The 10 Most Customer Centric Companies in 2019

Vol.03 | Issue 08

March 2019

The

10

Most

ustomer- entric Companies in 2019

Industry Trends Key POS Trends Reshaping the Retail Sector

Market Dashboard Social Media Marketing for Pharma Industry

David Evans Joint CEO

Collinson Enabling Clients to Deliver Smarter and Improved Customer Experiences

E Reinventing Customer Experience Using Available Resources

M

aking a company customer-centric is not as easy as flipping a switch. Established processes, routines and approaches are sometimes barriers to that change. Those companies which don’t adapt themselves according to the increasing needs, demands and expectations of the customers will perish eventually.

Identifying the needs of customers and delivering best possible solutions according to their expectations is the need of the time. Customer- centric companies should utilize the organizational talents, skills, abilities, resources, and latest technologies to meet the evolving needs of the customers. A company that utilizes its best possible resources to create a personalized experience for its customers is likely to stand the test of time.

However, customers nowadays expect from the companies to approach them - and to give them a productive, pleasant, and personalized experience that makes them feel good about them. Smart organizations respond to trending customer expectations by putting customers in the center, engaging them using various ways, and focusing on customer service and satisfaction.

The company that is genuinely customer-centric today uses current technological trends to reinvent the customer experience.

Businesses now have the ability to guess customer behavior on the basis of their past experiences and purchases, and to use that data to deliver services according to their individual likings and interests.

However, without good data it is more difficult to consistently enhance the customer experience. Surveys and anecdotal feedbacks from customers is not enough to improve the customer experience, it is essential to analyze entire experience of customers over time.

Technologies amplify service of customers in a very positive way. There are many technologies that can be used to improve customer experience. These technologies predominantly include Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT) etc. These technologies have the potential to help companies understand uniqueness of different customers to ensure every customer gets personalized services.

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Utilizing the organizational talents, skills, abilities, resources, and evolving technologies is critical to deliver the pleasant customer experiences.

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Sharad chitalkar Tapping the power of these technologies is an important part of improving customer satisfaction. Customer centric companies should also aim to have good touch with customers through various platforms.

With keeping customers satisfied being the primary goal of organizations, they need to equip their employees with right training and tools to be able to use various technologies to achieve it. Having intelligent and resourceful employees is the hallmark of any organization in creating pleasant customer experiences.

In the future, the companies that will flourish will be those which would be able to give customers exactly what they want, the way in which they want it, when they want it- even before customers know what they want.

Recognizing the renowned customer-centric companies, Insights Success has enlisted “The 10 Most Customer-Centric Companies in 2019.”

Featuring as our Cover Story is a notable Customer Centric Company named Collinson. What gives Collinson the edge in serving consumers is its rich heritage, unique experience and cross-sector expertise gained over three decades working across the travel, commercial banking, retail, insurance and assistance sectors. Through directly servicing over 50 million of its own end customers as well as the millions of its clients’ consumers, Collinson has unique insight into digitally-engaged mass affluent travelers and mid to high net worth consumers, conducting on-going research with clients and end consumers, to understand their ever-changing needs, attitudes and behaviors.

Also, make sure to flip through articles, written by our in-house editorial team as well as CXO standpoints of notable industry personalities to have a brief taste of the sector.

Let’s start reading!

Contents Cover Story

COLLINSON Enabling Clients to Deliver Smarter and Improved Customer Experiences

08

Insider’s Insight Using Big Data and AI to Communicate When Seconds Count

26

Maestros Insights AI: From ArtiďŹ cial to Authentic

38

Articles

22

32

42

Industry Trends

Market Dashboard

Agri Tech

Key POS Trends Reshaping the Retail Sector

Social Media Marketing for Pharma Industry

Agriculture Biotechnology: Revolutionizing Agriculture Process Globally

18

46 Celerant Technology Enabling Retailers to Manage Entire Business Efficiently

20 Reveal Group

EPI-USE Labs

Unveiling Business Potential through Unrivaled Robotic Process Automation

Improving Performance

by Leveraging SAP Systems

The

2019

40 Flutura InterSystems

Improving Two Core Business Objectives of “Asset Uptime” and “Operational Efficiency”

Seamless Solutions for Connectable Applications

30 HarrisData Delivering Adept Solutions for Business Management

36

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Executive Editor Sharad chitalkar

Managing Editor Anish Miller

Assistant Editors Jenny Fernandes Hitesh Dhamani

Visualizer

Art & Design Director

Associate Designer

David King

Amol Kamble

Nagesh Tembhekar

Senior Sales Manager Co-designer

Co-designer Rahul Kavanekar

Business Development Manager

Passi D.

Peter Collins

Marketing Manager

Sales Executives

John Matthew

David, Kevin, Mark, Vaibhav

Technical Head

Business Development Executives

Jacob Smile

Steve, Joe, Alan, Tushar

Technical Specialist Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager Marry D'Souza

SME-SMO Executive Prashant Chevale

Research Analyst Patrick James

Database Management Stella Andrew

Circulation Manager Robert Brown

Technology Consultant David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com March, 2019 Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.com

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The

2019

Cover Story

Enabling Clients to Deliver Smarter and Improved Customer Experiences

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Collinson's solutions drive more profitable customer relationships, enrich their travel experiences, protect what matters and assist in times of need.

David Evans Joint CEO

n an interview with Insights Success, the Joint CEO of Collinson, David Evans, shares important insights showcasing the valuable contribution of the organization and its journey in delivering loyalty solutions and travel experiences, insurance and assistance globally.

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simple philosophy: to deliver smarter customer experiences that say ‘a brand knows me, cares about me and will go that extra mile’. We will maintain our lead by continuing to invest in our people and recruit talent that enables us to develop relevant, interesting products and services for our clients and their customers.

Below are highlights from the interview conducted between David Evans and Insights Success:

Our continued success also comes from harnessing the entrepreneurial spirit that has been at our heart since we were founded and learning from running successful brands in our own right. These include Priority Pass™, recognized today by consumers worldwide as the original, independent airport experiences program, as well as our loyalty business, which grew from the anticipation that companies would need to balance their focus on acquiring new customers, and understanding who they are so that they could better deliver against their needs.

Give us a brief overview of your company and its vision towards maintaining its lead in the market.

We are a global leader in customer benefits and loyalty and have spent the last 30 years enabling many of the world’s best-known brands to acquire, engage and retain the most profitable, but also most demanding customers. We have done this by offering a diverse set of travel, insurance and assistance products that differentiate our clients’ value propositions, and loyalty solutions to help them win deeper, more valuable customer relationships.

Our passion for putting our clients’ needs first, has helped us to grow our customer base over the years and we are now the chosen partner for the world’s leading payment networks, over 600 banks, 90 airlines, 20 hotel groups and top retail companies globally, generating over $1billion of revenue. Some of our clients include Air France KLM, American Express, Cathay Pacific, Chase, Hackett, Hilton, MasterCard, Radisson Hotel Group, RSA, Sephora, UnionPay, Vhi and Visa.

Whilst we operate across a number of sectors, geographies and different revenue models, we are driven by a

How do you diversify your organization’s customer-centric approach in order to benefit your clientele?

We know that in today’s competitive business environment consumers expect to be treated as individuals and rewarded for their loyalty. As technology continues to advance and consumer expectations increase, the customer experience is and will continue to be, the key brand differentiator.

What gives Collinson the edge is our rich heritage, unique experience and cross-sector expertise gained over three decades working across the travel, commercial banking, retail, insurance and assistance sectors.

Through directly servicing over 50

million of our own end customers – as well as the millions of our clients’ consumers – we have unique insight into the digitally — engaged mass affluent traveler and mid to high net worth consumer, conducting ongoing research with our clients and end consumers to understand their everchanging needs, attitudes and behaviors.

We ensure that customer data sits at the heart of our approach as this provides the opportunity to deliver more meaningful, personalized interactions at every stage of the customer journey. Understanding factors like who the customer is, what their preferences are, and how their behavior can be influenced, are key to a customer-centric approach.

Everything that we do is about enabling our clients to deliver smarter and improved experiences to their customers, which differentiates them from their competitors and helps them win and keep their customers. We do this to help them deepen engagement with their customers through loyalty and reward solutions, to enriching their travel journey through the airport, or from insuring and protecting their interests when travelling, and providing medical and security assistance in their times of need.

