can be flexibly delivered to their organizations. I look forward to seeing how CFOs embrace the technology mantle to lead their organizations.
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71330a07190d11ad702b6dfea7ed8fd0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/14/debunking-the-myth-that-only-larger-organizations-can-benefit-from-rpa/ | Debunking The Myth That Only Larger Organizations Can Benefit From RPA | Debunking The Myth That Only Larger Organizations Can Benefit From RPA
Founder of Predikly, a data innovation company, and venture partner with Z Nation Lab, a startup accelerator.
When certain individuals hear the word "automation," it strikes fear in their hearts at the potential threat of losing jobs. In my perspective, automation should be leveraged to flip the switch. Let's say the existing workforce is 70% tactical and 30% analytical, but automation, specifically robotic process automation, can be used to have a workforce that's 70% analytical and 30% tactical.
All companies want to invest in the betterment of their workforce — as it's the most expensive asset within any organization — but there is a prevalent myth that needs to be debunked: RPA is an expensive technology that only larger organizations with millions of dollars in revenue can afford.
From the past few months, our company has been focusing on the SMB (small to medium-sized businesses) sector, and we have seen firsthand how it's possible for SMBs to derive the benefits of RPA. Larger organizations have the benefit of being able to attract more talent and retain desired employees, which is something that SMBs struggle with. As a result, SMBs are always looking for ways to get work done efficiently.
One of our customers is in the home automation space. They were struggling with the inefficiency of the processes where order taking from the customer to entering into their services system was laborious and error-prone. After automating these processes, the company not only increased its overall efficiency but also improved the customer experience.
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Here are some of the steps that this company took that your SMB can take as well if it's looking to implement RPA:
• Rather than building silo automation just for one process, take a holistic approach of looking at how automation can benefit your entire organization. This means everyone from the C-suite on down to those on the lowest level of the food chain should be involved in understanding the RPA process.
• Evaluate your company's biggest pain points and conduct thorough research to see if RPA can adequately address them.
• Perform an extensive discovery session with whomever you decide to help you with your RPA implementation. Make sure they are able to dentify any gaps in your existing processes.
• Run an ROI calculation for every process, so that you know the exact monetary details.
• Run your bots in production in manual mode so that the performance of the bot can be monitored. For every error or nuance that's noted, a bot can be changed for the sake of improvement.
It's important to note that the aforementioned customer, which has fewer than 60 employees, is not a multimillion- or multibillion-dollar organization. From a revenue perspective, they generated less than $10 million in revenue and were still able to embark on the automation journey.
Here are a few more considerations before beginning your RPA journey:
• Look for business processes that involve inputting large volumes of data, such as filling up very long forms.
• Find processes that take a long time to perform and may need to be run for extended hours.
• Have a well-defined set of rule-based steps.
• Have well-defined and structured input and output variables.
Hopefully this article helped reveal that any size of organization can use and benefit from automation. You don't need to be a multimillion-dollar company or have thousands of employees to realize the benefits of this technology.
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c009002f1d6bd27c8033f5817a098e98 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/14/innovation-if-you-dont-know-where-its-heading-youre-probably-doing-it-right/ | Innovation: If You Don’t Know Where It’s Heading, You’re Probably Doing It Right | Innovation: If You Don’t Know Where It’s Heading, You’re Probably Doing It Right
Digital leader in transformative change, angel investor, board member. COO at Thoughtexchange and former CDO at STS Student Travel Schools.
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If you take a quick glance through any major business publication, you’ll no doubt see "innovation" mentioned more times than you can count. Innovation is apparently everywhere, and such a ubiquitous idea should be pretty well understood.
For me, innovation remains one of the most misunderstood concepts in today’s world of business. Raised as an objective in the boardroom, it will commonly be put forward as a way of extending or improving a standard routine: "Here’s how we do things, let’s innovate and do more of it, cheaper and faster."
In my opinion, this wholly misses the meaning and value inherent in its practice. Innovation, in its most elemental state, is unvarnished, open-ended creativity. It’s finding a solution at an odd angle, treading untrodden ground, being surprised, not walking a familiar path. It’s the search to find something new — a process, an application or a widget that seemingly springs from a random collection of ideas and experiments and brings about a revolution.
For this reason, I believe that if you know the outcomes you are looking to drive with innovation, you aren’t allowing real innovation to occur.
Innumerable historical examples of innovation came about completely by accident. Play-Doh started out as soot-removing clay. Spencer Silver’s "low-tack" adhesive failed its way into becoming the first Post-it Notes. Thomas Edison’s trouble finding lightbulb filaments resulted in him inventing revolutionary mining technology. The journey from A to B isn’t successfully predestined by starting point intention; it’s fueled by a willingness to experiment.
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Setting The Scene For Innovation
With the best innovations originating as a result of fortunate collisions of ideas, it should be no surprise that it is best fostered by collective endeavors, rather than individual ones. The word "innovation" often conjures up images of an isolated genius scoring a "eureka" moment.
But the truth is, breakthrough innovations often come from teams that have been assembled for the task. According to a 2018 BCG global innovation survey, "More than 70% of strong innovators (compared with 50% of weak innovators) reported that either a centralized organization controls and drives innovation or the centralized organization drives research and passes the results to the business units."
Innovation flourishes when channeling multiple human inputs. A group, as opposed to a lone wolf, is far better disposed to pick apart the mysteries of any given problem. Innovation is intangible and, therefore, flourishes in a merging of minds, with varied perspectives and experiences that illuminate blind spots.
Innovation also flourishes when it isn’t hitched solely to the wagon of future revenues. The most successfully innovative companies rarely base project approval on how much it may pay off later, according to the BCG data.
Those who want to reap the benefits of innovation must harness the creative potential of their people. Innovative leaders establish a collaborative environment, assembling diverse teams and giving them access to additional resources of time, technology and support (also known as “slack”). By doing this, they are able to get out of their team’s way, enabling them to fail enough times to succeed.
Not clinging to a fixed outcome of an innovative endeavor requires leaders to be both disciplined and patient. It’s never totally clear when a spark will need to have the vital elements held around it to become a flame.
Not for the unadventurous, leaders are required to start the engine and then remove their hands from the wheel. Mastering the art of letting innovation unfold in its own time and in its own direction isn’t easy, but it comes with the potential to change the world.
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5e21f107db512cb2d737721b02847ef3 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/14/moving-from-surveillance-to-intelligent-actions-using-digital-eyes/?sh=1615ae7628f8 | Moving From Surveillance To Intelligent Actions Using Digital Eyes | Moving From Surveillance To Intelligent Actions Using Digital Eyes
Global Technology Strategist of Unilever. Unlocking the power of data and analytics via cloud-enabled smart digitization of business process.
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Surveillance cameras are the modern-day digital eyes. They're like Big Brother, the fictional character from George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, watching over us or watching out for us, depending on your view. But this is changing fast. Artificial intelligence (AI) gives these digital eyes the brains to analyze live video in real time with no human intervention.
The idea is to leverage machine learning (ML) and other AI techniques to automatically recognize temporal and spatial events in a video stream, such as assembly line blockages, suspicious movement in a secure area, and smoke or fire. Companies can use existing surveillance technology along with internet-enabled data collection and cloud-based ML processing for a range of uses and applications to enhance situational awareness.
These technologies aren't new, so why now?
High-risk industry sectors have been effectively using these tools for many years. However, the availability of cost-effective, internet-enabled cameras with complex ML to process the digital stream in real time has made it more efficient and viable than ever. Enterprises should take advantage of these technologies and build next-generation digital video monitoring systems across their sites.
What are some emerging use cases?
Historically, the health and safety industry has invested in video surveillance solutions to ensure staff safety while conducting regulated high-risk activities. Video analytics allows us to understand the data behind visual streams. It can detect incorrect processes executed by a staff member and alert the proper remediation. Slip, trip and fall monitoring is also valuable. It can process images to detect if a person has fallen and alert emergency management staff when needed. Within the current Covid-19 environment, these video streams can identify the proper wearing of face masks, social distancing and hand hygiene measures.
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Enterprises can also carry out classic intruder detections more robustly because the algorithms can now filter out motion caused by wind, rain, snow or animals. These systems help collect evidence for investigations and litigations, offering not only visual evidence, but also the underlying inferences.
Additionally, video analytics can help us understand customer behaviors in a store, such as how long they browse an aisle, what they are looking at and what they buy or don't buy. Video analytics, combined with augmented reality, can help enhance the consumer experience with fashion and beauty by providing immersive, real-life experience before buying the products.
Many manufacturing facilities already use digital visual inspection for quality management. In a high-speed labeling machine, a camera combined with ML can detect a misaligned label on a pack and reject the main assembly line, or a camera may detect cracked bottles before the fill or a foreign object entering the assembly — the list goes on.
Enterprises can take advantage of these uses cases without having to invest in bespoke cameras and integrate into the broader AI-enabled digital vision ecosystem.
How do they work?
These systems perform real-time monitoring to detect objects, object attributes, movement patterns or behavior related to the environment. We can also analyze historical data to mine insights and trends. Typically, we can analyze video content in two ways: in real time (by triggering alerts for specific events and incidents that unfold in the moment) or after processing. A typical AI-enabled system is composed of two things:
Digital video stream: The system should integrate with any video source — the key is the angle of the camera. Processing (central versus edge): While traditional CCTVs ran the processing locally, an AI-enabled system can embed the processing in the cameras themselves, a strategy known as edge processing. In recent years, with processing costs coming down, we've seen several cameras with real-time processing capabilities. The industry best practice is, whenever possible, to go with real-time processing on the cameras and the forensic analysis functionalities centrally in the cloud.
What are the challenges?
Traditional CCTV architecture may not be suitable for these use cases and could require upgrades to cameras, networks such as Wi-Fi or 5G, and increased storage and processing needs.
Another challenge is the existing camera angles. For example, leveraging this capability to monitor social distancing during Covid-19 will require streams from at least two cameras with right angles to measure the distance accurately. We have seen significant false-positive alerting while using only one camera for this use case. Depending on the use, we may require additional, special-purpose cameras with right angles that differ greatly from existing CCTV surveillance cameras and their angles.
What are the implications for enterprises?
There are multifaceted social and legal issues surrounding AI-enabled video analytics. While there is no unified legislation on how to use these techniques across the globe, responsible enterprises must declare their intent to use these technologies and make sure their staff is fully supportive of these capabilities. They must ensure full adherence to privacy regulations in various countries and fully embrace their own AI ethics while building them.
Conclusion
AI-enabled video analytics, portrayed in this article as "digital vision," can offer significant value to enterprises today, even with the challenges and implications. But it's crucial that enterprises that embrace these technologies do so while fully adhering to local privacy regulations and their own ethical standards. This can enable them to improve decisions rather than base them on circumstantial or subjective opinions.
As firms look at the future of the workplace after Covid-19, they may want to consider if and how AI-enabled digital vision technologies can improve their employees' experience in their work environment.
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314e7c548c3f4ad88fcd6c5195c8a65d | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/14/should-i-use-a-vpn-on-a-private-jet/ | Should I Use A VPN On A Private Jet? | Should I Use A VPN On A Private Jet?
CEO at VPN. We help brands and families protect their best ideas online.
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Flying privately can remove a lot of stress and worry associated with the traveling process, but one thing that many people don't consider is how safe their in-flight internet connection is.
For business professionals, flying privately offers a distraction-free space to conduct meetings or communicate with their teams back on the ground. For leisure travelers, a chartered flight can mark the perfect beginning and end to a vacation, complete with their own in-flight entertainment.
If you’re at all concerned with privacy or the security of a private jet’s Wi-Fi network, you may consider using a VPN to protect your internet activity.
Covid-19 Is Driving Travelers To Private Flights
The risk of contracting Covid-19 isn’t going away any time soon, and as a result, many travelers are turning to chartered flights in lieu of commercial airlines.
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In July, the L.A. Times reported that demand for commercial flights had sunk to as low as 10% of pre-pandemic levels, but private jet companies were booking about 80% as many hours in the air as they had before the pandemic struck the U.S.
Fewer passengers and a smaller amount of shared areas mean that the potential touch connections with other people decreases from about 270 on a commercial plane to 20 on a private jet.
For those who have to travel for business or want to feel safe while on vacation with their family, chartered flights have become the preferred option.
Who Is Targeting Your Online Activity?
If you're flying on a private jet, hackers, especially those who specialize in identity theft, see you as a prime target. Why? Because private jets aren’t cheap — and hackers may assume that stealing your sensitive information would be a fruitful endeavor. They also know that airline passengers often aren’t as concerned with internet security.
However, it's not just hackers and cyberthieves who can be targeting your internet activity. If you're traveling internationally, you need to be aware of countries with internet censorship and laws regulating content access. Attempting to access websites in certain countries may unknowingly put you in legal trouble or open you up to investigation.
Using A VPN While Flying: A New Concept
It’s fairly common to use a VPN while at home, in the office or telecommuting, but using a mobile VPN service while flying may not occur to everyone. There are a few really good reasons for using a VPN on a private jet, but there are also some factors you should take into consideration.
The Benefits Of Using A VPN In The Air
• Security and peace of mind: The most obvious reason that you'd want to use a VPN while flying — whether it's commercial or a chartered flight — is security. Just like public Wi-Fi hot spots, airline connections are rarely secure networks and make for easy targets for cybercriminals.
Whether you’re conducting business on a laptop or checking bank information on your phone, protecting the data you access online is the single best reason to use a VPN on a private jet.
• Set it and forget it: The best VPN services have user-friendly apps with an on/off switch for nearly every device. Before you leave home, simply set your VPN to "on" on each of your devices, and travel knowing that everything you do online is protected.
Potential Drawbacks
Due to the added security, a VPN typically causes a small slowdown in internet connection speed. On fast networks, the decrease is barely noticeable, but users on slower Wi-Fi networks may see media buffering and longer load times.
Some VPN services are also inherently faster than others. Don’t ever sacrifice security for speed, but you’ll want to make sure your preferred VPN can support speeds high enough for your needs.
Make Sure You Choose The Right VPN For You
Using the right VPN for you is just as crucial as using a VPN at all. There are thousands of service providers that specialize in hundreds of different use cases. Be sure to always conduct due diligence when choosing a VPN and to consult the professionals when necessary.
Regardless of whether you’re at home, in the office or on a private jet, it’s never worth having your online data compromised. I always recommend considering a VPN for peace of mind so you know that your data is secure every time you connect to the internet.
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b5e1d7cb1d78156f658c12cccdcfd273 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/14/why-should-you-automate-manufacturing-processes-to-save-money-make-money-or-both/?sh=1fdf8b13177a | Why Should You Automate Manufacturing Processes: To Save Money, Make Money Or Both? | Why Should You Automate Manufacturing Processes: To Save Money, Make Money Or Both?
CEO of Priority Software, a leading ERP solutions vendor with offices in Israel, US, UK, and Belgium and customers in over 40 countries.
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No matter what they churn out at the end of the line, manufacturers are always searching for ways to lower costs and accelerate production without sacrificing quality. It all comes down to automation — automated manufacturing processes that use intelligent machines on the factory floor to fuel operational processes with minimal human intervention.
Fast forward to today’s "new normal." We're in the midst of a crisis that nobody expected, with manufacturers now having to rethink their operations, focus on remote working and adapt their processes and their workforce to regain and maintain business continuity. This has prompted manufacturers across all industry sectors to automate some or all of their workflows, while others are turning their attention to integrating automated processes into their company’s business management system to either save money, make money or both.
If your manufacturing business has already jumped on the automation bandwagon, here are five reasons you may want to consider linking your processes to your business management system:
1. Bid farewell to data silos.
Automation helps defuse conventional data silos, whereby only one group in your organization can access a set or source of data. When employees in one group are obliged to wait for tasks to be completed by those in another or search endlessly through data sources to find the right information to complete a task, their productivity wanes or grinds to a halt.
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An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system automates routine business processes and stores data in a centralized location, not only making the data readily accessible to users who need it, but also enabling automated communication between teams, departments, and multisite or multinational companies. When you take this to your factory floor, you can save valuable time, resources and money by giving employees more time to do their jobs, instead of line managers having to hunt tirelessly for data.
2. Get smart.
Incorporating new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT), into your manufacturing processes can help you achieve smarter workflows (i.e., deeper, more unified control of your processes).
With AI-enabled ERP, you can automate higher-level tasks beyond your daily, repetitive tasks, as the software consistently learns and becomes more adaptable. AI-enabled ERP lets you onboard intelligent tools like machine learning and natural-language interfaces that deliver actionable data insights.
Fast-emerging IoT-enabled ERP tools can help reduce product failure rates through the early detection of a problem or glitch in your manufacturing process. ERP, coupled with smart technologies, helps reduce operating and system maintenance costs, mitigate risk, increase system uptime and accelerate the design-to-manufacturing process.
3. Goodwill to all.
If you’re a manufacturer, labor is almost certainly your No. 1 expense — and the toughest to control. In the manufacturing sector, automated equipment and processes continue to replace employees on assembly line tasks, such as picking and moving parts, inspection, marking, and packaging. Not only are labor costs mitigated through automation, but automated processes also lead to tighter process control.
According to an article on TimesJobs, automated processes will essentially allow greater output for the same level of manual input. When employees’ workloads are reduced, they can focus on tasks that machines can't handle and use their time more effectively, which saves on labor costs. When processes are integrated into an ERP’s project management module, for example, you can automate forecasting, planning and the allocation of manpower and gain control of required versus actual work hours to save further labor expenses.
4. In support of planet earth.
Automated processes help reduce lost or misplaced materials and minimize expiration or spoilage of inventory, such as pharma or food products, to ultimately reduce waste. Automated processes also reduce scrap and rework because repetitive workflows tend to result in fewer failed projects and less trashing of raw materials.
Today, more than ever, manufacturers are onboarding automation to support more sustainable practices. Lights out manufacturing, for example, is a concept where a manufacturing plant is idle at night, with fully automated equipment and machines running but without a full team on site. When powered by an ERP manufacturing module, this scenario translates into substantial energy savings (e.g., lighting, heating, ventilation and air conditioning costs).
Not to mention, automation eliminates paper. With automated document management integrated into an ERP system, you can send data, attachments, images and more directly to your shop floor. Gone are the days of line managers wasting time tracking down drawings, purchase orders or packing sheets. Beyond valuable time savings, you are helping to facilitate a paperless industry.
5. The end of the line.
As a manufacturer, you want to enhance product quality, not only at the end of the line, but throughout the design-to-production process. By automating your quality assurance (QA) procedures, you can improve overall quality and reduce production costs, as well as streamline management of rework, rejects and scrap. You can also reduce the time it takes to generate and implement engineering change notices (ECNs) by controlling part revisions and inaccuracies via your ERP system, with real-time, up-to-date business data readily accessible from a single platform.
With quality processes integrated into your ERP, you can benefit from real-time monitoring and tracking at every stage in your production workflow, expediting response time. Where the "end of the line" is key, automating your quality processes can help you deliver superior end products on time and on budget.
Implementing automation in your manufacturing process is never a quick fix; it’s a continual process where your business evolves with fast-changing economies, technologies and customer demands — not to mention a sizable investment in software and machinery. For this reason, automation must be aligned with your long-term business goals in order to save money and make money.
When backed by a reliable business management system, your newly automated workflows can do both, with benefits such as fewer routine errors, less duplicated data and enhanced collaboration, from the input of raw materials at the start of the line to the finished product.
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f36d092a78b56343d1c801934a8d866c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/16/four-tips-for-weathering-an-economic-downturn-as-a-tech-startup/?sh=85c61a6a7f92 | Four Tips For Weathering An Economic Downturn As A Tech Startup | Four Tips For Weathering An Economic Downturn As A Tech Startup
Fred Cohen is the CEO of Zola Suite where he focuses on developing technology that enables law firms to massively scale their operations.
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When I launched my second technology company in early 2007, the future was bright. The economy was soaring. We had an innovative platform that we knew would shake up the legal industry, and initial feedback from clients and prospects was very favorable. Fast forward a few months, and that outlook was turned upside down as we headed into the Great Recession.
As we struggled to make ends meet during those early months, some of my closest business advisors recommended that I cut my losses and focus on my legal practice. Despite their warnings, as far as I was concerned, failure wasn’t an option.
As I look around at startups today facing a bleak economic outlook, I intimately feel their worry, their frustrations and their fear. As a founder who came out on the other side of an economic downturn, I want to share some of the tips that helped our company weather the storm and transform into a leader in our industry.
1. Focus on your product or service. When consumers start cutting back on spending, companies often cut back on marketing spend. While it’s tempting to stash these funds, you can establish a real advantage over competitors by reallocating these dollars to product development. Take time to schedule discovery conversations with your current clients to identify any issues with your product or service delivery. When we found our account executives were a bit slower due to a decrease in inbound leads, this was the perfect way to keep them busy while still providing value to the enterprise.
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Consumers will buy again, and when they do, you want to make sure you have the best offering in the market and engaged clients who recognize you are committed to their success.
2. Play to your strengths. Small businesses have a major advantage over larger, well-established companies in that they don’t operate in siloed teams. During times of crisis, innovative teams come out ahead.
Create opportunities that foster collaboration and encourage conversations with team members who might not usually interact — for example, finance and product or client support and marketing. It’s amazing the brainpower you’re probably not leveraging within your organization; unlock that potential during slower times.
Playing to strengths for me also means that you focus on delivering services in which you excel. For example, a few of our competitors were heavily promoting their video marketing services. At that time, this wasn’t an area in which we had special competency or experience. As a business owner, it’s very tempting to go toe to toe with competitors — almost for its own sake versus whether or not that’s something the consumer actually demands. Don’t take the bait — especially when resources are limited.
3. Don’t throw people at problems. I am a firm believer that even in the most prosperous times when headcount is abundant, it’s important that you don’t throw people at problems, but rather correct fundamental issues that may be stalling your growth. Start by auditing your current processes and the role of each team member so you can appropriately identify deficiencies and areas of improvement. Focusing on solutions, rather than hires, is even more important in times of economic downturn when new employees can add greater stress to an already strained budget.
4. Remain the eternal optimist. When people ask me how we thrived in those uncertain times, I often reply, “With deep conviction and a lot of hard work.” If you truly believe in your product and company, optimism should spring eternal. It’s this belief that will help you ignore the warnings of naysayers and help you keep pushing ahead when all odds are against you.
Navigating the rough months ahead won’t be easy. Heck, launching a startup in a thriving economy isn’t easy. But as the old saying goes, “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.” When you come out on the other side, you will be better off because of the challenges you’re facing today, and in years to come, you may just find yourself sharing words of wisdom with the next generation of budding tech entrepreneurs.
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d7f71cc236443d1b6acfc86dbd969aad | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/17/business-acceleration-cloud-the-next-generation-of-virtual-it-labs/ | Business Acceleration Cloud: The Next Generation Of Virtual IT Labs | Business Acceleration Cloud: The Next Generation Of Virtual IT Labs
Dr. Zvi Guterman is chief executive officer of CloudShare
Virtual IT lab software has been around since the mid-2000s and is widely used by organizations to replicate complete application infrastructure stacks, including clients, servers, networking and other components. Because virtual IT labs eliminate the need to repeatedly create and configure environments, they are often used for software testing, sandboxing, conducting sales demos and proofs of concept (POC), training, and support.
In my 13 years since entering the industry, I’ve seen many companies turn to virtual IT labs but continue to struggle to capitalize on the market opportunity, as reflected in market dynamics.
In their early days, virtual IT labs were used for monolithic on-premises applications, streamlining development, quality assurance and IT operations processes. As cloud computing became mainstream, cloud-based labs emerged to support the development and testing of complex, distributed SaaS applications at cloud scale and speed.
It seemed like a natural fit for virtual IT labs because customers could easily set up environments, scale on-demand in a cost-effective manner, collaborate across globally distributed teams and more. On the flip side, the move to the cloud created new challenges for market players.
So, What Went Wrong?
The rising demand for solutions to facilitate cloud deployments drove the development of an expanding range of services and tools to automate various tasks associated with provisioning and managing cloud environments and workloads. Later, the emergence of containers enabled automation of the deployment process of applications, developed in short release cycles by hosting them in portable environments.
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The proliferation of cloud automation tools and services significantly impacted the virtual IT lab market because it enabled organizations to build and operate their own. As the DIY alternative became more viable, virtual IT lab pure players had to compete for customer mindshare with the major cloud providers as well as a slew of automation vendors.
Another challenge that virtual IT lab vendors encountered was identifying the use cases that would realize the full potential of their solutions. For example, cloud migration and application modernization were the main focus areas for those who looked to address customers’ need to move complex applications without rearchitecting them entirely. However, these kinds of projects became highly complex, involving slow sale cycles and high costs. Moreover, they often ended up being one-off projects that didn’t generate recurring revenue.
The difficulty of capitalizing on use cases such as cloud migration and application modernization and the increased feasibility of the DIY concept exerted pressures on virtual IT lab vendors. This is evident in the ongoing market consolidation and repositioning moves by prominent players.
