Tag Archives: Through
Teradata and Deutsche Telekom Strike Strategic Partnership to Make German SMBs More Successful Through Data, Analytics
Teradata becomes Deutsche Telekom’s central partner for providing data analytics to customers, Teradata Vantage is added into Deutsche Telekom’s portfolio of IT solutions for SMBs, Deutsche Telekom develops the “Digital Sales Assistant”
By combining the strengths of Teradata and Deutsche Telekom, customers benefit from dual technology expertise and an end-to-end offering: Teradata contributes leading software for data analytics and decades of experience in data science and business consulting; Deutsche Telekom provides a comprehensive cloud ecosystem, demand-driven infrastructure, highly secure data centers, IT security and IoT solutions over the proven Telekom network.
“This partnership gives SMBs access to data analyses that only large companies have been able to carry out to date,” said Hagen Rickmann, Director Business Customers at Telekom Deutschland. “By combining our strengths, we can provide affordable solutions created especially for our customers.”
Teradata Vantage: Turning Data into Answers
As the basis for this partnership, Deutsche Telekom is integrating the leading analytics platform, Teradata Vantage, into its IT solution portfolio. For SMBs in Germany, this provides unprecedented easy and efficient access to data analytics, bypassing the technological complexity that has previously been a barrier to entry. With Vantage, customers can analyze enormous amounts of data in the cloud from a wide variety of sources – including, but not limited to, sensors, machines, smartphones or social media – in real time. By leveraging tools such as machine learning for artificial intelligence, SMBs can discover answers to business-critical questions, increasing their ability to make data-driven decisions.
“Data is the backbone of any digital transformation, much like SMBs are the backbone of success and innovation in the German economy,” said Oliver Ratzesberger, President and CEO of Teradata. “Data and analytics – areas that are so crucial for all businesses today – are especially challenging for SMBs to properly leverage, given their lack of in-house expertise and smaller budgets. Together with Deutsche Telekom, we are proud to close this gap by offering a cloud-based, simple solution: we manage the infrastructure, and entrepreneurs focus on the analytics that lead to answers, innovation and growth.”
Digital Sales Assistant: Application in Development
Using Teradata Vantage, Deutsche Telekom is already developing its data analytics application for the company’s SMB customers: The “Digital Sales Assistant”, which will enable the sales force to immediately recognize the needs of its customers and respond to them more precisely. By combining existing data sources, such as CRM, ERP, public open source, social media, IoT and telecom data, the sales force gains previously undiscovered information about its customers and is empowered with intelligent recommendations, such as “next best offer,” price/margin optimization and demand forecasts.
The Digital Sales Assistant, an easy first access point for SMBs to begin using data and analytics, is expected to be available in spring 2020.
Industry Focus: Retail, Real Estate, Industrial Production
Teradata and Deutsche Telekom will initially address companies that do business in retail, real estate and industrial production. Each of these industries can particularly benefit from data and analytics in the following ways:
- Retail: Data helps retailers optimize their stores, calculate prices correctly, manage logistics chains better and, most importantly, understand customers’ needs.
- Real estate: Providers can use data analytics to make building-specific forecasts on value creation, occupancy and operating costs. These factors work to determine the value of a property on the basis of factors such as location and trends, or to determine the costs of buying, selling and converting buildings.
- Industrial production: Data is the basis for the smart factory of the future and smart manufacturing. By analyzing sensor data in machines, anomalies can be detected and a possible failure can be predicted. This type of predictive maintenance offers enormous savings potential.
About Deutsche Telekom
https://www.telekom.com/en/company/company-profile
Automatically rotate through Power BI report pages on your browser
This question comes up pretty regularly, I have a big screen in my hallway and I want to show some Power BI reports that rotate. Now there is some build in functionality in the Windows 10 App for Power BI for it that you can check out here. But there have been some cases where this doesn’t work, like for example if you want your report to run outside of your domain using B2B or when using Power BI embedded that both cannot load the report in the Win 10 app.
Turns out there is a pretty simple solution to do this using a simple Chrome extension called Tab Rotate that will do the trick. Once you install it you can configure which pages it needs to load like this:
You can just copy and paste the page you are on from Power BI, every report page has it’s own URL so that works great. Also make sure to add “?chromeless=1” the URL to make sure it opens the report fully without Power BI navigation.
