Robin Meyerhoff, Author at �鶹ԭ�� News Center

Three Reasons You Need the Right Platform Strategy

Robin Meyerhoff — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 12:15:44 +0000

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 2023 , with the U.S., European Union, and China predicted to slow.

That is one reason why Ragunath Ramanathan, chief revenue officer of (�鶹ԭ�� BTP), thinks that a software platform is particularly important for organizations considering strategies to help them weather economic headwinds.

“This is going to be a period of uncertainty in the macro-economic environment, including capital and labor markets,” Ramanathan says. “A platform can help create a more resilient business. It offers holistic insight and planning capabilities to help you understand what will happen to your cash flow, talent base, stocks, and demand — and allows businesses to plan for contingencies.”

Facing cost-cutting measures, companies can use automation functionality within platforms like �鶹ԭ�� BTP to improve efficiency. Ramanathan explains that historically, organizations expect employees to take care of certain tasks manually. “But the line between what machines and people can do changes all the time. With embedded artificial intelligence and process automation features, platforms can help automate work and fill in for employees that organizations may not be able to afford.”

Beyond automation, platforms with low-code and no-code (LCNC) development capabilities will help companies do more with less. “What’s exciting for �鶹ԭ�� customers is that the platform makes it easier to address innovation,” says Ramanathan. “Our recently announced LCNC offering, �鶹ԭ�� Build, makes coding easier — opening up innovation to normal business workers. With IT skills in short supply and volatile labor markets, it helps tap into existing labor pools.”

But the economy is not the only reason for customers to accelerate their platform strategies in 2023.

“We need to put our heads above cyclical waves of recession and growth, which come and go,” Ramanathan says. “Certain challenges, like sustainability, don’t go away. We need to look beyond micro- and macro-economic trends to realize we don’t have much time. That’s where a platform can help.”

Platforms that include analytics, reporting, and the ability to harness data across and within organizations provide huge benefits to help measuring progress against sustainability goals.

As Ramanathan points out, “We’re in the wild west of sustainability and there are very different ideas about what it is and how to measure it.” This makes it difficult to compare organizations to assess who’s doing well versus those that fall short. He explains that sustainability needs a “truth mirror” to accurately reflect where companies stand in terms of their commitment, resources, successes, and areas for improvement.

“Think about the early days of accounting,” says Ramanathan. “There were many different accounting practices and �鶹ԭ�� created processes that became the gold standard in accounting software for companies that were serious about measuring their finances.”

That’s what �鶹ԭ�� BTP can be for sustainability. It can enable integrated reporting that provides both a baseline and standard for all sustainability reporting. This will allow companies to drill down into and understand how to demonstrate progress to governing agencies and stakeholders.

One example of a platform’s power is a city in China that will use �鶹ԭ�� BTP to help achieve China’s “dual carbon” goals: to “peak” its carbon emissions before 2030 and become carbon neutral before 2060. With �鶹ԭ�� BTP, the city can eliminate data silos, allowing them to visualize the city’s carbon data by category and build industry-specific carbon emission data models. Access to integrated information will help them make the right choices to get to where they want to be as a city and a nation.

To get the most value out of a cloud platform, organizations must decide whether it is hosted in a public versus private cloud. While both have pros and cons — and many organizations will adopt a hybrid approach — Ramanathan provides this advice: “Even in a cloud world, companies often wind up maintaining complex IT systems. But the real benefits of the cloud, especially in resource-short times, is that it can free up those responsibilities so companies can focus on innovating to advance their business.”

This is where public cloud comes in. As Ramanathan explains, private cloud requires more discipline and know-how to configure and use the system. But public cloud allows companies to outsource that work to cloud vendors with that exact expertise.

“Moreover, public cloud solutions are being used by hundreds of customers of all sizes,” says Ramanathan. “So you can be assured that if others are using the software successfully, it will work for you. You get the highest service levels, security, resiliency, and easier upgrade paths.”

How This Belgian Utility Delivers Clean Water across the Country

Robin Meyerhoff — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 11:15:04 +0000

Over one million people in Belgium receive clean drinking water from Ghent-based utility company Farys. The organization manages wastewater infrastructure, water safety monitoring, and sports infrastructure for various municipalities. With a wide variety of business activities and focus on sustainability, Farys succeeds by adopting cutting-edge technology to drive socially responsible operations.

Farys’ business and sustainability transformation was the focus of a recent LinkedIn Live roundtable discussion, “.” Moderated by Maribel Lopez, CEO of , the session featured Inge Opreel, CIO of Farys, and Aneesha Shenoy, COO of �鶹ԭ�� Business Technology Platform (�鶹ԭ�� BTP).

Farys started its platform journey several years ago when – like many utility companies around the world – Opreel begun implementing smart meters. This project resulted in a huge influx of data, but most employees were unable to access or easily use this information.

Moreover, the company had a complex IT landscape with on-premise and cloud-based applications and needed to monitor processes throughout the layers.

That’s when Opreel began the search for a technology platform. “We needed a cloud platform that could integrate data and business apps into a single source of truth, perform extensive analytics, and introduce innovative technologies,” said Opreel.

Farys was familiar with , having used it to build its self-service customer portal, which resulted in lower costs and increased customer satisfaction. However, the key strength the platform brought was through and capabilities.

“We needed to access data, analyze it, and integrate it back into our systems,” said Opreel. With �鶹ԭ�� BTP, Farys can obtain meter indexes, view water volumes used, receive alerts, and use water usage data to build new services for its customers.

Moving forward, Opreel wants to use the platform to help Farys become more sustainable by addressing water scarcity, which is an ever-increasing problem due to climate change. Using data from its smart meters, Farys can improve its understanding of water inflows and outflows – and pinpoint where and why water losses occur via leaks, fraud, or other means.

Farys’ reasons for evaluating �鶹ԭ�� BTP resonated with Shenoy. “It’s exciting to see how the platform enables Farys to realize its purpose – whether it’s innovating new business models to generate new revenue streams or helping achieve the top, bottom, and green lines,” said Shenoy.

Shenoy highlighted other instances where a platform strategy is a critical business enabler. First, with so much sociopolitical instability, companies need the ability to do integrated, enterprise-wide planning, which can analyze data across multiple lines of business. �鶹ԭ�� BTP lets companies use that information to create business simulations and conduct predictive planning while connected to live, real-time data – helping executives to make better-informed decisions.

Second, as companies move IT systems to the cloud they need to “lift and shift” on-premise data easily. acts a bridge so companies can bring data with them, without having to build a data warehouse from scratch.

Third, Shenoy said companies want to democratize application development. “We can help replace complex software development with easy drag-and-drop, low-code/no-code software,” said Shenoy. “We accelerate the development process and enable anyone to create applications on their own.”

How to Develop a Successful Platform Strategy

Opreel advises when companies select a platform, they need to start by thinking big. “Have a big scope in mind and develop a holistic view about where you want to go in the future,” said Opreel. “Platforms contain so many components, having that perspective will help you think architecturally and put the right set up in place for your current and future use cases.”

Next, she recommends that companies start with smaller projects that organizations can learn from. For Farys, the first use cases centered on harnessing Big Data generated by smart meters. But this approach was new and Opreel’s team helped shift employees’ mindsets from managing smaller data volumes to considering the new opportunities provided by advanced data management and analytics. “Show your business units what benefits are possible with the power of data by giving examples and advice,” said Opreel.

But the real value comes once an organization moves beyond proof-of-concept projects to embedding the new technology in daily processes. “It’s important that everyone from management to field workers can use the technology,” said Opreel. “The right platform can transform your organization once it’s integrated with your ERP and other cloud systems.”

Farys’ platform strategy has changed how the company views innovation. “It has enabled us to level up our innovation approach,” said Opreel. “Rather than individual business units driving innovation independently, our comprehensive platform strategy has encouraged everyone to view it as a broad innovation platform on which to share ideas.”

To learn more, .

Lloyd’s Register Sets Sails to New Markets, Guided by Its Technology Platform Strategy

Robin Meyerhoff — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 12:15:21 +0000

London-based started in 1760 as an organization that verified and classified the condition of sailing vessels. It has evolved to become one of the world’s leading providers of engineering and technology solutions for the maritime industry. One reason for its longevity: Lloyd’s Register has not stopped innovating and is using the cloud to leap forward.

