The 10 Most Promising SAP Solution Providers 2019

www.insightssuccess.com

VOL 6 JUNE-2019

ISSUE- 9

HERRINGTON TECHNOLOGY OFFERING NEW AGE SOLUTIONS PROPELLING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

• Value-Driven Solutions • Advanced Technology • Advanced Technology • Customer Centricity in Brand • Top Brand Quality • Certified Assurance • Cybersecurity, Risk & Innovation Suite • R&D for Continuous Ingenuity • More to follow

The 10 Most Promising SAP Solution Providers 2019

Editor’s Desk

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ith the advent of futuristic technologies, automation has achieved a newer height in the global arena. Robots have been playing a vital role in automating mundane tasks to make them faster and less labor intensive, and SAP has helped the automating processes with robots across all functional business processes including finance transactions, personnel and customer related accomplishments. Payroll, accounts payable, employee action and customer service are the common areas that have seen success with the help of SAP. With the recent advancements in Robotic Process Automation, the image processing domain has taken a glorious turn, and document imaging has become more userfriendly and cost effective as it was never before. Taking this opportunity into consideration, companies are converting paper documents into digital, working out the text and content with optical character recognition, and then rendering the information in a system that can be routed appropriately through the organization for review, consideration and approval.

SAP's Journey towards a Glorious Future

SAP has also been positioning its offerings as the digital core for modern business working on the cloud, S/4 and HANA, and is currently in an active delivery cycle, producing product updates and adding features. SAP’s focus on S/4HANA is at an extraordinary level, and the coming innovations on the core HANA platform are going to be interesting- HANA has truly proved itself to be a fullfledged development and run time environment, and not just an in memory database. Hosting applications using a wide range of technologies such as TomEE and Nods.js, and providing enterprise integration options, has only been possible with the help of world class development tools of SAP.

With the help of SAP, entrepreneurs are leveraging their business in the domain of Big Data, Block Chain, Cloud Computing, Digital Business, IoT and Machine Learning. The pace in which SAP is helping small and big business grow and excel, the future of technology seems to be in safe hands and for sure it will bring a glorious change for the betterment of mankind.

Taking advantage of this increasing customer acceptability of SAP solutions, companies are remodeling their structure to offer company-wide visibility and agility. To flash the spotlight on the achievements of these admiring companies, we're bringing this issue of “The 10 Most Promising SAP Solution Providers 2019”.

We’ve enlisted some of the most innovative SAP solution providers which are exclusively known for their out-of-the-box solutions. The Cover of the issue has been graced by the prestigious Herrington Technology. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Manhattan, New York, Herrington Technology focuses on enabling its clients to leverage SAP solutions for better business success and growth. Herrington Technology’s SAP Business Software Channel includes software, advisory, top implementation expertise, integration and extensions/components for best in class delivery. A core purpose at Herrington Technology is to directly serve each client’s core business objectives, including the growth of their business, success with ERP SAP systems we help them deploy. The backbone of the success of the company is Valery Herrington, the Founder and CXO of Herrington Technology. Based out of Manhattan, Valery is a highly respected global technology business solutions leader. She not only inspires the team at Herrington Technology with real insight into the industry but also with her hands-on work ethic as the CXO. Aside from that, we’ve enlisted another prominent company Approyo. Approyo provides full SAP service technology with extensive capabilities in consulting, solutions architecture, and product procurement, in order to develop the right solution for its customers.

Christopher Carter, the CEO of Approyo works with businesses around the globe, assists them in their journey to the usage of Big Data in the forms of Hadoop (Cloudera and Hortonwork's) and SAP HANA. Another company we’ve enlisted in the edition is Gigas, which has built a world-class cloud hosting business that provides best-in-class solutions and services to customers worldwide.

We’ve also included an Interview with Insights Success: Configurable Management: A Zero-Code Platform for SAP Development and Integration.

While leafing through the pages don’t forget to have a look at the Tech Concern: Effect of Business Intelligence and its advantages; Expert’s Column: STEM and Augmented Reality is the Best Marriage to Deliver Motivation to the Classroom; and Pioneer Vista: HOW TO DO BEST WORK WHEN YOU'RE NOT ACTUALLY WORKING: Making a personal and professional life balance.

Also, get a glimpse of the Insight’s Special: Key Factors for a Successful ERP Implementation; and Editor’s Perspective on The Significance of “Butterfly Effect” in Leadership.

Hope this edition will help you to get some precious information about the industry.

Happy reading!