Now it will rotate between all the tabs and also refreshed the pages each time.
The extension also allows you to create a single JSON file that you can place somewhere on the web if you want to run this on many TV’s and manage all links in a single place.
There are plenty of other ways to do this that I found but this one was one of the easiest and free.
A Look at My First 30 days at TIBCO Through the Lens of Spotfire
If you’re a data analyst who’s evaluating TIBCO Spotfire, or a Spotfire customer, I’m delighted to virtually meet you—my name is Lori Witzel, I’m the new Director of Product Marketing for Spotfire, and a large part of my role for Spotfire will involve listening to and learning from analysts and customers like you. In this blog, I’ll share a non-traditional look at my first 30 days with TIBCO, using a metaphorical framework that echoes some of what I’ve heard about Spotfire.
Augmented intelligence makes for better outcomes
Listening to and learning from many different sources is a core function for Product Marketing Managers (PMM) and research shows that more sources make for better outcomes. These diverse sources augment a Product Marketer’s own experience and intelligence, making it more likely that the products a PMM supports will delight their customers. (This constant learning is also a key reason why I love being a PMM.)
In my first 30 days with TIBCO, it’s clear that augmented intelligence is not just what our analytics products provide–it’s infused throughout the organization, in the quality and volume of information shared among teams and via business systems to enable better real-time decision-making. In a less metaphorical way, what I’ve heard from analysts like you: Spotfire’s ability to seamlessly consume disparate data, whether at-rest, streaming, on-premises, or in the cloud, augments business intelligence and enables better decision-making.
Adaptive intelligence transforms—and is transformed by—the process of learning
There are few things more exciting than starting something new–whether it’s a new job or a new high-impact project—learning through discovery changes the way we fit into and improve the world around us. I’m learning and discovering new things every day at TIBCO, and being stretched and challenged in all the best ways. As I adapt and transform myself, I’ve heard that my new-to-TIBCO perspective is transforming how our teams engage with data analysts like you.
My first 30 days at TIBCO have been the start of a great adventure in learning, and you can help me as I learn and evolve. I’d love to connect, and would love to learn if you’ve explored AI-infused discovery in Spotfire X. Message me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/loriaustex.
Working and learning at the edge
Because of the importance of listening and learning for a PMM, metaphorically speaking, the role embodies aspects of streaming intelligence. We’re “at the edge,” gathering information from people like you, from disparate sources through real-time engagement and interactions. This information becomes something we can act on to generate insights for our colleagues and our peers. Those insights, in turn, are shared back out to the source – analysts like you – in the form of product enhancements, which in turn leads back to further information gathering. In these early days at TIBCO, the new information I’m exposed to is daunting—but it’s part of working at the edge, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Let’s augment our intelligence together
For data analysts who are ready to evolve their careers and their organizations, Spotfire is the de facto standard for analytics augmented intelligence. My request? Let’s take that next step in augmented intelligence together. If you’re a Spotfire user, an analytics professional, a data scientist, I want to learn from you and hear your analytics stories–what’s important to you, what your use cases have been, how a recent discovery via analytics has made a difference. Look for me at TIBCO NOW London, at other upcoming Spotfire events, or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/loriaustex. I hope you’ll connect, and help make my next 30 days as exciting as my first 30 days.
C
Learn all about Spotfire, join the Spotfire community and watch the Dr. Spotfire channel on YouTube.
TIBCO NOW Chicago: Harness Innovation Everywhere through Digital Products, Optimized Operations, and Excellent Customer Service
The final details of TIBCO NOW Chicago are coming together, and we’re excited to share the latest in innovation everywhere at our second leg of the 2019 TIBCO NOW Global Tour! Next week in the Windy City, get ready to unlock the full potential of innovation—through your operations, by providing top-notch customer experiences, and producing cutting-edge digital products.
Compelling Customer Service
Happy customers are the cornerstone of any successful business, but transforming the customer experience to keep up with digital evolution is no easy feat. Adapting your business processes at the same pace as the ever-changing ideals of customers sometimes means predicting the future. Fortunately, that’s not beyond the realm of possibility with TIBCO. Check out one of our Customer Sessions on the topic, join a related Hands-On Lab, or check out the Innovation in CX: Building Competitive Advantage through Transformative Customer Experience Panel Session, led by David Rosen, digital transformation strategist at TIBCO.
