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How CFOs Are Successfully Navigating The New Reality Of Uncertainty And Change
In every sector across the globe, change is the new normal. And while change always brings new opportunities, it also creates tremendous uncertainty. From volatile political climates to increases in regulation, from the rapid proliferation of new competitors to anticipated labor shortages, every CFO today must be ready to face and manage the unknown.
The normal human response to uncertainty is avoidance or a cautious “wait and see” attitude. Yet in a fast-paced, frenetic business world, where upstarts can disrupt established industries in mere months, “wait and see” is no longer a viable business strategy.
While those who are reluctant to change are clinging to the old (“that’s the way we’ve always done it”), wise and visionary CFOs are already recognizing the need to step up and into finance’s new role as a strategic business partner. Only those who bravely move forward, in spite of the unknown and armed with information, new tools, and a strategic plan, will reap the rewards.
Acknowledging that uncertainty is the new normal is a critical first step for finance. Yet forward-thinking CFOs aren’t just acknowledging uncertainty – or even merely adapting to it. Instead, they’re proactively leveraging what seems like chaos to others into a strategic advantage.
And they’re doing so by engaging in these six key practices:
- Using and optimizing new technology
- Elevating finance’s role to strategic business partner
- Driving the evolution of the accountant
- Proactively mitigating cybersecurity threats
- Staying ahead of changing regulations
- Reducing the cost of the finance function
Using and optimizing new technology
Finance, like the rest of the world, is in the middle of a digital transformation. Yet while marketing, logistics, and sales have made the transition from paper-based systems to automated ones, finance still relies on manual tools, such as spreadsheets, Word docs, and binders, to manage much of the close.
These tools prohibit access to real-time data and stymie the necessary transition to modern accounting. Spreadsheets alone reduce efficiency while simultaneously increasing the likelihood of errors.
For the finance function, managing uncertainty starts with eliminating the use of tools that cause it. For CFOs, this means integrating more smart automation into every process. Engaging RPA – robotic process automation – for repetitive, tedious, manual tasks not only increases efficiency and accuracy but also enables accountants to become less reactive and more visionary.
Elevating finance’s role to strategic business partner
Modern CFOs are transforming the role of finance from a back-office function to a strategic business partner by providing real-time visibility into and analysis of financial assets and resources. Real-time insight, instead of months-old data, enables leadership to pivot quickly to meet customer and stakeholder demands and seize new opportunities before the competition.
Better information isn’t the only driver in this transformation. Leveraging uncertainty into a strategic advantage also requires transforming people and processes.
Automated, streamlined processes free people to focus on strategy creation and predictive and prescriptive analysis – work that enables finance to step into a true partnership role.
Driving the evolution of the accountant
Over the past decade, the finance technology landscape has changed at a dizzying pace, with all indicators pointing to a faster pace of innovation.
Cloud computing has lowered the bar to deploying new apps. RPA is driving efficiency and consistency by applying business rules to eliminate high-volume tasks like reconciliations. Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and more recently, deep learning are predicted to have an ever-increasing impact on finance and accounting departments.
These technologies are leading to the development of a robotic accounting department, and forward-thinking CFOs are excited about the opportunity to realize a much higher people ROI.
These CFOs are using the robotic accounting department, not to replace accountants, but to drive their evolution. Instead of staying bogged down by multiple spreadsheets and manual processes, accountants can take on more valuable, interesting, and strategic roles, including:
- The technical guru, responsible for the care and feeding of RPA systems
- The RPA standards leader, who provides human guidance around the use of RPA systems
- The business adviser, responsible for providing analysis and advice based on RPA-generated reporting
- The fraud detector, who monitors, identifies, and reports on fraud as it happens
- The compliance expert, responsible for aligning the organization with external regulations
- The auditor, who – finally freed of aggregating paper documentation – can now focus on the analysis of past and current decisions
Read this white paper to dive deeper into each of these roles, and discover the role you could play in the robotic accounting department of tomorrow.
This article originally appeared on BlackLine.com and is republished by permission.
Dynamics, Mixed Reality & HoloLens Part 1 – Introduction
Introduction
Welcome to the first of a multi-part series on Dynamics, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens. This series is aimed at current Dynamics 365 users that may not be familiar with Mixed Reality or how it can be used with Dynamics. In this post we’ll cover what Mixed Reality and HoloLens are, and introduce the Dynamics Mixed Reality apps. In later posts we will dive into each application in more detail and discuss uses cases for each. Let’s get started.
If you’re like me, you were first introduced to virtual reality many years ago through movies like the Lawnmower Man. The idea of immersing yourself in a totally different world was fascinating and easy to imagine. A few years later I started hearing the terms Mixed Reality and Augmented Reality, and like a lot of people I just lumped them in with Virtual Reality.
Then, Augmented Reality glasses came along that projected some 2-dimensional contextual information on to your real field of view, and I thought that’s what Mixed and Augmented Reality must be.
A few years later I heard about this thing called the HoloLens and I assumed it was Microsoft’s version of Google Glass. There was talk of holograms, but that had to be a gimmick right? Holograms are only in movies and cool stickers right? It wasn’t until I had the opportunity to try a HoloLens that it all clicked. In an instant I knew I was experiencing a completely new and transformative technology. I also now understood the true meaning of all three reality terms, which I’ll get to.
At that time I had recently started working at Microsoft as a Dynamics 365 Premier Field Engineer (great job for a great company). It seemed worlds apart from HoloLens, and I couldn’t exactly run to Best Buy and pick one up, so I waited. Then finally, about a year ago, those two worlds started to merge. Microsoft released its first set of Dynamics applications for Mixed Reality and HoloLens. I was able to acquire a HoloLens 1 (there’s a 2 now) and began exploring.
So why am I telling you all this? I’m hoping you can relate to my journey to Mixed Reality enlightenment and that it might help you gain some clarity as well.
What are all these realities?
