Tag: Business Continuity Plan
How Organizations Can Embrace Transformation and Expedite Their Growth in 2021
From remote working and e-learning to sales and customer service to more critical cloud infrastructure and security, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated technology adoption across several key domains. The pandemic has made digital transformation crucial for business growth across various industries. Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, puts it that “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.”
That said, companies will have to change their mindsets and adopt new strategies to stay relevant and competitive in 2021 and beyond. Here are six ways you can adapt to the new normal and taste business success.
Read more: How Business Owners and Leaders Can Set up a Successful COVID Exit Strategy
1. Adapt to change
Change is the only constant and more so today than ever before. Change is happening at a faster pace and is very crucial for small businesses. Today, old and traditional methods of winning clients and serving them do not seem to fit. The list of things you need to change may be long and only growing. Instead of reacting to these changes, the best approach is to embrace them and treat them.
So, when you treat the problem, you employ change to work with you and not against you. People are more likely to accept strategic changes now, especially if the initiatives are focused on improving their lives.
Bring agility and innovation to your business by implementing a quarterly strategic planning and review process. It will allow you to remain focused, actionable, and agile by adopting new learnings.
While you are in the process of adapting to changes, consider a few questions that you need to ask yourself.
- What can disrupt my business and change everything?
- How can I lead that change?
- How can I ensure that my business stays relevant and profitable in the next five years?
Read more: Top 5 Organizational Imperatives for Business Leaders to Become Winners in the New Normal
2. Customer always comes first
As consumer needs keep evolving, you have to think of ways to meet the new supply and demand to stay relevant and competitive.
Social distancing due to the pandemic has left many businesses struggling—for instance, physical retail stores, manufacturers, automotive, banks, etc. Many product-based companies face significant issues related to manufacturing and distribution. Service-based companies are also suffering due to poor customer demands. In short, business models should be revamped so that they are immune to new challenges.
The pandemic has even changed customers’ needs and preferences.
One of the best ways is to engage in a conversation with your clients to identify opportunities. You could probably start by asking a probing question at the end of the conversation with your client. You may also conduct surveys or quarterly client advisory groups to follow a more formal process.
To stay relevant, you will have to prioritize customers’ needs and problems. It is imperative for future growth and innovation.
View Infographic: Business technologies to boost customer experience and satisfaction
3. Implement automation wherever possible
Working smarter means hiring and collaborating with the right talent. Encourage teamwork for removing the bottlenecks and hurdles. It will translate to more revenue with the available resources. Effective workplace collaboration will also boost your team’s morale and reduce lay-offs.
Leverage technology and systems to streamline your business and allow it to run smoothly. According to Gartner, by 2024, businesses will see a 30% reduction in their operational costs by combining hyper-automation technologies with redesigned operational processes.
Identify processes that can be automated and evaluate how automation will enhance your customer service and experience.
Read more: What Makes a Business Process Apt for Automation
Automation of repetitive, routine, and mundane tasks saves your workforce’s productive hours and spares them for more crucial tasks. Automation enhances your organizational efficiency and offsets growth investment.
4. Speed is the key to sustain in 2021
The pandemic has made companies rethink their conventional organizational models and pushed them to adopt new ways of working at speed. Flat structures empowering decision-making are replacing the traditional management-led hierarchies. It enables companies to perform with improved speed and precision. For instance, PepsiCo adopted newer working models to enable fast and easy access to their products during the pandemic. Within 30 days (from concept to execution), the company launched two direct-to-consumer (D2C) websites.
5. Adopt digital commerce
The pandemic has spurred digital commerce like never before. Deloitte’s 2020 holiday retail survey reports that contactless shopping experiences enjoyed a huge spike in demand during the holiday season last year. Over 73% of shoppers planned to have orders delivered to their doorsteps as against 62% in 2019.
Read More: Contactless Retail Delivery Software – How Retailers Can Revive Sales While Adhering To Social Distancing Norms
Companies should accelerate and optimize both B2B and B2C digital commerce channels by developing custom retail software solutions to enjoy the benefits of e-commerce sales and ROI.
