And it’s not just retail and service businesses that are losing employees and the valuable skills those employees bring. Companies across all industries and sizes are struggling to retain and hire knowledgeable workers with the right skill sets to run and grow their organizations. This is a business sustainability issue and blocker to business and digital transformation.

The pressure to retain and hire quality talent with strong digital skills in particular has intensified with the COVID-19 pandemic, as the business digitalization need was accelerated by five to 10 years. Suddenly, harnessing the Internet of Things (IoT) and investing in robotic process automation (RPA) and machine learning are urgent priorities, not long-range plans. This acceleration has created employee skills gaps where organizations that might have been one or two years behind in digital skills transformation have suddenly found themselves to be a decade or more behind. This puts them at high risk of being unable to tap into the new digital economy, which is an opportunity cost few can afford.

The growing digital skills gap has also highlighted current and projected future inequalities because the gap has widened at different rates in different geographical locations and industry sectors. The looming digital divide is potentially so serious that the World Economic Forum has launched the , mobilizing a global movement, including a large number of Â鶹ԭ´´ customers and partners, to prioritize digital inclusion as foundational to the achievement of their sustainable development goals. Â鶹ԭ´´ has also prioritized its own digital literacy program.

To remain competitive and sustainable in the digital economy, businesses must have enough people with the right skills at the right time to help them accelerate their digital transformation. Every business and digital transformation is also a people transformation, but the key point is that the people transformation needs to happen first.

Embrace the “Unbound� Workforce as the New Normal

Today, it seems every employee might be a flight risk, especially those with the skills that are foundational to digital transformation and economic growth. One way to address the immediate skills gap is to stem the flood of people leaving your business for greener pastures – which, for many, are more flexible and less biased work environments. Retention has always been the best form of recruitment. During the peak of COVID-19, knowledge workers were freed from the office and became, at least in their minds, fluid, liberated, and free-range employees. Many don’t want to go back to full-time office work – especially women and people of color. As noted in a previous article, pulse studies have found that women, working parents, and employees of color are the most adamant about continuing to work remotely.

And it’s for good reasons. Most employees – especially women – found that they were able to sustain high levels of productivity working remotely while gaining more time for relationships, stress-reducing activities, responsibilities such as caring for children and aging parents, and more. They could work from anywhere, at any time that worked best each day, and do their jobs well. Most employees report that they are aren’t willing to give this up because an employer says so.

The benefits of working remotely have been even more significant for people of color. For example, Black men reported a massive improvement in their employee experience because, while working remotely, they felt they have not been subject to the same level of unconscious bias. In other words, they feel that they’ve enjoyed more equality working from home – which is critical to fostering a sense of belonging and increasing the likelihood of their retention.

This is why to and meeting the needs of remote and hybrid workers is massively important from both a sustainability and a diversity, equity, and inclusion perspective. It’s critical to develop flexible work environments that balance company and employee needs and create an employee experience they love. Because the fact is, every flight risk threatens your most valued digital skills, as the people with those skills are most likely to leave.

Empower Employees to Expand Their Capabilities to Advance Individual Growth

Another way to address skills gaps is to empower employees to work in cross-functional teams based on organizational tasks or projects. This notion of coming together with others to get work done and then disbanding when the work is finished is widely referred to as dynamic teams. They can be across hierarchies or lines of business and help to create an agile working environment while fueling skill development. By leveraging internal talent, managers and human resources do not have to create new positions, find budget, recruit, or support a team creation process with other time-consuming tasks. Instead, your business organizations can simply bring together employees to form optimal teams that can focus on short term tasks and priorities.

In addition to forming dynamic teams to bridge skills gaps, organizations can also take an employee-centric approach to development and growth by providing access to internal opportunities through fellowships, gigs, temporary assignments, mentor programs, and experiential learning. This allows an organization to build the skills needed for the future while empowering individuals to create a career completely their own. Connecting employees to meaningful work and new opportunities will drive the adaptability needed for better business outcomes.

Proactively Upskill and Reskill

Finally, invest in learning and development. Why? Because every digital transformation is also a people transformation where employers must upskill and reskill their employees to meet today’s changed needs and tomorrow’s capabilities demand. Not only must organizations provide the tools to help their workforce discover learning to upskill and reskill them, but they must create an environment supportive of continuous learning. For example, complementing formal training with informal, collaborative, and engaging communities of practice can offer easy access to experts and knowledge sharing to build up skills quickly. A dynamic environment of learning, feedback, and coaching empowers people to take charge of their development with confidence. Here, learning recommendations turn every employee into a proactive learner by giving guidance and nudging them to take action.

Undeniably, closing the skills gap and striving towards sustainable growth requires organizations to create a create a future-fit, resilient workforce that directly addresses its needs as well as those of each of its employees. This can be truly transformational.

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Tammie Eldridge is part of Solution Marketing at Â鶹ԭ´´ SuccessFactors.

As a customer of multiple , Wellstar is familiar with the power of Â鶹ԭ´´ and knew it could be getting more out of its Â鶹ԭ´´ SuccessFactors Learning solution. Danielle Mecum, manager of Learning Technology at Wellstar, believed that improved governance of the system was part of the road to getting there. “When governance is lacking, the employee experience suffers,â€� Mecum explained.

With a nursing background, she knew firsthand the need to get new hires trained properly and quickly, and that reducing the time from hire to actual work was key. She added, “In addition to our non-clinical employees, our medical employees were taking longer to get to the patient floors to start providing care because of how the required onboarding training was organized and set up. There were inaccurate training assignments, courses not marked as required, and, in some cases, no required-by dates.�

In addition, users said that their learning assignments were too cluttered and disorganized, Mecum explained. And there were instances where new employees would get to a patient floor and realize that they were not able to enter a patient’s chart, for example, because a course hadn’t been assigned to them in the correct sequence.

The need to get employees onboarded faster could have been enough to justify the governance project, but to add to the complex nature of the project – and completely out of Wellstar’s control – the organization faced the impending deprecation of Flash content and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. To help tackle this challenge, Wellstar decided to work with its customer engagement executive to start a solution adoption engagement. This type of engagement is intended to provide recommendations to a customer to help them create an action plan to optimize their use of their system – in this case . A recommendation came out of this engagement that confirmed the needed for the governance initiative.

