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How the pandemic challenges companies that use predictive models

March 10, 2021 Big Data

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For enterprises using predictive models to forecast consumer behavior, data drift was a major challenge in 2020 due to never-before-seen circumstances related to the pandemic. Organizations were forced to constantly retrain and update their machine learning models, and 12 months later, many are still wrestling with the challenge.

In an interview with VentureBeat, Dan Simion, VP of AI & Analytics for Capgemini North America, said that while companies are in a better position than they were three months into the pandemic, they’re in a different position. While they’re acclimating to the data coming in within the context of this new environment, they can’t draw patterns from the past 12 months of data because behaviors continue to change.

“In the first three months, everyone was more or less trying to make sense of what could be done to use the new data and start building more accurate machine learning models,” Simion said. “Today, the question is: How quickly can we adapt and retrain machine learning models?”

Simion pointed out that models need to be nimble enough to increase accuracy by leveraging new data on the changing behaviors as it comes in. It’s also critical to establish a way to scale this process, he said, because changing machine learning models and adapting to continuously shifting data takes a coordinated effort.

As an example, Simion talked about a multibillion-dollar global consumer packaged goods company in the frozen food sector. Early on in the pandemic, the company, which is a Capgemini customer, had to adjust to trends and behaviors that varied widely depending on specific regions and states. In the first three to four months of the pandemic, when most regions had restrictions in place, frozen food sales went up significantly as customers chose to eat at home. But while some states have since loosened their quarantine rules and the number of frozen food sales has decreased overall, other states have opted for a slower reopening, leading to shifting trends that make it difficult to predict where frozen food sales will ultimately settle.

In another example, Simion says that a Capgemini client in the industrial components space is struggling to anticipate disruptions in the global supply chain. Because of international restrictions and limits, there aren’t many ways to deliver materials and products across countries. The company had emergency reserve supplies stockpiled in warehouses at the three-to-four-month mark of the pandemic, but with that emergency supply gone, limited transportation and supply have made it difficult to build accurate forecasts amid so many variables and constraints.

Simion says the challenges are particularly acute in commerce. One Fortune 500 retailer retaining Capgemini’s services can no longer track and predict certain buying patterns with the precision it did before the pandemic. In a normal year, during Christmas or approaching Back to School season, shoppers would make purchases, and orders of particular items would increase predictably. But that has changed as varying pandemic constraints, including hybrid learning environments and smaller holiday gatherings, impact people and their spending.

“The supply chain was built in a way that would fulfill steady demand. Planning and forecasting based on that prior data was easy and highly accurate,” Simion said. “Now, all of that is changing. [E]ven after 12 months of living in this pandemic-impacted world, we cannot grasp what an accurate predictive model will be.”

A report recently published in Harvard Business Review suggests several remedies for unstable predictive models. To fix these models, companies might look to analogies like past economic shocks for an idea of the future during and after the pandemic. They might also embrace ensemble modeling, which combines predictions from different models to suggest a reasonable range. And they could include local knowledge, as well as aggregated knowledge from a panel of experts on the pandemic and its effects.

“The question is: How quickly can we adapt and retrain ML models? Not only do the models need to be rebuilt or redesigned based on new data, but they also need the right processes to be put into production at a pace that keeps up,” Simion added. “Until there is some sort of stability, it will continue to be difficult for organizations to identify consistent trends.”

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Big Data – VentureBeat

4 Examples of Companies That Save Time and Money by Easily Automating Manual Tasks and Processes

January 9, 2021 CRM News and Info

We are experiencing a dizzying rate of technological change. It’s both overwhelming and exciting at the same time. Sometimes we don’t even realize how much innovation is already a part of our daily lives. From restaurant apps for online food ordering to self-checkout at the grocery store to robotic vacuum cleaners, automation helps us function more efficiently and freely.

Software automation is at the top of the list of areas that will bring tremendous opportunity for businesses. When technology is used to improve business processes, you uncover new ways of doing things and free up people for more valuable tasks than those that can be completed by the software.

According to estimates from Accenture, financial services companies in North America alone stand to gain $ 140 billion in productivity yields and cost savings by 2025 by adopting automation technologies.

Whether you are a bank, insurance company or a manufacturer of consumer goods – businesses that embrace a software automation strategy can bring untold efficiencies and cost-savings to the organization.

With software automation, businesses entrust tools and platforms to perform processes according to specified rules and policies. You’ve heard of the, “if this, then that” model.

And the beauty is that automation platforms now empower “citizen developers”, or non-tech users to automate outdated or manually intensive processes. Microsoft’s Power Platform is an example of a platform where people can turn great ideas into impactful solutions.

At Crowe, we are not only innovating on the Power Platform with solutions we’re bringing to market, but we’re also opening customer’s eyes to what’s possible in their own organization.

Some real-world examples of automation in the workplace:

An insurance agency sends automated, but highly personalized reminders to policy holders 90, 60, 30 days in advance of their policy renewal date.
A bank created an automation script that runs at a specific time of the day to archive large files of supporting loan documentation submitted by potential borrowers.
A manufacturer created a chat bot to handle the “night shift” and answer basic product questions. It also expanded their customer service with 24×7 support.
A bank created an automated script that sends a notification to a relationship manager if an online banking customer hasn’t logged into online banking for a period of time.