Surgient and VMLogix, for example, two of the early entrants in this space, shifted their focus to private cloud automation and were acquired in 2010 by Quest and Citrix, respectively, for relatively low valuations. Later, Hatsize, another virtual IT lab veteran, was shut down in 2018 following financial difficulties. And Revello, acquired by Oracle in 2016 for an estimated $500 million, announced its end of life in mid-2019.
New Sweet Spots
The challenges faced by virtual IT lab vendors have forced them to rethink their strategies. Companies that survived the market shakeout are now placing more focus on offering specialized cloud environments, leveraging their domain expertise to offer comprehensive solutions that go beyond the core functionalities of virtual IT labs. By doing so, they are broadening their target audience to include business users as well.
This development is in line with the digital transformation that many organizations are undergoing today, based on the use of cloud services to optimize existing business processes and create new revenue opportunities. The new generation of virtual IT labs, dubbed as business acceleration cloud (BAC), revolves around creating purpose-built environments aimed at accelerating complex business functions across various domains.
For example, when used for creating an environment where software vendors can set up and conduct demos and POCs, BACs feature advanced analytics and reports that can be used for tracking opportunities, identifying problems occurring during sessions, realizing engagement levels, creating aggregations per specific products and customers and more. Other features include self-service capabilities to both technical and business stakeholders, support of flexible access and usage privileges and out-of-the-box customer relationship management (CRM) integrations, which allow for sending invitations to prospects for demos and POCs directly from the CRM application as a seamless part of the sales process.
In addition to addressing specific business use cases, current market dynamics provide an opportunity for BACs to serve as general-purpose solutions that facilitate the creation of modern cloud environments. Despite the availability of tools that support the DIY option, there are quite a few situations where this approach is less applicable, such as when dealing with applications with complex underlying network infrastructure that requires manual, CLI-based configuration of multiple network devices (e.g., cybersecurity software). In this case, it’s significantly more difficult to replicate an entire on-premises network infrastructure using standard cloud management and automation tools.
BACs can address this issue because they typically include preconfigured, ready-made templates for different virtual machines and complex cloud environments. This also allows for mitigating cloud lock-in risks. Many organizations today are pursuing multicloud strategies to have the flexibility to switch between cloud vendors with as little effort, time and cost as possible. Templates and blueprints provided by specialized virtual IT lab vendors make it easier to move applications between environments.
A New Generation
What's common about the use cases above is that they all leverage cloud-based virtual IT labs to accelerate the pace of doing business. As more organizations embark on digital transformation initiatives, they expect their software environments to be adaptive and flexible enough to support their goals. BACs can provide the underpinning for that because they can scale and be cloned easily and quickly, spawning many software environments on demand.
Going forward, as BAC is increasingly being regarded as a business enabler, solutions in this space will be evaluated based on their contribution to supporting business goals.
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b5c21d34c0adb6edf1d0bb7afb5c96be | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/18/four-ways-to-make-the-most-of-digital-workforce-management-technologies/ | Four Ways To Make The Most Of Digital Workforce Management Technologies | Four Ways To Make The Most Of Digital Workforce Management Technologies
EVP of products at Kofax, a supplier of intelligent automation software to digitally transform end-to-end business operations.
As intelligent automation continues to mature, more organizations are turning to robotic process automation (RPA) technologies to increase efficiencies amid a skills shortage. But there’s a lot to consider, such as security and scalability, as enterprises increase the mix of human and digital workers.
Especially given this shift, digital workforce management solutions are becoming essential to efficiently and securely manage all digital workers, no matter what resources are performing the work — people, automation or both.
At Kofax, we provide this type of digital workforce management solution, and we guide our clients on four key areas to make the most of the technology:
1. Governance And Security
As human and digital workforces merge, a single governance environment becomes more essential. Automated processes must meet audit and compliance requirements. Security is also of paramount importance, with risk mitigation being a high priority for organizations across all industries. Yet many companies don’t properly consider the security risks associated with RPA, such as the access software robots have to sensitive data.
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By gaining central control, managers can synchronize software robot releases with broader IT system updates, minimizing disruptions and failures among the digital workforce. By leveraging digital workforce management software for this purpose, companies can secure and monitor how information is used by all resources. Integrating identity management with enterprise security solutions supports unified governance over the access human and digital workers have to sensitive systems and applications.
Managers can curb potential misuse of digital worker credentials through the segregation of duties, in which functions are spread out across people and departments. They can ensure a particular individual doesn’t have access to too much sensitive information based on the combination of digital workers they oversee.
It’s important to remember that a digital workforce management solution should enable the organization to manage and enforce policy controls throughout the entire life cycle of the digital worker, from creation all the way through decommissioning. Control over the entire life span of digital workers enhances security, compliance and auditability.
2. Workforce Orchestration And Management
An open platform allows enterprises to orchestrate work across people, in-house technologies and third-party RPA bots. As a manager, you can assign the right worker, whether it’s a human or digital worker, to the right task, at the right time, while maintaining control over the complexity and cost associated with a given task or project. Additionally, by leveraging an open platform, you can take advantage of more advanced AI technologies as they emerge.
Consider using the sophisticated platform to build robots and connect to external applications using custom code to increase the pace at which your company can expand its digital workforce. Support for modular robot building and reuse enables companies to build complex robots without having to write complicated code.
3. Visibility
By maintaining total visibility into all resources performing tasks within a process, you can drive continuous improvement. Your organization should be able to answer such questions as:
• What tasks are being worked on?
• What’s in the pipeline?
• How does process performance compare with key performance indicators (KPIs)?
By leveraging the process discovery and visualization capabilities of your intelligent automation platform, you can gain insight into business processes across the enterprise. Executives and managers get a holistic view, overcoming the boundaries between departmental silos and making it easier to identify opportunities for digital workforce automation that can have a greater impact across the entire organization.
4. Scalability
Successful intelligent automation is scalable. However, the majority of organizations have struggled to expand their initiatives. The largest barrier to automation was process fragmentation, showing that many early adopters have fallen into a state of fragmented operations.
The processes themselves, however, aren’t fragmented. Rather, resources performing the work, including automation and digital resources, exist in silos. Fragmented operations can increase overhead costs and eat into the return on investment of digital transformation investments. An open, integrated platform allows for common governance helping prevent fragmented operations.
Companies that want to excel in digital workforce management should explore low-code, customizable, intelligent automation platforms. A solution such as this harnesses the power of RPA, letting organizations build and manage a digital workforce, exponentially increasing capacity, and enabling human and robot workers to amplify each other’s work.
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70b83840ead38dc1958c105419e51e02 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/18/how-businesses-are-putting-streaming-data-to-work---and-why-you-should-too/ | How Businesses Are Putting Streaming Data To Work — And Why You Should Too | How Businesses Are Putting Streaming Data To Work — And Why You Should Too
Co-founder and CEO of Qubole, the leading open data lake company for analytics and machine learning.
Most enterprises are using data analytics to gain competitive advantage, but the field of analytics continues to evolve, and streaming data has quickly emerged as the next big opportunity for innovation. But what is it, exactly, and how can CIOs put it to work in their organizations?
Streaming data — also called real-time data — is information that arrives continuously from various sources and is analyzed quickly so businesses can respond in near-real time to events on the ground. The data comes in from sources including websites, apps, imaging satellites, industrial sensors and other connected devices, and it can be put to work in a multitude of ways, which is partly what makes identifying use cases challenging.
IDC says nearly 30% of data generated by 2025 will be real-time in nature, and enterprises are using this data to build new products and improve operations and customer service. By 2022, Gartner, Inc. predicts that more than half of major new business applications will incorporate real-time data to improve decision-making.
This growth is due partly to the rapid emergence of a mature technology stack for ingesting and analyzing real-time data, including open-source technologies like Spark and Kafka. These are often used in conjunction with an open data lake, which makes it easy to collect all types of data and use it for machine learning and other advanced applications.
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As you consider how to make use of streaming data, keep two things in mind:
1. Streaming data is rarely used in isolation. It's often combined with historical data to make it more useful, such as for identifying fraud, which is why data lakes are a good fit — they make it easy to combine different data types.
2. The value of real-time data depreciates with time. Whether you're looking at industrial telematics, social sentiment on Twitter or disease infection rates, the value of this data invariably diminishes the older it gets, so it's important to have a technology stack that allows applications to use data quickly before it gets old.
How can CIOs put this data to work in their own organizations? Here are several examples that illustrate some use cases and may spark ideas for your company — some common and some less so:
Increasing User Stickiness And In-App Purchases
Keeping users interested and engaged in apps and on websites is invaluable for increasing customer loyalty and retention. A gaming service like Roblox, for example, can observe players as they progress through a game and offer tips or "cheats" if they're stuck on a certain level.
Retailers can also make great use of real-time data to provide relevant offers and show related products that users might be interested in based on their current activity, location and other variables. These use cases all help to increase loyalty and drive engagement.
Transportation And Logistics
Boeing and other aircraft makers collect real-time flight data from jet engines and other onboard equipment to help airlines optimize fuel efficiency and reduce maintenance costs. The systems collect data during flights and can also monitor for wear and anomalies, speeding up maintenance and inspections upon landing.
Autonomous vehicles and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) also lean on real-time data to understand surrounding traffic conditions. Away from public highways, streaming data is being used to manage freight operations and improve worker safety.
Fraud Detection
Detecting fraud goes beyond banks to any online service. In this use case, businesses can look at streaming data collected at the point of transaction — a website, ATM or point-of-sale device — and combine it with historical profile data to look for anomalies and other suspicious events that may indicate fraudulent activity.
Agriculture
Farming is an increasingly high-tech industry, and real-time data from multiple sources can be analyzed to help combat disease and improve yields. Sensors on farm equipment and in the soil monitor variables like moisture, nutrient levels and seed counts. This data can be combined with real-time weather data to help farmers determine optimal times for watering, fertilizing and harvesting.
Public Health
The pandemic has shown the need to monitor and predict the spread of disease patterns in real time and is one of the most critical uses of real-time data today. One healthcare company developed an app that tracks the emergence of new Covid-19 cases in real time by combining data from electronic health record systems. This data can also help health officials to identify surges and plan coordinated responses.
Outside of pandemics, data can be used to monitor flu outbreaks in real time, and companies are developing smart inhalers for asthma sufferers that will incorporate weather information to ensure patients take the right dose at the right time.
These examples only scrape the surface of how real-time data can be put to work. As 5G networks are built out and the internet of things continues to expand, the use cases for business will only expand. The primary purpose of streaming data is to understand what's happening in the present, but it can also be combined with historical data to turn insight into action. If you're not thinking about how to use streaming data today, you will want to very soon because it's likely your competitors already are.
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1b2bdb14d0fac7eab330f5f997d0c0b4 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/18/why-ai-and-robotic-process-automation-are-the-perfect-match/ | Why AI And Robotic Process Automation Are The Perfect Match | Why AI And Robotic Process Automation Are The Perfect Match
CTO and Founder at CallMiner. Responsible for strategic direction across business development, research and artificial intelligence.
getty
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being recognized as the future of customer service. This way of thinking has only been accelerated by the ongoing pandemic as needs for efficiency, agility and productivity continue to rise.
But what about robotic process automation (RPA), which is conventionally thought of as a "human replacement"? I'm here to tell you that RPA is a burgeoning application that's leveraging AI, especially AI-driven analytics, to automate tasks. When combined, the two can be used as business and innovation accelerators that not only improve the employee experience, but the customer experience as well, leading to improved customer loyalty, brand reputation and overall bottom-line results.
Keeping Employees Engaged
It's no secret that workforces have experienced significant changes over the last few months, with most rapidly shifting to work-from-home environments. For those in customer service, the challenges have been twofold as they navigate and respond to a growing number of consumer inquiries and shifting customer needs. The task of empowering reps to deliver great customer service while also dealing with abnormalities has many organizations turning to AI and RPA.
AI-powered analytics can be used to identify mundane tasks like refund requests or collecting contact details that RPA can then automate. As admin-centric requests are handled without manual intervention, overall call volumes are reduced, taking the pressure off employees and freeing them up to focus on solving complex customer inquiries and needs. By eliminating repetitive, time-consuming processes, brands are able to make room for the calls agents actually want to take. This keeps reps engaged and on board — a crucial factor in driving business success because those who fail to find purpose in their work perform below their potential and are less productive than those who do.
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AI-powered analytics can also be leveraged during the automated dialogue with customers to pose questions and deliver answers that closely mimic a conversation with a human based on the combined learnings of all the live and automated customer interactions that have previously taken place (and analyzed) with a business.
A Happy Customer Is A Loyal Customer
As customer service expert Shep Hyken recently shared at the Customer Engagement Transformation Exchange, when a customer interacts with your brand, they aren't just comparing the service to that of your competitors, but to every single interaction they've had with any company. This further establishes CX as the last remaining competitive differentiator, but not enough organizations are stepping up to the plate.
How many times have you called a brand just to be transferred from one service rep to another, repeating the same information over and over? It's an experience too many of us know all too well, and it's one that hurts customer satisfaction. AI and RPA can change that by automatically identifying and routing calls to the appropriate team while transferring information along the way, thus improving the customer experience.
The tech can also be used to help employees deliver personalized assistance and connect with customers. A recent study we conducted found that 45% of customers who switched providers during Covid-19 would have stayed loyal if the brands had delivered better CX or connected with them on a human level. Armed with AI and RPA, brands can capture near-real-time feedback around how consumers feel and equip agents to display the behaviors that produce positive call outcomes as well as the solutions that satisfy the customer.
Making Room For Operational Wins
With AI leveraged and RPA deployed, rapid gains in team capacity can be realized, and employee time can be reallocated to more strategic, value-added activities that uncover business wins.
As agents on the front lines perform more meaningful tasks, brands can redefine customer success by providing true value, solving problems and strengthening relationships rather than asking things like, "Can you provide your date of birth?" and "Do you mind confirming the name on the account?"
RPA also interacts with legacy systems to analyze data too labor-intensive to extract manually, resulting in broader and more reliable insights. By reducing the volume of manual errors, higher-quality data can be analyzed, and trends can be quickly identified. This allows businesses to not only take on more opportunities, but also serve customers more efficiently and accurately.
Getting Started
One of the most important aspects of leveraging AI and RPA in your customer experience strategies is specificity. Specifics, or lack thereof, can make or break your efforts. As you develop and implement the right processes into your automation programs, it's important to ensure every step is clear because the automation will follow the actions laid out for it and start its learning from there.
Ensuring specificity begins with tapping team members who have extensive insight into the processes you want to automate. These people will serve as your automation champions before, during and after implementation, and they can answer any questions that arise or share ways to improve the system's processes once integrated.
It also includes leveraging the analytics from the massive amount of contact center interaction data to identify the most-often-asked — and potentially most easily answered — questions or tasks that can be automated. Doing this should enable you to quantify the number of calls and hours of calls that can be eliminated by turning over specific tasks to AI and RPA, which in most cases easily offsets the investment in those technologies.
AI And RPA Go Hand In Hand
RPA is a key component in the landscape of AI technology that improves CX. Forrester previously predicted that more than 40% of enterprises will create state-of-the-art digital workers by combining AI and RPA. I think that number will only continue to grow. Equipped with AI-powered analytics and RPA, everyone benefits, from customers to employees to the bottom line. With results like that, what's not to love?
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4fc5aa258bd861ebe7e0aa39ffc33796 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/22/consumers-are-abandoning-companies-over-tech-outages---how-to-avoid-the-same-fate/ | Consumers Are Abandoning Companies Over Tech Outages — How To Avoid The Same Fate | Consumers Are Abandoning Companies Over Tech Outages — How To Avoid The Same Fate
Senior Vice President for Global Solutions Engineering at Sungard Availability Services.
getty
Technology has become such a steady part of most Americans' daily lives that they hardly think about it anymore. But that all changed when the Covid-19 pandemic hit and forced consumers into self-isolation.
Consumers' use of digital services more than doubled during this period, per a recent study conducted by OnePoll on behalf of my company, Sungard Availability Services. What's more, 88% of Americans have a "better appreciation" for the role technology has played during the pandemic, according to a survey from National Research Group.
But as Americans' reliance on digital services grew during the pandemic, their frustration with businesses that struggled to keep these services available intensified as well. This discontent could have far-reaching consequences for companies moving forward — unless they take appropriate action.
This is not a flash in the pan
According to our research, the use of virtual fitness classes grew 289% during the pandemic, while online educational classes experienced a 263% uptick in usage.
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Essential digital services like prescription delivery (up 200%), telehealth (up 154%) and grocery delivery (up 139%) also rose during the lockdown. All of this has contributed to a massive surge in internet data usage in the first quarter of 2020, up 47% year over year, according to OpenVault's Broadband Insights Report.
While you may think these surges will wane as businesses reopen, just over 70% of our respondents admit they'll likely stick with the digital services they started using during the pandemic. But the more dependent consumers become on digital services, the more repercussions businesses may face when an outage occurs.
Frustration with tech troubles during Covid-19
If you think consumers might be more sympathetic to technology glitches because of the current climate, think again. Almost 80% feel it's unacceptable for websites or apps they use to sustain an outage or be unavailable because of the pandemic, per our survey.
Consumers have already experienced their fair share of glitches. Our survey respondents have suffered an average of six technology-related incidents since Covid-19 began, and they haven't been taking these issues lying down.
More than half (55%) of those we surveyed switched service providers or decreased service levels during the pandemic because of tech troubles, and 41% plan to make similar changes after the pandemic is finished.
Companies must keep up with expectations
More than nine in 10 Americans (93%) surveyed by Pew Research Center admit that a serious interruption to their internet or cellphone service during the pandemic would greatly affect their daily lives. As such, consumers expect the services they use regularly to be available with little to no disruption, and they're assessing how the companies that provide these services perform during the pandemic.
Many will remember that they couldn't access their investments or make trades because Robinhood went down for two days. Some Garmin customers may not be so quick to forget that they couldn't connect their smartwatches and fitness trackers for nearly five days.
The fact is, nearly 50% of our survey respondents said they may stop using certain companies altogether based solely on how they handled Covid-19. If businesses want to avoid outages or glitches that could lead to lost customers, they must take a long look at their operational resilience and risk.
How to avoid outages and strengthen resilience
Take this opportunity to thoroughly reexamine your entire business resilience program. Form a working group to inspect each key business resilience discipline. Chronicle all of the changes to your environment that have occurred since the early stages of the pandemic, and integrate improvements based on established best practices and lessons learned during Covid-19.
Also, review your disaster recovery (DR) program, and make sure it aligns with your current production environment. Ask yourself: Can I recover while working remotely? Have I identified our recovery effectiveness in a hybrid compute environment? To answer these questions, conduct DR tests often and stick to a regular testing schedule. This will help identify any resilience gaps and provide enough time to adjust if necessary.
Consider the impact of other disasters, like hurricanes, wildfires, cyberattacks, ransomware and floods, and build flexibility into your business and technology. Reexamine your recovery plans with workforce availability in mind. Account for any changes in roles and responsibilities during any of the various disaster scenarios you might face with a remote workforce and other resources tied up due to the pandemic. Make sure you don't have an over-concentration of employees with the same skills and roles in a single place. The more distributed those skills and resources are, the better you'll be able to handle multiple disasters.
Lastly, don't forget to reevaluate the resilience and concentration risk of your third-party vendors, too. This way, you can ensure there are no weak links in your supply chain.
Now that Americans know how vital technology is to their way of life, any patience they once had for downtime has gone out the window. If companies don't move availability to the top of their priority list, they run the risk of losing customers now and in the future.
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f7873f85906f9c42886adc9f5d48ee48 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/22/demand-forecasting-has-changed-forever/?sh=5af6477a1ec9 | Demand Forecasting Has Changed Forever | Demand Forecasting Has Changed Forever
Campbell Brown is CEO & Co-Founder of PredictHQ - Demand Intelligence for a dynamic world. Kiwi, family man, lover of travel, data & APIs.
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In such a dynamic world, too many companies have a heavy reliance on internal historical data when it comes to driving their forecasts. While this is a rich source of insight, the disruption of Covid-19 has once again shown its lack of adaptability. This has changed the business landscape drastically, and businesses worldwide are rushing to find new and smarter ways to accurately forecast demand. This is an opportunity to make demand forecasting more dynamic and resilient, and it’s never been more obvious that we need to seize it.
Traditional forecasting models trained primarily on a company’s historical data were never best practice. Given the mass graduation from big data to smart data was already underway, demand forecasters are increasingly drawing on a far wider set of data to inform their strategies. The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted demand for products and services, and the outlook for the rest of this year is relatively uncertain. Many companies are now grappling with what can feel like an impossible task: How do we forecast demand into the recovery with tight budgets and reduced resources?
Data science is the route out of Covid-19 recovery planning chaos.
Even before the Covid-19 crisis, companies needed to know more than “we had a spike or dip here last year” so they could update their stock, labor and pricing plans. Demand anomalies were frequent and frustrating, and too often companies discover them too late to prepare.
The impact of the pandemic has even undermined mainstays such as seasonality due to lockdowns and travel bans. Teams now need to factor in many variables that are constantly changing week to week. What are the official social distancing rules in each location? How thoroughly are people following them? Are attended events allowed, and how big can they be? How many people can you reliably expect to attend, so you can be ready to meet demand?
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Knowing the answer to these critical questions at scale is virtually impossible for humans. It can be done far more efficiently, reliably and automatically with data science models. McKinsey is encouraging leaders to set up a dedicated Covid-19 data nerve center and invest in high-quality data to power it.
For every company setting up a data nerve center, the foundational step is delving into their historical transactional data and correlating it with sources of demand intelligence to discover levers they can pull to drive demand beyond seasonality and sales. Relying on these, rather than historical data alone, is a necessary evolution for demand forecasting that Covid-19 has accelerated drastically. Companies are investing in building better resilience into their models with forewarning of decremental demand causal factors, such as health warnings, severe weather, natural disasters and more. This enables you to update your plans to match the demand you will actually experience.
Look at the impact of demand causal factors hidden in your historical data.
Identifying your company’s most powerful incremental and decremental demand causal factors will enable you to take that “we had an unexpected spike here last month” and understand why that spike existed. This, in turn, allows you to train your models with a new stream of intelligence, unlocking a significant improvement to the accuracy of your forecasting.
Every spike has a cause. For example, you could learn:
• Baseball events drive a 25% to 30% surge in demand in key locations.
• School holidays cause a state-wide spike in domestic travel.
• Severe weather causes pent-up demand, with sales dropping off during the event but creating a huge surge once it has cleared.
By correlating your historical transactional data with reliable demand causal data, you unlock opportunities and efficiencies hiding in plain sight. As restrictions ease (an event in itself), focusing your attention on real-world events and other demand causal factors will not only allow you to train your models to better adapt in the future, but it will give you a better shot at recovering quickly.
Data-driven forecasting ensures you have the right amount of staff and inventory ready to go. Conversely, knowing the negative impact to your demand caused by unscheduled events like natural disasters can better assist you to scale down your staff/stock for that period and maximize revenue in geographies not impacted.
Adapting your strategies now is the best way forward.
A business’ ability to adapt to Covid-19 is key. Adapting strategies now will create a more resilient business when both incremental and decremental demand anomalies occur. Covid-19 recovery rates will be dynamic, localized and unique. Companies must double down on targeted demand forecasts with nimble, efficient strategies to inform predictions to recapture as much demand as possible and mitigate the impact of future decremental demand.
As a startup at the forefront of using data science to predict what right now seems almost unpredictable, we urge companies to quickly learn to accept the adversity COVID-19 has caused. Tapping into demand intelligence, re-invigorating your forecasting and, more importantly, being proactive is required to remain competitive.
Here are two steps to get you started:
1. Re-interrogate your demand history.
Invest time to decompose your data to identify anomalies that contribute to both incremental and decremental impact. This means your company can create a more adaptive and proactive recovery strategy. Even mainstays such as seasonal cyclicity can’t be counted on to generate the same impact as last year, so you need to identify what drives your demand to understand the full impact of Covid-19 as you begin to plan for 2021.
2. Identify and track your company’s coronavirus recovery rate.
Different industries and cities will recover at different rates. Tracking the progress of your operations that are recovering faster enables you to begin to benchmark what recovery may look like. This isn’t as simple as assuming the same recovery rate in one market will be the baseline for all others. But identifying this data point in conjunction with other inputs will enable you to more accurately predict your recovery — and prepare to meet demand as it returns at scale.
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9d6cb5731248d4fa26efee128e647254 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/22/hackers-keep-hitting-financial-services-despite-hefty-cyber-spend/?sh=4c860683a614 | Hackers Keep Hitting Financial Services Despite Hefty Cyber Spend | Hackers Keep Hitting Financial Services Despite Hefty Cyber Spend
Rod Holmes, vCISO, The Crypsis Group.