Describe the lessons that have shaped the journey of your company.

Customer needs continually change – to stay relevant you need to really understand them in order to fulfill their needs.

Spot the opportunities – the idea for Priority Pass came about after my father was frequently traveling and

“ David Evans Joint CEO

Despite our fast growth, we've been mindful to hang on to the agility and flexibility that comes with being a private company.

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Christopher Evans Joint CEO

unable to access the exclusive airline lounges that premium-class ticket holders could.

Embrace diversity as it’s the key to working globally – nobody thinks exactly the same, so working with a variety of people with differing ideas, perspectives and experiences drives creativity and performance. This is true for our clients and staff which are diverse and inspiring.

Put consumer insight at the heart – by understanding what motivates consumers, we can encourage long-term relationships based not on convenience or habit, but on emotional connection and with experiences that are too good to miss.

Retain entrepreneurial agility and thinking – despite our fast growth, we’ve been mindful to hang on to the agility and flexibility that comes with being a private company.

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Technology powers so much of our best customer experiences – it’s not enough to understand customers’ wants, you need to deliver a consistent omnichannel

Understanding factors like who the customer is, what their preferences are, and how their behavior can be influenced, are key to a customer-centric approach.

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experience across touch points in a way that works for customers. In 2019, this means smooth, seamless digitalfirst delivery.

Be a partner to your clients – we have some amazing long-standing relationships with our clients, which are as much about anticipating their needs and what they are looking to achieve.

Challenge yourself to keep listening, adapting and evolving – we’re continually looking to develop to ensure that we continue to meet the ever changing needs and expectations of tomorrow.

Loyalty must be a fundamental part of business strategy – it’s much more than just a points program, it’s the ability to understand and engage customers in a meaningful way.

How does your company contribute towards making the business better across the industry, and what are your personal inputs for the same?

Having previously been a collection of companies operating under a holding company structure, we recently took the exciting step of bringing the group of companies together as a single entity, Collinson. We did this to make it easier for our clients to access the full range of services and solutions we offer across our four divisions: loyalty, travel experiences, insurance and assistance.

This joined up approach leverages the best of our people, products, platforms and global relationships, making it much easier for clients to access the breadth of our experience to help solve their business challenges. This also benefits our technology partners and clients, as we all work towards the common goal of enhancing the customer experience.

Give a detailed explanation regarding your role, influence and your future visions towards the organization?

As Joint CEO of Collinson alongside my brother, I’m responsible for leading the regional execution of the company’s global strategy. This entails driving regional performance in line with local requirements, while remaining true to our entrepreneurial spirit and global vision.

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The Club MCO, Orlando FL International (Terminal B Concourse 4), available to Priority Pass Members

I am also responsible for supporting the team across our people and culture function to ensure we support the needs of an ever mobile and diverse workforce.

Given the increasingly complex and competitive business landscape and disruptions by new business models and evolving technology, you have to make sure that you are a creative and solutions-led thinker, able to juggle multiple disciplines. At the same time, it is important to remain thoughtful and respectful for those helping you build and grow the company, because without the help of our talented staff, the business wouldn’t be what it is today.

Does Collinson envision any kind of mergers, acquisitions or expansion with regards to both personnel as well as business?

Collinson has innovated for over 30 years and seen phenomenal progress through a combination of strong organic growth, as well as strategic acquisition and reinvestment. Being privately owned gives us the stability and ability to make long-term decisions.

In September last year, we announced our investment in Grab – an airport e-commerce platform providing mobile order-ahead capabilities at airports across the UK and US. It enables travelers to skip the queue, while for airport food and beverage and retail providers it increases the potential customer base. This provides significant opportunity across our business and solutions, as well for our clients and the experience they can provide to their customers.

We take a customerfirst approach that's underpinned by robust, data-driven commercial models.

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The Club MCO, Orlando FL International (Terminal B Concourse 4), available to Priority Pass Members

We also continue to develop existing and new strategic partnerships to further enhance what we offer to clients, leveraging long-term partnerships with third parties, including card issuers, retail banks, processers and technology companies. We have a clear roadmap for developing our travel experiences platform, as well as our loyalty solutions which combine proprietary technology and expertise and we continually utilize best in-class partners and consider potential acquisitions to achieve our vision of providing consumers with a smarter experience that enhances their lives.

Express, Hilton, Cathay Pacific and Vhi. Furthermore, we look to leverage the global breadth of partnerships that Collinson has, both within airports and through our loyalty division.

We will continue to grow our own expertise with the development of products, services and solutions, crossselling into new and existing clients and expanding into new geographies and increasing our global presence.

We are extremely proud to have won many awards over the years. Most recently, we ranked tenth in Britain’s top-250 private mid-market growth companies in the Sunday Times Grant Thornton Top Track 250.

Furthermore, our Chairman and Founder, Colin Evans, was also named Loyalty Magazine’s Loyalty Personality of the Year award in 2017.

Considering the rising number of customer-driven strategies, how does Collinson focus on sustaining its competency?

We pride ourselves on being a customer benefits and loyalty company like no other – global, privately-owned and family-run.

Our company’s roots and understanding of the mass affluent traveler and mid to high net worth consumers allows us to adopt a strategic approach combining our years of customer motivation and loyalty expertise with proprietary tools to develop a custom-made customer engagement proposition for our clients.

We value our long-standing relationships. On the client side, we’re proud to have partnered with a number for over ten years, including MasterCard, Visa, American

We take a customer-first approach that’s underpinned by robust, data-driven commercial models. We understand the importance of data analytics and modeling to improve customer understanding and offer more tailored and personalized experiences, through our proven loyalty and customer benefit solutions.

About the Company What gives Collinson the edge in serving consumers is its rich heritage, unique experience and cross-sector expertise gained over three decades working across the travel, commercial banking, retail, insurance and assistance sectors. Through directly servicing over 50 million of its own end customers as well as the millions of its clients’ consumers, Collinson has unique insight into digitally-engaged mass affluent travelers and mid to high net worth consumers, conducting on-going research with clients and end consumers, to understand their everchanging needs, attitudes and behaviors.

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Celerant Technology: Enabling Retailers to Manage Entire Business Efficiently

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oday all retailers seek to manage all aspects of their business from a single platform to improve effectiveness and efficiency.

With humble beginnings, Celerant Technology was built from scratch to help retailers manage every component of their business in a single platform.

From its very first line of code to its most recent software updates, its goal has always been to put the power of scalable enterprise class technology in the hands of all retailers with userfriendly interfaces at accessible price points. Through strategic partnerships, forward-thinking decisions, hard work and a passion for technology, it has grown into an experienced software company, serving thousands of retailers, ready to change the way people do business. It has recently started its 20th year serving the retail industry and helping retailers better run, and expand, their businesses.

Retail Software Platforms Celerant Technology currently offers two retail software platforms enabling retailers to more successfully compete with big box retailers. With Celerant’s new product offering, Cumulus Retail, intended for the smaller merchants, as well as its Stratus Retail, designed as a comprehensive Enterprise software solution, it strives to be the go-to software provider for retailers of any size, and across any hard and soft good retail vertical. Both commerce platforms are web-based and mobile

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friendly, accessible from any tablet, allowing retailers to manage their entire business- in-store, online, mobile, digital marketing- from one system, with one software provider and support team for all their needs.

Maximizing Business Growth and Efficiency Celerant Technology is a leading provider of innovative end-to-end retail commerce software that maximizes business growth and efficiency for startup to enterprise businesses. It supplements the power and simplicity of its retail commerce software for instore and e-commerce with an experienced team, online marketing services, industry-specific features and integrations, and flexible pricing models to enable retailers to focus on their business, not their software.

Celerant Technology develops longlasting partnerships with its clients who utilize its platform and help enhance and modify its software to their needs. The company offers an annual Client Conference in which it invites all of its customers to come and learn its newest features, enhancements, integrations and best practices. At these events, Celerant networks with its customers, and they with each other, and learn from each other. Its industry partners attend as well, giving its clients the opportunity to learn how other innovative retail and technology companies might also benefit their business. This year, as it celebrates its 20th Anniversary, it is having a celebratory client conference in Atlanta and is inviting all of its clients to come at no charge.