Cover Story

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Herrington Technology Offering New Age Solutions Propelling Customer Experience

Interview With Insight Success Congurable Management

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A Zero-Code Platform for SAP Development and Integration

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Article’s

30

Insight’s Special

Editor’s Perspective

Key Factors for a Successful ERP Implementation

The Signicance of “Buttery Effect” in Leadership

CONTENTS 18 Approyo Offering Simplied SAP with Innovative Cloud Solutions

38 Gigas A Global Platform Offering Excellent Cloud Hosting Solutions

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Expert's Column

Integrated Approach

Cxo Standpoint

STEM and Augmented Reality is the Best Marriage to Deliver Motivation to the Classroom

HOW TO DO YOUR BEST WORK WHEN YOU’RE NOT ACTUALLY WORKING! Maintaining a personal and professional life balance

Effect of Business Intelligence and its advantages

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Anish Miller Managing Editor Upama Goswami Contributing Editor Suhel, Ryan, Abhishaj Visualiser David King Art & Design Head Amol Kamble Art & Design Assistant Shweta Ambilwade Co-designer Paul Belin Art & Picture Editor Sapana Shinde Business Development Manager Sherin Rodricks Marketing Manager Jennifer Winget Business Development Executive Sophie, Brad, Sapna Sales Executives Kevin, Alice Technical Head Jacob Smile Assistant Technical Head Pratiksha Patil Technical Consultants Amar, David, Robert Digital Marketing Manager Alina Sege Assistant Digital Marketing Manager Prashant Chevale SME-SMO Executives Gemson, Uma Research Analyst Eric Smith Circulation Manager Tanaji sales@insightssuccess.com

JUNE, 2019 Corporate Ofď€ ces 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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COVER STORY

HERRINGTO TE

ON ECHNOLOGY

OFFERING NEW AGE SOLUTIONS PROPELLING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

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ounded in 2009 and headquartered in Manhattan, New York, Herrington Technology focuses on enabling its clients to leverage SAP solutions for better business success and growth.

At Herrington Technology, we are like master craftsmen always perfecting the art of our science and technology

It is a niche technology enterprise firm which provides advanced SAP solutions. Herrington Technology is a multi-channel firm with the capability to customize and tailor-made nature and size of its products vary by client. Herrington Technology’s SAP Business Software Channel includes software, advisory, top implementation expertise, integration and extensions/components for best in class delivery. A core purpose at Herrington Technology is to directly serve each client’s core business objectives, including the growth of their business, success with ERP SAP systems we help them deploy..

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We Are Excited To Bring New And Innovative Brand Label Solutions To Market. Innovation Is Part Of Our Firm’s Dna

Herrington Technology was initiated during the worst economic recession where the founder “started from the ground up” without any resources, funding or facility. This was a very unsettling time of financial and socio-economic crisis in America when most people were struggling to understand the impacts and dealing with the slowing down process in business and economy, along with the following recessionary period.

The most significant thing that drove this leading niche, advanced technology, and Future-Gen solution provider was its core tough leadership, which made the company survive through an unprecedented set of natural and man-made disasters including a 70- year hurricane and much more.

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The Inception Story

Founder and CXO of Herrington Technology. Based out of Manhattan, Valery is a highly respected global technology business solutions leader.

She not only inspires the team at Herrington Technology with real insight into the industry but also with her hands-on work ethic as the CXO. Her leadership is regarded within the industry to be at the forefront of advanced technology and SAP ERP change and innovation which touches at the core of many businesses around the globe, and Valery herself is considered one the world’s top SAP technology experts. It was that extensive knowledge about the SAP industry and her cumulative career expertise that led her to start Herrington Technology in 2009.

The Leading Light

Valery studied Economics, German and Computer Science in college.

She then graduated with an Executive MBA from Johns Hopkins Carey Business School with a continued focus on technology for business finance, and healthcare.

The backbone of the success of the company is Valery Herrington, the

After forming this solid theoretical and active hands-on base through her

Let’s meet the virtuous leadership of Herrington technology:

education, Valery worked at many groundbreaking companies in Silicon Valley. She immersed herself in the technology and worked on the development of emerging products, databases, operating systems, performance tuning, security integrations and customizations with enterprise programming languages.

She achieved additional business credentials, graduating with an Executive MBA from Johns Hopkins Carey Business School with a continued focus on technology for business, finance and healthcare while building the business, working for clients and taking courses at Princeton University and Sanford University.

Flagship Product and Other Solutions Herrington Technology can now deliver a broad range of advanced technology products and solutions.

Many of the solutions that Herrington Technology delivers are considered to be highly specialized, The list includes Intel processors and boards, endpoint data protection

services for the best value in cyber security protection, niche advisory services, project transformation services that can be extended to HPC platforms, its own brand label © products like PCAAS and other related services for like asset transition. The company also operates a robust FIN Tech channel and embeds its customer loyalty program in every aspect of its delivery. In many cases, the solutions and services are considered to be highly value-driven and, in many cases, uniquely tailored to the client for the best in world-class delivery.

The flagship product line includes leading SAP solutions that can deliver better business success with increased ROI. Especially targeted at small and mid-size companies, Herrington Technology offers SAP business By-design, SAP Business One, JAM for Social Media, SAP HANA Platform development

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solutions. For larger companies, the company provides SAP Cloud and enterprise Business Suite solutions.