Instead of getting people to work like robots, software automation does the tasks most people don’t want to do, or are too busy to do, in the first place.

Automation not only allows organizations to achieve operational agility and capture huge cost efficiencies, it also helps them to deliver the digital experiences that customers increasingly demand.

Crowe is helping many companies get started on this journey. We find that most companies need help from outside resources – if anything, just to make sure they are on the right path. The bulk of our support comes from solving an initial problem, and then with some training and mentoring, support can be moved in-house over time.

What do they say, “give a business a fish, and you feed them for a day; teach a business to fish using the Power Platform, and you feed them for a lifetime”?

Crowe can help you use the Microsoft Power Platform along with Microsoft Dynamics 365 to simplify your business.

Contact our team to start the discussion at crminfo@crowe.com or 877-600-2253.

By Ryan Plourde, Crowe, a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Gold Partner www.CroweCRM.com

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

3 Powerful Things Real Companies Did With Microsoft Dynamics 365

August 14, 2020 CRM News and Info

What are the results? You can read hundreds of articles about the features of Microsoft Dynamics 365, but it is the actual results that matter.

Instead of just sharing overviews and hypothetical scenarios, we want to share some recent real-world examples of business challenges the Crowe team solved for clients, across industry and business function, with the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform.

Implemented an incident management system with the ability to send communication alerts to maintenance and operations staff in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for a Public Transit Authority.
1. Developed a streamlined approach for managing incidents, events and routing to the appropriate department.
2. Automated alerts send messages real-time to maintenance and operations staff regarding active incidents.
3. Integrated with a content management system to automate population of forms and submitting documentation.

Implemented a system to manage the assignment and tracking of contact tracers across the State in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for a State Public Health Agency.
1. Transformed a complex multi-tabbed worksheet that contains data from multiple sources into a single system that allows for efficient scheduling of resources.
2. Managed the eligibility and training of contact tracers in order or to identify available and qualified resources to deploy across the state.
3. Automated the notification process to inform contract tracers of required training and assignments.

Implemented ZoomInfo integration to automate updates to contacts in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for a Professional Services Firm.
1. Provided process to “clean” existing database of 350k contacts every month instead of once per year and confirmed new contacts entered are accurate and enriched with data for immediate data enhancement.
2. Improved Marketing and Sales productivity with higher-quality, readily-available leads and ability to reach new target segments.
3. Reduced speed to market by decreasing manual labor and data entry while increasing trust in CRM as an accurate data source.

What does your business want to accomplish?

The Crowe CRM team has decades of combined CRM solutions experience and a track record of project success. We’ve got the mindset and methodology needed to design, deliver, and implement effective CRM solutions.

We want to help your company do powerful things with Microsoft Dynamics 365. Contact our team to start the discussion at crminfo@crowe.com or 877-600-2253

By Ryan Plourde, Crowe, a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Gold Partner www.CroweCRM.com

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Drone companies abdicate responsibility in selling to law enforcement

June 14, 2020 Big Data

It’s an open secret that law enforcement is deploying drones to surveil the nationwide protests against racial injustice. Indeed, in an open letter, Democrats in Congress questioned why agencies including U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched drones and spy planes to monitor largely peaceful marches. The policy question of the moment, then, is not whether drones should be used by law enforcement. Rather, it’s whether manufacturers, distributors, and suppliers should sell drones to buyers who might misuse them, like the police.

A tactic companies often employ when engaging ethically problematic customers is the abnegation of responsibility. They assert they’re merely platform providers and therefore bear no responsibility for what buyers do with their technology. Events in recent weeks, however, make clear that sidestepping the complicity issue isn’t tenable (if it ever was). While drones might be used as a tool for good, law enforcement tells us, a lack of accountability, transparency, and oversight makes that a tough argument to swallow — and reinforces the notion that selling drones to police is at best irresponsible.

VentureBeat asked DJI, Parrot, and Skydio whether any customers were using their drones to keep tabs on protesters. Parrot declined to comment, while DJI said this isn’t something the company is tracking. (As of April, DJI drones had gone to 43 law enforcement agencies in 22 states to monitor social distancing around the pandemic, and partners like Axon continue to sell the company’s drones to police officers.) Skydio, which Forbes recently reported is in the midst of a pivot toward law enforcement contracts, said it wasn’t aware of customers using its drones to monitor peaceful protests.

“Skydio is firmly committed to developing drone technology, and the rules that govern the use of drones, in a manner that protects privacy and civil liberties,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “In our work with government customers, Skydio highlights and promotes the bedrock obligation to uphold civil liberties — including the First Amendment freedom to peaceably assemble and petition for change. [We] stand with those demonstrating for justice and equality, and we condemn anyone — uniformed, elected, or otherwise — who seeks to bring them harm. We are committed to developing technology in a responsible manner that advances both safety and liberty.”

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On the distributor side, Skyfire Consulting, which tailors drone-based solutions to public safety agencies in the U.S., told VentureBeat it has several clients who have used aircraft in response to the protests. As for Flymotion, a competitor offering drones with long-range zoom cameras, thermal imaging sensors, loudspeakers, lighting systems, and facial recognition technology, it said its operation teams have directly assisted law enforcement in “protest operations.” (When reached for clarification, Flymotion said that none of those efforts involved the use of facial recognition.)