In a recent LinkedIn Live session, “,” Maribel Lopez, CEO of , hosted a roundtable with Oz Rodriguez, head of Product Go-To-Market Strategy at Lloyd’s Register, and Ivo Bauermann, senior vice president and head of Business Development for .

During the discussion, Rodriguez explained how a technology platform strategy helped Lloyd’s Register develop new customer offerings for oil and gas companies, particularly those involved in downstream oil and gas production. The conversation also provided advice to organizations embarking on digital transformation about how to pick the right technology platform to fuel that transformation.

Rodriguez’s priority was to leverage Lloyd’s Register’s experience in improving maritime vessels and structures and apply it to a software offering that would solve common problems faced by energy providers.

“We intimately understand assets and how they can fail,” said Rodriguez. “We can use this to help develop the best maintenance or inspection plans for their equipment. But if we have to build the infrastructure by ourselves, it takes too much time.”

That’s why Lloyd’s Register chose �鶹ԭ�� BTP to help develop , its asset performance management solution. Lloyd’s Register already used �鶹ԭ�� for its internal business processes and as the foundation for other customer services. With �鶹ԭ��’s and Rodriguez’s ability to leverage existing �鶹ԭ�� skills and technology already within the company, he reported selecting �鶹ԭ�� was a “no brainer.”

AllAssets aims to eliminate unscheduled downtime and to provide cost optimizations for maintenance and inspection procedures, ensuring that assets operate at peak efficiency. With a virtual image of industrial machinery, energy providers can remotely assess the health of industrial machinery, monitor reliability and performance, and proactively identify issues before they become accidents – with potentially disastrous effects on people and the planet.

But to create AllAssets, the team at Lloyd’s Register needed a cohesive system that provided full oversight. “When we developed the solution, we wanted to fix the problem of siloed systems, which we estimate causes 20% to 30% in lost revenue,” said Rodriguez.

That’s where , part of the �鶹ԭ�� BTP platform, came in. Rodriguez explains that the suite helped create workflows that let customers bring information into the AllAssets application and provided a uniform way of looking at their business information.

In addition, �鶹ԭ�� BTP had the data capabilities that were critical for Lloyd’s Register. “For us, data is crucial – you need the right data at the right time to make the best decisions,” said Rodriguez. “This platform allows us to be an enabler from that standpoint and that’s why working with �鶹ԭ�� has been great.”

An early adopter of �鶹ԭ�� BTP, Rodriguez is enthusiastic about the recently added low-code and no-code capabilities within the platform. He believes this – and the library of pre-built services – allows his team to focus on further differentiating their customer offerings.

This plug-and-play model aligns with how �鶹ԭ�� views the platform. “�鶹ԭ�� provides building blocks with industry expertise,” said Bauermann. “�鶹ԭ�� BTP is unified set of software services that allows you to integrate business processes, orchestrate business data, and easily create applications for unique user experiences.”

For those considering how a technology platform fits into their digital transformation strategy, Rodriguez cautions not to move too fast. “Many people thought digital transformation means move everything into the cloud and digitize everything,” he said. “But that can lead to siloed apps. If they’re not integrated into a single platform with a single view, it creates more problems than it solves.”

He also believes that digital transformation should eliminate waste. So carefully evaluate the processes that need digitizing. In some instances, manual processes suffice whereas automating others may increase efficiency.

Similarly, don’t waste your human resources – use your people and their talents wisely. Rodriguez advises: do what you’re good at and leverage vendors’ platform expertise. “If you have to build orchestration and APIs for everything as well as manage security, then you’re spending cycles doing things you’re not specialized in,” said Rodriguez.

Last, pick a vendor that can grow with you. According to Rodriguez, good software is always evolving, keeping pace with the demands of its customers – and their customers. “Because �鶹ԭ�� BTP evolved and matured, it’s allowed us to increase our vision and ambition,” he said.

For more, of “Providing a Foundation for Modern Business.”

Robin Meyerhoff is head of Communications for �鶹ԭ�� Business Technology Platform.

Ghana’s Ambitious Plan to Minimize Plastic Waste

Robin Meyerhoff — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 12:15:47 +0000

Approximately 13 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the oceans annually, equivalent to one garbage truck load every minute. Even worse, the estimates that the volume of plastics finding its way into the world’s oceans will triple by 2040.

Some experts believe the solution lies in creating circular economies, which eliminate single-use plastic in favor of organic materials or plastics that can be recycled and reused. But that requires significant investment and infrastructure.

In Africa, less than 20 percent of plastics are recycled currently, far below European Union targets of 50 percent by 2025. In lieu of formal recycling operations, waste pickers collect litter and sell it to middlemen, who aggregate plastic waste and sell it to recyclers abroad.

With a five percent recycling rate, Ghana has emerged as a regional front runner, committed to creating a domestic recycling industry that protects both the environment and the impoverished, mostly female community of waste pickers. Last fall, Ghana became the to join the World Economic Forum’s (GPAP).

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At a recent event, , panelists representing a coalition of governments, manufacturers, technology providers, and non-profit organizations discussed how Ghana is driving change.

Oliver Boachie, special advisor from the Ghanaian Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation (), said, “We see plastic waste as a threat to our way of life and danger to environment. But we also look at this as an opportunity.”

Since 2018, the government has been working on a plastic waste program that aims to clean up the environment, create jobs in the plastics value chain, make resources available to manage plastics, and help ensure no one gets left behind.

is also a member of GPAP and has collaborated with MESTI, private industries, and local non-profits to create a technology solution that will help. Maggie Buggie, chief business officer of �鶹ԭ�� Services, said, “The recycling systems in Ghana are very analog so we’re building a digital system to connect everyone and track the volumes and types of plastic, where it goes, and the prices paid across the value chain.”

With a foundation of reliable data, the government and private companies can determine where to invest resources and build recycling plants while also monitoring waste pickers’ wages and living conditions.

“By connecting the informal economy of waste pickers to the formal economy, we can help ensure they receive a fair wage and, later on, get services like training or childcare,” Buggie said.

Making the Invisible Visible: Improving Pickers’ Lives

Waste picking is a means of survival for poor, urban communities across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. In Ghana, they recover at least daily, or nearly 12 percent of the total plastic waste generated.

But pickers have little visibility into the market price for what they have collected, which leaves them vulnerable to exploitation by middlemen. With the �鶹ԭ�� solution, they will have mobile access to the average price for different kinds of materials. The government can use this data to monitor wages and take action to support pickers, for example, investing in social services that raise pickers’ living standards.

Jeffery Provencal founded , a social enterprise that works with pickers. “We’re on the verge of an absolute game changer,” he shared. “We have a lack of data and the �鶹ԭ�� solution is the best thing for it – one platform that provides all that data. We can find an efficient way to deal with the material, monetize it, and empower the waste pickers, so everyone wins.”

Private Sector Partners to Achieve Sustainability Goals

Adwoa Coleman, Africa Sustainability and Advocacy manager for Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics, explains how technology will help the Ghanaian government and manufacturers achieve their sustainability goals.

“We have a goal that 1 million metric tons of plastics will be collected, recycled, or reused by 2030,” she said. “Data is critical to establishing a market where plastic can be bought and sold, depending on where that’s happening. Harnessing that data in one app will help fuel the circular economy and ensure that collected materials are reused.”

But success requires cooperation. “Stakeholder collaboration is important – we not only have the government, private sector, and NGOs, but also the collector and recycler. To succeed, we need to all be at the table,” Coleman explained.

Coca-Cola also has big environmental ambitions. For example, it wants all its packaging materials to be recyclable by 2035 – and has a specific perspective on what that means in West Africa. “Exportation of plastic and packaging waste out of Africa is not sustainable,” said Clement Ugorji, vice president for Public Affairs, Communications, and Sustainability. “We need the domestic capacity for collection, recycling, and reuse on the continent. That’s the only way to achieve a truly circular economy for Africa.”

For its part, �鶹ԭ��’s experience in the region developing , a solution that supports small-holder farmers and improves visibility across agricultural value chains, offers an advantage. Since plastic pickers and rural farmers face similar issues, solutions like this can help all parties succeed.

