Sam HuntDisruption is everywhere and will affect all organisations. This disruption is being driven at a faster pace and with greater impact than ever before. Large organizations have learned how to survive in the battle for growth within their own segments but are not adequately prepared for the sort of disruption they are now facing.This disruption is coming from all sides:1. The technology giants of GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple) that are rapidly entering adjacent markets2. The global community of start-up business, now with over 100 totalling greater than $1 billion, that are eating into the lunches of existing players3. The ever-present threat of new market entrants from emerging marketsIn the US this has resulted in 52 per cent of Fortune 500 companies having merged, been acquired or gone bankrupt since 2000. The traditional response of investing in R&D is not working; R&D investments are increasing while the returns are decreasing. Hardly surprising given a recent Forbes study that showed only 5 per cent of the R&D staff felt highly motivated to innovate3.What are organizations doing about this?The constant threat of disruption and R&D failure are causing more and more organizations to invest in innovation labs. A Capgemini study found that 38 per cent of the worlds' largest 200 organizations were already creating their own. Read the full report here.These labs all have important goals to help their organizations experiment with emerging technologies and to better understand their customers. However they do all feel very similar. Having visited a number of these labs, it is quickly apparent that they all have similar characteristics. Costly real estate in desirable tech global centers, decked out in bright colors and exposed brick. You can almost guarantee that a 3D printer is hiding somewhere!While recognising this disruption and making the investment in a lab is a good place to start, many companies are focusing on the lab rather than the end-to-end capabilities required to overcome the disruption and to make innovation a core competency within their business.We have learned that in addition to a lab, if an organization is serious about competing among all of this disruption it must also develop the following capabilities:1. Ecosystem stimulation and open innovation management - creating and managing a crowd of interested organizations, start-ups and SMEs engaged in your business problems.2. Dev, deploy, test: a DevOps delivery for all innovation projects. Managing the relationship between business critical legacy systems and the rapidly changing test and learn initiatives.3. The ability to align stakeholders and make collaborative decisions. This is key to moving out of the pilot phase and to deploy at scale.Developing and scaling these capabilities is essential to making the most of the investment in innovation labs, combating disruption and ensuring the future of your organization.The author is innovation lab director at CapgeminiTwitter: @Sam_W_HuntLinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/samwhuntDisclaimer: Opinions expressed on this column reflect the writer's views and not the position of the Capgemini Group
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How it is secretly costing your organisation and its employees, writes Vinay PradhanThe frantic pace of technological change continues to have a major impact on businesses of all sizes and from every sector. Most companies, however, have yet to realize that their workers, now more than ever, need to adapt their digital skills to these rapid changes. A number of concepts that were merely talked about yesterday - Generation Y, Web 2.0, SaaS (Software as a Service), BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), the Cloud - are the realities we must all face today. Employees are at the very centre of these changes, finding newer and faster ways to work, whenever and wherever needed. Until only recently, employees used just 20 basic functions in the most representative software programs on the market, which was enough to demonstrate the ability to perform over a hundred different tasks. Today, they have more than 50 basic functions to learn across 50 software programs, apps, web services, and other devices, which amount to 2,500 basic skills to master.The percentage of skilled youth in the workforce is less than 5% in India, a need for change that has been stressed upon by the government and the industry alike; especially with PM Narendra Modi specially focussing on the Skill India initiative. The shortage of digital skills in the current marketplace is unprecedented. A Capgemini report on 'The Digital Talent Gap' estimated that over 4.4 million IT jobs would have been created around Big Data by 2015; while only a third of these were expected to be filled. Nearly one in five millennials in the modern workplace perceivably lack crucial analytical skills. According to a CRISIL report, India is set to become the largest contributor to the global workforce with India's working population likely to increase to 962 million by 2030.A June 2012 study by IDC shows that inadequate digital skills lead to a significant amount of loss of time and productivity. This equates to 21.3 percent of loss in the organization's total productivity, also calculable to $19,732 loss per worker per year. Organizations face these concerns with millennials as well. Capgemini's survey comprising of over 800 middle to upper management executives from over 50 industries shows that nearly one in five millennials in the modern workspace are perceived to be lacking analytical skills. A similar story can be heard in the United States, where McKinsey, the consulting firm, estimates this loss to be valued at $1.3 trillion. An organization with 1,000 people would therefore spend as much money addressing the skills gap issue as they would hiring 213 new employees. The reasons driving this skills shortage are not hard to identify. The usage of mobile, social and analytical tools is permeating the length and breadth of every function across the organization. Human resources and training managers are grappling with the problem of not being able to adequately measure either the amount of time wasted or the costs associated with their employees' lack of digital skills. The idea of using technology to deliver training has been considered in the past and has been not embraced enthusiastically on account of several reasons. These include the discomfort of trainers and the trainees to train without the physical presence of each other, high initial investment, and limitations of technology led training in delivering training in technical subjects or where physical acumen is required, ability to personalise training and assessment methods to determine the competencies of the