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Financial services organizations consistently outspend most of their vertical sector peers in cybersecurity staff, tools and associated investments, but the cyber hits just keep coming. According to our recent report, the financial services industry received the highest number of business email compromise (BEC) attacks in 2019 and the second-most cyber incidents across all types, following the healthcare sector.
For years, financial services has led the pack in cybersecurity spending. In 2015, for example, a Homeland Security Research study concluded the U.S. financial services cybersecurity market was the largest and fastest-growing nongovernmental market in cybersecurity.
In 2019, financial services companies dedicated between 6% and 14% of their annual IT budgets to cybersecurity (an average of 10%), according to a Deloitte study. (Current recommendations are between 4% and 10%; however, most companies fall short). In light of increasing Covid-19-related threats, these institutions plan to increase it yet again to 10.9% in 2020.
Despite the healthy investments, financial organizations continue to find themselves on virtually every “most-hacked industries” list. What factors contribute to this trend, which threats are of chief concern and what can they do to defend themselves?
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Financial Services Disproportionately Targeted
Threat actors target organizations that have what they want — most often money, data they can sell for money and vulnerabilities that enable them to access data. Our research shows that attackers are doing more reconnaissance every year to better target victims in order to maximize their financial return for their efforts and their likelihood of success.
The fact that financial services organizations often get breached doesn’t necessarily mean they are falling behind their peers in security diligence; it means they are being disproportionately targeted by threat actors because of their rich financial and data assets, and a percentage are successful due to their specific cybersecurity challenges, yielding an overall higher number of attacks.
Regulations, Flexible Customer Service Models And IT Complexity
Financial services organizations face security challenges on numerous fronts. They have very hefty regulatory requirements, customers who demand more capable and secure digital service models, and third-party vendors that help them meet these demands efficiently (but also bring more security complexity).
Cloud technologies, data analytics and robotics are becoming essential tools for larger institutions as they work to meet the challenges of the digital economy. But these new technologies also expand the attack surface. More complex IT systems are harder to secure end to end, and a focus on regulatory compliance alone can leave gaps.
On the other end of the spectrum, the sector also includes accounting firms, credit unions and asset managers, some of which are smaller and may not have the expansive IT or security staff on-site to provide in-depth security monitoring and management.
Many also use email to conduct financial transactions (an issue that has been compounded during the pandemic), presenting an opportunity for threat actors to insert themselves into the process. They also heavily leverage third-party providers using remote access technologies, which can be configured insecurely without the financial institution’s knowledge — another potential point of vulnerability.
Which Threat Types Loom Largest?
As noted earlier, BEC attacks are a growing threat and were most frequently targeted against financial organizations in our 2019 sample. Many of these were launched against smaller organizations with fewer controls in place, but any organization can be a victim because this threat type targets unwary people in the business using increasingly sophisticated spear-phishing tactics.
Insider attacks are also a significant concern. According to the 2020 Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report, 30% of breaches were the result of an internal threat. While our data revealed insider threats can be influenced by a range of motives, such as revenge against the employer, a desire to steal personal work to gain new employment and fraud, stealing funds is not only a frequent motive; it is typically the primary motive in the financial services sector. With the increase of anonymization capabilities and crimeware as a service, the barrier to entry is lowering for an insider looking to turn criminal.
Finally, inadvertent disclosure of data (e.g., accidental cloud or web application misconfigurations that expose personally identifiable information) significantly affects financial services. These organizations are increasingly using complex cloud and digital customer access solutions, opening more opportunities for security control and settings errors.
What Can Organizations Do To Keep Up?
A common element among the threat types affecting financial services is that they tap into human vulnerability. The risk of BEC, insider threats and inadvertent disclosure of data can all be reduced through more rigorous training.
I advise conducting biannual in-depth security awareness training that goes beyond the basics so employees learn to spot advanced threat tactics. Training should address advanced phishing techniques (getting iteratively harder each time), a broad range of social engineering tactics, signs of insider threat activities (as well as providing anonymous methods to report issues) and physical security. The training program should include customized modules focused on each group in the company, addressing how they may be targeted.
Focused, in-depth training of security and IT personnel on cloud platforms is essential. Managed security services that offer 24/7 monitoring and response capabilities are an excellent way to augment smaller IT operations, but larger organizations often use them as well due to the increasingly specialized skill sets needed in today’s environments.
To help optimize and prioritize security expenditures, security assessments and penetration testing conducted with the appropriate level of rigor can identify weaknesses and better target investments.
No sector is without vulnerabilities, and all are being targeted. However, financial services is bearing the brunt of attacks because of the financial and data assets they control. Ensuring that security investments are targeted in the right areas and that staff is trained will help financial services organizations better weather the hacker storm.
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d8b3cbf10c5e131e6b2fcf1e0cad88d2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/23/the-death-of-the-central-hq-and-the-birth-of-the-flexible-economy/ | The Death Of The Central HQ And The Birth Of The Flexible Economy | The Death Of The Central HQ And The Birth Of The Flexible Economy
Ginger Dhaliwal is Upflex Co-Founder & CPO, the largest network of flexible workspaces with 5,000 locations across 70 countries.
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Covid-19 accelerated the move toward flexible work and digital transformation seemingly overnight. Companies had to create a digital workspace for a remote workforce through the use of collaboration tools like Slack, Zoom, MS Teams and Webex.
In the past, working from home (WFH) was seen as a benefit reserved for startup employees or progressive organizations. Now, WFH has become mandatory across many industries in order to save lives. As of April, as many as 62% of employed Americans worked from home during the crisis, according to Gallup. For many companies, the results of working remotely have been better than imagined. It turns out that 80% of people surveyed by McKinsey enjoy working from home, while 41% feel more productive than before, and 28% are just as productive.
The world’s largest home office experiment is underway, and it's working. This forced digital transformation has fostered trust — or at least confidence — in the idea of a remote workforce. There are a number of other business processes that will be questioned and analyzed and will require a monumental organizational change after Covid-19.
As employers start looking at cost-saving measures to make up for the losses incurred during the pandemic, they will review their largest cost centers, from human capital to real estate. The future of work, office spaces and collaboration may very well change dramatically.
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The Flexible Economy And The Future Of Work
Work is multifaceted, with many moving parts that are interconnected. What we are seeing is a shift away from hierarchical organizational structures toward more flexible models where individuals, organizations and institutions more efficiently adjust their goals and resources to changing constraints, opportunities and uncertainties. At the end of the day, having a flexible model allows companies to move faster and be more efficient when allocating resources and technologies to effectively compete in their respective markets.
For example, knowledge-based companies are moving away from the traditional office where people stick to their chairs from 9 to 5, clocking in hours to get important work done. Working remotely has turned this concept upside-down. While people may have mandatory online hours for meetings, many are given the freedom to organize their schedules — as long as they get their work done.
Not only is the nature of work changing, but people are rethinking how and when to collaborate and what is best served with in-person experiences. Companies are still paying for their costly unused office spaces, and that has challenged them to look at their real estate portfolios like never before. Enterprises have a large footprint of real estate that often expands globally. They need to take a hard look at these office space expenditures as we move toward a more flexible work style. The focus should be on how we can give back time to people to reduce commutes and keep employees as productive and safe as possible.
Many tech giants are making big moves in this direction. Facebook is one of the most notable; it is moving away from an office-centric culture, allowing employees to work from home and matching the local costs of living. This is in stark contrast to its giant campus, free shuttle buses, cafeterias and other personal amenities. This came after similar decisions by Google, which extended its WFH policy until the end of 2020, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who announced employees could WFH “forever” and extended the same opportunity to Square employees.
Companies like Facebook see remote work as a way to broaden their recruitment, keep valuable employees, reduce their carbon footprint caused by commuting and improve the diversity of their workforce. And they aren’t wrong. With more companies realizing that employees are still able to accomplish their tasks and achieve results, more employees are able to choose where they work. These real estate costs can then be redirected to employee wellness benefits and productivity measures.
As we steer away from the office centrality model, companies must rethink how they work, where they work and what productivity truly means, as well as the health, safety and well-being of their people.
Revamping The Office Footprint
Prior to the pandemic, offices were seen as imperative to productivity, culture and talent acquisition, which created competition for office spaces in major cities. This is why the flexible space/coworking sector has emerged within the office market. This sector has been growing significantly at an average annual rate of 23% since 2010 and has claimed 29.4% of U.S. office absorption in 2018 alone.
Freelancers helped fuel the demand. As we reopen after Covid-19, the office experience will change entirely to support the health and safety of employees. But even then, 36% of people would choose flexible work over a pay raise.
The Takeaway
Leaders from every industry will need to take the lessons from the scaled WFH experiment to envision how work is done and the role offices will play in the future. As a result of increased confidence in remote teams, companies will need to reevaluate their real estate portfolios because employees will likely demand more flexibility in how they work and collaborate with others.
"Choice-based" working provides more flexibility in this new paradigm. Coworking spaces, for instance, can offer an alternative to the traditional leasing models and the typical WFH environment (i.e., a home office). This transformation will require a mix of creative real estate portfolios because there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
In the end, organizations will need to determine which offices are necessary. The idea of the business campus or a headquarters in a big city might be a thing of the past or simply used as the center of culture or for important collaboration.
To attract and retain talent in a post-Covid-19 world, companies may want to consider on-demand coworking spaces that enable employees to thrive and be effective no matter where they reside. This shift in demand for office real estate will require companies to be more flexible than ever before and can help reduce expenditures from multiyear leases and attract talent outside of big hub locales.
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fc0f6b9035a500646371cd1bedc91605 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/23/the-disruption-of-the-consulting-industry-is-here/?sh=3e5807832659 | The Disruption Of The Consulting Industry Is Here | The Disruption Of The Consulting Industry Is Here
CEO and Managing Partner at Infosys Consulting, a leading business and technology consultancy.
With the world of work having experienced massive disruption over the past several months, a return to normalcy has slowly begun. However, in my view, the new normal ahead is yet to be fully defined, but it's destined to look much different as companies and employees navigate unchartered territory. This unknown working model also includes us as consultancies and advisors — those who have been challenged as an industry to keep work going virtually without the in-person environment we have anchored much of our existence to.
The consulting space has long been an industry with a heavy reliance on large in-person teams traveling to client locations every week. It's also been critical for us for networking with client stakeholders and building strong personal relationships. On any given Monday morning, you can bet every third seat on a flight might be a consultant traveling to his or her project location for the week.
I predict our industry is ripe for long-term disruption as traditional working models are upended and new ways of working expand. High-end management consulting will not be immune to this dynamic.
Enter A New World Of Work
The global business world is fast-evolving. Speed and agility are at a premium to adapt in real-time to ensure business continuity. Cost pressures are greater than ever to optimize the bottom line. The flexibility of staff to work and collaborate anywhere, any time is now paramount. And, the pressure on the C-suite to deliver immediate game-changing results is enormous. In the near future, I envision an environment where large-scale programs and consulting engagements need an "anywhere, any time" team operating model in order to be effective.
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Where people are physically located will no longer be a critical success factor, and in fact, the opposite could become a differentiator as more and more work will be done with the best talent whenever it's needed. All of this without the burdensome overhead of travel and its related cost and time impacts.
Upending Traditional Working Models
For us as consultants, this will upend our model of work. Old-school relationship-building — built on informal hallway networking and spontaneous coffee room introductions — won't be as achievable as it once was. Deep, meaningful relationships will become ever more critical to thrive in the future, as will the need for personal branding to create a strong persona in the market.
The results we are seeing from these early days of new working models from a number of large organizations are powerful and real. This change is driving an acceleration around organizational thinking of traditional models of work that were once considered fixtures of large-scale technology programs (e.g., in-person/in-office teams from both the client side and vendor side). A number of firms have proven during the crisis that large-scale work can continue to be highly effective (if not more effective!) when people are forced to work virtually.
In a number of discussions I have had over the last few months with top company leaders, it’s clear organizations have taken acute notice of this and see these incubated success stories as new models going forward where vendors like service integrators and consultancies continue digitally centric, remote working models for the long-term. Why? Because it’s clearer than ever that hyper-productivity at scale and efficiencies and benefits can be realized through elements like:
• Virtual teams and working models with significantly less reliance on travel.
• Whiteboarding, planning and prototyping with teams collaborating online.
• Innovative and engaging conferencing capabilities to empower teams at all levels.
• Access to the best talent and skills around the world anywhere and at any time.
• Hybrid staffing models with more experts located offsite.
The Consulting Firm Of The Future
I predict the best-in-breed firm of the future will have an even stronger mix of local, near-shore and offshore talent where blended pricing will be ever-more important during these times of cash flow and budget challenges. Having access to top digital skills will no longer be driven so much by location but simply empowered by the latest technologies and collaboration tools to "transport" individuals into a project in almost real-time. This will significantly reduce travel costs for client projects, thus becoming a nice add-on benefit. It will even have a sustainability benefit through a lower carbon footprint.
And finally, companies will continue to demand more value for less (and they should!). This means the resiliency and efficiencies so many firms have displayed during the crisis to keep the momentum going around client projects will need to be amplified at scale and incorporated into a new "business as usual" approach going forward. I believe this is a challenge for our industry as a whole and will shake up traditional consulting models going forward.
Who wins and loses is impossible to predict at this stage. But I see this as a tremendous opportunity for firms like mine (and many others) to transform and innovate as our new normal ahead solidifies itself. I look forward to the challenge!
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aa5480ea6d5768290971c223227760dc | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/23/the-importance-of-values-centric-leadership/ | The Importance Of Values-Centric Leadership | The Importance Of Values-Centric Leadership
Technology leader with 20-plus years of experience in the tech industry, leading software development and digital transformation efforts.
getty
Values guide our decisions as we go through life. Be it through a religious framework or our culture, we are all the result of principles that shape our actions and make up who we are. Their importance cannot be overstated because they cannot be separated from an identity. For this reason, companies that aspire to have a healthy culture must do the work to identify and nurture meaningful business values.
For them to take root and define the culture, they need to be embraced by its leaders. The ability for leaders to build and nurture a healthy culture in their organizations is directly related to how they keep those core values front and center with every decision they make.
Establishing business values can be an authentic commitment or an impulsive formality. I have worked for organizations that adopted company values by putting words on a whiteboard and selecting by popular vote. They can be made into a catchy acrostic or arranged in order of priority. Regardless of how values are adopted and promoted, the real work is in how they are embodied.
Once your organizational principles have been established, the only way to make them stick is to internalize their meaning. I previously worked for a company that convened for one day every year to discuss what our core organizational values meant. We collectively defined our values and then posted them in shared spaces as a constant reminder that company values were intended to guide every decision made there.
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Here’s the truth: An exercise without integration means nothing. A staff that follows and internalizes values is priceless, but you would be hard-pressed to find this in a company without leadership embodying and modeling values themselves.
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in the moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” In the same way that each of us is tested individually when we are challenged, the character of an organization is most revealed when things aren’t going smoothly. It is easy to act with integrity and compassion when your staff has just knocked it out of the park and the wind is at your back. It’s easy to discuss excellence with a prospective client eager to sign a contract.
If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that the easy scenarios are fleeting, and the challenging scenarios are ongoing. Living by your values will not always feel like it is paying dividends, but the only way to turn values into culture is to constantly uphold them. Until they come up in conversations, tough business decisions and influence the trajectory of an organization, values are still just living on a wall.
Although values must be followed and internalized by everyone in an organization, they begin and end with decisions made by leadership. It is an organization’s leadership that transitions those values from the wall to a conversation in the boardroom. Values are a top-down deal, and leadership must internalize, embody and be identified by them. Decisions made in good times with those values in mind are practice for times of crisis when a leadership team is tested on following through with them.
We are fine-tuned hypocrisy-spotting machines, and we have all been disappointed by leadership that expects staff to “do as I say, not as I do.” If values only come up when someone has disappointed you, they’re a weapon. If they only come up during client enchantment conversations, they’re a trick. A leader has to become a champion for and the example of how those values will go from the theoretical (words on a wall) to the practical (permeating every conversation and decision).
As leaders, we have to be honest with ourselves and decide the kind of leader we want to be to those around us. Are we the kind of leader who brings up integrity or humility only when they are easy to follow, or will we act with integrity and humbly let others hold us accountable to behavior that leads with compassion? We either believe them or not — there is no in-between when it comes to values.
Steven Thulon says, “Conflict builds character. Crisis defines it.” Values in action drive behavior, and it all begins with the leader. No values lead to no accountability where everything is relative and determined by what the easy choice is at the time. What seemed like the right thing to do today is the inconvenient thing to do tomorrow. Values begin and end with us leaders, and it is up to us to have them permeate our culture.
Values-centric leaders surround themselves with a group of people who will hold them accountable and will partner with them to ensure those organizational values are the guiding compass as they traverse the rough seas. True leadership is measured by the consistency in which values are applied, in the good times and bad times. When it is easy to follow them and when it is extremely difficult. They are the root we leaders plant and allow to set, upon which an entire organization is built and allowed to grow. Leadership without values is despotic, erratic, easily manipulated and toxic. Values-centric leadership is powerful, inspirational and game-changing.
In these difficult times, how are you leading? Are you constantly looking at the core values that guide your company to stay true to them during this crisis? Are you allowing others to hold you accountable to ensure you embody them daily?
There was a time when sailors used the stars to guide them through the darkest nights. My hope and prayer is that as we go through this crisis, leaders use those guiding principles as the stars in the night, and stay the course through the rough seas of uncertainty, always with a steady hand at the helm.
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1bf211906e724e75e6a74fc2a0332b9e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/24/10-big-tech-trends-that-will-influence-tomorrows-workplace/ | 10 Big Tech Trends That Will Influence Tomorrow's Workplace | 10 Big Tech Trends That Will Influence Tomorrow's Workplace
With COVID-19 prompting office closures and a sudden shift to remote work, companies have had to adapt to and learn new tech on the fly in recent months, and change is still coming. Even if your organization has adjusted successfully, the “new normal” is an ever-moving target, especially when it comes to technology.
As top industry leaders, the members of Forbes Technology Council strive to identify upcoming tech trends and their potential impact before they arrive. Below, they predict the top 10 trends coming to the workplace and explain how your company can prepare for them.
Forbes Technology Council members predict how emerging tech trends will impact the workplace. Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. On-Demand Workspaces
Once the pandemic subsides, a large portion of the workforce will continue to stay remote and visit physical offices as necessary. Corporations have to move to on-demand workspaces. Building systems have to get smarter to track capacity, employee temperature and manage inflow and outflow. This will be a boon for IoT, smart buildings and AI. - Brian Sathianathan, Iterate.ai
2. Online Security Awareness Training
The modern workplace now demands that the security perimeter be extended to wherever the employees are, including their homes. Working from home brings brand new challenges, and companies need to continuously train their staff on these risks. However, less face-to-face time at the office to attend security awareness training means that online-based e-learning is going to become more widely used. - Jason Lau, Crypto.com
3. Potential Virtual Private Network Attacks
Because most companies set up their network security to monitor for increases in volumetric and bandwidth patterns, not compromised internet protocol (IP) addresses, attacks utilizing virtual private networks (VPNs) are increasing. Companies can monitor for VPN attacks by keeping tabs on the IP addresses of their home employees and treating traffic from new IP addresses with caution. - Rodney Joffe, Neustar
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4. Platforms And APIs To Facilitate Secure Remote Work
Recent cyberattacks, such as the one on Twitter, have proven that collaboration tools such as Slack can certainly be exploited. While such tools are more essential than ever to support the new norm of remote work, they need to be well administered by companies to avoid costly breaches. Online platforms and application programming interfaces (APIs) that enable firms to facilitate secure remote work will be in high demand. - Ahmad (Al) Fares, Celitech Inc.
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5. New-Age Learning Technologies
Digital learning is the need of the hour, and school systems will have to adapt to new-age learning technologies. Many parents will be uncomfortable sending their kids to school, and enabling these technologies for teachers, parents and students will be the next adaptation. - Bhavna Juneja, Infinity, a Stamford Technology Company
6. Work-From-Home Stipends And Training
A substantial portion of our newly minted remote workforce will remain remote. Numerous studies have shown that many workers want to stay fully or partially remote if they can. Businesses should embrace this by giving employees stipends and training for their work-from-home spaces. Equipping your team members with funds and knowledge to efficiently work remotely will pay off in dividends. - Marc Fischer, Dogtown Media LLC
7. Corporate VPNs And Single Sign-On Tools
Remote work will continue to dominate the workplace, but if you can’t provide a secure, corporate VPN to protect your intellectual property and corporate communications, there’s no point in continuing. Companies will need to invest in secure VPNs and single sign-on tools that make it easy for employees to work and hard for hackers to gain access. - Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
8. Human Resources Systems
As hiring during the pandemic has become harder, it is easy to anticipate that the popularity of human resources (HR) systems is going to rise. The programs that will let HR representatives evaluate the capabilities of the candidate while working remotely will surely change the way we hire and onboard new people. And the sooner we adapt to the new solutions, the easier the emergence of this trend is going to be for us. - Daria Leshchenko, SupportYourApp Inc.
9. Stricter Security Policies
The security of remote work will come into play sooner rather than later. With the pandemic, and in a world where anything can happen, companies still need to be nimble and quick to act. The only way you can confidently do that is to have solid security policies in place that'll allow your team to be productive, no matter the global outlook and situation. - WaiJe Coler, InfoTracer
10. Residential Access To High-Speed Broadband
The need for secure, high-speed broadband access to residential areas is surging and will continue to do so as more of the workforce comes online to work remotely. Companies need to understand the needs of their remote work environments and fund communication, video and collaboration tools and technologies to keep productivity high. - Ravi Goyal, Sureline Systems
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30bd3ad4ea874c107dad71f89c09e24a | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/25/why-call-center-agents-are-todays-heroes/ | Why Call Center Agents Are Today's Heroes | Why Call Center Agents Are Today's Heroes
CEO of KMS Lighthouse. Leading the company's vision to disrupt the knowledge management market.
getty
Despite the many challenges they face, millions of essential workers — including call center agents — continue to perform their jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic. Often working alone from home, call center agents play a vital role in keeping customers informed, easing their anxieties and supporting the organizations they represent.
Many customers are currently feeling pretty unsettled, and increasingly, they want to speak with live agent, — except when they don't. That's when they demand a reliable self-service option. For their part, agents, who are more frequently working outside of traditional centers, need new tools and support systems to access relevant information about troubleshooting, common customer issues and company processes.
Knowledge management (KM) can enable call center continuity as organizations and their employees maneuver their way through this major business disruption.
Why Customer Experience Is Becoming More Critical
Customer experience has never been more important or more difficult. Covid-19 has pushed many call centers beyond their limits. Many customers and employees are stressed. Some businesses — particularly service ones like banks and insurance companies — have seen a surge in customer demand. Workloads are increasing, and customer preferences seem to change with the wind.
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That's because, pandemic or not, customers everywhere are still demanding a more personalized and frictionless experience. Empathy, creative thinking and new tools can help organizations address their customers' needs while forging stronger post-pandemic ties. Whether it's faster multichannel self-service or live agents empowered with real-time solutions, KM can be a valuable tool.
How Customer Service And Customer Experience Are Essential
Author and customer experience futurist Blake Morgan knows data is one of the best ways to create personalized experiences for customers. Morgan wrote that successful companies understand how to "leverage data to balance personalized experience with scalable interactions that appeal to everyone," adding that "all experiences rely on data to be effective."
From first discovery to post-purchase follow-up, customer experience blankets a customer's entire journey with a brand. While customer service is equally important, the two concepts are different: Customer experience focuses on how a customer feels at all times during their interaction with a brand.
KM can capture and maintain an organization's collective knowledge and can truly transform how a business operates. It can help organizations effectively and efficiently deliver essential customer services by:
• Delivering a satisfying experience on every device and channel.
• Giving customers consistent answers.
• Providing a single source of truth for every agent in every situation.
To Defend And Protect Customer Happiness
With call centers now front and center in providing a satisfying customer experience, how can companies use KM to ensure employees and customers alike have the knowledge they need where and when they need it? Which technologies and strategies will boost customer experience metrics and improve bottom lines?
Customer experience teams have always been in the business of keeping customers happy. They're on the front lines dealing with anxious and sometimes angry customers who need complex problems solved. They're handholders, brand ambassadors and long-term loyalty builders.
In addition to work-at-home limitations, they must deal with higher customer expectations, intense competition and speedy multichannel interactions. KM could be an ideal way to meet those demands because it's designed to provide call center agents and customers with the right answers at the right time.
During a crisis, human connections and a focus on customer-centricity are crucial. Most organizations have already adopted a customer-first mindset. Call center agents are the critical front liners of an organization. They're our modern-day — often unsung — heroes who are much more than repositories of information.
Organizations can support these heroes by providing them with a KM system that:
• Enables them to communicate and collaborate with other agents and employees to build a comprehensive, relevant knowledge base.
• Helps them build better customer relationships.
• Provides instantaneous solutions to customer problems and questions.
KM has evolved into a powerful solution that helps call center agents answer any question, at any time, on any device. It enables organizations across diverse industries to capture, develop and share knowledge, while dramatically reducing call center operational costs and agent training time.
