Tag Archives: Next
Take Scheduling to the Next Level with Dynamics 365 Field Service
One of the newer modules in the Dynamics 365 family, Field Service, leverages the latest technology offered by Microsoft and combines it into one powerful solution. D365 Field Service is an integrated solution with your current D365 environment, enabling you to be field ready with your already configured environment, filled with customer data.
D365 Fields Service has tools to help organizations optimize their resources, effectively manage team members and automate work order creation to save you time and money. Field Service can even be used with IoT devices to alert you of an issue even before your customers are aware there is one.
In D365 Field Service, Work Order Management, Service Scheduling, and Resource monitoring are 3 key capabilities provided by D365 Field Service.
Work Orders in D365 Field Service are records that track service jobs. Work orders can be created automatically based on set criteria from your opportunity or case records or created manually. Within a work order, you can track specific incidents types, estimated time required to complete a job and create the bookings for the work orders With Work Orders stored in D365 you also can create rich reports to identify which phases of your services can be improved upon.
Scheduling Service has never been easier with D365 Field Service. With the Field Service Schedule Assistant, all you must do is specify your criteria and the system will find the best resource to get the job done. Field Service considers factors such as skill set, availability and even current location of your resources to help make the best decision possible. If you want to get even more efficient, you can setup up resource scheduling optimization to let the system handle all the scheduling for you.
Finally, Resource Monitoring gives your manager and dispatch team a 360-degree view of where all your resources are. The Field Service schedule board tracks your resources’ schedules and where they currently are based on job sites. The schedule board also displays the status of the job in different colors to easily distinguish the various statuses of jobs, from Traveling to In Progress to Completed.
D365 Field Service is a great asset to have for any service organization. It helps the business stay on top of their fieldwork and provide great insight into how the organization is performing. D365 Field Service is a modern workplace necessity. To learn more about how D365 Field Service can benefit your organization, contact [email protected].
How to Perfectly Time Your Next Investment in Talent or Technology
Posted by Evan Heby, Service Industry Marketing
Technology is forcing people to reinvent the way work is done. Today, services companies must figure out a balance that works between processes, talent and technology to ensure maximum efficiency. Traditionally, process and people had a symbiotic relationship with one another, but technology – specifically cloud technology – is shifting the way we think about work.
On October 31st, Oracle NetSuite examined the impact technology is having on contemporary services business in a webinar titled: “Should Firms Invest in Their People or Their Technology?” The webinar included a variety of speakers.
Mike DiClaudio, Principal, Advisory KPMG discussed some of the lessons learned from his experience working with services companies that have transitioned to a more shared approach between technology, process and people.
DiClaudio suggests a strategic approach to decision making, because your next technology or talent decision can help your team improve the bottom line significantly. As any business owner knows, investment in talent can take months to show ROI. It’s important to have a balanced approach when it comes to deciding your next move – knowing that investments in both people and technology require a significant amount of time to show return, and your team can expose themselves to risk if they do not have a categorical approach.
DiClaudio also suggested that many smaller consulting firms are still operating as people-first businesses, but larger firms absolutely need technology to keep up with their competition. Like developing talent, technology projects require continual optimization, and so it is important that you choose technology that can grow and scale with your business.
Jill Going, Managing Director of People at Point B, regularly makes decisions on her firm’s next investments. When faced with evaluations of new technology, a key point is starting small – some first-time buyers tend to be over-zealous and want to fix every single problem their firm has with one swing, but Going advised that starting small is almost always more effective. The importance of continually optimizing your technology systems is another key step, she said. Without a keen eye constantly looking for areas of improvement, your systems will inevitably become obsolete, and one of the ways you can prevent that is by staying up-to-date with technology news after you buy.
