Category: Business

Whatever the kind of business you run, the one thing that you need to take care of, no matter what industry you are in, or what kind of customers you have, is the numbers. I’m talking about the revenue, expenses, overheads, purchases, sales figures, inventory and profits. All of these numbers are equally important for your business and you need to pay equal attention to them. Having proper resources to obtain the detailed and accurate financial data anytime you require is critical for the CEOs, managers and other high-level authorities in any business.
Such accurate data is extremely essential for the smooth running of your business as well as for planning its growth. But sometimes, it can be a hard task to achieve, considering the amount of work that managers and CEOs like you, deal with nowadays. And while this holds good in case of any size of business, small business owners especially, often need to focus on the day-to-day affairs and activities of their business, making it harder for them to see the bigger picture. At the end of the day, if you don’t keep a close eye on your business, things will go haywire and slowly you will find your business slipping away from you.
Now, if you are thinking of diversifying your business, or moving into a new market or even selling your business, then you might need a lot more than those daily figures I mentioned above. As a matter of fact, it is when your business is ready for the next phase or stage of growth that the bigger numbers come in handy.

So what can you do to crack this situation and take steps to ensure a successful future?

The answer is Financial Management software. Let’s see how it can help your business.

The numbers that matter

When your business is at the turning point to a new direction, like for example, when you are raising equity for a new venture, there are some numbers that are more important.
The basic point here is that anyone who is looking to invest in your business will obviously want to ensure that their money is in safe hands. And for the same reason they will want to know information related to your company’s finances like:

• History of financial statements
• Personal financial statements
• Business plan
• FICO (Fair Issac Corporation) score
• Tax returns
• Commercial collateral
• Business forecast for the next 4 to 5 years
• Guarantor details

Putting together this kind of information can be a pretty time-consuming task, that can take weeks or maybe even months. And at the end of it, you need to present it all in the right manner. So, manually doing all these might not be quite feasible for a busy small business. This is where Financial Management software comes in handy. It can help you keep track of all finance related information over several years. It can give you all the required information easily with the help of insightful reports that can be generated, and can be presented perfectly as well.

That said, here are some other benefits of financial application platforms for small businesses:

• Turns your numbers into useful insights – The right financial management software will help you visualize your business, as it is, and also what it used to be and what it could be in future. This helps you analyze and monitor your business, to ensure that it is on the right track. Hence, numbers this way actually make more sense to you, than when put in the form of endless tables and figures. It also helps you identify the strong points and weak points of the business clearly.
• Cheaper than a CFO – Small business owners often consider hiring a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for their diversification or fundraising purposes. Although this may seem like the easier way to go about it, the fact is that CFOs don’t come cheap. Most of the time, the cost of their knowledge, skills and expertise might be way more than what your business can afford. Financial software, on the other hand, cost way less and yet have all kinds of benefits.
• Take it home – OK let’s face it. Reviewing finances is not so much of a fun task. You may want to cut yourself some slack and take your time for it. But, ordinary finances have to be taken care of from the office front as that’s where everything is stored, right? Cloud-connected software on the other hand, allows you to take your finance documents home with you or anywhere else you want. You can do the work at your convenience, that too, without having to stay overtime.
• Accumulated business knowledge – While hiring a CFO, you get the knowledge and skills of just that one person. A financial software solution can provide you with the value of accumulated business knowledge of many such CFOs. It’s basically a knowledge chest, which gives you all the information and insights relevant for analysis, over a period of time. And you know what that kind of analysis is worth for your business.
• Save time – When it’s time for you to gather all the financial information required for your fundraising, or for turning your venture into a new market, or even something as simple as your annual tax filing, think of the stress that you face. You will be spending days and nights in your office, because it requires a lot of time. With a financial application platform, you can do the same job in much less time and with much less effort, not to mention stress. It is all already there in the cloud, all you need to do is generate a few reports with a few clicks. That way you get way more time to concentrate on more important activities of your business.
• Learning in the process – Financial analysis is a tough job to do and you can’t pick up the details in a few hours or minutes. A good financial application platform can help you learn in the process of managing your finances, by explaining everything, from the output to the process to the terms, in a clear cut manner. It also keeps everything transparent, which helps you understand things better.

Now, it’s not enough to just get a financial management software deployed, import all your accounting data and see the results. You also need to act on them. Meaning, you need to take appropriate decisions based on those results. A good software system, will provide you with all the necessary information and will give you an overview of your business. It will help you make better, more informed strategic decisions. Take a look at, guidelines for choosing the right financial software for your business.

Most small businesses lack the understanding and knowledge that is very essential for their business to grow. But it’s something that comes as a consequence of running a small business with all its pressures and hassles. Hence, it is a huge issue that stops many small businesses from growing. The right financial software can give you all the relevant insights and show you the bigger picture. It allows you to plan the growth of your business, almost like a virtual CFO.
Talk to our experts to set up the perfect financial management software for your business.

Learning Management Systems (LMS) have been in use in the education industry for quite some time now. They basically make use of software to administer, track and monitor the functioning of e-learning courses. Schools, colleges, and universities have been using LMSs to provide online courses that compliment traditional on-campus courses. These days LMS software is also used by Corporate Talent and Development (T&D) departments, to provide online training to employees and to automate record-keeping. According to findings by E Learning Industry, the LMS industry is expected to be worth over $7 billion by 2018.

Over the past few years, the use of LMSs among various industries have increased and for the same reason they have undergone their share of evolutions and changes as well. As is the case with any kind of technology, old systems can no longer serve the purpose of educational organizations today and hence, they have to evolve.