Certainly, it’s possible that police generally are using drones as a means of civil liberties-conscious observation. The Voice of San Diego reports that the Carlsbad Police Department, which has historically sought input on its drone program at public events and last year released internal logs describing drone flights in response to a records request, deployed drones in early June in coordination with officers on the ground ostensibly to prevent violence between protesters and antagonizers.

On the other hand, Carlsbad’s video of the protests will be retained for at least one year in accordance with departmental policy — or potentially longer in the case of active criminal investigations. (The American Civil Liberties Union argues that police drone footage should be kept no more than 24 hours to guard against unlawful spying.) That’s worrisome, considering dozens of cities around the country are reportedly using software that allows police to comb through surveillance footage to identify protesters.

Forty-four states have enacted laws regulating the use of drones by law enforcement, the National Conference of State Legislatures notes, but only a fraction of those require a warrant before the government may use a drone. And while laws in Virginia and Oregon ban weapons being attached to police drones, Florida law explicitly defines law enforcement drones as devices that can carry a “lethal or nonlethal” payload.

In the absence of progress at the legislative level, it appears to be incumbent upon drone companies to reconsider whom they’re actively doing business with. While police drones can play a valuable role in, for instance, missing persons cases by covering areas of treacherous terrain faster than officers on foot can, a dearth of protections around their usage conjures fears about how law enforcement might abuse them.

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Big Data – VentureBeat

AI Weekly: Autonomous vehicle companies pivot to charitable deliveries during the pandemic

June 1, 2020 Big Data

Early on, the pandemic — which passed a grim milestone in the U.S. this week of over 100,000 dead — motivated the shuttering of businesses deemed nonessential out of concern for workers’ well-being. One industry heavily affected was self-driving vehicles, whose operators and developers were forced to pause pilots under guidance from state and local officials. Several companies resumed tests, however, after implementing a series of new precautionary safety protocols. And in something of a bright spot among a torrent of bad news, they’ve repurposed — or plan to repurpose — their vehicles for deliveries to those in need.

Some experts predict the coronavirus outbreak will hasten the adoption of autonomous vehicles for delivery. A study published by CarGurus found that 39% of people won’t use manually driven ride-sharing services post-pandemic for fear of insufficient sanitation. Despite the public’s misgivings about driverless cars and their need for regular disinfection, they promise to minimize the risk of spreading disease because they inherently limit driver-rider contact.

Beep Mobility, which provides autonomous, fully managed mobility solutions like driverless shuttles to private and public communities, tells VentureBeat that it’s ferrying food to frontline workers at the Orlando Veteran Affairs Medical Center and Nemours Children’s Hospital near its headquarters in Lake Nona, Florida. In partnership with real estate developer Tavistock Development and Park Pizza and Brewing Co., a local restaurant, the company says, it’s been able to provide contactless meal delivery to enable health care workers to remain on campus.

Separately, since March 30, Beep has been working with the Jacksonville Transportation Authority at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida to transport COVID-19 tests from a drive-through site to another facility at the hospital for processing. It says the collaboration has provided the Mayo Clinic a “safe and reliable” means of transporting the tests while freeing up workers for more pressing tasks.

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“During our pause in service, we at Beep mobilized our team quickly to repurpose our shuttles to help the community in transporting COVID-19 tests to making food deliveries to health care workers on the frontline of this pandemic,” a Beep spokesperson told VentureBeat. “Our goal is to relaunch in June. Since the pandemic, we have … been awarded multiple new contracts to provide autonomous mobility services in several new markets.”

Another autonomous vehicle operator — Optimus Ride — this week announced that three of its vehicles will begin making deliveries at the Yards, a waterfront development in Washington, D.C., beginning this week. From D.C.-area restaurant and brewery Bluejacket, they’ll ferry boxes containing a week’s worth of food and ingredients furnished by the Neighborhood Restaurant Group and the Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture to families in need. Recipients are identified by Pathways to Housing, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending homelessness.

Earlier in the year, Optimus Ride kicked off a deployment within Paradise Valley Estates — a private 80-acre assisted living community located in Fairfield, California — and adapted the program to deliver 50-80 meals a day to residents during the pandemic. It also offers package delivery via autonomous shuttle to the residents, many of whom can no longer congregate in the community’s common areas.

“Despite COVID-19, Optimus Ride has made tremendous progress … We have strongly added a new market vertical in logistics which includes the delivery of prepared meals, groceries, and other types of packages as part of our self-driving system,” the company said. “Optimus Ride is continuing operations during the pandemic currently with a focus on logistics. In fact, we believe the pandemic has accelerated some deployments in our extensive pipeline of clients.”

For its part, Gatik — a startup that moves goods between fulfillment centers to retail stores, distribution centers, and offices with autonomous Ford Transit vans up to 7 days a week, 12 hours a day — plans to expand to Michigan. (In July 2019, it inked a deal with “multiple” retail partners including Walmart for on-demand and scheduled freight transportation.) In collaboration with one of the state’s largest retailers, it says it will operate its trucks, which are equipped with multi-temperature compartments to accommodate fresh food, refrigerated and frozen food, and medical supplies, on predetermined, fixed routes to facilitate online ordering and contactless delivery for residents.

