February 2020 – Management Events

February 25, 2020

Joachim Hensch: Who’s The BOSS of Smart Factory 4.0?

Equipped with automated machines, artificial intelligence (AI), and advanced analytics, the HUGO BOSS production facility in Izmir, Turkey, is just one example of smart factory advancements and digital transformations that the manufacturing sector is undergoing in the new decade.

With an increasing number of manufacturers planning or in the midst of optimizing their operations with smart factory elements, what strategies should they take to attain an Industry 4.0 factory? Management Events interviews Joachim Hensch, the Managing Director for Hugo Boss Textile Industries, on tips to successfully achieve a digital revolution.

The Beginning Of Change

Faced with rising consumer demands and a highly competitive global market, manufacturers are arming themselves with the latest intelligent industrial solutions to thrive and survive in the industry. Foreseeing the need for change, HUGO BOSS began re-imagining their factories into agile and flexible production facilities.

“It all started with the realization that we are operating in an ever more connected market that is becoming progressively unpredictable,” Hensch relates. “There appeared a strong need for a different setup for our factory in order to deal with ever-increasing complexity. Yearly plans became obsolete due to erratic changes in customer behavior and the market environment.”

“Therefore, to keep up with this, we needed to go through a transformation. We started from the organization, continuing with the layout of the factory, the way we deal with new employees, with technology, the way we plan with regard to digitization, the way we treat people, and so on. Basically, we changed everything!”

The Three-Step Plan

While mass-produced products might have satisfied the customers of old, the new generation of consumers are looking for more personalization. Manufacturers are heeding the trending change, moving towards mass customization.

For HUGO BOSS, the Izmir smart factory follows a three-step plan to adapt to today’s market conditions and customer expectations.

“The first part is digital transformation,” Hensch explains. “We connect our 4 main components, which are people, machines, processes, and products, digitally to create a digital twin of the factory.”

“With the help of this, we are able to manage complexity in production and realize digital initiatives in order to improve our efficiency, quality and employee satisfaction.”

“The second step is robotics and automation,” he continues. “In this part, our strategy is to help our people first, and then invent half-automated and completely automated machines.”

“The third step has the artificial intelligence focus. Around this, we work on algorithms that help us with the planning and management of both manufacturing and HR initiatives.”

Overcoming Challenges

HUGO BOSS’ digital transformation is not without its challenges, however. The luxury fashion brand faces concerns with data usability and technology integration.

“Some of the data we collected was unusable but some were extremely valuable for gaining insights into how the factory operated. We follow the scrum mentality work in two-week sprints, and then decide whether to invest more. This way, we build in flexibility and can react fast if something changes on the course.”

“Additionally, we realized that we could not just buy gadgets. We had to convince our people to use it, which meant we had to make the software easy to use. We leveraged gamification a lot when designing the UI, as UI and UX are key parts of digitalization. The systems should be as easy as WhatsApp for their users.”

The Human Touch

Many organizations tend to focus strongly on technology implementation, leading to neglect of workforce integration and fears of machines taking over jobs. But Hensch emphasizes that the fashion industry is probably the least threatened by automation replacing people.

“The most fundamental reason is working with a non-rigid raw material such as fabric. If you want to do something with fabric, you will not be able to find anything better than the sensors in the hands of people for a while.”

Hensch further clarifies that technology should help to support and upskill employees. “The most visible example of this is our training module with virtual reality applications, Virtual Dojo, which we launched in HUGO BOSS Izmir. This project helps us to customize our operator training processes and increases its quality, which cut down our training periods in half and brought us two international awards.”

“If you manage to prepare your human resources for these technologies and use technology in a form that supports people and brings out their skills, I believe there will be a lot of room for people in smart factories in our industry.”

Maintaining A Competitive Edge

As Industry 4.0 brings new innovations and ways of thinking, manufacturers have to adopt the latest emerging technologies in order to stay ahead of the competition. For HUGO BOSS, however, their focus goes beyond normal manufacturing strategies.

“At HUGO BOSS Tekstil Sanayi, we don’t only manufacture products, [we] also generate knowledge there.”

Hensch conveys that, “In Izmir, we generated a consultancy company called HUGO BOSS Solutions, which provides solutions for digital transformation and organizational development. Imagine a ready-to-wear company, that has full-time data scientists, data engineers, speech recognition and Chabot specialists, and image processing technology specialists working together, creating an IT team and a TechnoLab of around 60 people. This is rare in our industry.”

As Hensch continues to discuss HUGO BOSS’ business strategy, it becomes clear that employees are fundamental components for organizational success.

“Technologies are there and it is just a toolset to use,” Hensch expresses. “However, who will use them and how they will be used is much more significant. For the next few years to come, human intelligence will still be the main driver, and to maintain competitive advantage, companies should first focus on their people and their know-how.”

Embracing The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Even though we are already headlong into Industry 4.0, manufacturers are still facing challenges in implementing digitalization changes in their factories. According to Hensch, the setback could be resolved if they have the right system in place.

“In manufacturing, the success of transformation is not about digital screens and sensors, but the creation of the correct engineering ecosystem and organization at the production plant,” he advises. “Digital systems built on a proper engineering infrastructure can be those magic touches that make a true transformation possible and have a dramatic impact on profitability.”