Learning Management Systems are not simple pieces of software anymore. Software analysts have done considerable research about the evolving LMS industry and have identified several trends. Let’s take a look at some of the major trends in the industry this year;

• Open Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Solutions – Cloud-based SaaS solutions have always allowed LMSs to be easily set up and used, thanks to their established standards and ease of access. But even such service delivery models have drawbacks. They may allow for easy access and setting up but they allow for only very minimal customization. Open source platforms, on the other hand, may offer customization capabilities but they may incur expenses for frequent administration and downtime. A delivery model that utilizes the best of both worlds is one that is Open Saas, with substantially reduced setup costs and customization as well. This year we will likely see the rise of Open SaaS solutions that can bring down the overall costs of ownership and also provide service delivery to fit the unique needs of different businesses.
• Gamification – Gamification, that is, the use of gaming elements and mechanics beyond the traditional gaming experience and integrating it with learning and education systems, is something that has proven to increase retention and learning speed among students. For the same reason, as a general trend in the education industry, we’ll be seeing an increase in this technique. In LMS, we are likely to see the increased integration of gamification with it and furthermore, improvements in the interface and portal design as well. By increasing engagement through gamification, LMSs seek to allow both students and employees approach their learning from a strategic point of view, with time management skills and a point or reward-based incentive systems. It provides a lot more than entertainment, and aims to increase the overall learning potential through incentivized processes and behaviors.
• Socializing – We are all familiar with the effect that social networks have on our people. I mean, they have been nothing short of successful in luring an entire generation into the habit of sharing information and scheduling stuff through the internet. Every single day, people get into their own social circles online and see what their counterparts are up to, share their own little world with them and literally keep themselves updated on the happenings of each passing day. Such being their effect, on the mere matters of everyday life, why not leverage them for learning and training or education purposes as well?
  Indeed. They are made use of by LMSs in getting across learning material to users and allowing them to share knowledge within their own social circles. LMSs seek to utilize the comfort and familiarity that users experience through the social media channels, and encourage them to share and learn in a comprehensive way. With the increasing popularity of this trend, it would only be a matter of time before LMSs start delivering personalized and adaptive training and talent management services to users through these social networking portals.
• Blended learning – Again, a general trend that we will continue to see trending in the education industry this year. Blended learning also helps businesses in training and improving the skills of their employees as well. By integrating the digital and practical learning experiences, it augments classroom learning, with supplementary learning materials, advanced scheduling capabilities and the like, and provides the users with much needed hands-on experience. LMSs facilitate these practices and make way for more effective learning sessions, be it for students or employees of an organization. It also makes scheduling tests and exams much easier, as all of this can be organized and monitored through a single portal. What’s more, it keeps the overall costs of training and development well within the budget. With many such benefits, this method has already proven to be successful, which is why we’ll be seeing more of this in the coming years.
• Increased business utility – The use of LMSs in business organizations had been on for some time now, although it hadn’t quite gained momentum. This year, it is definitely going to increase, as businesses have realized that investing in education and personal development of their employees, benefits not just the employees alone, but almost all areas of their business. From customer engagement to management, LMSs can help in managing all important aspects. Training the employees, can reduce employee turnover and improve morale. Customers and business partners can also benefit from LMSs by making use of the tracking and information dissemination capabilities. They can even help you devise your own e-commerce strategy or customer service portal.

Learning Management Systems have come a long way from the time they were introduced into the industrial landscape. They have become more than just complimentary educational programs. This year definitely looks like a revolutionary one for LMSs, as it is likely to take over the business field as well. There can be many more trends in the LMS industry this year. What do you think we can add on to this list? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Software Advice

Fast technology pace, sudden paradigm shifts, changing business models and the fall or rise of the year-  predicting technology trends can often be like reading tea leaves. Who would have predicted Google being the star of the internet? Or the extraordinary popularity of Uber as an unrivaled app-based cab service, the rise of Tesla or Amazon, the resurrection of Apple.

What has 2016 in store for businesses and enterprises? Know more in this short video cast as we request Deepu Prakash, Head of Process and Technology Innovation at Fingent, to take a stab at Technology predictions for 2016

The day when you’ll see the everyday things- from phones, cars and doors, to lights, refrigerators and washing machines, connected to the internet is not very far. In fact there are over 13.4 billion connected devices already and it is expected that the number of internet-connected devices will reach 50 billion by 2020.

In spite of becoming an integral part of personal lives, the IoT will also bring major paradigm shifts at every phase of businesses. Many companies have already started adopting IoT and to plan their business around it. There are only two options- either get ready to embrace this revolution and stay on top, or face the consequences.

The manufacturing business will have to bring major changes to be in the game, around software, data and connectivity mainly.  According to Gartner’s 2015 overview of manufacturing industries, business intelligence and performance management are the top priorities of manufacturing sector and both these areas are heavily dependent on software and data gathering. Hence, Manufacturing is in the top list of industries looking to hire data and software experts.

The software everywhere helps make all devices programmable and narrows the gap between digital and physical.  While software everywhere redefines the manufacturing industry, it also redefines the scope for audits, inspections and compliance because it brings with it new challenges. Let us see some of the challenges the Internet of Things will pose to audit, inspection or compliance sector in detail.

Challenges for auditors dealing with software everywhere

Auditing is not a walk in the park when it comes to organizations adopting new technologies and automating tasks with software everywhere. While the Internet of Things brings many rewards, it also poses serious risks, which if not carefully dealt with, can lead to organizational disasters.

Technologies move very fast and manufacturers are under pressure to keep pace. Each passing day there arise new laws to which the businesses, organizations, industries and agencies should conform. Most often, there might be less thought devoted to the risks associated with certain deployments of technologies in businesses, and the manufacturer, law bodies and compliance bodies may not be aware of all the risks. The IT departments are generally the ones bearing the brunt of the storm, with a variety of auditing issues, which if not managed properly can spoil the compliance and security of even the most ambitious organizations. One of the biggest challenges for them is to make sure that all the technology and software deployed adhere to multiple compliance standards. The internal auditors should stay abreast of the new IoT developments to foresee these risks and controls in their business.