“As a result of COVID-19, Gatik’s solution has never been more important. Retailers are grappling with major logistics challenges and a dramatic rise in online orders. Gatik’s business model and product offerings ensure a resilient supply chain and enhance public health and safety via contactless delivery,” a spokesperson said.

Beep, Optimus Ride, and Gatik aren’t the only autonomous vehicle companies applying their technologies for good during the pandemic. Cruise redeployed its vehicles to deliver meals for the SF-Marin Food Bank and SF New Deal, two food banks serving low-income families in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Hyundai-Aptiv Autonomous Driving Joint Venture, a collaboration between Hyundai and Aptiv to develop driverless vehicle technologies, is using driverless vehicles in Las Vegas to deliver food to families in partnership with the nonprofit Delivery with Dignity. And Nuro is using its shuttles to transport medical supplies around the Event Center in San Mateo and the Sleep Train Arena for people stricken with COVID-19.

Encouragingly, it appears to be only the tip of the iceberg for a technological use case that’s making a difference.

For AI coverage, send news tips to Khari Johnson and Kyle Wiggers — and be sure to subscribe to the AI Weekly newsletter and bookmark our AI Channel.

Thanks for reading,

Kyle Wiggers

AI Staff Writer

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Big Data – VentureBeat

Challenges And Opportunities For Power And Utility Companies

May 21, 2020 BI News and Info

Like every year, LuxLicht, a big electric utility company in Germany, is holding its annual board meeting. It’s been a tough year for LuxLicht so far, and everyone feels the pressure of a more dynamic, complex, and data-driven environment. Every board member faces challenges in their specific area of responsibility and addresses them during the course of the meeting.

Alex, the CFO of the company, starts the meeting with an overview of hard facts regarding the financial situation. He points out that costs for aging infrastructure, grid expansion, and system integration for renewables are still rising heavily. The limited budget provided for CAPEX/OPEX is not enough to cover all crucial projects equally. Alex insists on searching for new solutions that can help reduce existing costs and therefore use the budget more efficiently.

COO Peter confirms the need for efficient cost optimization in the transformation process towards green energy and integrating decentralized renewables and their fluctuating electricity output into the current grid infrastructure. Further, he points out that one of his major responsibilities is to meet current and future energy demand. Peter emphasizes his doubts regarding the status quo of the business transformation and his ability to provide a robust, reliable energy infrastructure with decentralized assets with uncertain electricity output.

After describing the different aspects of the asset landscape, including the drive towards cost reduction, Bob, the CAM of LuxLicht, wants to discuss the last appointment he had with his maintenance staff where they evaluated overdue maintenance projects. Together, they reviewed a spreadsheet that contains preventive maintenance plans for a list of assets. This is the primary way LuxLicht has handled asset maintenance over the years. Nevertheless, Bob must acknowledge that this method leads to a high risk of under- or over-maintaining the assets. Having a methodology capable of individually reviewing assets and proposing tailor-made maintenance strategies would save a lot of money.

John, the CEO, is delayed in joining the meeting and apologizes to his colleagues. There was an important emergency case that had to be solved first. A local grid collapsed a couple of hours ago, and a team of employees was sent there to look at the issue. They found a bird’s nest on top of the transmission lines that caused the problem. One of the older workers climbed a ladder to remove the bird’s nest but fell and broke his leg. Luckily, the colleague is in good health and is now recovering from the accident in the hospital. John admits he has underestimated the current risk level of his employees and wants to achieve a better and safer work environment to limit further incidents.

Sussan, the CHRO, feels sorry for the injured employee and hopes that he will recover soon. Nonetheless, she reminds the board members that her department has been urging attention to the “war for talent” quite extensively. Changing demographics and the rapidly aging workforce coupled with a decline in available talent means incidents like this may happen more often in the foreseeable future. Sussan also recommends ensuring that knowledge transfer between older and younger employees works smoothly and the company takes steps to close the gap of skilled employees with an effective talent management initiative.

At the end of the annual board meeting, everyone agrees that these challenges must be addressed as soon as possible. Just one question remains: How can LuxLicht overcome all these challenges effectively?

Data standardization and harmonization

Companies are gathering an overwhelming amount of information in multiple asset classifications leading to the problem of a complex company structure. With the ongoing shift towards greater integration of decentralized renewables and other M&A integration projects, there is a constant need for one, consistent, common enterprise asset management (EAM) data model structure. Even if everyone is using the same asset management tools, there are always different definitions and nuances that make integration an insurmountable obstacle.

Therefore, the number one priority is to clean up the existing data model. This could be achieved with a customized machine learning solution that analyzes various patterns across different data models and consolidates everything into one model. Then, it becomes possible to decide which processes and current and future products are crucial to the portfolio. Finally, with trustworthy data across the network, companies can leverage the potential of their entire asset landscape by implementing a holistic EAM suite that effectively utilizes the accompanied cloud solutions. This will enable managers in the electric utilities segment with a much faster and more efficient decision-making process.

Collaboration and management of distributed assets

As the world becomes more dynamic, complex, and data-driven, the energy industry must react to changing influencing factors and framework conditions through different digitization processes. Essentially, all asset-intensive industries face disruptive challenges from changing business models and higher cost pressures.

With the constant rise of prosumers in the energy business, the competition in this segment is even stronger than ever. Nevertheless, new revenue streams can be created by implementing novel business models such as maintaining micro-grids and renewable energy sources for prosumers, especially those deployed by retail households and small industries. Revenue growth from new business models will help maximize returns while facing limited budget resources (CAPEX/OPEX).