Other products include Windshuttle data loading requirements and RBE Plus for SAP Solution Manager Analysis—making it a ‘one stop shop’ for everything SAP. Apart from this, the company offers HANA installation, configuration, and implementation services.

Herrington Technology provides customized SAP HANA knowledge transfer and expertise to educate clients about the best available options prior to locking down and on a final solution and beginning the implementation process.

Exclusive Clientele Benefits The company’s clientele includes large pharmaceutical, retail, finance, and high tech fortune 90 and midmarket firms.

“Harrington technology provides customized solutions designed to fit each customer’s unique business and technology requirements for success and the process we use to differentiate us from other competitors”, states Valery expressing her views on clients’ benefits.

A Sneak peek into the Future “We are excited for our Future-Gen products and solutions. We have a lot planned at Herrington Technology R&D lab and division. We have already embarked on a journey that aims to blend the best of our firm’s R&D with specialized areas of instrumentation and look forward to bringing new advanced technology products and solutions to market for customer success. This is a very exciting and high-growth vantage point in industry. Coupled with thought leadership excellence and

We have advanced solutions and services designed to accelerate your technology and business programs to the new destination

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Looking ahead we see great potential in the form of new jobs of the future and exciting opportunities for advanced technology.

The benefits to humanity can be astounding

world-class objectives we are ourselves expecting a lot from every go-to-market delivery”, Valery asserts.

Herrington technology will continue to offer its customers advanced solutions that are designed to generate increased business value and success for customers.

“We will continue to expand our deep commitment to technology innovation, leading business solutions and the development of new ways to meet the needs of our customers. We will continue to expand our portfolio of solutions, services, and products on the path of becoming a world class organization”, Valery concludes.

URL: herringtontechnology.net

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Interview with Insights Success

CONFIGURABLE

MANAGEMENT A Zero-Code Platform for SAP Development and Integration

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It is your business.

Build it with you and your customer in mind

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Steven Branch CEO

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C

onfigurable Management has out of the box SAP integration that accesses the tens of thousands of BAPIs or RFMs available in SAP, or any custom BAPIs or RFMs. This means there is zero-code involved for SAP development.

ERP software is defined, at a macro level, by process problems to solve. Business rules and workflow software can fill the gaps inherent in ERP software’s. We fill these gaps with zero-code, graphical editors so our client’s focus on rapidly deploying solutions, not ridged, time consuming code dependent development.

Brief us about your company. What kind of solutions/services/products offered by Configurable Management at par with the current industry standards?

Our flagship offering, Decisions For SAP Solutions™, is a zero-code digital decisioning platform that provides the ability to rapidly and iteratively develop and deploy master data governance, business process automation, application development, and robotic processing solutions without writing a single line of code. We have out of the box interfaces for SAP (ECC and HANA) as well as for Salesforce, DocuSign and numerous other systems of record.

Tell us something about the Founder/CEO. Explain about his role in the success of your company.

I began my career in manufacturing operations and focused on process re-engineering for over 15 years. In the mid 90’s I began a 20+ year SAP implementation journey. These combined experiences illuminated the need for cost effect technological offerings that could be utilized by both the business and IT. That has been our passion, mission and focus for the last 14 years.

What is the inspiration behind the success of your company?

It is actually very simple. We serve our clients well. We help them improve data quality, automate painful and costly manual processes, and we teach our clients to do this themselves. If you are around our office, you will often here me say “always do the right thing”. Honesty and integrity are in Configurable Management’s DNA and it shows in the way we live professionally as well as personally.

What is the present scenario of the SAP industry? How are you contributing to making it better?

In broad terms companies are mature in their SAP implementation, utilization and experience base. Virtually every client or prospect we speak with needs to improve data quality and automate manual processes. But they need cost effective platforms to achieve these needs. Decisions For SAP Solutions solves all of the above.

What makes your company unique in the market?

Decisions For SAP Solutions is a zero-code product that can solve problems requiring simple workflow needs all the way through to complex application development. All with the ability to make access to SAP a zero-code effort.

Tell us something about the benefits gained by your clients/users from you.

Improved collaboration between the business and IT. Both areas of the business can utilize Decisions For SAP Solutions because everyone uses self-documenting graphical design editors. And, virtually overnight, one can increase their development staff without adding headcount by empowering the business.

What scopes and challenges are coming with the introductions of new technologies?

We often experience clients utilizing technologies outside of the scope of a given product. For example, Salesforce is a great CRM product, but it is not a digital decisioning platform. However, we have seen clients attempting to use it as such. Most companies need an ERP system, a CRM System, and maybe PLM or some other very specific niche application. Beyond that, a good digital decisioning platform will solve 90%, or greater, of the remaining business process gaps.

What can be expected from your company in near future?

We will be offering run-time only applets for commonly needed solutions such as Capital Expense Requests, individual master data objects, and other transactional related needs.