If you’re interested in learning more about investing in technology vs. people, please download the on-demand version of our webinar.
by NetSuite filed under
Defining Next Practice For The Intelligent Enterprise
We are facing some very big changes in the workplace, driven by technology – primarily software and data. This means that software will do repetitive tasks, make decisions, and set priorities in a wide range of areas, in all industries, and in the majority of jobs. We will have to work with and understand many different types of software robots. These changes must be driven, understood, and developed, and thus require more than traditional professionalism. The vast majority of organizations are not yet ready for these innovations.
Embedded intelligence
For the vast majority of businesses, it is clear that plans based on best practices no longer guarantee desired results. We need to reconsider business processes with embedded intelligence, for example, combining marketing, sales, and service to create great, new customer experiences. But innovation does not happen by itself. Businesses need to shake themselves up, work with others, create new teams, and develop different ideas. The alternative is to protect the current business as much as possible and hope others do not realize it. This approach is defensive and without perspective. Young talent would also rather develop tomorrow’s approach than fight while encapsulated in a downward spiral.
New requirements for education
As a society, we need much more education during our working life than we have been used to. Companies are interested in increased flexibility and having employees building more knowledge and skills on a continuous basis. When society changes faster and faster and robots and software resolve more tasks, we all need to be able to move on. Understanding the need for change, display empathy with other people, and maintain the stamina to cope with the new become crucial.
Linking work and education
Our work lifespan is growing, and that means each person may have several “careers” across the years. We need greater interaction between education and work. We must move away from the model where we spend our younger years getting educated and then use those skills for the rest of our working lives. Hypothetically, I could see a model where 20% of a person’s working hours are spent on training and education. Maybe a person takes an intensive, three-month learning course on machine learning, then works on concrete projects.
Taking the next step
But universities and current higher-education institutions are not at all geared for this transformation, as we do not have much tradition for continuous interaction between education and work. We need to establish that, and companies can take more initiative in this direction. This applies not only to IT and management but also to employees in production, service, and distribution. These are all to a great extent influenced by new technology.
Next – not best – practice
Young, new, and “unspoiled” minds are in an ideal position to ask the sharp questions and look for other ways to do things. They are born into a world which takes advantage of the digital possibilities first. Establishing a best practice is not enough, we must push to find the next practice. Youth can help us with that. It’s crucial for management and the organization to understand and focus on creating this culture of innovation. It requires more than business-as-usual and often means re-educating people to the new model.
For example, you could host a “Next-Gen program” open to college students in their final semester that provides participants a nano-degree in digitalization or a “mini-semester” in innovation alongside their traditional studies. Whether they are studying IT, leadership, economics, or something else, they can try to induce practical change challenges, get hands-on experience with exponential technologies, and learn about innovation methods, design thinking, and more. The purpose is to strengthen cross-disciplinary (rather than basic) skills, critical thinking, and the ability to navigate in a changing world with very few definite answers. (I know from experience how invigorating a program like this is for all involved).
The new technological opportunities are tearing down organizational silos, traditions, and value chains. The intelligent enterprise is created through our choices and actions today; although we do not know the end goal, we all have to take the first and next steps on the journey.
Learn what drives “The Mind Of An Innovator: Five Essential Skills For Innovation.”
THE NEXT GENERATION’S NAME?
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I-Gens. And they’re a bunch of mentally weak little pussies. San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge sees smartphones and social media as raising an unhappy, compliant “iGen.” QUESTION: What is the iGen? ANSWER: The iGen is the generation … Continue reading
ANTZ-IN-PANTZ ……
Export to PowerPoint is now generally available and looking ahead at what’s coming next
We are pleased to announce that the ability to export your Power BI reports to PowerPoint is now generally available for customers. This feature has been in preview for quite some time, and many of you have (rightly) pointed out a number of enhancements we should look at introducing in this area to make it more valuable to you. We’ve spent the last few months investing significantly in our infrastructure to handle the additional usage we project to see with the introduction of these capabilities. That work is now completed, and we’re excited to start bringing these features to the Power BI service in the coming months.