While software everywhere will ensure quick, flexible, easy and smart business processes, such flexibility can also be a loophole to circumvent compliance requirements. For instance, a machine or a device can be programmed to identify that it is being inspected or audited, the software can recognize the test pattern and it can then generate results, which appear to be compliant to the audit. One way to overcome this problem is to adapt smart auditing strategies like those used by quality assurance professionals, who constantly deal with such issues. For instance, auditors could use heuristic based techniques, where audit design and execution are combined and the auditor explores the system to identify non-conformance to high-level heuristics.

Another key aspect to consider in the area of software, is regarding ownership. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes it unlawful for independent auditors to look at the code that runs on a machine, thus making it easier to conceal intentional wrongdoings. Unfortunately, this law can punish users and auditors who try to understand whether their software or system are compliant, or can be manipulated in a manner that it will endanger the consumers of the product manufactured by these systems.  Another important challenge for audit regulators is the need for effective reporting to their stakeholders regarding audit performance, and the efficient conduct of audit inspections, which requires coordination among varied regulators and compliance with differing laws and regulations.

However, the good news is that, changes shall happen over the year 2016 that will make it possible for such business to conduct audits much efficiently, to check if they are compliant to legal norms like FDA or EPA norms and other good manufacturing practices.

Challenges for auditors dealing with large amounts of data

Increased use of computerized systems, smart manufacturing and decreased storage costs have led to generation of large amounts of data that are aggregated, coded and classified to enable good decision making. Auditors can derive value from this data and ensure that decisions made are based on solid, quality information that is trustworthy and relevant. This big data enables root cause analysis in cases where noncompliance or failure is detected, and can be used to provide a near complete picture of the system state at the point of failure. The availability of such valuable data can enable quicker corrective actions. Non-compliance issues detected years after the production can be safely traced back with retrospective auditions.

However, the unstructured nature of big data poses big challenge for the auditors. There need to be a good standard of managing the generation, classification and storage of data, for it to prove useful in auditing or inspecting activities. Data processing standards today do not cover the governance processes for management, storage and expiration of data. However, changes are expected in 2016 that will address the present state of big data with respect to the audit environments.

Challenges for auditors dealing with storage and ownership of data

                                                                                     Image courtesy: Cloud Lounge

In production environments, the data produced by the equipment and system used in production line are mostly stored in clouds. In the cloud, these data may be stored on storage devices that may not even be owned by the manufacturers who generate data, but will be owned by third party service providers, like analytic provider or storage service provider (like amazon). In such cases, it is not the manufacturer but the third party, who gets the ownership of these data. In fact, data may not be even stored in the same country.  Such a 3rd party doctrine complicates the issue when confidential transitional data is stored by cloud server providers and this raises more issues like confidentiality and contract, availability of data for audits, and liability issues.

Challenges for auditors dealing with Connectivity

The Internet of Things (IoT) as we have all heard of has been around for quite a while and this year we saw a large number of connected devices flood the market. This is only going to increase and by 2020, we are expected to have over 50 billion connected devices. The Internet of Things is not just connected cars, cameras, and doors. IoT also extends to heavy machinery, to jet engines, oil drills and to connected devices and equipment in manufacturing and production, as well. As smart manufacturing gains momentum, more and more machines on the production lines are connected and online. Machines are connected to each other to exchange data, and to servers in the cloud to enable machine learning, monitoring, forecasting preventive maintenance, etc. This ensures cycle time reductions for corrective and preventive actions post audits. Remote monitoring and diagnostics can ensure that the product complies with the legal requirements. Connectivity can help conduct remote inspections eliminating the need for people to travel to the locations to get the audits done.

While connectivity brings the above advantages, it brings with it, its share of challenges as well. Poor security, for example on connected equipments can make systems vulnerable to hacking and systems can be compromised without the hackers having direct access to the systems. As a matter of fact, vulnerabilities in any connected device can compromise an entire system. The security of connected equipment will soon be an area of compliance for audits and inspections across industry segments. With time, it can even enable production to happen at the supplier’s end or the consumer’s end, rather than at the factory, which can further increase the risks for auditors and inspectors. They will have to take into consideration the entire chain of equipment that communicate with each other, and modify their audit strategies accordingly.

Everyone, who are in the business of audit and compliance are impacted by the IoT and by the fact that all the equipment we use are connected online, is programmable and is generating enormous amount of data. The auditors, inspectors and all of us in the audit and compliance field need to learn about the new skills and competencies pertaining to the software deployment, vulnerability detection and software compliance. The good news is that there are established practices in the software QA (quality assurance) industry, which can provide good reference points for those who wants to upgrade their skills. However, the hardest part is to change the mindset and culture among auditors and inspectors to adapt to this new paradigm of Software Everywhere. We need to move faster to adopt practices, processes, and new mindset and to learn new skills that will enable us to do a better job in auditing, compliance and inspections for devices that are connected, generate lots of data and are managed by software!

View this webinar on the ubiquity of software in the compliance industry, by Deepu Prakash, Head of Process and Technology Innovation at Fingent Corp:

Software Everywhere- Webinar

The Internet of Things has been of huge buzz lately among every field of business and life, but how well have you adopted it or been a part of it?
If you are able to remotely manage your office/home electronics through your laptop/mobile, then you are a part of IoT. If you can generate an access code on a mobile to enter into a locked property without key, you are using IoT. Most of us are already a part of the IoT, knowingly or unknowingly. But in the coming three to four years, every one of us will visibly and consciously become a part of it. It’s no more a probability, hype or a pipe dream, it’s been happening and is poised to connect over 75 billion devices in the next five years.
Though we are in the initial phase of discovering what is possible when combining sensors, actuators, and networked intelligence, years ahead will open doors to a world, where information is pulled up from living/ non-living things, and is used, shared and identified between the products and services, in the all-embracing network of IoT.

