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Tag Archives: Ready

Get ready! Top Dynamics 365 Trends Coming your Way in 2021

January 15, 2021   CRM News and Info

xget ready top dynamics 365 trends coming your way 2021 625x316.jpg.pagespeed.ic.Id 3PmwwB3 Get ready! Top Dynamics 365 Trends Coming your Way in 20212020. A year we will remember. A year that was not quite as we expected it to be – to say the least!  Still, the Earth keeps spinning, the software world keeps evolving, and you don’t want to fall behind. 

There are several Dynamics 365 trends out there and you should keep an eye on them. Why are they important? These trends will shape your professional landscape in 2021 and beyond, so insights into what to expect and where to invest your efforts can make a difference.

Let’s have a look at our top 6 and provide specific examples as we go along. That’s the best way to get to grips with the latest tech and understand what it means in a living, breathing business context.

What Are the Essential Dynamics Trends for 2021?

2021 has plenty of exciting innovations in store, many of which are just beginning to reveal their full potential. To keep your finger on the pulse, let’s get started and focus on the top tech trends for Microsoft Dynamics users in 2021:

  1. Use Blockchain to Prove a Document’s Authenticity
  2. AI, the Slow but Strong Trend
  3. Integrate with Microsoft Teams for Better User Adoption
  4. IIoT Meets Dynamics 365
  5. Guarantee Security for Software Integrations
  6. Beware of your Dynamics 365 Storage Options

Read on and make sure that you take the right turns as the new year unfolds!

Dynamics 365 Trends #1 – Use Blockchain to Prove a Document’s Authenticity

Exciting and futuristic, Blockchain has been a buzzword for some years now. Above all, people associate Blockchain with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As Blockchain use evolves, experts predict that it will become less about cryptocurrency and more about using it for a different aim: prove a document’s authenticity.

Did you even know you can use Blockchain technology’s security and distributed features to prove a document is untampered? Well, it turns out that you can, this is available on the market now. And the good thing about it is that your files and documents become trustworthy data. In other words, your files become a sound base for your company’s strategic business decisions. That makes all the difference. 

Stefano Tempesta, Microsoft Regional Director and advisor to Australia’s National Blockchain Roadmap, believes that “With blockchain, you can imagine a world in which every agreement, every process, every task, and every payment would have a digital record and signature that could be identified, validated, stored, and shared. Intermediaries like lawyers, brokers, and institutions like notaries might no longer be necessary. Individuals, organizations, and machines would freely transact and interact with one another with little friction.”. In an article on the future of Blockchain, he discusses possible uses of one such solution for SharePoint documents that is already out on the market and that can be easily integrated with Dynamics 365. We will certainly hear more about that during 2021.

Dynamics 365 Trends #2 – AI, the Slow but Strong Trend

AI has been a promising trend for 30 years or more now. Don’t you have the feeling we keep hearing AI is going to be the next big thing? As we enter 2021, I think it is time to realize AI is not a “big burst” type of trend. It is a continuously growing trend that goes into more and more areas of our daily lives. We currently see significant improvements in machine vision, natural language processing (NLP) and automated speech recognition (ASR). These will facilitate the structuring of unstructured data such as images or emails.

In the big world of Dynamics 365, we see AI coming into very distinct areas, from Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection to Dynamics 365 Virtual Agent for Customer Service. The area where we expect the most significant impact of AI will be in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, with AI helping to define segments and predictive models.

Dynamics 365 Trends #3 – Integrate with Microsoft Teams for Better User Adoption

Not even Microsoft would have guessed Teams would reach 115 million daily active users like it did back in October 2020. Microsoft Teams has become ubiquitous, thanks in large part to need for remote work and remote events. 

This makes the integration with Microsoft Teams a plus for other products. Moreover, it is also a way to help drive other products’ user adoption. Within Microsoft 365 business you can see all Office apps fully links with Teams and that also happens with SharePoint. The level of integration for Dynamics 365 is not the same just yet, but the trend is for Dynamics 365 to be more and more integrated with Teams. Currently, you have the Dynamics 365 app available for Teams. Besides the normal use of the app within Teams, you can “chat” to get the D365 information you need from within Teams. You can also add a Dynamics 365 tab into a Microsoft Teams channel and access customer engagement app records there. This way, you and your team members can collaborate on one or multiple records (Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, among others).

If you have custom applications that are important in your business daily routine, you can take this one step further and consider surfacing them in Teams. This is a new and evolved means of getting new users to use those custom applications, therefore driving user adoption. It might even help existing users get into the habit of using those same apps more.

Dynamics 365 trends #4 – IIoT meets Dynamics 365

Dynamics 365 offers organizations across different industries the ability to know their customers as well as their own organizations. The idea is always to enable predictive insights and, therefore, smarter decisions. 

Next on our big rundown of Dynamics trends for 2021 is the trend to enable this in manufacturing and industrial settings. How? By connecting Dynamics to shop floor information, leveraging data from machines and sensors. This gets the information to where the organization needs it – in 2021, we will be evolving from reactive decisions to proactive analytics that can support the decision process. 