Innovative Digital Products
Learning how to leverage your digital ecosystem is vital to your company’s success, whether you’re in retail, entertainment, financial services, or healthcare. But how do you continuously stay ahead of the curve with your digital innovation? Grab a front-row seat at our General Session, where top innovators will be speaking about their own tried-and-true methods of creating connected digital products and services. TIBCO partners and customers will share the stage with our own innovative executives, including Nelson Petracek, global chief technology officer the brilliant mind behind TIBCO’s Connected Intelligence platform.
Optimized Operations
Your digital transformation journey impacts every facet of your business, including customer engagement, supply chain, and staying ahead of the competition. But how do you operate at the speed and scale of digital? By connecting to data of any source and any type; by unifying the information derived from your data—allowing your data to become a strength utilized by your entire organization; and by augmenting intelligence in order to produce the most critical outcomes from your information.
Aligning your operations with your digital business goals is one of your top priorities, so check out the packed agenda to see how TIBCO NOW can aid you in reaching those goals. For instance, are you exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) can help optimize your business? Then join TIBCO’s resident AI expert Michael O’Connell in his breakout session AI On Demand: Data Science in Operations to learn about everything from risk management and anomaly detection to dynamic pricing and customer engagement.
Did you notice some overlap in these business topics? The truth is, just like innovation, these themes do not happen in isolation—you must optimize operations if you want to produce the most innovative digital products in the field. To create the most compelling customer experiences, excellent, cutting-edge products are non-negotiable. Learn how you can achieve all of them together by joining us at TIBCO NOW. Check out the full agenda for a full list of speakers, sessions, labs, and activities.
Visit now.tibco.com to register for TIBCO NOW today. Reading from EMEA? Join us at TIBCO NOW London September 25–26.
TIBCO NOW Chicago: Harness Innovation Everywhere through Digital Products, Optimized Operations, and Excellent Customer Service
The final details of TIBCO NOW Chicago are coming together, and we’re excited to share the latest in innovation everywhere at our second leg of the 2019 TIBCO NOW Global Tour! Next week in the Windy City, get ready to unlock the full potential of innovation—through your operations, by providing top-notch customer experiences, and producing cutting-edge digital products.
Compelling Customer Service
Happy customers are the cornerstone of any successful business, but transforming the customer experience to keep up with digital evolution is no easy feat. Adapting your business processes at the same pace as the ever-changing ideals of customers sometimes means predicting the future. Fortunately, that’s not beyond the realm of possibility with TIBCO. Check out one of our Customer Sessions on the topic, join a related Hands-On Lab, or check out the Innovation in CX: Building Competitive Advantage through Transformative Customer Experience Panel Session, led by David Rosen, digital transformation strategist at TIBCO.
Innovative Digital Products
Learning how to leverage your digital ecosystem is vital to your company’s success, whether you’re in retail, entertainment, financial services, or healthcare. But how do you continuously stay ahead of the curve with your digital innovation? Grab a front-row seat at our General Session, where top innovators will be speaking about their own tried-and-true methods of creating connected digital products and services. TIBCO partners and customers will share the stage with our own innovative executives, including Nelson Petracek, global chief technology officer the brilliant mind behind TIBCO’s Connected Intelligence platform.
Optimized Operations
Your digital transformation journey impacts every facet of your business, including customer engagement, supply chain, and staying ahead of the competition. But how do you operate at the speed and scale of digital? By connecting to data of any source and any type; by unifying the information derived from your data—allowing your data to become a strength utilized by your entire organization; and by augmenting intelligence in order to produce the most critical outcomes from your information.
Aligning your operations with your digital business goals is one of your top priorities, so check out the packed agenda to see how TIBCO NOW can aid you in reaching those goals. For instance, are you exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) can help optimize your business? Then join TIBCO’s resident AI expert Michael O’Connell in his breakout session AI On Demand: Data Science in Operations to learn about everything from risk management and anomaly detection to dynamic pricing and customer engagement.
Did you notice some overlap in these business topics? The truth is, just like innovation, these themes do not happen in isolation—you must optimize operations if you want to produce the most innovative digital products in the field. To create the most compelling customer experiences, excellent, cutting-edge products are non-negotiable. Learn how you can achieve all of them together by joining us at TIBCO NOW. Check out the full agenda for a full list of speakers, sessions, labs, and activities.