To prepare call center agents for a smooth transition to a cloud-based KM solution, organizations can:
• Use KM management tools like visual guides, decision trees and even bots to help agents onboard more easily.
• Assign clear tasks to each agent according to their role.
• Work with agents to discover the individual strengths that will help them deliver gold-medal customer service. Whenever possible, use real-world scenarios.
• Provide ongoing feedback and training so agents know how well — or not well — they're performing and that their efforts are noticed and appreciated.
One of the greatest advantages to call center agents transitioning to a KM-based solution is that they don't need to know everything before they take their first call. They do, however, need to know how to find the information they need to answer a customer's questions or solve their problem. Fortunately, because a well-designed KM system has all the information an agent needs to get started, training time is typically cut in half.
Today, there's an opportunity to forge new solutions that help create real connections that will long outlive the social and economic impacts of the current global crisis.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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4353ab26f865d4adb00548ef9d6680c1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/28/balancing-the-risks-and-rewards-of-sap-s4hana-migration/ | Balancing The Risks And Rewards Of SAP S/4HANA Migration | Balancing The Risks And Rewards Of SAP S/4HANA Migration
CEO of Tricentis, manages all business-related functions and operations to achieve business profit and sales objectives.
getty
With SAP coursing through your business’s most critical operations, adopting the latest SAP advancements can rapidly infuse digital DNA throughout the organization. But the stakes are high. With so much of the business riding on SAP, moving fast without proper guardrails could indeed break things.
That’s especially true with the adoption of SAP S/4HANA. SAP reports that S/4HANA is helping organizations grow and scale, adapt to an ever-changing world and ever-evolving market conditions, and proactively innovate and create new business opportunities.
Across independent ASUG (Americas) and DSAG (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) SAP user groups, SAP customers confirm that adopting S/4HANA has delivered business process optimization, better setup for faster innovation, improved speed and performance, and improved efficiency.
I lead an automated software testing organization, Tricentis, that is partnered with SAP to help businesses with software testing. In my experience, many companies still struggle with this migration, despite the rewards. But with reward comes risk — and S/4HANA’s far-reaching scope could introduce a fair share of business risk.
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With the expanded S/4HANA digital core touching an even greater part of your business, many underlying business processes are fundamentally altered and rearchitected for the “new world.” Customizations and integrations must be reevaluated. Many are duplicated by standard S/4HANA capabilities (and should be retired), but all require review, and some require reimplementation. The new data model, which lies at the heart of S/4HANA’s promise of speed and agility, must be adopted, and data from various sources must be routed into (or at least toward) HANA.
Most organizations also use this migration as an opportunity to move SAP workloads to the cloud. In addition to providing unprecedented scalability and flexibility, that opens the door to a much faster update cadence — and concerns about how cloud-based applications will perform under peak conditions.
Effectively managing risks is key to unlocking new opportunities — but with S/4HANA, that’s proven challenging. Many SAP users moving to S/4HANA recently reported that their traditional testing processes failed to provide adequate insight into the risks involved in this migration.
Given that, it’s not surprising that only about half of SAP customers have already started or completed the move to S/4HANA. This confirms what I’ve been hearing from fellow CEOs and CIOs: Fear of the unknown is causing organizations to defer an initiative that they are 100% certain will — eventually — advance their digital transformation.
That’s a shame because deferring the adoption of S/4HANA also means deferring the opportunity to increase agility, speed and innovation — three things that are certainly in demand now more than ever.
The old ways of testing (enlisting business users for tedious, time-consuming testing duty) don’t work as well for these new challenges. But with modern testing approaches, the risks of the migration are crystal clear, and it’s entirely feasible to pull off a zero-defect migration. Although testing is often perceived as a necessary evil that slows down the migration process, leading organizations have found that modernizing testing actually accelerates S/4HANA migrations.
For example, my company worked with Vodafone, one of the world’s leading telecoms. As reported in SAPinsider, Vodafone decided to adopt S/4HANA back in 2017 to increase process automation and standardization, accelerate the month-end close process, improve the customer experience, and provide internal employees with real-time data and analytics capabilities.
Of course, such a shining success was the combination of a number of factors, ranging from a clear vision to effective leadership and change management to close collaboration with a skilled partner. But one remarkable distinction between Vodafone and its more apprehensive peers is that it tackled the risk challenge head-on. Not only did it commit to modernizing its testing processes as it modernized its SAP landscape, but it implemented better organizational management over the migration.
By implementing this process, Vodafone was able to zero in on the highest-risk areas to test, rapidly define and scale test automation, and it established a continuous testing “safety net” that exposes risks upon introduction. As a result, Vodafone has achieved the balance between innovation, speed and risk.
Outside of software testing, it's equally vital to tackle the organizational and leadership components of migrating to S/4HANA. You can eliminate most risks by keeping known pitfalls in mind as you move, and ensuring that you’re alerted immediately if you ever veer off track.
There are many specific technical “land mines” to be aware of as you start down the S/4HANA migration path. A little research on the approach you’ve chosen — be it Greenfield, Brownfield or Bluefield — will yield a wealth of checklists and guides you can share with your team. However, for an IT leader, it’s critical to be aware of the most dangerous land mine: underestimating the scope of the entire migration.
Most SAP instances are supported by a significant amount of custom code. For the move to S/4HANA, all the customizations need to be examined and either removed (if not required), replaced with standard S/4HANA functionality or updated for S/4HANA. From a hosting perspective, S/4HANA migrations often go hand in hand with a shift from on-prem to cloud or hybrid. Also, the data layer (HANA), UI layer (Fiori) and the underlying business processes might need to change. Each of these, on its own, is a huge project. Put it all together, and consider all the changes involved across technical, process and people perspectives, and it’s clear that some change management will certainly be required.
Final Thoughts
By improving your business processes as you move to S/4HANA, you stand to see tangible benefits in terms of faster timelines, lower cost and, of course, risk reduction.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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c90b9d3a74ff20e96eb77227c3256771 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/29/2020-the-cloud-wonnow-what/ | 2020: The Cloud Won -- Now What? | 2020: The Cloud Won -- Now What?
Chen Amit is the CEO and Co-Founder of Tipalti, the leading global payables automation platform.
getty
The cloud has won. There's no more denying it. Many of us in the software as a service (SaaS) industry knew this day would come, and perhaps even got a little frustrated when it didn't. But this is the year it's undisputed. Companies that don't operate with a digital-first mindset are at risk of being left behind or, worse, unable to conduct business.
For decades, cloud deniers have talked about how risky SaaS is. Security concerns have been used as excuses not to join the 21st century. Now comes a physical threat (the novel coronavirus), rather than a technical one, that has forced businesses to scramble for remote-ready, cloud-based operational solutions to replace antiquated back-office processes.
Media companies have turned to streaming platforms as the only means to maintain their audiences. Retailers and restaurants have had to finally improve store-level inventory and ordering for e-commerce, delivery and curbside pickup. Schools have moved to distance learning, and kids, lacking the ability to have recess and playdates, are now glued to their Roblox accounts and Nintendo Switches.
And processes are not only paperless, but they're also office-less. We're all contending with remote work, virtual meetings and workflows that need to be executable in the cloud. All of this is happening at a global level, which introduces complexities, but also new opportunities for sourcing business activities.
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As businesses decide their next technology investments, it's a given that they need to be cloud-based. But what are the overarching requirements for these technologies? Not surprising, security, scalability and ease of use are still the governing laws of technical evaluation.
Leave Security To The Experts
Security has always been a multilayer objective. The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model is still a fundamental aspect of internet computing. And it's not just about logins and passwords. Businesses need to address penetration detection, data protection, encryption and authenticated role-based access at scale through reliable cloud platforms and certified architectures.
Cloud systems allow for less IT to contend with and manage; they're proven. A homegrown system you build yourself may not always keep up with every kind of digital threat. And is it a core competency you need to fund and own?
Cloud technologies get you much further by leveraging the "embedded expertise" built into these solutions. For example, sourcing software vendors that adhere to compliance certifications such as SSAE 16 SOC ensures that the back-end operations are best in class. And any systems that execute financial transactions should be certified (such as being registered as a money service business).
Scalability Is Flexibility
It's not strange to address scalability during a recession. Scalability needs to be part of a business's considerations, especially now. The worst-case scenario is that you have to shrink operations. A scalable environment means you are not investing in unneeded data centers and servers, which lose their value as soon as you turn them on.
The best-case scenario is that business recovers and ultimately thrives, allowing you to take advantage of economic opportunities sooner. A scalable environment enables you to flip the switch to meet increased demand quickly.
This flexibility is a requirement for companies that have or plan to have global operations or are acquiring other companies. Even if some worldwide satellite offices and businesses are not profit-generating, you still need to serve them. Cloud-based, scalable architectures enable that office in Melbourne to feel like it's just down the road.
Ease Of Use Is About Data Entry
Technology doesn't guarantee success. Just as important is user adoption. There is a myth that technology is more challenging when compared to existing manual or physical processes, but that is primarily the inertia it takes to overcome an established mindset.
For example, let's jump back 25 years to when people believed a phone call got better results than an email. Phone calls were adequate substitutes for in-person, casual, collaborative conversations. But if the task was more transactional, an email often made more sense because you could better articulate information and ensure it was delivered comprehensively. And searching for a lost or forgotten conversation was as simple as searching for it in your email. Unlike a phone call, email meant the person you were asking to contribute data didn't have to do it in real time, interrupting their busy workday.
Now, jump back to today. Data exchanges are even more structured and staggered, and they occur at higher volumes. An email can’t ensure adequate data hygiene — they're too free-form, not to mention insecure. That's where applications come in.
Forms, logic and process flows are very focused and directed. And once someone is adequately trained on those applications (assuming those applications follow modern user experience rules, as most cloud applications aspire to), they become the "new easy." The actions are also auditable, and sensitive data is encrypted. After all, do you want to email someone your corporate card number, expiration date and security code? Email is a typo away from going to the wrong person or potentially sitting in an inbox for perpetuity.
Cloud Software Can Lead The Recovery Economy
The software and network industry will likely form the backbone of the recovery economy. While people are limiting physical contact, businesses are going to continue to invest in digitally focused processes. SaaS also has the benefit of being a technology that is uniquely suited for marketing, sales, implementation, customization and support without any physical access.
My company, for example, is experiencing this as it’s continuing its growth patterns and customers are looking for SaaS solutions to their manual finance operations processes. That growth will lead to hiring more people, which will offset some of the economic recession. And there are undoubtedly other companies that see a thirst now to move away from manual processes. So, welcome to the cloud! Good things happen here.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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0397bf924c16a35a41e4b468bdbdbb8a | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/30/bottomless-data-saving-all-of-your-companys-most-valuable-asset/?sh=4adb5ee13051 | Bottomless Data: Saving All Of Your Company's Most Valuable Asset | Bottomless Data: Saving All Of Your Company's Most Valuable Asset
Dave Friend is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wasabi.
If data storage was free, businesses would not hesitate to save everything.
Yet two-thirds of organizations cite data storage costs as their biggest data center challenge, according to Tech Pro Research. The cloud was supposed to obviate these challenges of data storage, but, to date, it hasn’t.
More data is being generated every day than the day before. The last few years alone are responsible for creating the majority of the world’s data. This exponential growth rate is due in part to advances in areas such as surveillance, logistics, media and entertainment, genomics, medical imaging and healthcare, law enforcement and national security, and IoT and artificial intelligence.
Take the automotive industry. Just 15 years ago, the data landscape was limited. But since then, we’ve experienced a data boom. Now, the sheer scale of data that cars can generate is nearly unfathomable — from how they are used and their location to the person behind the wheel. In fact, your typical car is producing and collecting data all the time from a diverse collection of sources: radar sensors, backup cameras, infotainment systems, smartphones, GPS and more.
And with the ability to harness that data and execute on it, automotive manufacturers and dealers can accelerate business results, including by informing product development and safety advances, as well as their marketing campaigns — using those insights to build actionable customer personas to drive sales and customer retention through individualized offers and incentives.
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Plus, with the arrival of 5G, it’s going to be possible for vehicles to send far more information to the cloud, where the manufacturer can use it to better understand how drivers are using their vehicles and where new features are (or aren’t) successful, as well as to glean a better understanding of failure, wear modes, and predictive maintenance.
We’re seeing this data explosion across industries. By 2025, IDC predicts the world’s data will grow to 175 zettabytes. That’s almost an unimaginable number — and the value of that amount of data is nearly infinite because nearly every business is growing increasingly dependent on proprietary data for its competitive advantage. Just as electricity powered the industrial revolution 100 years ago, data is powering today's most valuable companies.
I believe harnessing this data should be considered the competitive battlefield of the future. But without a way to access and save that data, it’s meaningless. Because of that, data storage is not a “nice to have” feature — it’s a necessity. The demand for storage, and cloud storage in particular, is exploding. IDC reported the cloud services market generated $233.4 billion in revenue in 2019 and grew at a rate of 26% from the year prior. With that in mind, why are so many companies slow to move to the cloud?
The Bottomless Cloud
The solutions used by first-gen cloud storage providers were, and in many cases still are, stuck in an industrial-era mindset of scarcity.
The need to decide which data is important and which isn’t is an artifact of the past when storage space and square footage were one and the same. Yet the value of data is not singular or absolute — data that is not important today might be in the future. Businesses should be building their business models around their data, not forcing their data to fit an old business model and way of thinking.
Think about healthcare. The entire medical field is composed of endless data. Sacrificing the storage of that data would result in doctors being unable to treat and provide the best care for their patients, the loss of valuable medical research, and a failing pharmaceutical industry.
For example, in oncology, artificial intelligence now outperforms human cardiologists in early detection of breast cancer. This advance was only made possible because of the huge volumes of digitized mammograms going back more than two decades that helped train AI. I doubt that 20 years ago anyone could have predicted how valuable these mammograms would be to future researchers.
There’s an old saying: “You can’t have everything — where would you put it?” Cloud storage, with its potential for infinite scalability and elasticity, obviates that question for data — you can have everything because the cloud grows along with your growing needs. The next generation of storage must focus on the true value of data, which is in how much of it you can capture and mine; the greater the volumes, the greater the potential business value.
Not only is data the most important competitive differentiator, but each piece of data increases in value with each new piece of data that is captured. Adopting a “bottomless cloud” strategy enables organizations to focus on the limitless abundance of data.
With the amount of data that we will have in the coming decades, new industries will evolve, spurring new business models and a new age of innovation that we have only just started to imagine. In the end, companies that are unable to manage, leverage and save their data will, at best, fall behind on technology trends and competition.
As data storage prices collapse — and they must in order to preserve all data — cloud storage will become the next great utility, equally as important as electricity and bandwidth. As data rises to the top as a critical business enabler, data storage will become a behind-the-scenes vital lifeline for success. Without affordable, reliable cloud storage, businesses will be less effective and run the risk of collapsing.
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90b013364d9faa4978e6fe291d3f4e12 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/09/30/how-to-address-the-challenge-of-remote-workers-in-2020/ | How To Address The Challenge Of Remote Workers In 2020 | How To Address The Challenge Of Remote Workers In 2020
President of Kraft Technology Group, responsible for delivering virtual CIO services for clients and leading the strategic direction of KTG.
We're living through a time in which a higher percentage of the workforce is teleworking than ever before. This is largely due to pandemic-related constraints. Because of this, it's put many businesses in a bind. While there are definite advantages to having large swaths of your employees working remotely, there are also unanticipated drawbacks. It's also not likely to go anywhere anytime soon.
Many companies were caught unprepared for this mass migration of team members into a remote work setting. With that in mind, let's look at the challenges that companies face with remote IT workers and how you can handle those challenges. Using these best practices, you can set your staff up for success and keep your company's networks and systems functioning and secure.
Remind everyone that your IT staff will be overburdened.
The challenges faced by all remote workers are apparent. But it's important to remember that while they're adapting to working outside the office, they're not the only ones. Your IT team is going through the same thing as everyone else while still having to assist with IT issues. They're setting up remotely in their home offices. It's a transition period for everyone in your team's environment, and that's difficult to go through as an organization.
Here's why that adds to the burden of your IT staff. When your entire workforce goes remote, they're bound to have IT issues while getting acclimated to their home office setup. That means they'll face IT challenges that require the assistance of your IT staff. So, consider the multi-faceted situation your IT workers find themselves in:
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• They have their usual workload of IT support requests to handle.
• They'll likely see a surge in requests as they'll need to assist more employees with more IT issues than normal due to the widespread adoption of remote work.
• On top of all of that, they'll be dealing with their own challenges of working from home.
So, how to handle this? The key here is transparent communication with the rest of your team. Alert them to this reality to set reasonable expectations on response times. Let them know that there may be a slight lag in response but that the IT team will respond to all requests in time. If you prepare the rest of your organization, they're more likely to understand small service disruptions. Also, talk with your IT team to address where you may need to provide them with surge support (approval of additional hours, auxiliary contract staff, etc.).
Keep security top of mind.
One of the most crucial issues for all remote workers is ensuring network and data security. When your organization is all logging into the same network, it's much easier to manage security. When every single person is using a different wireless network for internet access, this introduces many variables to the equation that can be impossible to predict. That's not to mention the few employees who may mistakenly log in using a public or shared network.
It's impossible to overstate what a massive issue security becomes when the majority of your workforce is remote. It exposes your entire network to potential vulnerabilities, which could lead to data breaches from malicious actors. In turn, this could compromise your networks, data and the trust of your customers, partners or stakeholders.
Here are some best practices you can follow to ensure security doesn't become a weakness for your company as it moves to a telecommuting posture:
• Have all employees familiarize themselves with your company's teleworking security protocols and ensure they abide by them. If you don't have a teleworking policy on the books that accounts for IT security issues, do this ASAP.
• Do not allow any company work on personal devices such as laptops, PCs or smartphones. Every employee should be working with a company-assigned device.
• Refresh your IT team on how to manage a security issue or data breach. This involves asking them to review your policies and procedures for dealing with an issue, but also staying abreast of any emerging cybersecurity threats. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency keeps tabs on all current cyber activity. Have your IT team regularly review these updates to stay ahead of the curve.
Cybersecurity is a team effort. All remote workers must do their part to keep your company's network safe to ensure the integrity and protection of all company hardware, software and data.
Know your challenges and work with your entire organization to overcome them.
From a leadership standpoint, it's critical to understand that transitioning to a remote workforce — even if it isn't a permanent switch — is fraught with challenges. It will test your IT staff as they receive more requests for assistance. It will test your other employees as they attempt to maintain proper cyber hygiene without exposing the company to any cyber threats. Finally, it will test your leadership, as you attempt to coordinate, collaborate and organize your team under conditions they've never experienced.
You can address these issues by doing the following:
• Maintaining awareness of lingering tech issues that existed pre-transition.
• Giving a reasonable expectation for when IT issues will be resolved, taking potential surges into account.
• Communicating to everyone the already documented practices they need to follow, particularly in regard to cybersecurity.
Following those three guidelines above will help you and your entire team undergo a smoother transition to remote work that keeps your company safe while encouraging productivity and effectiveness for all.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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43ab8eeb61000d90c83126430176d55c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/01/10-exciting-ways-3d-printing-will-be-used-in-the-future/?sh=629d8db35c7f | 10 Exciting Ways 3D Printing Will Be Used In The Future | 10 Exciting Ways 3D Printing Will Be Used In The Future
getty
As 3D printing continues to mature, its practical uses are seemingly infinite. From artwork and toys to entire buildings and even transplantable organs, this technology can go as far as our imaginations will allow.
While 3D printing may be most exciting for companies looking to streamline their prototyping technology, its potential for the non-tech consumer world is growing and evolving. That’s why we asked members of Forbes Technology Council what potential uses of 3D printing non-tech companies should be excited about and why. Keep an eye out for its use in these 10 applications.
1. DIY Product Prototyping
Prototyping of products has long been the barrier to innovation because inventors could do little more than dream about a product or idea. A friend’s 12-year-old son ordered a 3D printer on the internet, set it up without any parental guidance and started manufacturing fidget spinners. For a couple of weeks, this kid was making a killing—until all his classmates bought 3D printers. - Jack Weiss, Marena Cosmos
2. Additive Manufacturing
Additive manufacturing is an important supply chain management tool that’s currently helping the U.S. Army enhance readiness to support soldiers on the battlefield. Because it relies on digital blueprints, the authenticity, confidentiality and integrity of the “digital thread” is critical to mitigating risk while achieving successful outcomes. - Arshad Noor, StrongKey
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3. Rare Parts Replacement
The potential of metal-based 3D printing will allow for the creation of rare discontinued replacement parts in a wide variety of applications. Repair shops could handle a much wider variety of clientele, and online retailers may be able to print unique parts, providing more products through a just-in-time inventory approach. - Luke Wallace, Bottle Rocket
4. Automotive Prototyping
3D printing has overcome the hype and is now broadly adopted by non-tech businesses. The automobile industry is using it to rapidly prototype new car models. 3D printing is used to produce spare and replacement parts in sectors such as aerospace. Healthcare has a wide variety of 3D printing applications ranging from molds in dentistry to prosthetics, as well as 3D printed models for complex surgeries. - Swathi Young, Integrity Management Systems Inc.
5. Fraud Prevention
3D printing is showing promise in terms of preventing card-present fraud in things like point-of-sale systems and ATMs. For example, banks are now using 3D printing to design and produce ATM components that prevent credit card skimming. As the digital and physical security worlds meet, 3D printing will play a vital role in creating hardware to fight fraud. - John Shin, RSI Security
6. Customizable Solutions
The shift from broad, one-size-fits-all solutions to more customizable and personalized offerings has been a major trend in recent years, and 3D printing has the potential to take it a step further. Companies will be able to offer greater flexibility and personalization on the specifications and design of products sold without the need to dramatically mark up the cost. - Ron Cogburn, Exela Technologies
7. Manufacturing And Logistics
3D printing is upending the status quo for how companies develop, build and deliver products. People are even 3D printing food and houses on site! Thanks to this technology, sourcing for raw materials, manufacturing and logistics will never be the same. The efficiency, flexibility and lower costs that 3D printing brings can change how organizations get things done in practically every industry. - Marc Fischer, Dogtown Media LLC
8. Lowered Production Costs
3D printing is being used to lower costs for companies so they can offer products at lower costs. For example, in 2018 ICON 3D printed a house at the South by Southwest festival. It not only could be used to provide sustainable housing around the world but could also help people affected by natural disasters by quickly providing replacement housing. - Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
9. Apparel Printing
I think the apparel industry is ripe for disruption with 3D printing. With 3D, customers can print their own gloves, belts and glasses to meet their needs. This can provide co-creation opportunities for retailers and provide personalized design to customers. - Buyan Thyagarajan, Eigen X
10. Medicine And Healthcare Applications
I see 3D printing having a tremendous impact on medicine and general healthcare in the coming years. There are millions of people who need access to affordable prosthetics, and 3D printing is a cost-effective solution. It gives medical staff the ability to map and uniquely design each printout to a patient’s specific needs. This technology will certainly improve the lives of many people. - Abishek Surana Rajendra, Course Hero
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01a8f709cae078ce27407fd68c4c5739 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/06/why-and-how-local-governments-should-start-automating-during-covid-19/?sh=5a067fd77d42 | Why And How Local Governments Should Start Automating During Covid-19 | Why And How Local Governments Should Start Automating During Covid-19
Paul Colangelo is CEO of Avenu.
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Cities across the country are strapped for cash amid a floundering economy. In June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (via Brookings) reported that state and local governments had laid off 1.5 million workers due to budget shortfalls. Hundreds of cities have "halted plans to improve roadways, buy new equipment and complete upgrades to water systems and other critical infrastructure," according to the Brookings article. As novel coronavirus cases continue in states across the U.S., small (paywall) and large businesses are closing, restrictions are reemerging and tax revenues are plummeting.
As the CEO of a company that offers insight and analytics solutions for governments, I’ve seen first-hand how unprepared many cities were for the economic impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic. But I also know that there is a solution. The cities and local jurisdictions that I've seen performing best during this crisis are those that laid the technological foundation for a streamlined, efficient and disruption-resistant workforce. One way to do so is through automation.
In our increasingly digital society, where we buy household goods, pay our bills and correspond almost entirely online, I have always been surprised to find that many local governments still rely on paper filing. Cities that are now looking to generate new revenue don’t have to turn to layoffs or higher taxes. Instead, they should consider streamlining their operations through automated revenue management.
According to a 2019 report from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, automation is an urgent societal imperative. In both the public and the private sectors, increased automation can “significantly boost societal productivity, which would help address challenges such as wage growth, aging populations, rising health-care costs, environmental restorations, global competitiveness, and public sector debt.”
