Most modern cars now have a feature called CarPlay, which allows you to connect your Apple or Android phone to your vehicle. CarPlay creates a platform for your car to interact with various applications on your phone, allowing you to do things like make calls and play music without having to physically interact with your phone.

For example, you can launch Google Maps from the CarPlay function via your car’s touch screen or select a new location using voice prompts. In this case, your car interacts with Siri on your phone and executes the instruction via the CarPlay platform.

A Business Technology Platform is like CarPlay for enterprises.

A Business Technology Platform is defined by four domains, namely Database & Data Management, Analytics, Application Development, and Intelligent Technologies. These four domain areas can be viewed as the primary applications on your CarPlay, allowing businesses to interact with data, for example predictive analytics to make predictions about the future state of the business to plan more effectively.

The Business Technology Platform serves as the foundation for all 麻豆原创 applications and enables the end-to-end integration of applications and business processes.

In the same way CarPlay ensures a seamless integration of your phone with your car, improving the driving experience and enhancing usability, businesses can use the Business Technology Platform to keep their core ERP system “clean,” and then perform extensive customisation and integration using the Business Technology Platform’s application development and integration capabilities.

What are the benefits of the Business Technology Platform to companies?

A Business Technology Platform unlocks significant benefits for companies by improving the ease at which they can optimise core business processes and better integrate their most important business applications.

For example, every company needs analytics. Using the Business Technology Platform, companies can provide dashboards, real-time reporting, and predictive analytics to their employees and suppliers using embedded analytics capabilities, allowing them to have a forward-looking view of their business operations.

In financial planning, the Business Technology Platform gives companies the ability to 鈥榤ap out鈥� their financial journey. Think of financial planning as planning a trip using Google Maps: companies can leverage the Business Technology Platform to receive continuous and real-time information on the financial equivalent of traffic patterns and alternative routes.

Many companies are grappling with database and data management, which relates to how data is stored as well as how different types of data from various sources can be seamlessly integrated. The Business Technology Platform enables companies to integrate and process data from various sources without physically moving the data, much like CarPlay allows you to integrate with your mobile phone’s address book without physically moving your contacts to your car.

Finally, many companies are seeking to unlock the benefits of intelligent technology solutions. In some industries, such as manufacturing, the use of sensors to collect data and automate certain decisions in real-time has become a business imperative and a must-have for success. A manufacturing plant, for example, can completely automate the plant maintenance schedule, where sensors monitor the various pieces of machinery and compare this data to their output to determine and predict when the various machines will fail and when they need to be serviced.

In this regard, the Business Technology Platform enables companies to automate these processes to improve quality, efficiencies, and production output.

The Business Technology Platform is an enterprise-grade platform that allows companies to interact with data through applications and integrate their applications with business processes. It enables companies to leverage听data in a coordinated, efficient, and cost-effective manner, while also ensuring the seamless integration of various data sources and business processes.

It lends an uncertain and often difficult business journey a sense of predictability and control, and enables decision-makers to better orchestrate how the business responds to emerging challenges and opportunities.

In an unpredictable and ever-changing world, the Business Technology Platform gives businesses an advantage by allowing them to be more agile, mitigate risk, and capitalise on emerging opportunities.

听

The post What is the Business Technology Platform and What Does it Mean for Businesses? appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

Data Regulations with national reach like South Africa’s POPIA and Brazil’s LGPD, state-wide reach like California’s CCPA and multinational reach like Europe’s GDPR are already mainstream, to the extent where broad scale adoption by organisations has progressed and companies have growing skills and competency in adhering to policies and programs.

Data Privacy and Protection was always considered a CEO and CFO discussion – with financial penalties making headlines for data breaches. As an example, Amazon’s 鈧�746m penalty topped the charts in 2021 due to consent management discrepancies related to cookie collection on web browsers, and the fine was nearly three times larger than that of WhatsApp the same year, who faced a 鈧�225m penalty for a lack of clarity around their data processing practices in their privacy policy.

But is the accountability and business relevance of data privacy and protection changing offices within the C-Suite? While financial risk is always a business concern, could the shift occurring in our now post-pandemic era of business be to the Chief Customer Office?

The shift to loyalty

Pandemic-era consumer behaviour dropped substantially around the world in 2020 and saw partial improvement during 2021. What has changed though, is the prioritisation of certain categories of spend and the shift away from brand alignment in favour of pricing, convenience and other factors. A听听delves into one convenience factor, where 60-70% of US consumers in 2021 were shopping in a more omni-channel manner, with social media as a new channel. Brand alignment or loyalty was also impacted by poor stock-on-hand, with over 60% of consumers facing this situation and only 13% being willing to wait for stock to arrive.

Consumer preference has evolved. Relationships with new brands continue to be spawned out of need, interest, spite or frustration. Convenience, frictionless buying and accurate delivery are expected. What brands cannot afford to do now is give consumers a reason to look somewhere else, and the discussion around data privacy, consent, personalised communication and data protection is now a key priority for the most senior executive accountable for customer engagement, customer experience, and customer success.