Visit now.tibco.com to register for TIBCO NOW today. Reading from EMEA? Join us at TIBCO NOW London September 25–26.
Better Customer Satisfaction Through AI-Enabled CRM
You don’t have to be entrenched in the tech world to have heard the term, “artificial intelligence,” but what is artificial intelligence, or AI, as it’s commonly known? Simply put, AI is the simulation of human intelligence processes performed by machines or computer systems.
Nowadays, AI is being used to carry out many jobs previously held by humans, and while this concept may sound futuristic and even scary to many, there’s no need to panic. Most AI functions are designed to make life easier.
Whether you know it or not, most of us use AI in some form every day. Only 33 percent of people think they use AI, according to one study, but in reality more than 77 percent use some form of AI-powered devices or services.
For example, AI is used by most banks to personalize your experience on their mobile apps, while music services use AI to track your listening habits and then use that data to suggest other songs you may like to hear.
AI and Predictive Lead Scoring
As it relates to business, AI can be beneficial when used in systems and applications by automating repetitive, menial tasks that people used to do manually, thereby increasing company productivity and profitability.
More specifically, sales and marketing tools such as customer relationship management (CRM) software or sales automation platforms that contain AI technology not only can do simple, tedious tasks such as data entry, but also can identify patterns and trends in that data in just seconds, and tell users how best to use it.
With real-time information, sales teams become better equipped to service customers, respond to requests or challenges, and even predict customer buying behaviors. Understanding customer expectations and knowing how to manage them in advance is important not only for the timely delivery of existing products, but also for the promotion of new ones that customers may want or need downstream.
One such ability AI can offer a CRM is predictive lead scoring. Lead scoring is a way businesses and organizations identify and prioritize the highest-quality leads for their salespeople to connect with through a type of scoring system. As a business grows, this helps salespeople manage their time and pursue those leads that make the most sense.
Lead scoring with AI uses algorithms instead of people to predict which leads in a business’ database are qualified. Not all parameters are the same when predicting lead scores. AI easily can factor in information such as forms completed on your website, behavioral data, social media information, demographics, and even external information posted about your company.
With AI for predictive lead scoring, algorithms evaluate what information your customers have in common, as well as what information your leads that did not convert have in common. From there, the algorithm determines a formula that will organize leads for you automatically, so you easily can identify the most qualified ones. Imagine having to do this manually, and you can understand why AI is important for predictive lead scoring.
AI and Sales Forecasting
Along the same lines is the use of AI in sales forecasting. Sales forecasting is the process of estimating or looking ahead to sales downstream. Accurate sales forecasts can help companies make data-driven business decisions and predict performance both in the short and long term.
Sales forecasts can be based on industry comparisons, market trends, or even past sales data. With AI, companies can gain a better understanding of future revenue, improve resource allocation, better align teams with objectives, and calculate growth models.
If setting prediction parameters around your sales pipeline is difficult or unclear, or if sales forecasting is inaccurate, despite lots of legacy or current CRM data, you may need AI support in this regard.
AI and Natural Language Processing
Another powerful feature of an AI-enabled CRM is natural language processing (NLP). There are several ways people define NLP, but most tend to describe it as the ability of computers to understand and interpret human language the way it is written or spoken.
When a machine processes texts or spoken words from humans, they’re looking at data in 1s and 0s and not really hearing words. For AI to understand what you’re saying and turn those words into an action, NLP comes into play. Definitions aside, NLP can be used in several ways to enhance customer experience through a CRM.
For example, it can be used to determine what customers want from an email or text-based message. Customers or prospects often make similar requests through emails. A financial-based organization, for example, may receive daily messages from customers requesting new checks, or to open a new account, apply for a new credit card, or report a stolen card. Natural language processing can scan these messages and begin working on them before sales and customer support get involved.
What’s more, NLP then can determine which customer requests to prioritize. Reporting a stolen card is clearly more urgent than needing new checks. NLP can push customer and prospect requests that are urgent or time-sensitive to the front of the line, where sales and customer service can respond quickly.
When enabled through AI, NLP also can examine customer email interactions to get a better understanding of their experience, whether positive or negative. An organization that leverages insights in this way can remedy customer issues quickly, before they escalate.