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Offering Simplified SAP with Innovative Cloud Solutions

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stablished in 2012, Approyo provides full SAP service technology with extensive capabilities in consulting, solutions architecture, and product procurement, in order to develop the right solution for its customers. The company’s extensive partnerships in the industry allow it to offer top-tier SAP procurement and logistics to meet all of its customers’ SAP technology needs.

The years of experience and expertise of the team at Approyo is the foundation of the company which allows it to help companies of all shapes and sizes to implement these new and exciting SAP solutions. SAP solutions powered by Approyo allow companies to take the steps to fully embrace the digital world. In addition to its expertise, speed to market really makes Approyo stand out in today’s competitive world. The company can have an SAP HANA solution in the cloud up and running in a matter of days, as opposed to weeks compared to the competition.

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This allows companies to see the benefits right away and not struggle through the initial set up phase typically association with SAP hosted solutions.

The Pioneering Figure of the Journey Christopher Carter, the CEO of Approyo works with businesses around the globe, assists them in their journey to the usage of Big Data in the forms of Hadoop (Cloudera and Hortonwork's) and SAP HANA. With almost three decades of extraordinary working experience in the SAP industry, Christopher Carter, CEO at Approyo founded Approyo with the goal of making it easy for customers to embrace SAP HANA. Chris works with businesses around the globe and is known to assist them in their journey to the usage of Big Data in the forms of Hadoop (Cloudera and Hortonwork’s) and SAP HANA. His experience has

earned him a national recognition by the American SAP Users Group, SAP, Hadoop World, Cloud Expo and more.

Under Chris’s leadership, Approyo has been named to the Inc. 5000 three years in a row (2016 – 2018) and named one the SAP Solution Provider of the Year in 2018 by ACQ5 The “Design-thinking” Approach Being a customer- centric organization, Approyo takes a “design thinking” approach with the customers to become a true business partner.

“We want to first understand their business needs. We start with asking “what the customer wants to accomplish” and dive deep into the business goals and dreams. Then, we look at the economic and technical feasibility to truly deliver the best possible solution for the customer.

Finally, we deploy the right SAP solution for our customers and

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Our goal is to bring data and information to your business as fast as possible through an affordable solution.

continue to provide ongoing support and services”, states Chris.

Innovative SAP Solutions and Services

Making SAP HANA Easy

Approyo offers full SAP service technology with extensive capabilities in consulting, solutions and architecture, hosting and managed services, in order to develop the right solution for its customers. With over 300 SAP cloud environment around the world, Approyo supports businesses from production landscapes to live in SAP environments.

The introduction of SAP HANA sparked Chris Carter to create Approyo. HANA—a big data platform—allows customers to manipulate and design the available data specific for their business needs and help gain better insights into their company’s functioning.

Built upon the premise of making SAP HANA an easy, flexible, and cost-effective onboarding solution for companies, Approyo has developed custom-made solutions, with Ignite being one of their flagship products.

Ignite encapsulates HANA’s various components into one neat and easy package, with companies having the freedom to either uses the entire package or only those components fit for their specific purposes.

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The cloud environments of Approyo are designed and tailored specifically to the needs of its customers in order to ensure dreams of success.

Featuring the Future The pioneering figure of Approyo, Mr. Carter defines the future of the company; “We work to stay in front of changing technology by providing the most effective solutions. We want to get customers into an SAP solution in the quickest and most effective way.

More companies are expected to more to SAP HANA in the next few years with the deadline looming. We are growing our team of SAP experts at a rapid rate. Our team is the foundation of our company and we will continue to grow that team to meet the needs of our customers and the market over the next few years.”

Additionally, Approyo provides services like SAP Hosting, SAP Consultation, SAP Support, and other SAP Services.

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STEM AUGMENTED and

Reality is the Best Marriage to

DELIVER MOTIVATION

to the Classroom

I

n the era of rapid digital advancement, schools are struggling to maintain relevancy in their classes due to rapid changes in the job market and set of skills required for the future jobs. Relaying on school education and system may not be a good idea because it can be sometimes not relevant. This happens due to the slow adoption of new information that becomes available every day. Sometimes this information covers already knows knowledge set and provides a dierent, more advanced perspective.

Teaching the curriculum of the past becomes less relevant and the curriculum of the future is very diverse and technically oriented.

Schools are obliged to innovate to sustain their development by building a strong ICT infrastructure to accommodate 21stcentury learning demands for K-12 students. However, it is

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Expert's Column

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not enough to simply add technology to existing teaching methods. Technology must be used to strategically benefit students with the quality of its digital content with a strong academic relevance to provide effective learning.

people remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear and 90% of what they experience. Augmented Reality is the best tool to demonstrate and interact with complex information of STEM as well as its memorization.

It is well known, that STEM becomes more important nowadays because of the skills set it requires. This skill set has the focus on the 21rst century skills that may be required to cover new jobs that will arise on the market in the coming decade. Where is the curriculum and education sector? How advanced is it and how quickly does it accept the change?