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Automated revenue management (full disclosure: my company offers this, as do others) digitizes paperwork like billing, data entry, funds distribution, application and certification processing, and compliance and taxpayer support services. Right now, many local government employees are doing processes like these manually; according to a report from GovLoop and Concur, only 16% of state and local government employees surveyed said they currently use cloud-based automation systems, ERP systems or web-based systems to submit travel and business expenses. But dedicating valuable human resources to manual or low-value tasks can be wasteful; in 2014, a survey from AtTask (via The Atlantic) found that 40% of employees' time is spent on meetings, administrative tasks and interruptions. Automation allows employees to focus their skills and attention on higher-value tasks.
Not only can automated revenue collection be faster, more efficient and less expensive, but automated systems can also eliminate a significant amount of human error. Automation also enables real-time data analysis that can help a jurisdiction find new ways to generate revenue or cut non-revenue-generating programs.
While governments may balk at making a new financial investment amid budget shortfalls, automation actually isn’t always as costly as it seems: Many automation processes are self-funding and can quickly pay for themselves.
Governments can use automation to bring in additional revenue without raising taxes. By eliminating human error and time-consuming manual processes, they can serve their constituents faster and more reliably. They can also use automation to identify areas of misallocation of funds, new sources of sales and use taxes, business licensing errors and fraud.
A recent report from Moody’s Analytics (via AP News) warns that “doing nothing to address the economic perils of state layoffs and cutbacks could cost 4 million jobs."
Our governments have an increasing number of resources at their fingertips that can increase productivity and generate revenue. It’s imperative that local jurisdictions don’t fall behind in the automation revolution.
Governments interested in automating their systems should start by optimizing their internal data collection. Poor data will make an accurate cost-benefit analysis of automation solutions impossible. So, the first step is to learn where legacy systems and procedures are wasting revenue and then look for targeted automation solutions to change the status quo.
But it’s vitally important for governments to keep in mind that automation shouldn’t be pursued for its own sake. Automation solutions are about better serving constituents, easing labor loads on employees, and raising the standard for good governance. That means governments should look to their constituency and existing workload when setting their automation priorities. Some jurisdictions might benefit most from automating their business licensing procedures first, while others may benefit more from automating their court systems.
As hard as our current situation is, I try to get the local governments I work with to view it as an opportunity for improvement. Now is the time for governments to make updates that will better serve their constituents for years to come.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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9f3b6371835e2171595c17421f08c5aa | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/08/how-to-avoid-burnout-and-succeed-in-the-fast-paced-tech-industry/ | How To Avoid Burnout And Succeed In The Fast-Paced Tech Industry | How To Avoid Burnout And Succeed In The Fast-Paced Tech Industry
Russell P. Reeder is the CEO of Infrascale, a cloud-based data protection company providing backup and disaster recovery solutions.
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You can work in many industries, but if you pick the tech industry, be prepared for a competitive, fast-paced, and sometimes tiring journey. The rate of change is rapid, the customers are demanding, and when customers are unhappy, it is easy for them to leave. If you keep your head down too long, your customers' needs and market opportunities will change, and your competition could win. With every day that goes by, all businesses are turning into tech businesses to stay ahead.
Take Care Of Yourself So You Can Take Care Of Others
Everyone always talks about work-life balance, but in our new normal of working from home, you must now figure out how to make work fit into your life, not make life fit into your work. Your needs continually change, so it's not as easy as picking a work-life balance proportion and holding it. Only you can decide what the right balance is at any given point. As you go through your journey, you must remember to be mindful of your physical, emotional and social needs. If you do not take care of yourself, you could burn out, which will prevent you from being your best self at work, at home and with your friends. It is natural to put other priorities in front of your personal needs, but this is not sustainable. To be the best version of yourself and able to take care of the essential things in your life, you should understand and focus on your health and individual needs.
Be One Person In All Settings
Early in my career, I was moved when I had lunch with an experienced CEO who shared his life lessons. He almost destroyed himself while growing his public company and not recognizing where he was spending his energy. During his darkest hours, he finally realized that he was spending too much energy being three different people — who he was at home, at work and alone. When you try to be different people based on the environment, you will not show up as your authentic self, which can lead to people not trusting you. Especially in today's work-from-home reality, finding your true self will make people more comfortable around you, allow you to be a more confident leader and give you more energy for what is important.
Focus On Your Most Important Asset — Your People
Your people build your products and take care of your customers, but are you taking care of your people? There are many great companies to work for, but it's unfortunate how many take their employees for granted. Ensuring your employees understand what success means in their role and how that helps the company deliver on its goals is critical for creating a positive and productive work environment. It's also important that you don't just talk about financial goals. Share the problems the company is solving — this "greater good" is called your company's purpose. It's no longer enough to give someone a job and have them get to work. People today expect and deserve more and should understand how they are part of something bigger than themselves and how the company is making a difference. Once you've built a foundation, you can then take the time to empower your employees and create the right culture.
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Innovate For Your Customers
In the technology industry, you must consistently exceed expectations or your customers will quickly find the next best thing. Focusing on your customers seems like an easy thing to do. Still, many companies get caught up in their normal day-to-day operations and forget about their existing customers. If all you are doing is spending time trying to bring in new business, you may lose track of what is essential to your customers. What are the things that you are doing to take care of your customers? How often do you proactively reach out to your customers to track satisfaction? Do you have the right customer outreach tools and customer support systems? What is working for your customers, and what problems are your competitors solving in your market? Every customer interaction is an opportunity to turn your customers into evangelists. By staying in tune with who your customers are and what problems you are solving for them, you can lay out the proper product roadmap to continue to exceed expectations. Innovating for your customers starts with the relationship you have with them and understanding what problems you are trying to solve today and in the future.
Know That You Do Not Know Everything, And Don't Be Afraid To Fail
Making sure that you show up as your healthiest self, focusing on your people and innovating for your customers might sound straightforward, but do not be fooled. These steps require focus, sacrifice and a plan for where you are and where you are going. It's easier to go through your day thinking that you have all the answers than to challenge yourself with the reality that you will never have all the answers and that today's right answers are most likely going to be the wrong answers tomorrow. Like Albert Einstein said, "The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know." If you surround yourself with "yes" people who do not challenge you or each other, your luck may soon run out. Some executives are afraid to fail, and their egos will not allow them to see that what got them to this point will not get them to the next level. The great companies continue to evolve with the changing landscape, take care of their employees and create a growth culture. The companies that consistently challenge their way of thinking, are not afraid to try new things and continue to innovate for their customers will be the long-term winners. Even better, everyone in those companies will enjoy the journey.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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dc93d75f2cd103d879092f6602cc5042 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/08/the-post-pandemic-future-is-in-the-cloud/?sh=33fd0211fbb7 | The Post-Pandemic Future Is In The Cloud | The Post-Pandemic Future Is In The Cloud
Flint Brenton is President and CEO of Centrify, redefining Privileged Access Management for modern use cases including cloud and DevOps.
As enterprises continue to learn from and adapt to business needs brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, one constant remains: The cloud is a game-changer. Prior to the pandemic, 88% of organizations used the cloud in one form or another with the expectation that they would continue to grow their usage of the cloud in 2020. Not only were those expectations correct, but the mass exodus from the office space meant that these organizations were better prepared to transition to a 100% remote workforce when lockdown and stay-at-home orders were put in place across industries in March and April.
For the organizations that were not cloud-first, the pandemic revealed a glaring reality: Businesses must embrace the cloud as a necessity in the modern IT landscape rather than viewing it as an option. This revelation, coupled with the industry’s experiences during the pandemic, has shifted business needs and intuition to inform the world’s IT and security decisions as we navigate the landscape following Covid-19.
As we look to the future, enterprises will find success in a model that allows them to keep up with the accelerations spurred by the shift to remote work. These benefits include increased efficiency, agility and security. With the information below, businesses will be better equipped for a future in the cloud.
Reduced Steps Increase Efficiency
With on-premises data storage, IT leaders commonly go through multiple physical security layers — including RFID access cards, sign-in sheets and operations team escorts — to access their servers within a data center. The cloud has revealed streamlined processes that eliminate the need for these additional layers by providing options to immediately and securely access the data remotely.
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Solutions that provide multi-factor authentication (MFA) can enable automated authentication decisions for select users on remote systems and provide granular access controls without a VPN while granting access to critical infrastructure. By limiting access to resources on a per-resource basis rather than opening up visibility to the entire network as you normally would with a VPN, you can ensure only your most privileged internal IT admins have access to necessary infrastructure while limiting access by an outsourced team to the servers and network hardware their role requires.
DevOps Won’t Slow You Down
In many cases, DevOps is taking over, and agility is king. Now we have containers, microservices and serverless computing, such as lambda, that are blending the lines between development, operations and security. Taking full advantage of the benefits afforded by a shift to the cloud relies heavily on the automation of processes. While beneficial, DevOps also creates a broader attack surface, and organizations must find ways to both reduce risks and yield the rewards of DevOps.
In order to maintain the agility and security of DevOps, organizations must ensure their security and operations teams are managing and auditing permissions and credentials for a growing number of user and system accounts. Look for solutions that grant just enough, just-in-time privilege and automate workflows and requests for privilege elevation. And audit everything, including monitoring sessions, analyzing the risk of access requests in real time and setting up alerts to warn against abnormal behavior.
Securing Multi-Cloud Strategies Will Prepare You For The Future
Multi-cloud strategies are also becoming extremely popular during the pandemic, as many companies are using multiple infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers. A survey conducted by Gartner reveals 81% of public cloud users are using two or more providers, which is guiding the narrative toward a future model built on hybrid- and multi-cloud computing.
However, this approach may lead to identity fragmentation and siloes that create new complexities and surface areas of risk for identity and access management. Identity fragmentation and sprawl make it harder to manage a more broadly dispersed, faster-moving organization. Centralizing identity management through federation and brokered access across resources can help reduce complexity while increasing security and optimizing productivity.
Organizations should adopt an approach to privileged access management (PAM) that focuses on the individual requesting a form of access, the reasoning behind their request, and the risk therein. By implementing the least privilege, you will set yourself up for success.
As organizations look to drive their cloud initiatives forward, they must apply the same security controls and operational disciplines across both on-premises and hybrid- and multi-cloud environments. This can be achieved by ensuring the security stack includes a centralized PAM solution architected in the cloud, for the cloud.
This will minimize the attack surface and control privileged access to hybrid environments, which have experienced increased threat surfaces during the pandemic. Ideally, organizations with a presence in the cloud should enable multi-directory brokering across cloud platforms and leverage key benefits of the cloud economy such as elasticity and multi-tenancy.
By focusing on security and automation, organizations will be better prepared to implement cloud technologies that work for their business needs. Understanding the risks and benefits of adopting a cloud strategy alongside implementation provide organizations with the ability to find success during the pandemic and beyond.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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f72e72f96c703631af1a49fe3fdb7b4c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/09/seven-reasons-to-let-your-employees-work-remotely/?sh=4d0a9ca8fdef | Seven Reasons To Let Your Employees Work Remotely | Seven Reasons To Let Your Employees Work Remotely
Aaron Vick is CEO for Cicayda, a legal tech firm that combines people, technology, and innovation to form the iDiscovery® ecosystem.
In today's world, most businesses don't have the option to decide if they want to let their employees work remotely. Until things drastically change with Covid-19, most of us will be working from home for a bit longer.
Some business owners may see that as a problem, but others will see it as an opportunity. Allowing people to work from home can drastically improve things for both you and your employees, even after the pandemic winds down.
Remote work has many employers balking at the idea of having less physical face time with their employees. But the truth is that going remote may be the best thing you do for your business.
Do you not think that working from home can work for your business and employees? After you read these seven benefits of remote work, you'll wonder why you haven't considered it sooner.
1. Safety
A lot of places had to quickly scramble to get their employees ready to handle a work from home environment to protect them from Covid-19. Working remotely may be important for safety during a pandemic, but it can also come in handy throughout the year.
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How many employees have come in to work not feeling 100%? Coming in with a mild cold may not seem like a big deal, but it can have unintended effects.
Employees shouldn't come to work if they're sick, but many feel compelled to because of deadlines and work expectations. They risk infecting other employees and putting themselves in danger of not properly resting.
2. Employee Retention
Small businesses don't have a lot of options when it comes to attracting new talent. They often can't compete with the high salaries and generous benefits other companies can offer potential employees.
Flexibility and remote work have become very important to modern workers. Some creative minds find the typical 9-to-5 office grind can be limiting and wouldn't hesitate to leave current employment for companies that allow them to work remotely.
Remote work can be an excellent perk for working parents or people who want more flexibility in their daily lives. This one perk can mean the difference between an employee taking an offer elsewhere or staying with your current company.
3. Boost Morale
Employees with a good work-life balance are often more productive, happier and more willing to bring in new talent. Remote work could give your workplace a major morale boost.
Employees that get to work from home are employees that have more flexibility to plan their days. Being able to work from home can mean that your employees can finally make their daughter's softball game or that they can visit friends for a few days.
4. Give Employees Autonomy
It can be hard to feel like you're a trusted employee when your boss casually looks at your screen every few minutes. If you truly want your employees to feel autonomous and empowered, allow them to work remotely.
Instead of having to work around everyone else's schedule and needs, remote workers have much more flexibility to go about their day the way they see fit. They can work at their own pace and not have to deal with external pressures or distractions.
Some workers may do their best work curled up on the couch late at night, and others may find that they're at their best when they can take a mid-afternoon break. Either way, employees will be empowered to find the best way to get their work done.
5. Save Money
A small office that can be used for the occasional meeting is much more cost-effective than one that has to fit all of your employees.
Think about how much money it actually takes to operate a modern office. If you're only thinking about rent, you need to look at the bigger picture.
Offices need to be furnished with desks, chairs, couches and other important things. Employees will need to have coffee in the morning and water and snacks throughout the day. There's also the cost of equipment like laptops and monitors.
Finding a way to cover all of those costs when you're growing your business can seem impossible. That's why many money-savvy founders have decided to skip the big office and let people work from home.
6. Increase Productivity
The daily commute has become an accepted part of office life. Some of your employees may literally spend hours in traffic each day just to get to work. A few may even have to consistently leave early to beat traffic.
Once your employees no longer have to deal with the hassles of commuting, you'll be surprised at how much more efficient they can be. The hours they spent in traffic can now be spent on work.
Employees won't just have more time for work, they may even feel happier when they do it. There's nothing like a stressful commute to ruin a workday. Now employees can just focus on work and not have to plan their days around traffic.
7. Grow Your Applicant Pool
Geography can be very limiting during the job search. Companies that aren't in a convenient location may have trouble attracting applicants when they post jobs.
Setting yourself up for a remote work environment removes a lot of geographic limitations to the job search. Instead of needing to keep your search hyperlocal, you have the potential to attract talent from nearly anywhere you can think of.
This can be especially helpful for small-business owners who want to establish connections in different areas and regions. Instead of having to open an office in a new place, all you'll need is someone there that's willing to work remotely.
Work Remotely For Better Outcomes
Letting your employees work remotely is a huge decision for you to make, but shouldn't be a decision that you regret.
There are so many benefits that come along with working remotely. Whether you want to please employees, increase efficiency or save money, you should explore continuing remote work.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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5faad5012fac729d6b7bb8a11064b9f3 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/12/16-signs-its-time-to-pull-the-plug-on-a-tech-project/?sh=66f1dee032a3 | 16 Signs It’s Time To Pull The Plug On A Tech Project | 16 Signs It’s Time To Pull The Plug On A Tech Project
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A tech project may falter for several reasons—a lack of resources, management issues or simply a change in scope. When a project is floundering, a tech leader may have to decide whether it’s worthwhile to continue or it’s time to move on.
It can be difficult to move on from a project—especially if you and your team have already invested significant time and money. However, doing so can allow you to focus your energy and resources on other areas that may bring greater success. To help you make this tough choice, the members of Forbes Technology Council share 16 signs that it may well be time to pull the plug on a tech project.
1. Demand has dried up.
Evaluate the demand for your project. Every tech project aims to solve a longstanding obstacle. But if you take too long building your solution, the market gap (and thus the value) will disappear. Stakeholders will eventually turn to other ways to solve this problem. If this happens, your potential ROI will plummet, which means it’s probably time to consider pulling the plug on this initiative. - Marc Fischer, Dogtown Media LLC
2. The technology can’t deliver the value promised.
A project can deviate from its path for a few reasons. First, the technology can’t deliver on the value promised. Second, execution is failing, or third, user adoption is weak. If the second and third issues are the root cause, management can intervene and salvage things. But if it’s a technology selection issue, then it’s time to pull the plug. - Meerah Rajavel, Citrix
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3. You’ve exceeded the development schedule.
All tech projects have a shelf life. If development schedules are significantly exceeded, the project’s value is likely to be reduced. A tech leader should always be aware of market conditions and how they impact development duration. A great idea that’s significantly late may not be viable any longer. - John Prisco, Quantum Xchange
4. You’ve observed your ‘stop’ criteria.
One of the most important—and often overlooked—aspects of business and project planning is the setting of start, stop and continue criteria. When these are set in advance, the data itself will answer the question of whether the project has earned the right to continue or whether it’s time to sunset it to provide resources to something more successful. - Wade Burgess, Automation Anywhere
5. The intended audience doesn’t ‘get it.’
Is the product clicking with the audience? This is usually evident early on, and if the answer is no, it’s most likely not going to work. In the games industry, we use the D1 benchmark, which measures users who play the game and return the next day. That number must be at least 25%. A product can be optimized, but not by 50%. Let go if the response is weak right from the start. - Derrick Morton, FlowPlay
6. It isn’t producing a return on investment.
Any project that isn’t producing a positive ROI isn’t worth continued investment. This means deciding on measurable key success metrics in the beginning; without these, the project’s trajectory is bleak from the start. - Toby McClean, ADLINK Technology
7. Stakeholders have lost faith in the project.
When key stakeholders lose trust in a project, it’s a sign that it’s time to reevaluate. To gain confidence and trust, project leaders must report on progress transparently and honestly. This way, adjustments can be iteratively made to get a project back on track instead of uncovering problems too late. Nobody expects the process to be perfect, but they do expect to be happy with the result. - Kurt Dykema, Twisthink
8. The project no longer aligns with organizational goals.
As a tech leader, there will always be times when you will feel like walking away from a technology project. There could be multiple factors, but one crucial signal that you should look at is within the organization itself. Projects should always align with the organization’s goals and objectives. A change in an organization’s focus may indicate the need to terminate the project. - Vishal Yadav, symplr
9. It’s not contributing to the company’s crucial initiatives.
It all begins with how the particular effort supports and builds up to the organization’s 90-day, one-year and 10-year goals. If the project is one of the rocks that contributes to higher, crucial initiatives, the leadership team should put all their focus on finding out why it is failing. If it’s not crucial, the project is a distraction from those that are and should be reevaluated. - Danny Acuna
10. The current path won’t get you to your defined endpoint.
Leaders must know when to pivot or persevere within projects. Strategy is key here. Be clear on your starting point, define the endpoint in quantifiable terms and build a path from start to finish. However, favor the planning over the plan. No plan survives the first contact, so pivot or persevere as you execute the project. The endpoint is never where the original plan said it would be. - Cleve Gibbon, Wunderman Thompson
11. The project is running behind on key metrics.
I use performance as a metric when deciding on whether I should pull the plug on a project. We have long-term goals, and we usually have high, low and medium expectations for each team. If a project is running behind in terms of results, profits or development, it could be time to rethink that part of your venture and move your resources elsewhere. - Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
12. You’re seeing turnover in your tech team.
A high turnover rate inside a tech team is a great indicator that a project has lived out its course and that it might be time to move on. Why? Working on an old or inefficient project is not an easy task; thus, professionals in the tech department will burn out fast and just leave. The more turnover you have, the more you should consider closing down shop and turning to new, more relevant projects. - Daria Leshchenko, SupportYourApp Inc.
13. Your team is exhausting their resources.
Leaders need to be able to evaluate the energy put into a project and its beneficial outcome. If your team is exhausting all their resources on a project that is going nowhere, you’re wasting time and money you could be exerting on a worthwhile project. - Kison Patel, DealRoom
14. You’re not creating value for the end-users.
The question each project team (and startup) should ask themselves regularly is, “Do we still create added value for our potential customers?” In the end, too many projects are done because it’s “cool” technology, and the users or customers are not in focus anymore. “Would I personally be willing to pay for this product?” could be a valid question to ask as a tech leader. - Harro M. Wiersma, Regarding Data GmbH
15. It’s not meeting business needs.
All projects should solve business problems and be geared toward delivering the value expected. Be sure to continually examine your projects. When a project has gone too far off track, look at its cost, effort, proximity to completion and competing priorities as they relate to your business needs when evaluating whether to pull the plug. - Maddison Long, CloudOps
16. You’re no longer learning anything from the project.
There is only one question I like to ask myself in such a situation: “Do I learn something new every day while working on the project?” If the answer is “Yes,” this indicates that no matter how well the project is doing, I am gaining knowledge and experience for my career. If the answer is “No,” it’s time to move on to accept new challenges—even if the project is doing great. - Ilia Sotnikov, Netwrix
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31baca9745c6aa6ccfbff20a320273c1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/13/its-time-to-get-smart-about-infrastructure/ | It’s Time To Get Smart About Infrastructure | It’s Time To Get Smart About Infrastructure
CEO at MaintainX — the workflow coordination, communication, and compliance platform for industrial and frontline teams.
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It’s a running joke in Beltway circles that every week is Infrastructure Week, but while the Senate remains deadlocked over the next round of coronavirus stimulus spending, analysts believe that major infrastructure investments might be the key to putting the global economy back on track. Both U.S. presidential candidates have pledged to spend heavily on infrastructure, and industry groups are also calling for big investments in bridges, highways and other major infrastructure projects to spur a U.S. economic revival.
Such spending is long overdue. A third of Americans say roads in their neighborhoods badly need repairs, and half of rural roads are rated poor to fair. Put all 54,000 of our nation’s structurally deficient bridges end to end, and they’ll stretch from Manhattan to Miami Beach. At least 2,170 of our 15,500 high-hazard dams are dangerously deficient. And with 240,000 water-main breaks a year, we annually pour 2 trillion gallons of drinking water straight down the drain.
Frankly, the state of America’s infrastructure is shocking. But therein lies the rub: With so much of our infrastructure in decay, how can we track all the work that needs to be done? At current rates of repair, it would take decades to patch up those deficient bridges — so where should we start, and which bridges should we repair first? Which structures merely need a coat of paint, and which ones need to be completely rebuilt? With vast sums at stake, how will we decide how the money gets spent?
To find the answer, look at the five-mile Mackinac suspension bridge between Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas. Since 2016, researchers have installed scores of tiny wireless sensors on “Big Mac.” This year, they will fit thousands more. Powered by the vibrations of passing traffic, the sensors constantly gather information about traffic patterns, wind levels and the condition of the bridge itself, giving inspectors a torrent of invaluable data about the bridge’s safety and pinpointing exactly where and when repairs are needed.
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Similar technologies are being deployed around the world. Singapore’s water grid uses U.S.-designed sensors to take readings every millisecond, instantly spotting leaks with far greater accuracy than on-site inspectors. China is preparing to build smart highways that report on wear and tear in real time, making ruts and potholes a thing of the past. At Kentucky’s intensively scrutinized Wolf Creek Dam, electronic sensors monitor seepage and safety around the clock.
Such innovations are bringing infrastructure into the 21st century. We live in an internet-connected world, and there’s no reason highways, bridges and other critical assets can’t be made part of the Internet of Things (IoT). By fitting structures with tiny, low-energy pressure meters, movement sensors, and other IoT-enabled gizmos, we can harvest a constant stream of data about the stability and fitness of our infrastructure, allowing us to conduct timely maintenance before hairline cracks develop into catastrophic structural failures.
We’ll always need human judgment and expertise to keep infrastructure safe. But the days when we could manage complex assets simply with a sharp eye, a hard hat and a clipboard are long gone. In addition to fixed sensors, drones and pipe-crawling robots now keep tabs on infrastructure at less expense and with less disruption than human inspection crews. Better software tools, meanwhile, are connecting the dots between data sources, maintenance experts and work crews, ensuring structures are inspected on schedule and problems are addressed swiftly.
We’ve neglected our nation’s infrastructure for so long that we can no longer put things right simply with individual construction or maintenance projects. To deliver real solutions at scale, we need to take a big data approach and bring the efficiencies of digital innovation to bear on the challenges we face. By treating infrastructure maintenance as a data management problem, we can leverage the things America does best — like building disruptive digital tools — to ensure our resources go where they’re most needed.
The private sector is already leading the way, but the sheer scale of the problem requires public investments, too. As Congress considers the case for new infrastructure spending, it’s vital that they think not just in terms of concrete and girders, but also in terms of data and digital technologies. Restoring American infrastructure requires not just shovel-ready projects, but also a commitment to supporting American innovation. In the coming weeks, lawmakers will have a chance to help make that happen — and to finally bring U.S. infrastructure into the digital era.