Setting the Trends

Celerant is the only comprehensive cloud-based retail commerce software designed for enterprise and small businesses, featuring both in-store and e-commerce. Its end-to-end software offers a seamless upgrade path from single-store to enterprise-level solutions, and has helped its clients see a 22% growth in ecommerce sales, year over year. Cloud-based, with options for local redundancy, and customizable with specific functionality across industries, it maximizes business growth and efficiency.

Networking with Clients

Celerant takes pride in its innovation and technology, and its ability to offer cutting –edge technology that doesn’t just keep up with trends, but often times, sets the trends. Going to back to its inception, it was the first to launch a natively live POS back in 2000. From there, it started the first retail system to offer integrated shipping tools, the first 100% Java retail system, the first to offer RFID for POS and transfers- all the way to today. It is now the first retail software provider to offer personalized email marketing integrated with sales and customer

|March 2019|

The

2019

We are the only comprehensive cloud-based retail commerce software designed for enterprise and small businesses, featuring both in-store and online solutions.

data. It is constantly looking for its next big enhancement enabling its retail clients to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Celerant Technology’s CEO, Ian Goldman, has a development background, and is very hands-on in all aspects of the company. His brother and CTO, Robert Goldman, heads the Development Team and together, both based in the main HQ in NY, they set the framework for the company, working closely with a dedicated management team with offices across 4 states; NY, GA, CA and TX.

Celerant Technology provides one stop solution enabling retailers to manage their entire business- point of sale, inventory, purchasing, reporting, accounting, ERP, warehousing, e-commerce, online marketplace integrations, digital marketing such as SEO services and email marketing automation and more.

As a nimble company it is able to pivot and not only keep up the rapidly evolving market, but in many cases it is leading the way. Its innovation has enabled its clients to better manage their business and ultimately to increase sales.

Innovative Retail Technology

Client Reviews

Celerant Technology is preparing for its rebranding which is coming in Q2 of this year. It is repositioning itself in the industry as a leader in cutting-edge, innovative retail technology, providing tier1 functionality to tier 2 and 3 retailers. It is supporting its retail clients long past go-live, and helping them manage their business and digital marketing more efficiently and effectively. It is also helping them increase traffic and sales to both their physical stores and their e-commerce site.

One Stop Solution to Retailers

“Prior to Celerant, we were having all kinds of inventory and fulfillment problems. The main reason we chose Celerant was to have complete inventory availability and perfect integration across all channels, including Amazon. Now we are able to ship a thousand orders a day, and not worry about any of that. Celerant has helped us sell over 7 million dollars of products on Amazon last year.” – Anthony Qaiyum, Owner, Merz Apothecary

Competent Team

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Ian Goldman CEO

in 1883 and is on the National Registry of Historic Places. We were having a lot of challenges with our previous POS and inventory system; it wasn’t real-time and was limited on features and reporting. We’ve been with Celerant since 2008. They are forward thinking and constantly evolving their solution to meet our needs. I would recommend Celerant to other retailers.” – David Cliett, Director of Operations, MAST General Store

“Our flagship store originally opened 19

EPI-USE Labs: Improving Performance

by Leveraging SAP Systems

AP® systems contain highly sensitive information, from CEO’s salary to pricing and rebate information. Ensuring this business data is managed securely is of utmost importance. EPI-USE Labs is a global software solutions and managed services company with over 35 years of experience. Its products and services enable organizations to accelerate the performance of their SAP and SAP SuccessFactors systems in areas such as test data and landscape management, data copying, data security, anonymization and privacy, HCM reporting, cloud solutions, and much more.

S

Phillip Stofberg CEO & Founder

“ We help our clients maximize the performance of their SAP® systems so they can make faster, more accurate business decisions.

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Global Presence As a global company with offices throughout Europe, the Americas, the UK, Australia, the Philippines, South Africa, the Middle East and Turkey, and over 950 clients across 48 countries, EPI-USE Labs’ 98% client renewal rate speaks for itself.

Enabling Faster, Accurate Decisions EPI-USE Labs helps its clients maximize the performance of their SAP systems so they can make faster, more accurate business decisions. Its solutions and services simplify and speed up data management, giving its clients the tools to navigate small and large business challenges successfully. Its software, value-added solutions and managed services create better, more powerful SAP systems, saving clients time, money and resources.

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The

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Value through Innovation Phillip Stofberg is the dynamic CEO and Founder of EPI-USE Labs. The company’s strong client-centric culture is based on his firm belief in listening to clients and responding to their needs.

He says, “We are a fast growing company that has been a profitable business from day one. A big reason for our success is our loyal client base. We get a lot of quality feedback and ideas from them. Our clients are very astute, so we listen to them.”

Stofberg further adds, “I view our clients as investors in our company that must get a solid return on the investment they made when they bought our software and the trust placed in our company. We have a constant dialogue with our clients. We make sure we respond to that feedback by building ideas and suggestions from our clients into our platform and our solutions.”

He says that EPI-USE Labs has invested significantly in Research and Development over the years, and its clients get evident benefits from this.

The company has a strong belief in adding value to its clients by genuinely looking after them, as reflected in its slogan, ‘value through innovation’.

Stofberg says, “We relentlessly focus on creating innovative, wellengineered new solutions which add value to our clients. We respond to changes in the market not by just following the latest fad, but by really

|March 2019|

standing back and looking at a bigger picture and trying to figure out what the real driver is for those changes, and then what solutions we can provide. That means our clients can be assured that we are constantly keeping on top of changes in the market and adjusting our strategy accordingly. We believe clients should have choices, so we want to expand their options.”

world. On top of that, businesses customize systems to fit their unique requirements. With all this complexity comes a risk. But risks can be managed by employing precise solutions. With huge experience in information systems, EPI-USE Labs has developed risk management services to help executive teams measure and manage information systems’ risk.

Solving SAP Challenges EPI-USE Labs helps its clients to solve their SAP challenges across a wide range of areas. These include: Ÿ securing sensitive SAP data Ÿ achieving regulatory compliance Ÿ delivering next generation HR Ÿ generating reliable test data Ÿ optimizing their SAP landscapes Ÿ simplifying SAP upgrades.

It offers industry-specific scrambling policies that allow clients to accelerate their data protection initiatives and provides controls to reduce their dataleakage risks.

Cutting-edge Development

Managing Information Systems’ Risk Organizations everywhere increasingly depend on information systems to accelerate their core business.

Everything from finance, communications, human resources and payroll to customer relations, decisionmaking and manufacturing can come to a virtual standstill if information systems fail. And they do, in various ways. With millions of lines of code from different vendors interacting, information systems acting in unison are some of the most complex engineering projects of the business

Protecting Elephants, Rhinos and People EPI-USE Labs is a proud member of groupelephant.com which employs 2,000 people and is largely employeeowned. groupelephant.com also owns and funds a non-profit entity called Elephants, Rhinos & People (ERP) focusing on the preservation of at-risk elephants and rhinos through the economic upliftment of rural people in areas adjacent to these threatened species.

At the heart of EPI-USE Labs is a culture of driving value through innovation. Research and Development (R&D) is very important to the company, and it spends around 23% of its revenue on R&D activities. This single-minded drive helps it develop superior products and provide ongoing product updates. It makes sure that the company’s software is not only at the cutting-edge of technological advancement, but is aligned with their clients’ changing needs on an ongoing basis.

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Industry Trends

Key POS

Trends

Reshaping

the Retail

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n recent times, the retail industry hasn’t seen a more exciting invention since the invention of cash register.

With new and innovative technologies helping shape both online and offline experiences for consumers, the landscape is continuously changing in a way which was unimaginable even few years back. The best part is that there seems to be no end of the innovation, which only influencing the purchase decision of the consumers.

Nowadays the main focus of retailers is to create a safe, engaging, and unique shopping experience for its consumers, it’s very important for the retailers to understand the importance of Big Data and in-store analytics and adapting to the cloud. With the retail industry at the verge of massive transformation, we are listing out few key trends that everyone needs to know to be successful in the ecosystem that is transforming quickly.

Multi-system Integration Multi-system integration with various applications gets the utmost priority from top retailers. Most of the retailers list out POS integration with other applications as a key priority alongside the implementation of dynamic marketing content through mobile devices. This is mostly due to the retailer’s interest to store all the customer information and purchase history in a database, which is completely centralized that could be easily integrated with multiple applications.

However, in order to do that, a retailer needs to use an ERP database that can handle all these.