AI Tracking
Sales departments also can use AI to record voice meetings and phone calls, time-stamp specific notes, obtain transcripts, and even identify topics or words of specific meaning — like “budget,” “pricing” or “actions items” — or even target specific people. Sales teams then can return to exact moments in conversations after the call, glean specific insights, and combine them with existing CRM data to determine a best course of action.
Going deeper, AI can be used to analyze speaking patterns, word choices, or voice inflections to determine a caller’s emotions and offer resolution recommendations to sales reps, which could include telling users to slow speech pace, soften their tone, or even prompt supervisors to get involved when necessary.
One of the best ways for businesses to understand the needs of their customers is through tracking feedback, which can be collected through questionnaires, reviews, online comments and more.
A well-constructed survey can provide insightful and quantitative data, discover problems or challenges, and ultimately help a business gauge its progress or improvement over time. AI technology can not only streamline customer feedback programs and tactics, but also help companies eliminate unnecessary actions by evaluating communications that happen naturally every day.
At their core, CRMs are designed to store customer information and lots of it. AI easily can be applied to keeping customer records and information up to date, with little human help or data entry. These days, there is significantly more information than name, address, phone number and email that can be harvested and added to a customer’s profile, including social media channels, applications used, and even popular geolocation visits.
While AI can help sales teams dig through industry and social media data, it also can help companies properly allocate dollars to increase account-based marketing’s return on investment. Sales leaders can be handed high-value accounts or prospects that that meet very specific criteria, as well as search for others that are actively looking to buy. This can help marketers focus marketing and advertising funds toward prospects with the highest buying interest and prioritize engaged leads.
Who Needs AI?
Now that we’ve touched on a few ways AI can be leveraged in your business’ CRM system, the question is, do you really need it — or is it just another superfluous addition that won’t provide you with any real value? Not surprisingly, the answer depends on your business.
The common denominator, however, is this: The more data your business collects about customers and prospects, the greater the need for a CRM solution that can not only analyze all the data, but also provide useful insights and recommendations.
The move toward more powerful and more efficient CRM systems that reduce costs and save time is now possible thanks to AI. In today’s digital age, prompt, personalized and predictive services are essential to guaranteeing customer satisfaction and creating brand loyalty.
Businesses that utilize the full power of their CRM will find value in an integrated AI tool. On the other hand, organizations that struggle with their CRM, or with figuring out if they need one, likely will find AI confusing and unnecessary.
At the end of the day, CRM and AI are just tools from the sales and marketing toolbox. Neither replaces a thoughtful marketing strategy targeted at the right time, at the right audiences, and in the right context.
Conversely, a solid marketing strategy is only as good as the technology it sits on. Before leaping into the AI waters, master the fundamentals of your existing CRM. Once you’ve done that, unleashing the power of AI will help strengthen your sales and marketing teams and improve customer satisfaction.
Arun Upadhyay, CEO and founder of LionOBytes, is a technology expert and serial entrepreneur. He has a proven record leading teams and producing cutting-edge IT solutions. His experience spans various continents, industries and corporate sizes (startup to Fortune 500). His latest venture is
LionO360, a cloud-based CRM designed specifically for small to medium-sized businesses. Upadhay holds an MBA from Temple University’s Fox School of Business and Management.
Top Trends to Watch in Analytics through 2020
Innovation in analytics and business intelligence (BI) is a must-have for companies trying to ensure a successful future in the digital age. For companies looking to innovate and keep pace with the ever-evolving field of analytics, understanding the trends that will have the biggest impact is critical. That’s why TIBCO and Shawn Rogers conducted a global survey on the subject.
Rogers, senior director of analytics strategy at TIBCO and an internationally recognized thought leader, speaker, and author in the analytics space wanted to better understand and explore the strategies and challenges companies face when trying to push innovation forward in their analytics programs. Based on responses from over 600 CXOs, SVP/VPs, managers, and directors, Rogers found some interesting learnings that can help other organizations be more innovative with their own analytics programs. We share a few of them below.
Top Technologies Innovative Companies are Using
The types of technologies that companies are using, according to the survey results detailed in the graph below, largely depend on where they are in their journey to digitally transform their business and processes for the modern world.
But what does that mean for your company?
It means that as you move along in your journey, you will need to implement new technologies that will give you the innovative edge you are looking for.