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094c87ecc5eff695da7406bccc5bc202 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/13/three-reasons-mathematical-optimization-is-such-a-powerful-and-versatile-ai-problem-solving-technology/?sh=5ce3887f3d2b | Three Reasons Mathematical Optimization Is Such A Powerful And Versatile AI Problem-Solving Technology | Three Reasons Mathematical Optimization Is Such A Powerful And Versatile AI Problem-Solving Technology
Edward Rothberg is CEO and Co-Founder of Gurobi Optimization, which produces the world’s fastest mathematical optimization solver.
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There are, generally speaking, two types of people in the mathematical optimization software field:
• Optimization solver developers: The technical experts who devise and implement the algorithms that are the motor that makes every mathematical optimization application run.
• Optimization solver users: The operations research (OR) specialists, data scientists and businesspeople who design, deploy and use the mathematical optimization applications to help organizations tackle their complex, real-world problems and make optimal decisions.
Interestingly, these two groups operate separately for the most part, with the users often in the dark about how exactly the mysterious algorithmic alchemy inside the solver works and the developers largely unaware of the myriad mathematical optimization applications that are being implemented in the business world today.
As a mathematical optimization software veteran who has devoted my career to developing (in collaboration with my colleagues) the world’s fastest and most powerful mathematical optimization solver, I'm one of the developers.
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Of course, I know all about the many high-profile use cases of mathematical optimization that have delivered billions of dollars in cost savings and revenue growth for leading companies across numerous industries, including financial services, telecommunications, electric power, manufacturing and logistics.
But almost every day I learn about a new, cutting-edge application that I’ve never heard of or even imagined was possible. I must admit that many times, after speaking with customers about their applications, I slap my head and say, “I didn’t know mathematical optimization could be used for that!”
There are so many innovative use cases of this AI technology, encompassing everything from food delivery dispatch to urban parking optimization to earthquake modeling to subscription box service optimization to scaffolding design optimization to energy asset modeling and many, many more. The possibilities are essentially endless.
But, you may ask, how can one single technology be used to address such a vast variety of business problems?
Here are three main reasons why I think mathematical optimization is such a powerful and versatile AI problem-solving technology:
1. The Broad Applicability Of The Mathematical Optimization Solver
For most users, a mathematical optimization solver functions as a black box: Although they can use the outputs of the technology, they have little understanding of its inner workings — but they really don’t need to. All they need to do is integrate the solver into their applications and then let it automatically crunch their data and crank out optimal solutions to their business problems.
Think of a solver (to elaborate on the analogy I made at beginning of this article) as being like an electric motor that can be inserted into so many different things (household appliances, ships, power tools, cars, etc.) and used to make them run. Over the years, as the number of uses of the solver (and electric motor) has increased, the performance of the technology has improved — and this phenomenon continues today.
Indeed, inside the black box is a collection of the world’s most sophisticated, state-of-the-art mathematical algorithms — the result of over 70 years of hard work and brilliant ideas by some of the leading minds in the industry.
The broad applicability of the black-box solver helps make mathematical optimization an AI technology with enduring and far-reaching impact in our world today.
2. The Flexibility Of Mathematical Optimization Models
A mathematical optimization application has two main components: the solver described in the section above, and a mathematical model that encompasses your unique, real-world business problem.
Although the solver is a standard, off-the-shelf software technology, the model is a highly customized and detailed mathematical representation of your business problem (which includes your company’s specific business rules, business goals and decision-making processes).
The flexibility of the model gives you the ability to capture your complex, mission-critical business problems in mathematical terms and, using a mathematical optimization solver, generate an optimal solution to those business problems.
This robust modeling capability is a key reason mathematical optimization remains such a versatile and pivotal technology for businesses today. No matter how complex or challenging your business problem is, if it can be defined as a mathematical model, it can almost certainly be solved using mathematical optimization.
3. The Capability To Make Optimal Decisions Based On The Latest Available Data
Data is the lifeblood of every AI technology. Some AI tools, such as machine learning, rely on historical data to make predictions, while other tools, such as mathematical optimization, leverage the latest available data and models of your present-day business environment to facilitate (and often automate) decision making.
You can reveal the value of your data by using mathematical optimization to automatically generate solutions to the real-world business problems you are facing today and make optimal business decisions.
Looking To The Future
The era of AI is upon us. Gartner predicts that by 2024, 75% of enterprises will have operationalized AI. The question is: Which technologies will remain relevant?
For the reasons highlighted in the article, I believe that mathematical optimization will continue to be an essential tool used in an ever-expanding array of applications by organizations to address their most challenging and critical business problems and make optimal decisions.
Indeed, the opportunities for mathematical optimization across various industries are virtually limitless. In the coming years, users in the business world will no doubt continue to build and deploy new, innovative applications, and I (along with others in the software development community) will continue to be amazed by these groundbreaking use cases.
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2821d45af20381e514792de60e0dc1d8 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/16/stay-ahead-of-disruption-focus-on-cx-operational-efficiency-and-the-remote-workforce/ | Stay Ahead Of Disruption: Focus On CX, Operational Efficiency And The Remote Workforce | Stay Ahead Of Disruption: Focus On CX, Operational Efficiency And The Remote Workforce
EVP of products at Kofax, a supplier of intelligent automation software to digitally transform end-to-end business operations.
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As the Covid-19 pandemic began disrupting business operations on an unprecedented scale, organizations focused on mitigating the impact of the crisis. Deploying collaboration technology became the priority as employees shifted to working from home. But now that businesses are past the early pivot point, they must turn an eye to the future — and put in place a workforce resilient to future disruptions.
One way to get past the Covid-19 curve is to think about digital investments more broadly and how expanding technology capacity can augment the workforce. Finding the right balance between human workers and the digital workforce will go a long way in helping businesses mitigate the pandemic’s impact on operations while also helping them prepare for tomorrow. Intelligent automation is the key to making this happen. With it, businesses can foster seamless collaboration among remote workers, engage and serve customers, and make the overall business more resilient to future disruption.
To accomplish this goal, organizations should accelerate digital transformation, particularly focusing on three areas: elevating the customer experience, boosting operational efficiency and enabling the remote workforce.
Driving A Better Customer Experience
Across every industry, organizations are looking to expand self-service and digital sales. Consumer expectations — partly set by pre-Covid-19 business practices like next-day delivery and fast response rates — are even higher today as in-person transactions come to a standstill. Thus, customer satisfaction hinges more than ever on the organization’s ability to keep customers engaged and informed. As customers switch to digital for service, questions, orders and cancellations, the digital customer experience will become the No. 1 priority for CIOs.
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Intelligent automation expands an organization’s capacity to keep up with increased digital demand from any channel. It combines multiple technologies that can quickly and accurately process structured and unstructured data. This makes it possible for businesses to automate the receipt and processing of a wide range of customer information and requests, including applications, orders and requests to resolve issues. For instance, claims processing can be largely automated using virtual assistants and robotic process automation (RPA), leaving more complex tasks and nuanced customer service to humans.
The mortgage origination process offers another example. With e-signature and self-service capabilities, banks can digitize much of the paperwork traditionally associated with loans. Using cognitive capture, they can extract data from unstructured data sources like images and PDFs (e.g., driver’s license and other identification). There’s no need for the customer to come into the office or branch to complete the loan transaction. Automation means faster and better decisions and more loyal customers.
Boosting Operational Efficiency
While many businesses have made significant strides in automating client-facing processes, back-office functions have lagged behind. Without the integration of front and back operations, companies will find it challenging to deliver the kind of experience customers now expect. Although manual scanning, uploading and physical handling of paper was already a slow and error-prone process, the Covid-19 pandemic risks bringing it all to a halt because employees no longer have access to documents left behind in the office.
Organizations need to reassess and retool their IT infrastructure if they want to "survive and thrive" in the post-Covid-19 world, McKinsey & Co. stresses. To reduce costs, the consulting firm recommends automating manual and repetitive tasks and making greater use of the cloud. Further, as companies leverage technology to automate and digitize back-office functions, such as invoice processing, document intake and remote exception handling, they’ll create greater efficiencies and deliver a higher level of service to customers.
Many organizations are already turning to the cloud to achieve business continuity. Indeed, Microsoft has reported a 775% increase in the usage of its cloud services. It’s easy to see why: Cloud-based intelligent automation technologies enable businesses to be more flexible and agile.
Enabling The Remote Workforce
When staff can’t get to the office, intelligent automation makes sure data gets to them. Via the cloud, remote workers have access to all the information they need to keep the business operating normally. Digital assistants are accurate and fast. They handle the mundane and time-consuming tasks, including data collection, systems entry and communication routing, freeing the back-office team to attend to more critical work. And with document digitization, image capture, e-signatures and other digital technologies, the information employees need is a keystroke away — not on a hard drive in the office or in a pile on the manager’s desk.
Implementing Intelligent Automation
Businesses ready to transform their operations with intelligent automation should begin by forming a center of excellence (CoE), composed of both IT leaders and functional business owners and focused on automation. This team will assess the opportunities, identify and implement the right technology, and manage growth and innovation.
The next step is to conduct an assessment of data, technology and processes. Data is the backbone of intelligent operations, and the team will need to understand all the sources of structured and unstructured data across their internal and external ecosystems — and how to harness them — in order to generate breakthrough insights.
An audit of business processes is essential to identify those that can be automated easily. Well-documented and optimized processes are the best candidates for automation.
Selecting the right technology is also crucial. Organizations should look for a single intelligent automation platform that transforms information-intensive business processes from start to finish. The right technology should help organizations accelerate their automation initiatives by streamlining the development and deployment of solutions with document intelligence that leverages AI, as well as low-code capabilities and simplified integration with third-party software.
Finally, organizations should commit to continual innovation. This means developing relationships with a range of players, including startups, academia and technology providers to steer a future course and ensure resilience.
The acceleration of digital transformation will help organizations get ahead of the Covid-19 curve. By expanding virtual capabilities with intelligent automation and practices that support collaboration, organizations can begin working like tomorrow today. In doing so, they’ll increase productivity, improve employee morale and be more resilient to future disruption.
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64f75e7b22852a5c6b2d192ef69a7536 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/19/cybersecurity-and-your-passwords/?sh=58fe7ecb3732 | Cybersecurity And Your Passwords | Cybersecurity And Your Passwords
Bestselling author and cybersecurity awareness specialist.
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What's something that stands between you and a cybercriminal that's in your full control?
Your password.
The world of password security is a tricky one because, in my experience, many of the best practices for password security are not at all practical and therefore rarely used.
Considering all the accounts we need to secure with passwords and all of the rules regarding effective password hygiene, it can certainly feel that it's almost impossible to keep up without a technical aid like a password manager. However, studies have revealed that password managers are vulnerable to being hacked, and if they get hacked, the cybercriminal essentially has the keys to your password kingdom, which of course defeats the purpose of having a password manager or even a password in the first place.
In other circumstances, people try to bypass the need for passwords by turning to biometrics, which uses fingerprints or facial recognition technology to grant a user access to sensitive data. However, biometrics has its own set of vulnerabilities that are actually more problematic than passwords.
As many people already know, using biometrics first requires you to save your fingerprint or facial features onto your device. But what if your biometric information is hacked? Just look at the June 2015 hack of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management where 5.6 million fingerprints were stolen in a cyberattack. This is a concern to cybersecurity professionals such as myself because, unlike passwords, your fingerprints and facial features can't be changed if they're compromised.
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Yes, there are good technologies that exist to help us with password security and management, but I have yet to come across the perfect solution, which is why I prefer some good old-fashioned common sense and awareness.
With that in mind, here are some simple and, more importantly, practical tips that will help you keep your passwords secure:
1. Use a phrase that captures a memorable thought that only you know, or use the first letter of each word in a unique phrase to create a password.
2. Passwords should be a minimum of at least eight characters in length. Ideally, if the system allows, the password should be from 24 to 26 characters long.
3. When creating a password, remember to include at least one of each of the following: uppercase letter, lowercase letter, special character and number.
4. Don't create passwords from dictionary words with repeated or missing letters, common phrases or keyboard patterns. Remember: Hackers don't hack passwords by guessing; they have access to password cracking tools that bypass those simple tricks and can crack passwords in seconds.
5. Use different passwords for all accounts. I have to be very clear on this tip since it's a bit controversial. Without the aid of a password manager, I can honestly say that I don't know anyone who follows this advice, and I hate giving people advice that I know they won't use. If you don't have a password manager and you find it impossible to use a different password for each account, try your best to have as many different passwords as you can and make the passwords you do have extremely complicated, using the tips found in Nos. 2 and 3.
6. Change passwords frequently. Similar to my thoughts in tip No. 5, this tip is another best practice that's almost never followed. If you find this tip too difficult to follow, then make sure you change your passwords after a breach, and remember: It's not just your account that's been compromised but your password itself. This means you need to change the compromised password for any account where it's used, and you can never use the password again.
7. Create answers for web security questions that are hard to guess but easy to remember.
8. Don't share your passwords with anyone. This one may seem obvious, but it happens way too often. Sharing is a good thing, but not when it comes to your password.
9. Don't write down and hide passwords. If you have to write them down for whatever reason, don't label them as "passwords." Write down something that will only be understandable to you.
10. Don't store passwords on your computer, websites or in web browsers unless they are in a strongly encrypted software program. If your device gets stolen or hacked, stored passwords will give easy access to any would-be hacker.
11. Consider investing in a password manager but proceed with caution for the reasons mentioned above. There are some great tips here for your password manager.
12. Make sure you actually use a password. Anything that can be secured with a password should be.
13. If you need to change your password due to a suspected breach, make sure the notifications in your settings profile only notifies you of the change. The last thing you want is a cybercriminal getting notified each time you change your password.
Most importantly, remember that a password is what stands between you and a cybercriminal. Make sure you and your loved ones approach your passwords with responsibility and security in mind.
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79f82d94fc48eb80c207fe84bb0fb287 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/20/covid-19s-implications-for-telework-and-cybersecurity/ | Covid-19's Implications For Telework And Cybersecurity | Covid-19's Implications For Telework And Cybersecurity
Ricardo Villadiego is the Founder & CEO of Lumu Technologies.
It’s now been six months since the Covid-19 pandemic has forced businesses across the world to shutter their offices and shift their business operations from the controlled environment of office cubicles and corridors to a decentralized, work-from-home model.
The concept of teleworking is nothing new. Companies across a range of industries have experimented with it for the better part of the past two decades — some enthusiastically and others a bit more reluctantly. However, the scale and speed at which so many businesses have been forced to embrace these measures is unprecedented.
In modern history, few phenomena have so drastically challenged the long-standing relationship that exists between humans and their work. While the IT and cybersecurity departments of organizations have worked tirelessly to ensure that employees have the resources and access they need to stay productive, threat actors are an opportunistic bunch who excel at finding creative ways to exploit lax security protocols.
A Brief History Of Remote Work
Prior to the industrial revolution, people generally conducted their work from or in very close proximity to their home. Whether they were ironsmiths, carpenters or farmers, the distinction between work and home was negligible. However, as the industrial revolution took hold and a larger portion of the population began to migrate to cities to find work in factories, a new model emerged in which more and more people were forced to physically leave their homes every day for work.
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This shift became even more pronounced with the arrival of the modern Information Age in which the exchange of information and ideas became the commodity that drove the economy at large. Supporting this transformation are the so-called knowledge workers who represent the fastest-growing segment of the economy, with the Wall Street Journal estimating that such “knowledge work occupations have been adding more jobs than any other since the 1980s — about 1.9 million per year.”
Until relatively recently, these workers had little choice but to work in a formal office setting because they required powerful desktop computers and T1 internet connectivity to perform their jobs. However, as computing went mobile, high-connectivity bandwidth became ubiquitous and VPN connections enabled employees to securely log in from anywhere, workers could be productive outside the confines of their offices.
While the promise of telework has been greatly enabled through technology over the past two decades, few major enterprise organizations have fully embraced it. IBM was one of the earliest champions of the telecommuting concept, and in 2009, 40% of its 386,000 employees across the globe were logging in from home, enabling the company to save millions of dollars annually in office space. However, its work-from-home (WFH) experiment was short-lived, and in 2016, IBM reversed course and announced that it would force thousands of its employees to return to offices. And IBM was not alone — a number of other well-known companies such as Yahoo, Bank of America and Best Buy also abandoned their remote work policies.
Despite these setbacks, the tide seems to be turning now that many companies have little choice in the matter. The adoption of new collaboration tools such as Zoom, Slack and Microsoft Teams, along with a maturing slate of enterprise SaaS applications, has greatly facilitated this transition, and consequently, many industry analysts are bullish that the work-from-home trend will continue to grow.
A survey conducted this past June by 451 Research noted that 47% of respondents said they are likely to reduce their physical office footprint because of the ongoing pandemic and will instead promote telework and maintain sustained social distancing practices over the long haul.
Remote Workers In The Crosshairs
While employees are enthusiastic about this shift, many security teams are scrambling to understand and prepare for this new reality. Recently, my company conducted a survey of more than 350 executives about the current state of cybersecurity, and their responses speak volumes about the many challenges they are facing with a remote workforce:
• 1 in 3 companies reported having lost or reduced visibility of attacks and compromises.
• 70% of organizations have experienced an increase in attacks or threat incidents to their systems.
• 35% of respondents said they had to reduce their cybersecurity budget during due to the pandemic.
These vulnerabilities can be attributed to two primary factors:
1. Adversaries know that employees are working remotely. Even further, they don’t have the same cybersecurity controls at home that they do at corporate headquarters. With so many workers logging in across so many endpoints, over-stretched IT departments are forced to spend a greater portion of their day responding to help desk tickets.
2. Adversaries will never stop evolving their techniques. Unlike the pandemic where, to some degree, we can curb its spread via isolation and social distancing, there’s no hiding from attackers who have already found a number of creative ways to exploit the uncertainty of the pandemic to trick remote workers into falling for their lures.
The New Normal: Finding Opportunity In Crisis
The pandemic has forced us to reckon with an array of difficult challenges that will no doubt be insurmountable for many businesses. However, as the old saying goes, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." And those companies that prove themselves most resilient to change will be well positioned to thrive and innovate in the post-pandemic era.
As disruptive as the pandemic might be, it can also serve as a springboard of innovation and opportunity. Execution under the idea that "we've always done it this way" is constantly being challenged by external factors that are beyond our control. This is why it’s imperative that security leaders can quickly adapt and rethink how they will meet the challenges of a new model of how we work.
There is no better time than now to be agents of change and to lead the transformation necessary to improve the failed security model to which we are accustomed. As Nelson Mandela famously said, "It always seems impossible until it's done."
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f6b4bdacac6607a754bd1ba33ec3655f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/20/the-importance-of-a-direct-ordering-channel-for-restaurants/ | The Importance Of A Direct Ordering Channel For Restaurants | The Importance Of A Direct Ordering Channel For Restaurants
Matthew Benzel leads Onosys as CIO and COO, equipping enterprise restaurants with digital ordering capability.
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Restaurateurs are all too familiar with the challenge they face with third-party delivery. Delivery services' fees squeeze out the last bit of profit for many restaurant owners and operators, especially small operators or independents. In addition to the profit pinch, there is the challenge of "disintermediation."
When third parties are the front end of the customer experience, they own the buyer relationship and data. The restaurant operator loses out on important insights, direct engagement, marketing opportunities and more. Most of all, restaurants lose out on the opportunity to turn their marketing costs into profits from repeat purchases.
I've long advocated that restaurants should develop, manage and nurture their own digital channel. Even if third-party partners are part of their overall digital/off-premises strategy, restaurants should funnel as much business to their direct channel as possible. Let's take a look at why this is so important and what the direct channel should be able to do.
As the CIO and COO of a company whose sales target is enterprise (multiunit) restaurants, I hope some of my knowledge can help small and medium-sized operators since enterprise restaurants likely already have put into practice what this article suggests. Restaurateurs looking for help with setting up their digital ordering channel have several options, including their POS provider (Toast and Brink offer online ordering, for example) as well as pure-play restaurant online ordering provider ChowNow, among others.
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Why Direct Is Best
Guests have come to expect that retailers and restaurateurs will serve them in myriad ways. As I discussed in my last article, Covid-19 solidified the importance and popularity of digital and off-premises for restaurants and their guests. The great news for restaurant operators is that 70% of diners would prefer to order from a restaurant directly instead of through a third party.
Restaurants clearly need to be where their guests expect them to be. Today, that's on their smartphones. And the most profitable digital option is the direct channel. It not only gives the restaurant the most direct interaction with guests, but it keeps more profit for the operator. Once customers are accustomed to third parties, winning them to the direct channel becomes a conversion game that can be difficult because of ingrained habit, convenience or both.
Preserve Profits While Offering The Channels That Guests Expect
Operators are wise to periodically assess their full cost of doing business across front, middle and back of house, including taking stock of the myriad technologies supporting their operation. With a solid understanding of costs in hand, owners can be more informed when making decisions about special pricing for delivery orders and ecommerce/off-premises partnerships in general.
Retain Direct Customer Engagement
Nurturing the direct channel provides more profitable and engaging interactions with customers. In part, these benefits derive from the plethora of valuable data that comes with transactions — information such as demographics, customer tastes and preferences and even contact information when customers opt into a newsletter or loyalty program.
When transactions happen through a third party, that partner will use this information for their profit, not the restaurant's. When an owner gets access to this information by selling through their direct channel, however, they can use the data for their profit. Customer data can be useful for such things as developing loyalty and repeat business or sending marketing messages and offers.
Promote The Brand Without Spending Millions On An Agency
Leading brands are typically also leaders in the digital realm, offering a high-end, custom digital presence: the nicest looking graphics and most mouthwatering menu layouts, along with a colorful and enticing ordering experience. Not only does it strengthen a restaurant's brand, but it can lead to more app use and eventually revenues.
For most brands, though, these premium experiences are created by expensive agencies. Increasingly, restaurateurs rely on technology partners that offer both the robust technology infrastructure and the ability to "wow" the customer with engaging, beautiful and customizable user experiences without breaking the bank.
As more millennials and younger business people take up the reins of opening restaurants, I believe their digital-native "do it yourself" mindset will demand a set of DIY digital/e-commerce tools for restaurants, similar to what Wordpress and WIX have done for website development. With such a suite, an owner could configure and deploy their own restaurant technology suite on their own.
Lower Risk
Relying on partners brings inherent risk. A delivery partner could go bankrupt, fail, and cease operation. Often, these providers employ subcontractors, which adds a degree of separation between the owner and the customer — and one more layer of risk. Nightmare delivery stories of stolen fries, slow delivery and cold food abound. While a direct channel doesn't eliminate risk, it certainly reduces it, and it gives the owner or operator more control of the guest experience.
Manage Menus From A Single Source Of Truth
The menu matters. Digital menu management is not easy. In the past, menus were built around the POS and the "power user" order taker. The rise of digital requires consumer-facing menus that are easy to use and that present items, options and add-ons elegantly. The shift to digital means that despite myriad endpoints for menu data and different ways to consume it, there needs to be one source of truth with more flexibility. Today, only a direct digital channel can give owners the kind of control and ease of use they need to manage an omnichannel guest experience.
Takeaways
Restaurants that drive more business through their direct channel will be better off in the long run and will enjoy better profits. Consumer behavior has shifted. With changes happening so quickly, many people are wondering: What does the restaurant of the future look like, and how will digital experiences power guest/operator interactions? In my next article, I'll cover these points and more.
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5a6b9328bf95bafdb7dc5c9afa09bc83 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/21/14-creative-ways-companies-can-leverage-business-intelligence-and-machine-learning/?sh=6838b1951d6a | 14 Creative Ways Companies Can Leverage Business Intelligence And Machine Learning | 14 Creative Ways Companies Can Leverage Business Intelligence And Machine Learning
Most business leaders are familiar with the concepts of business intelligence and machine learning and know that these technologies have the potential to revolutionize their business operations. However, many of them don’t know exactly how to leverage these tools to their fullest potential. This intelligence gap can prevent you from capitalizing on countless opportunities.
The members of Forbes Technology Council are at the forefront of studying and adopting the latest technologies to improve their businesses. If you’re looking for creative uses of business intelligence and machine learning, check out their expert recommendations below.
Members of Forbes Technology Council share ways businesses can capitalize on AI and ML. Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Connect insights to actionable notifications and flows.
A creative way of leveraging business intelligence and insights—themselves derived from machine learning using vast amounts of historical data—is to connect those insights to actionable layers of business operations. This includes notifications and an automated flow of actions that can inform many of the business stakeholders, leading them to act on the gained insights. - Henry Peter, Ushur
2. Map out and neutralize threat patterns.
I believe the best use of machine learning in this digital age is preventing cyberattacks from happening at an early stage. We have been relying a lot on digital, which has made our lives easier yet more vulnerable. With the help of AI, machine learning, big data and threat intelligence, we can further understand and map out threat patterns to neutralize threats early. - Mirza Asrar Baig, CTM360®
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3. Automate routine, repeatable tasks.