The attention of a single customer is a hot commodity in the current era of business. The typical new eCommerce customer experience starts at a social media platform, follows a click-through buying process from a sponsored ad or post, requires the customer to select (and deselect) cookie tracking options, and hopefully not get distracted before completing an order, with convenient payment methods that favour the customer. Inject any notification or pop-up from another brand along the way and your customer journey needs to ensure that you remind that customer of their abandoned basket and offer them a limited time discount to come back to the store to complete their order.

This is the current expectation… but improve this through accurate understanding and prediction of their buying preferences and behaviour and you stand a good chance of closing that order and getting repeat purchases. Mess this up and you’ve lost the opportunity. Add a privacy concern, data breach or any friction in the consent management process and you’ve likely lost that customer for life.

Outlook

Financial risk associated with data regulation infringement is obviously still a priority. No business expects to face multimillion Euro penalties in any given financial year, and this would be a hard knock to both the bank balance and the brand’s reputation. Perhaps, to the CFO, this becomes more of a contingency and the likelihood of facing a penalty becomes more commonplace.

The shift in terms of strategy and competitive advantage with regard to data privacy and protection is arguably sitting with the Chief Customer Officer going forward. Customer journeys, customer insights and customer campaigns should always include an element of sense-checking compliance with regulations, even if the tick-box exercise returns the same results each time. Customers have less appetite to force alignment with particular brands. Even in the banking sector, where customers traditionally have held accounts for decades,听听for 2022.

The post Who Really Cares about Data Privacy? appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

Globally, local and national governments continue to gain access to ever more powerful technologies for collecting, storing, processing and applying data.

As cities improve their capacity for collecting and analysing data, and continue to gather more of it, an opportunity for open collaboration emerges. Many of the risks we face – rapid urbanisation, the impacts of climate change, effective management of scarce resources such as water – are shared among South Africa鈥檚 cities.

Leveraging shared data and analytics could help identify risks more quickly, drive the development of solutions to common challenges and greatly improve the delivery of services to citizens, thereby fostering trust and building greater social cohesion.

With the volume of operational and experience data growing at a rapid pace, cities could 鈥� with the correct investment into intelligent technologies 鈥� seamlessly merge data sets to produce real-time insights that can guide decision-making at every step of the citizen journey.

Building greater e-government capacity

In a recent UN e-government study, in the e-government development index, an indicator of digital government services maturity. This put the country in the top 100 countries worldwide and above the global average, although still well behind countries in Europe, North America and Asia.

According to the OECD, within African cities. Considering the parlous state of finances in some of South Africa鈥檚 cities, the improved use of data could help bring greater transparency to public spending and help ensure critical financial resources are applied where they can make the greatest difference to citizens.

For example, an open data policy, where cities make important data visible and accessible to citizens, could improve oversight over how governments make important decisions, how public funds are spent versus what the budget priorities are, and how well different government departments are functioning in providing essential services to citizens.

According to the UN, the number of countries that have set up open government data portals continues to increase, .

SA cities strive for smart

Locally, cities such as Cape Town have established open data portals that encourage citizen participation in local government decision-making processes. The City of Cape Town offers nearly 86 data sets for downloading by the public, with stakeholders such as universities, laboratories and non-profit organisations using the data to drive local research and innovation.

Cape Town’s Emergency Policing and Incident Command (EPIC) program, which went live in 2016 and is a first of its kind in South Africa, provides a centralised emergency control platform for the preparation, mitigation, response and quick resolution of all public safety incidents in the city. The platform is built on powerful intelligent technologies with comprehensive reporting capabilities that provide real-time access to incident data which informs broader planning and response strategies.

Johannesburg is accelerating its plans to become a smart city by mobilising its enviable community of start-ups and innovators through a city-wide smart city innovation challenge. In addition, President Ramaphosa’s vision for building a brand new smart city on the outskirts of Johannesburg could foster a new era of innovation.

Relying on renewable energy and built with a focus on non-motorised transport, the planned smart city could accommodate up to half a million residents by the end of the decade and transform the economic and employment prospects for millions living in the region.

Unlocking intelligent public enterprises

Improved use of data within SA鈥檚 cities could also foster new business models that are built on data-driven innovation and real-time insights. By improving the use of data as a vital public resource, cities could achieve:

1. Improved governance through evidence-based policy making, outcomes-based contracting for key public works programmes, and community budgeting that increases citizen engagement with vital budgetary processes to help ensure optimal use of public funds;

2. Better mobility through the integration of ride-hailing and demand-based transit services into public transport networks, improved e-mobility, and the establishment of network logistic hubs;

3. Superior citizen experiences through the improved delivery of e-government services, better experience management to remove pain points from citizen interactions with government services, and predictive public safety initiatives;

4. Cleaner environment through the establishment of infrastructure and services enabling a circular economy, and empowering citizens to become digital prosumers; and

5. Stronger economy through improved public-private partnerships, access to more accurate city data to drive economic development, and intelligent revenue collection.

