TECHNOLOGY

Which Metric is More Valuable for Your Business?

Published

4 months ago

August 4, 2023

Real-Time Data or Delayed Insights: Which Metric is More Valuable for Your Business?

Which would you say is a better option: Having immediate access to information, or waiting a week, a month, or maybe even a whole year?

Do you want to know what is happening to your business as it happens, or long after it has affected you and your team?

While there is value in analyzing information later to get a more comprehensive picture, there is far more value in knowing what is happening as it happens, to make quick decisions based on information fully accessible in the moment! Fortunately, this possibility is becoming more likely, thanks to the rapid acceleration of real-time data collected via Edge Computing!

Real-time data refers to information delivered promptly to users immediately after collection. In today’s digital landscape, mere access to real-time data is insufficient; its effective utilization is crucial in all aspects of business processes to maintain competitiveness and foster an anticipatory approach. Consequently, businesses must transform into real-time organizations to leverage the benefits of real-time data access.

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We live in the present, which is where the benefit of real-time data collection and application occurs. This means organizations can shift to operating in real time by analyzing data-driven insights now to leverage them in many ways. These include delivering better customer service, turning around their inventory, and most importantly, better anticipating challenges and disruptions in the marketplace before they occur — a cornerstone to my Hard Trend Methodology and pre-solving problems.

Use Real-Time Data for a Better Customer Experience

Why, exactly, should your organization or any others in a specific industry become real-time organizations?

Certainly, nobody ever expresses gratitude for experiencing headaches, nor do they dismiss the importance of effective communication with customers. Proactively addressing issues before they escalate is the wiser approach, preventing setbacks that may arise. This becomes even more achievable when you possess complete access to data, streamlining the process of problem-solving.

A logistics company can strategize new routes before a winter storm hits, and still make their deadlines. A retailer can identify items that are in short supply before stock runs out. A financial advisor can day-trade based on up-to-date information for better results. A manufacturer can diagnose potential machine failures before they cause downtime and missed deadlines.

No matter the industry, the goal with real-time data is a customer-focused one, first and foremost. Because your processes will be efficient and more immediate in delivering results of any kind, your customers will in turn be happier. Essentially, instead of being proactive in solving a problem after it disrupts you, you are being pre-active in solving future events!

Generate Sales with Real-Time Data

How about connecting with potential sales leads or new customers? The data that a real-time organization collects provides enough up-to-date information on demand to facilitate a more effective marketing and sales team.

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At its core, “sales” means locating customers’ needs and interests, and leveraging them to introduce them to a product or service that satiates those needs and interests. Recent studies show that the human attention span is around 8 seconds, but you’d better believe that, with the immediacy of digital connectivity, a Hard Trend future certainty is that it will get shorter.

Therefore, sales and marketing strategies are most effective when needs and interests are addressed with a level of immediacy.

Examples in our world today include everything from YouTube offering related videos based on what a viewer just watched, all the way to retail sites like Amazon giving users suggestions on related products, based on what they just put in your cart. How can this concept be leveraged for your organization and industry?

When you anticipate customer needs as they occur, you are meeting that immediacy your customers have with a better, more immediate, experience.

The Cross-Section of Automation and Real-Time Analytics

As essential as real-time data and analytics are to the health and success of organizations, they may appear to be difficult to implement, especially if you are in a more niche industry, or are a B2B company.

For starters, the sheer amount of data that can be accumulated today is unfathomable to many, and, truth be told, not all of it is useful. It would take teams of dedicated data experts to analyze all the data that just one organization can collect, and by the time they give their findings to key decision-makers, it would no longer be real time.

Can we find a simple method to sort through this vast information and utilize it effectively?

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Enter Continuous Intelligence (CI), an amalgamation of real-time analytics, machine learning, and automation. CI harnesses the power of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automatically process both historical and real-time data sets, providing actionable insights and recommendations. This transformative technology collaborates with you and your team, adopting an anticipatory approach.

As CI programs become more prominent, we are finding that they can be applied to any industry and any department for more informed actions. This includes supply chain companies, the manufacturing industry, healthcare, sales — you name it!

Let’s take the Wildlife Insights program from the Zoological Society of London and the World Wide Fund for Nature.

Wildlife Insights uses ML to analyze camera trap data for streamlined decisions to help wildlife. The technology raises alerts to potential poaching, identifies wildlife patterns and threats, and predicts population changes. With CI, Wildlife Insights is really changing the game for wildlife preservation.

The Real-Time Necessity

Arguably, there is evident high value in having market-based information available for all organizations looking to make the shift from being agile and reactionary to Anticipatory and, ultimately, a positive disruptor.

But turning your business into a real-time organization will not happen overnight. It is an evolutionary process that requires companies to be both agile and Anticipatory. The first step is to know your goals. Whether you want to enhance your brand, improve customer trust in your product or service, increase sales, or expand in general, you need to understand where you want to go.

Then, just start small. With the rapid acceleration of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS), access to CI applications will become more prevalent so you can keep your focus on the human side of this digital revolution — implementing the analytics of data to achieve your goals.