As customers demand efficiency and speed, organizations must give precedence to customer experience to overcome competition.
In 2020, Adidas established itself as a top digital commerce player targeting $4.9 billion in online sales, almost 12% of their overall business. In the future, the company expects it to rise to 25%. Also, they were quick to recover from the pandemic impact with an increase in online sales during the lockdown.
Read more: 5 Transformative Trends Ushered by B2B E-commerce in Healthcare and Life Sciences
Fingent leverages innovative and emerging technologies to help digital retailers and e-commerce businesses
Fingent helps retailers build custom retail software solutions, e-commerce, and mobile commerce apps that help you deliver exceptional customer service and experience, just like your physical retail store. Fingent helps retailers and e-commerce brands develop Augmented Reality-based solutions that allow their customers to preview objects in 3D. Using AR technology, both online shoppers and in-store buyers can choose their preferred products without the hassle of buying the wrong ones. We enable companies with an e-commerce presence to build AR applications through web platforms (WEB AR), avoiding the need for separate mobile apps.
Read more: Technology Investments: How to gain maximum value?
6. Ensure customer data privacy and protection
Data transparency is imperative. With the rise in going digital, the total amount of data created, captured, and consumed will more than double by 2024 globally. A 2019 Factual survey reveals that more than 50% of the US smartphone users will be ready to share their geolocation details with a service provider only if they are aware of how the information will be used. When customers realize the benefits of sharing personal data, such as online behavior, shopping history, mobile app usage, or geolocation tracking and trust that their data will be protected, they will be more willing to share it.
Jersey Mike’s Subs, a US sandwich chain, has a transparent privacy policy that lets you know which customer data they collect and how it is stored and used. Approaches like these that give consumers clarity and control over their personal information will define personalization and enhance customer experience.
Consumer data privacy acts such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) aim at ensuring consumer privacy rights and data protection under the respective regional, state, and federal laws. These acts allow consumers in the respective regions to see all the information companies have saved on them and how the data will be protected and used.
We help ensure smooth business transformation in 2021
As we try to recover from the crisis, it is essential to consider what the future looks like for your business. Your organization must adopt new technologies, innovation, and new practices to ensure a smooth business transition. It also helps you meet the growing customer demands.
Reach out to us and let us help you accomplish a seamless business transition through modern technology adoption.
10 Services Offered by Fingent to Prepare Your Business for the Future of Digital Innovation
- Introduction
- Robotic Process Automation
- Business Continuity Planning
- Contactless Services
- Custom LMS | eLearning
- Business Process Re-engineering
- Reality Technologies
- Data Analytics
- Internet of Things
- Mobile Technologies
- Cloud Computing
- Innovation beyond digital transformation
Introduction
It’s been more than half a year since we started battling the global pandemic COVID-19. While it shows no sign of waning and continues to dwindle economies, business leaders are still exhibiting a streak of optimism. Thanks to digital technology and infrastructure!
The American management consulting firm McKinsey states that business executives expect profits and consumer demands to rise within the next six months. However, households across the globe have reduced their spending due to low income and savings. This poses a challenge for business sectors such as banking, retail, telecom, healthcare, and utilities. The organizations belonging to these sectors have to find new ways to support customers as well as preserve shareholder value in these ambivalent times.
Read more: Fingent’s response to COVID-19 business implications
In spite of several unsuccessful attempts to curb the virus spread, promising vaccine tests give us hope. The good news along with it is that businesses are managing to meet their urgent requirements and are optimistic for a time when all employees can return to work safely. Business leaders need to focus on supporting their employees by building up trust and providing clear communication.
If not anything, the pandemic has taught us the necessity of digital innovation and management. The business-as-usual approach is bound to fail in these difficult times. Business leaders have to make fast decisions, use technology in new and different ways to improve productivity and accelerate digital innovation. Organizations that embrace technology and new tools to reinvent business processes will see better results. This blog enlists 10 ways by which Fingent can help you re-engineer your business processes and overcome the challenges efficiently.