“The good thing was that, in Izmir, we had a neat analog system to start with. What we learned fast is that if you have a messy analog factory and you start building a digital system on top of it, you basically end up with two messy systems.”

Strategic Leadership

However, smart solutions are not the only success factors for the fourth industrial revolution. Sound and strong leadership is also integral for effective and successful digital transformation.

“Simon Sinek has just released a new book called The Infinite Game, and this would be my advice [to leaders],” Hensch imparts. “There is no end. There are always going to be things to improve for the better. Therefore, leaders should keep themselves motivated to discover these improvement areas.”

He also advises leaders to engage their staff when creating a mission or vision. “People will hold back because they think the boss already has all the solutions. You need to give people a lot of space and trust in order to make them contribute and fill this vision, and not define everything by yourself.”

February 24, 2020

Blocks Instead of Lines: A Tale of Fast ROI in IT Projects

Craftware, Salesforce Platinum Partner and UIPath Gold Partner are implementing projects for clients in Europe and the USA. It works directly with business and IT, in both areas ensuring the ultimate value of implementation for organizations and end-users.

Jacek Zawłocki, co-founder and CEO of Craftware, the architect of IT solutions. He took part in numerous projects, including the fintech, retail and telecom industries. Based on project experience, he explains how to smoothly implement IT systems in a company and quickly achieve a Return of Investment thanks to the agile approach and flexibility of Salesforce technology.

Do you know the YouTube blockbuster — a funny video about seven red lines? Yes, it’s the one about a project for seven red lines some of which are to be drawn with green, and some with transparent ink. And all of them must be perpendicular — according to the absurd vision of tenacious customers and the supporting project manager. Everyone insists on completing this awkward order despite the objections of an expert who from the very beginning tries to prove that the task is unfeasible.
Do you want to achieve ROI from an IT project fast? Don’t go down that road!

Business and IT — instead of going to war, we can sit down and talk

Although the video is a clever parody, the business reality is full of such missed ideas, and some of them are made real — this is well known to, for example, employees of advertising agencies. However, the issue is not specific to this industry only. Similar situations are not uncommon in other large organizations, especially in those were business meets (or rather collides with) IT.

“We would like to have a new system to automate and optimize some of our processes” — what happens when sales or marketing departments turn to “their” IT department with such an idea? How is the project carried out? It’s a topic for another article — you can read it here. There, you will learn why projects usually fail, and if they are completed somehow, the budget is exceeded or they are much delayed.

Fortunately, you can do it another way. There are more and more companies that decide to use modern technology platforms… Interest is growing not only in CRM systems but also in RPA platforms, such as UiPath – Craftware is its Gold Partner.

The era of cumbersome IT implementation is slowly coming to an end, giving up its place to the Agile approach and positive scenarios which prove that business and IT do not have to fight each other, but team up in a smart manner. Then, it is possible to successfully complete a project, and… win a bet for a crate of beer by the way — just as Craftware did on one occasion. We were given this gift by our satisfied client — a known and large online business that faced a challenge due to its rapid growth.

Start with MVP

The company decided to sell advertising space on its website. The idea hit the bull’s eye, but the massively increasing number of advertisement reservations and equally rising number of errors, for example, related to advertising space quotations, turned out to be a challenge. The employees were simply falling behind with orders. After a series of consultations with the client, we suggested them to implement a reservation system to eliminate this bottleneck.

“We will provide you with the first version of the system in six weeks,” we declared to the client. “Six weeks? We bet a crate of beer that you won’t be able to do that. This is a project for one and a half years.” As we learned later, this had been the deadline proposed to our client by another vendor.

According to our deal, we implemented MVP at the client after six weeks of starting the work on the project. This first step already brought some visible benefits: the sales of advertising campaigns accelerated by half, and the reservation of a single advertising space by 10%. The risk of errors that happened to the department employees was reduced by one fourth. Of course, the won bet gave us satisfaction, but above all, we were proud of our client’s success. The high level of adoption of the tool was rated “four” by the users, on a five-point scale.

Small steps towards your business goal

The key to success was the Agile approach and our client’s willingness to carry out the project according to this methodology. We agreed that we would work in small steps focusing on business goals.

But let’s imagine that a client — this very specific one (or another one interested in cooperation) — comes to us with an idea of seven red lines and stubbornly sticks to it. They vaguely explain what they want to use the lines for, or do not explain that at all — just like in the video described before. They do not accept our suggestions. How would such a project proceed? Would there be a chance to complete it?

Working on business goals requires the client to take responsibility for the project. It means a willingness to talk to the implementation partner: to give up forcing your own project visions and trust the suggested solutions. However, this responsibility must be also at the other side which means that the partner is reliable, proved, and experienced knows project patterns and how to translate them into business needs, because they put this into practice many, many times. What’s more, they can schedule work properly in time.

Small steps methodology, which means dividing implementation into intervals, enables the business to achieve ROI much faster. Costs are necessary at each stage but — starting from MVP implementation — each and every part of a project brings about visible benefits. As the implemented system grows, the pace at which it starts to turn a profit increases — it is best illustrated by the chart below: the cost and income curves cross very quickly.

Figure — drafted by Craftware

Build on modules

There is also one more element without which the Agile approach would be difficult: access to technology. To implement tools that quickly bring business value and generate the income needed to pay for other functionalities, not only do you have to know them very well, but you also need to have such tools, you need to have the proper technology, such as Salesforce, at hand. Flexibility is one of the greatest advantages of this solution: it allows you to react immediately and extend the range of solutions as the project is carried out.