If you find the various reality terms confusing, you’re not alone. Let’s quickly examine the three main terms in this space – Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR).
- VR is fully immersive, meaning you can’t see anything in the real world. This is great for gaming or taking a tour of Venice, but not so great if you need to walk around or work in a real space.
- AR overlays text and images on your real world environment, but is not spatially aware and therefore cannot “mix” with or “anchor” to the space you’re in. I like to think of it like a heads up display. Something like what the Terminator or a fighter pilot might see.
- MR, which is often confused with AR, takes things to another level. It “mixes” virtual 3-dimensional objects (holograms) with objects in the real world allowing the two to coexist and interact. It’s spatially aware and allows you to walk around and interact with these objects as though they were really there. Place a model on your floor, walk out the front door, come in the back door, and your model stays right where you left it.
Mixed Reality and Augmented Reality are often used interchangeably so it’s easy to get confused, but they are not the same thing.
On a side note, recently one of my kids’ cereal boxes had a cardboard cut out on the back to make “Actual Reality” glasses, which gave us a good laugh.
What is HoloLens?
HoloLens is a self-contained, untethered MR headset with a holographic processor that melds 3-dimensional holograms seamlessly into the real world. No phones, additional computing, or cords required. The lens is clear so you can see everything around you, and by using hand gestures and/or voice commands you can open applications, anchor browser windows and documents on walls, place 2-way video calls, and place 3-dimensional, holographic objects on tables or floors and interact with them. Think of Tony Stark in his lab modeling new elements and Iron Man suits.
There’s no substitute for trying one, but a video is the next best thing. This introductory video should help connect the dots and leave you wanting to see more.
So What’s The Big deal?
Who cares if you can see things that aren’t really there? Well that’s exactly the point. Now you can work with people and objects as if they really were there. It literally adds a new dimension to computing by moving things off your screen and fusing them with the real world. We can learn, teach, design, build, repair and play in entirely new ways. This technology has the potential to transform how we do business. To get your creative juices flowing, here are some practical examples of what you can do with MR:
- Medical – Imagine practicing medical procedures on detailed, life-size, 3-dimensional models of the human anatomy with interactive guidance from a doctor, without an actual human subject.
- Assembly and maintenance of equipment – A field tech can refer to documentation, view step by step instructions with animations, see markers on the actual equipment, and receive remote guidance, while keeping their hands free throughout.
- Construction & Architecture – Imagine being able to walk through a detailed, life-sized model of a building on the actual jobsite before construction even starts. Imagine walking through a building in progress with the ability to see what’s right, what’s wrong, and what’s left to be done while your team watches and comments remotely.
- Design & Layout – Imagine walking through your new warehouse or factory (or that of a customer) and being able to view and rearrange life sized fixtures and equipment in the actual space. Imagine seeing how 10 different couches look in your living room, without leaving your living room.
You can start to see the possibilities. Use of MR in training & education, field service, construction, logistics, Inspections, sales, and other areas has the potential to reduce costs, boost productivity, and improve customer service.
What Does This Have to do with Dynamics?
When you consider the use cases cited above and the fact that Dynamics sits at the core of sales, customer service, and field service operations for many companies, it is the ideal launch pad for commercial applications of MR. The introduction of a set of MR applications for Dynamics has made it easy for companies to start taking advantage of MR now, without custom development or a huge investment.
With a little bit of setup, resources in the field can access their service calendar, view products and equipment, launch interactive guides, and get expert remote assistance. There are currently four Mixed Reality Applications for Dynamics:
Remote Assist
Through integrations with Dynamics and Microsoft Teams, resources in the field can view their service calendar and place 2-way video calls for remote assistance. Off-site experts can see what the onsite resource sees, and even place anchored holographic arrows and other markers into the workspace to help diagnose and repair issues. You can place your best techs anywhere in the world in an instant, reduce travel costs, and improve customer service.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-C6GE2gFYw
Guides
Administrators can create step by step guides for resources in the field, without custom code, to walk them through procedures. Guides can contain text, videos, and holograms for each step and can be linked directly to services in Dynamics. Using HoloLens a field resource can select a service appointment from their calendar, open the associated guide, and step through the procedure, keeping their hands free the whole time. Train your team and complete service calls in less time by keeping their eyes and hands on task.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8c3pDKdHEc
Layout
Layout allows you to pull life-size 3-diemsional objects into your space, move them around, measure distances, and then actually walk through the space. You can use predefined layouts or let the HoloLens map the space you’re in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9viR6U-D2Co
Product Visualize
Product Visualize allows you to see life-size, 3-dimensional objects in your real space using a phone or tablet running iOS. It does not use HoloLens, but is a useful sales tool that provides a good introduction to MR using devices that many field resources already have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk2HzxZfkW4
For more details on these apps you can visit https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-us/mixed-reality/overview/
Summary
One of the early challenges with Mixed Reality is being able to apply it in practical ways without spending an arm and a leg on custom development. With the introduction of these tools, Microsoft has done a great job of packaging up the core value proposition in a way that makes it accessible to everyone. Do these applications meet every advanced MR need? Hardly. We are only just scratching the surface. But if you’re a Dynamics customer with resources in the field, these solutions deserve serious consideration.
If you’d like to hear more, follow this blog and watch for part two of the series where I’ll cover Remote Assist. Feel free to post comments and questions below as well. Thanks for reading. Now back to reality.
How Supply Chains Bridge The Gap Between Sustainability Desires And Reality
I first learned about global warming while still in college in the early 1990s. I had enrolled in “Our Home, the Solar System,” a class taught by the famous astronomer Carl Sagan. Enrollment was limited to just 15 students, and to get in I had to write an essay. My rationale was that as a chemical engineer, the class would give me a different perspective from my core engineering curriculum.