Yes, this is definitely the most industry-specific trend on the list. Nonetheless, for this industry, this trend is a game-changer. By using Dynamics to make these analytics and insights accessible throughout an industrial organization, great things will happen.

There are many interesting use cases for combining IIoT with business software like Dynamics:

  • Go for predictive maintenance and prevent machine breakdowns by monitoring your machines’ condition and performance during regular operation and spotting early signs of the problem.
  • Implement remote monitoring and stay informed (real-time) by viewing the information you need with the appropriate detail level.
  • Improve production planning by having all the relevant information right where you need it, and you can finally make production planning more information-based and much more straightforward.

As you can see, IIoT meeting Dynamics covers a range of possibilities and concepts, giving it various use cases. As such, it’s one of the 2021 trends you can’t afford to ignore.

Dynamics 365 trend #5 – Guarantee Security for Software Integrations

The next trend in our rundown is security related. There is an increasing need to share data while maintaining privacy and security. That is NOT going to stop in 2021.

In our hyper-connected digital age, the trend for 2021 is to guarantee security when software integrations are involved. Truth be told, it is natural to assume that there is no danger in integrating two separate software pieces if you are already using them both. The only problem is that that assumption is wrong.

Let’s have a look at an example. Say you use Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft SharePoint. One day you discover that Microsoft provides an integration between the two. Cool! You can have the documents you previously had piled up in Dynamics automatically transferred to SharePoint but still readily accessible from Dynamics. It sounds like a brilliant idea!

You could very easily overlook the fact that the privileges for the documents that you had carefully set up in Dynamics are not going to be transferred to SharePoint. Everyone can see everything from the SharePoint side! Unknowingly, you would have created a security and privacy threat.

Luckily, the fact that there are more integrations than ever also means the solutions for these integration security problems are showing up – and this trend will be stronger throughout 2021.

For example, for the Dynamics and SharePoint integration problem above, you now have a solution. Moreover, you also have an add-on to that solution that ensures an automatic organization into folders of those documents on SharePoint.

Dynamics 365 trends #6 – Beware of your Dynamics 365 Storage Options

The last in our rundown of Dynamics trends for 2021 is storage. It was already common for Dynamics 365 admins to look for alternative storage for documents and attachments. The motivation for this was saving on costs and increasing performance. Alternative storage locations were frequently SharePoint or Azure Storage.

In 2021, we perceive that security is becoming one of the primary motivators for using alternative storage. As a result, we are already seeing new providers emerging in a market that felt consolidated up to now.

For example, in German-speaking countries, Dracoon is getting strong and will release the possibility of integrating with Dynamics 365 still in this quarter.

Takeaways

By embracing the prevailing trends in 2021 and using them to your advantage, you will accelerate your business’s growth in an ever-changing landscape.

You can hit the ground running as a new year unfolds!

Talk with Connecting Software’s experts if you want help putting these trends to practice in your organization. They will be more than happy to answer any questions you might have or jump on a quick call to show you how all this can work.

 Get ready! Top Dynamics 365 Trends Coming your Way in 2021

By Ana Neto

Software engineer since 1997, she is now a technical advisor for Connecting Software.

Connecting Software is a producer of integration and synchronization software solutions since 2004. We operate globally and we are also a proud “Top Member 2019” at CRMSoftwareBlog.

 Get ready! Top Dynamics 365 Trends Coming your Way in 2021

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Is Your Business Ready for a Digital Twin?

October 23, 2020   TIBCO Spotfire
TIBCO DigitalTwins scaled e1603230314666 696x365 Is Your Business Ready for a Digital Twin?

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The idea of simulation and modeling has been around for a long time. But, the rise in the use of advanced analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) today have evolved this into the concept of the digital twin. It’s the idea of having a virtual digital model of a physical system that is used to make better decisions about the real world physical system. Digital twins are usually intertwined with sensors and include a two-way interaction between the physical and digital twin. While it’s one of the hottest concepts in technology, is your business really ready to take advantage of one?

Digital twins are utilized in three main ways:

  • To prototype and iteratively test and design what the product could be before it’s produced in addition to design optimization
  • To monitor the performance of the physical asset and intervene in the operation if needed 
  • To collect data off of a fleet of a particular type of product or asset (called aggregate twins) and create an approximation of those devices, which could support things like predictive maintenance

Digital twins can range from being pretty simple asset twins to increasingly sophisticated and ambitious twins. They are used across various industries for a number of different use cases. In healthcare, a patient digital twin is used to monitor how a patient could respond to different treatments, and if intervention is needed. More sophisticated twins are being used to model cities, taking into account traffic, transit, power consumption, and pollution.

While it sounds great, implementing one isn’t always straightforward. There are a number of elements to consider: What is the problem and is a digital twin a fit? Is it sustainable? Is it an expensive version of what could be a report? Is it real-time? The bottom line is that you need to start with a sound business case that looks at the value of having a digital twin—typically driven by the use case. 