1. Robotic Process Automation
In light of what’s happening, the demand for automation has fundamentally increased simply because the business dynamics have changed in various industries. Since most employees have to work from home, repetitive and data-intensive processes could be handed over to Robotic Process Automation. Once employees are freed up from performing mundane tasks, they can concentrate on other important operations that require cognitive skills.
The payroll, onboarding and offboarding processes in HR can be automated using RPA technology. In the banking sector too, RPA bots can fasten activities such as loan application processing, account opening and make them error-free.
Read more: How HR and Banking Sectors can Benefit from RPA
Fingent combines technologies like Machine Learning and AI with RPA to design smarter processes for businesses. Our focus is on utilizing RPA software bots to enhance the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of business processes. We help companies to automate business processes by identifying areas that require automation, deploy the most appropriate tools, and provide the necessary maintenance and support.
2. Business Continuity Planning
A business continuity plan is crucial to ensure the effective recovery of organizations from a disaster. From conducting virtual site inspections to document collaboration to human resources and payroll management, Business Continuity Planning helps keep track of all your crucial tasks.
Fingent utilizes a wide range of technological frameworks like SAP, AWS, Microsoft technologies, public cloud services, and custom software solutions to help you come up with a strong business continuity plan. Our Business Continuity Planning (BCP) services enable you to make faster decisions, reduce costs, and retain customers. We help you create and implement a sustainable business model that allows you to keep pace with the rising customer demands.
Read more: How SAP Supports Effective Business Continuity Planning
3. Contactless Services
COVID-19 has changed customer behavior w.r.t what and how they buy. This shift has given rise to a demand for contactless services. The demand for smart deliveries, self-service facilities, and other technologies such as QR codes, mobile payments, tap-and-go are expected to rise.
Read more: Contactless Services: The New Normal in Retail
Maneuvering these challenging times may seem daunting. But Fingent can help you turn the tables with our innovation capabilities and technology consulting. We guide organizations to expand their existing set of offerings and capture new markets.
Fingent helps you bring your brick-and-mortar store online by developing highly responsive, secure, and scalable ecommerce CRM solutions, customize your existing application to integrate contactless payment features, configure new offers or discount codes and also helps you leverage AR/VR technologies that allow customers to view your project sites or prototypes.
4. Custom LMS Development | eLearning
According to a recent study, 42% of organizations in the US have increased their ROI through eLearning. Over 90% of students say that they prefer eLearning to classroom training- a trend created by the COVID-19 forced lockdowns. eLearning systems are highly beneficial in times of a global pandemic like COVID-19 to ensure uninterrupted learning.
Fingent helps schools, universities, colleges, educational institutions, NGOs, and training centers to develop customized LMS platforms that come with aptitude-based smart learning tools.
Read more: E-Learning Taking A New Front: How Can LMS Technology Help
5. Business Process Re-engineering
Business process re-engineering involves the fundamental rethinking and redesigning of processes to achieve significant improvements in performance, efficiency, and alignment of processes with organizational strategy. Fingent’s BPR services enable enterprises to revamp existing business processes to improve productivity, quality, and cycle time, especially during a crisis.
Here’s the difference that Fingent’s BPR brings to your table:
- Re-engineer and optimize your processes from the ground up
- Eliminate redundant processes and enhance workflow efficiency
- Coordinate and integrate multiple functions/ teams quickly
Business process reengineering offers nearly all benefits- increased revenue, improved customer service, reduced cost, higher employee retention, faster processing time. Though the risks are considerable, the crisis presents an opportunity for your business to build resilience and reshape your future roadmap by leveraging BPR.
Read more: Business Process Re-engineering: Facing Crisis with Confidence
6. Reality Technologies
The latest advancements in Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality technologies are helping businesses explore new ways to reach customers and take their innovation efforts to the next level. Perkins Coie LLP reports healthcare and medical devices as one of the top potential growth areas for AR and VR technologies. Visual-based immersive learning experiences, virtual events and conferences, virtual showings and site tours, etc. ensure sustainability, safety, and remote collaboration.