IoT will make over $11trillion impact by 2025
According to a report on industrial application for intelligent machines used in IoT, by General Electric, a simple 1% efficiency gains for systems could result in 15 years of saving:

•  $30 billion worth of jet fuel for the airline industry
•  $63 billion in global health care savings with more optimized treatments, patient flows, and equipment use in hospitals.
•  $66 billion savings in fuel consumption for the global gas-fired power plant fleet.

The impact of IoT applications is going to be massive, about $11trillion by 2025, according to a research by McKinsey Global Institute. More than two-thirds of this value will be for business to business sector, and the consumers of these businesses will enjoy over 90% of the value thus created. However, in order to enjoy these high profits, businesses need to start adopting connected, interoperable systems, devices and components, address security/privacy issues and make crucial organizational changes to reap IoT’s maximum benefits.

Let’s see how businesses should set themselves ready to receive this impact;

Connected and interoperable components and systems in business
Companies should start demanding their vendors and suppliers for systems and components that are mutually connectable and interoperable with each other and with other systems. 40% of the value IoT can provide will depend on the components’ interoperability. Now, connecting the equipment or deploying sensors at multiple locations will not make your business ready for IoT. Companies must also integrate, deploy and customize the analytical software that can collect and combine the data generated by all these sensors, to make efficient decisions, in order to derive better business insights. For instance, there are over 30,000 sensors and connected/interoperable devices in modern oil platform. But less than 1% of data collected from these sensors are actually used for efficient decision making processes in the industry. Also, data needs to be collected, combined and analyzed from multiple components to make an effective predictive maintenance condition. All these render the whole system simply inefficient.

Every device in your business should have an On/Off switch to the Internet
Every device, from phones, doors, electronics, manufacturing machines, printers, to security systems, should be able to connect to the internet. This will make the tasks of these devices up-to-date, just like a PC connected to the internet receives latest software updates on it. Network connectivity will ensure real time checking of component status, features or updates, helping the businesses to stay informed and fresh, always.

Moving to Cloud
Companies should move their data and services entirely to cloud, providing a flexible, expandable, robust way of service to its increasing customer base. The large players in the industry already have their solutions in clouds, to provide scalability and better customer experience.

Security and Privacy concerns of businesses in IoT
Almost all IoT-based applications rely on data from sensors, or consumer data, even collected passively from them, by tracking their behaviors. For instance, in an IoT-enabled futuristic mall, customers will no longer have to wait in long queues to bill their items, rather they could just pick the items and walk out of the exit. This is possible with the bills being totaled by ‘beacons’ that scan the price tags of the items in the customer’s cart, and debit the equivalent amount from the mobile money in his smartphone. McKinsey estimates that there could be around $380 billion reduced costs for retailers per year from this kind of automated checkouts.
The flip side of the whole thing will be the security and privacy issues. Every sensor is a potential loophole for hackers. Implementing such process will need businesses to build trust with the customers, by convincing them that their private data cannot be breached and will only be used securely. A lot of work needs to be done here. Companies, while implementing IoT, should make sure to invest only in high-quality data securing systems/solutions that are super safe for your business and customers. Businesses need to protect their own data, the customer data and the intellectual property. Partner with only those trusted technology vendors providing high-security solutions.

Remote Mobile Device Management (MDM)
Remote mobile device management technologies will play a key role in IoT, controlling and monitoring the equipment in the network of things remotely. This will help business to reduce equipment costs, cut down on resource usage, avoid disasters remotely. Optimize operations, and boost productivity.

Building the right organizational environment
Collecting or gathering data from everywhere is not the key thing, the actual point lies in combining the different information, analyzing it, and acting on it. Even the biggest of the organizations struggle to make the optimum use of the information technologies available to them. So it’s not just about having the most sophisticated technologies, it’s about using and sharing it within the organization and making crucial data-driven decisions from it. Operations need to be continuously monitored by IT experts, as processes are getting redesigned around IoT and the managers should plan how to interpret real-time data (i.e, to integrate information technology and operations technology). Marketing, financing and information officers will be required to share their data. And teams should learn to make decisions relying on machines and data.
Sooner or later IoT will mean a tweak in the lens through which we all will see the world. It will change everything and every business should consider its implications. Over the next few years, you will see the Internet of Things hitting a tipping point very fast. How can your business get on top of it, understand and implement it? Learn from our tech experts

Last spring, we found ourselves working with a global media giant,  to understand why their new high tech enterprise information sharing IT system was not being used by employees. As we plowed through the usual rigors of analyzing feedback from front-line staff, department managers and BU heads, we discovered something puzzling. While the new state-of-the-art system was hardly being used by anybody, few departments and teams used alternate custom-built IT systems to automate their processes. Most of these custom-built systems were rudimentary and offered poor user experience, and yet, every team member had adopted and used their system every day! Digging deeper, we discovered something even more surprising – The development and deployment of these systems were managed by the Line Manager (s) of these departments, who had little to no knowledge of IT or Software Development!

Why did an expensive, cutting-edge digital information system fail miserably, where a less sophisticated, custom built software succeeded with aplomb? How did non-technical line managers succeed in deploying technology effectively, where senior IT specialists failed?

Sure, deploying a new, large, complex, and organization-wide system across different locations is fraught with enormous technical challenges, but the real answer to these questions lies elsewhere.

The IT department, was attempting to solve a technology problem. However, none of the users had a technology problem. They had business problems.

Problems about information availability, sharing and communication in the context of how they got work done. Divisional, middle and operational managers, i.e. the Line Manager was in a much better position to understand these problems, since he knows the people in his teams and how they get work done. Direct involvement of the Line Manager enabled the building of IT tools which solved business problems that his/her teams faced.

In hindsight, the centralized top-down approach of IT system deployment was a mistake. The IT department never stood a chance.

Understanding the processes, practices, people and nuances of every team in a 6000 person global organization was an unrealistic expectation, especially under a tight budget and timeline. A decentralized approach to technology development and deployment, where the Line Manager was empowered to take technology decisions for his or her team, would have yielded better results.