A holistic asset network offers the opportunity to connect and collaborate with different stakeholders in the entire ecosystem. By collaborating with various manufacturers, operators, customers, public utilities, and service suppliers across the network, utilities have all the necessary asset information, like specific asset conditions and asset degeneration. Therefore, crucial information about different assets along the energy supply chain can be incorporated into future investment decisions and support management along the cost-optimization process.

Reliability-centered maintenance

The evolution of different maintenance routines over the past several years is also reshaping the energy sector, with the main objective to ensure asset uptime and increase profitability by avoiding unplanned and unnecessary maintenance in the energy supply chain. Decision making around maintenance strategies for an organization’s asset base can be instinctive, driven by intuition rather than hardcoded facts. Therefore, the risk of under- or over-maintenance plays a significant part in the process.

Well-established strategies, such as reactive and preventive maintenance, are already broadly used in energy markets. Hence, more advanced methods like predictive maintenance, where time-based condition monitoring provides many insights into asset behavior, can help companies achieve their objectives beyond cost optimization and further increase agility and optimal resource allocation. Predictive maintenance does maintenance only when it’s needed. It uses data science- and rules-based approaches to reduce unplanned failures and the overall number of maintenance actions.

An efficient asset and performance management strategy enables enterprises to adopt a risk-based approach to asset management, enables better decision making for maintenance planning, and reduces the probability of asset failure. Due to the segmentation of assets based on risk, criticality, impact, and environmental factors, it is possible to determine the best maintenance strategies at the lowest cost and risk to improve reliability. With tools like reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) and failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), an appropriate asset strategy can help identify specific assets that need a change in maintenance strategy. With all this information at hand, it is feasible to calculate risk levels and determine alternative maintenance strategies. Strategies can include condition-based or predictive maintenance, making the most out of the existing asset landscape.

Organizational change management

Since most technical approaches are already feasible and mature, the implementation process of these projects often fails due to the lack of effective organizational change management (OCM). Many ERP implementations have discovered the hard way that people affect the success of an implementation. If the organization is not ready for the transformation, the project will miss timelines and come in over budget.

Organizations regularly follow a commitment curve on every ERP implementation. OCM educates the end users and leadership about the changes that are coming their way, using best practices to teach and encourage the organization about how to understand and accept the changes. Only after all individuals accept the changes can the organization say it has reached full adoption. OCM works at the individual levels through communication, involvement, training, support, reinforcement, and more to build consensus throughout the organization.

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Why ERP Can Be The Secret To Fueling A Recovery For Midsize Companies

May 2, 2020 BI News and Info

Part of the “Navigating Disruption Today, Planning for Tomorrow” series

Disruption in general is enough to compel midsize companies to make significant changes to their business processes across service, sales, marketing, finance, workforce management, and production planning. But when that “disruption” turns into a full-force global crisis, business leaders find themselves searching for ways to keep their business afloat and hold themselves together until signs of a rebound emerge.

At some point, though, a way forward must be mapped to ensure the business is on the right path toward recovery when better times come. But this time, returning to “business as usual” is no longer an option. New trends that require resilience, agility, and instant insight are accelerating, threatening established business practices that were designed primarily for scalability, automation, and cost savings.

The next wave of business innovation will not come from making existing processes faster. Instead, the focus will be on a company’s ability to act without delay, responding to unforeseen changes and coping with disruptions such as sudden shifts in regulations, unavailability of resources, supply shortages, and spikes in demand for products that were not considered mission-critical a week ago.

As challenging as this task may be, tomorrow’s most successful midsize companies are the ones that are planning now for the next wave of growth. That means understanding the needs of every business function, preparing for the risks of every twist and turn, and acting on every opportunity as it comes.

ERP helps set the foundation for the next normal

When dealing with the day to day of running a business, rarely does anyone stop and rehash how data is managed and shared. Yet, moments like this call for functional leaders to rethink how they react to change and evolve their operations and workforce – all with intelligence woven into their strategies.

A common approach is to replace mountains of spreadsheets and reports with a simplified business application that is suitable for current requirements, but often this is in a state of disruption. However, as the company starts its rise through recovery, that investment is likely limited in its ability to support expansion and information sharing throughout the value chain.

This tactic does not work because the business is not given the freedom to do what it does best – scale operations up and down as the markets fluctuate, and pivot its focus to respond to customer demand. For this reason, cloud-based ERP is well-suited for midsize companies.

But don’t be fooled: ERP is not just a technology. It’s an enabler that helps businesses do the right things right. It’s the center that connects every aspect of the value chain. Most of all, it’s the source of proactive insights and visibility that decision-makers need to navigate today, plan for tomorrow, and succeed for years to come.

Take, for example, Alcohol Siberian Group (ASG). The vodka manufacturer digitalized its end-to-end processes with a cloud-based ERP and business planning solution. This approach led to a transformation of data-driven decision-making, standardizing and automating workflows, logistics, order processing, supplier engagement, data management, and internal controls. And as processes and organizational structures became more unified and simplified, ASG enhanced employee productivity using analytics to steer operational processes and risk-management practices.