Executing a project based on Salesforce, which we are the Platinum Partner, is like building a structure using Lego blocks. In both cases, we have a catalog of available solutions, but we also have generic blocks with which we can change, enhance, and enrich the basic products.

Getting back to the seven red lines for the last time: get rid of them and choose… blocks! Think outside the box — software can be built in modules!

I invite you to watch the recording of my speech during the first edition of the MIT Sloan congress, organized by the prestigious MIT Sloan Management Review Polska magazine.

February 17, 2020

Vulnerability Magnitude, Exploitation Velocity, Blast Radius… No, Not Rocket Science

One of the tangible effects of digital transformation is the impact on security teams, processes, and roadmap.

Organizations are realizing that the technology landscape is rich in a very varied digital biodiversity – with species living in the cloud or in containers, in mobility or in the IoT/IIoT parallel universes, and in space-temporal tunnels called CI/CD pipelines.

And this digital biodiversity should be continuously qualified, assessed, and remediated in case anything is too anomalous… all these being responsibilities of Security teams.

The complexity that these actions imply is remarkable, often requiring augmentation of capabilities to avoid a devastating impact on specialized resources.

But capabilities need to be grounded on solid processes, and here is where an issue often surfaces: lack of operational efficiency.

Swiveling chairs, multiple consoles, poorly implemented APIs, manual operations are still common causes of long processes, human errors, and repetitive operations. Some solutions started to appear, to try automating the steps and accelerating the process.

Data about discovered assets are made available to other platforms, which try to transform these data into more refined information that can be processed by algorithms to understand the vulnerabilities detected; then the data about the vulnerable surface is propagated to other solutions which overlay other data to detect the exploitability, to enrich the context provided and enable prioritization; eventually, reports are produced for the infrastructure team to proceed with patching or remediation.

Again, this orchestration does little to improve the operational efficiency, because all the phases are processed by different platforms and different teams with varying objectives; hence these data lack consistency, normalization, and require adaptation to be properly ingested and processed by the subsequent consumer.

In short, there is a lack of a unified workflow.

Qualys invented VMDR, acronym for Vulnerability Management – Detection and Response.

A new app running within the Qualys Cloud Platform, processing the same consistent source of data across the products that implement the entire process through a single and integrated workflow:

asset discovery, categorization, and dynamic tagging;
detection of the vulnerable surface by identifying OS, network vulnerabilities and configuration errors
cyber threat intel based context enrichment, augmented by a machine learning engine to help prioritization
refined prioritization based on exposure, business impact and other unique distinctive traits of the digital landscape where the solution is deployed
Vulnerability-patch correlation, tailored on the assets and perimeters for the considered tags and for the prioritized vulnerable surfaces to be remediated
support the remediation with patch deployment
continuous validation of the security posture according to CIS benchmarks

All this without limits to the sensors you may need to properly observe your IT estate and collect data: software agents conceived to minimize the footprint on the servers/workstations/mobile devices where they are installed, virtual scanners to actively probe the networks, passive sensor listening to traffic and exposing every device visible, cloud APIs to have instant visibility on PaaS/IaaS deployments, container sensors to monitor images in registries or hosts and running containers.

All this in a unified application, where data are collected once and processed efficiently to support the whole workflow. All this with customizable dashboards and reports to keeping critical KPIs under control, and with an API to flow the refined information to other workflows – such as CI/CD pipelines. Besides the operational efficiency, the quality and accuracy of the information produced by this unified workflow using Qualys VMDR effectively support the risk mitigation.

From a more pragmatic standpoint, this boils down to have a clear perception of three important things.

First, the Vulnerability magnitude: this is the synthesis of your vulnerable surface enriched with important contextual information such as the patch availability for a given perimeter, considering supersedence and severity information, and the ability to summarize this information based on the observational needs.

Second, the exploitation velocity: crucially relevant to prioritize and plan the remediation, this data concerning the availability of an exploit. Including details about the ease of exploitation, the potential collateral damages coming from a wormable weaponization of vulnerability or from the potential lateral movement following the possible compromise of a system.

Third, the blast radius: the combination of the network context enriched with the business criticality of assets, the automatic validation of CIS benchmarks, and the ML-assisted risk scoring of the vulnerable and exploitable surface provide a tangible help to estimate the potential harm of a security incident, providing the needed refined information to measure and track the Time To Remediate.

February 13, 2020

IIoT: Which comes first – Martini or Bikini?

When it comes to planning your industrial Internet of Things adoption strategy, all you need is a Martini and a bikini…

What do they have to do with IIoT? And which comes first?

You start with your Martini, of course.

Why? To use an analogy, the couple in the 1970s Martini & Rossi advertisement enjoy things “Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere.” But today’s manufacturers are struggling to do the same, especially when it comes to connecting their assets and data across the enterprise.

So we will adapt the Martini analogy for IIoT Integration: You need the ability to connect “anything, anytime, anywhere.” I’ll get to the bikini later.

Although manufacturers place a high value on IIoT, they are encountering serious difficulties in unlocking the value of their innovation across their organizations. This is the conclusion of a recent Software AG IIoT survey of over 125 North American manufacturers*.