One easy starting point for applying ML is in automating routine and repeatable tasks. Many organizations are on a pathway for data maturity such that effectively applying business intelligence isn’t a near-term possibility. Leveraging ML to ease administrative burdens and automate tasks can help build up internal consensus for its return of overall business value. - Trisha Swift, ZeOmega Population Health Solutions
4. Make it easier for users to access and consume information.
Focus on the information consumers need to improve their processes. Whether it’s someone in an internal company role or an external customer, provide them with easily accessible, easy-to-consume information that is timely, accurate and has already integrated data from the various internal corporate systems to provide actionable information. The good news is technologies have evolved, and they should be embraced and shared. - Sherlock Holmes, Genware Computer Systems Inc.
5. Rethink your payment processes.
Thanks to ML, leaders are rethinking their customer relationships when it comes to ordering and payment. Traditionally seen as siloed or back-office processes, finance and sales have been transformed by ML into a unified operation. With ML-powered order-to-cash processes, you get predictive analytics, better cash forecasting, and ML-generated selling and dunning strategies that increase the top and bottom lines. - Rob Harvey, Sidetrade
6. Leverage advanced predictive analytics.
The speed of innovation and AI’s sizable economic impact will render businesses that are ignorant of their opportunities obsolete. Business leaders should therefore keep up with the sheer speed of innovation and make quick investment decisions in technology. The one creative use of BI and ML that leaders can benefit from is to turn data into efficiency through advanced predictive analytics. - Julian Jewel Jeyaraj, Julian Jewel's AI Bot (JJAIBOT)
7. Find, prioritize and deliver tasks.
AI and machine learning have simplified our personal lives to the point that in many cases, we don’t even need to think. They can do the same for us at work. They can find and prioritize tasks and automatically deliver them—along with the insights and information we need to execute—to eliminate tasks that frustrate us and allow us to focus on meaningful work that keeps us engaged and productive. - Meerah Rajavel, Citrix
8. Improve the customer experience.
Improving customer experience is one area that will greatly benefit from machine learning and BI. Leaders can apply analytics to predict customers’ support needs in real time, identify the root cause of service-impacting issues and more efficiently triage outages. The data is being generated, and the tech is available to analyze it. Most importantly, customers are demanding five-star experiences. - Chris Menier, Vitria Technology Inc.
9. Personalize experiences through identified behavioral patterns.
ML identifies patterns in behavior that are otherwise difficult to see. In healthcare, this might mean identifying risks of diseases before a patient shows symptoms. In retail, it means doing better than “people who bought this also bought that” recommendations. Personalized suggestions timed to the customer’s needs on the channel through which they most want to be reached is what ML is for. - Kevin Parikh, Avasant
10. Get to know your customers better.
For most companies, customers are their biggest assets. So I would focus on leveraging business intelligence and machine learning on customer data. Once the data is available in a single consolidated platform, businesses can get a 360-degree view of customers using BI. Companies can then look at AI models like customer lifetime value and churn. The outcomes will be improved by customer satisfaction. - Yasim Kolathayil, HGS Digital
11. Vet your job candidates.
We leverage deep learning and artificial intelligence to help vet engineering candidates for remote work. Today AI, ML and BI can combine to evaluate far more than simply test scores. We use AI to compare performance on tests as well as how—and how fast—questions are answered to understand how skilled a developer is. We then find matches where they’re most likely to succeed when placed. - Jonathan Siddharth, Turing
12. Innovate your back office.
Machine learning is a significant driver of innovation for back-office teams like finance that are modernizing their tech stacks. Just as today’s marketing teams rely on “martech” to operate more strategically and efficiently, finance departments are seeing emerging technologies like machine learning become part of daily processes. - Michael Praeger, AvidXchange
13. Forecast and adapt to demand.
In the current environment, machine learning can provide demand forecasting using self-learning to rapidly adapt to unstable conditions, learning from prior accuracy and/or inaccuracy. This is especially helpful when past trends are not as predictive of future trends as expected. We use this to predict where our efforts will be most rewarded now. - Nina Vaca, Pinnacle Group, Inc.
14. Tap into real-time intelligence.
While business intelligence has been around for a while, the new era is all about real-time intelligence. This means being able to use real-time data to create more engaging customer experiences. One creative example is real-time personalization where you can use real-time user behavior, combined with past transactions and lookalike customers, to create a personalized online shopping experience. - Shruti Bhat, Rockset
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27533b64e5e9bdf45bf9421abacb0845 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/21/office-in-a-box-technology-solutions-for-the-remote-worker/?sh=58e6eb77e185 | Office In A Box: Technology Solutions For The Remote Worker | Office In A Box: Technology Solutions For The Remote Worker
Serial technology entrepreneur. Currently, CPO of EarthLink.
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Corporate America has realized many things during the pandemic, one of which is that employees don’t always need to be in the office. However, employees still need the right technology to succeed — as many of us have learned the hard way.
I’m guessing that even if you were able to scoop up what you needed from your office as you transitioned to work from home, there were still challenges, especially around security and connectivity. And going forward, these challenges are going to become more critical as companies expand the option to work from home long term and begin hiring new employees.
Setting up a new employee to succeed when they’re working remotely requires some planning. And for a company to do it well, the process requires creating what I call “office in a box.”
My idea of an office in a box contains all the internet technology an employee needs to be as productive and efficient as if they were down the hall, working in their cube. Yes, the contents will vary by company and job, but these are the key components I recommend for most office employees.
Uninterrupted Internet
Even when employees have enough speed at home, there are still times when the internet goes down. One solution is to have a mobile hot spot that serves as a backup. This can be your mobile phone, but only if your cellular coverage is strong and not dependent on the internet. Charges also vary by carrier and data plan. A better idea for your office in a box is to provide a mobile hot spot device that won’t risk exceeding your employees’ cellular data limit or reducing their phone’s battery life.
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Another option is a connectivity solution that automatically fails over to the mobile network when the primary internet connection is down. Known as wireless failover, this automatic function switches to a redundant wireless connection upon failure of a network component such as a router, server or computer. When the primary network is restored, the connection fails back to the primary network once it confirmed secure. This is all done automatically, with no effort required by IT personnel. Cradlepoint, Cisco and Rocket Broadband are just a few of the companies offering these solutions.
Wi-Fi Extender Or Wi-Fi Mesh Network
As explained in my earlier article, your employee may need either an extender or a mesh network to strengthen the Wi-Fi signal in their office, depending on where the router is located.
Guaranteed Security
Built-in data flows can guarantee that the data going in and out of your employee’s home office stays safe. Your office in a box technology should allow for your workstreams to take priority over other kinds of internet use in the home. Most of the solutions mentioned above allow you to prioritize internet traffic from one or more devices. These devices can automatically be placed on a virtual local area network (VLAN), which also adds a layer of privacy and security for information flowing to and from the remote worker’s connected devices.
Virtual Private Network (VPN)
VPNs ensure that no one else can see what’s flowing from a device to a network by using an encrypted connection over the internet. Encryption safely transmits sensitive data and prevents unauthorized people from spying on or — even worse — stealing traffic. Prepping the employee’s laptops with the software and offering clear instructions for connecting to the company VPN will simplify this aspect of onboarding.
VOIP And Video Services
Loading a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) solution on company laptops avoids the inconsistent call quality of cellphones. I also recommend choosing and loading the video-conferencing platform that your company wants everyone to use to ensure that one employee isn’t setting up calls on Zoom while another sends out an invite for Teams
Webcams And Microphones
To ensure that your employees’ online experience is as seamless as possible, consider adding a webcam to your office in a box to improve the appearance of all those talking heads. While some employees may complain, seeing each other builds community, which can suffer when we’re not all in the office together.
And a stand-alone microphone is a significant improvement over a laptop’s built-in, ensuring that employees sound as good as they look.
IT Access
IT issues are inevitable, and not being able to walk your laptop down the hall to the IT department can be frustrating. Diminish the frustration by adding a platform to employee laptops that allows remote workers to be serviced.
Success From Day One
Your office in a box may have other items such as a company-issued mobile phone and guidelines for how to have a successful virtual meeting, including where to place the camera and microphone or what kind of background works best. But the idea is to aggregate all possible tools and integrate all solutions so the immediate result is simple, cost-effective and scalable. The ultimate result will be a successful remote employee experience right out of the box.
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a99cc2598d71d817d8b844d8cf7cb16c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/21/top-three-considerations-for-a-holistic-cyber-physical-security-operations-center/ | Top Three Considerations For A Holistic Cyber-Physical Security Operations Center | Top Three Considerations For A Holistic Cyber-Physical Security Operations Center
New York Times best-selling author, former special agent and security expert who helms the Ontic Center for Protective Intelligence.
In the complex world we live in today, a security operations center (SOC) is necessary for coordinating information against potentially harmful threats. In the wake of the pandemic, as businesses accelerate digital transformation and reassess security needs, risks and liabilities, SOCs should holistically address cyber and physical security in tandem.
Deploying a shared and all-encompassing, data-driven view of potential threats, integrating protocols, and fostering a protective intelligence mindset in security operations must be top considerations for any forward-looking and effective SOC.
Augment Human Experience With Technology
More than half of respondents in a Ponemon Institute survey said that their SOC's ability to gather evidence, investigate and find the source of threats was ineffective, highlighting the need for a technologically-driven SOC approach.
Before the pandemic, a typical SOC housed dozens of different monitors, running and tracking various security programs and operations, with a fraction, if any, dedicated to physical security data. With physical security professionals' increased need for a mobile solution that illuminates a narrative thread through all threat intelligence, the demand for a unified platform (or single pane of glass) has never been greater.
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Technology should be supplementing the work SOC professionals do, and the entire operation needs to run like a well-oiled machine if it is going to help protect an organization. SOCs should utilize technology that enhances employee skills and processes and efficiently structures real-time data from disparate sources. Unless it is turned into easily understood intelligence, data won't be helpful to critical decisions.
Rapid and simple threat assessment technology is also a SOC imperative. Security professionals need a methodology for prioritizing threats and assessing these risks. While they ultimately make the final decision to act, technology can improve the quality of assessments and decision-making by laying out logical steps to better analyze and understand their organizations' threats.
Physical security risk and threat intelligence shouldn't live in a physical security team silo. I learned through lots of protective intelligence investigations that many physical threats originate in the digital and cyber world. Therefore, cyber-physical knowledge that's shared across SOCs and key stakeholders is a best practice that's needed to break down information silos.
Hire For Roles In Protective Intelligence
Finding top-notch security industry talent is challenging. Retention can also be a problem, as staff move on to greener pastures. Further contributing to hiring difficulties is that, according to the aforementioned Ponemon Institute survey, "The SOC budget is inadequate to support the necessary staffing, resources, and investment in technologies." On average, less than one-third of the IT security budget funds the SOC. So what kind of expertise is needed in the emerging cyber-physical SOC?
Some of the Fortune 500 enterprises our company works with employ directors of threat intelligence and protective intelligence analysts (a field that I'm very proud to say is growing!). These are professionals managing, assessing and acting on physical threats identified through the SOC. But at other organizations, these teams are small, sometimes comprising only a single person who isn't even connected to the SOC nor has visibility into cyber threats.
Protective intelligence analysts may be recruited and developed by focusing on some key core competencies — quality of mind, flexibility, strong communications skills, comprehensive research experience with the ability to find and drill down into pertinent information, technological savvy and an empathetic ability to understand the perspective of those on the ground or in the field, having done the same job themselves. I have found over the years that sometimes your best analysts are already working for your team if you look internally.
Hiring a dedicated team (or at least one analyst) to work closely with their cyber counterparts is essential, especially when, in the next four years, three out of four CEOs will bear personal liability for cyber-physical security incidents, according to Gartner. This should be a strong incentive for the C-suite to adequately fund operations.
Mandate Protocols And Processes To Save Time (And, Quite Possibly, Lives)
Before your organization's SOC is fully operational, goals should be defined, systems established and specific responsibilities and functions of individuals clearly detailed. Clear-cut, consistent and regularly tested protocols are a must if the SOC is run at peak efficiency and effectiveness. I would argue that the oversight and management of a SOC is now a specialized job duty.
These processes should specify guidelines for vital SOC tasks, such as compliance monitoring, incident reporting and threat actor identification. Without these processes, action plans won't accelerate and unnecessary steps could lead to mistakes or threats slipping through the cracks.
With the right processes and technology, a continuous and unified view of overall security risks means organizational SOCs can be always on and always ready to take the necessary steps to prevent catastrophic damage:
• Classify and triage incidents to identify threats proactively.
• Ensure that appropriate notifications are made with an audit trail.
• Prioritize and analyze flagged incidents to give attention to the most immediate and damaging threats.
• Once the threat is understood, take the appropriate steps to mitigate it.
A SOC that embraces transformational technology with protective intelligence-trained professionals to effectively manage it is a logical next step for businesses to protect their organizations from both physical and cyber threats. The world is a dangerous place, and companies face global challenges, as the pandemic has so vividly taught us. But our world will become much more complicated in the future, and threats will become more complex. Organizations that do not change and view integrated security operations with a sense of urgency do so at their potential peril.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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08d386334230f36029067fb9864d26f9 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/22/meet-the-ai-thats-really-not-stealing-jobs/?sh=11fd20fb56a9 | Meet The AI That’s (Really) Not Stealing Jobs | Meet The AI That’s (Really) Not Stealing Jobs
Gregor Stühler is Co-Founder and CEO of scoutbee, the AI-driven supplier discovery platform.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long way in recent years — with each new day bringing a fresh example of AI tackling some aspect of human work. Whether that takes the form of the Mayo Clinic using cloud-based AI to streamline care during Covid-19 or Stanford researchers investigating how AI tutors might expand access to educational support, a growing number of use cases show just how profoundly these systems will change the nature of many jobs.
As anticipation for the workforce of the future grows, however, it is important to distinguish between AI that absorbs jobs and AI that enhances them. Experts often focus on how AI will automate tedious tasks no one likes doing, and we often see new technology specifically designed to address these obvious pain points. Yet few recognize how AI can automate tasks no human is capable of doing and tasks where no amount of human labor could ever get the job done.
Finding Ways To Supplement, Not Supplant, With AI
The field of supply chain management is especially ripe for such transformation. Analog technology inhibits the full potential of supply chain managers, who often rely on a Rolodex of procurement partners they have expertly curated over many years in the industry. The sudden changes of the past year, however, have revealed the limitations of this approach. When an unexpected disruption — for example, a trade war or public health crisis — eliminates a trusted supplier overnight, AI-powered supplier search can help teams scout 180 times more suppliers in 75% less time, based on my personal experience with the technology. But this raises the following question: If this AI search tool can automate so much work, how can it not be stealing jobs?
To envision how this works, picture a Venn diagram. One circle is filled with the tasks AI can do, and one circle is filled with the tasks that make up a particular job role. In certain jobs, there is a significant amount of overlap between the two circles. Much of the work currently done by legal aides and paralegals, for instance, can be absorbed by AI. In fact, JPMorgan was able to automate 360,000 hours of document review work normally performed by legal aids with an AI software called COIN.
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In procurement, however, there is much less overlap between the two circles — but still just as much potential to raise efficiency. AI can enhance jobs in this space by taking on huge-scale tasks well beyond the scope of what human teams can accomplish accurately. Right now, there are millions of suppliers around the world generating an enormous, ever-evolving stream of data. No procurement team has the capacity to search this quantity of data globally, verify, analyze and curate it.
Instead, most teams compile a long list of a dozen or so suppliers, either pulled from their contacts or found via Google search, and then narrow down their candidates to create a shortlist of finalists. This process not only takes months of work, but it also limits the long list to the comparatively small pool of suppliers that are discoverable via manual searches. Language barriers and time constraints often cause procurement teams to miss out on competitive deals or innovative products lying just outside the parameters of their search.
AI, however, can take on this enormous task. It scans through millions of suppliers, gathering the most up-to-date information about products, financials, certifications, corporate sustainability and leadership. It then leverages this data to build a far more diverse picture of potential optimal suppliers, all in a fraction of the time it takes a human.
However, sourcing is unlikely to become fully autonomous. The human skills and specialized expertise procurement teams bring to the table — applying instinct and experience, negotiating with the shortlist and developing strong supplier relationships that can withstand geopolitical changes — are all crucial and still require the same amount of labor and human talent. The difference is, with the benefit of AI technology, procurement teams now deploy their expert value to an entire ocean of potential suppliers, rather than a limited portion.
AI offers organizations an information advantage that can help to diversify and strengthen their supply networks. Even after the pandemic subsides, factors like new trade wars, climate change and shifting labor laws can always disrupt procurement plans. Beyond supplier discovery, AI platforms can now help benchmark a supplier portfolio, giving a 360-degree view of a supply base for master data management and actionable insights to raise performance.
Once you begin to incorporate AI into your organization, here are some things you can consider:
1. Connectivity is crucial. When searching for an AI provider, look for solutions that will seamlessly integrate into the existing ecosystem. In a stack-over-suite environment, you might utilize a variety of best-of-breed technologies to cover all process steps, but the final stakeholder should only see one unified interface.
2. Don’t put the cart before the horse. No business should need to adjust systems and processes around one solution. A business needs to design and align processes based on its mission and goals. AI and other solutions are here to help, and they must never dominate process design.
3. Use cases are size agnostic. The benefits derived from using AI do not depend on how large your business is, but rather on what it is you output. If, for example, your supply chains are complex due to a product consisting of a variety of different categories of materials, then AI can help you remain in production and competitive, particularly in times of regional disruption.
Game-Changing Impacts
Rather than worrying about AI as a generic, uniform risk to jobs, procurement and supply chain leaders should explore its potential to supercharge jobs. With the right ambition, technology and partnership choices, AI platforms can and do deliver game-changing impacts. AI will not replace procurement teams, but procurement teams that use AI will replace those that don’t.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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091685c514feb8c32a2c56e902ed9c4f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/22/rpa-untapped-potential-for-law-firms/?sh=6c904ade3f5a | RPA: Untapped Potential For Law Firms | RPA: Untapped Potential For Law Firms
CEO of Accelirate Inc., the largest niche RPA and AI Service organization in the United States.
getty
Robotic process automation (RPA) is one of those rare technologies that has the potential to impact every aspect of a business by automating repetitive and manual tasks that exist in every industry. RPA is especially suitable for law firms because of the many rote and volume-driven tasks that legal teams must perform on a daily basis as part of their compliance and due diligence obligations. According to HFS Research, many services-based industries within the BFSI space have been at the forefront of adopting RPA; however, many law firms have barely scratched the surface in exploiting the potential of RPA.
Law firms can benefit from automating certain front-office and back-office tasks — from processing case inquiries and forms to searching for documents to organizing files — enabling attorneys and legal assistants to focus on white-glove services for their clients. Examples of how law firms have leveraged RPA include classification, extraction and processing of structured and unstructured data from legal documents, as well as contextual searching of information across data sources. Imagine a bot that creates indexable PDFs of all documents related to a case — a potential game-changer for use in litigation and in presenting documents to opposing counsel.
Automation technology can provide broad opportunities for law firms to streamline their processes, reduce costs and free up more time for their legal teams. Process automation is just the first step. Machine learning, AI and predictive analytics can play an important role in marketing efforts and client assessment scoring. For example, these tools may be used at the client intake stage — instead of manually searching records and performing background checks, RPA could gather and collect the relevant information and run data through a machine learning algorithm to help score and standardize risk assessment, allowing a law firm to predict its labor costs in a case and the financial risk associated with representing a prospective client.
Case Study: RPA In Immigration Legal Services
We partnered with Dallas-based global corporate immigration law firm Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP (BAL) to help it successfully introduce automation in several areas of its internal and client-facing processes. BAL has won numerous accolades for its use of process automation.
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BAL's use of automation exemplifies how law firms can creatively and strategically customize automation. The firm created an automation project team to identify front- and back-office processes suitable for automation and applied automation to new client onboarding, client request management, and administrative and clerical tasks. BAL added a UiPath connector that uses RPA software to easily automate functions within its case management system called "Cobalt," which provides BAL's legal teams and clients with automated usability, speed, quality and "anytime, anywhere" case management. The UiPath connector enables BAL's corporate clients to automate functions within Cobalt. For example, onboarding a new client would normally require manual intake for hundreds of the client's employees and their family members per month.
For law firms looking into RPA technology, the first step is to consider automating the "low-hanging fruit" types of processes. For example, firms spend a lot of time interacting with clients on case statuses. In the BAL example above, opening up access to the internal case management system quickly using RPA and other technologies can yield valuable hours that staff can spend on more important tasks. It is important to spend time upfront on process analysis and discovery because a detailed analysis of "automatable" processes helps in creating a clear road map for success. In addition, it's also important to establish clear ROI goals, whether it's cost reduction or hours saved.
Law firms should also identify an internal "champion" for automation projects. It could be a person from IT or business, but it has to be someone who is clearly vested in the success of automation projects. Partnering with companies that have a clear track record with automation will also make it easier to develop and maintain the automations.
The majority of legal industry leaders express optimism toward automation technology. In the 2018 LexisNexis Insights report (subscription required) "Legal Technology: Looking Past the Hype," 57% of the general counsel surveyed believed technology investments had already increased productivity, and 60% believed that the technology would help improve the accuracy of legal work in the next few years. However, despite their favorable view of automation, law firms have been slow to include process automation within their organizations compared to other industries such as banking, finance and energy. I believe law firms that seek to improve their business services and streamline repetitive tasks should explore the possibilities of automation.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
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5b578ad7aaa6b211782e895d51d36c2c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/27/protecting-students-from-financial-aid-fraud-should-be-a-priority-for-schools/?sh=15a133f16e8c | Protecting Students From Financial Aid Fraud Should Be A Priority For Schools | Protecting Students From Financial Aid Fraud Should Be A Priority For Schools
Monica Eaton-Cardone is the Co-Founder and COO of Chargebacks911. She has over 15 years of experience in eCommerce, payments and finance.
getty
Online fraud is a perpetual point of discussion these days. That said, we often think about it in relation to topics like online shopping and credit cards. This can lead us to ignore other pressing threats in the digital space. For instance, we’ve seen a sharp uptick in reported fraud involving student financial aid.
Fraudsters see increasing opportunities in attacks focused on financial aid. Cybercrime specialists at the FBI noted one specific campaign that stole tens of thousands of dollars from students back in 2018. Since then, they’ve reported on multiple other campaigns targeting universities and student bodies all over the country.
Financial aid fraud was already a growing problem, and the issue was compounded by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Officials at the University of Kentucky warn that the Department of Education reports “an increased number of ransomware attacks targeting higher education institutions” in the wake of Covid-19. We’re seeing more reliance on technology, rather than in-person communication, as the virus drags on. Many students are unable to visit financial aid offices in person and are conducting more of their business online. This creates opportunities for bad actors to engage in fraudulent activity.
Spear Phishing For Students’ Financial Aid Dollars
So, how are these scammers operating? Generally speaking, those looking to commit fraud are specifically targeting students’ federal student aid login credentials by employing a tactic known as spear-phishing.
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A typical phishing attack involves a fraudster who attempts to trick an individual into divulging their personal information. This could be done via a spoofed website or login portal, with the fraudster trying to cast a wide net and capture as much information as possible. With spear-phishing, the fraudster uses a precision-focused tactic to target a specific individual.
Fraudsters might send emails to individual students in which they impersonate officials from the students’ school or their financial aid provider. The criminal then convinces people to either hand over sensitive information or click a malicious link, thereby exposing them to fraud.
Spear-phishing tactics can give criminals access to sensitive and personally identifiable information, including financial information, without the student’s permission. They can then use that data in myriad ways, from opening lines of credit in students’ names to potentially stealing their financial aid.
This all happens because fraudsters operate opportunistically. Whenever large volumes of financial aid funds are disseminated, criminals will be there to try to siphon away the cash. They're like sharks that smell blood in the water.
Set Clear Communication Expectations
There are a few things that schools can do to protect their students against spear-phishing attacks. For instance, they can employ two-factor authentication to gain access to student portals. This can involve providing multiple codes and passwords or even employing biometric technology such as a fingerprint. Using two-factor authentication can prevent bad actors from impersonating students and gaining access to their personal information.
Of course, no technology will ever be foolproof. Criminals are resourceful and are constantly looking for methods of refining their tactics to get around anti-fraud mechanisms. Thus, we need to devote considerable resources to educating students about the threat posed by these fraud attacks.
Although young people tend to be pretty tech savvy, they don’t often understand the ramifications of fraud or the threat it poses. If they see an email that looks like it came from their university, students may be inclined to trust it, even when they shouldn’t. Schools can address this by outlining in very clear terms:
• When students can expect emails.
• What they will ask of students.
• How they will ask it.
Educating Students On Fraud Prevention
The Internal Revenue Service puts a lot of effort into educating taxpayers on how to spot fraudsters posing as IRS officials. This is one of the most visible anti-fraud education campaigns in the U.S. I believe it could serve as a model for schools to follow on a smaller scale.
School officials should educate students about phishing attacks, including what they are and what risk they pose. They should encourage increased vigilance, especially during times when financial aid funds are dispersed, and make sure that students know how to identify red flags, such as grammatical errors or typos in supposedly official messages.