The first of these enhancements, increasing the limit for the number of pages that can be exported, is being rolled out to customers this week. We’ve increased the limit for customers to 30, up from 15 previously, and we’ll be moving the limit up even higher in the next few months. The next enhancement you’ll be seeing is the ability to preserve your filters/slicer values for your report pages when you export, followed by the introduction of the ability to export your reports and dashboards to PDF in addition to PPTX. We'll also be giving you the option to export hidden report tabs, as opposed to always doing so as we do today.
While these features are being done for exporting the report initially, we’re also looking to add this functionality to e-mail subscriptions. And with paginated reports being introduced into Power BI Premium in the near future, customers have naturally expected that the robust e-mail subscription capabilities of Reporting Services will be coming as well. We’re working on several updates in this area as well, with the goal of providing a customer an experience like they have today in SQL Server Reporting Services no matter which report type they’re using. This includes features like the ability to set a schedule for your e-mail subscriptions, attachment support, and the ability to have the report sent to anyone with an e-mail address inside or outside the organization.
This is an exciting time for the Power BI team and our customers. We’re laser-focused on bringing you a single platform that meets the needs of both self-service and Enterprise BI customers, and are excited to announce several of the items we’ve called out in this blog in the near future.
Don’t forget to leave us your feedback in the comments below. Thanks!
VR: The Next Generation Of Immersive Technology
Throughout history, technology has “rewired” our brains and changed how we perceive the world. Since the printing press enabled a new world of readers more than 400 years ago, the way we create and deliver content has been constantly evolving.
The reason? Technology. In the past 100 years, communication technologies like the telephone, radio, movies, television, and most importantly, the internet, have become part of our daily lives.
How have these technologies rewired our brains? As we adopt and integrate each one into our lives, we develop a new relational and transformative experience that alters the way we communicate and perceive the world. The telephone made communication instantaneous, making physical distances less burdensome. The radio became the new storyteller, providing a novel way for people to get both information and entertainment. Movies combined sound with moving pictures, opening up a new world of storytelling. And television brought movies, news, and entertainment directly into the home.
The next disruptive communications breakthrough, the internet, has revolutionized the way we interact: We email. We tweet. We Facebook. We Google. We YouTube. We Snapchat. We Instagram. We find companionship. We conduct commerce. We debate. We become our own content producers.
Another consequence of evolving communications technology is a reduced attention span. We scan more, read less, and gravitate to more visual content. As a result, visually based immersive platforms appeal to our desire for “snackable,” easily digested content.
The allure of immersive
With each new technology, our immersive experiences deepen. Merriam-Webster defines immersive as “something that provides, involves, or is characterized by deep absorption or immersion in something.” Radio, telephone, movies, TV, and the internet do just that, albeit in differing degrees.
As content creators, we look to up-and-coming technology that will give us the next most impactful user experience. One of the most recent emerging technologies is virtual reality (VR), which uses computer technology to create a simulated environment. VR puts users “inside” an experience, immersing them in a three-dimensional user experience (UX) where can interact with simulated 3D worlds. It creates an artificial environment that gives the illusion of reality.
VR is more than just gaming
Virtual reality was first embraced by the gaming community but has since expanded into other areas. While cost and other factors may limit widespread consumer accessibility in the shorter term, adoption will continue to increase.
Let’s look at some of the current VR applications that are being developed and deployed:
Virtual 360-degree tours
- Tourism: Entice travelers by taking them on virtual trips down the Amazon, around the Grand Canyon, or through the canals of Venice
- Showrooms: Let customers check out furniture, motorboats, or cars before they buy
- Real estate: Inspect homes, apartments, or office spaces virtually before seeing them in person
How-to applications
- In-home assembly: Learn how to assemble furniture, telescopes, and other items to minimize “build-it-yourself” frustration
- Fix it: Learn how to make repairs and fix appliances at home
Training
- Medical: Observe surgeries and other medical procedures
- Safety: Apply immersive experiences in real-life situations where safety is essential
- First responders, police, and firefighters: Train police and firefighters to handle a variety of dangerous situations
Entertainment
- Movies, TV, amusement parks, and arcades are using VR to offer a more compelling experience that goes beyond 3D glasses
Sports
- College and professional sports teams are using VR for training and game analysis
Approaching the promise of VR
VR is a nascent technology, and what companies do with it requires a clear purpose. Start by asking the right questions: Why, what, where, and for whom? Answering these questions can help you identify the areas where VR can best be used.