The vast majority of manufacturers said their IIoT investments are limited by being locked in one small department or sector of their company, preventing them from sharing the power of IIoT across the enterprise.

We call this a “fractured enterprise” and, in the Internet of Everything economy, the fractured enterprise cannot hope to compete. Half-answers from disconnected enterprise assets result in ill-founded decisions – or business reaction times that are too slow to be effective.

Manufacturers can lose millions of dollars in potential profits as they fall behind more forward-thinking competitors who have invested in predictive analytics and innovative integration strategies to scale IIoT across the enterprise.

Total integration is what makes a fractured enterprise whole, and total integration – on-premises, in the cloud and at the edge – is the only way to build successful IoT architectures, landscapes or applications.

To prepare for IoT, Industry 4.0 or a digital future, the enterprise must integrate, integrate, integrate. It makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

So, what about the bikini? If the Martini is integration, the bikini is analytics. Analytics are like bikinis; what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital (to paraphrase academic Aaron Levenstein!). But don’t start with analytics before integration (a mistake which is often made in IIoT projects).

What does the IIoT bikini reveal about analytics? Usually, it means that the analytics must stay in the hands of domain experts. Data scientists can help by revealing what is suggestive. But it is the shop floor operator, the product designer, the finance director – those closest to the issue – that can uncover the real operational insights that would otherwise remain concealed.

Martinis and bikinis: A holistic approach to integration and analytics. So, in a nutshell, mix your Martinis before donning your bikinis (although you wouldn’t normally phrase it this way at a management meeting.)

This is Software AG’s approach, integrate anything (from assets to apps to back-end systems), anywhere (from the edge to the shop floor to the cloud). Then add a layer of “anytime” – streaming, historical, external, internal and time series data analysis and AI – to uncover and reveal the information that will transform your enterprise.

This is why Gartner has acknowledged Software AG as an IIoT “visionary.”

*The Software AG IIoT Implementation survey was completed in Q2 2019 by Software AG and an independent third-party research house. The survey queried nearly 200 respondents at large manufacturing companies across the automotive, heavy industry, high-technology, electronics, pharmaceutical, and medical device industries. The respondents were primarily senior executives leading manufacturing or information technology, with the breakdown being 50% Managers, 38% Directors and 13% Vice Presidents or higher.

February 10, 2020

How To Become a Data-Driven Organization

1. Which capabilities do organizations need to become data-driven organizations?

The data-driven organization is not a new concept. Put simply, any business that is making business decisions based on facts, rather than based on gut feelings, opinions, and emotions, is a data-driven company. In a data-driven organization not only senior management makes data-driven decisions, but all decisions at all levels are made based on facts. It is therefore about strategic decisions: “are we extending our services to another industry?”, Tactical decisions: “are we hiring this applicant?”, and operational decisions in the workplace: “are we giving this customer a discount?”

Data-driven organizations make sound decisions in a continuous data-driven business cycle. This cycle requires the following three capabilities:

Tech-savvy (Data creation & integration): Ability to create and collect all relevant digital data, and integrate and structure this data into information.
Data fluency (BI & Analytics): Ability to deduce intelligence & insights from data & information.
Data literacy (Decision management): Ability to make decisions & formulate actions based upon intelligence & insights.

Figure 1: data-driven business cycle with the required capabilities.

Most organizations face difficulties in meeting the technical and organizational requirements to become a data-driven entity. Gartner forecasted that 80% of companies would address their lack of proficiency in data literacy by 2020. Many organizations now recognize this and are starting to change their perspective towards data and analytics. They are beginning to understand that data and analytics can be a significant factor in creating value and shaping business strategies for data-driven businesses. One example is H&M Group’s data mesh journey, a domain-based approach to setting up data architecture within the company.

Tech-savvy capability

Without a big data & analytics platform, the organization is literally driving with blindfolds. Yet qualified people with expertise on the cloud, big data, and data science are scarce and hard to get. And it’s even harder to keep them because a high salary and job security are not enough to keep them satisfied. And even if they are staying with you, they need constant adaptation and learning.

Data fluency capability

Like being fluent in a language, data fluency enables people to express ideas about data in a shared language. In a business context, data fluency connects employees across roles through a set of standards, processes, tools, and terms. Data fluent employees can turn piles of big data into actionable insights because they understand how to interpret it, know the data that is and isn’t available, as well as how to use it appropriately.

Data literacy capability

Data literacy is the ability to read, work with, analyze, and argue with data. Much like literacy as a general concept, data literacy focuses on the competencies involved in working with data.

Every employee on all levels needs technical skills. But being tech-savvy is not enough, soft skills are far more important. Two kinds of soft skills, in particular, are essential:

critical thinking skills: agility, collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving
business skills: communication, negotiation, leadership, project management, planning, delegation, time management, privacy, and ethics.

But the most crucial success factor is the right mindset: Have an open-minded growth mindset (instead of a fixed mindset). Every employee must be accountable for his own success and learning journey. By far the biggest challenge and learning curve is for senior management. Data-driven businesses increase transparency, and transparency reduces power. If that isn’t threatening enough, the rise of Artificial intelligent driven automated decision making is potentially degrading managers from drivers behind the wheel to guiding passengers.

2. Strategic roadmap towards a data-driven enterprise

All three capabilities must be developed and maintained guided by an overarching strategic roadmap towards a data-driven culture. Building a data-driven enterprise is not just about encouraging the use of data in decision-making. Data and analytics leaders must lead the development of the correct competencies and rebalance work to be consistent with their enterprise’s ambitions for generating information value.