The plastics recycling pilot project will run in Accra and several smaller cities in Ghana. Building on what is learned during this first stage, the coalition hopes to expand across Ghana, West Africa, and eventually the entire continent and other regions.

Leadership and Innovation in Times of Crisis

Robin Meyerhoff — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:15:43 +0000

One of the most significant questions for this era’s business leaders is how their companies can respond to the pandemic. , chief technology officer and member of the Executive Board of �鶹ԭ�� SE, believes that technology will play a key role.

“If we learn anything from this crisis, it’s that companies that have digitally transformed are doing fine – or better – than other companies that face severe challenges,” Mueller said.

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In a recent interview, he explained how new IT solutions make companies more agile and resilient, as well as help to address new problems that have emerged as a result of COVID-19.

Innovating Quickly to Tackle COVID-19 Challenges

When countries started going into lockdown and international flights were cancelled in March, millions of people were stranded abroad. Germany alone counted approximately a quarter million of its residents left without a way to return. To help bring them home, the German government reached out to �鶹ԭ��.

Mueller recalls the initial conversation: “I got a call from the foreign ministry asking for help to bring stranded Germans back. That was when commercial flights were stopped overnight, almost globally.”

He mobilized his team and within 23 hours provided a secure app that allowed citizens to register their personal information — like address and passport number — so they could be tracked and safely brought home.

To Mueller, that demonstrated two critical points. First, �鶹ԭ�� employees are nimble and motivated. “I immediately had 16 people raising their hands, available to work through the night — and then more people joined from other time zones,” he shared. Second, it is another example of how �鶹ԭ�� applications fulfill the company’s mission to help the world run better and improve people’s lives. Using �鶹ԭ�� technology, the team quickly built an application that safely repatriated 240,000 people.

This is just one example of how Mueller’s team, which develops a suite of products contained in the , has rallied to respond to the pandemic.

His organization also developed a contact tracing app in collaboration with Deutsche Telekom. The Corona-Warn-App was created in 50 days using open source code and made available on . The app has been downloaded more than 19 million times. And at the request of the European Commission, Deutsche Telekom and �鶹ԭ�� are helping to ensure interoperability of select contact tracing apps across Europe.

�鶹ԭ�� has also created an app called “Never Lunch Alone” to support employees in the isolation many people are struggling with during quarantine. It connects co-workers virtually so they can socialize with colleagues during lunch, as if they were eating together in the company cafeteria.

Pandemic Highlights Importance of Digital Transformation

Mueller believes that digital transformation is more important than ever. “This is something COVID-19 has really accelerated,” he said.” Companies realize that projects – like �鶹ԭ�� transformation projects — are extremely important.”

�鶹ԭ��’s Business Technology Platform gives companies a path to digitize and become intelligent enterprises. It includes database and data management, analytics, application development and integration, and intelligent technologies like machine learning.

Mueller explains that the Business Technology Platform offers a foundation for �鶹ԭ�� applications that manages critical business processes like customer relationship management (CRM), procurement, human resources (HR), production, finance, and supply chain. It integrates those processes, helping ensure they run together smoothly. It also helps to extend �鶹ԭ�� applications, provide consolidated insight into �鶹ԭ�� and non-�鶹ԭ�� data, and increase speed and agility.

Delivery Hero, one of world’s largest food delivery services, uses the Business Technology Platform solutions to manage IT projects and help the company scale. For example, �鶹ԭ�� helps the company analyze and monitor cash flow, which has allowed Delivery Hero to automate its capital-approval process so restaurants receive payments more quickly.

“Delivery Hero saw their order volume surge during this pandemic,” Mueller said. “They now get more than 1.5 million orders per day via �鶹ԭ�� systems. They could scale this very fast with this solid and agile technology foundation.”

Empathy and Communication Are More Important Than Ever

With the pandemic and other major challenges like the wildfires in California, Mueller shared that his biggest learning is “leading with empathy. That means listening, which is tough if you’re not on site.”

To stay close to employees around the world and find out what they need, remote checks-ins with colleagues were run using surveys. “We learned a lot from that and improving communication was the top point,” he explained. “We do that regularly, and now more than three-quarters of our employees vote positively regarding their wellbeing.”

In addition to more frequent teleconferences, Mueller believes leaders need to make an extra effort to talk to employees. “I regularly videos record and talk spontaneously about what is top of mind for me, how do I feel. And I get a lot of positive feedback.”

Mueller has been impressed by empathy he sees among teammates: “I’m extremely proud that our employees really put in the extra mile, go the extra effort, and stand in for each other. There’s a lot of camaraderie and teamwork.”

Listen to more episodes of In Focus.

DAIMANI Creates VIP Customer Experiences During the Pandemic

Robin Meyerhoff — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 13:15:37 +0000

The sports and entertainment industry has been hit hard by COVID-19. German sports club expects to report a loss of $50.5 million in the 2019-2020 soccer season after being forced to play matches without fans in attendance. And global concert producer and ticketing juggernaut Live Nation reported that in the second quarter of 2020, compared to the same time last year.

Businesses that service the sector have also been impacted, although Max Mueller, CEO of , says his company has fared better than many others. The Switzerland-based group offers luxury experiences for corporate and private clients attending sporting events and concerts.

“The good thing is that we’re small enough to be flexible but big enough to be reliable; and as a marketplace, we don’t have to give financial guarantees for event inventory,” Mueller says. “We’re focusing on increasing user experience while waiting for things to start up again.”

For example, the company has been creating virtual events including online meetings with sports stars like a famous ATP tennis player. Offered primarily to corporate clients that want to give customers luxury experiences, these events do not require travel or need to be held in person.

Given the company’s mission to provide VIP customer experiences, it is fitting that DAIMANI has relied on solutions since 2018. The software helps it stay close to clients and understand what they need, while serving and marketing to them more appropriately.

According to Mueller, “For us, customer experience is the only important metric. Listening to the customer is paramount. But what do you use to measure and figure out what to improve?”

Using the �鶹ԭ�� Customer Experience portfolio, DAIMANI has been able to understand two important aspects of customer behavior. First, the company can better understand the behavior of people who buy its packages. Second, it can crowd-test potential customers.

The company, founded in 2018, was set up from the start to have a holistic overview of customers. This lack of “information silos” makes it easier analyze existing and future customers and feed that data to product development, marketing, and sales staff appropriately.

DAIMANI considered other sales platform vendors, but selected �鶹ԭ�� for its global scalability. Additionally, “�鶹ԭ�� is quite young in the experience stuff so it had more of a focus on developing cool, new things,” says Mueller. “As a cloud-only business, �鶹ԭ�� Cloud Platform was key to us. It lets us easily communicate with the outside world. We can really connect to a huge ecosystem — and as a platform we are nothing without our ecosystem.”

DAIMANI has digitized an industry that is primarily 95 percent offline. The company has created an online platform for corporations and individuals to purchase customized VIP wrap-around services to events — everything from flights to backstage passes — while similar offerings are developed and sold by agencies. The company operates primarily in Europe and Asia but hopes to expand to the United States in the future.

To Predict Recovery, We Need New Data Models

Robin Meyerhoff — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 13:45:00 +0000

Nate Silver rose to fame for his statistical model that predicted performance for Major League Baseball players. Since then, he has used his analytic acumen to correctly predict the results of U.S. presidential elections in 2008 and 2012.

The founder and editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight recently spoke with DJ Paoni, president of �鶹ԭ�� North America, about how data analytics can be applied to understand the COVID-19 crisis and its economic impact—as well as the upcoming U.S. elections. This talk was part of the �鶹ԭ��PHIRE NOW Reimagined digital event ().

Understanding the Epidemic

With inconsistent data collection methodologies and varied conclusions, Silver says that using data to understand the epidemic is complicated. “In the U.S., one piece of relatively unambiguous good news is that the number of deaths has been declining over the past several weeks. That’s good, obviously,” he said.

But nationwide the number of cases has plateaued, and that’s where things get tricky. “There’s maybe three to five states, like Arizona for example, where there’s a pretty clear increase,” Silver said. “There are another 20 states we could probably go debate different indicators pointing in different directions.”