learners. Businesses must work harder to scale-up on their digital skills or risk losing competitiveness in the global marketplace. As the BYOD trend is becoming more widespread, CIOs are forced to allow company employees to use their own personal devices. Perhaps one of the main reasons for the renewed digital skills gap - which businesses thought to have bridged in the past decade - is the consumerization of IT and the misalignment between the technologies available for personal use and companies' ability to update their computer equipment.Companies today have to surrender to the cloud and its paradigms (telecommuting, multiple devices, etc.). This new reality is dawning on businesses and governments alike, as major players across industries are pledging to create a more digitally educated workforce. Organizations need to tap into newer platforms for acquiring skills while also accelerating the pace of skills development. They need to understand that traditional skills and approaches are not going to help them in the digital age. Under these circumstances, how can companies be sure that their employees have an excellent command of the programs, web services, or other apps they use on a daily basis? How do they give them the tools they need to stay productive while using their office applications?A simple answer could be to have an enterprise learning solution that lets your employees enhance their digital skills at their own time and pace, your L&D managers monitor the performances to ensure alignment with business objectives, and enables your IT team to easily integrate it into their infrastructure. Organizations across the globe have started doing this for their employees to meet their desktop and new technology training needs. Small businesses seeking to train their employees, or large corporations in need of wide-scale training solutions are moving towards integrated platforms like Vodeclic. Ease of use, quick integration and deployment and highly effective teaching method should be the core of such platforms.To stay competitive, the solution is for companies to wake up to the digital skills gap amidst their employees and proactively implement regular training to ensure their workers acquire the required skills. The content and devices need to be responsive and adaptable. This is significant in the Indian context as over the next few years, with the momentum for digital India picking up and internet access becoming feasible throughout the country, most employees will have devices of various kinds and forms that can be connected to and access online training on demand and with ease. Digital skills requirements vary from one organization to the other based on their digital maturity and transformational capability. Key focus areas will depend on individual business requirements as well as availability of resources. Organizations need to define a vision, identify future skill requirements, undertake a comprehensive skills gap assessment, take steps to bridge the gap and finally initiate actions to constantly evaluate progress in their journey to develop digital skills.1. Give everyone access to trainingAs cloud-based software and applications evolve at a breakneck pace, the common challenge among all will be to keep our skills up-to-date, or else be left behind. For this to be possible, companies should adopt a user-centric solution that is both mobile and flexible, giving users the ability to improve their digital skills when and where they need it, via an intranet or dedicated portal, on their tablet, mobile phone, or personal PC, in the office or at home. The outdated, ad hoc training model, lasting 1 hour, 3 hours, 1 day or 2 days, is no longer relevant! In order to survive, firms must break away from the constraints of traditional training and consider how people learn within their daily work flow.2. Promote employee self-relianceTraining should allow workers to have the freedom to educate themselves whenever and wherever they want. Not only should training be accessible, organizations must encourage employees to be self-reliant and pave their own career path through skill-building courses. The solution should also be very intuitive and user-friendly in order to ensure that employees don't need to be trained excessively on how to use the solution itself.3. Reduce IT Helpdesk's work loadHR and business unit managers aren't the only ones affected by their employees' lack of digital skills. The help desk is too. It is therefore in the best interest of both departments to care about these issues and work together on a solution. Organizations can help reduce costs with the help of training solutions that reduce the number of calls to help desk, thus enabling help desk to take over the role of a tutor. Ultimately, the effectiveness and success of a solution depends largely on the involvement of the interested parties, from selecting and testing to deploying the solution.4. Measure ROI and control costsThe adopted solution must give CEOs the ability to measure the ROI of training activities, ensure business alignment and take whatever steps are necessary to get more value from the money invested.5. Keep up with the software updatesWith the advent of the cloud, leading software publishers have dramatically increased the frequency of their updates. A flood of announcements are released every day. The answer is to proactively implement a future-proof training solution that is flexible, agile, and mobile.6. Design the training solutions around the technologies usedFirms must adopt and implement a one-size-fits-all training solution that works on any device and is developed with a "responsive design" approach to enable viewing on any screen size or resolution. But one needs to remember that it cannot be "one-size-fits-all" for all organizations. Recently, Procter & Gamble established a baseline for all its employees through a "digital skills inventory," and set proficiency expectations for specific roles and career progression. Pepsi launched its "digital fitness" program to keep its marketers' digital skills up to par.New technologies have the potential to transform productivity in the workplace. But, this potential will remain unrealized unless we empower the workforce with the digital skills necessary to take advantage. Scale, speed, quality and mass customisation can be achieved by imaginative use of technology in training delivery. Building digital skills is only a part of the overall digital transformation agenda. Organizations will have to continue working towards sustaining the advantage that they gain through these digital skills. This will require sustained efforts towards training and re-skilling. Acquiring digital skills is the first, albeit significant, step of a long journey to a successful digital transformation. Act quickly and your organization will reap the benefits.The author is country manager - India, Skillsoft