Meanwhile, VR continues to engage people and offer exciting and instructive experiences. Here are some applications that many companies are already adopting:
- Virtual HR tours for recruitment: Let applicants tour campuses, offices, and social gatherings. Show employees at work and at play, and showcase your organization’s diversity and energy.
- Create customer stories: “Walk” customers around facilities, showing employees at work using the Internet of Things, machine learning, cloud-based software, and other technology.
- Field services: Teams can integrate VR applications so that experts can see what technicians in the field are seeing, even if they are half a world apart.
- New ways to understand data: “See” data analysis in innovative ways as they are manipulated in a 3D space.
- Optimize product engineering, design, manufacturing, and operations: Help manufacturers understand how their processes are performing as they spot problems and areas that need improvement.
- Virtual events: Enable customers or employees who can’t attend an event to take part by live-streaming content straight to social feeds. This makes it easier to reach a broader audience in real time.
- Enhance live events and experiences: Use VR for storytelling and customer testimonials. On the showroom floor, demonstrate the newest VR applications. Live concerts can also be enhanced by providing customer attendees with a VR experience.
These scenarios are just the beginning of what’s to come. As we move into the future, one thing is clear: VR will lead the way as it alters the way people engage and consume content of all types. Customers’ ability to connect in more personal ways brings organizations more options than ever to use a future-thinking approach to the intelligent enterprise and beyond.
Sources
“10 Ambitious Predictions for How VR/AR Will Shape Our World,” Venture Beat, June 2, 2018.
“5 Trends in Virtual Reality for Events,” Event Manager Blog, June 8, 2018.
B2B Leaders Learn About Digital Forces Shaping Their Industry at B2B Next
Posted by Ian McCue, Content Manager
At the start of the B2B Next Conference & Exhibition, conference founder Andy Hoar shared a revealing story. Six years ago, a company hired him to host a B2B ecommerce event and a dozen people showed up. Last week, 700 people sat in front of Hoar for the inaugural B2B Next event in Chicago, a clear sign of the tremendous interest in and growth of this field.
The two-day show included sessions and workshops designed to help B2B leaders build a digital-first business by attracting more buyers online, leveraging emerging technology like the Internet of Things and rethinking their business model for a subscription-based economy. Most of the attendees were manufacturers and distributors who realize the potential of ecommerce but have yet to be rocked by online commerce in the same way as consumer retail.
Here are a few highlights from the first annual B2B Next Conference & Expo:
Keeping distributors happy while selling direct
Distributors share a deep-seated fear that manufacturers will start selling direct to customers and eventually abandon them, the middle man. But HID Global VP Apryl Erickson explained how her business found a way to support both channels. HID Global is a leading manufacturer of physical and access control solutions best known for their ID cards that allow people to enter secure buildings like offices, schools and parking garages.
The company built a partner program that provides distributors with product go-to-market strategies, product image galleries, and a library of detailed item information. These tools help distributors provide exceptional customer experiences while protecting brand integrity. At the same time, HID Global allows company administrators and end users to manage their credentials directly on the company’s website. HID Global also has a program called Corporate 1000 where it manages all data for those customers.
What will the workplace of the future look like?
Internet of Things (IoT) is a popular buzzword, but how will it affect our jobs and lives in the years to come? Sam Ganga, partner at KPMG, explained how IoT devices powered by artificial intelligence could, for example, quickly identify the SKU and corresponding issue that prevented your business from meeting its forecasted revenue last month. Businesses must figure out how to use IoT in their operations and scale it to succeed in the age of the 21st century enterprise.