To get a better handle on COVID-19’s presence at the state level, Silver thinks leaders need to be creative when building dashboards with early indicators. For example, if employers record employees’ digital temperatures, states can use that information to identify increasing fever outbreaks in a certain region. Other potential markers include an uptick of Google searches for COVID-19 symptoms or pinpointing why people visit the emergency room.

But data quality remains an issue. There can be a lag time in collecting data of up to two weeks—and every state has different systems for collecting information from its many counties and hospitals.

To help separate the “noise” from real data points, Silver recommends that states adopt streamlined and consistent methods to track indicators, gather data, and interpret the numbers. Without that, he says, “Any conclusions you might draw might potentially be way off.”

Additionally, authorities need to spend more time cleaning data sets. “That’s really 90 percent of the work. If you’re building from a faulty foundation, then you begin to have problems,” he said.

Forecasting the Economy

With 40 million Americans out of work and the stock market fluctuating daily, there’s no clear consensus on what the future holds for the economy. According to Silver, it’s difficult to accurately forecast the economy because “We’re flying blind.” Reliable economic data spans the period from World War II onward, long after the 1919

Spanish Influenza epidemic— the only modern correlate from a public health perspective.

To help predict the long-, mid- and short-term economic effects, Silver says it’s important to consider new metrics and models. “Usually I’m the guy who would say, ‘Hey, 98 percent of the time, trust your model.’ But if you haven’t trained the model on data that involves a pandemic, then that model might not be terribly useful really, and may even mislead you.”

For example, Silver reports that researchers are using dinner reservation metrics from apps like OpenTable as a proxy to understand how people are returning to normal activities. Some economists also track how many people take commercial flights now compared with March and April.

Predicting the Election

Predicting the election results in November will be particularly challenging. “The economy is both fluctuating a lot and highly uncertain, which is going to add uncertainty and volatility to the outcome,” Silver said. “You can imagine a world in which you do have a V-shape recovery. You can imagine a world where the second wave hits and things get very bad again in the fall.”

Silver points out that as states shift to voting by mail, it may delay results—as could potential litigation.

Moving forward, as sports start to open up, Silver will apply his statistical models to see how the pandemic impacts players and game outcomes. He has already discovered with no fans, there’s no advantage to playing at home versus away. But we’ll need to wait until the ninth inning for other insights.

Three Ways Technology Can Save Retailers

Robin Meyerhoff — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 13:15:02 +0000

Unless you’re selling sweatpants, which sold out in April versus February this year, most fashion retailers face a dire spring and summer.

J.C. Penney is the most recent casualty among retail giants, joining Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, and others in filing for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, April retail sales in the U.S. compared with 2019.

Stores in some parts of the U.S. are reopening, but not fully. The number of customers allowed inside stores may be limited, and many people will continue to stay away from non-essential businesses.

To survive the financial fallout, retailers need new ways to stay close to customers virtually.

Here, two startup founders and an �鶹ԭ�� expert describe how technology can help retailers survive and recover — all while keeping their brands and customer followings intact.

Augmented Reality Brings the Store to Your Home

Co-Founder and CEO Ashley Crowder thinks that 3D and augmented reality (AR) solutions like the ones developed by her company can increase conversion rates for online shopping.

“Vntana makes it easy to take existing manufacturing design files and immediately create 3D and AR experiences proven to more than double conversion rates and reduce returns by 40 percent,” she said.

Vntana works with customers like Shah Jewelry to create virtual versions of products that let customers “try on” items at home. Even before the pandemic, Vntana saw increased conversion from browsers to buyers among companies that provide 3D experiences for customers. For example, Crowder says Ikea experienced a 30 percent increase in revenue when consumers could virtually place products within their home.

Crowder believes AR and virtual reality (VR) technology is here to stay: “, an AR and VR research publication, did a that said 45 percent of consumers want to try AR/VR shopping. Thirty percent said if that can provide good enough information to make a decision to buy, they would never want to go into a retail store again. So people want this content and they want this option.”

She expects adoption to accelerate because of the coronavirus crisis and points out that the companies that move quickly now will be better positioned for survival and future growth.

Hyperlocal E-Commerce Boosts Bricks and Mortar Retail

Sandeep Bhanote co-founded , a startup that improves shoppers’ e-commerce interactions by providing hyperlocal, personalized experiences. Like Crowder, Bhanote is a participant in the accelerator program in New York, which currently supports a cohort of customer experience-focused companies.

Radius8 solves this challenge. E-commerce looks the same no matter where consumers are located, which can result in subpar experiences for online shoppers, particularly if the retailer has many stores across the country.

“Our technology takes the consumer location and determines their proximity to any one of those stores within that retail chain and dynamically changes the e-commerce experience to reflect where they are,” Bhanote explained.

Bhanote believes that uniting the digital and physical store experience will propel retail to the next level.

Using geospatial data, Radius8 gives consumers a better online experience while also boosting in-store sales by driving people to specific store locations. Bhanote explains that the focal point for integration between virtual and physical stores has been limited to understanding inventory.

“But the reality is all these physical stores have all these wonderful things that are happening that almost never get communicated digitally — not even within the radius of that physical store,” he said.

Bhanote said customers — including adidas, Lucky Brand, Snipes USA, Orvis, and Eddie Bauer — already use Radius8 to create great experiences across virtual and physical sites.

Intelligent Enterprise Delivers Unique Experiences and Agility

Matt Laukaitis, executive vice president and global general manager for Consumer Industries at �鶹ԭ��, believes that maintaining customer intimacy is paramount for retailers.

“It’s the ability to continue reinforcing that connection with consumers,” he said. “We’re seeing a lot of innovation from brands large and small, where people are doing creative things with virtual personal stylists and individual video-shopping sessions to give customers a unique experience.”

Whether it’s an online or traditional brick-and-mortar experience, the winners of the future will maintain brand consistency while increasing customer relevance and loyalty. “That’s what’s going to enable them to successfully execute as they reopen stores,” Laukaitis said.

Retailers’ agility to respond to the pandemic will make or break them. “The companies that will be able to best navigate the crisis are the ones that can be creative and agile operating in the current environment,” he said.

Companies that have already embraced digital transformation and invested in an intelligent enterprise infrastructure will have a leg up on competitors. They have the speed, simplicity, and flexibility required to adapt business models while delivering on consumers expectations.

One thing is for sure: E-commerce is growing quickly. The recent U.S. revenue growth rate for e-commerce was . And the crisis has sped up people’s need for better digital experiences.

Newer technologies like AR and geospatial, combined with a strong digital core and traditional customer experience technologies, will allow retailers to pivot fast and keep customers.

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Leadership in a Crisis: The Importance of Empathy and Innovation

Robin Meyerhoff — Fri, 29 May 2020 14:15:37 +0000

When Thomas Saueressig joined the Executive Board of �鶹ԭ�� SE in November 2019, he never expected that he would have to lead 29,000 employees through a global pandemic and economic crisis.

While he has found new ways to engage with employees, Saueressig’s empathetic style of leadership has not changed. Now more than ever, listening to one’s team while adapting to a new way of working is crucial to keeping people motivated.

Empathy Matters More Than Ever

He recognizes the wide variety of challenges his employees face: juggling the demands of home school, tending to sick or elderly loved ones, and the unique trials faced by single people.

“We are in a unique situation that you can’t find in any playbook or Google search,” Saueressig said. “But we needed to change engagement in the remote and virtual setting that we’re in.”

To stay close to colleagues, Saueressig holds virtual meetup sessions from home — more intimate conversations with employees to hear what’s on their mind and to keep the teams informed.

And as the father of two young children, he is certainly sympathetic to people’s efforts to stay productive, while balancing family demands: “For me, it’s important to stay focused and get into a morning routine. Every day I get dressed like I’m going to the office, which gets me into the work mood.”

Innovating in a Pandemic and Beyond

While people come first, Saueressig has other things on his mind as well. Since he oversees all of �鶹ԭ�� business applications, educational programs, global cloud infrastructure, globalization services, and global labs network, he weighs how the pandemic will impact innovation and customers’ digital journeys.

“I’ve talked to a lot of customer CIOs and digital transformation is on top of mind,” he said. “In the last couple of years, some companies treated it like a buzzword from the IT industry, but now it’s actually center stage and people understand why it is so important.”