Fingent helps accelerate your move to new and emerging technologies such as Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality.
Read our case study: The Future of Communication and Security Using Augmented Reality
7. Data Analytics
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted supply chains and has brought about dramatic changes in customer behavior. Given the current volatility, it is nearly impossible to track real-time changes in consumer mannerisms and aptly respond to them. Fingent offers Predictive Analytics from SAP as well as other data analytics solution providers that can help you detect hidden trends and make quick decisions.
Sectors such as healthcare, retail, sports, insurance use predictive analysis in various ways. Fingent’s data analytics services guide you towards increased ROI by turning data into valuable insights.
8. Internet of Things
Business executives believe that the disruption brought on by COVID-19 will cause an increase in the demand for IoT devices. Robust 5G networks are necessary to realize the power of IoT. Join forces with Fingent to leverage the benefits of IoT in your business. Gear up for IoT with our vast portfolio of technologies that can help you create new IoT processes and manage your devices. We provide customized IoT services to meet your unique business needs. Our cloud-based IoT data management solutions help you gather insights from your IoT data.
9. Mobile Technologies
As stay-at-home and social distancing are the new norms, mobile technologies can keep business running. At Fingent, we utilize leading mobile technologies to support businesses. Being scalable and secure, our mobile solutions deliver value to your customers.
So you want to build an app, but don’t know how to get on with it? While finding the right mobile app development company may seem an obvious answer, you first need to get your requirements on paper. Fingent offers a mobile app specification template that can help you define the scope and functionalities of your app. This erases ambiguity in the development process and keeps all stakeholders on the same page.
Click here to download our free mobile app specification template!
10. Cloud Computing
The Cloud has proved to be a lifesaver for businesses whose offices are closed and employees are scattered across various locations. Those who were skeptical of the Cloud are now changing their opinions and have come to benefit from the flexibility that it offers.
Fingent’s expertise in cloud architecture models has helped many organizations realize their goals. With our proficiency in various cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, IBM, and Google we aim to make organizations flexible and agile. We also provide cost-effective cloud application development solutions that can be easily implemented in your current infrastructure and tailored to suit user requirements.
Innovation beyond digital transformation
As the pandemic seems to gather strength, organizations scramble to find ways to keep business running. Business leaders have to prepare for recovery by supporting their staff, establishing effective communication, and balancing costs. If nothing else, these turbulent times have brought to light the significance of digital transformation. By resorting to innovative digital technologies like the ones mentioned above, businesses can reinvent themselves and keep going.
Read more: 7 Ways for Your Business to Overcome the COVID-19 Aftermath
We at Fingent focus on supporting businesses by equipping them with these smart technologies to ensure business continuity. Leveraging smart technologies, Fingent can help you understand the pulse of your customers and make the necessary changes in your business models. It has become increasingly clear that given the serious health implications on people returning to work, creating a post-pandemic organization would take longer than earlier perceived. Companies have to seize this opportunity to build new capabilities like remote work environments, virtual collaboration, automation, eLearning, eCommerce, and so on.
Our business solutions have already helped various industrial sectors solve problems and eventually succeed. Fingent can help you capitalize on this opportunity to create a digital innovation strategy. Contact us to know more.
How SAP Solutions Help with Business Continuity Challenges
Every organization needs a business continuity plan to carry out its critical business as usual, especially when the area where it operates is affected by a crisis like COVID-19. That’s where enterprise resource and business planning suites like SAP comes to your rescue. SAP solutions are designed to help you meet your business continuity goals and ensure that your establishment survives and recovers from a disaster efficiently.
“SAP Help Portal describes business continuity as the efforts to ensure that critical business functions will be continuously available for clients, customers, suppliers, and other entities.”