So it’s time to ask yourself: Where does your company stand? Are you a digital expert, digital conservative, experimenter, or at the beginning stage of your analytics journey? Wherever you are now, the results of the survey indicate that your company should be prepared to shift focus and move toward more disruptive technologies as you progress through the different stages of digital transformation. Cloud Technologies, Business Intelligence, and Analytics along with Application and Data Integration are foundational technologies to your journey.
Top BI & Analytics Use-Cases
While Rogers expected to see a few prominent use cases rise to the top of the list, that was not the case. Instead, the survey showed an almost equal distribution among use cases that innovative companies have found for BI and analytics, as you can see in the chart below.
Probably due to the current pervasiveness of BI and analytics, the use cases varied widely and yet were all critical to digital transformation, decision-making, and innovation. Despite the wide variety of use cases, BI and analytics have definitely found a home inside companies across different domains, allowing them to use more of their data in meaningful ways.
Could any of these use cases help your company to push forward in its innovation journey?
Innovation in Analytics – Trends to watch through 2020
In addition to top use cases and technologies, the survey surfaced some strong themes, indicating trends that will be important for the upcoming years.
Here are the top four trends that emerged:
- Smarter Analytics: solutions today need to be infused with artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and Natural Language querying for better decision making
- Data Wrangling: organizations need the power to wrangle, tweak, or move data even at the final stages of finishing a project to keep things moving forward
- Collaboration: growing analytics teams are widening to include non-experts and encouraging and enabling diversity of insight on projects is increasingly important
- Outcome focus: operationalizing analytics, pushing it out into the field for use, managing it, and governing it, is vital to any successful AI or ML initiative
Advice for Taking Advantage of These Innovations
Rogers has five tips for companies that want to take advantage of these innovations, but you’ll need to tune in to the on-demand webinar to hear those.
Don’t hesitate to take advantage of these opportunities to transform your business for the digital age. Learn more about how companies are innovating in analytics and business intelligence and understand how you can do the same with TIBCO® Data Science.
Transforming Leadership Education Through Exchange Programs
We see scores of self-help books, motivational articles, and management forums elaborating upon the to-dos and how-tos for leadership. They all, more or less, articulate the same messages:
- Be agents of change
- Build one-on-one relationships with your people
- Be diplomatic, rely on tact, and rein in your urge to deliver blunt feedback
- Be credible; you are being watched
- Communicate effectively and consistently
- Motivate and reward your employees
- Manage conflicts with wizardry
Yes, of course, these are tried and tested approaches.
Yes, we all agree that they bring effective results!
And yes, they not only help in building good leadership skills; they also help in the overall development of the manager. However, how many management initiatives help managers adopt these methods?
The case for education
Clearly, not everybody comes with inborn communication skills or the art of conflict management. Management skills need to be acquired through multiple instruments such as certification, training, and advanced education – programs designed to enable managers to enable their teams.
While education equips a person with tools for success, the most important question is: does it enable you, as a manager, to fulfill your role as a leader in practice? For managers to become enablers, they need to educate themselves beyond going to trainings and experience practical applications of the things they learn. The learnings gleaned from management books look good in theory but need to pass the litmus test of being deployable in real-world situations.
The case for exchange programs
Education is not only updating knowledge through learning material, info sessions, and training. Education includes on-the-job opportunities such as shadowing and coaching. One very creative and daring instrument is the expert exchange program – which isn’t considered enough when discussing manager enablement programs.
Typically, an exchange program involves two managers swapping of roles or teams (or both). To draw from a real-world experience, we tested this approach in our own teams. In Q3 of 2017, we joined the exchange program, swapping our teams for a two-month period: Friedrich moved to human capital management (HCM) from financials and Richard moved to financials from HCM. This was step 1.
Step 2, the day-to-day implementation of the program, was the most significant part. It required each us to let go of our existing teams and responsibilities and embark upon an adventurous journey into unknown territories and situations. Right from the start, we were tasked with handling completely new people, topics, and processes. From the first day, we learned that what worked in our original teams did not necessarily work within the new contexts.
Small things that became clear right away were the differences in complexity and composition of our new assignments. The priorities were different and so were the expected results, as were other layers of criteria such as location, local laws, and industry-specific best practices.