Mecum’s nursing background helped her understand the urgency of the situation. She and her team looked at the issues already discussed and began to build a governance model. For example, they instituted a content life cycle management process that incorporated a formal method for requesting the creation of new items, curricula, and assignment profiles. In addition, they implemented an ongoing review procedure that included automated notifications to course owners to review material that had reached expiration. Additionally, Wellstar leveraged and configured custom fields within Â鶹ԭ´´ SuccessFactors Learning to track key data and report on it from within the system to ensure compliance with the new governance process.

Other governance steps included reviewing and consolidating LMS admin roles to ensure the right administrators had the right permissions to perform administrative tasks as appropriate in the system – without giving them freedom to add to the problem at large. A formal process for vetting new LMS administrators was created to ensure they weren’t simply giving just anyone these permissions. “We knew we needed to define what goes into the system, so we could control what comes out. This helps when we need to get rid of old, outdated courses,� Mecum explained.

These changes, among others, were implemented as part of the governance initiative. The result is that Wellstar is now reaping greater benefits from Â鶹ԭ´´ SuccessFactors Learning and, most importantly, employees now have an improved experience with the system. Frustration levels are down and new hires are able to start their actual jobs much sooner than before – in three days rather than a week and a half!

Mark Tarallo is a solution marketing fellow for Â鶹ԭ´´ SuccessFactors.

According to researchers at , precision medicine therapeutics have accounted for 25% to 40% of all FDA approvals in the past seven years. They believe precision medicine has “proven its worth with mounting evidence of improved patient outcomes in oncology, cardiology, endocrinology, and other disease areas.� From the patient’s perspective, analysts suggested a digital-first “health journey� vision that prioritizes digital engagement and the use of digital interactions, products, and services throughout an individual’s journey through health, wellness, and illness.

Data Makes Life Sciences Supply Chains More Intelligent

Michael Townsend, research director of Life Sciences Commercial Strategies at IDC, saw the industry in the early stages of digitalization, focusing on the value of technology that brings intelligence across life sciences supply chains.

“Companies are beginning to make processes more digital, applying intelligence from technologies to make better decisions,� said Townsend. “For instance, there’s significant investment in supply chain solutions like digital twins, where you construct a digital model to experiment with what-if scenarios in performance at various points along the chain such as assembly, shipment, or geography. You can stress test alternate choices without actually having to make any changes.�

Townsend said that segmentation was another intelligent node across supply chains, allowing companies to identify and store medicines and packaging based on country-specific regulations, improving lead times, reducing unused inventory, and simplifying shipping. Some organizations are also using control towers to track demand patterns against materials and component availability, avoiding overstocks and shortages. For example, if COVID-19 cases rise in a certain region, a vaccine manufacturer can act faster to stock up and start shipping prevention and treatment products to that location. Connecting data across supply chains for quick response times applies to any unexpected disruption, including natural disasters and political conflicts.

Ecosystems Surface Expert Wisdom

Mandar Paralkar, head of Life Sciences Industry at Â鶹ԭ´´, agreed that organizations are moving from historical emphasis on addressing disease with bulk manufacturing of medications to personalized therapies that improve individual patient outcomes and involve more ecosystem collaboration. In an industry with longer product development cycles, he said that collaborative consortiums like are a way to share intelligence for expedited success.

“Whether startups or established leaders, life sciences companies are using technology to improve patient outcomes and company profitability while reducing costs and risk,â€� said Paralkar. “They’ve realized the imperative to compete as an ecosystem across connected digital supply chains and smart factories. One example of this is Â鶹ԭ´´ Intelligent Clinical Supply Management, a solution we innovated with a consortium of customers and partners. This collaborative effort exemplifies how innovation in the cloud can potentially help life sciences organizations create, manufacture, and deliver effective solutions faster, allowing the partner ecosystem to compliment value-added services.â€�

Cloud-Based Technology Disrupts Life Sciences

The pandemic has irrevocably disrupted life sciences, revealing a new vision for innovation from cloud-based collaboration. Almost overnight, companies invested in technology to work from home, and that bled over into new ways of thinking about the use of technology in areas like process automation and decentralized clinical trials, along with working together in trusted relationships.

“Collaboration hubs where multiple, trusted entities can exchange information, collaborating to learn from each other and solve problems is part of the life sciences vision,� said Townsend. “Experts involved with clinical supply chains and other aspects of life sciences are motivated to streamline processes, make suggestions to software providers, and share information between systems. Cloud-based software is critical. If you’re on subscription-based software, updates are almost in real time and it’s much easier to collaborate and access different sources of data when it’s available in the cloud.�

Achieving a Healthier and Profitable Vision

As costs and regulatory pressures rise and educated patients clamor for personalized treatment, digital innovations will inexorably alter the life sciences landscape. Within a few years, researchers predicted 75% of trials will be “patient-centric” decentralized clinical trials, 90% will be hybrid, and at least 10% will be virtual, driven by a 30% growth in connected health technologies.​ They said that by 2025 the market for prescription digital therapeutics will more than triple, focusing on mental health and chronic conditions, blurring the boundaries between healthcare and life sciences. It’s no wonder that analysts advised life sciences manufacturers to prioritize “clinical solutions that include interoperability as a core feature, including easier connectivity of content and data between clinical sites, sponsors, clinical research organizations, and other ecosystem participants.â€� Trusted intelligent data is the must-have for a healthier future.

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This is especially true in the current fast-moving market when businesses are still facing material sourcing and supplier challenges triggered by the international pandemic. Yet are moving forward with expansion despite economic concerns and supply chain challenges.

As the COVID-19 threat accelerated, Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s longtime client examined its operations and saw that there was an overwhelming opportunity to improve how the business runs and come out of the pandemic as an even stronger business.

Freudenberg’s vast footprint – its presence can be found in 35 countries – was both a blessing and a curse. Different regions, as well as business areas, utilized dissimilar planning approaches and sources, limiting the ability to gain an overall picture across the entire company. Some of these planning processes were carried out manually, with employees relying on hundreds of different spreadsheets to compile reports. Often, comptrollers had to be personally consulted during this period to confirm data and statistics, slowing the pace. Yet, even with confirmed figures, discrepancies between financial and production plans remained.