However, cities need to invest in intelligent technologies that enable the seamless collection, processing, storing and application of a broad range of data. A business technology platform that can easily integrate new technologies and provide a single source of truth to policy-makers can help optimise decision-making and ensure citizens remain at the centre of city plans, initiatives and interventions.

Investing in intelligent technologies such as IoT and experience management tools can give cities access to broader data sets, which can be mined for insights using AI and advanced analytics. And using cloud technologies can help provide ready access to critical services even during times of heightened disruption, while offering opportunities for scaling services to new citizens or regions as needed.

The post Can Data Drive the Success of SA’s Cities? appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

According to Cameron Beveridge, Regional Director Southern Africa at 麻豆原创, trust is the key to success in the digital economy.

鈥淧rivacy and trust are essential elements in building strong connections with customers and ensuring a positive customer experience (CX) in today鈥檚 business environment.鈥�

鈥淚n fact, some studies have found that up to 90% of customers believe how their data is treated is indicative of the way they will be treated as a customer, and 91% won鈥檛 purchase from a company if they don鈥檛 trust how their data will be used.鈥�

Cyberattacks complicate compliance

Protecting customer privacy and data is complicated by a growing global cybercrime industry that has increasingly targeted the supply chains of major organisations and economic powers.

Recent ransomware attacks on key US infrastructure have garnered front-page attention. In one example, cybercriminals successfully shut down the Colonial Pipeline,听.

With data breaches听, and the Protection of Personal Information Act now fully in effect, the stakes for protecting systems from data breaches have never been higher.

鈥淓nterprise resource planning systems are nerve centres of modern intelligent enterprises, making them prime targets of cybercriminals,鈥� says Beveridge.

鈥淎ttackers know these systems run business-critical applications and house sensitive information, so any data breach could provide access to information they can later use in the service of cybercrime activities.鈥�

Taking 鈥榓ll reasonable steps鈥�

One of the key requirements of POPIA is that organisations have to ensure they take 鈥榓ll reasonable steps鈥� to secure the data of their customers, partners, suppliers and employees.

鈥淭he best run organisations have integrated end-to-end processes that cover the entire breadth of their operations,鈥� explains Beveridge.

鈥淭he productivity and efficiency gains resulting from this are undeniable. However, the wealth of data processed and stored by such systems creates an attractive target for cybercriminals.鈥�

The amount of transactional data in typical ERP systems, for example, represent a veritable gold mine to cybercriminals, as does the information about vendors, suppliers and partners.

鈥淭he more cybercriminals know about the internal operations of a business, the easier they will find vulnerabilities to exploit. However, it鈥檚 not only cybercriminals that pose security or compliance risks.鈥�

Research conducted by IBM and the Ponemon Institute found that the three main causes of data breaches in South African businesses were malicious or criminal attack (48%), human error (26%) and system glitches (26%).

鈥淧OPIA adds further pressure on organisations by both raising the bar for privacy management and by its extensive reach and applicability within modern enterprises,鈥� says Beveridge.

鈥淥rganisations risk underestimating the level of effort required to implement the necessary process and technology changes to be compliant.鈥�

POPIA tips for security and compliance

Beveridge believes the following tips can assist organisations as they strive for full POPIA compliance while also safeguarding their critical business IT infrastructure from malicious attack or negligence.

• Maintain balance听鈥� effective data management can give organisations a competitive edge, but proper assessment needs to take place early on to ensure regulatory compliance.
• Keep it simple听鈥� organisations should simplify their governance by establishing a governance model that is aligned with requirements and best practices, and start by evaluating their readiness for POPIA compliance.
• Stay on top听鈥� by operationalising privacy management and incorporating ways to identify business processes that need to meet privacy compliance requirements, organisations can keep a close watch on any internal processes that should be changed to remain compliant as the business evolves.
• • Automate away听鈥� data mapping or data crawler solutions can reduce the time and effort needed to identify all repositories of personal information, as well as their owners within and outside the organisation.
  • Educate employees听鈥� every employee needs to understand their responsibility under POPIA, which requires regular and ongoing education and training. Organisations should prioritise a process of ongoing POPIA and cybersecurity training to ensure alignment throughout the business.
  • Integrate threat detection听鈥� an enterprise threat detection solution can provide insight into suspicious activities in an organisation鈥檚 ERP and related business applications, allowing the organisation to identify breaches as they occur and react in real time to neutralise any dangers.

  For more information download the whitepaper 鈥撎�

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As the country hardest-hit by the coronavirus on the continent, South Africa has been regrettably slow with its vaccine rollout, with only having received a vaccine dose at the time of writing this.

A first phase, which focused on healthcare workers, concluded in mid-May, and the second phase targeting the elderly and other vulnerable groups, including teachers, is currently underway.

The vaccination of the South African population against SARS-CoV-2 is the most ambitious and far-reaching healthcare initiative in the country’s history, and continues to stretch the limits of our healthcare sector.

Much has been said about the slow pace of vaccine procurement and challenges with convincing parts of the population to vaccinate – thanks in no small part to the extraordinary disinformation campaigns flourishing on social media.