For example, chemical engineers learn how to size the height of a smokestack to spread pollutants and lower concentration levels before they reach the earth. Or, as some students put it, “dilution is the solution to pollution.” I suspected that there might be more clever ways to think about mitigating the effects of industrial pollution. Professor Sagan let me into the class and it was indeed eye-opening.
Top-down vs bottom-up
I learned a lot about the problem of global warming in that class. Since then, my career has taken me in the direction of technology, manufacturing, and supply chain management. While the class with Professor Sagan taught me about the problem, my career experience has taught me about ways to address it.
Some environmental topics can be successfully addressed by top-down government policies. The hole in the ozone layer serves as a good example. By banning chlorofluorocarbons, governments have been able to reduce the size of the hole.
The success of this top-down approach can be attributed to the fact that consumers were largely insulated from the ban. Science delivered alternative propellants and refrigerants minus the chlorofluorocarbons. These worked fine, and few people resisted the change.
Other top-down mandates do not fare as well – even though they may emanate from noble aspirations. Why? Because often enough, they directly harm individual consumers and businesses by increasing costs or reducing convenience. The policies may serve the collective good – but because they conflict with many individual desires, compliance is low and, thus, the policies fail.
Desires delivered
The simple fact is that Armageddon-like stories about climate change from scientists and government officials do not seem to be turning the tide. From their pulpits, officials proclaim that each and every one of us needs to make sacrifices to save the planet. They want us to forego the conveniences that we have attained through years of scientific and social progress.
While they blame, point fingers, and spread guilt, they ignore the underlying cause – the rise in population over the past 50 years – which is a second-order effect of the successful avoidance of global pandemics and major atrocities from world wars.
A better approach, I think, can be summed up in a simple phrase: “desire delivered.” Sustainable policies and solutions, in other words, need to capitalize on human nature and consumer desires to channel behavior in the right direction.
For example, in Stockholm (where I’m from), public transportation is structured so that it is faster, more comfortable, more reliable, and less expensive than driving. This has resulted in fewer people driving cars into Stockholm city for work. Congestion is reduced and, more importantly, pollution has decreased. Public transportation is now the preferred transportation choice as it meets the desires of individuals.
Solutions that improve people’s lives
To really address important global issues, we need solutions that improve people’s lives on all dimensions, including the environment. The science is often there. Now, supply chains must be built and scaled to take that science to individual consumers so that they choose to use those new products and services, while the providers of those products and services simultaneously thrive and prosper financially.
There are many examples of companies innovating not only more sustainable products but also more sustainable supply chains. For example, many consumer products consist of a basic ingredient, water. Why not establish business models where concentrated products (without water added) are delivered to consumers who add the water at the point of consumption?
Soda Stream is a great example of this. It reduces the dependence on difficult-to-recycle packaging and lowers the tonnage of product that must be shipped. Leading consumer products companies such as Procter & Gamble have introduced a similar concept for basic household products such as soap and shampoo.
Supply chains are transforming to capitalize on this change and deliver scalable, desirable products to consumers. As a chemical engineer, I learned that what is possible in a beaker many not be directly replicated at scale due to, for example, differences in heat and mass transfer properties. So, to address the challenge in front of us, supply chain innovation is required, as supply chains are the mechanisms to take new ideas to the consumer and to businesses.
Supply chains that drive sustainability
Although I received my lowest grade in college from Professor Sagan, I have to say that his course is the one that I reflect upon the most to this day. Statistically speaking, if I’m lucky, I have approximately 1,700 weeks left in my life, based on my current age and life expectancy. I aspire to enjoy those weeks to my fullest, knowing that the daily choices I make result in an even better future for generations to come.
This is why I choose to invest my working hours helping digital supply chains deliver what people, including me, desire most – all in a way that helps drive sustainability and address the challenge of global warming.
To learn more on how to drive sustainable supply chain processes, download the IDC report “Leveraging your intelligent digital supply chain.”
This article originally appeared on Forbes SAP Brand Voice.
Reality Check: Your Customers Have ‘Baggage’ Too
The definition of “baggage” varies depending on whom you ask. For instance, a travel agent or a road-weary businessperson will describe a container used to carry personal belongings on a trip. A therapist might describe emotions from previous relationships that hamper a person’s ability to have a healthy relationship in the future. A customer service leader will say — well, what will a customer service leader say to describe “baggage?”
Here’s how a customer service leader should define “baggage:”
“Baggage is a customer’s past experiences, perceptions, or facts that occurred before the interaction that influence the customer’s expectation of service and therefore the perception of the interaction.”
If this service leader’s definition of baggage is new to you, that’s OK because we’re going to delve into the discovery of baggage, its importance and impact, and what service organizations need to do to address it in service experiences.
Let’s start with an overview of the concept itself.
The Discovery of Pre-Interaction Factors
A study of more than 1,200 customers who had recent service interactions aimed to better understand
what factors into a customer’s evaluation of the customer service experience. In other words, what criteria determine whether a customer describes his/her service experience as “poor,” “outstanding,” or somewhere in between.
The data revealed that the core elements of a service interaction — Issue Diagnosis, Issue Resolution, and Call Closure — are important in the customer’s overall evaluation of live service. That said, those elements account for only 47 percent of the customer’s evaluation of service.
The remaining 53 percent of the evaluation is made up of “pre-interaction factors,” those elements that occur before the service rep picks up the phone and greets the customer.
Pre-interaction factors are often missed by service organizations because so much focus is placed on what happens during the interaction. Unless the service organization looks beyond the conventional view of customer service (Issue Diagnosis, Issue Resolution and Call Closure), these pre-interaction factors will continue to be missed.
In order to look beyond conventional wisdom successfully, service leaders must be able to recognize pre-interaction factors, including the following:
- Perceptions of the company’s service capabilities;
- Perceived value to the company;
- Past interactions with the company’s frontline staff; and
- Previous contacts the customer has had with the company about the same issue.
Once service leaders are armed with the knowledge needed to identify pre-interaction factors, the next step is to learn how to address these factors during service interactions, most importantly because of the massive impact they have on a customer’s evaluation of the service experience.
