Management & Best Practices

So the combination Big Data plus IoT will enable predicting and personalizing in real-time Clients Relationships, do risks analysis, redesign products by extrapolating the impact of some functionalities, offer custom heath care, reduce maintenance costs, up date your website in real-time, identify new opportunities, etc.

Or so they say!  Why?  How?

Big Data is basically the analysis of astronomical quantity of data so to extrapolate patterns and therefore predict behaviours, be it consumers or machines, consumer behaviour and satisfaction or performance and durability, etc.

So if you put together,  Big Data plus IoT, you now have access to the physical world of connected objects, and to data from M2M (Machine to Machine) relationships but also M2P / P2M (Person to Machine).

The more Big Data plus IoT will accumulate data over the longer period of time, the more its predictions will be right and sound…

And this formidable combination of Big Data plus IoT is already running at full speed as we speak, changing our lives even though we are not aware of it. Having doubts?  Well, read this carefully:

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Everybody knows that, Big Data comes with its data cleaning and labeling issues prior to revealing its magic, you have to properly feed the Big Data visualization tools with the right data. That’s for Big Data.

But what about enterprises, what’s their excuses for not making the most of their data and not acting upon priceless customer insights provided by their, who knows, BI experts, Dashboards Metrics, IT Consulting Firm, CRMs, Databases drilling, etc.? None really, considering the incredible technology budgets CMOs have been granted in the last decade or so… because, let’s be honest, the responsibility mostly falls on the shoulders of CMOs, they’re the ones that should be looking for such valuable data to enhance the customer experience and better understand the customer journey.

But the fact is: “only 28% of businesses believe they are generating strategic value from the data they collect,” based on numbers from Business News Daily. Blame it on the CMOs. Well, that’s what C-suite’s have been doing, grading them only “C” in 2015, in terms of efficiency. (source: VisionEdge Marketing)

So, the pressure is on for CMOs to get good at data… very good and very fast!

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Most companies, even if they don’t know it, already have way much more data than they can efficiently handle; they are literally drowning under data! So, do you believe the Big Data promise? That it’ll make a difference in your business performance and profits?  Not so evident!

But first, let’s see what we are talking about?  What is Big Data?

And when did it turn out to be BIG?

The true nature of Data and the Big Data promise

Data comes in two forms: structured and unstructured. When you join the two, it becomes Big, really BIG.

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This is Big Data era right? And everyboy is just so happy with all this new Intelligence pouring in and all these KPIs literally falling from the skies which will all of a sudden enlighten us and magically empower us with infallible decisions and grant us assured success, right?

And we’re all writing down new figures of « big-data augmented » sales and revenues and God knows just how fantastic everything will be from now on for us all!

Well, the thing is I don’t want to kill it for you all but really, don’t you feel that as CXO we’re all already pretty much flooded with data, information et metrics of all sorts?

Two considerations I’d like to submit to you.

Question of Intelligence, what KPIs and not even Big Data will ever tell you!

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Does the IT function receive all the credit it deserves? Not really!  Surprising, considering IT key role and technologies’ contribution to business success. Maybe business leaders should start adopting the Startup attitude when facing new challenges or consider someone who does as a real Business Partner, like IT Consultants. Here’s why?

I understand that all CFO, CMO and CHRO will tell you that their function is the most valuable within the enterprise but one can’t fail to see that without IT, all these guys would be in trouble, right… or elsewhere!

Nevertheless, even 15 years later, the year-2000 bug still feels like a big knot in the throat for most C-levels, CTOs & CIOs have lost a lot of credibility there. On the other hand, slowly but surely, CTOs & CIOs are slowly gaining higher decision-levels within enterprises.

The CIO & CTO Dilemma regarding its IT Business Partner

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The new cross-platform application development paradigm has confronted developers with a multi-OS and multi-device heteroclite environment (iOS, Android, PC, Web). And of course, everyone was looking for high-performance cross-platform multi-device deliverables!

Saying that the application development landscape has greatly evolved over the last few years would definitely be an understatement, be it mobile or back-end and front-end. And always the performance challenge remained central over time, both in terms of development (to develop the fastest possible at the lowest cost) and in terms of application performance.

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Windows 10 represents a new technology paradigm; so, how can we identify those triggering factors that call upon adopting rapidly and migrate to Windows 10 in terms of technology?

Considering the role played by and the scope of investments made in IT systems and applications in terms of competitiveness and growth for the enterprise, there is no doubt that any new or significant technology movement must be taken seriously.

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Choosing an ERP is always a difficult decision that has significant economic consequences. It needs research and proper evaluation because it influences your organization in many different ways. Long term commitment to a software and its vendor comes after this step. Implementation process lasts for such a long time and it takes huge amount of resources. Therefor you and your consultants need a clear understanding of your requirements and characteristics for a product. Here is a list of equally important though less considered items for evaluating and choosing an ERP product. (more…)

Evidently, considering the massive investments required and made in IT today, purchase decisions and suppliers selection must go through Finance and sometimes even through, Board of Direction. The decision of a custom software development for an application application falls under this type of investment and the weight of this responsibility is a myth, in our opinion; the 3rd myth in our series of custom software development.