Decentralization, as a management concept, has been around for a while. William B. Given Jr.’s book Bottom-Up Management, 1949 was probably the first to talk about Decentralization, while Drucker’s works over the last 50 years have often made the case for giving front-line managers greater control. However, it is only in the last decade that we saw an increased devolution of formerly centralized responsibilities (like human resource management, risk management, and strategic planning) to the Line Manager.
In this context, the decentralization of IT decisions is a natural step forward. Looking at our own portfolio of projects at Fingent, we see a steady increase in Line Managers successfully creating, customizing and deploying technology solutions for their departments. I believe that there are three key reasons why the Line Manager is successful in independently managing core information technology needs of his/her teams:

• Line Managers, especially those who are hands-on, are able to derive a good understanding of information architecture requirements
• A Line Manager understands of how the team gets work done, and
• A Line Manager’s ability to lead and manage changes to the ways of working.

The right information, at the right time

In relatively flat, multi-functional organizations, workers at every level have decision-making responsibilities. For such a knowledge worker, the ability to assimilate, interpret, arrange, sift and process relevant information is critical for the successful execution of day to day tasks.
Take the case of the failed digital-information IT system; asked to identify the single most important cause of failure, users across departments answered that the information necessary for work was either unavailable in the system, or was not available at the right time or in the right format. Each of the smaller systems that they were using daily was tailored to meet the specific needs of the team, providing different roles in these teams with the information they required to operate efficiently and effectively. Information was shared in the context of the tasks and stage of work, ensuring that it was available to the right person at the right time. These systems thus organized and structured information in a manner best suited to the team’s objectives. Or in other words, they had good information architectures.
Different departments/teams adding value to the organization in different ways need radically different information architectures. Information required for software developers to execute their day to day tasks is usually different from information necessary for a hardware engineer, HR personnel or Sales personnel. The IT department, which led the deployment of the failed solution, tried to create a system of compromises, and in doing so, compromised the critical needs of almost every department. This flawed approach resulted in a significant wastage of money and time.

A good information architecture secures that the right information is available to users; enabling a good technology system to use this information architecture for delivering the right information to the employee at the right time.Creating a good information architecture requires: the allocation of the right resources, interfacing with supplier and customer teams ( internal or external), a good understanding of current and desired processes, and a good understanding of the strategic and tactical objectives of the department. The Line Manager for the team/department is in the best position to take ownership of this activity and to use his resources to drive the creation of a good information architecture for his team or department.

There is one specific aspect of the information architecture where the Manager must be hands-on; performance measurement. Early measurement systems were top down, with KPIs being set by Senior Executives cascading down to the teams. However, with the greater empowerment of teams, we now see teams, designing their own measurement systems, in line with corporate strategy and measurement systems, to gauge own progress. The manager of a team is often responsible for the KPIs, its methodology and also the measurement. He should determine the level of access that different roles in his team, have to these measures.
Providing the right information, to the right person at the right time often provides the base for realizing the value added by technology. This “right information” is realized using the Information Architecture used by a team. Technology can then be deployed to use this Information Architecture to deliver information to employees in the context of their day to day work. The Line manager is in the best position to drive the creation of the information architecture for his team, while securing that it is aligned with organizational strategic goals and the team’s tactical objectives.

Processes and Practice: A Line Manager knows the difference between theory and application

In addition to a good information architecture, technology must also be aligned to systems used by the department, to add value to the organization. These systems are deployed via processes, and these days almost all self-respecting departments and teams of knowledge workers have documented processes. Whether the documented process meets practice is another story entirely. In the case of knowledge work, especially work that requires moderate to high degree of autonomous and creative thinking, tacit knowledge and improvisation trumps documented processes in practice.

When automating the change management system for the pharma enterprise, we discovered that different project coordinators had different approaches, planning, reporting, risk management and interdepartmental cooperation, which often resulted in significant deviations from the documented processes. For such a department to realize the benefits of automation, documented processes alone are insufficient. It is vital to consider the entire system as practiced and applied by the users, and in doing so, prioritizing the creation of tools to automate the desirable aspects of the system. It is the promise of predictability and stability in the way things get done using a system that often determines the effectiveness of deploying the software application. The Line Manager of the Department has a good view of the overall picture, people and the operational details; all of which are critical inputs to good decisions about balancing process and practice to achieve a stable system.

In the case of the pharma company, the Line/Department Manager was able to obtain the necessary strategic, operational and tactical perspective to determine specific processes and practices which were important to automate. Only he had sufficient authority and responsibility to ratify and take responsibility for these decisions. The IT department, or a 3rd party consultant, or even most people in his team would not be able to provide the unique perspective necessary to take these decisions.

The software solution we deployed for this department not only provides the benefits of automation, but also helps the team identify process deviations, enabling good decisions about the acceptance and mitigation of these deviations in day to day operations.

Often, the development of new tools and technologies is a trigger for teams to introspect and overhaul their existing systems. One of our clients, a property acquisition department at a national property management firm, re-architected their processes to take advantage of the benefits that a custom-built software application could provide. Their old system was built around the tools of pen-paper and a commodity desktop solution available then. During our early stages of pre-development analysis discussions, they realized that a custom software application, could free the department from the constraints of the commodity software, and open the doors to add value in new and innovative ways. Through mobile devices, real-time updates, and improved reporting, they could realize benefits that were not accessible to them before. They reinvented their property acquisition processes, providing significantly greater value and increasing the department’s strategic value to the organization. Such successful change was possible because the Line Manager was able to allocate a good team to work with the core process changes and technology upgrade, while he also worked with his peers and governance board, to plan and manage the delivery of business benefits.

 Providing change leadership: Who better than the Line Manager?

Like any other change program, the deployment of new software technology invariably runs into resistance from employees; often the biggest challenge to software deployment.