Introducing ‘Customer Baggage’
Customer Baggage is similar to emotional baggage in that customers are being weighed down by what happened in the past, and it’s negatively impacting their current service experience.
The research showed a 48 percent increase in the Customer Interaction Index (a measure combining Customer Effort, Customer Satisfaction, Net Promoter Score, and Quality of Service) for companies that handled baggage effectively, compared to companies that did not acknowledge a customer’s history.
In addition to a significantly higher Customer Interaction Index, companies saw a 14 percent decrease in the perceived effort of the next interaction when customers’ baggage is handled. That’s like getting credit for delivering an easier experience before the customer even has an issue to resolve.
In order to achieve such significant gains, companies need begin by recognizing that customer baggage exists. Recognizing the existence of customer baggage is only part of the battle, though. A failure to adequately prepare service teams to handle customer baggage leaves the organization vulnerable to a poor customer experience. To mitigate this, the best organizations are learning how to teach and coach Customer Baggage Handling to their frontline staff.
Implementing Customer Baggage Handling
Ignoring customer baggage cannot be an option, because when asked, 92 percent of surveyed customers said they enter a customer service interaction carrying baggage from prior interactions.
For customers who have had repeat problems or multiple issues with a company and its products and services — then the problem today isn’t the entire issue. The issue also is recognizing and acknowledging the customer’s accumulated pain, frustrations, or heightened expectations from all past interactions — or customer baggage.
The data shows almost every customer has baggage, and when service organizations fail to incorporate baggage handling in their strategy, it’s as if they’re settling for mediocrity — at best!
There is good news: 23 percent of service reps have been identified by customers as baggage handlers. What this insight means is that customer baggage handling skills already exist in about one in four reps, so there is an opportunity to teach baggage handling skills beyond those who do it naturally through training, coaching, and evaluating reps on customer baggage handling skills.
Training Customer Baggage Handling Skills
Organizations that want successful integration of baggage handling skills into their service strategy should build a strong foundation for frontline teams through training.
What are the behaviors service reps must demonstrate in order to deliver a low-effort experience?
In the past, rep training focused on traditional soft skills or relationship building skills — being friendly, personable, polite and nice. While those skills are still important, they have little to no impact on the customer’s perception of the experience.
Best-in-class companies have evolved from this traditional view of training and have started to focus on teaching and coaching skills such as Experience Engineering, Next Issue Avoidance, and the focus of this article — Customer Baggage.
Some Core Baggage handling skills:
- Acknowledge: Ask key questions to better understand the customer’s past experiences.
Sample Question: “Is this your first time calling about this issue?” or “I see that you called us recently. Is this call related to that last conversation?”
- Advocate: Treat customers the way they feel they should be treated.
Sample Statement: “I understand your issue and what you’re going through. I’m going to figure out the best solution for you.”
- Own: Own the customer’s issue by guiding the customer to resolution with confidence.
Sample Statement: “I can imagine how frustrating this situation is and I’m going to make sure we get this problem solved for you as quickly as possible.”
Coaching Customer Baggage Handling Skills
Coaching is the top driver needed to boost rep performance today. However, if the coaching is delivered with poor preparation or using “tell” instead of “teach” language, rep performance will be impacted negatively, and the net result will be worse than if no coaching was delivered at all.
In order to deliver successful coaching, supervisors need to have a clear understanding of the service rep’s strengths and areas of opportunity. To learn these strengths and areas of opportunity the best organizations rely on Quality Assurance.
Evaluating Customer Baggage Handling Skills
QA outputs equal coaching inputs — meaning that what is gathered from QA will have a direct influence on customer baggage handling coaching sessions.
Today, service organizations are developing a more subjective QA framework in which reps are held accountable for the skills that drive the customer experience like customer baggage handling (not just internal adherence metrics).
Evaluating how reps handle baggage can be done through Voice of Customer surveys or trends-based analysis listening sessions. These insights will be a critical part in determining if baggage handling efforts are working effectively with customers.
Key Takeaways
Customer Baggage exists in almost every service interaction, and handling this baggage is integral to making great strides in customers’ service experiences. Thankfully, Customer Baggage Handling does not require massive updates to current technologies or hiring processes, but instead simply requires that customer-facing staff recognize that customers have a past, and acknowledge this history before moving into issue resolution.
Creating a service organization that tackles Customer Baggage Handling will go a long way toward achieving outstanding customer experiences today and into the future.
When building a customer baggage strategy, service leaders should remember the following:
- The customer’s past matters — a lot.
- Nearly all customers carry baggage — and it’s the organization’s responsibility to acknowledge it, advocate on the part of the customer, and own the baggage.
- Reps can manage customer baggage during interactions — and organizations need to train, coach, and evaluate them to ensure proper execution.
How Effective is Virtual Reality at Trade Shows?
Many manufacturers view (VR) as an effective business tool to present and educate their (configurable) products to conference attendees on the trade show floor.
with Virtual Reality is a solution suite quickly being adopted by businesses to deliver an immersive experience that showcases product attributes, demonstrates benefits, and leaves a memorable impression with attendees.
VR has ROI benefits as well. In many cases, it’s not cost-effective or realistic for manufacturers to display large or many products in the booth. Reducing the amount of physical items on display will shrink drayage (shipping, installation, dismantle) expenses.
Time is a factor. Attendees only spend a few minutes in a booth. It is imperative to quickly show options that fit the attendees requirements. With a push of a button, you can present a variety of preconfigured product layouts in various environments.
Here are even more reasons why VR is being used by manufacturers at trade shows…
Buzz Factor
Have you ever left a trade show with a bag full sales literature with scribbled notes and a hazy memory of what vendor provided what? The trade show floor is crowded with exhibitors selling similar products and/or services. Many vendors often get blended together.