With the increase in software applications like CI, ML, AI, and various autonomous technologies, plus the increasing datafication of all industries, the need to make informed decisions quickly will be essential to staying competitive as conditions can change in an instant.

The question has become: Can you afford not to become a real-time organization?

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TECHNOLOGY

HCLTech and Cisco create collaborative hybrid workplaces

Published

1 hour ago

November 29, 2023

Max

Digital comms specialist Cisco and global tech firm HCLTech have teamed up to launch Meeting-Rooms-as-a-Service (MRaaS).

Available on a subscription model, this solution modernises legacy meeting rooms and enables users to join meetings from any meeting solution provider using Webex devices.

The MRaaS solution helps enterprises simplify the design, implementation and maintenance of integrated meeting rooms, enabling seamless collaboration for their globally distributed hybrid workforces.

Rakshit Ghura, senior VP and Global head of digital workplace services, HCLTech, said: “MRaaS combines our consulting and managed services expertise with Cisco’s proficiency in Webex devices to change the way employees conceptualise, organise and interact in a collaborative environment for a modern hybrid work model.

“The common vision of our partnership is to elevate the collaboration experience at work and drive productivity through modern meeting rooms.”

Alexandra Zagury, VP of partner managed and as-a-Service Sales at Cisco, said: “Our partnership with HCLTech helps our clients transform their offices through cost-effective managed services that support the ongoing evolution of workspaces.

“As we reimagine the modern office, we are making it easier to support collaboration and productivity among workers, whether they are in the office or elsewhere.”

Cisco’s Webex collaboration devices harness the power of artificial intelligence to offer intuitive, seamless collaboration experiences, enabling meeting rooms with smart features such as meeting zones, intelligent people framing, optimised attendee audio and background noise removal, among others.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, HCLTech, Hybrid, meetings

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TECHNOLOGY

Canonical releases low-touch private cloud MicroCloud

Published

15 hours ago

November 28, 2023

Max

Canonical has announced the general availability of MicroCloud, a low-touch, open source cloud solution. MicroCloud is part of Canonical’s growing cloud infrastructure portfolio.

It is purpose-built for scalable clusters and edge deployments for all types of enterprises. It is designed with simplicity, security and automation in mind, minimising the time and effort to both deploy and maintain it. Conveniently, enterprise support for MicroCloud is offered as part of Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro subscription, with several support tiers available, and priced per node.

MicroClouds are optimised for repeatable and reliable remote deployments. A single command initiates the orchestration and clustering of various components with minimal involvement by the user, resulting in a fully functional cloud within minutes. This simplified deployment process significantly reduces the barrier to entry, putting a production-grade cloud at everyone’s fingertips.

Juan Manuel Ventura, head of architectures & technologies at Spindox, said: “Cloud computing is not only about technology, it’s the beating heart of any modern industrial transformation, driving agility and innovation. Our mission is to provide our customers with the most effective ways to innovate and bring value; having a complexity-free cloud infrastructure is one important piece of that puzzle. With MicroCloud, the focus shifts away from struggling with cloud operations to solving real business challenges” says

In addition to seamless deployment, MicroCloud prioritises security and ease of maintenance. All MicroCloud components are built with strict confinement for increased security, with over-the-air transactional updates that preserve data and roll back on errors automatically. Upgrades to newer versions are handled automatically and without downtime, with the mechanisms to hold or schedule them as needed.

With this approach, MicroCloud caters to both on-premise clouds but also edge deployments at remote locations, allowing organisations to use the same infrastructure primitives and services wherever they are needed. It is suitable for business-in-branch office locations or industrial use inside a factory, as well as distributed locations where the focus is on replicability and unattended operations.

Cedric Gegout, VP of product at Canonical, said: “As data becomes more distributed, the infrastructure has to follow. Cloud computing is now distributed, spanning across data centres, far and near edge computing appliances. MicroCloud is our answer to that.

“By packaging known infrastructure primitives in a portable and unattended way, we are delivering a simpler, more prescriptive cloud experience that makes zero-ops a reality for many Industries.“

MicroCloud’s lightweight architecture makes it usable on both commodity and high-end hardware, with several ways to further reduce its footprint depending on your workload needs. In addition to the standard Ubuntu Server or Desktop, MicroClouds can be run on Ubuntu Core – a lightweight OS optimised for the edge. With Ubuntu Core, MicroClouds are a perfect solution for far-edge locations with limited computing capabilities. Users can choose to run their workloads using Kubernetes or via system containers. System containers based on LXD behave similarly to traditional VMs but consume fewer resources while providing bare-metal performance.

Coupled with Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro + Support subscription, MicroCloud users can benefit from an enterprise-grade open source cloud solution that is fully supported and with better economics. An Ubuntu Pro subscription offers security maintenance for the broadest collection of open-source software available from a single vendor today. It covers over 30k packages with a consistent security maintenance commitment, and additional features such as kernel livepatch, systems management at scale, certified compliance and hardening profiles enabling easy adoption for enterprises. With per-node pricing and no hidden fees, customers can rest assured that their environment is secure and supported without the expensive price tag typically associated with cloud solutions.