Ganga laid out the four pillars he thinks will be critical in this new age:
- Customer engagement: Companies will focus on providing a full experience for the customer by finding the right products and services that maximize benefits, even if a partner provides some of those products and services.
- Changing nature and value of assets: Organizations will trade in an asset-heavy supply chain for an asset-light supply network with strategic alliances.
- Everything-as-a-service: To stay lean and agile, businesses need subscription-based technology that does not require complex in-house infrastructure and a large IT staff.
- Workforce of the future: Employees will be worried about income security, not job security, meaning they may work three jobs and will not be “captive” workers.
Taking Advantage of AI Starts with Clean Data
AI recently entered the public lexicon, but it’s not a new concept. Seth Earley of Earley Information Science pointed out that search algorithms and spell check, both of which have been around for years, use machine learning and are a form of AI.
Earley also noted that AI will only help your business if you have clean, accurate data and it’s important to identify the sources and owners of this data, a challenging and time-consuming but necessary task. Even as people increasingly rely on technology to make decisions, humans must still make judgments and ensure processes are not broken. They must define the governance, curation and scalable processes around data collection that power AI. Otherwise, it won’t do much for your business.
How Connected Devices Can Help Farmers and Contractors
IoT has practical applications for even the most old-school industries. Davie Sweiss, a VP at Bosch, detailed how farmers in South America struggled to feed their cattle the proper amount of food or recognize if something was wrong with an animal because there was no simple way to weigh them. So farmers equipped their cows with sensors that link to a scale they must cross whenever they are fed, weighing them every day and storing that valuable information in the cloud.
Sweiss also talked about how technology helped construction contractors address the problem of lost equipment – they lose $ 40,000 worth of equipment, on average, per project. Sub-contractors check out tools, but sometimes they misplace or never return the equipment. Bosch sells a sensor that a contractor can attach to these tools and track online to minimize those losses. Sweiss’ overarching message was that organizations must think about how software and services can help them resolve straightforward issues that lack a clear solution.
These are the B2B trends and strategies companies must think about now to remain relevant and successful in the years to come. While a solid ecommerce platform is a key part of that equation, it is not the only thing businesses need to think about. Leveraging data in innovative ways with IoT and AI leads to smarter, faster decisions that will help manufacturers and distributors thrive.
It’s time for B2B companies to catch up to everyone else.
To learn more about how a unified ecommerce platform can help B2B companies, read this ebook or listen to this podcast.
by NetSuite filed under
Splunk .conf 2018 Showcases What’s Next for Splunkers from Mobile to the Cloud
Splunk’s annual .conf event returned to Orlando last week and this time, like every other time, it was bigger and better. Hosted at the same Disney location used in 2016, attendance had grown to nearly 10,000 (plus 125,000 online viewers!); sponsors had increased in number; and extra venues were needed to accommodate everything that was taking place.
Ahead of the conference, the big question in my mind was what else can they do? They have buttoned-up security, IT Ops, general analytics and lots more besides. Several acquisitions have also boosted their solutions. Where else can Splunk go? The answer: Splunk Next
A Closer Look at Splunk Next
Like Syncsort, Splunk is a fast-moving organization that seems to be able to tap into and ride current technology waves. And Splunk certainly have been doubling-down on pushing to the next level.