In the case of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One, the use case is pretty straightforward: create a simulation that mimics the real track experience and acts as a digital twin to maximize the benefits of limited on-track testing time. The purpose of the simulator is to help the team set up the car to run faster, to rapidly advance car development, and to increase the team’s ability and speed to fine-tune advancements during the season. It is also used to find out where the team needs to improve, where its competition is the strongest, where the team has weaknesses, and the performance areas to advance. Additionally, an F1 simulator also provides a driver’s first opportunity to test new design features and understand how they will affect performance before going on to the track.

Once you determine the purpose and the value-add to your digital twin, you can then establish a “data to decisions cycle”, which ultimately means picking and choosing the data you want to capture from the twin in order to gain the business value and success from it. 

Data is at the core of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One’s simulation work. The team needs to quickly filter through the data to identify the optimal setup among millions of combinations. This involves interactive visual analytics, data science, and what-if scenarios to optimize car balance and setup parameters. Target values and parameters are tracked throughout the season. When performance in a particular race is sub-optimal there is more headroom to optimize the configuration for the next race.

If you are a technology or business leader, you can gather a vast amount of data in a short period of time, visualize it, and run machine learning algorithms to derive insights and patterns that enable teams to collaborate and make more informed decisions faster. This improves the odds of getting ahead in a very competitive business world. Digital twins produce better results and deeper insights for operational optimization. The end result? Better processes, insights, and optimal business action, giving you a competitive advantage of your own. 

Digital twins are one of the hottest concepts in technology, but is your business really ready to take advantage of one? Click To Tweet

Learn how Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 has implemented a digital twin to help maximize its on-track performance. And, listen to our TIBCO Talks podcast episode for a deep dive conversation on digital twins with TIBCO’s global CTO, Nelson Petracek, and Doug Henschen, the vice president, and principal analyst at Constellation Research. 

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Crunching Queries at Scale: How Spotfire Customers Get “Redshift Ready” Cloud Analytics with AWS

September 24, 2020   TIBCO Spotfire
TIBCO Spotfire Cloud Analytics 696x464 Crunching Queries at Scale: How Spotfire Customers Get “Redshift Ready” Cloud Analytics with AWS

Reading Time: 2 minutes

For today’s most mature enterprise cloud architectures, ultra-quick querying capabilities on petabytes of data is what the modern pace of business demands. And for enterprises running AWS, Amazon Redshift is most certainly a part of the data warehousing picture given its size, flexibility, and scale. Fast, fully-managed warehousing services make it simple and cost-efficient to analyze all your data right within your business intelligence (BI) and analytics platforms.

That’s why we’re so excited to announce that TIBCO Spotfire® is now “Redshift Ready” as part of the AWS Service Ready program! 

The Amazon Redshift connector for Spotfire has been enhanced in all facets from authentication to point-and-click Spectrum and geospatial support. Plus, as part of the AWS Service Ready Program, TIBCO Spotfire has been recognized as a member of the AWS Partner Network (APN), validating that it is a product that integrates with Amazon Redshift, and is fully supported for AWS customers. In addition, Amazon has verified that Spotfire meets a standard of demonstrating several best practices in its integration with Amazon Redshift and the AWS Cloud.

But what exactly does this partnership mean for TIBCO customers?

How Spotfire & AWS Combine to Create New Value for Current Customers

A primary advantage of having a fast database is the ability to perform in-database analytics, performing SQL queries both live and ad hoc. This may include data extracts that can be imported on demand, for example to feed data functions and custom expressions back into Spotfire analyses. 

It’s an attractive solution for those aiming to optimize costs at scale, with datasets ranging from several hundred gigabytes to petabyte or more and costs roughly 10 percent of the amount of traditional data warehousing (less than $ 1,000 per terabyte annually).    

By combining Spectrum with Spotfire® GeoAnalytics, the in-memory data engine combines the ability to drill down and across multi-layer map charts with ease all while connecting to geospatial files in S3 with just a few clicks. It’s as if you were connecting to regular Redshift data tables.

Why Redshift Matters for Spotfire Users

By pairing with Spotfire, Redshift complements “the need for speed” for joint users running ad-hoc analytics queries on vast amounts of data.

Simply connect Spotfire to your Amazon Redshift warehouse to explore your data with ease alongside the many other data sources—both at-rest and in-motion—all in one analysis environment for the most comprehensive view of your business.

Simply connect Spotfire to your Amazon Redshift warehouse to explore your data with ease alongside the many other data sources—both at-rest and in-motion—all in one analysis environment for the most comprehensive view of your business. Click To Tweet

A comprehensive understanding of your data is at the core of data-informed decision making models. Therefore, data access remains a hot topic among Spotfire users, working with an expansive list of data sources across vast ecosystems, demanding the very latest support for native self-service and custom data connectors. Of course, Spotfire connects to any data source: relational, cubes, files, NoSQL, REST, unstructured, cloud, or on-premises.