IT deployment often makes some previously subjective measures objective and visible to all. Employees may be nervous to reveal more information than they used to do before. Then there is inertia, the reluctance to shift from comfortable routines and practices to a different way of working.

Supporting the team to see the change brought about by technology deployment is a leadership challenge. The Line Manager is in the best position to take up this challenge.

Leading such a change requires the active, consistent and continuous engagement of all employees who will ultimately be impacted by the change. It requires the creation of trust, so issues and concerns can be discussed and evaluated freely, together with the perceptions of value and benefits of the new system. This is an undertaking that requires significant effort, often at an interpersonal level. The Line Manager is the ideal candidate to lead such an effort. As organizations become flatter, the manager is a coach and a mentor to the individuals in his/her team. Alongside tactical directives, a Line Manager can use one-to-one meetings, coffee machine conversations and other informal discussions to evangelize the need for the new system and reinforce the benefits: a better work profile, reduced workload, skill upgrades and much more.

Leading such an effort also means assembling the right people, from the very start of the technology development initiative. These are people with the right skill set, organizational credibility and influence. Assembling such a team, and providing them with purpose, while leveraging their strengths and abilities at the right time can make a big difference to the progress and the success of a technology deployment project. Some team members may be good with early phase visioning, while others may be simulated by the challenges of training and change management. Choosing the right people for the right task, and giving them the ownership of creating and deploying the new system can increase interest levels in the entire team. This also leads to  greater participation, and mitigating resistance during deployment. The Line Manager knows the strengths and weaknesses, the goals and aspirations of the individuals in his team. This enables him or her to make good decisions about mobilizing the right people for the project.

Leading this change, requires the management of day to day operations, while resources are devoted to the deployment of the new system, and while the department migrates from the old way of working to the new system. The Line Manager can secure minimal impact on ongoing operations, by allocating the necessary time (and backups) for those involved. And also providing the necessary time and support for the entire team to learn and use the new system. He can use his resources and forums to identify potential deployment blockers and mitigate such risks early. For example, staff meetings provide good opportunities to build cohesion and agreement about the new system and the deployment plan. It is also an effective way to source ideas and motivate volunteers for beta testing.

Conclusion

The choice of tools to execute a task requires combination of strategic, operational and tactical knowledge to make informed choices. The IT department in an organization, which services many lines, sections and departments, cannot be expected to have such an in-depth understanding.

The Line Manager is best positioned to have such an intimate understanding of the business and its operations. The Line Manager understands the formal and the informal processes, which gets the work done within his team. He/She knows the measures and indicators on his department’s scorecard, the data required for these and the processes which define these. He/She knows and often owns the processes that detail how his team interacts with other teams, within and outside the organization. The Line Manager understands a team’s suppliers and customers. And most importantly, the Line Manager understands the team today – the people who work for him today, their capability, their skillset and he/she understands the team required for business tomorrow – the capabilities and skill set required to keep up with a changing business environment. From an organizational perspective, giving ownership of technology to the people who will use it, empowers them with greater control and responsibility towards the outcomes expected from them.

Gone are the days when people used to be tied to their work desks for long hours through the week and be stuck at specific places for meetings and discussions. Corporates have moved away from traditional ways of communication, both formal and informal, towards a more dynamic and versatile approach. Thanks to the concept of enterprise mobility, people can work as well as communicate with each other sitting anywhere in the world.

For a long time though, mobility has always been a part of businesses, as earlier, there were IP (Initiation Protocol) and SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) for use in office and hence were limited in scope. For advanced needs and requirements in an enterprise, mobility needs to grow and it is already starting to take new forms in the process. With the increased use of smartphones and tablets in business, enterprises are now able to increase their productivity as well as efficiency. Now, let’s take a look at the main areas where mobility is being extensively used these days:

• Sales – Whether it is an FMCG manufacturer or a financial services company, the sales team is something that is invariably always on the move. The sales representatives who work in their respective fields may face several challenges like:
  – High costs of paperwork, unnecessary phone calls and visits
  – Manual paper-based recording of sales order entries, which is time-consuming and error-prone
  – Inability to provide demo on site to clients
  – Lack of easy access to customer information
  Hence, they need mobile apps that can make their work easier by improving communication access and increasing employee productivity.
• Services – In services, enterprise mobility helps to reduce the cycle time, which can be a key differentiator for service providers. Cycle time refers to the time from the service request initiation to service request closure. In other words, the time starting from the beginning of your process to the end, as decided by you and your customers. For example, the time from when a customer places a phone call to the electrician, to the time he fixes the fault and closes the service request. With enterprise mobility, such phone calls and placing of service requests can be made much easier and faster.

Opportunities

The business opportunities that ensue from enterprise mobility are manifold. As mentioned earlier, it can improve the productivity of an enterprise by a large margin if implemented properly. Some of them are:

• Mobility first business processes – Enterprise mobility helps to promote competitive differentiation by providing value using a mobile first strategy to business processes creation and management. It thus adds to the efficiency of each process and in turn the efficiency of the organization as a whole.
• Knowledge management – It helps to capture explicit and tacit knowledge through the analysis of data generated from mobile devices. It also helps to provide context-based knowledge solutions.
• CYOD – Mobility promotes the latest business trend of Choose Your Own Device (CYOD) which improves employee satisfaction and that too at a reasonable IT spend.
• Productivity improvements in niche areas too – Custom-built apps hosted on the enterprise app store can support business teams working on non-commoditized processes to improve productivity and add more value.

Even though enterprise mobility is a rapidly growing phenomenon among business enterprises these days, there are certain challenges that hinder its full-fledged adoption sometimes.