Speed People always look for quick solutions for everything. A clock starts ticking the moment a customer enters, no matter how good the product is, if the process is slow and the attention to details are missing, then customers will leave 22

Sector

disappointed. As a retailer, one cannot please everyone, but with a modern and efficient POS, the service can be improved. A modern POS simplifies the communication between various departments and can save a lot of time for both the retailer and the customer respectively.

Managing Stocks Keeping and managing inventory is a nightmare for most of the retailers, and it’s quite natural. Managing inventory is a never-ending task and takes a lot of effort, time, and manpower. However, it is quite important to manage inventories when it comes to long-time survival. An efficient POS system always makes the process of managing the inventory much easier. The best part of a POS is, one can monitor the status of stocked items, shipped products, and new orders anytime. This is a huge time saver for a cumbersome and a tedious process, and eventually helps retailers to focus on other important aspects of running the business.

Customized Experience With POS systems, retailers just need to provide personalization that scoops out every shopper. Every passing year, retailers are adapting to personalized technology solutions that allow an interactive user experience. Thanks to the emergence of all new mobile POS technology, now retailers can offer its customers more choices to accommodate their shopping habits by letting them to complete transactions anywhere in the store. Now with the invention of improved POS marketers and customer service teams can contact the buyer at each point of their purchase decision. With so much data retailers and consumers can have better customer service, quicker payment processes and access to better offers and real-time personalization. |March 2019|

Promotions and Marketing at its Best Nowadays with the advent of digital technology, marketing involves maintaining a digital presence as well. A POS can integrate all the advertised offers with transactions, making it easier to keep track of all the campaigns. Additionally, it can integrate with CRM and track customer behavior. When an offer gets popular among the masses, then the retailer will see it in his transaction data.

Usage of Big Data analytics In order to compete with e-commerce, retailers are now taking the help of Big-Data and in store analytics just to have a better idea about what’s happening inside the store.

Big-Data analytics helps retailers to track how frequently a specific item moves from shelf to shopping cart allows retailers to know the trends that are dominant in the market.

Analytics helps the retail industry in a big way to better understand consumer purchase pattern and behaviors.

Keeping Track of Employees To run a business smoothly a retailer, need few people. A POS system enables to manage them with great accuracy.

With a Point of Sale system in place, employees can sign on or off easily and the system will automatically log their work hours and break hours.

Security Above all, a POS system offers great security protections that help keeping customer data safe. Retail stores and businesses are always prime targets for Cyber Criminals, and a data breach is not good for a business. So, by using standard encryption and firewall, businesses can be secured from cyber-attacks and customers can swipe their cards with a peace of mind.

So, here we have listed out few of the POS trends that will shape the future of the retail industry. As we look ahead, these trends will be on focus for both retailers and customers. The main advantage of an advanced POS system is greater efficiency and optimization, it links all the departments together which eventually allows to have better control over the inventory, better profitability, and to manage processes in an efficient way.

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Insider’s Insight

USING

BIG DATA AND

AI

TO COMMUNICATE WHEN SECONDS COUNT Tara Kelly Founder & CEO SPLICE Software

About the Author A serial innovator, published author, Founder and CEO of SPLICE Software, Tara Kelly is passionate about technology’s potential to change lives for the better. She has consistently channeled that belief into developing technologies that enhance operations, enable better service delivery, and improve the customer experience. This has resulted in creating three customer experience companies and turning an innovative idea into a patented, proprietary technology (US Patent Number 9348812) that harnesses data streams to create personalized, automated messages. SPLICE solutions were included in Gartner’s “Cool Vendors in Insurance, 2016” report and Forrester’s “IoT and Analytics Startups Can Turn Insurers into the Good Guys” brief.

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rganizations like property and casualty insurance companies, utilities and other businesses that help people recover from natural disasters are gearing up for the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, which begins on June 1. Everyone is hoping it’s not as active as last year’s hurricane season, which was among the most destructive on record, with six major hurricanes and more than $280 billion in damages.

Recovery is still ongoing in many areas, notably Puerto Rico. But hurricanes aren’t the only danger to lives and property that insurers must address. Wildfires can occur at any time of the year, especially under drought conditions and when winds are high. Floods occur year-round and can cause catastrophic damage, as can tornados, hail, blizzards and a range of other weather-related events.

Organizations that need to urgently communicate with customers or employees before and after a weather event often encounter difficulties because they don’t have the contact information they need. Either the data they have is out of date, or they’re using a channel (work email addresses, landlines, etc.) that the people they’re trying to contact aren’t monitoring during the emergency.

After a disaster, organizations encounter even more difficulties in communicating. Customers may have left the area or are in a location where the infrastructure suffered significant damage.

Organizations that are trying to move crews into place to address the damage often have trouble mobilizing their people because of communication breakdowns and difficulty visualizing conditions on the ground.

Big Data, Small Data and AI to the Rescue

About the Company SPLICE Software creates stronger connections and improves the customer experience by delivering personalized messages to your customers via their channels of choice, at the most critical points along the customer journey. Our cloud-based Dialog Suite™ uses Big Data & Articial Intelligence to deliver Data-Driven Dialogs® that can be leveraged across phone, SMS messaging, and AI-assisted devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Home. It’s just part of how SPLICE combines art & science to help you connect with your clients in new ways. Our award-winning Suite enables Retailers, Insurance companies, and Financial Services rms to collect and manage customers’ permissions and preferences so you can personalize, communicate, test, and measure like never before.

Fortunately, it’s possible to plan ahead, gather needed data and deploy technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and data visualization tools, to enable critical communication when seconds count. For businesses like property and casualty insurance companies, using the right technology assets can

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enable communication with customers before and after disaster strikes.

It all starts with data. Companies that need to communicate with customers (or staff) during an emergency should prepare by gathering small data, such as complete contact information, making sure to distinguish between cell phone and landline numbers. They’ll also need to get permission to make contact and ask which channels people prefer, e.g., text, email, voicemail, social media, etc.

With the small data taken care of through pre-disaster outreach and data cleanup projects, organizations can put big data and AI to work before and after a disaster to communicate with customers and employees. Insurance companies can reach out to customers who are in an area threatened by a disaster, providing helpful information on making a claim.

Sorting customer information by ZIP code to pinpoint customers in the path of danger, insurers can use big data and AI to send automated messages via the channel customers prefer, reminding them to move to a safe location and including tips on what documentation they’ll need to file claims and instructions on how to contact the insurance company once the danger has passed.

This type of outreach is helpful to both customers and the companies that send the communication. It can help insurers avoid losses by warning customers of impending danger, and instructions help customers receive the prompt service they need after a disaster strikes.

Personalized outreach also helps strengthen the bond between brands and the customers they serve.

Once the immediate danger has passed, organizations like utilities, claims adjusters, emergency response teams, etc., need to deploy field crews. A software solution that can harness AI, advanced data visualization capabilities and mass communications tools can deliver the information decision-makers need with speed and accuracy.

stakeholders. For example, after a hurricane has moved through an area, power restoration and civil engineering crews may be on hand, but without an accurate view of conditions on the ground, it’s impossible to deploy assets effectively.

A weather event that knocks out power and damages infrastructure can delay recovery efforts, leaving customers stranded and crews idled just when the need for help is most acute. However, a data visualization app that takes in big data from multiple sources can provide clarity on conditions on the ground, allowing leaders to make informed decisions.

Picture utility team leaders with several power restoration crews in a disaster zone. Data pouring in from social media, weather services and other sources can help them pinpoint which crews to send to address specific sites with infrastructure damage. But data visualization tools that show conditions in real time, such as road and bridge closures, can help them take decisive action immediately.

The Secret Sauce Is Simplicity Emergency management tools that integrate big and small data and leverage the power of crowd knowledge and AI can provide critical information that can be visualized and understood in seconds. The ability to send mass communications is also important. Automated voice messages can deliver catastrophe warnings, postcatastrophe service updates, office closure notifications and much more.

Speed and accuracy are important, but simplicity is the secret sauce. A software platform that integrates all of these elements and allows the people who are managing critical events to visualize complex, evolving factors in real time can be a game-changer. Whether communicating with customers or employees, when seconds count, big data and AI are indispensable allies.

Big data is essential, but information alone isn’t enough — decision-makers need to be able to visualize it to make the right calls and communicate with affected

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Flutura: Improving Two Core Business Objectives of “Asset Uptime”

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he dominating evolution of Artificial Intelligence has spurred a heated debate globally. As science fiction starts to become reality, AI products are slowly entering the regular household and workplaces.