He explains that digital transformation, which is enabled by the application portfolio his team develops, offers customers deeper supply chain insight, more agile manufacturing operations, and increasingly flexible business models, for example.

Saueressig has put innovation to work creating solutions that will help businesses and other organizations through these unusual times. For example, provides computing power and data center capacity to , a distributed computing project that unites citizen scientists researching protein development in a variety of diseases, including COVID-19.

Additionally, released a free version of procurement solution , which helps organizations find new suppliers quickly. Saueressig states that, according to a , 71 percent of companies are currently experiencing supply chain disruption, which in some instances can be life-threatening. “One hospital was looking for 500 beds and they didn’t find them. Within 30 minutes of using [�鶹ԭ��] Ariba, they found the supply they needed,” he shared.

As the world moves from crisis to recovery and beyond, innovation will continue its important role. “In the beginning of this pandemic, everybody was focused on business continuity,” said Saueressig. “But now we see people preparing for the time after the pandemic and thinking about what the world will look like in the new norm. That’s something people are already thinking about — innovation and what they need to stay on top and remain competitive.”

He is convinced the �鶹ԭ�� portfolio can help in two ways. It provides customers solutions that evolve as the situation demands, and gives them the agility required to anticipate and react to changing market requirements quickly.

With �鶹ԭ�� — and other — applications connected and working together on top of , companies can become intelligent enterprises. “That’s the cornerstone to give customers insight into the supply chain, optimized and automated business processes, and the ability to create new business models on the fly,” said Saueressig.

But the real opportunity lies in creating a network of intelligent enterprises, which will be the next step in connecting businesses. “We talk about the network of intelligent enterprises especially because this pandemic shows how global and interconnected all companies are,” said Saueressig. “We want to connect these companies and give them the deep insights.”

Moving forward, Saueressig has inspired his product teams to tackle climate change, one of the world’s biggest challenges and one that’s close to his heart. The goal is to enrich �鶹ԭ�� products with capabilities that will help companies reduce their carbon footprint. “We want to embed and infuse this into our products so companies can change their processes — and the entire value chain — accordingly,” he said.

The company revealed its intentions to in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Now Saueressig and his teams are executing on this plan – and will continue supporting businesses as they navigate turbulent times.

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Pandemic Accelerates Digital Government

Robin Meyerhoff — Wed, 27 May 2020 12:45:51 +0000

Government organizations globally have scrambled to continue servicing citizens while helping employees switch to working at home effectively and securely in the wake of the COVID-19.

Before the introduction of shelter-in-place and social distancing policies, many government agencies were not equipped to support employees in working at home. For others, working at home was simply not an option.

According to Brian Roach, head of Regulated Industries at �鶹ԭ��, this highlights the “haves and have-nots” in government agencies. The “haves” had already invested in digital technologies and mobile capabilities. The “have-nots” were often paper-driven and spent the day working on desktop computers.

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Factors like budget, work culture, and agency objectives influence the divergent maturity levels for digital government initiatives. For example, wealthier cities like San Diego have surged ahead in technology adoption, whereas agencies that depend on in-person signatures or notarized documents may still be analog.

Regardless, the pandemic has underscored the need for government agencies to raise their digital game. As digital government becomes a bigger priority, Roach identifies three trends he believes will accelerate as governments and their agencies tackle issues linked to the pandemic — and prepare for health crises in the future.

Data-Driven Government

Roach believes that the pandemic will speed up governments’ investment and use of data analytic technologies. “The government needs the ability to mine data, learn from it, and turn it into actionable items – that will improve government in general,” he said.

Organizations can use data to monitor public health, simulate financial models, and to conduct what-if analysis for pandemics. These insights inform smarter policy, programmatic decisions, and the ability to manage risk.

When crises hit, public agencies that act based on accurate information are best positioned to weather emergencies.

“We’re seeing hospital systems that were prepared with predictive technology doing extraordinarily well, they’re not getting overrun,” said Roach. “Those that act as a result of what they’ve learned, and those that don’t – that will be the difference maker.”

Focus on Constituent Experience

Before the crisis, public agencies were leveraging technology to improve citizens’ experience and Roach expects this trend to accelerate.

“We’re going to see the value of citizen experiences, and agencies need to interact with citizens in a different way,” he said. “People haven’t been able to walk into a social security office to receive a check and you have to transform how you’re interacting with the citizenry.”

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) highlights how U.S. government agencies had already started using technology for better constituent experience, before the virus outbreak. In 2019, the agency announced its multi-year focused on updating how the agency “” (source: IRS).

“The IRS is interacting with citizens in a different way – digital interactions and digital transactions have been improving over the years,” Roach explained. “It’s getting to where it’s far more integrated, far more capable, far more organic to the functions of those departments, as opposed to just thin layers of filling in a static website with information.”

Uneven Path to Digital Government

According to Roach, when we speak of the government, we are actually talking about a “large and complex set of services and institutions, where technology innovation and inclination really varies: “There’s always an element of government that is leading edge, and others, whether it be for budget or regulatory reasons, that tend to lag.”

But one thing is certain: The lockdown is pushing all institutions to put a better digital strategy and a technological infrastructure in place.

“There’s no question that things will change going forward, and for the better. We will come out of this much stronger and smarter. It’s easy to be armchair quarterbacks today, but I think the difference will be in the future,” said Roach. “There’s not a silver bullet, there’s not a button that you press and suddenly, you’re digitized, data-driven, and citizen centric. But it’s a journey and we will all get on it together.”

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How AI and Gaze Control Will Help Businesses Reopen Safely

Robin Meyerhoff — Wed, 13 May 2020 12:15:20 +0000

Recent projections by the U.S. federal government estimate that there will be . At the same time, governments around the world are grappling with the complexities of safely reopening businesses, schools, and other public institutions.

Technology companies are rushing into that gap with software aimed at keeping people safe as citizens navigate a patchwork approach to easing shelter-in-place orders. One well-known approach is the use of contact-tracing apps on smartphones created by technology and telecommunications companies. These apps alert people if they have been in close proximity to an infected person.

Other technologies can help. When businesses and other institutions reopen, they will need to do many things differently. A new technology called gaze control allows people to avoid touching surfaces, like ATM display screens or subway-fare vending machines, that may be potentially contaminated with the virus.

Stephan Odörfer is founder and managing director of Munich-based , pronounced “42,” a startup that creates gaze control technology. Put simply, the technology lets people use their eyes to interact with computers, replacing the need to touch a keyboard, mouse, or screen.

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4tiitoo has combined gaze control with artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze patterns in users’ eye movement and predict what people want to do next within a particular computer screen or application.

“Gaze control allows you to do two things: It controls the computer and we can use it to get an understanding of what the user actually wants to do,” Odörfer said. “By understanding intention, we can proactively support him.”

For example, 4tiitoo technology called NUIA learns how a user reads and operates a data-entry form. With this information and the users’ gaze position, the solution automatically “clicks” to the next field without the need to touch the mouse to navigate. This solution is also integrated with voice technology, so workers can dictate information directly into data fields rather than typing it.

There are countless applications of hands-free technology in a post-COVID-19 world.

Manufacturers’ employees, who are especially vulnerable, can benefit. 4tiitoo participated in in 2018. Since then, the two companies have collaborated to help improve efficiency and ergonomics on factory floors and in offices. Those projects have taken on a new urgency and importance to safeguard workers’ health and safety as they return to production lines. With eye control, workers will not have to risk infection by removing protective gloves to type or spend countless hours sanitizing touch screens.

Health clinics and hospitals can also benefit. “You have a higher risk of infection, as more infected people are in these areas,” Odörfer said. “So controlling a touch screen device with your gaze to select what you want to do will help.” Because the solution is intuitive and easy to use, Odörfer hopes to avoid a steep learning curve, which typically slows widespread adoption of new technologies.

David Judge, vice president of Intelligent Enterprise Solutions at �鶹ԭ��, agrees. He believes the pandemic could hasten adoption of technologies like AI, blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT), and machine learning.

Before the pandemic, Judge says that companies were dipping their toe in the water with these technologies that may prove critical in the recovery period.