A common mistake that organizations make trying to develop a data analytics capability is to hire brilliant data engineers and scientists, let them experiment, and hope for the best. This will surely not lead to analytic solutions that are embedded in the organization and deliver sustainable business value. Don’t treat data and analytics as supportive and secondary to your business initiatives.

First, develop an Enterprise architecture, and let that be the blueprint for further development of the existing data analytics platform. This approach will ensure that the business strategy is aligned with the technical capabilities and actionable insights lead to actions that improve strategic objectives.

Digital transformation is a human transformation: it is not a technological program but a strategic roadmap towards a data-driven culture. Therefore you’ll need an Integral Data-Driven educational and onboarding program’ that is measurable, personalized, affordable and rapidly scalable. Bear in mind that talent is always the constraining factor. There are three crucial factors for every person to make a successful data-driven learning journey:

1) Ambition: The desire and will to change
2) Ability: the skills and knowledge to learn
3) Allowed: the perception that change is supported and permitted

Figure 2: Strategic roadmap towards a data-driven culture

The Strategic roadmap towards a data-driven enterprise consists of two phases:

ROADMAP PHASE
CHANGE PROGRAM PHASE

ROADMAP PHASE

Start with an organizational assessment that analyses the drivers and impacts of the transformation on the organization, assesses the preparedness of the organizational entities to adopt the transformation, and assess the “people and organizational” risks associated with the transformation. Align the business strategy with an integrated data-driven transformation strategy.

CHANGE PROGRAM PHASE

The change program consists of five iterative steps:

CHANGE PLAN
AWARENESS
EDUCATION
LEARNING & EMBEDDING INTO ORGANISATION
PEOPLE ANALYTICS & TRANSITION MONITORING

CHANGE PROGRAM

Develop an integral change program that is optimally tailored to the employee’s level of knowledge and business situation. Use the concept of ‘Education as a Service (EAAS)’ as a framework. Customize and personalize training courses, where possible and needed. Sometimes online learning works best, in other cases team learning is more effective.

AWARENESS

Creating awareness through storytelling and learning journeys. Active commitment and communication of higher management is a key success factor.

LEARNING & EMBEDDING IN ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

Cultural reinforcement is created by training on the job, apply what’s learned in practice and a continuous feedback loop. Coaching should focus on the three personal success factors: Ambition, Ability and Allowed.

PEOPLE ANALYTICS & TRANSITION MONITORING

Control the learning transition by making the transition data-driven. Develop a BI & Analytics system to monitor the personal learning journey of every employee, as well as monitoring the crucial transition drivers.

CONCLUSIONS

The journey to become and thrive as a data-driven organization is a data-driven human transformation. This transformation is linked with business vision and strategy. Manage the cultural transition with an integral data-driven educational & onboarding program. Monitor the learning journey with people analytics. Focus on the sustainable learning of technical as well as soft skills. Allow room for experiments. Start today. Learning is fun!

February 5, 2020

Så kan företag gå från traditionell IT till morgondagens arbetsplats

Många företag, särskilt större organisationer, har stora utmaningar när det kommer till den digitala arbetsplatsen. En enorm mängd olika applikationer, dokument och inlogg i kombination med ett arbetssätt som låser anställda till en specifik dator är alla faktorer som hindrar agilitet och flexibilitet. Citrix gör det möjligt för företag att använda dagens applikationer med morgondagens arbetssätt genom ett digitalt workspace som skapar förutsättningar för framtidens arbetsplats.

Traditionell IT på arbetsplatsen har länge bestått av en arbetsdator med en mängd olika typer av applikationer och programvaror. Enheten fungerar då ofta på ett sätt när man befinner sig på arbetsplatsen och kräver sedan VPN-inlogg om man som anställd behöver vara mobil och röra sig utanför kontoret, samtidigt som man inte har åtkomst till all funktionalitet. Många vill komma ifrån detta och gå mot ett mer flexibelt och agilt arbetssätt där de anställda kan välja när, hur och var de vill arbeta och ändå få åtkomst till alla typer av applikationer och funktionalitet på ett smidigt sätt.

Man vill ha samma flexibla arbetssätt på jobbet som man har vant sig vid med de applikationer man har privat, så som Facebook, Google eller LinkedIn. Alltså att det ser ut och fungerar på samma enkla sätt oavsett vilken enhet man använder, vare sig man är på jobbet, hemma eller reser. Fortfarande måste många bära på en otymplig arbets-PC bara för att kunna jobba hemifrån när man istället skulle kunna använda de enheter man redan har hemma, eller kunna ta med en tablet när man reser. Ofta är det kanske enklare saker man behöver göra men som ändå kräver både laptop, krånglig VPN och flera inloggningar endast för att nå applikationen.