Distilling data to respond faster – no matter what happens next

Implementing an ERP solution in the cloud gives the end-to-end transparency that midsize companies need to know exactly how they are performing. They understand what’s happening in the background, which factors present an opportunity or risk, and where inventory is needed – 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Furthermore, they benefit from analytics capabilities that allow them to learn from the past, see the current business landscape, and look forward for the next strategic move.

Think about the possibilities of knowing what happens to the supply chain after a natural disaster, when stock will run out, or where signs of an economic surge are emerging. For times like this, this level of insight can become powerful, whether you’re surviving the next disruption, expanding into new markets, or accelerating growth.

For further exploration of how financial managers can navigate disruption today while planning for tomorrow, we invite you to join our webinar “Weather Financial Uncertainty with Strength and Resilience.”

This blog is part of a series offering suggestions to help small and midsize companies weather the pandemic challenges. You may also be interested in “How Midsize Businesses Can Avoid the Cash-Flow Crunch — Today and Tomorrow.”

This article originally appeared in Forbes SAP BrandVoice.

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What Midsize Companies Should Know About The Customer Experience In Times Of Intense Change

April 28, 2020 BI News and Info

Part of the “Navigating Disruption Today, Planning for Tomorrow” series

Midsize businesses are known for understanding what customers want and meeting them where they are – in good and bad times. But what happens when a major event creates a wave of significant change that upends every aspect of our social infrastructure?

Within weeks, we have evolved from a society that routinely gathers in large numbers, values physical togetherness, and has access to products and services on demand. Now, we are bound by lifestyles dictated by social distancing, supply chain bottlenecks, and operational setbacks.

As these social norms break down and the longer such an experience persists, the more people reevaluate their role as consumers of an interconnected economy. This reassessment is not happening because consumerism is failing; instead, it’s a lesson of its fragility.

For midsize businesses, this is the perfect time to reconsider the effectiveness of their services and redesign them around customer needs – no matter how they change.

A shake-up in the customer experience

Today, customers are on the verge of a new trend: the isolation economy. Now more than ever, people are forced to travel less to complete everyday activities, from going to work and sending children to school to shopping at the local grocery store.

It is well-understood that structural social changes lead to how businesses should engage and serve their customers. But this transformation will require a deep, lasting shift in business models, so companies can innovate and build products and services that resonate with their customer’s lifestyle transformation. The expectation is that the goods and services come to the customer, not the other way around.

But don’t be fooled: social connection is still a basic human need that needs to be addressed. Fortunately, we live in a time when technology allows us to remain in constant touch with family, friends, and colleagues. And perhaps more surprising is the ease of creating new social circles that span generations.

A call for flexible, creative, and empathic experiences

This pandemic won’t last forever, even though it may feel like it. However, most of the buying behaviors and preferences that people are now adopting will become deeply ingrained in their expectations for the customer experience.

At some point, customers will one day resume traveling, going to the movies, participating in sports events and concerts, and even visiting their favorite stores. However, midsize companies must remember that such activities will not happen at the same rate and intensity as before.

So besides quickly putting up e-commerce sites and using social media to engage customers, there are other ways to adjust to this “next normal” for the customer experience. It just takes a little more flexibility, creativity, and empathy to achieve it.

Take, for example, chatbots. Albeit a relatively simple technology, the digital assistant provides a human-like experience that resonates well with customers. More importantly, artificial intelligence can help midsize companies analyze changing customer behaviors as the devices learn about them by engaging in very focused dialogue.

Another approach is the ability to provide an experience that complements a growing do-it-yourself (DYI) movement. No more than ever, customers are engaging in the world of DYI to occupy time their time being sheltered-in at home. The new trend is ripe for new spaces, services, and products that support doing things for oneself – such as events, classes, and educational resources.

Customer experience today, building block for tomorrow’s

Whether facing a government shake-up, natural disaster, or war, people naturally resort to survival tactics to ensure that their basic needs are addressed. But over time, those behaviors shape their expectations for the customer experience – sometimes with such speed and intensity that most businesses find challenging to adjust.

In many ways, the recent pandemic has unquestionably become a much-needed wake-up call for the customer experience. But midsize companies shouldn’t fear it. Instead, they should embrace it with the flexibility, creativity, and empathy that customers increasingly desire.

For further exploration of how midsize companies can meet changing customer expectations, we invite you to join our Webinar, “Evolve Your Customer Engagement for Business Continuity and Future Growth.”

This blog is part of a series offering suggestions to help small and midsize companies weather the pandemic challenges. We invite you to join the other blogs in the series as well.

This article originally appeared on Forbes SAP BrandVoice.

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Digitalist Magazine

How High-Growth Midsize Companies Adapt To A World Of Widening Skill Gaps

April 20, 2020 SAP

Part 4 of the series, “Top Trends Impacting Midsize Businesses in the 2020s”

The demand for new capabilities and expertise is growing and evolving faster than most humans’ ability to acquire them. As the gap between business needs and skilled candidates continues to widen, HR leaders are redefining the “ideal candidate” for their midsize businesses – beyond the traditional triad of college degrees, industry experience, and workplace compatibility.

Such a reassessment can become a transformational moment in how growing businesses adjust their workforce to the changing nature of work. During the webinar “Winning in the 2020s: Six Trends Every Midsize Needs to Know,” Shari Lava, research director, small and medium business at IDC, shared that more than 40% of midsize companies are poised to take advantage of this opportunity within the next two years by defining new sourcing strategies and goals.