However, one somewhat forgotten aspect risks being lost: the importance of data, and the protection thereof, in building trust in the process.

Optimal usage and protection of patient data

Personal health data represent a particular challenge in terms of data security as a failure to protect such data could severely harm people and expose them to discrimination.

For example, inadvertently sharing sensitive personal health data of a person living with a dread disease could affect their job prospects and livelihoods. A mix-up in personal health data could lead to someone receiving the incorrect diagnosis or, even worse, the wrong treatment. This can be life-threatening under some circumstances.

The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), which was finally implemented in full force in 2020, aims to give citizens greater control over how their personal data is stored, processed and used.

While all businesses that work with private data – including that of organisations and other juristic persons – are affected, it is arguably the healthcare sector that is under most pressure due to the ongoing pandemic and the unprecedented vaccine rollout effort.

Where is my data anyway?

The vaccine rollout in particular poses an immense challenge in terms of data security and privacy protection. Any clinic, hospital, private or public healthcare practitioner, medical aid or medicines firm needs to ensure they protect the personal healthcare data processed during the course of business.

This is easier said than done.

While government has taken steps to centralise the scheduling and rollout of vaccinations via its Electronic Vaccination Data System (EVDS) portal, and require that all citizens wishing to be vaccinated register on EVDS. The intention is that, as each population group (over-60s, teachers, healthcare workers, etc.) registers, each person receives communication with the time, date and location of their scheduled vaccination appointment.

However, the system is often unreliable, and many people simply get no confirmation of where they need to go or when. There is also little communication over the status of an application for vaccination.

Compounding the problem is that actual vaccination sites are run by a combination of public and private sector organisations, and in many cases are open to walk-ins who may not have received confirmation of their appointments.

How is the data of walk-ins, for example, collected, stored, processed and managed? Who is overseeing the full end-to-end process to ensure it is fully POPIA compliant? In the case of manual data entries, how is quality maintained to ensure data integrity? And how is this data secured from the rising tide of cyberattacks besieging South African organisations?

The role of technology

Public and private sector healthcare organisations should lean heavily on technology to assist with both the protection of vaccine patient data as well as better supporting the end-to-end vaccination process.

A patient experience management tool can give healthcare decision-makers insights into underperforming or misaligned aspects of the vaccination process 鈥� for example, insufficient communication around vaccination appointments 鈥� and help ensure a seamless process from start to finish.

A cloud-based analytics tool can help integrate healthcare data from public and private sector roleplayers and highlight critical insights that can point to trends, risks, opportunities and areas for improvement while maintaining data integrity throughout. Equipped with accurate and complete data, government and other decision-makers will be able to determine the most effective healthcare response and potentially save lives.

In addition, any vaccine rollout strategy should include a comprehensive customer data strategy, which helps to safeguard the longevity of each organisation involved in the vaccination value chain. Such a strategy should include relevant digital platforms that can ease or enable the process of managing patient profiles, and help manage access and authorisation to systems that provide self-service options for activities such as booking vaccination appointments or tests.

In terms of POPIA compliance, all organisations should have taken steps by now to ensure they meet the requirements of the Act, especially since the grace period for sanction and fines for non-compliance expired at the end of June. Implementing an effective cloud-based customer relationship management tool enables healthcare providers to have a unified view of each vaccinated patient, and gives them the power to limit how that information is used or even delete it (in line with the requirements of POPIA) if needed.

Critically, the customer data strategy should provide individuals with the power of consent to subscribe or unsubscribe to correspondence, manage their preferences for ongoing communication, and afford them the right to be forgotten.

The post The Critical Role of Data in Building Trust in SA鈥檚 Vaccination Efforts appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

听The massive increase in online activity due to the coronavirus pandemic has created a customer data gold mine that advertisers and marketers can leverage to better tailor their campaigns. But as of 1 July 2021, accessing, and making use of, this personal information is set to get a little bit more complicated. Why? Because that鈥檚 when businesses need to start complying with South Africa鈥檚 Protection of Personal Privacy Act (POPIA), which sets out various conditions that must be followed in order to lawfully process personal information.

Global and local privacy legislation like the General Data Protection Regulation听(GDPR) and the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) dictates that for brands to use this personal data, there needs to be an element of customer consent. With the power now sitting in the customer鈥檚 hands, individuals have greater control over how their data is collected and used. But what does this mean for brands and advertisers who have predominantly been using third party cookie data to identify consumers and track their online activity?

While POPIA does not explicitly regulate the use of cookies, these 鈥渙nline identifiers鈥� do fall under the definition of personal information. As such, how we use cookie data is set to fundamentally change; particularly relating to the collection of third-party data.

Third-party cookies听allow advertisers to track users as they move across the Internet and target advertising at these individuals wherever they go. 鈥淲ith global privacy legislation gaining traction, the likes of Google and other providers are fundamentally changing how they use cookie data to collect customer related information. Subsequently, third party cookie data becomes less relevant and first party data 鈥� rich data around an individual鈥檚 behaviours; actions and interests demonstrated across online properties – becomes significantly more powerful,鈥� explains Marc Emert, Customer Experience Sale Lead for 麻豆原创 Africa.