Läs mer om Citrix här

– Det är precis det här vi möjliggör med Citrix Workspace, att man enkelt och säkert kommer åt den information man behöver – när, var och från vilken enhet som helst. Dessutom kan vi numera även förändra utseendet på själva applikationen för just de enklare uppgifterna som till exempel godkännanden i en applikation, delning av dokument eller notifieringar av viktiga förändringar. Vi ser ett ökat intresse för användarupplevelsen och ett flexibelt arbetssätt som viktiga komponenter för ökad produktivitet och engagemang bland medarbetarna, säger Peter Söderholm, Director Sales Engineering, på Citrix

Med Citrix Workspace ges användarna möjlighet till ett smartare och mer flexibelt sätt att arbeta, där användarna inte längre är beroende av att vara på själva arbetsplatsen eller använda en specifik enhet för full funktionallitet, samtidigt som IT får möjlighet att flytta delar eller hela IT-miljön till den mest optimala plattformen vare sig det är on-prem eller hos en cloudleverantör. Användaren gör en stark inloggning in till Citrix Workspace och har sedan enkel och säker access till samtliga applikationer och data utan ytterligare inloggningar eller krångliga VPN-lösningar. Man kan enkelt ta vid och fortsätta arbeta hemma på samma sätt som man gör från kontoret. Den digitala arbetsplatsen följer helt enkelt med användaren sitter inte längre fast på en specifik enhet.

Snabb leverans av arbetsplatser

På verksamhetsnivå ger lösningen andra värdefulla fördelar. Använder man externa konsulter kan man enkelt ge rätt access och behörigheter utan att personen behöver bli tilldelad en annan dator än sin egen. På samma sätt kan företag vara agila vid uppköp och förvärv och snabbt leverera Digitala arbetsplatser utan att skicka ut hundratals, eller tusentals nya laptops. Allt med en hög nivå av säkerhet

– Förr i tiden när appar bara var tillgängliga på insidan av nätverket var man inte lika exponerad. Nu måste man se till ett säkrare sätt att leverera IT eftersom det ställs stora krav på snabbhet och flexibilitet från verksamheten. Ett bra exempel är försvarskoncernen Saab, som med hjälp från DXE och baserat på Citrix Workspace skapat en digital arbetsplats som klarar deras högt ställda säkerhetskrav och samtidigt gör det möjligt för Saab att på två dagar efter ett förvärv av ett annat bolag kunna leverera en fullt fungerande IT arbetsplats.

Workspace får smarta funktioner

Själva syftet med agila arbetsplatser är att öka effektiviteten och produktiviteten. Under en arbetsdag spenderar många en stor del av tiden på att söka efter information, byta mellan olika applikationer och system, ofta med upprepade inloggingar, vilket skapar avbrott som sänker produktiviteten rejält. För att komma ifrån detta har Citrix lanserat ett antal intelligenta funktioner i Citrix Workspace.

– Dessa smarta funktioner kommer att minska tiden vi lägger på återkommande och därför tidskrävande uppgifter som egentligen inte tar mycket tid i sig men sammantaget utgör de en stor del av arbetsdagen. I gränssnittet kommer du att ha en virtuell assistent som kan hjäpa användaren nå rätt information. Den kommer dessutom ha en vy som gör det enkelt att arbeta i flera olika system utan att behöva lämna själva workspace-gränssnittetet för enklare uppgifter genom ett koncept med Micro-Appar.

– Dessutom kommer Workspacen med tiden bli smartare genom maskininlärning som ständigt lär sig ditt personliga arbetssätt där du får förslag på aktuella uppgifter som kan utföras med några enkla klick. Det kan vara allt från att godkänna ett utlägg till att rapportera dina semesterdagar utan att behöva först starta och logga in till den fulla applikationen. Dessa funktioner tillsammans med möjligheten till ett flexibelt arbetssätt ger en bättre användarupplevelse där Citrix Workspace förenklar och eliminerar tidstjuvarna och på så sätt ökar produktiviteten, avslutar Peter Söderholm.

Låt oss visa dig hur en intelligent digital arbetsplats ser ut! Klicka här för demo

February 5, 2020

Tuottavammaksi neljän päivän työviikolla?

Pääministeri Sanna Marinin (sd) ehdotus lyhyemmästä työviikosta sai aikaan mediapöhinää brittilehdistöä myöten sekä kiivasta keskustelua eri foorumeissa. Kannattaako utopiaksi leimattua ehdotusta ampua ulkoavaruuteen asti? Joudumme jo nyt tasapainottelemaan ympäristövaikutusten, työttömyyden, sairauspoissaolojen ja työuupumuksen kanssa.

Miten voisimme tuottaa saman työsuorituksen neljässä päivässä, viiden sijaan, kuitenkaan ajamatta itseämme uuvuksiin?

“Meidän uuden ratkaisumme kautta työntekijäkokemuksen parantuminen mahdollistaa tuottavuuden nousun 20 %:lla“, sukeltaa keskusteluun Citrix Systems Finland Oy:n Suomen ja Baltian maiden maajohtaja Okan Evinc.

Citrixillä tutkitutettiin hiljattain 3750 toimistotyöntekijän ja kotona etänä työskentelevän joukko. Otantaan kuului työntekijöitä useista eri maista, myös Pohjoismaista. “Selvitimme heidän nykyiset käytetyt työtuntinsa sekä todennäköisyyden sopeutua nelipäiväiseen työviikkoon. Tulokset yllättivät: peräti 87 % vastaajista toivoisi työnantajan tarjoavan mahdollisuutta nelipäiväiseen viikkoon ja 41 % uskoi tämän onnistuvan nykyisen työmäärän puitteissa“, Evinc kertoo.