With the focus on improving two core business objectives of “Asset Uptime” and “Operational Efficiency”, Flutura, an AI Solutions company was founded.

The organization does this with Cerebra, the AI Platform tuned for IIOT in Oil & Gas, Process Chemicals, and Heavy machinery manufacturing industries, powering connected asset and connected operations use cases. Its value proposition is based on delivering tangible business outcomes within 90 days or less.

Flutura has been successful in building a strong clientele across Oil and Gas, Process Chemicals and Heavy machinery manufacturing industries through its customer-centricity and solution relevance. In addition to the 30

Krishnan Raman Co-founder & CEO

customers, Flutura has established strong industry connections with thought leaders, analysts and technologists in these industries. This network of deep domain expertise enables Flutura to focus on a set of problems that are relevant to the industry and create solutions for these pressing problems leveraging Flutura’s platform, Cerebra. Through the adoption of Cerebra, the organization’s customers gain the advantage of collective knowledge of the entire ecosystem including other companies, thought leaders, analysts and technologists within the industry.

Lessons that Changed the Course of Action Early in Flutura’s journey, the organization decided to have unflinching vertical industry focus around Oil & Gas, Process Chemicals, and Heavy machinery. Leveraging its platform functionalities within these vertical industries, Flutura has paid special attention to Pressure Pumping, Drilling, O&G Production, Gas

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We at Flutura believe that the future for Industrial companies consist of embracing the outcome economy.

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and “Operational Efficiency”

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Processing, Specialty Chemicals, Catalysts & OEM digitalization and are currently expanding to Subsea and specialized equipment.

Ÿ Based on early feedback from the customers the organization realized that its niche in the field of Industrial IOT a) Is an Underserved market b) has a much more tangible ROI. Ÿ Flutura continues to replicate its proven model of socializing with early adopters and industry organizations for the invaluable inputs for its solutions. Ÿ From its early customer engagements Flutura got a lot of inputs on its product. Working Prototypes that are Released Early & Released Often is something it takes seriously. This helped in understanding its end users mental model, which helped the company to fine tune Cerebra’s features that are aligned to an Engineer’s mental model.

Extracting Maximum Value from IIoT Flutura believes, maximum value from the IIoT solution can be unlocked at the intersect of Engineering operations, Business processes and Economics.

Flutura continues to add new features to unbox the value at this intersect.

Here are some of the key points to help clients across the industries:

Ÿ Flutura has a library of most common repeatable assets (such as rotary equipment- pumps, engine, compressor, turbine, etc) and a library of flow based process models used in the industries it is targeting.

Hence, Flutura’s foundational platform being asset and process centric is tailored to the niche focus industries. Ÿ The organization also has a unique machine Meta model to onboard asset and process digital twin and there have been instances where it |March 2019|

has been able to integrate complex assets in a couple of days because of this architecture. Ÿ Flutura also has an end user customer group that is focused on use case elicitation, use case detailing and ROI calculations.

Flutura is in constant touch with its customers and conducts periodic focus group sessions / workshops both with the existing and new customers.

Guardians of Flutura Flutura was founded on the emerging idea of outcome economy and the role of digital business models to deliver results in the outcome economy. The founders of Flutura believe that the success of business in outcome economy is built around two core values – Trust and Transformation.

Trust summarizes its integrity to do the right things, intent and capability to drive a positive change and to deliver tangible outcomes. Transformation encapsulates the element of journey and focus on the to-be state.

Flutura was co- founded by three very experienced leaders, who are; Derick Jose (Co-founder) who has completed B Tech from BITS Pilani and served as the Vice President of MindTree Ltd before co-founding Flutura, Krishnan Raman (Co-founder & CEO) has served in companies like Grindwell Norton Ltd., PricewaterhouseCoopers India, & MindTree Ltd., and Srikanth Muralidhara (Co-founder and Chief Customer Officer) has served in organizations like PSI Data Systems and Mindtree Ltd.

partnerships and investor management.

The founders act as guardians of these core values and embody them in their day-to-day life so that the entire organization can embrace these core values and replicate it in their actions and behaviors.

A Reliable Industrial Intelligence When it comes to the future, the organization wants to be a leader in providing Reliable Industrial Intelligence. Currently the organization leads in its focused verticals by deploying business impacting AI Solutions tuned for Industrial IoT use cases.

Below are few key highlights of Flutura’s strategy; Ÿ Majority of tools in the market are data and IT centric and it takes a lot of time to build industrial solutions using these tools. It is imminent these solutions will fail to deliver value and hence Flutura has focused on creating an Asset and Process centric platform. Ÿ Flutura’s focus is on creating verticalized Cerebra Nano apps for its focused Industry sectors to solve high value business/engineering problems. Ÿ Engineering and Operations teams are the key users of Flutura’s solutions. The organization strongly believes industrial engineers have to be empowered to harness the power of data science. Hence, Flutura is launching world’s first “Engineer’s workbench” for democratization of AI for Industrial operators and engineers.

All the three co-founders of Flutura have been successful in inculcating the core values of Trust and Transformation into all aspects of Flutura’s business including customer relationship, product development, employee relations, alliance and 31

Market Dashboard

Social Media

Marketing for

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he absence of pharma brands on social media creates a significant void of reputable healthcare information to aid patients,” writes Dawn Lacallade, LiveWorld’s Chief Social Strategist.

Social media infiltrate virtually every facet of an individual’s digital life. Today, patients are using social media as a major source of information and healthcare research. Thus, it is essential that pharma companies should be present on social media to provide full and accurate information to the consumers. To comprehend how social media can assist patients, it is crucial to understand what compels people to use social media as a source of information.

Social media allows interaction among people which involves exchange and creation of information. It is the perfect conduit for pharmaceutical companies to connect with their customers, patients and physicians.

According to the current FDA regulations, pharma companies are not able to easily join in a conversation to provide accurate and balanced information. Regulations dictate that, in a single social post, brands are required to provide precise facts on the benefits and hazards associated with conditions and products. Due to the character limitations on many social media platforms, most pharma companies prefer to stay out of the conversation. This results in circulation of falsified information.

This information can be either marginally inaccurate or significantly harmful.

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Although the communication of pharmaceutical industries is highly regulated, they are gradually adopting social media platforms to reach and interact with consumers and healthcare professionals. Here are some of the top social media practices to look out for: Crafting Customer Experience Several marketers think that their job is finished once the sales team takes over, but in reality, it is just the beginning. The way people experience your brand will impact the way they think about you, which will have an enormous effect on the success of your company in the long run. Devoting a part of the marketing budget to nurture the existing clientele will make their experience splendid and thus promote brand loyalty. It is also crucial to respond whenever your brand in mentioned publicly, whether positively or negatively, which will help cultivate a strong and lasting relationship with your customers. Younger generations are increasingly withdrawing from traditional social media platforms and adopting more innovative channels that are more intimate in the way of communication. To keep up with this challenge, companies need to find a way to automate the process wherever possible.

Regulating Content Pharma companies need to develop content marketing strategies that merge each piece of content on every channel with their organization’s objectives and customers’ needs. Creators need to have a clear business objective including the value that will be delivered to distinct audiences. All companies need to have a social media compliance officer who will work closely with a corporate legal counsel and develop a complete strategy and decide if there will be consolidated social media posting or if individual employees will have the consent to participate. And lastly, it is critical that all employees understand their role in corporate social media and be trained on the rules.

Overall Integration Pharma companies should stop thinking about content marketing and social media as add-ons. To boost their outcome for clients, content and social marketing need to be a part of almost every program. To develop a fully integrated program, companies need to involve influencers and content marketers during the initial stages. Implementing an organized approach to content and moderation will not only optimize the processes, but also aid in assuring authorities that all the bases are covered to protect and provide value for the brand.

Investing in Employees An independent survey discovered that 72% of social media users expect response within an hour from the brands they follow. This has caused brands to start heavily investing in crossfunctional social media teams that can keep up with the increasing number of client pings

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every day. Encouraging and incentivizing team members to share brand messages on their own social media accounts, is predicted to be a game-changer in the coming days. However this cannot be forced, it is essential for employees to want to share company posts, and along with this the content has to resonate with their own audiences.