Augmented Reality makes a difference the education because it is a proven fact that Augmented Reality engages them both inside and outside the classroom, improves testscore by up to 33% and increases retention rate by up to 100%. It supports all learning styles: verbal, physical, logical, aural, visual, social and solitary.

Education system is at the stage of analogue age. Therefore, STEM is still taught the same way it was before: books, experiments, some creativity development, manual work and tasks, read and re-tell what you understood. Think on how you were taught and compare with the way your parents were taught. The tricky part is that schooling is still pretty much at the same state now. What is the generation gap between you and your parents? What is the generation gap between you and your kids? It is huge because of technology that drives business and our day to day life. The development of technology is extremely rapid. We need to think of having it as a part of STEM education process for our kids because digital skills are already required everywhere.

Why at the age of technology STEM subjects are delivered with learning through the books and light experiments?

Technology can bring efficiency and motivation to any classroom and save money on experimenting. The same experiment can be repeated as many times as you want without any investment in materials for experiments and no harm to nature.

STEM is much more exciting when it is taught with modern technology for any kid and provides benefits like: development of digital skills, opportunity to personalize learning process, provides experimental field and real time feedback, feeds in the relevant information because it is much easier and quicker to update software than the printed books. This makes education and information relevant to the progress and development of society.

School budgets may restrict school trips, or, for example, a teacher can’t bring real animals in his classroom, or a spaceship. Augmented Reality technology can step in and support learning. Augmented Reality is easy to adopt and a teacher doesn’t need to be techie to use it in his classroom.

Augmented Reality apps are plug and play solutions and normally even do not require any internet connection.

Majority of solutions based on Augmented Reality are easy to use and can be a great visual aid for any classroom even with one device.

STEM and Augmented Reality go along together is an extremely great combination. They provide all necessary resources for kids to learn in groups and on their own, for teachers to excite, innovate and motivate to go back to the learning material right in the classroom. The great part with Augmented Reality is that outside the classroom any kid can come back to the material he would like to repeat for himself without asking teacher for help.

The future workforce is right now at kids’ desks at school.

Why not investing in the now and help them to get the skills businesses need for the future jobs? It is much more expensive and time consuming to teach employees when they join the company. Digital skills and STEM knowledge are must today. They form the important basis of the 21rst century skills.

It is important for everyone: parents, businesses and schools to take responsibility for helping kids in getting ready for the future because tomorrow can be too late.

Thinking of the efficiency in the learning process and information acquisition, how important is it to be able to memorize more and more every day? Studies say, that

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Insight's Special

Key Factors

f o r

a Successful ERPImplementation I

mplementing or adopting a new technology in an organization incorporates a major change in the business infrastructure. Every organization knows the importance of installing an Enterprise Resource Planning and its effectiveness in levelling up the entire business process.

An ERP implementation process is often counted as a difcult task. It’s mainly because of lack of communication within the company and misaligned objectives.

The major reasons behind unsuccessful implementations of ERP are basically:

• Poorly dened Project Requirements

53%

• Change their mind mid-project

• Projects not adequately staffed

• Time spent waiting for decisions or communications

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41%

21%

19%

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Any organization that wants to harness the disruptive ERP, should keep in mind some key factors: 1. A clear vision of management’s objectives 2. Well-deď€ ned processes

3. An appointed Super User to help manage the change

4. State-of-the-art training for higher adoption rate

5. Phase-wise project execution

6. Clearly documenting user procedures

7. Agree to a clear data migration strategy

8. Extensively test the system before it goes live

9. Establish security and get necessary permissions 10. Apply the knowledge of your business processes at all stages of implementation.

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Integrated Approach

HOW TO DO YOUR BEST WORK WHEN YOU'RE NOT ACTUALLY WORKING! Maintaining a personal and professional life balance

I

n my role as chief evangeliser for OLIO – the world’s only neighbour-to-neighbour food sharing app – I speak about our work and journey at a lot of events. And without fail I’m almost always asked something along the lines of “How do you juggle having a family with a startup?” Whilst this is an extremely valid question – and it touches on a topic that’s very close to my heart, it really frustrates me because I never hear the same question levelled at male peers.

As a result, this seemingly innocuous question is laden with an enormous amount of gender bias, generally to the exclusion of men. I would suggest that if we want to achieve a fulfilled balanced life for all – male and female – we have to ensure that we’re all participating in this debate about work/life balance, and that inclusivity needs to be the starting point.

Another challenge in this area is, funnily enough, the gender bias experienced by men who choose to be the “stay at home Dad”! Several years ago my husband and I decided that given our respective career paths and motivations in life, it made sense for me to be the “bread winner” and for him to look after our two kids and

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home, whilst developing property in his remaining time. This has given me the flexibility to pursue the opportunities for OLIO with full vigour, and has been absolutely invaluable in terms of helping me to achieve a balanced life. However, sadly, my husband experiences more than the occasional disparaging passing comment and has even been asked “When are you going to get a proper job?” Thankfully he has no self-esteem issues, and thinks he has the best job in the world! But I highly doubt that in this day and age anyone would ever dare say this to a woman; and so why to a man? If women are to be truly equal in the workplace – and to achieve a balanced life, then we need to adjust our perceptions of what it means to be a male in a modern society, and accept that this will require men to taking on an increasingly prominent role in the delivery of childcare – which is to the benefit of all involved, not least the children!