Tutkimustuloksista ratkaisuun – älykkääseen digitaaliseen työtilaan

“Me olemme tuoneet markkinoille uudenlaisen älykäs digitaalinen työtilan, joka organisoi, ohjaa ja automatisoi käyttäjän työskentelyä. Näin saavutetaan merkittävä parannus käyttäjätyytyväisyyteen ja -tehokkuuteen, jota kautta uskomme tuottavuuden kasvavan merkittävästi“, Evinc kuvailee.

Citrix on älykkäässä digitaalisessa työtilassaan onnistunut yhdistämään käyttäjäystävällisyyden ja koneoppimisen. “Tietotyössä suurimmaksi haitaksi muodostuneen työn pirstaloitumisen, jatkuvan viesti- ja ilmoitustulvan ja useiden eri sovellusten käytön sijaan olemme luoneet työtilan, jossa tämä digitaalinen melu on leikattu minimiin. Olemme yhdistäneet kymmeniä Microsoft-, SAP-, Google- ja CRM –sovelluksia samaan tilaan, jolloin käyttäjän ei tarvitse jatkuvasti kirjautua sisään ja ulos eri järjestelmiin“, Evinc konkretisoi.

Citrixillä on tutkittu, että älykäs digitaalinen työtila ei vain säästä aikaa ja käyttäjän hermoja vaan lisää myös työntekijän luovaa työpanosta. “Ja se, jos mikä, on arvokasta organisaatioille“, Evinc muistuttaa.

February 5, 2020

Process Optimization & Automation With R&G Global Consultants

The technological advancement that is Robotic Process Automation (RPA) first arrived on the scene around 5 years ago to a gargantuan storm of discussion about its disruptive potential for Process Performance. Even today the arguments continue, with unscrupulous license sellers on one side promising a digital revolution, and a scaremongering media on the other, who claim RPA is a disastrous threat to jobs.

Caught in the middle, are the businesses that desperately want to improve their Process Performance. Not to mention a global economy desperately in need of technological advancements which will help improve wealth and living standards for all.

The hype was huge. But as many have now found to their cost, it was akin to being fleeced by a backstreet bookie. Now that whistle’s been blown, it’s time for everyone to get a grip on reality when it comes to RPA.

Placing the big bets……

High-pressure sales tactics for RPA licenses have lured many an unsuspecting CEO and digital leader into believing RPA is a fast track to competitive advantage, the key to unlocking unprecedented levels of productivity. But the reality experienced by many organizations has been the polar opposite, with Process Performance crashing spectacularly amid the disarray of another failed deployment. Meanwhile, a great deal of process insight, expertise and management has been thrown on the scrapheap in favor of RPA licenses. Talk about collateral damage.

You couldn’t make this up: “We did RPA – the Business Case just did not deliver”, “We believed the hype – now our business process is a mess. Can you help?” and “We took out headcount and killed our service performance” are comments I hear all the time. Just last week I was told, “Our RPA programme didn’t deliver the business case, we need to take another 10% out of our headcount”.

For balance, I have also heard “Yep, it worked for us – it was a real game-changer.” But certainly less often. And for clarity, R&G was in no way involved in any of these RPA deployments.

The fact is “only 3% of progressive leaders have reached any form of scale with more than 50 robots in service” (Deloitte, 3rd Annual Global RPA Survey). And despite being willed on by the masses, RPA has so far been a dismal failure in answering the world’s productivity challenges. A ‘reset’ in thinking is required.”

Bill Gates was on the money when he said……“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”

Given the number of organizations still contravening Bill’s second rule, it appears a lot of people either weren’t paying attention or just didn’t believe him.

Game of chance

If we look at a typical RPA deployment it generally consists of an RPA Assessment, a business case (that involves people and their jobs) and a quickly derived implementation plan. But with little to no consideration given to upstream or downstream dependencies. No end-to-end assessment of business performance along the entire value chain, nor consideration of the overall impact on the internal employee experience. Customers are not engaged in the end solution and the organization often remains ignorant of the impact on them. The fact that many organizations aren’t tuned in to their customer experience in the first place – when they absolutely should be – is another matter.

Spot the problem?

In essence, an enormous array of factors are being left to chance. Which leaves all the room in the world for both positives and negatives to be amplified. Especially when organizations caught up in the excitement of their shiny new technology decide to create a “Centre of Excellence” for their RPA which, in the high likelihood of inefficiencies being present, does nothing other than make them truly outstanding at automating these inefficiencies and building waste into the process, while making it even more difficult to pick through the aftermath of an enterprise-wide RPA deployment.

Stacking the odds in your favor

The thing is, it’s not that difficult to make any RPA (or digital) deployment a thing of beauty. But this will only happen if you jump off the RPA hype bandwagon and get back into the real business process world.

Take an end-to-end view of the overall business value chain – your people can help you understand this.
Know the dependencies and interactions that exist throughout your value chain – you already have the data that tells you this.
See your real Process Performance – at a granular level, variance-based, data-driven
Innovate using the array of digital solutions available to you (including RPA) – blend some old school process thinking and human intelligence with process mining, analytics, automation, machine learning, etc.
Validate the positive impact any process automation has on your customers.
Go again.

In his theory of constraints, Eli Goldratt talks about being on the lookout out for the “Herbies” in your process – those activities or steps that inject the largest amount of variation or delay. It stands to reason that any deployment should eliminate variation and inefficiency. Then you have a chance of taking performance to the next level while lowering your RPA investment cost, increasing customer satisfaction and benefitting from your employees being more engaged with their day-to-day work.