Challenges to Enterprise mobility

Due to several reasons, enterprise mobility is not acceptable by some business officials and enterprises. They are:

• Connectivity – The concept of enterprise mobility revolves around the ability for employees and the management to stay connected at all times. It is all about making information available to the right people at the right time. Without connectivity, the whole concept becomes ineffective and useless.
• Devices – Devices that are being used in offices need to have the capability to deliver (and hence enable consumption) of complex information, in other words, rich media content. Rich media is a web-based terminology used in internet advertizing to describe web advertisements that utilize advanced technology like video streaming, and are also able to interact with the user immediately. For example, ads that change or react as the user’s mouse hovers over it.
• User experience – For the employees, who are used to and are experienced in traditional methods of communication, such a drastic change might not be such a welcome one. Besides, they might find it difficult to adapt themselves to the new concept, which could affect productivity.
• Security – Since with mobility, everything from backups to encryption is “on the go”, it also is quite vulnerable to loss of information. And since employees carry around their entire office in their mobile devices, losing their device means losing their office.
• Environmental sustainability – Most telecom companies use diesel to fuel their base stations and data centres. As a matter of fact, the telecom industry is one of the largest consumers of diesel. Hence, it is not quite environmentally sustainable.

However, in this fast-paced business environment, mobility is starting to be an inevitable factor for the success of businesses, whether it is accepted by employees or not. The disadvantages are often out ruled by its pros and conveniences. From the way things are, it doesn’t seem too long before it becomes a way of life.

Enterprises today have to deal with a fast paced business environment and truck loads of data coming from all directions. In order to keep up in the race for survival, organizations need to be as agile and alert as possible to overcome the challenges and adapt to the environment. Within the organizations too, data is growing rapidly. With all these complexities, it is necessary for the business managers to make some sense out of the incoming data on time and use it to boost the efficiency of their company.
In other words, the key to the success of any business lies in extracting relevant and actionable insights from the generated data, from anywhere in the world, in an organized and secure manner. It helps managers in making better, more informed decisions and thereby seize every opportunity that may come.
So what can be done to garner such insights? Or rather, what can be used to aid the process of decision making?

The answer is Corporate dashboards. We are all familiar with that term aren’t we? We also know that it is one of the most reliable and effective decision-making tools, as it helps managers get an overall top view of their enterprise by extracting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). It also enables an easy analysis of the metrics in a user-friendly manner.
Using such dashboards helps organizations improve their efficiency as well as save a lot of time and money. It also adds to the reputation and goodwill of the company as a result. And how?

Before we get into the benefits of using dashboards, let’s see why organizations need dashboards.

Why dashboards?

Every manager in an enterprise, at whatever level of management he may be in, is responsible for decisions concerning his department or division. He has to go through and understand the corporate goals and at the same time manage his own department or team to achieve the goals set for his team. For this purpose, he will have to sift through various spreadsheets, reports and databases across the enterprise to collate information and make the best decision. However, he may not have the time for all this. On top of that, not all users may have access to all the information required to make decisions. These problems may make it difficult for the managers to make decisions.
Dashboards, on the other hand, provide a clear and concise picture of the state of affairs, by integrating data from various sources into a single common platform. It presents such data in the form of insightful graphics, patterns, and the like and also highlights the pain points that require immediate attention.It enables managers to easily make faster and more accurate decisions.

How dashboards save you time, money and reputation

Typically, dashboards offer a number of general benefits such as:

• faster access to information
• ability to generate comprehensive reports
• graphical presentation of real time data
• better visibility into all required departments
• better transparency
• availability of all information in a single place
• insightful illustrations

To discuss how dashboards help in saving time and money, let’s consider a hypothetical situation.

You, being the sales manager of a leading advertising company, are psyched on winning a project with an international client. You are about to reap huge profits and take your company to new heights. On being the sole person creditable for this huge deal, you are required to give a presentation to your team regarding the client and the project. You have prepared your work with the help of presentations and reports and spreadsheets for accounts. Finally, on the day of the presentation, as you stand in front of your team with your laptop, you realize that you haven’t transferred your file from your personal system where you created it. You also find that the spreadsheet that you created does not have a whole page as you forgot to save it…..

The above scenario is the result of using traditional methods of presentation or work. Such spreadsheets and reports create a whole lot of confusion and complexities that you can actually avoid using dashboards. Imagine, having a dashboard that lets you access your client’s information directly in real-time. One that lets you extract specific relevant information in the form of reports on the spot, in case you want to show some financial information.
Dashboards allow you to get all the important information in a single place, rather than through separate files and reports. It thus lets you save a lot of time that you would otherwise have spent on making the presentation with spreadsheets and documents, collating information from various departments etc. It also lets you save money used in buying and maintaining spreadsheet software and in making frequent visits to your client’s site.
Using dashboards for presentations during client visits and the like, boosts your reputation as well as it shows that you have your operations under control and in one place. Moreover, the visibility that lets you access information from other concerned departments shows that there is transparency, which adds to the trust factor. Moreover, you can allow your client to filter the data according to his requirements.

Such interactive and insightful dashboards, made with simple graphics such as pie charts, bar charts and the like, basically make your work very much easier. Being dynamic and flexible, dashboards can be created to suit your business model and can adapt itself to your company’s look and feel. If you are looking for a way to integrate information from different departments in your organization, contact us.

“Quality in a product or service is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it”. – Peter Drucker

I couldn’t think of a better explanation for the importance of service excellence than this, by the renowned business management consultant, Peter Drucker. As rightly put, service excellence is achieved when the customer or the client is most happy or satisfied with your product or service. But then again, how exactly do you achieve it?

Service excellence is an on-going journey. The better you get at what you do or deliver, the higher you will push your bar to get even better at what you do. You keep building on service excellence. I’m talking about building on your customer service excellence here. So how can you go about building on service excellence?