“No longer is it around the edges. Now companies have to rethink their entire customer experience because they can no longer service them in the same way,” he said. “There are lots of interesting applications of these technologies, which are now being thought of in a new way and with more urgency.”

For example, sporting venues need to reconsider how they interact with audiences and manage the stadium environment. “We need to find new ways for people to enjoy such a public experience,” Judge said. “We’re going to have to have new procedures — new sensors, new ways of tracking people’s movements throughout that experience. Many companies wanted to do [this] before, but now we have this compelling event.”

These technologies tracking and collecting personal data raises privacy concerns. Based in Europe, 4tiitoo designed its products to comply with the European Union’s stringent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But as Judge points out, contact tracing will collect personal health data. He thinks blockchain – as well as traditional data management and cybersecurity techniques – can help protect people’s data. Still, “it’ going to be a tough challenge to unwind,” he said.

But Judge remains bullish on accelerated adoption of intelligent technologies for two reasons. “First, [the pandemic is] going to be used to help make the transition from existing to future business models.” For example, call centers, where people sit closely together, will need to find safer ways to answer calls using intelligent technology, like chatbots. Second, businesses will look for ways to use data to make smarter, faster business decisions while automating and speeding up human-driven tasks.

“For both of those two ambitions, you’re just going to throw gas on the fire,” Judge shared.

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In Mexico’s Oil and Gas Market, Technology Helps Contenders Stand Out

Robin Meyerhoff — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 13:15:14 +0000

Mexico’s oil and gas market has been in transition since before COVID-19 impacted oil prices and pushed oil-rich nations to reduce output. Faced with flagging oil production, the government opened the industry to foreign investment in 2014 and allowed private Mexican petroleum companies to manage oil field operations.

This marked a significant change. Since 1938, the petroleum industry had been a monopoly held by the state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos, known as Pemex. Until the reforms, only Pemex could run drilling operations and exploit new sources of oil.

Alejandra López is a director at FTI Consulting and former analyst at , a think tank in Mexico’s oil industry. She explains that the legislation’s main objective was to make the energy sector more competitive and dynamic. As a monopoly under Pemex, it was slow.

“We weren’t developing our energy resources fast enough or with the best efficiency,” Lopez said. “With the reform, Mexico opened the opportunity for the best companies — from both here and abroad — to bring the best technology and resources to bear.”

Enter companies like , a 60-year-old organization based in Mexico City that formerly provided on- and offshore drilling services to Pemex including gas field operations, offshore construction and maintenance services, oil and gas infrastructure, and exploration. The conglomerate of about 36 companies supports the oil and gas market across three sectors: energy, services, and infrastructure.

Grupo R is now a major player and recently inked deals with global oil companies like and , both subsidiaries of foreign oil groups, to take advantage of Mexico’s vast oil reserves. With in reserve, Mexico ranks in the top 20 of oil-rich nations worldwide, so the opportunity is huge.

Grupo R has bet on the Internet of Things (IoT) and information technology innovation to help it standout from competitors as multinational petroleum giants consider investments in Mexico.

“The oil and gas world came to Mexico with the energy reform. All the global companies started tenders in Mexico, but they come with first-world standards,” said Jonathan Salazar, chief information officer of Grupo R.

Grupo R Turns to �鶹ԭ��

To meet these requirements, Grupo R turned to �鶹ԭ��.

“To be competitive and work with companies like Shell, our c-level executives wanted internal controls, security, and the ability to standardize all systems and processes across our companies,” Salazar explained. “We needed one version of the truth and only one interface.”

His team started with the intelligent, cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system as the foundation to automate and harmonize business processes such as finance, materials, and production. In addition, and provide holistic business insights more quickly. New mobile capabilities have sped up approvals, since they can be done anywhere.

The company also integrated �鶹ԭ�� SuccessFactors solutions with ERP for employee-related services like payroll, onboarding, and career planning. To manage its customer leads and opportunities, which is particularly important during the private tender process, Grupo R uses .

López agrees with Salazar: Technology will facilitate companies’ success, even in the current climate of low oil prices. “The energy industry is very technical. The only thing that will differentiate them and help them win new contracts is who gets the best technology and appliances for their portfolio,” Lopez said.

That’s why many like Grupo R are investing in new talent and solutions that will reduce time and increase efficiency.

Predictive Maintenance for Offshore Drills

One example is Grupo R’s investment in state-of-the art jack up rigs used for offshore drilling. The company recently introduced the Cantarell IV rig, equipped with proprietary digital capabilities that better support the platform’s entire life cycle. More than 4,000 sensors are installed onboard — considerably more sensors than usual, Salazar points out — allowing the company to analyze drill platform and equipment-related data in real time.

He says that all aspects of the oil and gas industry depend on technology, but to differentiate in an emerging market, companies must have the latest and greatest: “My role is to connect operational technology that comes from the physical aspects of the business to informational technology.”

With this integration, the company would like to create a predictive maintenance system for its offshore rigs. A current pilot program brings select sensor information into �鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA to help monitor rig performance. Data is sent to equipment owners and cross-referenced with technicians’ experience data, so they can proactively identify and fix issues.

In future, Salazar wants to develop artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms fed with historical information and predictive data related to drill performance. This will help automate processes and better anticipate how to respond effectively to specific problems. He also wants to create a solution that people can use on- or offline, because drills aren’t always connected, to support business continuity.

Grupo R chose �鶹ԭ�� for its oil industry experience and regional experience. “In Mexico, we have regulatory agencies that don’t have equivalents elsewhere. With �鶹ԭ��, we were able to use best practices that met our specific needs quickly,” Salazar said.

Moving Forward

Meanwhile, the Mexican government recently stopped accepting new foreign tenders for its private companies and Pemex faces over $100 billion in debt. And of course, there’s the looming global recession combined with unprecedentedly low oil prices.

Mexico has a big challenge ahead: how to develop resources in the most efficient way, given the current market conditions. But to be set up for future success, technology investments and innovation must continue. As Lopez points out, “Oil production tomorrow will depend on technology developments today.”

How Business Can Stay on the Right Side of History

Robin Meyerhoff — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 12:15:56 +0000

Every day the news features stories about how businesses are adapting to the COVID-19 crisis. Whether it’s small companies developing new revenue streams to stay afloat or larger ones reorienting operations to provide critical support, one thing is clear: Businesses are pivoting quickly.

But there can be missteps too. Promotions tied to COVID-19 fill my social feed and inbox: Buy a comfy work-from-home bra! Puzzles (that are sold out) to help entertain the family!

is a digital marketing guru, startup investor, and author of “.” His latest venture, OpenMessage, creates dynamic, branded text messages to drive customer loyalty. The company was selected by global startup accelerator to participate in a new cohort of customer experience and retail companies.

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Here Bough provides important advice to businesses about how to stay relevant, keep connected to employees and consumers, and protect their brand during these turbulent times.

People-Centered Value Creation

For companies to stay relevant, while not acting opportunistically, Bough says companies must put human need front and center.

“People are going through tough times, so what are the things that you can do as a person and a business to help ease tough times?” he notes. Any product innovation or new revenue streams developed right now must be founded on the bedrock of compassion.

“It’s really going to become ‘How do I create value for consumers that ease the pain and help us get back to normalcy as fast as we can?”, given the issues that we have,” Bough says. He believes that if businesses focus their efforts and resources against that challenge, they will figure a way through this challenging period and wind up on the right side of history.

Bough heeds his own advice. OpenMessage enables companies to send branded, interactive text messages to consumers. But right now his company is helping a midwestern grocery chain send consumers messages with important information, such as a shopping list with enough items to last two weeks and how to get supplies like toilet paper or hand sanitizer in a more structured, organized way.

Empathy for Employees

To an extent, stay-at-home orders during the pandemic have acted as a great equalizer for white collar workers. Everyone from CEOs to software developers now works at home while simultaneously managing education and childcare, caring for elderly or sick loved ones, and keeping their households functioning despite long waits for grocery shopping.

To keep employees motivated and creative, Bough explains, “I think it starts with empathy and just really understanding and getting to the bottom of what’s happening in your employee’s current situation.” He cautions that managers shouldn’t pry but try to learn enough to put their requests into perspective.