Franco Giacomini, vice president for big markets in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, stated, “In a rapidly fluctuating market…forecasting is crucial for us. We need it to ensure we produce enough of the right products at the right time and understand the financial impact of various planning scenarios.� Clearly, a new – and fully digital – approach was needed to bring business processes into a single platform to anticipate, understand, and meet customer expectations to keep the company thriving.

Remodeling a Long-Established Business

Based in Weinheim, Germany, the Freudenberg Group’s legacy goes back more than 170 years. Of its diverse branches, Freudenberg Home and Cleaning Solutions produces everything from floor cleaning systems to laundry care products to household cloths and rubber gloves.

Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s relationship with the company began in the 1990s, when the Freudenberg Group first adopted Â鶹ԭ´´ software. In an early example of the type of platform that would later be required as the pandemic intensified, Freudenberg Home and Cleaning Solutions merged multiple applications into a global, centralized pricing scheme in 2003.

Fast forward nearly 20 years, that remains in use, but now a new platform was created to deploy a hybrid architecture consisting of data and analytics solutions based on . Using consolidated finance and supply chain data, and integrating it with a cloud planning tool that operates in real-time across multiple regions and product categories, Freudenberg is able to simulate best- and worst-case scenarios to grasp operational impact, along with potential profit and loss. A definite game changer for the disparate business unit planning that had been taking place.

Digital Legend

As ambitious as this project sounded, the architecture was deployed when it was needed most and when much of the world was locked down in 2020.

Forging through the start of the pandemic paid off for Freudenberg. The single-source repository has revolutionized how Freudenberg runs, harmonizing the planning and forecasting processes across the consumer products division, regardless of international boundaries.

The enhanced knowledge allowed planners to quickly scan details about product volumes, available raw materials, and sales value, closing gaps that might have otherwise remained open and undetected.

“The smart combination of sales plans, forecasts, and operative plans in one integrated global simulation and planning platform truly accelerated decision-making,� said Andreas Hass, Freudenberg’s corporate IT manager for Analytics Processes and Systems.

Through this innovative method of scenario planning, and the deeper understanding of profits and loss, planning transparency and accuracy increased. What decreased was inaccurate, manually derived figures and time spent on repetitive report preparation tasks, freeing up teams to evaluate new trends and engage in other high-value work that could lead to increased growth in current and potential markets.

Most impressive though was how, despite the massive amount of data acquired for analyzing and processing, planning occurred at a rate that was 10 times faster than in the past.

The earned Freudenberg Home and Cleaning Solutions the unique and well-deserved distinction as a 2022 Â鶹ԭ´´ Innovation Award winner in the 50^th Anniversary Legend category. More significantly, like companies everywhere that have benefited from digital acceleration, Freudenberg has begun rethinking the future, using the current momentum to extend its solution to other business functions.

Claudio Muruzabal is president of Cloud Success Services at Â鶹ԭ´´.

Industry innovation has been a fascinating topic over the last few years. It’s impossible to ignore how companies create new offerings and experiences that dramatically shift how an industry – or in some cases, multiple industries – operates and how people live. Such groundbreaking changes are usually built with an appreciation of existing data and technologies and through a desire to do things better in terms of product safety, supply chain optimization, and business finances.

I’ve been very fortunate to experience the power of such industry innovation through the Customer Innovation & Maintenance team as part of the Customer Solution Support & Innovation organization at Â鶹ԭ´´. For years, we have worked with various organizations to navigate existing crises, address emerging challenges, and deliver new opportunities for the world. In this article, I will discuss three of our latest projects.

Saving People’s Lives by Reducing Counterfeit Drugs

One prime example of our efforts is tackling a global menace that impacts the entire world: counterfeit pharmaceuticals. Many falsified or substandard medicines contain dangerous ingredients, such as heavy metals, highway paint, and rat poison, that worsen people’s health conditions and create new diseases. As a result, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than yearly from these snake oil cures.

For years, governments have initiated legislation and regulations to criminalize and control the production and distribution of counterfeit drugs. However, my team discovered that the lack of a rigorous, universal network makes it difficult to curtail the problem often hidden within complex supply chains and sophisticated packaging.

Based on input from Â鶹ԭ´´ customers in the life sciences industry and working with Â鶹ԭ´´ industry experts on this international challenge, we developed . The industry network hub enables pharmaceutical firms to share product information for traceability and verification across the supply network and with government regulators. Running on and leveraging Â鶹ԭ´´ Blockchain Business Services, it is the first public-cloud, industry-specific business network used by more than 45 pharmaceutical firms, over 1,500 trading partners, and 80% of COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers.

But our contribution to the fight against counterfeit drugs is far from over. We are working toward adding aid workers from organizations – such as the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders – to the hub so they can verify critical medicines and vaccines on the fly in low- to middle-income countries. This innovation is accomplished by integrating the hub into the application.

Accelerating the Development of Lifesaving Therapies

Another barrier to delivering large quantities of medical therapies quickly, efficiently, and safely is the structure of the traditional clinical supply chain. During the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain resilience was highlighted as a critical requirement for providing lifesaving vaccines, prophylactics, and therapies created through industry-wide collaboration and a patient-centric focus.

To accelerate clinical R&D and time to value, my team worked with Roche, Tenthpin, and more than 25 additional customers and vendors connected to the pharmaceutical sector. Together, we reimagined clinical supply operations and brought to life a digital transformation of the entire life sciences ecosystem by developing the solution.

This next-generation cloud solution enables faster clinical supply cycle times, fewer inventory overages, and better-informed decision-making by providing accurate insights into forecasted demand and clinical site stock levels. It is also a milestone in the industry’s adoption of the cloud, facilitating end-to-end process operations and visibility to plan, source, manufacture, distribute, and reconcile supplies for clinical R&D. In addition, the solution helps address the blinding and randomization needs of clinical trials during the manufacturing, packaging, labeling, and shipment of clinical supplies to hospitals and clinics.

Meeting Financing Needs to Boost Growth

In addition to counterfeit drugs and the need for resilience, supply chain volatility and turbulence is providing the impetus for innovation. This reality is prompting capital investments including end-to-end due diligence and product tracing services; machines and plant setups that improve environmental impacts; and networks for finding, vetting, and onboarding new suppliers quickly.