How does one stand out above the competition? It starts with providing a compelling experience. Not only does VR drive attendees to your booth but it creates buzz about your offering and others will share their experience with colleagues.
*Watch react to his personal training facility in virtual reality.
“Virtual Reality is very cool and worked extremely well as a WOW factory in our trade show booth. It’s a great tool to make booth visits memorable, and we hope to use it to alleviate confusion when ordering complex configurations of mobile carts.” – Spencer Costello at BFW Inc.
A Teaching Tool
Explore and Interact with Products in Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality includes animation and interactive product movement. This enables attendees to quickly grasp product attributes and benefits.
For example, when it comes to designing an operating room, the healthcare staff and designers need to be in sync on how each medical equipment moves, operates, and fits in the space. Poorly placed equipment can lead to unsafe or ineffective working conditions – which will result in an expensive shutdown and remodel.
VR is a tool to help decision makers make better, more informed decisions prior to construction and installation.
“Virtual Reality gives us the flexibility to demonstrate correct product placement as well as the ability to demonstrate and spatial limitations based on the room design. It’s flexible and allows us to show our product in a way we were never able to do before.” – Craig Wassenaar, President at Skytron
A Memorable Impression
Extend Virtual Reality Experiences on Smartphones
The trade show floor is full of distractions. It’s often difficult to have a good conversation when loud sounds, potent smells, and crowds of people draw the attention away from what the vendor is explaining.
Virtual Reality helps attendees focus on the product. It transports them into a virtual world where they have a first-hand view to visualize, explore and interact with the product in the environment.
When the show is over, mobile VR on smartphones is a great tool for attendees to share product designs with colleagues back at the office.
“Virtual Reality is a first-class teaching tool. It’s an effective way to demonstrate each stage of the apparel design process – from concept in software to fabric to completed garment.” – Bill Grindle, CMO at Gerber Technology
3D Product Configurator + Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality combined with a 3D product configurator delivers the ultimate trade show experience. A visual configurator enables attendees to custom build a product to their specific needs. Add immersive VR to help the attendee visualize and explore their newly customized product in minutes. This one-two punch is the most effective way to showcase configurable products and configurable environments at conferences or trade shows.
“The edge of the network is more critical and more complex than ever before. This virtual reality experience allows visitors to our booth to work through design complexities in a way that brings these environments to life.” – Jennifer Renaud, vice president of marketing for Vertiv in the Americas
Learn More About Manufacturers Using VR
Discover how manufacturers are successfully using Axonom’s Visual and Virtual at trade shows to reduce drayage costs, showcase one or many products, stand out from the competition, and deliver a memorable experience with conference attendees – .
Written by Michael Bauer, Axonom.
New AI, Mixed Reality, Customer Insight Tools Coming to Microsoft Dynamics 365
Microsoft on Thursday announced a number of artificial intelligence, mixed reality and customer insights tools for Microsoft Dynamics 365 at its Microsoft Business Forward event in Paris.
There is “a lot of hype around AI and MR,” noted Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research at Nucleus Research, “but these are real applications delivering value to customers today.”
Microsoft also announced it will publicly preview a new Microsoft Forms Pro this spring.
There is “a consistent theme in all these offerings — providing high degree of flexibility to enable citizen developers and power users while still maintaining technology governance and compliance,” remarked Nicole France, principal analyst at Constellation Research.
“Microsoft’s advantage is its decades of investment in R&D across its portfolio, which it’s bringing to bear on its business applications portfolio,” Wettemann told CRM Buyer. “This is highlighted in the MR space, where it’s ahead of the rest of the industry.”
The AI solutions “are designed to surface next best action and create digital feedback loops over time,” said Ray Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research.
Mixed reality enables new business models, he told CRM Buyer. “Think of the ability to do field service with IoT, where you are guided to the broken equipment and can find all the parts in a heads-up display with MR. You can then request real-time help with a subject matter expert or engineer at headquarters or at the manufacturer.”
The main competitors to Microsoft Dynamics 365 are Salesforce, Adobe, SAP and Oracle, Wang said. They are building similar capabilities in AI across the board, but Microsoft is ahead in MR.
The AI Solutions
AI solutions Microsoft announced:
- Dynamics 365 Customer Insights — now available for preview and scheduled for general availability in April;
- Dynamics 365 Virtual Agent for Customer Service, a cloud service launching in public preview in April; and
- Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection, a cloud-based solution. A public preview will be released in April.
“The AI tools are particularly useful because … they can be used by a wide range of employees who have primary responsibility for, in this case, customer interaction and customer service,” Constellation’s France told CRM Buyer. “They don’t require deep development expertise to be used effectively.”
Dynamics 365 Virtual Agent for Customer Service lets business users easily create and manage AI-powered virtual agents that resolve routine problems and requests.
Virtual Agent “is a great example of how business users can configure and launch their own agent apps in a no-code environment, driving greater flexibility and productivity, and being less of a burden and backlog for IT,” Nucleus’ Wettemann pointed out.
Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection will help e-commerce businesses cut fraud losses, increase bank acceptance rates, and improve the online shopping experience
“Digital businesses need to understand that every revenue-generating call to action that consumers experience — things like account creation, login, buy, share and review — corresponds to risks associated with fraud,” Kevin Lee, trust and safety architect at Sift, told CRM Buyer.
In a January
survey of 500 professionals representing North American online retail industries with more than 500 employees, Sift uncovered the following:
- 63 percent battled fake accounts;
- 64 percent faced payment fraud;
- 55 percent were plagued by fake or spammy content; and
- 42 percent dealt with account takeovers.
Other findings:
- 64 percent had not fully achieved the goal of staying ahead of fraud patterns;
- 65 percent were experiencing more fraud at their sites;
- 69 percent spent more on fraud last year than the year before; and
- 95 percent planned to add more tools or hire more people to manage fraud over the next 12 months.