To learn the latest of all that’s new with Amazon Redshift, visit AWS resources for more. 

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Implementing A New CRM? Make Sure Your Data is Ready for the Move

July 14, 2020   CRM News and Info

If you’ve decided to move your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution to the Cloud, you might be tempted by all the space the Cloud contains; it’s infinite. But even though you can move vast amounts of data, should you?

Remember that someone has to move that data. And entities and fields in your legacy CRM must be mapped to the new system. That costs time and money. The wise move is to migrate the data you will actually need going forward.

We suggest reviewing your current data and determining what you should move to your new CRM solution.  Then you can explore what new data, not available with your legacy CRM, you will be able to capture in your new system.

Reviewing current dataxdata migration 300x300.png.pagespeed.ic.hlk84JoGUb Implementing A New CRM? Make Sure Your Data is Ready for the Move

Determining which data to forward to your new CRM involves consulting those persons or teams that were responsible for collecting that data in the first place. You don’t want to leave out information necessary for them to continue their work.

Now ask:

  • What kind of data have we been capturing? Identify any information that is routinely collected and saved but is no longer useful. If none of your teams knows why this information was collected or what value it provides, you might consider not moving it to your new CRM solution.
  • Are there data fields that will no longer be used?  For instance, if your business no longer uses fax transmissions for communications, you probably won’t need a data field for fax correspondence. If a data field hasn’t been used or updated in years, that’s a sign that your team has already moved on to more efficient methods.
  • Are we saving data in fields not designed for it? Has your team been repurposing legacy fields to store information that was never intended to reside there? If you find that a single field is storing multiple types of data used for various purposes, you can split those items into separate fields in your new CRM. Clean, concise data will be critical for making the most of your new solution’s data analytics and automation capabilities.

Identifying new data

After cleaning your existing data, ask yourself what business-critical data you haven’t been capturing in your legacy CRM. This process can improve your ability to create more targeted communications and provide more predictive analytics about your customers’ behavior, allowing you to serve them better.

To consider:

  • Customer communication mediums. Facebook and LinkedIn may not have existed when you implemented your legacy CRM, but now customers use them all the time. Use the information they share to identify their needs and interests.
  • Customer classification. You may want to capture new information about your customers in order to segment and target your communications. You may need specific fields to save, and be able to update, new types of data.
  • Industry changes. Industry regulations change, and you may need to know how they affect your customers and their likelihood of needing your products or services.
  • Analytics. If manual interaction is needed to produce the reports you need, perhaps the underlying data does not support the reporting requirement.

xCopyofAdditionalSizes CRMRemarketingAds1 625x352.png.pagespeed.ic.8irC6imxri Implementing A New CRM? Make Sure Your Data is Ready for the Move

Planning for your migration

Now that you’ve identified the data you want to migrate and the fields you need, it’s time to plan your migration.

Here’s how to get started:

  • Identify which entities and tables should be migrated and document their properties such as data type, size, and any validation or special formatting.
  • Determine any data gaps and double-check that all entities and fields in your legacy system exist in your new system.
  • Determine whether you will migrate a complete set of historical data or a subset created or updated within the past few years.
  • Map legacy users by identifying all existing record owners or assigning a default user. If you have records owned by a former employee, you should decide to whom those records will be assigned going forward.
  • Consider deactivating workflows to avoid sending unintended notifications on record creation, overwriting data, or extending the time it takes to process the data.
  • Disable audit logs and autonumbering; once the migration is complete, these features can be enabled.

By taking a comprehensive approach to examining your data needs, you will lay the foundation to benefit from your CRM while preventing costly and timely data issues. Integration tools such as Tibco Scribe and eOne Smart Connect provide adapters for many systems, including Microsoft Dynamics 365, that can aid in your data migration efforts. Finally, understand data dependencies to determine the order in which data should be migrated. For instance, contact records typically are linked to account records, and it is essential to load account records first so that when migrating contacts, you can specify and populate the parent account field.

Microsoft Gold-certified partner BroadPoint has more than 20 years of experience working with companies to implement Microsoft CRM solutions such as Dynamics 365. Our team of project management professionals, technology consultants, and business partners understands that effective data management and migration is integral to your organization’s new Cloud CRM implementation success. Contact us today to learn more.

By BroadPoint, www.broadpoint.net

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Weathering A Pandemic And Preparing For The Next Outbreak: Getting UK Hospitals Ready

April 1, 2020   BI News and Info
 Weathering A Pandemic And Preparing For The Next Outbreak: Getting UK Hospitals Ready

The coronavirus outbreak, declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), has put a huge strain on certain industries. Obviously, healthcare is at the forefront, along with pharma and research. They are reacting to the crisis by accessing information, creating understanding and insights, and trying to predict the ways in which it will affect patients, vulnerable groups, and the healthcare infrastructure itself.