Influencer Marketing Influencer marketing will continue to develop and become an even more established part of the strategy. Currently many brands try influencer marketing and fail as it is not easy to find effective influencers. Additional data will help in selection of the right influencers and analyze the results from influencer campaigns. Today, in healthcare, influencers are often regular people. Some are directly affected by a disease or are being treated with a specific product, while others have gained a lot of knowledge about a condition and are considered as Subject Matter Experts. The common trend is to select someone who has an ever-increasing community of followers who value their opinion.

Numerous companies still think of social media as merely a marketing tool which is not true anymore. Consumers learn about products on different social networks and seek customer service on messaging channels. Moreover, good storytelling has always been an essential part of effective marketing. But social media is changing the way audiences consume stories and pharma companies will be required to keep up with the evolution of social storytelling if they want to remain relevant.

Yet there is still a note of caution with compliance being the foremost priority of pharmaceutical companies. But as industries are starting to adopt social media without clear regulatory guidance, remaining compliant will be the main challenge to face.

S NES G I S BU ETIN K R MA

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|March 2019|

HarrisData: Delivering Adept Solutions for Business Management

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dvancement in technology has augmented every sector where becoming a fast growing company means having an improved management system. Enterprises are now facing challenges with the traditional methods of maintaining day to day tasks and are moving on to secure and reliable solutions. With over 45 years of success, HarrisData offers a number of solutions such as ERP, CRM, HRIS and Financial Management. They have succeeded since 1972 through a commitment to excellence and a determination to serve customers well. HarrisData’s determination to be the best in the marketplace reflects on their dedication to quality people- people who are satisfied only when they develop and market excellent quality software, support services, and education, and who operate within a quality work-life environment.

is a chance to learn about a way to improve customer focus. Every client voice provides a unique perspective that needs to merge with their overall vision to deliver maximum value.

Customer Centric Services HarrisData makes it a priority to listen to clients and view the relationship from their perspective via user groups/conferences, customer tours, even interviews of competitor’s customers. Every listening opportunity

Continuous improvement is critical to survival – helping clients improve continuously is the best way to forge long-term relationships.

An Established Leadership Lane Nelson is the Chief Evangelist at HarrisData. He combines experience in sales, marketing, and management positions at Pansophic Systems, Pilot Software, and the largest franchisee in the Budget Rent-a-Car system, with knowledge gained at Yale University and the Wharton School, to provide the HarrisData community with leadership and long-term vision.

Improvement is the Key HarrisData is a nearly 50-year-old software company, their CEO has over 35 years in the software business, and they have learned many lessons along the way;

Never assume that one-size-fits-all – clients can and will customize products to meet requirements, unless their vendor makes it too difficult.

Project success comes from owning the project – make sure clients have the knowledge, skills, and confidence to execute projects; reduce the

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knowledge, expertise, and time required to complete projects wherever possible.

Automate. Do not perform the same service twice when you can develop a product to do it.

Comprehensive Strategy HarrisData sets non-traditional performance benchmarks based on customer behaviors. The three key metrics traditionally used are retention, adoption, and focus.

Retention is a key metric in software, even more so in a subscription-based world. Customer retention represents a win for HarrisData, but they do not measure customer retention with naïve user counts. Instead they look at retention from the perspective of revenue retained. Before cloud-based solutions began automatically updating themselves, clients running business software had to decide whether and when to upgrade those solutions. Even when an upgrade promised substantial upside, clients resisted any changes because of the costs and risks of implementing that upgrade.

Adoption is measured at HarrisData by the number of clients that adopt new versions over time as a performance goal. As high-value upgrades are delivered more frequently to clients, HarrisData focuses on delivering

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upgrades with exceptional low cost and minimal risk. In a cloud-based world, software is upgraded automatically whether the client is ready or not, making this metric irrelevant for HarrisData cloud applications. However, the management goals associated with HarrisData’s decades-long focus on adoption is still relevant: make certain that the value of the upgrades are clear and significant, and that the costs/risks of the upgrade are negligible.

Focus is measured as the percentage of revenue earned from product licensing as a percentage of total revenue. For many ERP solution companies, the Focus metric would be about 50%.

Because HarrisData is a product company not a services company, that metric exceeded 90% annually for over 20 years. HarrisData won’t make money by saying ‘yes!’to every client request, fulfilling it with cheap offshore labor, just because it looks profitable at the transaction level.

Long Term Goals HarrisData has been re-tooling their application platform to deliver on the vision of dramatically reducing the mundane, repetitive labor in the administration of a business in the same way robots are eliminating mundane, repetitive jobs in the warehouse and the factory floor. They are creating software designed around

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Software on your terms.

information robots to automate administrative tasks – such as a “hands-free” payroll solution.

Additionally, the company is developing plug-ins to allow for seamless end-to-end integration of information flows both inside and outside the organization.

Lane Nelson HarrisData

Also, HarrisData is collecting data that machine learning algorithms will use to make recommendations to decision makers about which products to buy and which bills to pay today.

There are many innovative solutions being created around the edges of decades-old ERP solutions implemented just before Y2K. However, delivering true end-to-end, hands-off information processes to their market is going to require a new set of core applications designed around information robots – and AppsInHD is going to be one of them.

quote in writing with a fixed price, a guaranteed delivery date, and support for the enhancement. Client management can quickly and easily determine whether the investment will provide enough return to justify the expense.

User Friendly Approach There are always new, marketingdriven fads that claim to provide a new level of customer intimacy. The HarrisData approach is based on proven success. The company exemplifies by giving two instances-

Testimonials from HarrisData’s Clients “We shopped around extensively for other software companies last year and found out we prefer to stick with Harris for a host of good reasons… cost wise, user wise, support wise and everything else in between.”

“The effort and support from HarrisData was superb,” “Went Live on HarrisData on time and under budget”

Collaborative Development Program for client enhancement requests.

Unlike other software companies, HarrisData will evaluate client enhancement requests and provide a

Customer-centric licensing, HarrisData listened and studied the typical complaints about software licensing, and created simple, easy-tounderstand licenses including a variety of client-centric terms such as guaranteed access to source code.

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Maestros Insights About the Author Mr. Jay Klein drives Voyager Lab’s technology strategy and core intellectual property. He brings more than 25 years of experience in data analytics, networking and telecommunications to the Company.

Before joining Voyager Labs, he served as CTO at Allot Communications where he steered Allot’s data inspection and analytics core technology offerings, and as VP Strategic Business Development at DSPG, where he was responsible for strategic technology acquisitions. He also co-founded and held the CTO position at Ensemble Communications while founding and creating WiMAX and IEEE 802.16. He also served as the CTO and VP of R&D at CTP Systems, acquired rst by DSP Communications and later by Intel. Jay Klein holds a BSc in Electronics & Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University as well as numerous patents in various technology elds.

AI: Artificial From

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ith so much attention focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI), it’s worth remembering that one size does not fit all. There are specific business-related pain points in mind when a company decides to deploy AI technology, so making the right choices can be a tricky task.

For example, several months ago, an AI related breakthrough was announced – a robot learned and demonstrated the ability to perform a perfect backflip.

While it is well acknowledged that the invested research and development for this mission was huge and the commercial potential for some applications is enormous, it is somewhat unclear how this specific innovation or the core models and algorithms of it, can serve other industries and verticals. Herein lies the problem.

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to Authentic

Gauging AI success in one field in many cases can be meaningless for another. To make things worse, even when trying to go deeper into the technology and attempting to evaluate, for example, which Machine Learning algorithms are utilized by the product, or what are the number of layers in the Deep Neural Network models mentioned by specific vendors, in the end it will be possibly pointless as it does not directly reflect the solution deployment ‘success’ implications.

Nevertheless, it seems that the market ignores this reality and continues to evaluate AI-based products by buzzword checklists using familiar and related AI terminology (e.g.,

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Supervised, Unsupervised, Deep Learning etc.). While checklists are an effective tool for comparative analysis it still requires the ‘right’ items to be included.

Unfortunately, what typically is absent are the items which are important to the customer, from a problem-solution perspective.

Introducing Authentic AI Given all of this, there is a need to change the narrative around AI technology and solutions to something meaningful and authentic that reflects the real-life challenges and opportunities that businesses are facing.