Incorporating all these innovations into business operations – regardless of ecosystem size and geographic reach – requires money that many companies may not have immediately on hand. But to meet those finance needs, businesses and banks need to connect with each other smoothly, quickly, and securely without introducing more work and complexity to finance and treasury processes.

By delivering the solution, we play a key role in increasing the reliability of relationships between companies and their banks. Built on top of Â鶹ԭ´´ Business Technology Platform, the solution creates a multi-bank, digital channel between each party’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to embed Electronic Banking Internet Communication Standard (EBICS) and SWIFT connectivity into the remote data transfer of payment transactions.

In return, treasury operations can be refined and simplified by updating payment status and cash positions in real time across business and bank ERP systems. Â鶹ԭ´´ Multi-Bank Connectivity can automate manual, error-prone steps associated with the execution and reconciliation of payments, order-to-cash applications, and order entry documents – helping to increase control, efficiency, and transparency.

Helping the World Run Better – One Innovation at a Time

The news headlines running across our screens every day prove that industry innovation is far from done. Unfortunately, no person, organization, or business carries the ultimate wisdom to solve every problem single-handedly. But if industry practitioners, business and technology experts, thought leaders, and inspired problem-solvers collaborate toward a common goal, a better future can be possible for everyone.

It is this vision that guides my leadership of Customer Solution Support & Innovation. My team of experts continuously looks for opportunities to do better for our customers, business, and global neighbors. And with the feedback and knowledge shared during every interaction, we look forward to working side by side with our customers and partners to provide the digital capabilities they need to make the world a better place – today and in the future.

Andreas Heckmann is executive vice president of Product Engineering and head of Customer Solution Support and Innovation at Â鶹ԭ´´. Follow him on and .

While they are not contagious, people suffering from long COVID might experience one or more symptoms such as fatigue; shortness of breath; memory and concentration problems, sometimes referred to as “brain fogâ€�; sleep problems; muscle aches or pain; psychological symptoms, such as depression or anxiety; and changes in smell or taste. These symptoms may impact quality of life and limit the ability to complete everyday activities — making a normal working routine hugely challenging.

Looking after yourself and seeking help early on are extremely important, especially when it comes to long-term illnesses. That is why the Global Health, Safety & Well-Being team at Â鶹ԭ´´ is working to make employees aware of the possible long-term effects of a COVID-19 infection and providing practical advice.

Company Medical Officer Dr. Torsten Paul shares more here about living and working with long COVID.

Q: We often hear or read about long COVID and post-COVID conditions in the media, but what do these terms mean exactly?

A: Before we go into that, I’d just like to point out that other viruses can cause long-term health issues as well, so this isn’t new.

“Post-COVID conditions” is used as an umbrella term to capture health problems that occur four or more weeks after an acute COVID-19 infection and cannot be explained by an alternative diagnosis. New, recurring, or persisting symptoms from four weeks up to 12 weeks after the initial infection are called long COVID. If you experience symptoms for more than 12 weeks and they cannot be explained by an alternative diagnosis, then we would refer to that as post-COVID syndrome.

What can I do to protect myself from post-COVID condition? Do vaccinations prevent it?

The best way to prevent post-COVID conditions is to protect yourself and others from becoming infected. Being fully vaccinated against the virus and following the measures to prevent infection help with this.

But if you do catch the virus, being fully vaccinated significantly reduces the risk of severe COVID-19 illness and the likelihood of post-COVID conditions. Although research on the prevention of post-COVID conditions is still ongoing, current findings strongly suggest that people who are vaccinated but experience a breakthrough infection are less likely to report post-COVID conditions, compared to people who are unvaccinated. Unfortunately, people who are fully vaccinated can still suffer from post-COVID-19 conditions, as our colleague Nicky’s story shows (see below).

At Â鶹ԭ´´, we are also doing our part to prevent the long-term effects of a COVID-19 infection: so far we have administered more than 30,000 vaccines to employees worldwide and continue to do so.

Does long COVID affect only people who suffered from a more severe COVID-19 illness?

The long-term health problems that can occur are mostly unrelated to the severity of the original COVID-19 illness. Sadly, this means that people who had a mild or asymptomatic infection still have a certain risk of developing long-term health issues. The good thing is that their risk is lower compared to people who had to be treated in an intensive care unit during their COVID-19 infection. Current research also suggests that women are more likely than men to develop long COVID, but we do not yet know why.

It can be difficult to distinguish many of these symptoms from symptoms that occur for other reasons.

Do physicians, hospitals, and authorities now recognize long COVID as an illness?

If a patient experiences symptoms following a SARS-CoV-2 infection, a thorough clinical evaluation is important. If the symptoms cannot be otherwise explained, physicians should always suspect a post-COVID condition. Fortunately, the general awareness of these conditions is growing, and we continue to learn more about them. Many countries now have official guidelines on diagnosing and treating post-COVID conditions.

What can employees do if they think they might be suffering from a post-COVID condition?

In most countries, the first point of contact for employees is their general practitioner or family doctor. Company physicians can also play an important role in the case of so far undiagnosed post-COVID conditions by referring patients to further external diagnosis and treatments.

What types of treatment are available?

Unfortunately, we are not yet able to treat the underlying causes of post-COVID conditions. Current treatments focus on improving symptoms and quality of life. Many official international guidelines recommend interdisciplinary, outpatient care provided by specialist physicians and in some cases by general practitioners. Because the symptoms often affect multiple organ systems, it is not unusual for treatments to involve multiple specialists in, for instance, general medicine, pulmonology, neurology, psychosomatic medicine, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, and, for children, pediatrics. Many countries have already set up post-COVID clinics or outpatient centers, some of which are located at university hospitals, to take care of patients with more severe illnesses.

How does the Â鶹ԭ´´ Health team help colleagues?

We offer medical consulting and referral as part of our general occupational and preventive . Our services do not replace, but rather complement, the specialist diagnosis and treatments that are available outside Â鶹ԭ´´. We also have separate post-COVID consultation sessions, during which patients can discuss their symptoms with our medical experts and receive recommendations to find the right external diagnostic and treatment pathway, as well as the support available in the workplace.

For colleagues who have been ill for some time, we offer support in the return-to-work process to help ensure that their working environment meets their medical needs.