The National Health Service (NHS) is gearing up to tackle the growing threat of a COVID-19 outbreak at a time when our health service is already strained. To respond to the current situation in the most appropriate way, NHS announced that hospitals should cancel all non-urgent surgeries for at least three months starting 15 April. The operational aim is to expand critical care capacity to the maximum and free up around 30,000 of England’s 100,000 general and acute beds. Such actions are unprecedented in the history of NHS.

Independent healthcare providers in the UK, like Spire Healthcare, have postponed some services based on new guidance from the Department of Health. They may see a softening of demand for elective surgeries from self-pay and insured patients, as the patients may want to avoid non-urgent contact at this time. At the same time, the independent sector has been called in to help NHS cope with this crisis. There are reports that the government will pay £2.4 million-a-day for the use of 8,000 private hospital beds to relieve pressure on the NHS as the coronavirus outbreak intensifies. Therefore, the independent sector is also likely to play a crucial role in managing the situation.

In this blog, I’ll highlight what actions hospitals and providers can take immediately and in the coming weeks and months to manage the current situation and be prepared for the next, inevitable outbreak.

Understand, protect, and enable employees

Communication with employees with the right level of specificity and frequency is quite important to understand the pulse of employees in a crisis. Workplace communication improves employee morale, productivity, and commitment, and software can be used to communicate effectively with employees for different purposes. For example, mass emails can be sent to employees to convey important messages. Beginning immediately, some employee experience management (XM) tools are free and publicly available for all organizations. These tools will help organizations understand how their employees are doing and what support they need as they adapt to new work environments, helping to close experience gaps and maintain continuity. In just four days, thousands of organizations signed up for one free XM Solution.

To manage the patient care demand, staff may need refresher/customized training to provide all the extra care that may be required due to COVID-19. NHS Trusts and independent hospitals can deliver training to all clinical and patient-facing staff using mobile/handheld devices anytime and anywhere. Once the staff is adequately trained, they can take care of COVID-19 patients; keep themselves safe by using proper protection; support patients who need respiratory support; and begin setting up makeshift intensive care wards. To help support organizations, a completely free remote readiness and productivity academy provides training content for anyone, anytime, anywhere. The ready-to-watch video-based courses are designed to help mental wellness for workers, maintain the highest levels of hygiene, and develop leadership during times of change and challenge.

Technology can also help in identifying business-critical positions, making replacement plans, and managing the increased need for care staff. Hospitals can quickly optimize their use of external workers/contractors by hiring, onboarding, and training a large number of people quickly so they are up to speed to manage the surge in demand at a short notice.

Each hospital must develop a plan of not only finding more beds but also finding the staff to staff those beds. Some reports suggest that recently retired medics or those on a career break may be asked to return to NHS to handle the current situation. This could work out, provided onboarding and safety procedures are handled effectively. To manage the coordination of these efforts, free-of-charge collaboration software can be used for project and task management to help teams spend less time on admin and more on execution.

However, in the long term and with proper planning, such actions shouldn’t be needed if recruitment and retention of NHS clinicians are priorities. There are various solutions available to do strategic workforce planning and plan employee succession, development and performance, to build a strong workforce.

Patient management to experience management

“Ready to discharge” patients occupied an average of 3,450 beds a day in acute hospitals in January 2020, which means a total of 160,637 bed days were lost to people who did not need to be there. When a hospital is flooded with more critically ill patients than it can handle, more patients die.

By planning and coordinating with community health providers, acute providers can urgently discharge patients who do not need to be in the hospital. Hospital trusts manage as many as 8 million outpatient appointments every month. The current situation necessitates a surge in telemedicine, remote screening, and remote patient management to free up doctors’ time. Health engagement tools allow patients to closely interact with their caregivers without seeing the caregiver in the physician’s office. Patients can take an active, involved role in their journey, and physicians can access real-time insights that can be used to intervene when needed to improve patient outcomes.

Stablilize the supply chain

The healthcare supply chain is increasingly globally integrated, and COVID-19 has affected supply chain dynamics across China and other parts of the world. Pharma manufacturing is a case in point. A parliamentary report on the impact of Brexit on the pharmaceutical sector, published in May 2018, highlighted that 80 to 90% of generic medicines used in the NHS are imported, with China and India in the top five providers of UK medicines outside of the EU.

People in intensive care units need all kinds of specialized equipment, such as IV pumps, ventilators, and different kinds of monitors. Healthcare workers are going to need personal protective equipment (PPE) – FFP3 masks, goggles, gowns – because if they can’t protect themselves, more and more of them will start to fall sick. Doctors in Italy are already making equipment choices (e.g., ventilator versus bag valve mask) based on a patient’s age and likelihood of survival. The government has released its national stockpile of protective gear held back for pandemics and urged UK manufacturers to regear factories to build ventilators for the NHS.

Swift changes in demand across multiple geographies require agile actions: inventory optimization, route optimization, transportation optimization, and demand prediction and sensing are crucial more than ever. For the next 90 days, a procurement discovery tool is available free of charge, so any buyer can post their immediate sourcing needs, and any supplier can respond to show they can deliver. Buyers and suppliers can connect quickly and effectively and minimize disruption caused by shipment delays, capacity issues, and increased consumer demand in times of crisis. Such tools can help make the connections to keep the supply chain intact, which will ultimately have an impact on the everyday lives of consumers.