Gender issues aside, I spend a considerable amount of mental energy working towards achieving a ‘balanced life’. I prefer the terminology of a ‘balanced life’ rather than ‘work/life balance’, because when you’re an

entrepreneur (and especially an entrepreneur working from home), the two can become very mixed! And to suggest that ‘work’ and ‘life’ are the antithesis of one another surely isn’t what we should aspire to. In the very early days of setting up OLIO, it was pretty much impossible to lead a balanced life because we had to achieve so much, in so little time, and with virtually no resources. As we’ve grown the business and the team however, both Saasha my Co-Founder and I have achieved a much more balanced life – which is important, because the start-up journey is a series of marathons, not a sprint, and so it’s essential to avoid burnout. We find that working predominantly from home is extremely helpful in achieving balance (5-10 hours per week gained back through not having to commute!), and we both carve out time during our working days to exercise. In the early days we used to feel quite guilty about exercising when we ‘should’ be working, but now we recognise that if we’re to perform at our best then we need to be mentally and physically fit and exercise is absolutely critical for this. Plus, I find that I have many of my best insights and inspirations for OLIO when working out, so it really is

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T H E

SIGNIFICANCE OF

Butterfly

EFFECT

IN LEADERSHIP

“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,For the want of a horse the rider was lost, For the want of a rider the battle was lost,For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost, And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”

-Benjamin Franklin 30

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Editor’s Perspective

A Few Quotes on Butterfly Effect “Each smallest act of kindness, reverberates across great distances and spans of time—affecting lives unknown to the one who’s generous spirit, was the source of this good echo. Because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage, years later, and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each expression of hatred, each act of evil.”

-Dean Koontz, From the Corner of His Eye

“I knew the power of a single wish, after all. Invisible and inevitable, like a butterfly that beats its wings in one corner of the globe and with that single action changes the weather halfway across the world.”

-Alice Hoffman, The Ice Queen

T

he above quote indicates a scientific theory that a single occurrence, no matter how small, can change the course of the entire universe forever.

The concept emerges from the famous Chaos theory which proclaims that in every complex system, small changes can have unpredictable effects. The butterfly effect is the concept that small causes can bring larger effect. Initially, this concept was autonomously used in weather prediction but later the term became a metaphor to be used in and out of science.

First coined by Edward Norton Lorenz, the American mathematician and meteorologist and the pioneer of chaos theory, the term “Butterfly effect” was derived from the example of getting the details of an upcoming hurricane (such as exact time of formation, exact path taken) by observing minor disturbances such as flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier.

The butterfly effect creates some philosophical questions.

According to this theory, a butterfly flutters its tiny wings somewhere in the cherry gardens of Japan and a few months later a hurricane hits England. The obvious question here is: Did the change in air currents in Japan cause the hurricane in England? In chaos theory, the answer is “yes”.

Butterfly Effect in the Workplace

“Each one of us is like that butterfly the Butterfly Effect . And each tiny move toward a more positive mindset can send ripples of positivity through our organizations our families and our communities.”

– Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage

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“What lies behind us and what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”-- Ralph Waldo Emerson This is true, indeed. People, in general, are not aware of the fact that they are capable of doing greater or achieve more than they think. Unleashing the hidden potential of the employees is one of the primary tasks of the leader in

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“A small change like vowing to become better, and then working very hard to achieve it, can make a big impact on your social life and your career.”

charge. Leaders in an organization can make a huge difference with a seemingly small decision. The smallest of smallest action by a leader can trigger the butterfly effect in the lives of his team members, colleagues, or even clients.

A Few Points for the Leaders

-Catherine Plano

“It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.”

-Chaos Theory

“A butterfly flutters its wings in Malaysia and the changes in air currents cause a hurricane in Florida. I love that idea.

That even one tiny action can create an enormous effect.”

-Emma Scott, The Butterfly Project

“Don’t ever underestimate the power of your actions with one small gesture, you can change a person’s life.”

Here are a few lessons from the theory of “Butterfly effect” that are essential for people who are in or looking forward to a leadership position: 1. Your own behavior should be your top priority: With a higher and powerful position, you will get umpteen opportunities to make a big difference with a tiny move.

Where a little act of kindness can spread your reputation a long way, on the contrary, a little act of intolerance can be proved fatal.

2. Don’t give up too soon: If you don’t see the kinds of results you expect right away, there’s no point in getting disappointed as change takes time. Team- building takes time as it’s a complex process of uniting complex beings in highly intricate relationships.