“There isn’t a CPG manufacturer who would disagree that having visibility across their supply chain is paramount to resilient business during these disruptive times,â€� said Stanko Simonski, CPG industry value advisor at Â鶹ԭ´´. “The question is how to close the gap between the vision and reality. Market leaders are gaining the visibility to first, understand what’s likely to happen and how they need to respond, and second, act on the decisions they’ve made.â€�

Settle for Nothing Less Than One View of Your Data

Deciphering everything from early demand signals to third-party transportation issues across complex supply chains is all about combining data for one integrated view. Managers who have their finger on the pulse of market demands in real or near real time can adapt forecasts and shop floor production lines faster. The same concept applies to imminent supply chain delays at any point, including raw materials stalled in transit from suppliers, down to finished goods held up from sales order fulfillment. Connecting data in the system, such as the bill of materials with product life cycle management, helps companies make changes on short notice without compromising quality.

“Companies can use technology to connect information at scale throughout supply chains across third parties and on a detailed level all the way though to factory shop floor,� said Simonski. “Integrated network alerts can tell you to change a purchase order, talk with alternate suppliers because one of the ingredients in your recipe isn’t available, or shift production processes for different materials. Having more options provides greater predictability.�

Create a New Kind of Redundancy

Demand spikes, whether positive or negative, increase company risk. With updated information, manufacturers can change production sites between factories while recommending comparative products to customers. However, CPG manufacturers tend to have regionalized facilities, with designated suppliers close by factory locations. They typically cannot transport products further distances without compromising profitability, hence the proliferation of lean supply chains. That changed with the pandemic.

“Manufacturers that supplied individual markets typically from one location to optimize costs pre-pandemic were stranded when they couldn’t obtain materials. They’ve realized the need for some redundancy in the supply chain,� said Simonski. “Some manufacturers have expanded the capabilities to source markets from more than one factory in case customer demands increase too fast for the one factory to handle. Others have turned to designed-in flexibility, where equipment in the same factory can be converted to produce various products in sync with market needs to mitigate disruptions.�

In a highly uncertain market, demand planning has become much more sophisticated. In fact, IDC analysts predicted that by 2025, 30% of all direct procurement transactions will be based upon capacity availability instead of units or volume. The most resilient manufacturers will be able to shift demand-based production between various factories, their own or a network of contractors. Managers might deliberately plan for free capacity in certain factories, with contingency staffing for short-term demand spikes. Even the ability to replicate the same product less efficiently on a different production line is preferable to completely lost revenue.

Build Customer Trust through Product Quality and Availability

Trusted customer relationships depend on both quality products and delivery as expected. analysts said that companies are prioritizing improvements in supply chain resilience and agility in meeting customer needs, finding “new trade-offs between cost, speed, and service in a changing landscape where uncertainty and higher customer expectations go hand in hand.� Again, technology has a major role in supply chain resilience. By next year, analysts expected 50% of all supply chain forecasts will be automated through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), improving accuracy by five percentage points. Simonski equated accurate demand and supply planning, as well as regulatory compliance and product quality, with supply chain resilience as the bedrock of trusted customer relationships.

“CPG manufacturers need to stay on top of the next event that will cause disruption,� he said. “As new regulations like the UK Plastic Tax are passed and other countries follow this trend, can you stay profitable with products that comply with increasingly stringent mandates and reporting proof? That’s why we developed . In the circular economy, the quality of data across the supply chain is essential to sustainable business.�

Whether or not business ever returns to so-called normalcy is anyone’s guess. One thing we know for sure is that supply chain resilience leads directly to business resilience.

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Breakthroughs happen less often than most people are inclined to believe. Instead, I often find that most innovations are incremental in nature. Admittedly, a slow-building approach doesn’t grab the spotlight like more daring alternatives do. Still, it’s no less important – driving countless small improvements that add up to massive transformations and huge gains down the line.

One prime example of incremental innovation’s impact is the continuous development of mobile devices. The first handheld cellular phone launched nearly 40 years ago. Since then, each new release introduced different sizes – some smaller and some larger – and functionalities such as texting, Internet access, context-driven command, touch screens, tracking and tracing, and many more capabilities now considered standard. In essence, mobile device providers allow themselves to experiment with new ideas while generating revenue that is then reinvested into making the product’s design and purpose more impactful and game-changing in the near future.

Ideas Are Only the Beginning

Ideas are only the start of an innovation journey, no matter how new, novel, or useful. It takes creativity and domain expertise to bring them to life and evolve them gradually by applying the latest lessons learned and scaling capabilities or user experiences to deliver more meaningful value.

As part of Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s “reinventâ€� strategy, my team of customer innovation and maintenance experts from within the Customer Solution Support & Innovation organization at Â鶹ԭ´´ focuses on turning ideas into valuable solutions for critical challenges. Working with various industries, including agriculture and life sciences, allows us to innovate and deliver sustainable solutions that accelerate business success – from idea inception and proof of concept to implementation and maintenance.

Customer Solution Support & Innovation offers tremendous industry expertise that can enrich our customers’ growth areas, drive continuous innovation, and deliver prototypes faster to support their transformation into intelligent enterprises. And from our experience, innovations best realize their full value when scaled to add value while they are maintained and developed further to help the world run better and improve people’s lives.

Outcomes Are the Heart of Good Innovation

Our contributions in helping to overcome the impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic were one of those moments where we revealed the true value of incremental innovation. Developing innovations in partnership under unprecedented conditions, we designed and rolled out numerous digital solutions more quickly and securely for millions of people.

A prime example is the . In only two months development time, we innovated a digital gateway with T-Systems that provides a standard for valid vaccine certification across the European Union and currently supports 600 million users. By removing the risk of falsified documentation, the introduction of this digital certificate represents an important step toward normalizing the freedom of movement within the eurozone and, as a result, stimulating the economy.

In addition, our team worked with Deutsche Telekom AG and Germany’s Federal Ministry of Health to develop the Corona-Warn-App to help identify infections quickly and notify people of their potential exposure. The mobile app, available for iOS and Android, was developed in open-source mode, and the program code was continuously visible to the public on the development platform – all without violating data privacy rights.