Fraud hampers business growth, Sift found, in a number of ways:
- 73 percent of survey respondents said their companies could not fully achieve their goal of launching new products without increasing risk;
- 71 percent said the same about moving into new markets;
- 57 percent said revenue-driving goals and fraud prevention goals were not fully aligned; and
- 86 percent of executives were involved in fraud prevention.
“By having access to tools that enable digital trust and safety at scale, Microsoft Dynamics 365 customers would see less fraud and more revenue while unlocking better customer experiences,” Lee said.
MR Solutions
The mixed reality solutions Microsoft announced:
- Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, used by remote experts with HoloLens for equipment verification and incident response, has been extended to Android mobile devices in preview; and
- Dynamics 365 Product Visualize is coming to iOS in preview. It lets sellers show products to customers directly within their Dynamics 365 for Sales workflow, and spatial and configuration notes are all saved directly within the associated sales opportunity.
Dynamics 365 Remote Assist will include mobile annotations, group calling, deeper integration with Dynamics 365 for Field Service, and improved accessibility features for the HoloLens app.
Technicians will be able to use either HoloLens or an Android mobile device to collaborate with remote experts and troubleshoot issues in context.
“These new mixed reality offerings make it possible to extend field service and sales teams, again, without the need for specialized expertise,” Constellation’s France observed.
“Remote Assist allows field service agents and even customers to solve complex problems on their own,” she said. “Product Visualize connects a 3D visualization of a complex product directly to configuration and product catalogs, shortening the process from design to quote.”
The Advantages of Forms Pro
Microsoft Forms Pro is easy to set up and configure. It triggers surveys around specific events; collects feedback across channels; lets businesses embed surveys across apps, the Web and mobile devices; identifies sentiments automatically; and lets users analyze customer feedback.
It will “make feedback management easier, and save time when working on common forms,” Constellation’s Wang said.
Forms Pro “is a great addition to Microsoft’s CRM and Talent portfolios,”Wettemann suggested, “and is likely to be useful in other areas of the business as well.”
Richard Adhikari has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2008. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, mobile technologies, CRM, databases, software development, mainframe and mid-range computing, and application development. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including Information Week and Computerworld. He is the author of two books on client/server technology.
Email Richard.
Accenture Taps Virtual Reality To Improve The Lives Of Amputees
More than 1 million people each year have a limb amputated. This is a traumatic surgery, which is often followed by a long, grueling rehabilitation process to help patients overcome both the physical and mental challenges associated with losing a limb.
Studies show that more than half of limb-loss patients experience depression and/or anxiety, and only about one-third complete rehabilitation programs that can lead to a higher quality of life.
Accenture, with help from SAP, developed an IoT solution that includes virtual reality (VR) technology along with biomechanical, 3D-printable prosthetics to encourage patients to complete their physical therapy (PT) and improve their physical and mental well-being.
Accenture has created a VR game that works with a wearable device outfitted with sensors to track electrical impulses associated with a patient’s limb movement. The VR game tasks the patient with picking up items and other tasks that require them to use muscles associated with the prosthetic, getting them comfortable with a prosthetic limb while also exercising the muscles necessary to accelerate the recovery process. The solution tracks the patients’ progress in real time, giving doctors unprecedented access to data surrounding the PT.
“With the use of gamification, the rehabilitation process is streamlined a great deal,” said Daniel Gonzalez, innovation center principal for Accenture in Brazil. “The biomechanical device is made to fit the arm, like a virtual hand, with a lot of sensors that are controlled by muscles stimulating the arm. The physician will work with the patient to fully understand the functionality, what muscles are firing and transmitting an electromagnetic current, how it strengthens muscles and how to move this biomechanical prosthetic.”
The initiative is still being tested with a control group in Brazil. Accenture and the University of São Paulo (USP) School of Medicine will have the solution authorized by local health organizations in Brazil and then make it available around the world.
Leveraging technology to improve lives
“The whole idea started with knowing we could create a wearable device that would benefit these patients and the physicians working with them,” Gonzalez said.
The solution collects data that gives physicians an instant analysis into what’s going on.
“The patient can try to grab a ball or cut bread with a knife through the immersive VR goggles,” Gonzalez. “It tricks the brain into thinking the hand is there when it’s not. That also helps ease pain associated with phantom limbs.”
Accenture and the USP School of Medicine believe that the exercises could also help reduce patients’ time in physical therapy and increase the percentage of patients that finish their therapy plans.
Gamification is not a new concept for physical therapy, Gonzalez said.
This kind of technology also means that patients can do physical therapy remotely, Gonzalez said. “They can do it from home or wherever they are comfortable. It can be difficult to motivate a 13-year-old to go through a year-long therapy process. Many patients give up in the middle of the process, they don’t get a prosthetic and their quality of life decreases. We are hopeful that this will help people get familiar with using a prosthetic and ultimately live a better life.”
To learn more, read the press release from Accenture, “Accenture Builds Virtual Reality Game with SAP Leonardo to Provide More Therapy Options for People with Amputations.”
SAP and our partners. Improving lives. That is our purpose.
Expert Interview (Part 1): James Kobielus on Separating Blockchain Hype from Reality
Since Syncsort recently joined the Hyperledger community, we have a clear interest in raising awareness of the Blockchain technology. There’s a lot of hype out there, but not a lot of clear, understandable facts about this revolutionary data management technology. Toward that end, Syncsort’s Integrate Product Marketing Manager, Paige Roberts, had a long conversation with Wikibon Lead Analyst Jim Kobielus.
In this first part of that conversation, we discussed the basic definition of what the Blockchain is, and cut through some of the hype surrounding it.
Roberts: Tell us a little about yourself.
Kobielus: I’m James Kobielus. I’m the lead analyst at Wikibon. I’m a veteran analyst covering data analytics, artificial intelligence and cloud data computing, and one of my research focus areas is Blockchain. In fact, I plan to write and publish a Wikibon research document on its maturation in the enterprise some time in the next few months.