3. Take risks: You’ll have to take risks many times if you want a refreshingly positive outcome. Sometimes confronting seemingly scary things may turn out to be more useful and powerful than you ever imagine.

4. Don’t assume: When it comes to the motives and intentions of other employees, you should never make haste to interpret their reasons and assign blame. Stay focused on what you want to accomplish and how your own actions may help you get there. We’re unable to find out the reasons behind others’ behavior. Trying to come into an instant decision may prevent you from acting in ways that will take you to your goal.

--Catherine Plano

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JUNE 2019

Cxo Standpoint

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t is always said that “Better decisions can be made with better business insights” and to get better Business Insight industry uses Business Intelligence tools. Business Intelligence or often called as “BI” is application programs and technologies which is mainly used for collecting, storing, analysing and providing access to data. BI is all about creating business value for any organizations based on data & facts. BI provides more relevant information to any enterprise business user which helps them to make better decision more faster.

Business Intelligence uses methods and programs to collect the data, convert the data into meaningful insight. BI collects large amount of data generated by enterprise and presents into meaningful actionable way. On a very high-level BI can be used for: • • • • • • • •

Performance Management Analytics Predictive Analysis Data Mining Access of organized data Identifying inefficient business process Identify hidden customer pattern Identify areas of strength and weaknesses

There are many types of BI applications that can be built like reporting, data mining, ad hoc query and data visualization tools, online analytical processing software, dashboards & performance scorecards. There are many BI Products in market which enterprise can use to fulfil their Business Intelligence needs. These BI Products

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comes with option of On-Premise or Cloud BI Software, and companies can choose to use any of these based on the best ROI and the resources they have to manage these BI software. There are many companies who offers BI products such as Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and many other SaaS companies who offers BI products and offering.

Using some of cloud based BI tools can help you to create very powerful & scalable data models and insights.

Cloud BI offers users to connect, analyze data and share insights on web, mobile or custom build applications.

Using Cloud BI users can create interactive reports and easily scale their BI reporting solution.

Effect of Business Intelligence for any organizations are many e.g. Identify the knowledge/insight from the huge structured and un-structured data, find out what contributes most for your revenue/business, single view of customer data, discover why & what motivates customer behavior.

Any good and effective BI accesses all business data, from all of platform in a singular & unified dashboard system. This includes customer data from various systems like POS, E-comm System, OMS, CRM, email & campaign marketing, customer chats etc. and all data is aggregated into a single view of the customer and their interactions with any enterprise business.

In today’s world of huge data and various ways customer interacts with business it is very important to have a single view of customer. Using BI, it is possible to create a single unified view of customer from such a vast data and drive lot of business insights which helps business and drives more revenues. That’s why most company these days uses business intelligence which has helped them to grow their sales. Business Intelligence helps business to find when and where they should invest for marketing.

It is believed that retaining an existing customer costs less than making a new customer. And Business Intelligence is one such tool which if used correctly can help to retain existing customer. Now a days most of the companies are using Business Intelligence for improving Customer satisfaction, customer retention and customer loyalty. To improve customer retention there are ways which we can use in Business Intelligence. Here are few of the ways.

• Analyze your customer based on their journey on your website and predict their behavior. To do this we need to collect as much data as we can from various source of our business be it social media, campaign, order management system, CRM, their click path on website, chat with customer care, chat with bots or support agents. Once we have collected customer data from various sources, Business Intelligence tools allows us to deeply analyze data and understand customer behavior and pattern. Once we know customer behavior and pattern we can design better and improved User Experience and attract them to come back to business.

• Use Business Intelligence tools to influence customer behavior. Using BI tools, we can monitor and track customer response for a marketing campaign or advertisement. And based on this we can design and influence customer behavior as we know what is working for them and what they are liking. Various campaign can be run based on their demographic information, Gender, Age, Customer Journey on website. Using these customer information business owners can run specific campaign which works for their customer and it means more business and better customer retention.

Summary In Today’s world, customers are demanding and to achieve customer satisfaction, customer retention and increased business, Business Intelligence has become necessity for all businesses. So if you are not doing it yet, May be its time to spend some time and see how BI can help you increase business as it is doing for others.

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JUNE 2019

A Global Platform Offering Excellent Cloud Hosting Solutions

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oday’s SAP industry scenario is, from an infrastructural point of view, has seen a massive rise. End clients increasingly seek comprehensive solutions that provide the service they demand in a transparent, flexible and secure manner.

Gigas has built a world-class cloud hosting business that provides best-inclass solutions and services to customers worldwide. Although there are much larger players in the industry, from a competitive standpoint, Gigas has found, time and again, that businesses are more interested in excellence in service than incumbency.

In just seven years of operations, Gigas has emerged as a true market leader in their native Spanish market and key Spanish-speaking markets throughout Latin America, attracting large enterprises such as United Nations, Aon, Avianca, Diners Club, Acciona, Iberdrola, OHL, Canal 13 or BarceloTravel. The company has deployed 6 datacenters in Europe, North America and South America and offices in Spain, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Panama, USA and Mexico.