For the longer term, NHS could look at alternative sourcing methods and suppliers to diversify the supply base and reduce extensive expediting costs.

Travel and spend management

The virus is demonstrating the need for travel to be managed holistically for employees. NHS and independent sector providers have a duty of care and therefore need to know where their people are to support and help them.

Healthcare workers must leave their homes and family and may also need the alternative option of staying in NHS-reimbursed hotel accommodations while they continue to work – away from their families. To ease the burden, the pro version of TripIt, a travel management service , is available to individual users free-of-charge for six months, whether they are new to the service and sign up by April 14 or are existing basic users. This offer aims to make things a little easier for care workers.

Mobilize hospital control centers

Better management of contagions requires planning, collaboration, and a comprehensive, systemic approach within each hospital. A hospital “control center” can operate like an air traffic control center in an airport, using advanced technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to efficiently move patients coming into and going out of the hospital. It can also provide more accurate predictions about demand; enable real-time information about staffing constraints and bed, operation theatre/equipment availability; manage discharge planning; and improve the flow of information. With this advanced functionality, hospitals should be able to treat more patients, cut waiting time, improve the patient experience, and reduce pressure on staff.

Establishing such a command center depends on the availability of clean data in digital format, but for the digitally mature NHS trusts, this should be achievable in the medium term.

Remain true to purpose

Finally, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, NHS has been true to its purpose of serving patients and advancing the health of the nation. As we brace for months of heightened risk from the disease, this outbreak may change the healthcare sector and the world economy for the years ahead. Together, we can make this change a positive one.

Learn more about how organizations can help people respond better to the COVID-19 crisis in Dealing With Disruption: A Digital Nudge.

This article originally appeared on SAP Community.

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6 Signs You May Be Ready for a CRM Switch

March 15, 2020   CRM News and Info

In today’s evolving business environment, every operational decision is critical — and that includes best practices for managing the customer journey. The customer relationship management platform is an integral part of the process. In fact,
91 percent of companies with more than 11 employees use a CRM system.

Because of the time it saves and the structure CRM delivers (and its ever-growing importance in the overall sales tech stack), it can seem daunting for businesses to make a switch, but the reality is there are a few clear signs that it’s time to make a CRM change, even if it means rebuilding integrations and essentially starting from scratch.

1. No One is Using It

It sounds obvious, but how many of the people who are supposed to be using your CRM platform actually use it? If your answer is anything less than 90 percent, it’s not working as it should.

Generally speaking, low CRM utilization is related to one of two underlying issues. First, it’s possible that some users actually do not need access to the system any longer. Users may make a job change internally or leave the company. Roles and responsibilities also change.

Second, and perhaps the more common issue, is that you may have low adoption of the platform. Perhaps you weren’t given adequate onboarding from the platform in the form of training, documentation and support.

An investment in CRM technology is not a set-it-and-forget-it proposition. Rather, it requires ongoing training, guidance and service to prevent abandonment by users. If your team doesn’t know how to use and maximize your platform, you may experience fallout in the form of low adoption — and if so, what are you really paying for?

2. Your Budget Is Firm… Really

For many vendors, renewal time is an opportunity to increase monthly recurring revenue without delivering any new features or functionality. As a customer, your options are fairly binary: Deal with the hassle of switching providers to save 20 percent, or swallow the 20 percent annual increase, which could represent a substantial amount of money in the long term.

You even could end up paying for features you don’t need. Although it might involve short-term pain, finding a platform that fits your needs and is within your budget — and that you know will stay within your budget — might be the best bet.

A little extra research up front can pay long-term dividends. If you’re not making the most out of your CRM but continue to pay through each price hike, it’s time to switch.

3. Your Data Is All Over the Place

Today’s Software as a Service-driven ecosystem has made data silos more commonplace. Your sales team might use a standard CRM platform to follow up with leads, while the marketing team uses a separate system to send newsletters and special offers. The implementation team might leverage yet another system to keep track of projects and customer onboarding.

Before you know it, your organization uses a dozen or more tools that aren’t meant to integrate and fail to provide a comprehensive view of the customer journey.

Investing in a unified CRM platform for sales, marketing, and delivery is the single fastest and most effective way to cut overhead costs and make the most out of every marketing dollar spent.

It also ensures that employees who engage with customers will have the exact same view of the customer data, whether they work in marketing, sales, delivery or support. That’s great for your customers. Your CRM should be a single shared source of truth on customer data. If it’s not, then you need to look for another CRM solution.

4. You’re Overwhelmed by the Features

There is no shortage of CRM platforms in the marketplace, and thus there is no shortage of features available to businesses. It can be tough for a midsize business to know which features are the most important now — let alone which features will be the most important in the future.