Over the course of two morning keynotes and across 350+ technical sessions, Splunk announced and showcased several updates, new products and add-ons which they rolled out under the Splunk Next banner:
| Splunk Developer Cloud | Learn to write Splunk applications natively in the cloud |
| Splunk Business Flow | Analytics-driven approach into customer/user’s interactions and identify ways to optimize those interactions and processes |
| Splunk Data Fabric Search | Seamlessly expand search, monitoring and alerting |
| Splunk Data Stream Processor | Refine, modify and adjust data mid-stream within milliseconds before the data reaches its destination |
| Splunk Cloud Gateway | Gain secure cloud service with end-to-end encryption for easy mobile engagement through simple to install Splunk Enterprise app for Mobile (SPLAP) |
| Splunk Augmented Reality | By simply scanning a QR code or NFC tag, enjoy direct access to the Splunk dashboard and live augmented reality Splunk-powered gauges on top of real-world objects |
| Splunk Mobile | See actionable alerts and mobile-friendly dashboards on mobile devices through our Splunk Mobile App |
| Splunk Natural Language | Splunk Natural Language allows users to query a system and ask question of Splunk without knowing Search Processing Language (SPL) |
| Splunk Insights for Web and Mobile Apps |
Address the needs of app developers and app operators who struggle to improve the quality of experience delivered by their apps |
| Splunk TV | View Splunk on any peripheral device instead of having to purchase a dedicated PC |
Oh, and of course key product updates such as:
| Splunk Enterprise 7.2 | The latest iteration of their core product |
| Splunk Machine Learning Toolkit 4.0 | Enhanced ML toolkit |
| IT Service Intelligence 4.0 | Updated ITSI with improved Machine Learning |
…and probably a whole bunch of others I have missed. There were so many.
Phew! The Splunk Teams have been very busy. Some great innovations announced.
It was certainly impressive to see new infrastructure pieces, user interfaces, and even a live demonstration of charts and metrics overlaid on real pieces of equipment with a very cool implementation of mobile augmented reality. Plus, new facilities like Business Flow, Data Fabric Search and Stream Processor will go a long way to improving both performance and data operations.
However, all these shiny new things are currently part of the Splunk Beta Program so perhaps they have been a little too busy over the last 12 months? Regardless, some very neat technologies were revealed and should be available soon.
Additional Highlights from Splunk .conf 2018
Another notable this year was the energized hum felt by many attendees. Syncsort certainly saw an impressive footfall at our booth in the “source=*Pavilion” sponsor area. Our team held in-depth discussion about our Splunk solutions, carried out many interactive Ironstream demos (for z/OS and IBM i), and captured great quality leads. People just seemed to “get it” this year.
Overall there was a positive buzz that was picked up by many. Our own David Normandeau (VP, North America Sales and show veteran) commented that this – his first .conf – was the best show he had ever been to.
A couple of user session highlights of the week were:
“Splunking the Mainframe for Real-time Insights at the Erie Insurance”
Syncsort’s John Reda, VP Data Infrastructure Optimization R&D, hosted an open discussion with Susan Fassette of Erie on how they have created over 220 dashboards with real-time data supplied via Ironstream. This is helping them replace incumbent monitoring tools, save money, and broaden access to valuable data.
“Discover Your Hidden Million Dollar Mainframe Treasure”
Another impressive presentation was given by David McPherson from ANZ Bank. He outlined how they have managed to save big $ $ $ in annual mainframe costs by leveraging data supplied by Ironstream!”
Splunk added some special extras to the event too – beyond the usual Splunking your golf swing, F1 driving performance and interactive mobile Buttercup games.
On day three the breakfast keynote hosted Silicon Valley icon and philanthropist Steve Wozniak for a fireside technology chat with Splunk’s own Susan St. Ledger. The “Woz” gave his spin on tech trends such as Artificial Intelligence…which, according to him, can recognize a real dog, but struggles when the same dog is painted on a wall. He also meandered through the ebbs and flows of his varied career from giving his own money and time away for education, to offering advice on how to lead your life…often having to return with “What was the question?” before deliberating further. Altogether a fascinating insight into how technology has grown, where it is going and the impact it can have.
Also, as part of the Splunk4Good initiative, a special breakout was organized for volunteer Splunkers to help package 100,000 meals for the worthy Rise Against Hunger campaign supporting international hunger relief. The Splunk community was all-in!
Plus, it was noted that there was a greater diversity of attendees this year. Specifically, the number of women appeared to have increased significantly, perhaps helped by Splunk promoting select events with the “Women in Tech” momentum.