This is the time to introduce Authentic AI. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘Authentic’ as both ‘worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact’ and ‘conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features’. This is not about ‘Fake’ to be contrasted with ‘Real’. It’s about the essential features of AI which need to be acknowledged, and hence, redefine the ‘checklist’. Often, these essential ‘authentic’ features are hidden and only surface when a CIO/CDO is faced with a new problem to be solved. This is seen especially when the AI aspects of a proposed product or solution are fully explored by asking questions such as: - Is the AI technology utilized by the product aimed specifically for my problem, optimally (e.g., performance, cost, etc.)?

- Is it capable of addressing the complete problem or only a part of it?

- Can it be assimilated into the existing ecosystem without imposing new demands?

- Can it address the compelling environmental conditions of the problem space?

These issues can be grouped into three different ‘classes’ ‘Original’, ‘Holistic’ and ‘Pragmatic’: Original – How innovative is the solution? This can be quantified by assessing the following: - the invention of new algorithms or even new models and - the use of complex orchestration techniques or - through the capability to handle complex data formats and structures.

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While there is no need to re-invent the wheel repetitively for any problem, there are distinctive characteristics which require optimizing.

Holistic – How complete is the proposed AI technology? It takes into account the capability of handling the end-to-end aspects of the solution, the competence of harmonizing the operation of the various AI components of the solution and the ability to adapt to ever changing conditions of the AI application.

Pragmatic – Can the technology solve real world problems in their actual and natural space in a commercially viable way? This means that for example the data sources can be processed in their most native format (both unstructured or structured) as well as provide insights or results matching the pragmatic needs of the specific market expectations. In addition, the ability to be quickly deployed and rapid to act are assessed.

All of these elements should be used to systematically assess and evaluate AI-based products and solutions to assess their authenticity and therefore effectiveness in specific use cases.

For example, many home-loan mortgage evaluation and recommendation systems utilize a somewhat isolated machine learning based applicant classification method, one of many other processes included within the solution.

The AI in this solution cannot be considered Authentic AI to a high degree as it ‘scores’ low on the ‘Original’ and ‘Holistic’ classes as it isn’t innovative ‘enough’ (from an AI sense). In addition, the AI component itself does not cover on its own the end-to-end aspects of the solution (hence affecting the overall performance and precision). It could be considered to be ‘Pragmatic’ to some level if it can handle the required data sources of financial institutions or the customer applications natively, and if the solution ‘output’ are the explicit results required as a specific recommendation (e.g., loan conditions). However, the deployment timeline (time-to-market) and commercial aspects need to be evaluated as well. This is just one example of many others, covering all kinds of variations.

Perfect backflips may grant you a gold medal if you are a gymnast but if you are a master chess player don’t expect a winning move.

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Carlos Nogueira General Manager, InterSystems IRIS Data Platform

InterSystems: Seamless Solutions for Connectable Applications

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n an interview with Insights Success, General Manager of InterSystems IRIS Data Platform, Carlos Nogueira, shares valuable information of InterSystems and its noteworthy contribution in healthcare, business and government sectors. Everything InterSystems builds is designed to drive better decisions, actions, and outcomes for the people who stake their lives and livelihoods in its technology. Its data platform and connected care solutions have received global industry recognition.

Below are highlights from the interview between Carlos Nogueira and Insights Success:

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Give a brief overview of the company, its solutions and services.

InterSystems is a very different kind of technology company. For more than 40 years now, we have been quietly powering some of the world’s most important applications. Our data platform business – led by our flagship product, InterSystems IRIS Data Platform™ – enables software developers to rapidly develop and deploy data-intensive, mission critical applications. Its power can be used in so many ways—it can help a hospital bring its data to the cloud to make it available to researchers, for example, or it can help a worldwide shipping company keep track of all of its cargo around the world. Our data platform is

also in use by six of the 10 largest financial institutions in the world.

How do you diversify your customercentric approach that would benefit your clientele?

We are an exceptionally customerfocused company in a number of ways.

First, we are a privately held company with no venture capital investors or stockholders dictating where we put our priorities or investments. Our company is led by our founder and CEO, Terry Ragon, who has steadfastly remained focus on one key priority throughout our history: enabling our customers’ success. It has worked. We have grown into a $700 million company by investing our time and

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passion in our customers and growing alongside them.

In addition to offering superior products, our service is a key differentiator, as well. We do not put customers through an endless phone tree to get help. Our Worldwide Response Center operates around the clock 365 days per year, and we do not close tickets until a customer is “wowed” by our support.

Describe the experiences, achievements or lessons learnt that have shaped the journey of the company.

Many of the earliest InterSystems clients were in healthcare, and that remains to this day. We are the trusted partner for a number of large and important healthcare applications. The electronic medical record Epic, for example, runs on our data platform, and we are a trusted technology partner for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Major hospitals and hospital networks trust our technology to integrate and normalize data, whether it is for patient records themselves, research data, or other data that has a critical element to it. And our technology in healthcare goes beyond the walls of hospitals, too – it is the underpinning behind many health information exchanges that enable a unified patient record no matter where a patient’s providers are, and it is also used by payers to bring clinical and claims data together to help better understand the population they serve.

How does the company contribute towards making the business better across the industry?

For customers using our data platform, we enable their success by allowing them to create new data-intensive applications quickly. This is due to the

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flexibility of the InterSystems IRIS Data Platform. Developers can use their own programming language, spin up on the cloud platform of their choice, and get up and running very quickly. It’s a very simple interface with a lot of power behind it, and a lot of care was put into making it intuitive, robust, and useful.

Where does InterSystems see itself in the long run and/or what are its future goals?

InterSystems sees a bright future ahead for its data platforms and healthcare businesses. In fact, we created InterSystems IRIS with the future in

“InterSystems is the trusted partner where data is critical and decisions are of vital importance.” mind. This will be the technological underpinning behind a whole new generation of important applications.

Acknowledging our strength in healthcare, we created InterSystems IRIS for Health specifically for healthcare applications. The ability to create fast, data-intensive healthcare applications using the latest languages, standards, and technologies easily is a game changer for our customers.

January 2019, we were named a Customers’ Choice for Operational Database Management Systems by Gartner. Our reviews on Gartner Peer Insights, one of the most trusted ratings in our space, are superb; we have a 4.7 rating out of 5.0, which is higher than any other company listed on the Gartner Magic Quadrant for our industry. This rating comes directly from our customers’ voices.

Testimonials by Clients “Intersystems is a fantastic vendor.

Their support staff excels at meeting your every need. I have not had a single bad experience working with Intersystems.” – DBA in the Services Industry “Professional and customer oriented.

The support is one of the best I met.

Fast, effective, always in touch.” – CEO in the Services Industry About the Leader As General Manager for InterSystems IRIS Data Platform, Carlos Nogueira oversees the business strategy and execution for the company’s newest product, InterSystems IRIS Data Platform. He joined InterSystems in 2000 to lead operational business for InterSystems in Brazil, Chile and remaining countries of South America.

He has a great vision and understanding of emerging global markets due to his extensive work developed in Latin America, South Africa and India.

Considering the rising number of customer-driven strategies, how does InterSystems stand out from its competitors?

Everyone at the InterSystems is empowered to call upon any resource to ensure a customer’s success. In

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Agri Tech

Agriculture Biotechnology: Revolutionizing Agriculture Process Globally

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iotechnology is a the exploration and development of various biological processes to achieve mainly industrial and various other purposes cultivation of the plants, and improvements through breeding programs. The processes also employs artificial selection and hybridization which emphases its functionality. At present, the modern usage also includes genetic engineering as well as cell and tissue culture technologies.

In earlier days biotechnology process was initiated by farmers who developed improved species of plants and animals by cross-fertilizing or cross-breeding. In recent years, biotechnology has expanded its core functionality widely which now focuses on sophistication, scope, and applicability.

A well-known and author and writer is vague and can be unsubstantial, for example, Clayton Christensen share his views as, “There are other dimensions of biotechnology. If you think of biotechnology like the Internet, it’s not a category - it’s an infrastructure that can be deployed to sustain or disrupt. In healthcare, the most complex problems at the high end have to be dealt with in a problem-solving mode by the best, most experienced physicians you can find.”

Biotechnology is immensely contributing towards agriculture which enhances its functionality to the next level. Agriculture aspects have extremely changed with biotechnology functions and increase readability of the process.

What is Agriculture Biotechnology?