Business models evolve fluidly as new market entrants constantly challenge the status quo and accelerate the pace of change. The target you’re marching toward now could be wildly different from the one you’re trying to hit when you were courting CRM vendors.

This ladders back to adoption rates. If features don’t align with your objectives, your teams won’t use the system… and then what are you paying for?

Midsize companies don’t need feature sets that align with their current needs. Rather, they need solutions that are flexible enough to adapt to meet their needs when things inevitably change. Choose a scalable CRM that can adapt to meet your needs as your company grows or as changes occur.

5. It’s Helping Your Sales Team… and No One Else:

On the flip side, the pace of advancement in the CRM world means platforms can manage anything from marketing to customer support to implementation. Gone are the days when CRM was just a tool for the sales team.

If you want your data to live in one place, which is the best practice for your customers, you need a platform that can do it all.

Get clear on what your priorities are, and make sure you’re using tech that can help the most teams in your organization — whether marketing, customer service, implementation, project management, or anything else — because the functionality almost certainly exists, even if you’re not currently using it.

6. You’re Using Outdated Technology

Cloud computing has ushered in a complete transformation of business and what businesses are able to accomplish. Software that required a robust IT staff and team of database administrators just a decade or two ago now is instantly accessible for a fraction of the cost.

Despite the cloud’s prevalence, legacy systems still plague a sizable portion of midsize companies. CRM is no exception. When your system is installed onto your server, rather than cloud-based, it can create a number of data accessibility issues.

Moving to a cloud-based system can eliminate bottlenecked data, resulting in less administrative overhead, improved transparency, and a healthier pipeline.

Knowledge Is Power

Switching your CRM can be an effective way to boost efficiency, reduce administrative and infrastructure costs, and maximize the impact of your sales stack.

Although it’s not a decision to be made lightly, investing an adequate amount of time to gather helpful resources, talk to your users, and understand your unique situation will help you reevaluate the CRM market with a clear focus.

Armed with this information, you’ll be in an excellent position to consider a switch.
end enn 6 Signs You May Be Ready for a CRM Switch


Tony%20Kavanagh 6 Signs You May Be Ready for a CRM Switch
Tony Kavanagh is CMO of
Insightly innovator of scalable CRM software that enables companies to go beyond transactions and grow lasting customer relationships. Kavanagh is responsible for Insightly’s go to market strategy and execution, focusing on small, midsize and enterprise businesses. Prior to Insightly, Tony held CMO roles at Actian, DataStax and Desk, a Salesforce company. Tony holds a bachelor’s degree from University College, Dublin; a Master’s of Business Studies from the Smurfitt Graduate School of Business; and membership in the Institute of Chartered Accounts.

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Bunny ready to get back to school

December 31, 2019   Humor

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I’m a mom, that has worn many different hats in this life; from scout leader, camp craft teacher, parents group president, colorguard coach, member of the community band, stay-at-home-mom to full time worker, I’ve done it all– almost! I still love learning new things, especially creating and cooking. Most of all I love to laugh! Thanks for visiting – come back soon icon smile Bunny ready to get back to school


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I’m ready to vote!

December 2, 2019   Humor

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Ready for Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM? How Much Will It Cost?

October 17, 2019   CRM News and Info
crmnav Ready for Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM? How Much Will It Cost?

If yours is a small or mid-sized business contemplating the purchase of a CRM (Customer Resource Management) solution or if you are a larger company and are considering upgrading to a comprehensive Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM solution, your research has undoubtedly answered a lot of your questions about features and functionality.

Something that may be a bit harder to pin down is the total cost of the software. You can’t just look online and get answers to such questions as:

• How much does the software cost?

• How much does installation cost?

• What are the fees for training and support?

• Are there any ongoing fees that I should know about?

Of course, a qualified Microsoft Dynamics partner can answer your questions in detail when you are ready. But before you sit down with a salesperson, perhaps you’d just like a ballpark estimate to see if a Microsoft Dynamics 365 solution will fit into your budget.

We’ve got you covered

That’s where the CRM Software Blog’s Quick Quote tool comes in. With the Quick Quote tool, you can get a working idea of the total cost involved in a Microsoft Dynamics 365 solution, including software, implementation, training, support, and fees.

Here’s how it works:

On the right-hand side of any page of the CRM Software Blog, find the orange bar labeled “Request Instant Quote Dynamics 365/CRM,” Click on the bar, and you’ll be taken to the Quick Quote form where you can answer a few short questions about your CRM requirements. Add your contact information, click “submit,” and watch your email inbox for a fast, free estimate for your Microsoft Dynamics 365 solution.

There is no obligation, and the quote is not binding; it’s a free service that we provide for our valued readers. So why not try the CRM Software Blog’s Quick Quote tool today?

By CRM Software Blog Writer, www.crmsoftwareblog.com

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Are you ready for America’s data protection laws?