But, for some, to top it all, was the infamous “Search Party” on the Wednesday evening. This year Splunk hired Universal’s Islands of Adventure™ theme park where most attendees and fez-wearing Splunk Trust members (evangelists of everything Splunk) let their inner child out and had some fun. …although one member of the Syncsort team nearly had a buffer overflow condition after riding The Incredible Hulk Coaster® followed by The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man™. Us Syncsort’ers like to live life to the full, plus a little…
For me, as a techie, it was a great .conf. Having sat in back-to-back sessions for three days, I now have a head full of ideas of what “Ironstream Next” may be. Watch this space…
But, what’s next for Splunk? Let’s wait and see. Splunk .conf 2019 is a whole year away and, like Syncsort, they can do a lot in that time frame! October next year could bring “Splunk Next, Next” perhaps.
How PaaS Takes Your Cloud Delivery To The Next Level
Throughout history, decentralization of systems has always resulted in more robust and agile mechanisms. Whether the organization of large empires or mutually beneficial trading relationships, decentralized systems have successfully multiplied the impact of resources while retaining the ability to adapt to stresses without major structural change.
In recent centuries, the economies of scale prompted a move to integrated systems that produced large volumes of products at low purchase prices to consumers. However, certain advantages of distributed systems were lost or compromised in the process. As we enter the age of AI, machine learning, and IoT-enabled digital transformation, we have the unique opportunity to meld the greatest advantages of both into one powerful, agile, and highly productive approach.
Platform as a Service (PaaS), also called application platform as a service or platform-based service, is a category of cloud computing services. It provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching an app.
PaaS solutions and services support your development capabilities, which help you extend, integrate, and build innovative applications in less time. In effect, these solutions provide a significantly higher level of capability and agility than legacy infrastructure – without the hassle of maintaining, authenticating, and patching servers and other traditional hardware. PaaS expands possibilities through the incorporation of workflows, APIs, programming languages, development and deployment tools, as well as database capabilities, among other powerful features.
Apps and software-based solutions are rightly regarded as some of the most dramatic enhancements in productivity, process integration, and service-level enhancements. The immense distributed and interactive intelligence they enable is a game-changer for our civilization, let alone individual business models. The PaaS model ushers in a new era of centralized resources, multiplied dramatically by distributed and synergistic systems.
A striking new way to organize digital systems and interfaces
Legacy models for the development of apps required servers, software, data security, and multiple software dependencies – with continual updates – and complex hardware systems requiring ongoing structured maintenance, as well as considerable financial investment. Any infrastructure incorporated into this system was prone to becoming outdated and even obsolete quite rapidly. PaaS, on the other hand, can deliver click-and-code solutions through the use of cloud-based tools, servers, and programming environments, enabling apps to be rapidly developed and hosted with very low upfront costs.
As a solution, PaaS is focused on providing the tools and technologies to create an intelligent enterprise that allows a connected user to orchestrate the entire business and all its functions from a single device. It sets the user free from the dependence of static and stationary infrastructure, allowing information to talk and share its “stories,” rationalizing the business process. PaaS empowers intelligent technologies that are predictive rather than reactive, setting enabling operational excellence and underpinning real-time enterprise mobility in the field.
Integrating functions more economically, fast, and secure
Danish company Vestas Wind Systems, a seller, operator, and servicing provider for wind turbines, provides a dramatic case in point. The company now conducts its complex maintenance tasks with the help of administrative processes that primarily use mobile devices. The entire process integration required no complex redevelopment work and provides field workers real-time access to all relevant enterprise data. PaaS empowered the company to improve compliance, optimizing productivity and integration of processes in a backend-agnostic fashion.
Herfy, Saudi Arabia’s premier fast food chain, has built on a PaaS solution to provide native iOS apps that enable its customers to order their burgers and fries using an app. Oman-based OTE Group, with business interests that span from the automotive industry to home appliances, is making PaaS a central initiative in its digital transformation, using the technology to allow its staff to access enterprise IT infrastructure from their mobile phones. In yet another transformative initiative, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology has enabled online access for several campus facilities and services using PaaS.