Business continuity planning, however, is not free of challenges. Varying business requirements can shoot up your investment costs. Consider scenarios such as the installation and maintenance of hardware, software, and data center infrastructure. A simple and cost-effective way to address these requirements will be to use efficient cloud computing solutions instead of massive physical servers. This is where SAP solutions can come handy. SAP Cloud Platform, SAP S/4HANA, SAP Cloud Analytics, SAP Leonardo, SAP Cloud Platform Internet of Things, etc. are only a few of the key services offered by SAP.
How SAP Solutions Help with Business Continuity Challenges
SAP is an efficient technological framework that can be easily incorporated into your existing business structure to maximize the productivity of your business functions. This helps boost the overall growth of your establishment.
SAP offers impressive ways to manage your clients, customers, and business interactions. With the right SAP solutions, you can fast-track and automate your routine processes and dedicate your skilled workforce to attend the core functions. Minimal workforce retention and lower equipment maintenance costs are two of the key benefits of deploying SAP into your business.
Related Reading: What is Business Process Expertise in SAP and Why You Need it
You will gain a high degree of flexibility by integrating SAP in your business structure. This way, you can adjust to the existing as well as imminent changes in the industry smoothly. That helps your establishment to adapt and evolve as per the varying market trends. By storing massive amounts of data on the cloud, you can also significantly reduce the operational and management costs of your business.
Business continuity plans can be very complicated to employ and execute. Traditional ways of managing the recovery infrastructure and testing the solutions can be very challenging and time-consuming. With reliable SAP solutions, all that can be managed flawlessly.
Below are some examples of how SAP solutions can help to solve different business continuity challenges.
Identifying Alternative Sources of Supply
Maintaining the supply chain is one of the most critical aspects to ensure efficient business continuity. Using SAP Ariba allows you to create smart connections with your suppliers so that you can communicate and collaborate with them adequately. The spend management solutions of SAP Ariba also ensure that your business is responsive and responsible, no matter what the crisis is.
SAP Ariba solutions help simplify the procurement and supply chain processes. It enables you to find new sources of supply for better management of your resources in the event of a disaster. At the same time, you can find profitable customers too, and scale your client relationships for superior sales cycles and cash control.
Financial Modeling and Managing Cash Flow
Financial modeling is key to make certain that your business continuity plans are authoritative and adequate. With the help of SAP S/4HANA Finance solution, you can easily manage your financial planning and accounting jobs. The ERP system also allows you to use real-time operational data and end-to-end planning for avoiding redundancy and time lags.
SAP S/4HANA Finance solution also supports accounts payable and receivable, so that you can keep an eye on the cash flow as well as create ad hoc simulations to see new business models or organizational changes. The treasury and financial risk management solutions of the ERP system allow you to integrate cash flow analysis and business planning, including the liquidity planning lifecycle. This is highly beneficial for effective accounts management.
Related Reading: SAP S/4HANA: Redefining End-to-End Solution
Employee Training and Certifications
Staff involvement is another vital element of a successful business continuity plan. However, holding a meeting to train and educate your staff members on the essentials of the business continuity and disaster management plans may not be possible always. This is where SAP SuccessFactors Learning Management System (LMS) emerges as a productive alternative. The online learning solution can simplify the process and adequately instruct your employees about the business continuity plan.
SAP SuccessFactors LMS can make sure that everyone is on the same page through proper training and emphasis on critical business functions. You can create easy-to-understand content for your employees and incorporate personalized and innovative elements to help them get a clear idea of the business continuity plan. You can also manage certifications and documents easily using the LMS software.
Download Our Case Study: Check out how Fingent automated integration between SAP SuccessFactors and SAP S/4HANA.
With a robust business continuity plan laid out using the right SAP solutions, you can have all the critical business data secured and accessible. This helps you recover from the disaster quickly and manage important business functions without affecting your customers or business reputation.
Fingent helps enterprises to frame robust business continuity plans leveraging SAP, S/4, and intelligent enterprise platforms. Our team includes members who are part of SAP’s core engineering team, who can provide consulting, advisory, implementation, integration, support, and monitoring services to ensure business continuity. Get in touch with us to learn more about our services.