Add a dash of customer data management

Privacy legislation like POPIA doesn鈥檛 prevent you from collecting customer data, continues Emert. But it does mean that any data collection must be done in a GDPR/POPIA aligned manner. 鈥淕oing forward, while you鈥檙e collecting this rich, contextual data that can be used for marketing engagements and targeted advertising, you need to also make sure that you鈥檙e collecting the consent directly from the customer. If a marketer or brand is sending something to a consumer, they鈥檙e sending it because that person has opted in to receive it.鈥�

麻豆原创鈥檚 Customer Data Cloud (CDC) solution makes the process of gaining this consent easier, he adds. 鈥淲ith CDC, marketers and brands can gather first party data from customers across various digital channels and make sure that they are also securing consent throughout the engagement process. Customer provided consent is then integrated into an existing automated marketing solution, which delivers one-to-one personalisation at scale and is based on trust.鈥�

CDC also makes progressive profiling possible, adds Emert. As a customer engages with a brand, they鈥檙e being asked to provide different pockets of information about themselves, he says. So, while I鈥檓 selling a mother a certain type of baby formula for her new-born, I鈥檓 gaining insights that allow me to market other products to this mom as her baby grows up.听 鈥淏asically, you鈥檙e progressively collating more and more first party data that can be used to engage with customers broadly and through different stages of their lives.鈥� And the results speak for themselves.

麻豆原创鈥檚 CDC has helped a global academic and educational publisher manage the data of over 4.5 million users and achieve 100% GDPR compliance in 40 countries. And in just four months, a German supermarket chain got up and running on the 麻豆原创 CDC system, centralising omnichannel customer data to GDPR standards and boosting membership to their loyalty programme by 25%.

鈥淪imilarly, for three years the Technology Centre of Excellence team in Wunderman Thompson South Africa has been using 麻豆原创鈥檚 CDC solution to do just that鈥�, notes Niel Mouton, MD of Wunderman Thompson Technology SA. 鈥淗ome to over 4,000 technology specialists across the globe with 54 technology centres in 33 countries, we support forward thinking businesses to design, build, run and operate digital programmes wherever they are.鈥�

鈥淲ith the onus in a cookieless world now falling on brands to collect and build their own first party data, Wunderman Thompson has used 麻豆原创S鈥檚 CDC solution across 30 implementations for brands like Nestle Purina, Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Colgate and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). 听Our teams used 麻豆原创 CDC to create customised solutions for their clients, allowing these businesses to collect first party data, while protecting privacy and complying with personal information legislation,鈥� he continues.

According to Mouton, conversations around privacy, data collection and POPIA/GDPR centre around trust, which is fitting because the Wunderman Thompson partnership with 麻豆原创 is also about trust. 鈥淲ith 麻豆原创, we can trust the quality and standard of the product. There are no teething issues on a product as mature as this. All we have to do is understand the client鈥檚 business need and adapt the 麻豆原创 product to their requirements.鈥�

While Mouton admits that it would be possible to be compliant without a solution like CDC, it鈥檚 near impossible for enterprise businesses like banks or pharmaceutical companies to manage the scale of personal data they鈥檙e dealing with, while keeping their customers and their business safe, without an automated offering.

Customer experience has become a major market differentiator. The following white paper highlights why modern businesses need to understand the importance of customer identity. to find out more.

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The speed with which the business world has changed 鈥� especially over the past year as the Covid-19 pandemic swept across the globe 鈥� has been nothing short of astonishing. From enabling remote work on a previously unprecedented scale to adapting to disruptions in the global supply chain and ensuring business continuity in the midst of a once-in-a-generation crisis, business leaders have had their hands full.

McKinsey argues that speed has been a fundamental aspect of the pandemic and will likely be a central feature of how businesses adapt to an uncertain future. By unlocking greater speed, organisations could accelerate decision-making, execute on new business opportunities more quickly, and improve their chances at overcoming the immense challenges created by the pandemic.

While speed is undeniably a vital capability in organisations鈥� arsenal, the prevailing disruption and continued volatility calls for more. To remain successful in our current business environment, business leaders need certainty.

It is fair to say the听 complexity of the modern business environment makes it impossible to consistently make good business decisions based purely on intuition. Business leaders have to make quick, accurate decisions over aspects such as supply chain, human capital management, customer experience, new product innovation, and financial performance on a near-constant basis.

To make good decisions, business leaders need accurate sources of data, and the tools to turn that data into insights that can guide decision-making in real time.

For example, responding well to changing customer demands is nearly impossible without knowing what those demands are. Having access to customer experience management tools that can track customer expectations in real time and guide how the business responds to those expectations removes much of the trial and error of manual decision-making.

Integrating the customer experience management tool with an automation layer further increases both the speed and accuracy of that response.

The impact of the pandemic means most organisations are operating on a fragmented basis. Teams are working from home, making in-person methods of employee engagement and performance management almost totally obsolete, at least for the moment.

