Software Systems, Invest in Software | 2 min read
Want to know what the biggest mistake is when enterprise companies invest in software?
After all, enterprises can invest millions in monthly software subscription, without getting much in return.
Want to learn more? Read on.
Year after year, IT departments within enterprise companies are getting higher budgets to spend on software. In many organizations, these departments might spend hundreds of millions of dollars on buying and renewing software to increase the productivity and efficiency of their organizations.
For subscription-based software, organizations pay a monthly subscription fee, so the software turns out to be another employee on the payroll. With high spending on technologies, IT departments will have the highest payroll.
But are those new employees doing the required job? Sadly, that’s not the case in most of the cases. Let’s take a look at why that is.
In results-based organizations, functional managers set employee KPIs before hiring and monthly payment is defined based on a certain salary scale. These managers review employees on a monthly basis to ensure the return on the salary investment. If the employee isn't performing, then managers try to improve productivity. Otherwise, they might fire the under-performing employee. In results-based organizations, employees don't get a raise unless they start performing and getting results.
Sadly most enterprise organizations don’t assign functional managers to set the KPIs for software that they would like to purchase. So there’s no one to check the performance regularly, and there's no salary scale to define the monthly pay.
In the past, I’ve witnessed organizations spending millions of dollars on software that they don't need and they might never use. It's like a manager who would just hire more team members to keep them sitting idle in the office.
However, everyone will immediately discover the idle team members, but sadly no one is paying attention to the idle software. In the end, these software systems might be completely overlooked because they’re so hard to discover.
What also confuses me is that these organizations keep paying more and more on a yearly basis on these software systems as if they are worried to get rid of them or fire them. Or even more specifically, fire the software providers who get the money from these organizations regardless if the software is used or not.
When enterprise companies invest in software, they should immediately start looking at software subscriptions as an employee and set KPIs to track their performance.
They should then keep those that perform, but get rid of those that don’t. IT departments should not hesitate to fire under-performing software and remove them from their payroll.
I would also like to emphasize that software providers who get the money from regardless if the software is used or not, aren't your strategic partners as they will benefit when you might lose and they will drain your financial resources and might also hinder you from getting the right software.
And there’s a better alternative. At Exceeders, we’re building the right partner echo system where we only charge you for productive software. That's one of our core values and something we’re proud of. After all, why should you pay for something that doesn’t add value?
There you have it. Now you know how to invest in software so that you buy systems for your enterprise organization that actually make a difference.
Want to learn more about our software systems with guaranteed results? Take a look at our software store here.
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Originally published Aug 28, 2019 12:55:12 PM, updated December 3, 2019
Topics: Software Systems Invest in Software
1 min read
Business continuity has become every organization’s top priority with the recent escalation of the Covid-19 situation. Everyone is consumed with the possibility that they might not be able to sustain operations after orders to work from home have been officially circulated. Survival is on everyone’s agenda, and to survive, you need to diminish any contingencies that may affect operations.
Employees are every business’s most important asset. If your employees are not able to perform jobs or submit requests that require a chain of approvals, you might be heading down a dark road of less productivity, slow operations, no achievement, and incurring losses.
Among the many challenges we have seen organizations struggle with after implementing “remote working”, the biggest challenge yet has been the disruption of operations due to the absence of people to approve requests submitted by employees and to “keep processes flowing”. What happens when your approvers are physically inaccessible?
We believe we have what you need to not only survive, but to also maintain a normal pace of operations and eliminate factors that will disrupt them.
While we at Exceed did not necessarily anticipate Covid-19, we did however, anticipate a shift in operating models. We have been implementing a remote working model since 2014 when we detected patterns in where the business world was heading. To support our vision, we created numerous solutions that will sustain our remote working model, one of which is the Enterprise Submission Platform a.k.a ESP for Employee Service Catalogue & Digital Approvals.
ESP is a process automation system that empowers business users to create and manage their processes, without having to rely on IT staff to get the job done. As it is easy to use with little to no training, this reduces the time needed to go live and the cost required to maintain and manage the system. This model will make the process of approving employee requests while working remotely much easier to control, track, and manage.
How exactly will it solve remote working challenges?
Step 1:
We will help you map your old traditional approval processes on the system
Step 2:
We will train your business users on how to use the system and create processes, remotely
Step 3:
We will support you in creating new processes that meet the demands of remote working
Our focus with ESP is to provide you with a business process automation solution that can automate all your processes that are currently handled manually and that require approvals, to help alleviate any remote working costs that your business will take on.
While we maintain our promise listed above, we understand that customers may have some underlying questions regarding the solution and so we’ve compiled what we anticipate would be the most common ones:
For more information on ESP, feel free to contact us here.
2 min read
We live in a time that is characterised by a major technology takeover, a time experiencing the 4th industrial revolution. Companies that want to survive and evolve must keep track of technology breakthroughs, because as we’ve come to know, technology can make or break a company’s success.
In light of that, it is imperative to always look forward in anticipation and not just wait for a trend to start “trending”. We have created a list of what we speculate to be the major technology trends of 2020 that everyone should keep an eye out for.
No matter how much technology advances, it is agreed that no single tool can replace humans. Most organisations out there are already familiar with automation, which involves automating simple tasks that require processes with predefined rules and structured data. The idea of HyperAutomation, on the other hand, involves a combination of tools that together result in the creation of an organisation’s digital twin, which allows for the automation of more complex work.
According to Gartner, combining robotic process automation, intelligent business management software, and AI enables organisations to visualise how functions, processes, and key performance indicators interact to drive value.