Agricultural Biotechnology is also known as Agritech. It is an area of agricultural science involving the use of scientific tools and techniques. There are several

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techniques used in agriculture biotechnology such as Genetic Engineering, Molecular Markers, Molecular Diagnostics, Vaccines, and tissue culture. And it also modifies the living organisms like Plants, Animals, and Microorganisms.

In recent times, Crop biotechnology has been developed its functionality in agriculture and is also one of the main aspects of agriculture biotechnology. Its desired qualities are exported from a particular species of Crop to an entirely different species.

How is Agriculture Biotechnology Used?

Genetic Engineering: The term is derived from scientific research provides information about how to move genes from one organism to another. This is known as genetic engineering (GE) or genetic modification (GM). Genetic engineering includes the transfer of useful characteristics by inserting DNA of Plants, animal or microorganism from another organism to another.

Molecular Diagnostics: Molecular diagnostics significantly detect genes or gene products that are very precise and specific. Molecular diagnostics is the method used in agriculture to more accurately diagnose crop/livestock diseases.

Tissue Culture: Tissue culture is the process of regeneration of plants from the disease-free plant. This technique allows reproduction of disease-free planting material for crops.

Unified Methods Used for Corp Modification Traditional Breeding: Traditional breeding method has been used for centuries to improve crop quality and quantity. The crossbreeding describes the combination of two compatible species to create a new variety with the desired traits. The crossbreeding can be only utilized within the same or closely related species.

Polyploidy: Polyploidy is the method describes which can be induced to modify the number of chromosomes in a crop in order to influence its fertility or size. Through naturally or with the use of chemicals, the number of chromosomes can change. The process results in the

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fertility changes in modification within the crop.

Protoplast Fusion: Protoplast fusion is also known as Somatic fusion. It is a type of genetic modification in plants by which two distinct species of plants. In this method, it includes joining of cells or cell components to transfer traits between species.

Transgenics: Transgenics is the method which involves the insertion of one piece of DNA into another organism’s DNA. It works in order to introduce a new gene into the original organism. This addition of genes into an organism’s genetic material creates a new variety with desired qualities.

Impact of Agriculture Biotechnology on Economy and Social Life The technology used in agricultural productivity improved its usability and functionality with some major factors such as combine harvesters, chemical fertilizers, and the green revolution. Like every technology, agricultural biotechnology will also have its major impact on economic and social.

In agriculture, crops using biotechnologies have improved its quality and also been used safely with benefits. The technology influences the whole process by the reduction of pesticide use. At present agricultural biotechnology, one of the factors that influence the health and welfare of the farmers and other citizens in the developing world.

Influence of Agriculture Biotechnology in the Future The aim of agricultural biotechnology is to present the 43

functionality of the applications used in agriculture biotechnology. The applications are eagerly awaited to increase the productivity of crops, primarily by reducing the costs of production by decreasing the needs for inputs of pesticides. The process is mostly used in crops grown in temperate zones. The application of agricultural biotechnology can improve the quality of life by developing new strains of plants that give higher crops. The crops can be grown in a wider range of environments which give better rotations to conserve natural resources. It also provides more nutritious harvested products that keep much longer in storage and transport, and continue lowcost food supplies to consumers.

According to Crop Science, the company with credible authority on the progress and future implications of Agricultural biotechnology states that, “Farming is evolving in the 21st century with the development and use of biotechnology crops.

Scientists and agronomists work in the lab and greenhouse to come up with genes that improve crop yield and make corn, soybean, cotton and canola plants more resistant to insects and more tolerant to herbicides, drought, and stress.�

The biotechnology and its process is the evidence of the contributions towards rural development around the world. It serves as the source of inspiration for emerging nations to complement existing practices with agricultural biotechnology.

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Reveal Group: Unveiling Business Potential through Unrivaled Robotic Process Automation

T

he pace at which the workforce and work processes are transforming today is unprecedented. Organizations that recognize the potential of this change - and learn how to wield its power - are laying the groundwork to become the industry leaders of tomorrow.

As with all things revolutionary, it is critical that a focus on the end goals is tempered with a deliberate plan of action. When the largest companies in the world struggle with effective planning and execution to get them to these end goals, they turn to Reveal Group.

Deciphering the Future Insights Success spoke with Ian Crouch, the Founder and CEO of Reveal Group. Ian worked at the most senior levels of the financial services industry before founding Reveal in 2005.

“Reveal started off with a focus on the local financial services industry in Australia,” Ian tells. “Very quickly, we discovered that our desire for growth was matched, if not exceeded, by an overwhelming response from clients in very diverse sectors and from every corner of the planet.”

“

We have been successful in every single project that we have undertaken. A track record that stands at 100% - I don’t believe very many other companies in the world can claim that!

”

— Ian Crouch Founder & CEO

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Ian attributes this success to the emphasis he places on not just the early adoption of technology but on anticipating and predicting changes across Workforce Management.

“Success comes from utilizing technology to transform otherwise sedentary components of a business structure. There is a need to be able to predict where tech will be 5, 10, or even 20 years into the future and align existing systems to coalesce seamlessly when that arrives, and quickly.”

That is not just theory; Reveal Group embodies that

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The

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philosophy.

“We have specialized in RPA (Robotic Process Automation) since 2013 and foreshadowed its advent as far back as 2002. As soon as the technology became available at an enterprise-level we were quick to adopt and incorporate it into the solutions we offer. Today, Reveal Group is one the largest implementers of Robotic Process Automation in the world.”

RPA Trailblazers That shift towards RPA is one of Ian’s proudest achievements and his passion for the technology is evident. The manner in which he has channeled that passion into real-world results has taken Reveal Group to the highest echelons of service delivery.

“Recognizing the potential of RPA, I believe, is an achievement in its own right. That is not solely because we made a precise judgement but because it has given us a head start that translates into an almost insurmountable competitive edge with regards to depth and breadth of experience. While other leading competitors are trying to cover ground, we are breaking new ground.”

In this, Ian is referring to Reveal Group’s role in developing best practices for RPA implementation as well as the company’s role in establishing the associated training framework.

“Our work on operationalizing the required skills and disciplines into the successful, comprehensive training programs they are today is a testament to the experience we have with delivering successful Process Automation programs around the world. Incorporating our best practices and benchmarks into our Training Academy courses, from Foundation to Advanced Developer, are what sets us, and our trainees apart. Sharing this knowledge through training gives us a considerably larger footprint in the industry, which we |March 2019|

leverage to deliver transformative results for our clients.”

Those results are already being enjoyed by companies in over 25 industries globally. The accelerated pace of Reveal Group’s expansion is a source of great pride to Ian, but he places one achievement ahead of that.

“We have been successful in every single project that we have undertaken.

A track record that stands at 100% - I don’t believe very many other companies in the world can claim that!”

Maximizing Results through Technology Technology enables organizations to more clearly maintain compliance and governance, especially in highlyregulated industries like banking, government and aviation. Reveal Group has worked successfully with Australian national carrier, Qantas, and counts another 10 international airlines among its clients.

“Process compliance in certain industries is a no-compromise factor.

Mistakes are very costly, both in terms of finances and man-hours. Reveal Group’s RPA services deliver quality and reportability in a secure, auditable environment that cannot be replicated anywhere else.”

“International companies don’t just seek Reveal Group out for process automation; they are drawn to the results-heavy, cost-efficient immediacy of our solutions.”

Reveal Group have developed proprietary methodologies to deliver results that are time and cost-effective.

Dynamic work sprints enable the delivery of these results in weeks, rather than the numerous months these would otherwise take.

The Future, Secured Reveal Group is growing at a rate of 100% year-on-year and Ian Crouch does not see this stagating. While the company’s giant strides would seem like the end-game for many organizations, he sees them simply as steps towards larger goals.

“Reveal Group dominates the market segment in the English-speaking world.

Apart from our offices in Australia, we have established regional offices in the US, Singapore, and Africa. Now, we are expanding our reach to the nonEnglish-speaking world and are poised to launch into Japan and Europe.”

Behind this drive to establish a truly global presence is Ian’s appreciation of the unprecedented change companies will face in the coming years.

“The global changes we have seen in the past 150 years will pale before the developments and transformations we see in the next 15 years,” he says, “Intelligent Process Automation – the technology suite around digitization, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Business Intelligence – will induce and support revolutionary solutions.”

“We want to be the preeminent specialists in how you apply these technologies.”

With Ian’s leadership, Reveal Group is ideally placed to help their clients adopt the technology quickly and costeffectively.

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