Knowing the difference between skill-gap need and skill-building

Common wisdom tells businesses that a solid market plan makes it easier to spot the skills that are needed to deliver expected outcomes. But unfortunately for most midsize companies, the reality of spotting gaps among their talent is not necessarily so straightforward, according to IDC research. In fact, the 40% that is actively addressing it knows which skill gaps are critical. Meanwhile, the remaining 60% is still trying to figure out which skills are pivotal, let alone putting a plan in place to bridge the most important gaps.

A midsize company’s ability to evaluate its skill gaps holistically can vary dramatically, depending on the industry and the competitive nature of the marketplace. For example, a business that’s facing competition that evolves organically and incrementally typically has a more solid foundation of skills available and a better line of sight into new needs coming its way. But if the company is experiencing significant threats from disruption, the range of missing skills grows exponentially, which is more challenging to strategically determine which areas should be tackled first and in which order.

Midsize companies that take an in-depth look at what’s happening in their workforce often realize that an incremental strategy is not enough. They also need a recruiting approach focused on hiring candidates with power skills such as effective communication in a business context, innovative thinking, curiosity, creativity, and adaptability in times of continuous change. Furthermore, new hires should view business needs through the lens of customer empathy and look to resolve them with agility, collaboration, and teamwork.

In times of disruption and accelerating business challenges, businesses need to adapt quickly and efficiently to leverage these opportunities and more in order to grow. By choosing technologies that can evolve with changing workforce skills, employee behaviors, and business processes, midsize companies can shape their future with the right strategies for the sourcing, development, reward, and recognition of talent. They can even build a business culture of continuous learning, agile action, and adaptability.

Take, for example, robotic process automation and artificial intelligence. These technologies are particularly interesting for business areas with processes that are repetitive or require the ability to understand and discern patterns immediately to make decisions, trigger action, or innovate new products and services.

Accelerated upskilling can help support and maximize the potential of technology-driven advantages with capabilities such as:

Real-time access to customer sentiment and employee feedback to solve otherwise hidden issues and identify opportunities

Rapid feedback loops beyond the employee culture to identify and remove roadblocks to new business opportunities as well as refine and speed up business processes, such as the delivery of HR tasks and operational activities

Faster innovation cycles, product delivery, and removal of process and system bottlenecks

Distributed workforce that is flexible and connected enough to create cutting-edge opportunities and a globally aligned and collaborative workforce culture

So, which is more important: personality or specific business skills?

Separately, each factor can only get the business as far as the horizon. When combined, they can help the company reach edges that cannot be seen today, responding to demand for new types of skills at an accelerated pace.

To get ahead of the skills gap, midsize businesses need to go beyond just surveying current and future organizational needs on a position-by-position basis and determining which skills are becoming outdated. What’s needed is a workforce that is adaptable enough to resolve the business problems of the future – in real time – for the next two months, as well as the next 10 years.

Discover how midsize companies are bridging the skills gap and getting ahead of business change to support their growth. Listen to an excerpt of our webinar “Winning in the 2020s: Six Trends Every Midsize Needs to Know” with Timo Elliott, global innovation evangelist from SAP, and guest speaker Shari Lava, research director, small and medium business at IDC.

This article originally appeared in Forbes SAP BrandVoice.

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3 Ways B2C Companies Can Leverage Webinars to Attract, Engage, and Gain New Customers

April 17, 2020 CRM News and Info

Have you seen the rulebook for B2C marketing?

Trick question! It doesn’t exist. And even if there was a rulebook for B2C marketing, COVID-19 has changed everything.

B2C marketing is personal. You need to put yourself in your customers’ shoes, share a better story about how they can transform their lives, and keep them coming back for more.

B2C Webinar Hero 3 Ways B2C Companies Can Leverage Webinars to Attract, Engage, and Gain New Customers

As you plan the future of your business in a post-coronavirus world, you need to engage potential customers on their terms. This is where B2C webinars can give you a huge advantage. B2C customer webinars are a great way to make your business more personal, form authentic connections with your community, and write your own rulebook.

Let’s get started.

Wait… Aren’t Webinars Just for the B2B Crowd?

If you want to create your own best practices for B2C lead generation, take a page from the B2B playbook. B2B companies produce webinars because more than 70% of buyers have used them to make a purchase decision in the past 12 months. And if webinars can help B2B buyers navigate complex solutions, they can definitely help new customers understand your company’s value. B2C webinars are a fantastic way to highlight your products and services, attract new customers, and grow your community.

But there are lots of ways to do webinars wrong. Here’s a quick list of what to avoid:

A non-stop commercial. People don’t like being sold to, but they love to buy. If your customer base is already carving out time in their busy schedule to learn from you, make it worth their while.

A 30-minute monologue. It’s possible to make this work, but you need to be an amazing storyteller.

20 PowerPoint slides with flashy animations. Seriously? This will send your attendees running for the hills. You can do better.

So, if the examples above aren’t the right direction, what are the elements of successful B2C customer webinars? How can you use these online events to attract people to your site, engage new customers, and drive repeat business?

Best Practices to Secure Registrations and Attendees for Your Next B2C Webinar

People crave connection. And if they’re on your, site they’re open to learning something new. Webinars merge these twin interests to tell a more powerful story.