Tags: automation, Canonical, MicroCloud, private cloud

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TECHNOLOGY

AWS and SoftwareOne collaborate on RISE with SAP

Published

7 days ago

November 22, 2023

Max

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and SoftwareOne Holding AG, a global provider of end-to-end software and cloud technology solutions, have partnered to help customers transition to RISE with SAP on an AWS cloud environment.

Called the Ready for RISE on AWS bundle, it combines SoftwareOne’s deep SAP advisory and implementation knowledge with AWS technologies to expedite a client’s SAP transformation journey.

The collaboration comes at a time when there is growing pressure on organisations to decide how to modernise their SAP environments driven in part by the end of mainstream support for SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) in 2027. Despite the imminent deadline, many organisations are still confused as to which path to take, including when to adopt RISE with SAP, SAP’s bundled offering of cloud solutions, infrastructure, and services that helps migrate SAP ERP to the cloud.

Ireneusz Hołowacz, Director of Application Development Center at GAVDI Polska, said: “A stable, efficient, and cost-effective environment for consultants and programmers is one of the most important priorities of our daily work. Thanks to the migration of our SAP systems to the AWS cloud with the help of SoftwareOne, GAVDI Polska has achieved all the goals set for this process.

In a survey recently conducted by SoftwareOne with Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG) – the full details of which will be revealed in January 2024 – showed that while 42% of respondents were familiar with RISE with SAP, 40% had heard of it but weren’t familiar with the details and 18% had never heard of it. Over half (52%) said they were still unsure how RISE with SAP would impact their existing relationship with cloud service providers.

“SAP customers have implemented some of the most comprehensive and complex enterprise systems in the industry and moving them to cloud services like AWS requires many important decisions to be made to optimise these investments,” says Joshua Greenbaum, Principal at EAC. “SoftwareOne’s extensive experience in the SAP ecosystem, combined with its unique capabilities around system rationalisation, cost containment, contracts and licenses, and cloud service management, among others, will provide customers deploying on AWS with the ability to make the most of RISE on SAP and other SAP offerings. Ready for RISE on AWS is an important offering for SAP customers at this critical moment in their business transformations.”

The Ready for RISE on AWS bundle will help clients understand their SAP transformation options and offer a comprehensive solution to organisations who consider RISE with SAP. It includes advisory data preparation, conversion services, data and AI, cloud innovation platform, supporting the entire journey to RISE on AWS. Clients will benefit from accelerated Return on Investment (ROI), optimal data management, and cost-saving strategies while laying the foundation for ongoing innovation and long-term business success.

Matt Schwartz, worldwide director, SAP Alliance & Partner Network at AWS, said: “As a valued AWS Premier Consulting Partner, AWS is working closely with SoftwareOne to offer SAP customers comprehensive assistance through each step of their journey to RISE with SAP on AWS. SoftwareOne’s ability to bundle Advisory, Data & AI, Cloud Platform, and Operations considerations can be of high interest to customers who are seeking to understand RISE with SAP as well as the cloud native and operation considerations that surround and support the RISE with SAP construct.”

PF Grillet, SAP Business Lead at SoftwareOne, said: “There are many choices available to SAP clients who know they need to modernise but aren’t sure of the best option, particularly given the business-critical nature of the applications.

“All of our services are centered around our customers and what is right for them. This includes supporting and optimising RISE with SAP in scenarios when it’s the right decision based on their requirements. Our extensive knowledge of and relationship with AWS means we can help them better prepare and achieve a seamless transition to S/4HANA using RISE with SAP on AWS with reduced costs and risks. This collaboration goes beyond preparing businesses for change; it’s making transformation and becoming innovation-ready a reality using AWS technologies.”

The offering includes SNP tooling to reduce a customer’s data footprint and accelerate migration. SoftwareOne will migrate selected data to an AWS data lake, accelerate innovation readiness and ensure SAP data is suitable for broader data analytics and AI use cases. Clients gain access to innovative tools like AWS’ Sagemaker for Machine Learning, continuous data management and optimisation within the AWS environment. The AWS innovation platform also includes Amazon Bedrock that helps organisations accelerate adapting Large Language Models and deploying GenAI use cases that leverage the extended data set.

“While the future innovation opportunities are exciting, clients need to balance these with a pragmatic approach to costs,” explained Marilyn Moodley, Country Leader for South Africa and WECA at SoftwareOne, “We integrate ‘Cost-Out’ recommendations into the core of our services, providing a more cost-effective solution for customers, like reducing the data footprint size and optimising storage and archiving.

“Our expertise in the complexities of SAP licensing further drives cost savings while our FinOps capabilities enable customers to optimise their AWS cloud spend and effectively manage their AWS cloud environment, ensuring full transparency in their budgets. The overall result is a significantly reduced time for RISE migration, which translates into a quicker time to value.”

Tags: AWS, partnership, SAP, SoftwareOne, transition

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