We learned that the exchange program is not just education, it is also an eye-opener. We experienced the adage: Do not judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes. This line not only underscores the need for empathy but also hints at the need for diversity in experiences. This led us to step 3 – the learnings!
Learnings and accomplishments
Breaking the rut of siloed thinking
In many hierarchical companies, it is natural for organizations to think of their own units and put their interests ahead of others’ priorities. Although practical and legitimate, this might not be the best approach in terms of all factors, such as budget. The exchange program asks participants to consider the context of others and helps them develop empathy. This is not forced. It comes from a feeling of ownership and the ability to see problems from the inside – which you were not privy to previously. The exchange program can be very effective in succession management or preparing you for the next step of your career. You can also ramp up in a new topic through the exchange and expand your portfolio of offerings as a contributor.
Acquiring new perspectives
When you take on the mantle of the new team, you can see many things from a different angle. You gain new perspectives and have the opportunity to learn from the other team’s best practices, which you can then apply to your own team when you return.
Viewing problems from the outside
Not only can you gain new learnings from your new team, you can continue learning from your own team after stepping away. Yes, you read it right! As soon as “his” problem becomes “mine,” there is a shift in perspective that helps you understand the situation. You learn it is easy to critique something from far away. However, conversely, when “my” problem becomes “his,” the detachment from the situation can actually help find solutions. You can see the overall situation only when you step out of it.
Embracing the success factors
- Do your homework by acquiring knowledge about your new business domain.
- Trust your exchange partner to provide full transparency about his or her department.
- For your part, ensure that there are “keine Leichen im Keller,” which is similar to the English phrase “no skeletons in the cupboard.” Let your exchange partner know all relevant details – warts and all.
- As this program requires the participants to move out of their comfort zones, ensure you are willing to learn.
- Get your team in order before you hand it over as a mess to your exchange partner. Imagine what you would do if you were to let someone else live in your house. Consider it as an “Airbnb” for business departments.
- Have a culture that can foster this kind of growth and that can accept potential upcoming issues.
Adopting the how-tos
- Make yourself unavailable for your original team.
- However, be available for your exchange partner.
- Take the risk of not being the expert. Expect a steep learning curve. Learn fast. Ask, ask, ask. Especially ask why.
- Take over tasks, take over responsibilities, make decisions. Try to solve the issues of the new department – get fully involved.
- Understand the limitations of the exchange program. For example, if stakeholder management goes far beyond the boundaries of the exchange program and could be business critical, know when to raise the flag.
- Communicate to all involved parties, such as teams and stakeholders.
- Have one-on-one meetings with all team members and key players.
- Exchange your calendars. Exchange your rooms, even if it means relocating to a new city!
Preparing for the challenges
- If there is no trust, it will be a challenge to execute the exchange. If there is a trust deficit, invest in building this first.
Sharing the benefits of the exchange experience
One prerequisite of participating in an exchange program is that the organization offers the openness, freedom, and culture to match anyone with anyone. A “post-requisite” would be that you conduct “lessons-learned” exercises – both from the leader’s perspective and from the department’s perspective. Take inputs from all stakeholders. For example, after our exchange program, our HR wanted us to share our experiences with them so they can invest in this program throughout the company. We were able to share our learnings with them and also highlight the key benefit of enabling two people at no cost.
As an instrument of building leadership, the exchange program is a win-win – it not only benefits the participants but also the entire unit.
Get more advice to transform your career by subscribing to a new podcast A Call to Lead with Jennifer Morgan.
Omaha Beach Bunker And Trench Walk Through
Seeing Omaha Beach from a different perspective.
Stunning! Fully Intact German Strongpoint At Omaha Beach
July 05, 2008
Working Capital Optimization: Put It In Motion Through Effective Change Management
Part 3 of a 3-part series. Read Part 1 and Part 2.
This is the third in a series of three blogs focused on how to develop and implement an effective working capital optimization initiative. Our last blog concluded with options for achieving internal alignment within procurement, finance, and treasury, with the goal of optimizing working capital. Here, we’ll look at the importance of change management.
Implementing strategy through teamwork
There is an old saying, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” This wisdom makes a lot of sense if you are completing a simple task where the results benefit solely you. But what if you are implementing an efficiency project for the betterment of your entire organization?