Ah, good timing for the interview then. Let’s start with the basic definition. What exactly is the Blockchain?
Blockchain was defined initially by the legendary inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, which is not really his name, just a pseudonym. Blockchain is not a currency, rather it is a distributed, trusted hyper ledger. It’s essentially a database, but the architecture is distributed and can be stored on dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of separate computers that remain in synchronization with each other. The hyper ledger of data is stored in a secure fashion where everybody can read the Blockchain, and nobody can repudiate that they made an update to it because there’s a trust mechanism built-in. And the Blockchain cannot be changed. It’s immutable. Once you write something to a Blockchain, it cannot be deleted, it cannot be edited, so it’s a very specialized type of distributed database. In other words, where your traditional databases enable you to do what we often call CRUD operations; create, read, update, and delete the data. Blockchain only allows you to create and update the data by adding to it. You can also read it, but you can’t delete it. So, it’s specialized to a variety of applications that don’t require full CRUD semantics.
Okay, that makes good sense. CRUD operations are pretty familiar to anybody in the database space. How is the Blockchain different from other databases?
So, first of all, it’s not different in any radical sense from a number of approaches that have been around for a while now. There are plenty of distributed databases in the world from various vendors that use a variety of approaches to split the data into separate tables, or volumes, with varying degrees of synchronization across different servers. There are approaches in traditional relational databases such as sharding that enable the datasets to be distributed across many nodes.
What makes Blockchain different is that it is primarily for logging data for a secure, trusted record of transactions. Nobody can deny that they posted something because there is a complete audit trail in the updates that were made to the chain. There’s a distributed trust mechanism built into it that you don’t necessarily see in other data platforms or distributed data environments as an embedded capability.
Blockchain also is not limited in the types of data it can store, like say, a relational database is limited to storing structured data in structured tables. It can store pretty much any type of data within the blocks themselves. The term “block” actually has a real meaning in the Blockchain architecture. The data blocks can store textual data, video objects, application code or whatever you have. So, it’s quite versatile. It is a database that can store unstructured, multi-structured data, in addition to structured data.
Blockchain is open source. There are a lot of open source databases, of course. It was originally incorporated into Bitcoin and it’s still the foundation for Bitcoin, and for most cryptocurrencies, but Blockchain has evolved independently of the currencies. Using Blockchain doesn’t necessarily imply that it’s supporting a cryptocurrency application. It could be potentially supporting many kinds of applications.
There’s a core open source distribution, and there are various forks to that distribution, such as for the Hyperledger foundation. Hyperledger is an industry group that manages core Blockchain open source code. There is also the Ethereum Project managing other forks.
Syncsort also sees Blockchain as important to our customers going forward. We recently joined Hyperledger so that we can help contribute to it, like we did in the early days of Hadoop and Spark. Blockchain has a lot of hype around it, though. One of the biggest things we’re trying to do is see what is hype and what is reality. Why do you think Blockchain has been riding so high on the hype train?
Hype serves an important purpose which is to raise people’s awareness and understanding of particular things. Usually in a marketing context, if you want to sell products, you have to make people aware of it and what it can do. Everyday technology has a hype cycle so, what you have to do if you’re a buyer is get down to exactly what the product does, what differentiates it from other approaches. How mature is this technology? Is it a stable code base? Are there standards? How widely is it adopted? How tested is it? Is there an ecosystem around it?
Blockchain has actually been around for about 10 years. Over that time, it’s grown in a lot of ways, one of which is in its tie to cryptocurrencies and the media around that. It has raised awareness of the Blockchain with a lot of business people, technical people and even consumers.
Supply chain management is one of the dominant use cases or patterns where I’ve seen Blockchain deployed. But the general understanding isn’t there yet. I wrote an article last May for SiliconANGLE called, “Blockchain isn’t ready for enterprise primetime. Here’s what will get it there.” The hype is well in advance of people’s understanding of what Blockchain is all about. That’s a fact.
It’ll take a couple of years for a general understanding across Blockchain and the technologies related to it to really get to a point where people are as familiar with Blockchain as they are now with something like mobile computing. So, the awareness will take a while. Also, it will take a while for the startup community to catch up. There are a LOT of startups, but none of them have really taken off yet. I could list some names, but they’re all unfamiliar to most people, even technical people.
Ten years ago when Hadoop got started, there were a bunch of startups, and a few rose above the rest, and built substantial businesses based on Hadoop: Cloudera, Hortonworks, MapR and a few others. There is no equivalent, familiar brand, yet, that’s focused on Blockchain as a platform vendor. For this space to mature, for us at Wikibon to consider it mature, there needs to be a few of these startups that rise above the pack and survive. An enterprise IT professional needs to know that these companies will be around in a few years.
Also, many of the big, established IT vendors have already stepped in with their own Blockchain products and services. I mean, IBM certainly does. AWS launched their own platform over the past year or so. So has Microsoft, Oracle, and so has VMware.
What I’m getting at is all of these established IT vendors are starting to test the waters in terms of the Blockchain market with tech solutions and cloud services. None of them has had runaway success in terms of Blockchain platform, in terms of adoption. None have become the de facto standard either. We haven’t even gotten to the point where the M & A in this space has picked up.
The hype is very much in advance of the actual maturation in the shakeout of the Blockchain space
Yeah. There’s no Cloudera, or Hortonworks that’s come forward for yet.
Not yet, no.
Be sure to check out Part 2 of this conversation where we deep dive into the real practical value of the Blockchain and some of the business use cases where it shines.
Jim is Wikibon’s Lead Analyst for Data Science, Deep Learning, and Application Development. Previously, Jim was IBM’s data science evangelist. He managed IBM’s thought leadership, social and influencer marketing programs targeted at developers of big data analytics, machine learning, and cognitive computing applications. Prior to his 5-year stint at IBM, Jim was an analyst at Forrester Research, Current Analysis, and the Burton Group. He is also a prolific blogger, a popular speaker, and a familiar face from his many appearances as an expert on theCUBE and at industry events.