Without new employee engagement tools that can effectively mobilise and support teams around common business objectives, organisations could see falling productivity and negative effects in aspects such as product development or customer experience.

Data-driven insights

New management tools can provide measurable insights into the employee experience, which can assist managers and leaders with making better decisions over the types of support they need to provide to their teams.

Advances in data and analytics also bring data-driven insights into the boardroom, with technology solutions that connect the top floor with the shop floor to give C-level executives granular insight into the total performance of the business.

To harness data and technology for greater certainty in decision-making, organisations need to put certain building blocks in place. To achieve a single, accurate view over the organisation and empower decision-makers with actionable insights, organisations need to build intelligent enterprise capabilities.

In simple terms, this means using the latest technologies to turn insight into action across every aspect of the business, in real time. Integrated business applications 鈥� such as enterprise resource planning and human capital management solutions 鈥� powered by next-generation technologies, such as artificial intelligence, help transform end-to-end business processes.

Experience management solutions give insight to the sentiment of customers, partners and employees, while business process intelligence and automation enable organisations to immediately act on insights and opportunities.

At the foundation of the intelligent enterprise is the cloud, which gives organisations the ability to simplify and scale their systems landscape without sacrificing performance. Cloud empowers businesses with the certainty of a quicker time-to-value, without the upfront capital outlays required of on-premise deployments.

With cloud-enabled intelligent enterprise capabilities, organisations can achieve the speed needed to stay ahead of competitors and other disrupters while maintaining the certainty of measured, data-driven decision-making.

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Closets. Every living space has one housing a mix of everything from the frequently used, the untouched, and the forgotten. And the only time they are thoroughly cleaned out and reorganized is when the owner decides to move to a new home.

In many ways, businesses are doing the same by storing in their ERP systems that no one will ever see. The technology may provide more tools — such as machine learning-enabled image and pattern recognition — to make sense out of all this information. But the business process layer is also evolving to the point where the entire data stack must be well-coordinated and connected.

The minute businesses realize that their ERP must be transformed and modernized, their attention turns to the latest applications, capabilities, and processes enabled by intelligent ERP such as . But very few of them assess their stack to determine which data should be removed or kept. Instead, the great majority fall victim to what I call the data dump syndrome 鈥� the wholesale migration of every piece of information into the new ERP environments.

Protecting ERP Transformation with a Proper Data Strategy

In any economic condition, the key to staying competitive is the ability to capture, analyze, understand, and act upon information in real time. According to , this includes recognizing patterns; comprehending ideas; planning, predicting, and problem-solving; identifying actions, and making decisions.

With the explosion of intelligent devices and digital interfaces creating interconnected ecosystems of people, processes, and systems, businesses have endless possibilities to convert data into insights and experiences augmented by context and machine-enabled intelligence. Despite all this opportunity, of companies still fail to realize such an edge to become truly data-driven.

Before transforming data silos and inefficient processes into a landscape of consistent data management and standardized operations, businesses need a dedicated data strategy to cover three fundamental principles:

1. Rethink the value of front- and back-office data

Over half of the companies reported in a study conducted by 451 Research have more than 11 separate repositories of customer data alone dispersed across various applications and organizational groups. And many more structured and unstructured data sources are often linking to that intelligence across both the back and front office.

Understanding the benefits of consolidating data into a single source usually compels executives to commit to transitioning their legacy ERP to a modern ERP. But such a move does not fix the fact that most of their information may still be left unused or forgotten.

Evaluating the usefulness of data 鈥� individually, by category, and in aggregate 鈥� is critical to ensure optimal modern ERP performance. Doing so can amplify the effectiveness of algorithms used to automate processes, executive dashboards that assist decision-making, and collaborative interactions that drive new business opportunities and revenues.

2. Help ensure the right data is in the right places

As the volume of available data increases, human-driven analytics becomes ineffective, sluggish, and error-prone. And in response, the ability to map the right data to the right functions in a modern ERP becomes even more essential.

The critical nature of this part of the data strategy further increases when intelligent technologies 鈥� such as machine learning, natural language processing, contextual artificial intelligence 鈥� are integrated into the ERP. Adding automated reasoning to dashboards, workflows, processed, and predictive forecasts allows users to make accurate inferences and enrich their analytics profile. It also enables line-of-business users to predict business outcomes such as financial turnover and profit, a customer’s propensity to buy, emerging skill gaps, and supply alternatives.

3. Build a secure and trustworthy business system

Unquestionably, effective use of data is an intrinsic part of business success. However, data strategies must also consider how data privacy and protection impacts the trust of people who provide their information willingly and the decision-makers who use it.

Facing emerging compliance regulations, consumer concerns over the safety of their personal information, and employee expectations for accuracy, the pressure to handle it all is only increasing. Companies that address data privacy and protection during their move to a modern ERP are well-positioned to deliver consumer and employee experiences that are transparent, controlled, and responsive.