Creating synergies and an empowered business ecosystem
PaaS is a generator of mutually beneficial partnerships through enhanced optionality and agility. SAP recently introduced a new consumption plan for customers enabling a future where customer transactions are seamless and where our customers aren’t just happier – they’re better and more competitive than ever before.
What customers truly value with this plan is the amount of flexibility it provides to their development teams to support the rapid changes required by the business. The IT and development teams can test the latest technologies – blockchain, machine learning, and AI – in their test and development systems with zero cost.
To help customers leverage these new technologies and solutions, the SAP Co-Innovation Lab provides project-based co-innovation to enhance the capabilities and knowledge of our customers and partners. Co-innovation is one of our major commitments, because it is the most effective way to demonstrate how we can deliver true business outcomes.
One critical component of a PaaS is a mobility platform. The mobility platform simplifies the development, configuration, and ability to manage multiple applications. This is achieved by providing a collection of tools and services, such as SDKs for Apple and Android, that empower developers to rapidly build world-class enterprise apps that run anywhere, anytime on any device.
All good PaaS providers will also typically provide an associated app center. An app center is a digital, enterprise marketplace where customers can discover, try, buy, manage, and deploy trusted applications that have been built using the tools and services from the PaaS provider. Most app centers will allow customers to discover information about solutions and services, read user reviews, look up certifications, and start conversations with various partners and developers.
This provides businesses that adopt this approach with a strategic advantage over their competitors to deploy solutions far more economically at a pace significantly faster than traditional approaches.
For further information and insights regarding the powerful capabilities and possibilities that PaaS technology can enable, please visit SAP Cloud Platform.
Why Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is the Next Generation of NetSuite Service Delivery
Why Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is the Next Generation of NetSuite Service Delivery
Posted by Brian Chess, Global VP of Infrastructure, Security, and Compliance
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure blends all of the advantages of the public cloud with the control, security, and predictability of on-prem infrastructure to deliver high-performance, high availability, and cost-effective infrastructure services.
Designed to take on the most demanding workloads, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure combines compute, networking, storage, database, connectivity, and governance to create a complete, reliable technology ecosystem—all in the cloud.
As the next generation of NetSuite service delivery, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure allows us to automatically and programmatically allocate compute resources, storage, the database, and the network. It was built for Oracle's largest customers to run the hardest pieces of their applications, so they don’t have to.
Supporting both database- and Java-driven applications (NetSuite is both!), Oracle Cloud Infrastructure combines multiple availability domains allowing for the performance that enterprises need with strong availability guarantees.
5 Ways NetSuite Benefits from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure allow us to leverage the thousands of developers and operations personnel that are working on the platform today. So, as a foundation of our service, we get all of the advantage of the work that these technology gurus do on a daily basis.
- We also benefit from the improvements in efficiency, reliability, performance, and security that the very “elastic” Oracle Cloud Infrastructure was built upon. As a result, NetSuite can continuously deploy infrastructure (i.e., when we need a new computer, we can call the API and turn it on—simple as that).
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s built-in resilience ensures unsurpassed continuity of service. This allows Oracle to provide the performance that enterprises need with world-class uptime guaranteed.
- The platform also provides revolutionary improvements, and not only in how the customer-facing portions of the service are delivered. It also positively impacts our engineers’ ability to test and iterate on the service before the NetSuite platform is delivered to the customer.
- Finally, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is global, and continues to expand. Thanks to its broad geographic coverage, NetSuite can take advantage of the infrastructure’s global footprint to follow our customers as we expand around the globe (and as an added bonus, we can also leverage the massive investment that Oracle is making in the infrastructure).
Stay Tuned, There’s More to Come
I’ve personally witnessed a lot of changes over my time at NetSuite but Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is a game changer. I couldn’t be more excited. Stay tuned.
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by NetSuite filed under