Also, make sure to download our white paper on Why Data Quality Is Essential for AI and Machine Learning Success.
Immerse Yourself in Virtual Reality at TIBCO NOW 2018
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are exciting new technologies that are driving innovation for many businesses today. With the rise in popularity of consumer applications like Pokémon GO that went viral and grabbed the US population’s attention a few years back, businesses are realizing that at some point, they too will incorporate VR and/or AR into their strategy to build one-of-a-kind engagements with their customers.
Some industries are already taking advantage of this new tech. For instance, in the automotive world, mechanics are using AR goggles to try and figure out what’s broken in a car by comparing the 3-D images of the vehicle to the actual vehicle. This saves an enormous amount of time and energy that a mechanic would otherwise have had to search through manuals and examine the entire car top to bottom, running various tests.
The automotive world is also allowing customers to virtually visit showrooms and take their cars on test drives, all from the comfort of their home. In some factories, VR and AR are being used to simulate workflows to detect and fix problems, without having to take the entire factory down. Companies like Ikea are enabling customers to virtually place Ikea furniture in their homes before buying while Sephora’s venture in AR is allowing customers to virtually try on their various makeup lines. It really makes you think – how could I use this technology to grab my customer’s attention and set myself apart from the competition?
Imagine enabling your customers to experience your products through an augmented or virtual interface. Or, for the B2B audience, making an emotional connection through VR or AR with your products. Visualize your customers being able to test out your products (even software) and experience the outcomes in a VR setting. Powerful.
That’s why at TIBCO NOW 2018, we’ve got a whole section focused on leveraging this innovative technology, our “Technology Hub”, where you can experience the merging of TIBCO and the latest tech with VR. Our Technology Hub will have over 80 demos by partners, sponsors, and TIBCO engineers who are experimenting with VR’s application in business and how it applies to emerging tech like IoT and blockchain. There, you can network with your peers and see how VR can enhance your company’s innovation strategy.
TIBCO NOW 2018 will provide you with the opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the technologies that will shape your business’s future.
Resilient No More: Insurers Face A New Reality Of Digital Disruption
Regulations, product complexity, and large balance sheets have long sheltered insurers from a massive wave of disruption that has impacted the rest of the world. But that is all changing as the digital effect becomes a normal part of consumers’ lives and opens the door to unlikely competitors.
“The insurance industry is certainly facing an interesting shift now that digital titans, such as Amazon and Apple, are testing their competitive value as nontraditional insurers. And consumer interest in purchasing insurance from these big tech firms is growing exponentially,” says Reet Das, chief marketing officer for Insurance Thought Leadership.
In under 30 seconds, Reet summed up perfectly what’s at stake for the industry as this seismic, tech-driven shift begins to take shape. As competition continues to heat up, incumbent insurers have no choice but to take a fresh look at their business models and customer experiences if they want to stay in the game.
Reet and I recently met to further explore this new reality of digital disruption and discover an emerging partnership that can help insurance companies quickly prepare for the changes ahead.
Reet, virtually every industry has been impacted by the rise of digitalization over the last few years – except for the insurance industry. But now it seems the time has come. What do insurers need to do differently now?
Historically, insurance companies have been highly focused on their products and services, not necessarily on the customer experience. But as nontraditional players begin to emerge, this mindset is becoming more of a liability than a competitive advantage.
According to the “World Insurance Report 2018” from Capgemini and Efma, the insurance industry ranks third behind retail (consumer products) and banking in customer service. And as we all know, these new competitors are widely known e-commerce retailers with a reputation for serving up incredibly easy, proactive, and fast customer experiences.
The entire insurance industry – from the carrier, broker, and agent to the third-party administrator – must put their customers at the center of the business. I can’t underscore the importance of this new imperative enough. Incumbent insurers have to view their business from the outside-in, instead of the inside-out.
Your company has developed a vast network that matches insurance carriers, venture capitalists, advisories, consultancies, brokers, and agents with insurtechs that can help them quickly create new opportunities and pioneer new business models. Why do you believe that a partnership with insurtechs is critical for insurers to overcome this wave of disruption?
Many insurance companies are not well-versed – let alone, comfortable – with investing the time, money, and resources needed to innovate with digital technology. There are so many emerging technologies and ideation concepts available that it can be difficult to know where to start first.
Insurtechs give insurers a holistic – and honest – view of their business from internal processes, such as document management and workflow, to external customer-facing applications and claims processing.
By packaging proven best practices, expertise, lessons learned, and tools, insurtechs help insurers create and deliver breakthrough processes and experiences that resonate with the evolving marketplace, as well as change the very nature of their traditional business model.
Under the guidance of insurtechs, insurance companies can become a team of technology, processes, and people that rapidly innovates with a well-defined roadmap. This is more than just innovating for the sake of innovation; it’s about igniting the insurers’ current and future growth.
Companies innovate to affect the bottom line – in terms of, for example, revenue, internal efficiency, and mitigated risk – based on the overall business approach that happens to be enabled by technology. Insurers can learn from those that have already digitalized their business so they can drive lasting change that gives their customers a reason to stay engaged and steadfastly loyal.
What should insurance companies consider when partnering with an insurtech?
Insurers should maintain a clear vision on how they want to fulfill the ultimate promise of insurance – to provide coverage for today and what might be coming down the road. They must be readily available when any customer experiences a catastrophe or life change and to process those claims quickly, simply, and reliably.
No matter the technology implemented, process adopted, and employee enabled, the right insurtech empowers all aspects of the insurance business to embrace next-generation capabilities with scalable solutions that make that value proposition evident for all customers.
Discover how your insurance business can provide groundbreaking experiences that not only grow your company but also keep your customers loyal for life. Read the press release on the exciting new partnership between SAP and Innovator’s Edge, powered by Insurance Thought Leadership.