While the pandemic marked a significant era of innovation for businesses worldwide, our team has produced innovations important for business security. For instance, our work in detecting and preventing security breaches from cyberattacks plays a vital role in many of our customers’ IT infrastructure. Our experts combine the application – a leading threat detection software – with 24/7 managed security services. The application is continuously upgraded to help detect cyberattacks in on-premise and cloud solutions from Â鶹ԭ´´ as they are happening and analyze the threats quickly enough to neutralize them before severe damage occurs.

More recently, we innovated with climate-focused technology company CHOOOSE to deliver a climate app. As one of the first solution extensions developed with existing capabilities available in and Â鶹ԭ´´ Concur solutions, helps neutralize carbon emissions through high-quality compensation projects. As a result, our customers can acquire accurate data from their business flights and discover high-impact ways to offset their carbon footprint – all in one place.

We are also working on a prototype – – that marks the first step toward embracing virtual reality for running business. With the sustainability-focused concept, our experts are experimenting with collaboration with targeted data sharing between competing companies and integrating the virtual environment with open ecosystems such as . In addition, a decentralized peer-to-peer network based on Â鶹ԭ´´ Business Technology Platform is being created without requiring central persistence.

Innovation That Delivers High Impact

Most companies make the mistake of looking too narrowly at the overall context of their innovation initiative. At Customer Solution Support & Innovation, we are constantly evaluating the Â鶹ԭ´´ solution portfolio to find opportunities to adapt and add functionalities that can increase value in ways that can be quickly applied and scaled to meet our customers’ current and future needs.

Embracing the concept of incremental innovation has empowered us to shape a culture that is full of purpose, ingenuity, and discovery. So instead of dedicating all our resources to years-long projects with uncertain outcomes, Â鶹ԭ´´ is committed to driving innovation close to our customers’ everyday environmental, social, and governance challenges – and we will continue to do so in the years to come.

Andreas Heckmann is executive vice president of Product Engineering and head of Customer Solution Support and Innovation at Â鶹ԭ´´. Follow him on and .

As employees know, the reality of working from home is… going pretty well, actually. Most of us are still working in our basements, sheds, or spare rooms while monitoring our Wi-Fi connectivity, adjusting our work hours to meet with trans-global colleagues, devising a smarter , and advancing our digital fluency to make use of new productivity tools and apps. Overall, we’re happier and healthier, as study after study confirms.

The Future of Work Is Not Location Bound

When asked about their preferred work model for the , of workers said they want a hybrid work arrangement, according to the by . In the study, Accenture interviewed more than 9,300 workers in 11 countries across 12 industries to understand workers’ mindsets toward three different work models – on-site, remote, and hybrid – and the resources they require for their health and productivity.

Published at the height of the pandemic in April 2021, the study classified employees into four mindsets along a spectrum: thriving (42%), ambivalent (12%), apathetic (15%), or disgruntled (31%). While those who were disgruntled worked largely on-site, those employees who were thriving were mostly working in hybrid arrangements. They experienced less burnout and reported feeling across six dimensions of well-being: financial, emotional and mental, relational, physical, purposeful, and employable.

Three years into the pandemic, we are now capable of managing the virus with vaccines. Despite existing research on work models, many employers continue to struggle with developing a cohesive set of policies for hybrid work. Instead, they opt for one-size-fits-all solutions that fall short in the face of reality. Too many are still narrowly fixated on the question of location: “Where should we work?� However, a surprising outcome of the Future of Global Work Report has potential to reframe this discussion.

During the study, Accenture researchers identified a segment of workers (40%) who felt they could be productive anywhere. For this group, work location did not matter because they could be equally productive on-site and remotely. How do they do it? The researchers studied this group more closely to find the answer.

“We were initially interested in that location question – what helps to drive worker productivity remotely or onsite,� says Gabriela Burlacu, PhD, talent researcher at Accenture. “But actually, what was far more interesting and far more impactful on a company’s bottom line was this idea of a segment of workers that felt they could be what we called ‘productive anywhere.’�

Traits of Workers Who Are Productive Anywhere

That many workers can be productive, happy, and healthy in whichever setting should be welcome news for any company trying to hammer out an intentional policy for hybrid work. “It’s location agnostic,â€� Burlacu says, regarding the impact on the future of work. “It’s also a precursor to effective hybrid work, because if you feel you can be productive anywhere, then you really could work comfortably in both places.â€�

Much more important than work location seemed to be an employee’s individual potential and the resources available to support their work. The Accenture team found some commonalities among the “productive anywhere� cohort that can be carried over to other organizations as well. These workers had more autonomy, positive mental health, a desire to participate in learning, advanced digital fluency that enabled them to evaluate and adopt technology to get the job done, strong social bonds at work, and work-life enhancement, which means that they felt their work added to their ability to enjoy other areas of their lives.

The organizations that these workers belonged to also had interesting commonalities. They tended to be agile, intelligent, digitally mature, and have supportive leadership. They also have beneficial health policies that signal that employee health and safety is valued by the company.

Autonomy is a key theme in any discussion about hybrid work. It takes steady effort and awareness to balance autonomy and organizational goals for business success. Burlacu has some suggestions. “The ways that we measure productivity have to look a little different. Giving people some level of freedom to manage their own time and how they complete tasks is important,â€� she says. “But another side is also giving manageable feedback that’s really clear in terms of what the expectations are and how to improve. It’s an often-overlooked part of autonomy. Workers don’t always know if they’re working on the right things for the company’s success; whereas being really clear about the objective can actually help drive autonomy.â€�

Resources Prove Essential to Fight Workplace Stress

While the research shines a light on workers who thrive no matter where they work, it also uncovered another 8% of workers who experience the same disconnection, frustration, and inefficiency regardless of location. These workers were, in essence, productive nowhere. Researchers assumed this group had endured hardships and stress during the pandemic. Instead, they found that what separates the two groups is not stress.

“Our ‘productive anywhere’ group was actually more burned out than our ‘productive nowheres.’ They had a host of other negative work stressors as well. But what really differentiated them and their work experience is they had much higher levels of resources,� says Burlacu, indicating that this is something within companies’ power to address so that all workers can fulfill their potential.

The Future of Work Starts with Mindset

Perhaps some of the best news of the study is that researchers found that of high-growth companies have already adopted a “productivity anywhere� workforce model. This suggests that a future of work that looks beyond where to work may be just around the corner.