October 13, 2019   Big Data

If your company is still grappling with Europe’s data protection laws, then you’ll want to step up your game. You’ll soon have American data protection laws to deal with, too. California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) goes into effect January 1, 2020 — that’s less than 3 months away. And additional American legislation is wending its way through various state houses in the United States, starting with New York (SHIELD Act).

Regardless of where your company is based, if you serve customers who live in California and New York, you must be compliant or face fines.

Since Europe rolled out GDPR, its landmark data privacy rules, 18 months ago, the online industry, despite having two years to prepare, has been hit with fine after fine for violations. During GDPR’s first year, 90,000+ businesses voluntarily reported breaches as they struggled to attain compliance. This was topped with 145,000+ consumer complaints. Like most legislation, ignorance of the law is no excuse — and likewise, the offender’s intent provides no safe harbor. Regulators pay no heed to whether a breach is accidental or the result of outright negligence. They do, however, levy greater fines for obvious, deliberate, or willful flaunting of the law. And EU regulators have famously made an example of some well-known companies.

In January 2019, Google paid a €50 million fine to French authorities for its lack of transparency in the collection and use of personal data for ad targeting. A few months earlier, a Portuguese hospital paid €400,000 for its poor patient record control practices. (For convenience, systems administrators created nearly 1,000 doctor-level access accounts. This allowed almost 1,000 user accounts to have unrestricted access to patient data when there were fewer than 300 actual doctors on staff.) A Danish taxi company was fined 1.2 million kroner after it was discovered they had been hoarding more than 9 million customer records containing personally identifiable information, long after these were required for business purposes. This was in contravention of the GDPR’s requirement to delete customer records when no longer required. And to the cheers of millions, Polish authorities pounced on a spamming operation in their country that scraped email addresses from public web pages and aggregated these for sending unsolicited commercial email. 12,000 recipients from a 90,000-strong distribution list complained, resulting in a €220,000 fine.

This list is far from exhaustive. An online GDPR enforcement tracker is attempting to capture all of the abuses reported by European authorities under the new legislation, including a pending €204 million fine against British Airways for a compromise involving 500,000 of its customers’ payment information.

Comparing the GDPR and CCPA: Some highlights

There are some key differences between the CCPA and GDPR. Broadly, the CCPA is less prescriptive about acceptable practices than GDPR, and even in the case of a reported infraction, the per-incident fine is insignificant unless a very large number of users report the problem.

Minimum standard for being on the CCPA radar. Whereas the GDPR essentially has no minimum criteria for applicability, the CCPA will likely not govern your activity if your revenue is under $ 25 million and you’re not in the business of transacting the personal data of more than 50,000 users — even if you have a breach. But if you do meet the minimum standard, your service gets compromised, and user data to is breached, CCPA bites down significantly harder than GDPR.

Extent of fines. GDPR has caps in place to ensure that fines do not exceed a significant portion of an offender’s revenue, but the only limit to the fines that could be levied against a CCPA offender is the number of users affected. The CCPA sets out a per user fine of $ 100 – $ 750 or actual damages (whichever is larger) for even an unintentional breach, so a smallish web service experiencing a breach of 1 million user accounts could easily be fined out of existence.

User opt-out vs. opt-in. Under CCPA, users must opt out from information sharing with third-parties, whereas GDPR demands that users explicitly opt-in. In more general terms, the CCPA is more lenient (though it emphasises different attributes) around proactive disclosure and handling of minors. Speaking broadly, if your service is GDPR compliant, your practices will generally meet or exceed the expectations of CCPA.

Less than half of companies appear ready

The extraterritoriality of GDPR means that if your business serves European customers, you’re obligated to meet this legislation’s stringent requirements, regardless of where your company is located. Similarly, if you’re operating in or serving customers in any way in the United States, the New York and California-mandated protections will apply to you and your customers.

According to an August 2019 IAPP and OneTrust survey of mostly US businesses (of all sizes), while 74 percent of survey respondents believe their employer needs to comply with California’s upcoming privacy rules, only around 2 percentsaid their companies are already fully prepared for it. Despite the growing havoc wreaked by GDPR, only 47 percent of survey respondents are expecting to be prepared for CCPA by the January 1 deadline. This is particularly true for organizations who are still not yet GDPR compliant. If your company isn’t ready, then it’s time to get serious. As GDPR has demonstrated, even a small, localized misjudgment can have huge consequences.

Above: Survey question: Approximately when do you expect your organization to be in full compliance with the CCPA? (Results are show for 2 versions of the IAPP/OneTrust survey, one conducted in April and the most recent in August.)

Even if you don’t think either of these laws applies to your business today, it makes sense to apply their standards anyway. Non-applicability under the law does not exempt an organization from liability against civil suits in the event of a breach or compromised standards. Both these, and pending legislation around across the US and around the world, set a standard that judges may look at when considering cases (as yet untested under these laws) directly between companies and affected customers. And at the end of the day, protecting customers ultimately protects the trust in and reputation of your business and your brand — things that could have a higher value than potential fines now or down the road.

Rakesh Soni is the Co-Founder and CEO of CIAM service provider LoginRadius.

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