Here are 5 tips:

1. Communication – This is a bit of a cliche when it comes to quality of service. As already mentioned, customers need to be most happy. And one of the major factors to ensure that, is communicating with them. By communication, I don’t just mean after sales service. You need to keep a certain level of constant communication with your customers. In other words, engage with them. It builds trust and thereby loyalty. You can have various ways to engage with your customers like special events, contests and feedback. Feedback is one activity, which not only helps in customer engagement but also helps you in knowing what your customers think of you and work on the areas where you need to improve. The more you communicate with your customers, the clearer your goals become.
2. Closeness – Another aspect of communication is closeness. Yes, the better you know your customers, the better you can serve them. You need to be knowing their needs, interests and expectations more than anyone for that matter. Ideally, you need to exceed customer expectations if you want delighted customers. And to exceed their expectations you need to know them today. If you get close enough, you can even predict their behaviour to some extent and you will be able to serve them proactively. Now, that is a whole new level of service excellence.
3. Transparency – At no cost should you compromise on transparency. Be it in terms of pricing or product or service related information or anything that is relevant to your customers. Basically, you should refrain from doing anything that might cause distrust among customers. If your customers are dissatisfied, it will reflect on your possible prospective customers as well. So, there’s more at stake than meets the eye. Transparency adds to the trust factor and the benefits of that, as you know, are manifold.
4. Value addition – This is an extension of the principle of exceeding expectations or proactive customer service. The idea is to give your customers more than what they asked for, in terms of value. You need to add some value while providing services and for that you need to go that extra mile, pay attention to all the details, give in more than a 100% and ensure complete efficiency. You need to make your customers feel important and valued by serving them better. Following this mission of value addition in all your projects, will take you one step closer to excellence.
5. Standards – You need to have customer driven standards, which are realistic, measurable, attainable and time bound. By customer driven standards, I mean, ones which are determined after careful analysis of the feedback from the customers, as well as of customer behaviour through constant engagement with them. The standards so set should be implemented and measured as well, after which you can take steps to improve on them. Based on your evaluation of standards, you will find areas on which you can improve and hence set new standards.

All these are factors which basically add to the satisfaction of customers which, in turn reflects quality in the service you deliver. On the whole, it is pretty clear that it is the customers that help you achieve the goal of service excellence and the more you engage with them, the more they are satisfied, and the more you achieve.

When customers get more and more digitally advanced, what else can retailers do, but go over the top to get savvier and stay ahead in the race towards serving them better? Most retailers these days are struggling to maintain their faces with new technologies and marketing programs in the digital side of things. If you thought, a little bit of social media marketing would do the trick, then you might be wrong. True, social media does play a huge role in spicing up your digital marketing spree, but is that enough?

The answer to that, would perhaps, have been ‘yes’, maybe a few years ago. But with advancements in technology as well as the minds of the people today, who seem to be in an endless search for convenience and speed, the answer is definitely ‘no’. So, what exactly is the deal with this digital marketing and the people-the consumers, and what does it take to stay in the ‘present’?

Consumers have started to expect more from their vendors and retailers are bound to live up to this expectation. Let’s see, for example, how digital marketing has changed in retail to stay relevant and eye-candy for its customers:

‘Personalizing’ at its peak

One of the most effective and influential techniques of digital marketing is personalizing. And by that, I don’t just mean sending out personal emails to your customers, or adding their first names in the emails you send out. The in-thing now, is of course iBeacons; the latest Bluetooth LE technology used in malls and retail stores to send out personalized offers and messages in real-time. But that is when your customers are in your store. What can you do to get personal outside of your store?
The depth of the word ‘personalizing’ is starting to take new forms these days. And one of those forms is facial recognition technology. According to a recent report published by Transparency Market Research, the global facial recognition market is expected to reach almost US $2.67 billion by 2022. That is how big it is getting. Retailers can use this technology to gather information about customers, their buying habits, purchasing power etc. and then use that for marketing purposes like, presenting them with special and unique offers and deals.
Facebook, the social media channel, has been using this technology for the past few years for the purpose of identifying and categorizing pictures, and this data is being shared among other retail and social media sites, which enables them to target ads to users. Facebook also uses information from other retail sites by scanning their cookies and displays ads to users accordingly.
However, privacy concerns regarding this technology are still being discussed and how much acceptable it is going to get among the consumers, still remains unclear.

From wearable to digital assistants

This is for companies that use mobile marketing for leveraging their marketing programs. You need to really keep up with the latest advancements in mobile technology if you want to make your marketing effective. A “mobile-first strategy” is what a lot of retail brands adopt these days. This is according to Aaron Shapiro, CEO of New York based digital agency Huge. Shapiro feels that voice-activated technology, digital assistants and wearable technology are all set to change the way customers interact with their favorite brands, especially now that most of them use mobile devices rather than desktop computers and laptops. About voice-activated marketing Shapiro says, “ In cases where the screens are going to be tiny or non-existent, voice is going to be the way that we communicate.” It means brands will have to come up with ways for their customers to communicate with them in a voice context.
Shapiro also feels that mobile technology is definitely going to evolve into wearable as well.

Display advertising: Metrics better than click-through-rate

Click-through-rates are actually, most often, thought of as the best measure of display advertisements’ effectiveness. However, there are several limitations to this particular approach. It ignores factors like brand awareness and educating prospects. According to Sean Callahan, Marketing Director, Bizo, there are several other metrics that marketers can use to measure the effectiveness of their display ads. Some of them are:
Brand recall – where in, you can carry out an online brand study to see the differences in the awareness of your brand among the people who have seen your ads and among the ones who haven’t.
Branded search – where in, you can measure the lift in the number of searches for your brand, while your online ad campaign is running.

Likewise, there are a number of other such metrics that you can use to measure the performance of your ad campaigns.

All of these digital marketing techniques and tips are already being used by a number of retailers and are well on their way towards revolutionizing the retail industry as a whole. In a matter of few years, what we provide for our customers now, will probably seem outdated or maybe even absolutely ineffective. Like i said, if you have to stay in the game till the end, you have got to play it like it has to be played.