Here’s how to launch a successful B2C webinar series:

Write a list of potential webinar topics based on keyword research and your ideal customer profile.

Be consistent. Pick a day to broadcast your webinars and stick with it. Treat B2C webinars like a blog, a podcast, or any other form of content. If you’re consistent, it will be easier for you to schedule your webinar and easier for your audience to plan their schedules around it.

Practice beforehand, especially if you’re going to invite guest speakers to share the spotlight with you. Sometimes the best ideas are spontaneous; they come from brainstorming and thinking out loud. You can learn a lot just by bouncing ideas off someone in a rehearsal. Then you can take that same energy into the live webinar.

Do it live! Treat each of your B2C webinars like the blockbuster event it is. When you do it live, you can take questions from the audience in real-time and give people the answers they’re looking for.

Have fun! On webinars, people will pick up on the tone of your voice and your body language — sometimes even more than what you actually say. Your enthusiasm will shine through and punctuate your messaging, so make sure to make it exciting!

These are the basic steps to producing successful B2C webinars. But how do you get people to attend once you’ve put all the pieces in place?

Think “focus group.” Before you announce your first webinar to the masses, plan and produce one just for your top customers. You can either prepare a presentation in advance and take their questions at the end or ask them to submit their top questions and turn the whole thing into a live conversation. Offer them a coupon code in exchange for attending the webinar and submitting their comments and questions. Your biggest fans have valuable insights that can make your next webinar even better.

Treat your B2C webinar like a new product launch. Each of your webinars deserve a dedicated landing page where people can register for the big day, top billing in your B2C newsletter, a headline in your email marketing outreach, and buzz on social media. Integrated growth marketing platforms like Act-On allow you to manage all aspects of your webinar campaigns in one place.

Always bring it back to what your customers want. Again, you can draw inspiration from social media posts, keyword research, and what your competitors’ customers say about their products on review sites. Then record a quick video with the same format as your webinar, “We often get questions about ‘How do you ABC?’ or ‘How do you get better at XYZ? So we’re holding a webinar to answer your questions like this and much more! Join us next week…” You can either livestream these previews through Facebook and YouTube, or record them for playback on Instagram TV. If a guest speaker will join you, invite them to join you on the teaser video.

Be patient. The more often you do B2C customer webinars, the more you’ll understand what makes them a success. The flipside? You probably won’t get 1,000 highly qualified leads from your first attempt. But good things come to those who wait. And B2C webinars are the perfect complement to everything else you’re doing to generate demand and attract new customers to your business.

Every time you plan a new B2C customer webinar, you should map out three different email nurture campaigns:

Emails for your target audience with an invitation to RSVP
Another series of emails for people who register, so you can encourage them to share details of the webinar on social media (and also remind them to attend)
After the webinar, send an email to everyone who registered and thank them for attending. You can even write two different versions: one for attendees, one for people who skipped out. Both versions should include a link to the recording so they can watch the webinar on-demand.

Emails in the first two sequences will point people to your landing page where they can register for your email. But the third campaign transforms your webinar from a one-time event into a piece of evergreen content.

Hosting On-Demand Webinars as a Lead Generation Tactic

Anyone who visits your site is looking for ways to become a better version of themselves. And when they think of your products and services, you should think “on-demand webinar lead generation.” B2C webinars are premium content designed to address your new customers’ questions in depth. If you’ve done your homework, your webinar will be just as relevant one year from now as it was the day you recorded it.

Once you record the webinar, embed it in a new landing page on your site. Then update the original landing page with a new form to gate the embedded webinar. The same keywords still apply, which means you can add this webinar to your email marketing sequences as well as your organic & paid SEM campaigns. And when it’s time for a refresh — for example, if you have updated keyword results or you identify a new influencer who would make a great co-host — plan a new webinar and begin the whole cycle again.

Plan and Execute Your B2C Webinar Through Act-On’s Marketing Automation Platform

If you wrote your own rulebook for B2C marketing, what would be rule #1?

Allow us to make a suggestion:

“Give the people what they want!”

Remember, people do not want your product. But they do want a better story about how they can transform into a better version of themselves.

Producing a successful B2C webinar requires a lot of moving parts, so you need a marketing automation platform that’s up to the challenge. In order to produce a webinar that drives more qualified leads to your site, you’ll need…

Act-On’s marketing automation platform has everything you need to make your webinars a key part of your demand generation strategy. To learn more, reach out today and schedule a quick demo with one of our marketing automation experts!

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Act-On Blog

Tag Archives: Companies

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What Midsize Companies Should Know About The Customer Experience In Times Of Intense Change

A shake-up in the customer experience

A call for flexible, creative, and empathic experiences

Customer experience today, building block for tomorrow’s

How High-Growth Midsize Companies Adapt To A World Of Widening Skill Gaps

Knowing the difference between skill-gap need and skill-building

3 Ways B2C Companies Can Leverage Webinars to Attract, Engage, and Gain New Customers

Wait… Aren’t Webinars Just for the B2B Crowd?

Best Practices to Secure Registrations and Attendees for Your Next B2C Webinar

Hosting On-Demand Webinars as a Lead Generation Tactic

Plan and Execute Your B2C Webinar Through Act-On’s Marketing Automation Platform

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