While some businesses have ground to a halt, companies need to keep the engine running so they can come out of this on the other side. For Bough, that boils down to flexibility and compassion: “The biggest tip is to be empathetic and then to really, really think about how you structure the workday so that works around what the different needs of the people who work for you.”

The Silver Lining

Bough recognizes that people crave optimism right now and sees positivity in several areas. First is family togetherness. “As crazy as it is, there’s a silver lining and blessing here that many times we don’t get to share this kind of time with our family. And here we are. We’re with them — good, bad, or ugly,” Bough says. He encourages people to embrace this special period to rebuild relationships and spend time in-person or virtually with elderly relatives.

“I’m enjoying being able to spend every night on a Zoom call with my dad going through the half a million photographs that we have and talking about them. And that’s time that I usually wouldn’t have. Those are beautiful things,” he shares.

Second, Bough sees this as an opportunity for genuine connection with consumers. With so many people craving outside activities, businesses can offer services that will help them “dig out of the hole quickly” once they resume. For example, restaurants can offer cooking shows. “I know some people are stuck at home, trying but they’re not great cooks, so how can businesses provide that connectivity to them?”

Last, Bough is inspired by the impact companies can make and offers several examples. With non-essential businesses shut down around the country, nail salons are offering online tutorials and advice to clients. “Then you have Estee Lauder changing their facilities to create hand sanitizer,” he says. “These are the examples that I find the most fascinating, with the most amount of human ingenuity being put to the test in a chaotic environment.”

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�鶹ԭ�� Co-CEO Jennifer Morgan Keynotes at Great Place to Work For All Summit 2020

Robin Meyerhoff — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 16:35:39 +0000

In world that’s facing rapid change, good leaders must be “obsessed with learning,” �鶹ԭ�� Co-CEO Jennifer Morgan told the audience at the , held this week in San Francisco.

During the keynote session, Morgan spoke with , senior editor at Fortune Magazine, about the need for leaders to stay humble and open, creating a strong workplace culture, and her thoughts on women in leadership.

Morgan described the moment she became co-CEO as humbling and explained why seeking out constant learning is so important. “Early in our careers, we think that everyone in a leadership role has everything figured out,” she said. “But as you progress, you realize how much more of a student you need to be.”

That said, Morgan believes that she and Co-CEO Christian Klein both bring a deep and complementary knowledge of the business that informs a shared vision for �鶹ԭ��’s future. “We have a very common vision for the company and where we need to go,” Morgan said. “And having been an operator in the business, it gives you real insight into the challenges and opportunities you have.”

Besides shared aspirations for the company, trust and unity are critical. “Leadership takes time,” she said. “In companies today, people have to come together not just at the leadership level, but across all parts of an organization.”

Integration is top of mind for �鶹ԭ��, which has made several large acquisitions in the past decade. For Morgan, successful integration requires a different approach to communications. Too often, she said, leaders focus on the “what” versus explaining the “why,” which can make it challenging for employees to align with transformation.

She also explained that executives often focus on making organizational changes that will help achieve business goals, but that it starts with communication. “Just telling employees the ‘what’ without the ‘why’ in today’s world undermines what you’re trying to do,” she said.

With International Women’s Day coming up, McGirt referenced a study just released by the , which found that more than 40 percent of people in 75 countries think men make better executives than women. Since �鶹ԭ�� operates in many of those countries, she and Morgan discussed how a female CEO can help shift those beliefs.

Morgan addressed the delicate balance needed for women leaders to be role models. “It’s really important to me to be recognized for my leadership, not my gender,” she said. “At the same time, I underestimated how many younger women and underrepresented minorities look to people like me who are in these positions.”

Morgan said she recognizes that “it’s important for people to see people like them and to give them hope — and have that become an example that’s real and actionable.” She also emphasized the important role men play in advancing women in leadership, particularly in countries with more entrenched gender norms. “I make sure that men are part of these conversations. Men do want to be part of the solution, so we need to pull them in and say it’s okay to help advocate,” she said.

�鶹ԭ�� Co-CEO Jennifer Morgan receives All CEO Leadership Award from Michael Bush, CEO, Great Places to Work.

The event was organized by Great Place to Work, a company that researches, assesses, and ranks companies based on factors like diversity and inclusion, culture, trust, and region. �鶹ԭ�� America has been certified as a for four consecutive years and is ranked on several of the organization’s lists. �鶹ԭ�� SuccessFactors was a sponsor for the event.

Both Morgan and , president of �鶹ԭ�� North America, received leadership awards from Great Place to Work honoring their efforts to create a first-rate company culture.

Dr. Judith Williams, chief diversity and inclusion officer and head of People Sustainability at �鶹ԭ��, also spoke at the event. She explained the business and moral imperatives for diversity, as well as how to identify and root out unconscious bias.

How Laboratoria Helps Mexican Women Get More Tech Jobs

Robin Meyerhoff — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 14:15:52 +0000

If the gender gap in Mexico’s workforce was closed, it could increase the country’s GDP by 70 percent. �鶹ԭ�� and Laboratoria aim to fix this — and train disadvantaged women to participate in the digital economy.

“I was one of two women that sat on the regulatory body that monitors Mexico’s telecom industry. It was a very masculine sector and a difficult environment to navigate,” says Dr. Maria Elena Estavillo, an internationally recognized expert in telecommunications oversight and anti-trust issues.

As a result of her experiences, Estavillo founded , a group that advocates for women’s employment and advancement to the c-suite in information and communication technologies (ICT) professions across Mexico. “Most of these issues are global, but Mexico is very challenged in this aspect,” she says. “When we compare pay cap or participation in the workforce, we lag behind many countries, including those in Latin America.”

To fight this, Conectadas offers mentorship and campaigns for recruiting policies and procedures that encourage women’s participation in the ICT workforce.

Estavillo is not alone and the problems she has identified run deep. is a not-for-profit organization that helps women enter the digital economy with training and job placement support. In collaboration with �鶹ԭ��, the organization produced a study, “The future is diverse: Women in technology industries in Mexico.” The report found that Mexico falls behind other countries in several key categories.

Araceli Campos, Laboratoria’s country manager for Mexico, shares, “Machismo is very present in the workforce. We have very strong anti-discrimination laws but there’s a lack of compliance.” For example, during interviews men ask women if they are pregnant or plan to start a family soon. In fact, 35 percent of the country’s population believes men are more suitable for jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), according to a study published by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Furthermore, while Mexican women have achieved parity in educational achievement, the study reports, “very few women are completing university degrees in technology.” Even when women focus on STEM, the quality of Mexico’s math and science education — and education overall — is comparatively low, receiving a score of 2.8 out of seven from the . The impact? Mexican women are less prepared than men to enter the technology sector.

As a result of cultural biases and subpar education, women are underemployed, particularly in tech-related jobs. Campos says, “What makes Mexico unique is that overall women’s participation in the labor market is 47 percent, whereas men are at 83 percent. And 31 percent of women under 24 don’t participate at all.”

To put it in perspective, women comprise 70 percent of the workforce in other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. It gets worse when it comes to tech: Across Latin America, women represent one in 10 technology workers; in Mexico, it is one out of eight.

For Campos, this means women miss out on a huge economic opportunity: “By 2025, it’s estimated that we’ll need 1.25 million developers in Latin America. Laboratoria is founded on the belief that we need to build a world that equally distributes opportunities for the digital age.”

Moreover, excluding women results in high costs to Mexico’s economy and private sector. “If the gender gap in Mexico’s workforce was closed, it could increase the GDP for Mexico by ,” Campos says.

�鶹ԭ�� agrees that companies suffer without diversity, which is why it partnered with Laboratoria to advance women’s standing in STEM and co-create the study. Raquel Macias heads up Corporate Affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for �鶹ԭ�� Mexico. She says, “Without women, it’s hard to build products that appeal to a broad base of consumers. It’s been well documented that companies with more women have better, more innovative cultures and higher profits.”

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Steps Companies Can Take to Bolster Women’s Participation in the Digital Economy

To make this change, Laboratoria partners with companies like �鶹ԭ�� to create lasting impact. “We realized for systemic change to happen, working with women was only part of it,” Campos says. “We also needed to work with the companies, because it involves a change of mindset, change of culture.”