For these monumental tasks, one person cannot simply do it alone. Achieving project success within your organization requires a team, a plan, and the leadership to effectively coordinate work efforts. Only when these elements are in place can you follow your approach, execute the options at your disposal, and then unlock project benefits on behalf of your entire organization. This means getting stakeholder buy-in both across your organization and with targeted suppliers.
Gaining executive buy-in: why now?
Your organization’s success in executing process-efficiency improvements is as critical now as ever. That’s not because your market has changed, but rather because your competition (global or domestic) is becoming more resourceful with how they manage people and working capital. The tools available for becoming more efficient are now commonplace and continually being enhanced. Between lean training programs, rigorous adherence to best practices, and best-in-class finance and financial technology products like procurement and treasury workstations, continuous improvement is now a way of life. Failure to react to this new dynamic means your industry peers will continually generate more revenue and income with less working capital.
Gaining management buy-in: where to focus?
Through the monthly internal business-review process, most organizations are generating management reports to benchmark key financial indicators like gross margin, the current ratio, the cash conversion cycle, return on capital employed, and other working-capital metrics vs. prior periods. This is a best practice to monitor and manage continual performance improvements within the organization. But how many organizations are benchmarking these same metrics against the average for their industry or even against their peer group? This is truly the starting point to understand how efficiently your company is managing working capital today, across each participating function.
Gaining staff buy-in: getting started
Before kicking off an optimization program, the working capital steering committee should perform an assessment to understand what is at risk and what is the prize. A thorough assessment will take time to perform, but can easily be outsourced to a professional services firm that specializes in this practice. This exercise is central to explaining what is at stake and why full internal commitment to the program is essential. Key components of the assessment will be:
- How efficient is the procurement department in processing purchase orders vs. published benchmarks?
- How efficient is the accounts payable or shared services department in processing Invoices vs. published benchmarks?
- Has your organization performed a concentration risk analysis to ensure that your supply chain will not be adversely disrupted if one supplier suddenly raises prices or fails to perform?
- How adept is your organization when negotiating standard or discounted payment terms with suppliers, given that there may be a number of providers competing to deliver the same product or service?
- How strategic or assertive is your organization in taking discounts?
- Does your organization periodically review bank pricing vs. published benchmarks?
- What financial products (if any) has your organization leveraged to encourage discounts or extend payments?
- What financial technology (if any) is your organization using to achieve the best pricing while maximizing processing efficiencies?
- Have you recently performed a gap analysis of your key working-capital performance indicators vs. your peers?
- Given these key components of working capital, what is the value to your organization if your company could perform at the upper end of these benchmarks by initiating a working-capital optimization program?
Gaining supplier buy-in: crafting your communications plan
Now that your organization understands the value that can be unlocked from a working-capital optimization program, it is time look beyond your four walls and craft a strategy predicated on the results of your working capital assessment.
Segmenting the vendor master is critical:
- Segment vendors by whether they constitute direct or indirect spend. (You may want to craft your strategy separately or together depending on your objectives.)
- Determine which vendors are strategic and sensitive or complement other suppliers. (Sacrosanct venders may be too risky for your operations to upset, while other vendors will aggressively compete for your business and be open to processing changes.)
- Rank sort the vendor’s annual spend along with their number of transactions. (Big-ticket vendors could be steered toward a dynamic discount program, while smaller high-volume vendors should always be paid electronically to maximize processing efficiencies.)
- Look at extending payment terms with vendors while also negotiating discount terms. (If your cash-flow cycle is seasonal, you might want to toggle between extending payments to vendors when cash is lean or taking discounts with excess cash.)
- Determine the most efficient method to pay certain vendors. (Small-transaction, repetitive payments should be routed via low-cost ACH or rebate-earning cards, while checks should be reserved for large payments.)
- Finally, to leverage your work on the above items, tailor your messaging and communications for your internal staff and external suppliers. Internal messaging should focus on reinforcing the value of a successful project and management’s expectation of compliance. External messaging should focus on your program’s goals and reasoning, the value of faster payments for suppliers, and your view that participating suppliers will enjoy preferred status in future sourcing and contracting activities.
This strategy of extending payments or cashing in on discounts, and choosing payment methods to maximize processing efficiencies or yield rebates, will begin to be captured in larger AP balances and lower product costs. Now you’re on your way to optimizing working capital.
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