Allowing this digital twin to become an integral part of the HyperAutomation process as it provides real-time continuous intelligence about the organisation will enable more informed decision making. Successful automation involves several key factors: discover, analyse, design, automate, measure, monitor, & reassess.
An example of a tool that is designed based on these factors would be Exceed’s ESP.
While Blockchain was first developed back in 1991, it came to life with the introduction of Bitcoin in 2009. The idea of bitcoin mimics printed currency in the transactional sense, but instead of being regulated by a central bank or government, bitcoin is regulated by a network of computers. Blockchain is the protocol on which bitcoin is built.
In the simplest terms, Investopedia defines Blockchain as “a distributed, decentralised, public ledger”, which translates to digital information (blocks) that are stored in a public database (chain). While blockchain is beneficial in peer to peer transactions and small-scope projects, it remains immature for enterprise deployments due to technical issues.
However, market speculations anticipate it to be fully scalable by 2023. According to research conducted by Gartner, “true blockchain will have the potential to transform industries, and eventually the economy, as complementary technologies such as AI begin to integrate alongside blockchain.”
Can Machines Think?
AI involves designing “human-like” machines that are able to perform tasks requiring intelligence. Machines are built to mimic processes and tasks that involve recognition of images, speech, or patterns & decision making. Those processes include acquiring information and rules, using those rules to reach conclusions, & self-correction.
Unlike traditional coding, the computer creates instructions for itself using machine learning algorithms rather than having humans write those instructions. To demonstrate the effect of AI, take google translate for an example.
When it first went live, google translate used to have more than a million lines of code (human-created instructions). Currently, google translate has 500 lines of code due to machine learning. However, while it is expected to overtake every industry, one must understand its limitations.
Knowledge in AI comes from data, and for the machine to be accurate, it must read from accurate data. While businesses have been understanding what AI can and can't achieve for the past few years, it expected that the future points towards a time where machines are appointed not only all of the physical work, as they have done since the industrial revolution, but also the mental work involving planning, strategising, and making decisions.
Sources:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blockchain.asp
https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/gartner-top-10-strategic-technology-trends-for-2020/
https://www.simplilearn.com/top-technology-trends-and-jobs-article
3 min read
Enterprise technology is a booming industry. Companies are developing software and portals that meet the needs of their customers and solves their problems.
But the enterprise tech faces many issues that are threatening the success of new software.
Digital transformation calls for significant shifts in business models and corporate culture, and portals play an important role in guiding audiences through that.
Portals have evolved over the past 10 years, but they have always been defined by one core priority: delivering a personalised experience that filters out the noise and offers only what is relevant to the end-user.
With the increasing emphasis on customer experience, portals remain a key part of any digital transformation strategy.
Integrating applications is a challenge that businesses often face. Sometimes newer technologies do not integrate well with out of date systems. These newer systems also prove to be an issue, as they act in isolation and are not able to be integrated.
Due to this, operational and employee efficiency can take a huge hit.
This is why it is important to check whether your existing systems can integrate with new technologies seamlessly. For example - your invoicing system should be compatible with your accounting tool, and your accounting tool should work with your CRM, which should work with your marketing tools, and so on.
Data privacy and protection have been one of the major issues for enterprises in the past few years.
Even though there was a huge hype for GDPR for several months leading to its enforcement, only a few businesses managed to achieve full compliance thus far.
A survey by Talend found that most of the surveyed companies (around 70%) failed to comply with Article 15 and Article 20 of the GDPR, meaning that they are unable to provide a copy of users’ personal data on request within the allotted one-month time limit.
With smartphones being the ubiquitous device for most people, it’s no surprise that businesses have embraced smartphones with full gusto.
While the benefits of going mobile friendly are tangible and irreplaceable, the addition of mobility has posed new challenges which must be dealt with quickly and effectively.
This is essential for technology- and user based businesses so they may deliver a seamless and fully functional mobile experience.
The need for a good User Interface/User Experience is now growing in importance. In the past, companies could get away with having a poor UI/UX for their portals.
Today, Function over Form simply doesn't suffice.
It’s absolutely essential for companies to find that exact balance between looks and features and create products that meet requirements – both functionally and from a UI perspective.
In the past, enterprise portals didn’t always have the best UI/UX. Processes and products are complicated for large corporations, and thus the software they use become cumbersome.
As technology advances, businesses are putting more emphasis on UX, but getting it right is still a challenge. The problem is finding a delicate balance between the function of enterprise tech and how it interacts with users.
New technology, especially in the form of connected devices, is growing and influencing the expectations of users for digital experiences.
How might the growth of these devices impact the content within your portal?
Employee portals may need to include data analytics drawn from industrial sensors in factories.
Customer portals might need to be viewable on smartwatches or other wearables. Chatbots and voice may be able to replace traditional search, but require more natural content and possibly AI software to execute.
Enterprises need to view new technology and devices as part of a unified, omnichannel strategy to get the most of out of their technology investments and leverage data across the organisation.
The software needs to be complicated enough to effectively solve problems, but simple enough for end-users to use easily.
Want to learn more about four types of portals that solve enterprise problems?
In this e-book, you will learn:
Business continuity has become every organization’s top priority with the recent escalation of the Covid-19 situation. Everyone is consumed with the possibility that they might not be able to sustain operations after orders to work from home have been officially circulated. Survival is on everyone’s agenda, and to survive, you need to diminish any contingencies that may affect operations.
We live in a time that is characterised by a major technology takeover, a time experiencing the 4th industrial revolution. Companies that want to survive and evolve must keep track of technology breakthroughs, because as we’ve come to know, technology can make or break a company’s success.
Enterprise technology is a booming industry. Companies are developing software and portals that meet the needs of their customers and solves their problems.