Therefore, in this context of collegiality decision-making, nobody bears on its own the weight and responsibility (the shame) of decisions, sometimes dire of consequences. And this concept of shared responsibility is becoming somewhat a generalized entrepreneurial culture in Western societies, for the better and the worst. A great many thinks that the reign of commercial software reflects such an era… and entrepreneurial culture.

Tell me what motivates you…

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Of course there were horror stories with the cost of custom software development before the New Millennium, and there will be others. But since the New Millennium though, the crown of horror stories often goes to Commercial Softwares under license like Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, etc., to which many large corporations and Governments have given humongous mandates (often outrageous purchase orders).

Evidently, the vast majority of commercial softwares’ exaggerated costs and deadline overruns come from integration and personalization; services normally de facto included within the cost of custom software development mandates but which we don’t always measure accurately the impact when buying a commercial software… since everybody else has purchased it, right!

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The New Millennium has witnessed the splendid triumph of « best practices » and « quality control » concepts, in almost all fields of activities. And most of all, best pratices and quality control have come to define the true nature of Custom Software Development in particular and IT in general, Communications and Information Technologies, which have accelerated their broadcasting.

2000 à 2010 – reminder

• Web democratization, as well as Web design and programming jobs
• Communications, Sharing & Implementation of Best Practices
• Democratization of « best practices » concept in custom software development

Who defines the concept of best practices, broadcast it and why?

Expert firms such as Gartner, Forrester, KPMG, Deloitte, etc., that counsel large corporations and assess the evolution of standards within different industries to take their pulse, which is quite useful for investors and shareholders as well as for managers. It helps decision-makers to weigh their enterprise against their industries and to get to know the necessary means to keep the pace with the competition.

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To better circumcise this series of articles aiming at enlightening the myths of Custom Software Development vs Commercial Software purchase and integration, we thought it would be useful to revisit the evolution of software development.

Myths of Custom Software Development

Let’s remind us that before the turn of the New Millennium, when a company wanted to automate a process, it would have to either use internal resources or an external firm to develop its application.

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Even though it might look so, it’s not necessarily true; and some questions about it must be revisited from time to time? So, how to assess the gain of Tablets for the Mobile Workforce?

I know, I know, you must think: « Come on, are you serious? ». In 2015?  But in fact, even though everybody has a mobile device today, it’s not crystal clear whether it’s really useful or even necessary.  More than often, and many have witnessed it, mobile devices are a source of distraction at work and the cause of errors, productivity loss, time loss, data loss, etc.

Well, let’s see it through…

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In this post, we will present 5 KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that are crucial to have on your Manager Dashboard if you’re to get a crystal clear vision of your Financial Services or Banking Products Sales Funnel.

There are well-known Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Sales which, just like images, are worth a thousand words, and especially when it comes to Financial Services or Banking Products Sales, a field of activities where more than anywhere else, performance is law, right?

Some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can literally take your Sales Department to a whole new level; unfortunately, very few realize that.  We are thinking about all these C-level Managers here that we have come to run by over the years as a Software Developer and which have told us: « You know what? When it comes to Business Intelligence and those metrics that can tell you what’s happening with your Sales Force… well, the truth is, I’m pretty blind! »

Not that we would pretend to know or to understand perfectly the subtleties of operations of  all the many businesses at work in the field of Financial Services or Banking Products but just that, with 30 years of experience as a Software Developer including many large mandates for Banks and Financial institutions, well, we have acquired a certain expertise about what information exactly it is that Managers need and require to make sound decisions and to base their Business Development and Sales Strategy upon.

So what does the Manager – Sales Director – Marketing Director (CMO) really need to to get a clear vision of his actual Sales status?

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We will discuss 3 Web Development Best Practices that can help you safely launch your new specialized banking & financial services application. We should have said three Web Development Best Practices of security since security is so crucial in the Banking and Finance sectors and it is the main topic of this post.

Do we really have to go back and review all the security threats and online hacks and attacks that happened over just the last 5 years or so… I hope not?

All financial institutions and banks have developed a strict policy for systematically securing their critical clientele web applications. But they should also apply such a targeted policy when developing web applications dedicated to their personnel by making development choices that will address today’s security requirements and adapt to help meet tomorrow’s challenges.  Therefore, they must carefully identify all web access to database and process involved in these web application projects and assess the level of risk presented by each type of online communications or user group; ideally, at the development stage.

Because security fixing costs 100 times more to correct once in production than in development. So, it would save a lot of pain and revenues to test-find security flaws at the latter stage.

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