Additionally, after only few years in the market, and following explosive organic growth, Gigas went public in November 2015 in the Madrid Stock Exchange. Since, the company went

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great lengths to detect opportunities for inorganic growth (M&A), culminating with the acquisition of two companies (in Spain and Colombia) and continues to assess corporate deals to boost its business.

The Quintessential Leader Diego Cabezudo, the CEO of Gigas holds an MSc in Telecommunications Engineering and an MBA from London Business School and UC Berkeley. He was the former CEO of AGS, an IT consultancy firm, where he grew sales exponentially and expanded the business to several international markets. He previously served as COO of FON, the largest Wi-Fi network in the world, and as Head of Strategy for mobile services provider O2. He has also worked for cable provider TeleCable and management consultancy firms DMR, Fujitsu Consulting and Coleago.

As the CEO of Gigas, Diego’s main task is to lead the company, guide its strategy, and to recruit an exceptional team, mentoring its members and training them so that they grow together with the company. Cabezudo is also in charge of representing Gigas to a range of different stakeholders (the media, analysts, investors, shareholders, etc.), managing the company’s growth and investment strategy, as well as creating and encouraging corporate culture.

Extraordinary Solutions from Gigas Gigas has developed an award-winning cloud platform that has attracted more than 4,000 enterprise customers. In 2014, Gigas was one of the first cloud providers to be awarded the SAP “Infrastructure Operations Service” certification. Its focus on hosting mission critical services makes it natural to run complex SAP production environments in an efficient, secure and flexible way.

SAP-certified Cloud Datacenter solution of Gigas provides a pool of resources (CPU, RAM, storage, networking, security) which customers can manage themselves in order to set up virtual machines, VLANs, VPNs, backups, load balancers, different types of storage, commercial firewalls, etc.

An easy to use but powerful control panel allows the deployment of highly complex system architectures in real time, from a fully automated and optimized environment. Clients can therefore decide, at any given moment, what their SAP requirements are and expand or decrease instantly according to the needs of their business, as well as distribute them geographically among Gigas’ datacenters.

Gigas has become the preferred partner of multiple SAP integrators in Spain and LATAM thanks to its advanced platform and its close and customizable service. With its channel,

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We operate with ‘think global, act local’ philosophy.

the company continues to innovate its portfolio to deliver new solutions, such as Gigas SAP S/4 Hana Private Cloud on a "cost-per-user” basis. This solution offers a managed environment with great savings, facilitating the incorporation of all types of clients into the SAP world, regardless of their size, since it avoids large investments and speeds SAP adoption processes Significant Benefits for Customers Companies that have deployed their SAP solutions on Gigas platform benefit from significant cost savings.

Gigas cloud model for SAP, aimed at both large companies as well as SMEs, does not require an initial investment in infrastructure and it is less costly than customers owning and maintaining their own infrastructure. In addition, as a pay-per-use model, it adapts very well to the usual ramp-up SAP installation, minimizing costs until service is fully deployed and in production. Furthermore, the solution enjoys the pay-per-use while at the same having all variable costs included, allowing for a predictable, transparent and inexpensive financial model, with no bill surprises at the end of the month.

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For local SAP partners in Spain and Latin America, being able to count on the expertise of a certified infrastructure specialist with local presence, highly qualified 24/7 technical support in Spanish and local billing is critical. Furthermore, the fact that Gigas does not compete offering SAP professional services, can be extremely agile and flexible and also offers a healthy margin to its SAP distribution partners, have made Gigas the infrastructure partner of choice in the SAP world.

The Sparkles of Excellence Gigas named as Significant Provider

by Gartner, in its “Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service” report (2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017, Innovation Award in the 2013 Computerworld & CIO Iberoamericanos Awards; Best Hosting and Cloud Company by eAwards (2013 and 2016 editions); Eurocloud Award for the “Best IaaS Service in the Market” (2013 and 2014 editions); Best Cloud Service Provider in Spain

by MSP Mentor 501 2015 and 2016 Global Edition; Best World Cloud Hosting Provider by The Cloud Awards in its 2016 and 2017 edition.

Gigas was included in the Financial Times report 1,000 Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies, in 2017 and 2018.

After only four years in the market, and following explosive growth, Gigas went public in November 2015 in the Madrid Stock Exchange.

Future Roadmap Gigas wants to continue focus on what they do best. In that respect, rather than expanding their portfolio of services, company looks to keep expanding its offices and datacenters into new markets, continuing with its “being global by being local” strategy. At the same time, Gigas is also investing in expanding its indirect sales channel, partnering with system integrators, ISVs and SAP partners to better reach customers and provide them with a one-stop-shop solution to their needs.

“Our ‘think global, act local’ philosophy is clearly making an impact, and we look forward to cultivating further growth in what we believe are significantly underserved customer segments”, concludes Diego.

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