What are some concrete steps technology companies can take to be more inclusive and equal? Campos recommends that companies actively hire women. “People say ‘We posted but no women applied.’ But you need to look at the wording of the job posting – men apply if they meet half the criteria but women won’t,” she says, “You need to go the extra mile.”

Moreover, companies must establish policies to retain and develop talent. But for new rules to work, a new culture must take root.

“We need a different culture inside companies and to build the narrative for why diversity matters,” Campos explains, which includes offering tools to help leaders navigate the complexity that diversity brings and encouraging them to keep an open mind. “Executives need to be okay with vulnerability, with not knowing all the answers as we figure out this massive change.”

Both �鶹ԭ�� and Laboratoria recommend that all actors need to come together including the media, government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and private companies. Each plays an important role in creating lasting change. Campos points to its relationship with �鶹ԭ�� and the �鶹ԭ�� CSR team as evidence.

“�鶹ԭ�� shows real commitment to this issue,” she says. “And as a leader in gender diversity, �鶹ԭ�� influences and inspires the industry. That means a lot of people will follow – and that is huge.”

Images via Laboratoria

Establishment Labs Aims to Revolutionize Women’s Health and Help Breast Cancer Survivors

Robin Meyerhoff — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 15:45:45 +0000

Through its implant technology, Establishment Labs is giving women hope after breast cancer. As the company expands globally, �鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA provides the foundation to keep business on track.

In 2015, Dr. Juliana Esquivel was attending a medical conference with her husband in Orlando, Florida, when she felt a lump that had not been there before. Her husband, an oncologist, confirmed the small lump but didn’t want to rush to conclusions. They decided to wait and conduct further tests when they returned to their home in Costa Rica.

Once Esquivel returned, she underwent a series of tests; after several agonizing weeks, the doctors confirmed that she had stage I breast cancer.

“It was December 23, right before Christmas, that I got the call from the pathologist,” says Esquivel. “He said he checked the biopsy over and over — and then told me the bad news: I had cancer. I just burst into tears.”

After considering her treatment options, Esquivel decided to have both breasts removed: “I told the surgeons ‘I don’t want any part of me that can put me through all this again, so let’s do this.’”

Before her double mastectomy, the doctors encouraged her to consider undergoing reconstructive surgery at the same time. Esquivel’s first step was to consult with Dr. Manuel Chacón-Quirós, one of the top plastic surgeons in the country and brother of Juan José Chacón-Quirós, CEO and founder of Establishment Labs.

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Based just outside of San Jose, the company designs and manufactures breast implants. And luckily for Esquivel, Establishment Labs had released unique 3D imaging technology, called Divina, to create models of patients’ breasts. Using Divina, the company developed personalized implants, which made all the difference to Esquivel. “My surgeon did both the mastectomy and reconstruction at the same time,” she explains. “It was a very long surgery but when I came out of it, I looked down and saw I looked like I had before. It was like a weight was lifted and I felt this huge relief.”

Establishment Labs began in 2004 as a startup run out of Chacón-Quirós’ parents’ house. It is fitting that the company began in his family’s house, Chacón-Quirós explains: “I come from a family of doctors. My father is a plastic surgeon and my mother is an obstetric nurse. Listening to them, I realized that those worlds could be combined to further women’s health and give women a voice. That’s why I started Establishment Labs.”

Establishment Labs Grows, Goes Digital

Establishment Labs is also the first Costa Rican company listed on NASDAQ. It is registered to sell in more than 80 countries across Latin America, Europe, and Asia. To help scale its operations, the company turned to �鶹ԭ�� and , an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution designed for small businesses.

But over the past 10 years, the company has expanded and now has the ability to manufacture more than 500,000 units yearly. It quickly outgrew �鶹ԭ�� Business One and is upgrading to , an ERP system for large enterprises that runs on an in-memory data base and can process large amounts of data more quickly.

According to Salvador Dada, chief operating officer and co-founder of Establishment Labs, “We’ve gotten to the point that we’re public and have grown from one local subsidiary to different subsidiaries around the world. That means we need a more efficient process to close our books and deal with the various reporting regulations like the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

�鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA will help the company manage its global sales and financial data more quickly and efficiently by establishing controls and helping ensure the company has the latest information.

Additionally, Dada says, “Traceability for medical device manufacturers is critical. We’ll be able to trace all the information related to our products with one click and deliver it to any surgeon or regulatory agency. Now, within a month we produce what we were producing in a whole year like five years ago.”

This is why the company needed a system help orchestrate financials, as well as manufacturing, distribution, and planning at a global level across eight locations.

Technology Benefiting Women’s Health

Both Dada and Chacón-Quirós believe that digitizing the business will benefit women customers. First, the company can improve efficiency and pass on cost savings. But more importantly, technology will help Establishment Labs achieve its mission: to deliver better, safer devices to women, resulting in fewer complications.

Moving forward, Chacón-Quirós wants to deepen the bond with customers. “We want to reach women interested in breast aesthetics and reconstruction, to educate them about their options, and to get feedback about our products. To be able to listen and respond will help us improve women’s health. We can translate that information into better products for women and the markets we serve,” he says.

The company is also considering �鶹ԭ�� Customer Experience and Experience Management solutions from �鶹ԭ�� (Qualtrics) to open up bi-directional channels with customers.

In the meantime, Esquivel has this message for women facing breast cancer: “Establishment Labs gave me my life back. They brought me back to myself. I want other women to know, even though this horrible thing is happening to you, you can opt for reconstruction and come back from this as the same person you were.”

Why Customer Experience Matters to One of the World’s Largest Cement Producers

Robin Meyerhoff — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 14:15:25 +0000

As one of the top cement producers in the world, creates building materials and services for customers across four continents. But even giants like CEMEX, headquartered in Monterrey, Mexico, recognize that in a digital world, they must provide a modern, personalized experience to customers.

CEMEX began its digital transformation three years ago by analyzing how technology could help engage customers more effectively. According to Ricardo Chapa, head of Digital Architecture and Emerging Technologies, “When we began our digital transformation, our top management realized that we excel in creating high-quality products efficiently. But at the same time, they recognized that we needed to be better at dealing with our customers.”

Selling primarily to large construction companies, CEMEX wanted to offer a top-notch . To start, the company mapped the customer journey and identified customer pain points. That exercise — combined with design thinking sessions and agile development based on feedback from customers and business leaders — led the company to create .

“We developed CEMEX Go from scratch. It’s a cloud-based e-commerce solution completely tailored to our customers’ needs,” Chapa explained. CEMEX Go was created to address customers’ complex and often very specific requirements for the construction market. The platform is now used globally and processes around 60 percent of customer orders — and that number is growing.

In 2001, CEMEX created Construrama, the largest network of retail stores for building materials in Mexico and other Latin American countries where CEMEX has a presence. The Construrama network was developed to strengthen CEMEX distributors, support local hardware store owners, and expand the company’s presence in the construction industry. Through the network, CEMEX can sell products to individuals doing construction projects; however, the company realized it needed to modernize the online experience and create digital offers for the network.

To jumpstart the network’s e-commerce strategy, CEMEX selected , part of the �鶹ԭ�� C/4HANA solution portfolio. With the solution, store owners within the network now have an online presence they did not have previously and can reach more buyers.

The site was launched in just four months and has been live since 2017. To scale the project, the company launched a pilot in Guadalajara then added new features every few weeks, eventually rolling it out across the country. The new digital network has increased customer convenience and satisfaction.

Previously, orders were made via physical visits or telephone, and the customers did not have visibility into new products that stores might offer. Now, clients can see the complete catalog and order products through the application. They can also have online conversations with an executive if they have questions. Moving forward, CEMEX wants to add a chatbot to assist customers with orders and other recurrent tasks. The IT team also used learnings from the B2B project to develop a B2C ecommerce application for Construrama, which went live last year.

The Construrama team reports that both the B2B and B2C sites have been working well, with sales increasing monthly. Moving forward, the team is implementing digital marketing tools. “We’re newly focused on digital marketing and we think that it will help us bring new customers to the portal,” Chapa said.

CEMEX has been long-time �鶹ԭ�� customer and uses �鶹ԭ�� ERP globally. The company updated its suite with , based on in-memory database technology, in the Philippines and plans to use the lessons learned there to decide on its global strategy.