“We were able to identify what aspects of a company’s environment and work experience really help workers be productive anywhere,â€� says Burlacu, “Because that should be the goal – not more seamless remote work, not better on-site work – but enabling people to have this ‘productive anywhere’ mindset.â€�

First a runny nose sets in with your source of raw materials, then a sore throat grabs hold of your logistics partner, and pretty soon entire industries grapple with fragmented supply chains, logjammed seaports, and mismatched labor markets. But what if the human respiratory system’s own natural defenses point the way toward remedying afflicted supply chains? What can the humble sneeze or cough teach us about restoring systemic resilience at a time when an airborne contagion disrupts not only the flow of oxygen but that of global commerce as well?

Some analysts fault the modern supply chain for its length, sometimes crisscrossing oceans from sourcing to processing to manufacturing to shipping. Others say its weakness lies in its complexity. But consider the average pair of lungs, whose airways 2,400 kilometers in total length and whose surface area that of a tennis court. Lungs, after all, a vast network of 480 million air sacs, also called alveoli. Clearly, length and complexity alone, which characterize even the healthiest lungs, fall short of explaining pulmonary dysfunction. Difficulties with breathing, not unlike those with supply chains, tend to arise from external factors. The culprit may be a wayward dust particle. Or it could be the outbreak of war that throws off established patterns of commerce between buyers and suppliers.

Nature’s response to obstruction is the sneeze or the cough, a remarkably efficient reflex to cleanse respiratory passageways. Hair-like receptors trigger the medulla, located in the brain, to expel the irritant with a forceful thrust of air. After the perfunctory “Bless you!� from courteous passersby, all is well! The body’s processes for regulating the exchange of carbon dioxide for oxygen return to normal.

In contrast, nature holds little recourse for clogged supply chains. Organizations instead rely on cloud-based . When uncertainty looms over the sourcing of critical materials or volatility undermines the demand for goods and services, businesses turn increasingly to integrated digital platforms to gain visibility into the interconnected operations of trading partners – spanning procurement, supply chain, logistics, and asset maintenance. Serving as a central nervous system for these and other core business processes, cloud-based networks lend organizations the data-driven insights they need to anticipate backed-up supply chains or logistics pathways – and to decongest them.

Unfortunately for many businesses, by the time congestion sets in, relief can be hard to come by. They are lacking a fast and effective reflex to the situation. But other firms are well prepared since they adopted the cloud-based solutions necessary to counter disruption, instill resilience, and mitigate risk. Only with the aid of 360-degree visibility both within an organization’s four walls and beyond them can it collaborate with trading partners, achieve mutually beneficial sustainability objectives, and lay the foundation for new digital ecosystems within which partner relationships thrive and customer value accelerates.

As cloud-based networks yield actionable insights from massive troves of operational data connecting organizations with their trading partners, they increasingly look toward – not unlike the brain signals responsible for triggering the familiar sneeze or cough. When businesses automate previously manual procurement and supply chain processes, they free up their professionals to redirect their time and talents to more strategic pursuits, such as collaborating with customers, shoring up partner relationships, and fostering joint innovation.

Where are integrated digital business networks headed in the future? Toward systems that can carry out end-to-end operational processes within guidelines set and supervised by humans. These cloud-based solutions are bringing organizations closer to an era of automated decision support, in which digital transformation helps to prevent businesses from coughing, sneezing, or even coming down with the hiccups – long before contagion can take root.

Through integrated digital networks and the competitive advantage they extend, businesses and their trading partners can, despite the headwinds of ongoing disruption, breathe easier.

Andreas Heckmann is executive vice president of Product Engineering and head of Customer Solution Support & Innovation at Â鶹ԭ´´.

In , half of business leaders surveyed said they already require or plan to require employees to return to full-time, on-site work by the end of the year. Making headlines are managers like who point out the productivity gains that come from the social connection, culture keeping, and idea generation that they say can only be created in a shared workspace. But others disagree: several senior executives attending the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 in Davos, Switzerland, in favor of a hybrid work model, saying it was the most realistic approach for attracting and retaining talent.

Employees are on a mandated return to office, emboldened by newfound bargaining power as a result of the record and worker resignations of the Great Reshuffle. reveal that up to half of employees say they will quit or look for a new job if expected to return to the office full time.

Flex Work Models Up for Debate

Lost in the debate that is playing out in the media is valuable scientific research on the effects of different work models on worker productivity. This discussion is largely being driven by subjective impressions and entrenched ideas based on the “old normal,� said Dr. Gabriela Burlacu, talent research manager at , speaking at the recently held annual conference of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychologists (SIOP).

Joining her for the session “Where Will We Work? I-O Psychology Puts Flexible Work Models on Trialâ€� were industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists Dr. Benjamin Granger, head of Employee Experience Advisory Services at , and Dr. Kristen Shockley, associate professor of Psychology at the . Joshua Acosta, a research analyst with , also later provided insights from the recent Â鶹ԭ´´ SuccessFactors report “.â€�

Autonomy Fuels Motivation for Greater Productivity

“If we think about theories in I-O psychology, autonomy and control permeate a lot of these theories,� said Shockley, who pointed out that “autonomy as motivation for sustained effort� is a frequent theme in I-O literature. “Autonomy is a fundamental need and when you allow people to work remote, it inherently gives them more of this autonomy. That is something which relates to a host of outcomes, like productivity and well-being.�

The psychologists agreed that the optimal work model for the average global employee is a hybrid work arrangement. They noted, however, that this is not necessarily the best model for every individual or organization. For those organizations that opt for a hybrid model, they emphasized that the work needs to be structured so that collaborative tasks, like brainstorming, are done on-site and more analytical tasks are done remotely. “I am very pro the hybrid model, with the caveat that it does need to be intentionally and holistically designed,� said Burlacu.

Workers Expect Flex Work after Pandemic Productivity Sprint

A , which surveyed 10,000 workers in 12 industries in 12 countries in 2021, found that 83% of workers identified a hybrid model as optimal for them. Those already in hybrid environments reported better mental health and stronger work relationships, and felt they were doing better work for their organizations.