Students should also be warned about high-pressure, threatening or overpromising pitches that fraudsters employ to trick victims into acting fast. A criminal might impersonate a lender and threaten a student with legal action or other penalties unless they follow the fraudster’s instructions. Most young people won’t have experience navigating the financial aid process, so they may be tricked by those impersonating an imposing authority figure.
Students should always investigate every message before taking any action. This means avoiding unfamiliar links or email attachments and contacting the school’s financial aid department directly by phone if necessary.
As I said before, there’s no foolproof method for preventing fraud in all forms. But, with a little bit of education, we can help protect thousands of young people from becoming victims.
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cf07994920aa725b23b4ac95603b6c3c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/29/digital-first-business-demands-a-people-first-mindset/ | Digital-First Business Demands A People-First Mindset | Digital-First Business Demands A People-First Mindset
Sharat Sharan is the Co-Founder, president and CEO of ON24, one of the largest B2B SaaS martech companies.
This year, more companies than ever have embraced digital technology. Even industries that have traditionally been slower to adopt — such as manufacturing — are turning to digital business. McKinsey & Company reported that 96% of B2B companies shifted their go-to-market model during Covid-19, and most plan to keep their new model in place for a year or longer.
This tectonic shift has ushered in a new business reality. Digital transformation is over; now, companies operate under the digital imperative.
Many companies now champion digital-first, data-driven strategies. In reality, it's not enough to flip the digital switch. Nearly any company can implement technology — most already have. Digital technology allows businesses to reach more people than ever more efficiently. However, many companies also run the risk of succumbing to the paradoxes of digital scale. If they're not careful, they can lose personal connections, become detached from their customers and prospects, and ultimately, hinder their own growth.
I believe strategies in today's digital era should be guided by a people-first mindset. Here's how companies can put people first in today's technology-driven world.
1. Remember that digital doesn't have to be superficial.
In the era of automation, many aspects of business have grown impersonal. With the touch of a button, marketers can fire off a mass email to thousands of recipients without any personalization beyond putting the right name in the subject line. We're all too familiar with blanket communications, and if you're anything like me, most of those blasts are punted to the trash folder without so much as a cursory scan.
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Somewhere along the way, we sacrificed human engagement for digital scale. We abandoned the pursuit of connection and, in some cases, let automation replace some of the old personal touches. Instead of conversations and long-term relationships, we've grown distracted by tracking downloads and clicks. However, it doesn't need to be this way.
A people-first mindset brings human engagement back into the mix. This doesn't mean throwing out technology; it means using digital advertising and automation for its true purpose: getting people to a moment of engagement. By engaging audiences with interactive, multimedia, multitouch experiences, companies can resurrect person-to-person connection and reopen the dialogue with their customers — at scale. Technology and human engagement don't need to be mutually exclusive; instead, we should embrace technology to scale human engagement in ways never before possible.
2. Don't just track — listen and learn from your audience.
One of the most straightforward ways to adopt a people-first mindset is by listening. While many companies claim to be data-driven, it's often at a superficial level. Companies track page visits, downloads, email opens, purchase history — the activity list goes on and on.
A people-first mindset prioritizes richer engagement data collected through conversation directly from the source: your audience. Through interactions like polling responses or demo requests, as well as direct communication like questions or chats, your customers and prospects provide a direct window into their behavior and their thinking — not just an activity log. These rich insights reveal more about prospects than the superficial data points marketers have come to rely on, arming marketers with insights to create more personalized journeys and a stronger pipeline. In fact, in research conducted by my company, 93% of top-performing marketers agree that stronger engagement results in a stronger pipeline.
Data-driven decisions are invaluable for your business, but decisions can't be driven solely by traditional metrics like page views. Data can support a people-first approach, but only when companies truly listen to and engage with prospects and customers and leverage these insights for better conversations and connections.
3. People-first demands personalization across touch points.
When prospects and customers share personal information with your company, they expect that information will be put to good use; in fact, Accenture found that 83% of consumers are willing to share their data in exchange for a personalized experience. As customers impart invaluable insights — interests, priorities, goals, budget, etc. — your company has a responsibility to leverage this information to create a better, more personalized experience.
This doesn't just mean cutting in with the appropriate resources or product demonstrations at various stages of the buying process. Tailoring the buyer journey is certainly important to pique a prospect's interest, but marketers are now responsible for more of the funnel than ever before. A people-first mindset requires this level of personalization and attention to detail from introduction through long past acquisition. In fact, according to our research, 89% of top-performing marketers say their teams create dedicated materials that support the entire customer journey — not just acquisition. An effective people-first approach doesn't end when the contract ink dries; it continues throughout the entire relationship.
There are many benefits to a digital-first approach to business, but there can also be pitfalls if not done right. To capitalize on the opportunity of digital, companies need to adopt a people-first approach to business. Only by keeping human connection front and center can companies embrace the benefits of digital without becoming detached and impersonal.
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f2544b385a35fdf8ba2fa1a4ce9605b1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/29/three-tips-for-securing-the-remote-workforce/ | Three Tips For Securing The Remote Workforce | Three Tips For Securing The Remote Workforce
Leading global IT operations at Elastic, which includes architecture, applications, collaboration tools, infrastructure, and compliance.
The seismic and swift transformation to remote work during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic may have enabled organizations to keep their employees working, but many are now finding that some of the shortcuts and temporary fixes deployed to accommodate the rapid shift in business are not sustainable for the long term, particularly when it comes to IT security.
Welcome to the “next normal,” where everyone works from anywhere and the edges of your enterprise attack surface are out of sight.
According to an August 2020 report from intergovernmental crime cooperation agency Interpol, cybercriminals are developing and boosting their attacks at an alarming pace, and the increased threat level won’t subside anytime soon. In fact, the agency’s experts warn that a further increase in cybercrime in the near future is “highly likely,” with targeted attacks on home-workers becoming more frequent and sophisticated.
That warning should raise a red flag for CIOs, as remote working has become the default model for many businesses at present, and in many cases, the shift may be permanent.
A recent Gartner survey found that 82% of company leaders intend to permit employees to work remotely at least some of the time, even after workplaces reopen. With this in mind, CIOs will need to reassess IT security policies, practices and tools to meet the needs of a hybrid workforce that splits its time between home, work and other locations.
Three Steps To Remote Workforce Security
Securing a highly distributed IT environment is and will continue to be a key focus for IT leaders as they look to arm their organizations with IT security tools specifically designed for remote work. To do so, it’s important to keep the following in mind:
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1. Understand The Threats That Are Unique To Your Business.
While CIOs and their teams have long been battling an ever-increasing threat landscape, Covid-19 has brought with it some specific challenges. In 2020, many attacks seek to prey upon coronavirus-related concerns to improve the chance of success. There’s been a huge rise in ransomware, for example, with targets lured into downloading malicious code because they genuinely believe they are accessing valuable information about personal protective equipment (PPE), government assistance for businesses or critical updates to the enterprise collaboration tools they use to keep in contact with colleagues and customers.
Phishing emails, likewise, often impersonate government or health authorities in order to persuade targets to provide personal data or login details. In stressful times, it’s often easier to hack a human who is dealing with disruption than it is to hack a machine — which is why social engineering approaches are proving so lucrative for hackers right now. The onus is on IT leaders to provide the workforce with guidance and education on what suspicious activity looks like today and how they might find themselves targeted.
2. Avoid Monitoring Silos
There’s no escaping the fact that an expanded remote workforce introduces new vulnerabilities to the corporate IT infrastructure. IT teams must address very different connectivity needs, secure more distant endpoints and look beyond reacting to incidents, in favor of proactively monitoring for suspicious activity. At the same time, monitoring data should be available to IT teams in a centralized location, enabling them to achieve complete oversight over the entire IT environment.
This is hard to achieve when they are forced to work with a portfolio of disparate IT tools, each of which can only offer a disjointed glimpse into one specific area of the infrastructure. Consolidated monitoring, by contrast, enables them to see the whole picture, identify anomalies and pinpoint the area of infrastructure affected (a particular zone in the network, for example, or a specific endpoint). Fast detection leads to more rapid responses — which is critical in a more distributed environment.
3. Become Distributed By Design
As IT teams prepare for a future of more remote working, it’s inevitable that their security stance will need to accommodate and secure more cloud-based tools that can be accessed by employees from wherever they’re working. This will typically mean more collaboration and conferencing tools and software as a service (SaaS) applications. While the primary responsibility for data held in these systems lies with the cloud vendor, the in-house IT team must pivot from monitoring on-premises systems to monitoring access to and user interactions with complex, multicloud environments. The watchword here is "observability," where logs and metrics relating to cloud services can be drawn into a consolidated view that makes it easier to act upon the information they convey.
Another big challenge will be ensuring that users are working with the latest versions of tools; during the pandemic, there has been a sharp uptick in the number of security updates being delivered by cloud vendors such as Zoom. Here, a "push" approach, coordinated via robust endpoint management, will always win out over a "pull" approach, which relies on individual employees to install updates and patches.
Building Resilience
The good news is that CIOs may well find that senior leadership teams are more than ready to hear them out when they request extra funding or resources to bolster new IT security approaches.
At a time when a remote workforce is a must-have for keeping business operations running smoothly and the topic of building resilience to boost business recovery is riding high on boardroom agendas, there should be no room to skimp on measures that keep that remote workforce secure.
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0854990bfa5d8d3b3c79953a50c7f2f1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/29/why-marketing-agencies-need-to-solve-the-lead-conversion-gap-for-clients/?sh=2ca061e53e03 | Why Marketing Agencies Need To Solve The Lead Conversion Gap For Clients | Why Marketing Agencies Need To Solve The Lead Conversion Gap For Clients
David Tal is the CEO of Verse.io - the Leader in Lead Conversion, helping businesses engage, qualify & convert leads to sales opportunities.
getty
Although complete marketing attribution is one of the toughest areas of a business to measure, lead generation companies and marketing agencies usually don't get replaced due to a lack of demand or a lack of inbound leads. Typically in my experience, the clients who are pointing the fingers are the ones responsible for the problem at hand.
The client might say, "The leads were low quality." Or maybe: "We called a bunch but couldn't get a hold of many people."
This all-too-common divide between sales teams and marketing agencies needs attention. Outsourcing marketing or lead generation requires having systems in place, even more than having an in-house team. Essentially, if your clients are paying for leads, every generation effort needs to be validated in some fashion.
When marketing agencies perform a lead audit, they often find:
• Good leads who never received a response from sales.
• Leads who sat in the CRM for a day or more before getting a response.
• High intent prospects who bought somewhere else because of lack of quick engagement.
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• Leads who needed nurturing over time, but didn't receive follow up (meaning sales moved on after a few attempts).
This audit speaks to a few problems. By failing to establish speed-to-lead, omnichannel communication and a nurturing strategy, the leads they pay for are (quite literally) going to waste and ROI becomes a distant goal that never materializes.
Here's the bad news: It will be hard to convince clients it is not their fault. They will most likely still blame marketing efforts and part ways in doing business with the agency.
This is why lead conversion is the next frontier in marketing.
Marketing agencies need to help their clients engage, qualify and nurture the prospects they are helping to generate. They need to help convert these cold online leads into qualified, sales-ready opportunities. In other words, they need to ensure their clients succeed.
When they succeed, you succeed.
Solving this lead conversion gap for customers is essential in creating a successful partnership, and the more your clients succeed, the faster they grow with you. Here's what it takes:
1. Quick engagement: According to InsideSales.com, a lead is 21 times more likely to convert when contacted within five minutes of filling out an inquiry versus 30 minutes or later. Even just contacting a lead within five hours is 40% more effective than contacting a lead 24 hours later or more like the majority of sales teams do.
2. An omnichannel approach to engaging customers: Nine in 10 consumers prefer to text over call or email, and 87% of consumers will not answer a call from someone they don't know. Yet, many sales teams still don't leverage text to engage their leads. Two-way text communication can help a sales team connect a lot quicker with leads and make the consumer inherently more comfortable.
3. Long-term nurture: According to 99 Firms, 48% of business leaders say most of their leads require long-term nurture before purchasing. Some leads just have a longer sales cycle and nurturing or keeping the lead "warm" will ensure more revenue from lead generation efforts.
4. Authentic human conversations: Putting technology in place with automated response capabilities may cater to speed-to-lead but does not fully cater to the consumer. Consumers are less likely to purchase when they can see they're talking to a bot who cannot possibly care about their problems or needs. When qualifying a lead, ensure a human is available to step into a conversation where automation would fail to connect.
5. Scalable and efficient: While the human touch is a necessary component, humans can sometimes be inefficient and unable to handle an abundance of lead volume. Technology such as AI paired with humans on standby can keep qualification and conversion processes efficient and effective.
6. Proper evaluation of solutions: A lead conversion software or AI/human technology can be pricey, so it's important to do your due diligence when evaluating potential tech solutions. Some software might not integrate with all CRM tools and hosting a contact center for humans to step in can sometimes cost a lot of money and time to get fully up and running. Consider leveraging a solution with an all-in-one integration approach to keep things streamlined.
Marketing agencies and lead generation companies should help their customers do this. They should build out or leverage lead conversion tools, software and processes to help their customers maximize the engagement rate, and ultimately, the value of each and every lead. When sales teams can focus on booked appointments and closing deals with ready-to-purchase consumers, happier, more effective sales teams are born.
In conclusion, a decent marketer will generate inbound leads for their clients. But the marketer of tomorrow will help the client convert them into qualified, sales-ready opportunities.
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c8eb4969547e0542e14df6cf78aa4f91 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/30/its-time-to-build-a-new-strategic-plan-heres-how/ | It's Time To Build A New Strategic Plan: Here's How | It's Time To Build A New Strategic Plan: Here's How
Russell P. Reeder is the CEO of Infrascale, a cloud-based data protection company providing backup and disaster recovery solutions.
getty
Everything has changed. Have you revised your strategic plan to continue to scale your business? During these unprecedented times, all company leaders need to take a step back, evaluate where they are relative to their competition and where they are going, and then build and implement a new strategic plan. As a serial CEO and executive coach, I've helped many companies break through growth barriers and exceed shareholder expectations over the past 20 years.
No matter their size, all companies hit natural barriers resulting from company growth, market evolution, and out-of-date products and services. The secret to success is to not only make sure you take the time and work with your team to create and implement a new plan, but also that you are consistently monitoring your OKRs and business metrics to track your progress. To take your company to the next level, there is no time like the present to take a step back and prepare your company for your next stage of growth. Like Benjamin Franklin said, "If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail." Creating your new strategic plan is essential to ensure your resources are moving in the right direction. Everyone in your organization needs to clearly understand what success means for the company and how they contribute to that success.
Where are you going, and how are you making a difference?
It's easy to get caught up working on the next task on your list or the latest email or text, but the most successful leaders take the time to work on the business, not just in the business. As a leader, it's your responsibility to take a step back and make sure you are going in the right direction and have the right people working on the right priorities.
What are your purpose, mission, vision and values?
Having the right culture is critical for your success, and culture grows from your purpose, mission, vision and values. Your vision statement describes the idealistic view of where you are going long term. Your mission statement describes the steps to accomplish your vision, and your values are the "rules of the road" along the way. Your purpose statement describes the difference you are making in the world and why your employees should come to work every day.
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What is the current state of affairs?
To get to any destination, you must first know where you are. Having an honest understanding of where your current business is today will help you make the right decisions for the future. It's easy to get caught up in your day-to-day deliverables and lose sight of the big picture. The best way to understand where the business is today is to speak with your employees, customers and partners. Asking questions like it's your first day on the job will give you new insight into your current reality.
Who are your customers?
As customers and markets evolve, many companies lose sight of the problems they are solving. Likewise, you need to have a realistic view of your competition and what bets you are making to win next year and in years to come. Customers are demanding, and unless your products and services are at least three times better, you may not win their business at a competitive price. As you dig into your future products, services and customer success strategy, you should also figure out what you will stop doing. Trying to be all things to all customers is a great way to burn out your team and deplete your capital.
What is your ideal organization?
Now that you understand who you are, why your employees should care, what problems you are solving, and what bets you will make to beat your completion, it's time to start with the end in mind. The right way to build your organization is to start with a "clean sheet of paper." Instead of taking your current team and adding responsibilities to their existing roles, design your ideal future organization and leadership roles. You can then evaluate who on your team can step into those roles versus the positions you will need to fill with new team members.
What should you measure and why?
Now it's time to put real numbers behind your ambitions. Defining your KPIs (key performance indicators) and articulating how you will measure success is not only critical to hitting your targets but also to employee satisfaction. For your team to take full ownership of their goals and outcomes, you must take a collaborative approach when building your metrics and OKRs (objectives and key results). To confirm you are not tracking too many metrics, run this test: Make sure that every metric helps you understand what to do more of if the numbers are moving in the right direction. If you are missing your goals, this will help you identify your issues. As your business scales, you should also define and be prepared to implement new scalable processes and systems to streamline your daily reporting, operations and collaboration.
Ideas are free; it's all about execution.
Now it's time to dig in and deliver results. Whether you are tracking daily, weekly or monthly metrics, you need to set up the right meeting cadence to review the results so you can do more of what's working and less of what's not. It will also take planning to ensure that everyone in the organization is working together. Be prepared to roll up your sleeves and put in the hours to take your company to the next level. Now that your team is working "smarter," do not forget to celebrate your successes along the way. To have sustainable and scalable growth, you want to create an environment where people feel trusted and understand how they make a difference. With the right strategic plan, you can build an ecosystem that thrives from within, and everyone will enjoy the journey as you scale your business.
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bbe61f8964ea1ca39ea7240c1b430932 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/30/should-tech-companies-be-paying-us-for-our-data/?sh=ee618674147d | Should Tech Companies Be Paying Us For Our Data? | Should Tech Companies Be Paying Us For Our Data?
Founder & CEO of Kinzoo, a messenger that turns screen time into family time. Sean is also the author of Screen Captured.
getty
I hope you enjoy this article — maybe even enough to like it on Facebook, leave a comment and share it with your friends. Then, let's imagine your friends do the same. Suddenly, the article has over 100 engagements from your network. What if I told you that Facebook, on average, just made $10.00 from advertisers based on those engagements?
What if you could get in on some of that cheddar?
By engaging with content on social media platforms, you feed the algorithms that have made these tech giants the most powerful platforms for advertising. Brands are able to target specific audiences with unrivaled accuracy because many of us have willingly shared immense amounts of data on who we are, where we are and what we like.
Facebook and other platforms are free for us to use because they generate billions of dollars in revenue from advertisers. But remember this: If you don't pay for it, you are the product. Our data is their currency, yet we are not sharing in the spoils. What would it look like if these companies had to pay us for data? I decided to take a deeper dive into this question.
How Data Becomes Revenue
Do you ever get the feeling that everything you do online generates data? Well, that's because it does. While big tech (and small tech, too, for that matter) isn't usually forthcoming about the mechanisms that transform your data into revenue, this is big business. When they can put together an intimate portrait of you — your age, gender, interests and so on — they can give other companies the chance to show you ads that are highly relevant to you.
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And that translates into big money, with Facebook and Google leading the way. In 2019, Facebook and Google earned approximately $230 billion in revenue (virtually all from advertising), and your information and actions are their raw material.
Understanding Your Data's Value
So, how much is our data worth to these companies exactly? This is admittedly a difficult question to answer in some cases because certain stats on Facebook, and especially Instagram, can be hard to track down.
The fact that our data has immense value is indisputable, even if the methodology I used to quantify the financial impact of our interactions leaves much up for debate. But, it was a fun exercise — and a good way to help conceptualize the way Facebook monetizes what we do on their platform. Now bear with me through some math:
First, we have to determine just how much Facebook earns from each engagement that we make by dividing its revenue per user by the average number of engagements a user makes on Facebook and Instagram. According to its 2019 annual report, Facebook generated $41.41 in quarterly revenue from each of its users in Canada and the US.
We know, as of August 2020, that the average Facebook user in those markets engages about 43 times per month. Similar information on Instagram isn't readily available, so I divided the number of daily likes by the average number of users per day on the platform. My approximation? The average Instagram user engages about 5.8 times more frequently than their Facebook counterparts. Using a weighted average based on monthly active users (MAU) — Facebook has approximately 2.5 times the number of MAU that Instagram does — I estimate that Instagram contributes about 100 engagements per month, per user on Facebook's overall ecosystem.
This methodology tells us that the average user engages about 143 times a month on Facebook and Instagram, or 429 times a quarter. So, if we divide the average quarterly revenue ($41.41) by the average number of quarterly engagements (429), we see that each engagement in the U.S. and Canada — every like, comment and click we make — generates about 10 cents in revenue for the company. Facebook's 2019 net margin, according to its report linked above, was 26%, meaning about 3 cents of that revenue showed up in the company's profits. Now imagine if users were entitled to profit-sharing.
How Much Should I Be Paid For My Data?
What if Facebook was an equitable business partner that shared half of its profit with those of us who actually provide the data that makes its business model run? Using my math (which is, again, open to debate), the average Facebook user would earn $10.77 per quarter. But, what if you are a more active user than average? Twice as active? Five times as active? Out of curiosity, I broke the numbers down below.
Half as active: $5.38. Twice as active: $21.53. Five times as active: $53.83. Ten times as active: $107.67.
Now let me ask you this: Are you still thinking of throwing this article a like?
Should Companies Pay You Out?
At this point, the idea of big tech paying you for your data is still hypothetical — but some people are working hard to make it a reality. Andrew Yang recently launched the Data Dividend Project to try to establish data-as-property rights. He wants to “pave the way for a future in which all Americans can claim their data as a property right and receive payment” if a platform profits from it. The idea is intriguing, but it's not without its critics: Some see it as little more than a tax on our data — and some privacy experts even worry it will reinforce the power dynamics that allow data to be collected and exploited in the first place.
Either way, we can't expect regulators to step in and make this change. Realistically, the only way anything like this could ever come to fruition is if consumers demand it at mass scale. I just hope that we start to recognize the massive value our data generates on social platforms. We're giving Facebook and other companies a lot — and when you start to put a dollar amount on each engagement, it drives home the point: Free platforms aren't free.
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06eb9306c5bc612b2842bde3c9be9769 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/30/the-importance-of-a-data-warehouse-in-marketing/?sh=1d94d6854139 | The Importance Of A Data Warehouse In Marketing | The Importance Of A Data Warehouse In Marketing
George Fraser is the CEO of Fivetran, the leading provider of automated data integration.
With the vast number of brand choices presented to consumers today, customer loyalty can be elusive. But the more you know about your customer and their buying motives, the more you can influence their purchase decisions. To do that, you need to collect and analyze a lot of data on your customers — data that’s typically stored in line-of-business applications across your company.
Salesforce, NetSuite, Zendesk, Shopify, Asana and thousands of other applications each contain similar as well as different data on your customers. When you aggregate and analyze such varied data, you get what is known as a customer 360 view, which allows you to better serve and grow your relationships with your customers — and generate more revenue.
With the business climate and customer demand changing more unpredictably than ever thanks to Covid-19, you need actionable data that lets your company shift course on a dime. And while there are a number of different options to get that data, each approach brings with it different pros and cons.
One of the simplest ways is to use the built-in dashboard in your marketing technology (martech) tool, like the ones in Marketo or Salesforce. These tools are easy to use and will always be a part of your daily workflow, but they don’t give you a complete, 360-degree view of your customer. Some of the data critical to your decision-making process doesn’t live in your martech tool. So, to get the answers you need, you must turn to another tool, such as a turnkey business intelligence (BI) dashboard, like Domo, that connects directly to your data sources.
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These BI tools contain many built-in connectors, so they can give you a more complete view of your customer, but they are limited to the analyses that were anticipated by the creators of the tool. The day will come when you have a question that your turnkey dashboard can't answer.
Building your own data warehouse from all the critical data sources within the company is an effective way to get the data needed to make business-critical decisions. However, building that data warehouse requires more upfront investment than a typical martech tool or turnkey dashboard, but it will allow you to answer any question about your customers, leveraging data from all your tools.
To get the most out of data in today’s world, you need a data warehouse that can handle the three V’s of big data: volume, variety and velocity. More specifically, the technology must be able to store millions of pieces of data from multiple — and frequently changing — data sources. And these sources need to be updated in near-real time to ensure you’re making the most accurate decisions possible.
All this means that your data warehouse must be fast. It must be able to answer a new question against all existing data in just a few seconds — not minutes or hours — supporting the exploration that goes hand in hand with analytics.
The systems that meet all these requirements are cloud-based data warehouses, such as Snowflake, BigQuery and Redshift. And they all have an ecosystem of partners that integrate your marketing data quickly and easily. We’ll talk more about these so-called data pipelines in my next article. Let’s just say that, like data warehouses, not all pipelines are the same.
In the meantime, remember that making the right choice for your data warehouse can have a major impact on the growth of your company. With the ever-growing need for fast and accurate answers from analytics, the technology you choose matters.
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