Achieving the Full Potential of Modern Digital Investments

Remember, data is at the core of every customer interaction, organizational process, and employee decision 鈥� especially when running based on a modern ERP. And with a comprehensive strategy that addresses the principles of connected, clean, and consistent data, businesses can avoid the data dump syndrome to realize their digital transformation’s full potential.

Learn more about the importance of data management during an ERP transformation. Read our white paper 鈥溾�� and explore solutions.

Engelbert Quack is a strategic customer advisor for 麻豆原创 Advisory Services.

This article first appeared on the 麻豆原创 Global News Center.

The post ERP Transformation: Why You Should Digitalize Your Data Stack Too appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

Most organizations have spent the last several years deploying new technologies in a legacy infrastructure to deliver high-demand capabilities such as personalized experiences, process automation, and predictive maintenance.

While these digital investments fulfill well-defined business needs, they rarely lead to a data architecture that is simplified enough to accelerate future innovation and help ensure the integrity of every artificial intelligence (AI) model. Unfortunately, current market dynamics are not compatible with companies that cannot pivot, adapt, and respond to change quickly.

Businesses must align their processes with customer experiences and analyze those connections for deep insights that lead to confident, trusted decisions and actions. Only then can organizations drive continuous innovation.

Achieving such an interconnected landscape of systems, processes, and data requires an agile digital backbone infused with intelligence to redefine and create new business models and processes in a more dynamic fashion. And a majority of executives seem to be getting the message: 65 percent of organizations surveyed by听听indicated plans for aggressive modernization of legacy systems with extensive new technology platform investments through 2023.

Setting the Foundation for Real-Time Data Organization and Access

Searching for a platform that can quickly organize data and enable access is easier said than done. It’s true that a wide variety of platform technologies promise to consolidate and harmonize data into one architecture. However, those that are comprehensive and scalable enough to support requirements that range from basic analytics to sophisticated data intelligence and algorithms provide the foundation businesses need to become genuinely data centric. This approach is what we call “one data platform.”

The one data platform approach integrates heterogeneous solution components into a cohesive fit-for-purpose data management environment. This design delivers business-centric platform services that converge with common systems and leverage cloud concepts 鈥� all while lowering IT costs.

The platform’s architecture groups technologies into four decipherable layers: data analytics, data integration, data ingestion pipelines, and source systems. This tactic is not meant to provide a one-size-fits-all structure. Instead, it should encourage IT architects to consider the distinct functions of each layer to create an environment that scales with the business as market dynamics and customer expectations evolve.

Layer #1: Data Analytics听

Users can choose to leverage standardized dashboards with guided navigation and storytelling or customize their view for ad hoc analysis.

The data science behind this layer turns information mining into new information models that can be extended with enterprise-scale data. Furthermore, organizations can blend and manage Big Data from multiple sources and apply statistical methods, algorithms, and analytic engines to tease out relevant, in-the-moment insights that help improve the bottom line.

Layer #2: Data Integration听

As a data integration hub, this layer moves the needle on data-driven business transformation by getting data assets out from siloed sources, exposing them for different applications and systems to consume, and accelerating opportunities for self-service analytics.

Within this layer, a multi-node production system enables mission-critical data warehousing functions for several business domains and across divisions. A near-line storage solution is also available for archiving and accessing massive data volumes cost effectively.

Meanwhile, containerized data systems increase the computing power by providing self-contained modular technical areas that cater to specific business domains and requirements, such as country-specific reporting. Ingested data sets are then confined within a container, allowing analytical data models to be flexibly and independently deployed.

Layer #3: Data Ingestion Pipelines听

This layer provides transformation, filtering, and integrated data type mapping capabilities. It enables agile data delivery and feeds insights into business processes through continuous data provisioning across a wide range of sources. More importantly, streaming data can be handled to support use cases that require real-time data management 鈥� from capture and processing to analysis, reporting, and decision-making.

Layer #4: Source Systems

This area houses the entire ecosystem of existing technology. Internal and external packaged applications, homegrown solutions, systems of record, and enterprise data repositories are brought together to create a centralized intelligence core that accurately reflects every stakeholder’s needs.

Smoothing the Road to a Hybrid, Multi-Cloud Landscape

In addition to reassessing the harmonization of their IT architecture, organizations are upgrading their global data center strategy as the pace of change continues to accelerate. With the assistance of , many 麻豆原创 customers have even taken steps toward fully transitioning their data platform to public and private cloud infrastructures to rapidly deploy the latest data-driven innovations at scale.

For example, some of our customers consider cloud-based infrastructure as a service (IaaS). An IaaS strategy enables organizations to replace on-premise infrastructure with elastic pay-per-use infrastructure that can scale up or down rapidly on demand. Efforts related to this transformation help businesses adapt to broader analytical requirements and manage rising data volumes while avoiding significant capital expenditure investments and lowering operating costs.