The , which studies work-from-home arrangements and attitudes, tracked the productivity of remote workers from April 2020 to January 2022. It found that on average people were in remote work arrangements, even with the added stressors of the pandemic.

For the , Qualtrics carried out a study of 14,000 employees in 22 industries across 27 countries to look at general job attitudes, engagement, inclusion, and well-being. Employees generally felt more energized at work – compared to the previous year – with half saying their physical and mental well-being actually improved while working remotely.

“Many organizations haven’t lost step in terms of productivity,â€� said Acosta from Â鶹ԭ´´ SuccessFactors, citing the latest research from Â鶹ԭ´´ SuccessFactors, which found that workers’ attitudes are shifting to expect hybrid arrangements. “If people are working in a hybrid setting or home setting, we’re seeing they’re often just as productive as when they’re in the office. It’s our perspective that hybrid work isn’t going away anytime soon.â€�

Hybrid Work Moves from Contingency to Certainty

If 2021 was the year hybrid work was utilized for health and safety, then researchers at Â鶹ԭ´´ SuccessFactors predict that 2022 will be the year that it moves from contingency to certainty. This means that organizations will need to establish policies, practices, and cultural norms to operationalize hybrid work arrangements. Acosta noted this will look different across all organizations, depending on the composition of the workforce.

Accenture’s study revealed that a number of demographic factors influence workers’ decisions about where to work, including age and gender demographics and where they live. For example, Gen X women said they could be more productive in remote work, while Gen Z men felt strongly about being on-site. Urban dwellers felt they would be more productive in the office, while people living in rural areas preferred remote work.

“All of that together suggests that if you let people choose, you will end up with demographically very different workforces on-site versus remotely,� Burlacu said. “That wouldn’t be a problem if you created equitable work experiences and equitable access to development and promotion opportunities.� She then followed up with a hard truth: “But the issue of equitable access has never been properly resolved in the workplace.�

Just ask deskless workers. This group – defined as employees who perform their jobs away from a desk – was largely absent from the discussion in 2021. In 2022, however, these workers are presenting more pronounced views, according to research by Â鶹ԭ´´ SuccessFactors. With companies facing talent shortages in all job categories, Acosta said that organizations will need to seriously consider deskless workers’ changing expectations for autonomy and flexibility while balancing organizational and job demands.

Maybe It’s Time for a New Definition of Flexibility?

“A lot of times we assume workplace flexibility means where you work, but what’s become clear to us in our work is when employees define flexibility, they’re talking about where and when they work, and they’re also talking about how work gets measured and managed,� Granger said. “Employees are defining workplace flexibility much broader than many organizational leaders. We need to be more flexible in how we define workplace flexibility.�

Acosta agreed, saying “Organizations are going to need to be really thoughtful in operationalizing how they can deliver flexibility as well as autonomy, and perhaps even redesign not only where people work, but when and how work takes place.�

Three Trends Drive Investments in Digital Startups

Nino Marakovic, founder and CEO of , said that enterprise software startups have experienced record-breaking investments in the past two years, driven by the urgency of large companies adopting technology to help them transform and position themselves for the future. Originally Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s corporate venture capital arm, Sapphire Ventures has been an independent financial investment firm for 12 years. Â鶹ԭ´´ is the largest investor in the Sapphire Ventures portfolio that totals US$10 billion.

“Last year alone, more than $60 billion was invested in startups making supply chains more sustainable, intelligent, and resilient,� said Marakovic. “Another major investment area is data and machine learning as we see more of the workflows and data move to the cloud. Companies want solutions that help customers manage, orchestrate, organize, and analyze that data. The third high-growth area is future of work. Company shifts from on-site to remote and hybrid work, [coupled with] a tight labor market and wave of employee resignations, have a created a perfect storm that’s modernizing the workplace.�

Data Saves Money and the Environment

Ivaldi Group is a great example of how startups are innovating to help supply chains hardest hit by pandemic-related disruption, in this case, in the automotive industry. Uvaldi Group participated in the New York City COVID-19 recovery cohort. Â鶹ԭ´´.iO Foundries is the company’s external startup accelerator. Integrating data from customers, Ivaldi Group’s software calculates the carbon footprint of an auto supplier’s spare parts operation, analyzing potential candidates for advanced, local digital manufacturing such as 3D printing.

“Customers are interested in finding money where they didn’t know they were losing it and reducing their carbon footprint,� said Stefani Pellinen-Chavez, COO at Ivaldi Group. “We review the data, including how far a customer ships products, how long they remain in inventory, how hard it is to source these parts, and how long their factory or facility would be down if this part was not available…Suppliers might create local manufacturing centers so the community can partner with larger corporate customers.�

Holistic Planning with Connected Data Company-Wide

In an uncertain world, supply chain planning has become one of the major challenges for companies navigating disruptions. Juergen Mueller, member of the Executive Board of Â鶹ԭ´´ SE and chief technology officer at Â鶹ԭ´´, shared how organizations are innovating on to collaborate with their ecosystem, explore what-if scenarios for planning purposes and flexibility, and gain competitive advantage. He said that advanced analytics and connected data help people immediately see and act on the impact of material shortages and potential alternatives for factory production lines, suppliers and logistics partners, finance and cash flow outlook, and workforce demands.

Sustainability Data Shores Up Supply Chain Resilience

Jan Gilg, president and chief product officer of Â鶹ԭ´´ S/4HANA, said that organizations are “jumping all overâ€� resilient, sustainable supply chains, using Â鶹ԭ´´ solutions for data visibility that bolsters strategic business advantage. Holding up the example of an everyday item like a cup of coffee, he said that numerous companies worldwide were involved in its production, from the farmers growing and harvesting coffee beans, to a vast network of suppliers and transportation providers that deliver fresh brew to consumers.

“One of our large customers manages 288,000 farmers across two thousand brands of coffee they sell, with thousands of suppliers,� said Gilg. “We have an entire portfolio that helps customers like this manage their supply chain and make them more resilient…managing the flow of materials and value. Now we’re adding the third dimension, managing the flow of environmental information to understand the carbon footprint created while a product is produced, shipped, and brought to their customers. Over one-third of investors have global assets related to companies that are sustainable. Two-thirds of consumers are willing to pay a premium for sustainable brands.�

Follow me @smgaler.