Horses for courses – build your Data-Driven Leadership capability

Ultimately, as with every other piece of digital process tooling with the possibility to ‘transform’ your business performance, it all comes down to appropriate use. Using the right tool for the right job. RPA will not be the silver bullet that solves all (or any) of your problems in isolation, but there is no doubt it will continue to help drive improvement.

Meanwhile, applying a Data-Driven Leadership mindset and blending classical process thinking with an ever-growing suite of digital tools will go a lot further to realizing the transformational effect now demanded from any digital implementation.

At R&G, we recommend starting with establishing a business purpose, then bridging into getting the right access to the right data (that you already own) and putting the right structure around it. Our approach then pivots on the ability to do the right process analysis with the right digital tooling. But this is 100% reliant on the people within your business bringing meaning and context to the insights. Strength of leadership is imperative in making and standing behind decisions, then executing the right intervention to deliver the right business outcome.

R&G’s Data-Driven Leadership approach enables you to examine your situation with the end-to-end process always in clear view, fix your inefficiencies and pave the way to enjoying optimal benefit from any improvement initiative (including an RPA deployment). While at the same time, stacking the odds in your favor with some beautiful digital tools.

Why take a gamble when you’ve already got the means to identify a certain winner?

February 3, 2020

Alistair Gosling: Integrating An Overall Perspective For Giga Project Owners

Alistair Gosling has built a foundation of experiences throughout his 25-year plus career within a wide gamut of industries such as media, marketing, licensing, and destination development. He now joins one of the biggest public-private partnership (PPP) projects to date with the entertainment giga-project Qiddiya, the 334-square-km sports, entertainment and cultural phenomenon that’s being developed in Saudi Arabia.

As the founder and CEO of EXTREME and an Advisory Board Member of Qiddiya, Gosling shares with us insights on the opportunities, challenges, and necessary qualities needed to be part of the biggest PPP project in the world.

Finding the Strengths in Public-Private Partnerships

As Saudi Arabia opened its doors to international tourism, future developments are starting to take shape within the region with giga-projects such as NEOM, the Red Sea Project, and Qiddiya. This provided a unique opportunity for Gosling to give insight into the strengths and advantages that Giga PPP projects bring beyond the typical public-private partnerships.

Gosling currently acts as an Advisory Board Member of Qiddiya, and even though it’s still in the early stages of PPP, the Giga project is already projecting similar benefits to large infrastructure projects within the UK, Georgia, and Saudi Arabia. “When you have PPP working well, you get the benefit of an entrepreneurial spirit from the private side baked in with the strength, the weight, and the ability to get things done by the public side.”

While Gosling is quick to note that Qiddiya is still in its early stages and is yet to provide concrete benefits for the region, based on the numerous global PPP projects he’s seen and been part of, the advantages of having government support (either in finance, land, etc.) will seamlessly work with the private side to bring speed and efficiency.

Building up The Bidders and Balancing Partnerships

Attracting investors to channel their resources towards PPP projects requires a delicate balance between government support and providing benefits to private organizations. However, Qiddiya finds itself at a unique stage as major businesses have shown support for the Giga project.

“The announcement between Samsung and Qiddiya in the conference at Riyadh is a good example of major public-private partnerships that will be key in driving more investors.” Gosling continues, “There’s always challenges (with attracting bidders) but having Samsung announce a major partnership with Qiddiya, they are one of the first and others will follow.”

And with the prospect of major investors to follow suit, there needs to be a balance between investors and the government to ensure both sides get their fair share. For Gosling, he believes it’s about creating a “win-win situation for both parties.” To manage negotiations without giving the bidder an advantageous position, Gosling notes the need for strict government procurement processes within Qiddiya to ensure fairness, allowing for both sides to win.

Patience Is Key and Mitigating Risks

To be an Advisory Board Member for one of the largest infrastructure projects in the world, Gosling understands the need to wield his 25 years of experience in destination development to steer Qiddiya into success while still limiting the social and environmental consequences, and any unexpected costs or delays.

“Patience in public-private partnerships is number 1,” he notes. “As well as being very thorough, but also being very steady and having a lot of patience in these partnerships. And you have to look at the other side and understand what their objectives are, and try to ensure that you fit within that framework and what they are doing from an overall perspective.”

Given the size of the Qiddiya, there’s bound to be risks involved in the development of these Giga project infrastructures and Gosling is well aware that handling unexpected costs and schedule overruns can be challenging.

“You just have to follow the general system,” Gosling mentions. He also notes that when it comes to delays or risks, organizations need to “manage the risk and mitigate as best as they can from an overall perspective.”

The Role of Leadership and Community for a Successful PPP

The foundation of successful public-private partnerships relies on numerous factors, one of them being effective business leadership. For Gosling, leadership roles are all about “finding the opportunities, understanding the other side as much as possible, finding the fit between the sectors (whether you’re from the private or public side of partnership), and building it out from there.”

Beyond the leadership, the support of the communities can be a major boost for the development of PPP infrastructure projects. Thankfully for Gosling, the community’s reaction to Qiddiya “has been phenomenal.” And with the right process and systems in place, Qiddiya is on track to become a major destination for investors, both foreign and local, looking to be part of the biggest PPP project in the world.