The target infrastructure design includes integration enablement and connectivity within and across clouds to support cross-application analytical requirements. In broad terms, migration planning considers factors such as:

• Migration approaches for various 麻豆原创 and third-party solutions
• Scalability, stability, performance, reliability, and cost reduction
• Compliance and security
• Testing and validation strategies
• Monitoring and operations
• Application lifecycle management
• Alignment of the IT organizational structure to the new IaaS engagement model

Another option that other 麻豆原创 customers pick is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) strategy focused on pushing their transformation into a data-driven enterprise even further. In this case, executives are interested in expanding their data warehousing capabilities to realize more business benefits from the cloud with relative ease and without creating large-scale disruptions often associated with uprooting the mission-critical enterprise data backbone.

Co-deployment of a听听and existing digital assets such as a听听may appear plausible because the solutions address very different, yet mission-critical, problems. The cloud-based data warehouse solution consumes data from the business warehouse solution and other source systems with an abstraction or semantic layer, reducing IT complexity and applying much-needed governance and security.

When coupled with cloud data management and virtualization technology, the cloud-based data warehousing solution is well-positioned to provide opportunities for self-service analytics. From this perspective, it is sensible to hedge that the solution can evolve to provision user-facing and domain-based analytical services at an enterprise scale, even with a well-established business warehousing system.

Amplifying Business Value with Flexibility and Scalability

The urgency around innovating data-driven business models, processes, and products and services is not going away anytime soon. So why not strategically respond to that demand with a flexible, scalable, and structured data platform that can distill value from massive volumes of data?

For many 麻豆原创 customers, taking this step is the key to hedging against uncertainty and driving business outcomes that better secure their foothold, profitability, and longer-term viability.

Explore how听 can help your company reveal its true potential as a data-centric business with the one data platform approach.

Christine Lucea is a business enterprise principal consultant in Customer Success at 麻豆原创.

This article first appeared on the 麻豆原创 Global News Center

The post One Data Platform: The Bridge to the Full Promise of Data-Centric Businesses appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

According to Pieter van der Merwe, Regional Sales Director for Platform and Technologies at 麻豆原创 Africa, the majority of CEOs remain concerned over the quality of their business data despite the gains made in investment into new technologies.

鈥淲ithout access to accurate data across the entire organisation in real time, business leaders are unable to make accurate decisions. This can create disconnects in the customer experience, employee experience and product experience, which can erode trust over time and chase customers and talent away to competitors.鈥�

One Gartner survey found that only 8% of organisations had reached 鈥檛ransformational鈥� levels of maturity in their data and analytics. A separate study by the Harvard Business Review found that only 3% of company data meets the minimum threshold for data quality.

鈥淚n these volatile and uncertain times, organisations need to ensure they take every step to build and maintain trust with customers, partners and employees,鈥� says van der Merwe.

鈥淭his is impossible when the underlying data is inaccurate or not reflective of the organisation as a whole or any part thereof.鈥�

In a 2019 CEO survey by IDC, respondents stated that digital trust programs are the most important agenda item over the next five years.

According to the survey,听.

Half of the world鈥檚 two thousand largest organisations are expected to name a chief trust officer by 2023, while two-thirds stated they would request a formal trust initiative by 2025.

鈥淭he heightened levels of trust needed in our near future means traditional approaches to building that trust need to be re-evaluated,鈥� says van der Merwe.

鈥淭he growing complexity of modern business environments means organisations need to deploy new tools and technologies to help maintain the integrity of business processes to engender trust between the organisation and its various partners, employees and customers.鈥�

In 2019, 麻豆原创 introduced BW/4HANA, a completely revamped version of 麻豆原创 Business Warehouse that runs on the 麻豆原创 HANA in-memory database. The platform provides a range of powerful functions, including:

• Data integration of multiple data sources and data types.
• High levels of data quality; stream processing which, when combined with HANA provides a foundation for real-time analytics.
• Spatial functionality that supports location analytics at the core of applications ranging from mobile advertising to IoT.
• The ability to capture relationships between different data sets to uncover unique insights.
• Text analytics that can support AI applications such as natural language processing, understanding and generation.

鈥淐ustomers around the world are using 麻豆原创 BW/4HANA to support their analytic needs and consolidate large volumes of data from both 麻豆原创 and non-麻豆原创 sources in near real time,鈥� says van der Merwe. 鈥溌槎乖� HANA and 麻豆原创 BW/4HANA enables organisations to build and maintain trust by ensuring they work from trusted, connected and intelligent data that they can rely on.鈥�

According to van der Merwe, organisations can realise benefits across three key value areas, namely:

Reducing data complexity

By empowering organisations with the ability to view, access and use all their data in one trusted and unified landscape, 麻豆原创鈥檚 data warehouse portfolio simplifies data management across the organisation.

Ensuring data is connected and intelligent

By delivering intelligent, connected data, organisations gain real-time analytics about live transactions and vast data sets without the need for mass data duplication. 麻豆原创 is the only technology provider that enables in-memory transactions and analysis on a single data set.

Avoiding vendor lock-in with an open system

There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for data management. Organisations need an open and flexible data system that can work across on-premise, hybrid and cloud environments.

麻豆原创鈥檚 data warehouse portfolio gives organisations complete freedom in how they deploy data management for systems, applications and development.

The post How 麻豆原创 Helps Companies Use Data to Build Trust appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.