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Verizon Enterprise Solutions is adding HP and Verizon Cloud to its Secure Cloud Interconnect service, essentially doubling the size of its footprint in the Asia-Pacific region and increasing the number of cloud providers, giving clients a seamless way to connect, manage and secure their multi-cloud environments.In-region, Verizon now offers connections at 12 locations from five cloud providers. The company previously offered access to Amazon (Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo) and Google (Hong Kong, Singapore) and Microsoft (Hong Kong) at six locations.Enterprises such as e-commerce retailer Giosis, - who markets under the name of Qoo10 primarily in the Asia Pacific Region - have been hesitant to move mission-critical workloads to the cloud due to security, performance and control concerns.Giosis uses Secure Cloud Interconnect to connect to Amazon Web Services (AWS) sites in Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney and Los Angeles to display its products on its website. Via Secure Cloud Interconnect, Giosis connects the AWS sites to its headquarters in Seoul for back-end processing such as billing, user authentication and data backup.“With Verizon’s Secure Cloud Interconnect service we can now take full advantage of the cloud given the richness and reliability of the solution,” said Mok Jooyoung, IT director of technology division, Giosis. “Knowing Verizon’s Private IP network has an expansive Asia-Pacific footprint and its performance stellar made Verizon the ideal provider to meet our stringent requirements to provide our online shoppers with a first-class customer experience.”(BW Online Bureau)
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By Arshad KhanTelenor’s active Internet subscriber base has fallen and the company reported 22 per cent of its connections were active Internet connections for the quarter ended September 30. While the company hasn’t disclosed any specific number on Telenor’s active Internet base in the country, Telenor reports a total connection base of 40.855 million for the quarter. This translates to an Internet subscriber base of 8.99 million. The telecom operator had reported an Internet base of 10.36 million connections in the preceding quarter. Telenor witnessed one million net additions for the quarter, as compared to 1.3 million net additions in the preceding quarter. “Telenor added 1 million subscriptions in India during the third quarter. At the end of September, the subscription base was 19 per cent higher than the same quarter last year. The company continues to build on Internet users as part of Internet for All strategy and reported 41 per cent increase in data users’ year-on-year. Currently Telenor has over 22 of users accessing data services on its network," said Vivek Sood, Telenor (India) Communications CEO. On the financial side the Telecom group has reported total India revenues of Norwegian Krone (NOK) 1.41 billion (around Rs 1,083.74 crore as per current rates) for the quarter, registering an impressive 31.38 per cent growth from NOK 1.074 billion in the same quarter last year.However, the company reported a negative EBITDA of NOK 58 million for the quarter. It had reported an EBITDA profit of NOK 24 million in the preceding quarter and loss of NOK 136 million in the same quarter last year. Telenor attributed the fall in EBITDA to the rebranding exercise it undertook this September.
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Nvidia, on Wednesday (28 October) launched its Nvidia Grid 2.0 which can deliver even the most graphics-intensive applications to any connected device virtually, at VForum 2015 in Mumbai.Nvidia Grid 2.0 delivers unprecedented performance, efficiency and flexibility improvements for virtualized graphics in enterprise workflows. Employees can work from almost anywhere without delays in downloading files, increasing their productivity. IT departments can equip workers with instant access to powerful applications, improving resource allocation. Data can be stored more securely by residing in a central server rather than individual systems.In comparison to its predecessor, Nvidia Grid 2.0 offers twice the user density, allowing up to 128 users per server, expanding service to more employees at a lower cost per user and doubled application performance. Nvidia Grid 2.0 can now be run on blade servers — not simply rack servers — from leading blade server providers. Along with Windows OS, it also has expanded its support to Enterprises in industries that depend on Linux applications.Nearly a dozen Fortune 500 companies are completing trials of the Nvidia Grid 2.0 beta. Major server vendors, including Cisco, Dell, HP and Lenovo, have qualified the Grid solution to run on 125 server models, including new blade servers.(BW Online Bureau)
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All-in-one Android market and Android Manager App, MoboMarket today announced the launch of a new version, offering millions of Android users a wide variety of new content and many more features. MoboMarket is a leading third-party app store and boasts of a repository of over 500,000 high-quality free apps and games. The store helps global Android users discover their favourite apps in a more friendly way with its unique interface and design.The new version of MoboMarket comes with a wide array of apps – from segments like business, education, finance to entertainment, health & fitness and even cooking. There is also a separate section of apps for kids. Besides all these, there are free games, high-quality wallpapers and useful widgets for users.The app store now has a completely new design interface with refined looks that will improve user experience significantly. Each section of MoboMarket now looks more elegant and beautiful.“The latest version of MoboMarket aims to create a more friendly and convenient environment for our users. Apart from a whole host of new features, we have also created a user forum – aimed at creating our unique community, allowing fans to exchange thoughts on favourite games and get cool suggestions on latest apps," a quote from MoboMarket.A new feature, Top List, suggests a list of popular Apps & Games on a daily basis, based on users’ location, served in the native language. The app store also has a new built-in user account system and point mall. Users can own a private account, log in easily and redeem prizes by collecting points. The user forum will help people get suggestions from like-minded members of the community.MoboMarket also helps users improve their Android use experience by providing convenient contact backup, App backup, cross-platform contact transfer and many other useful Android tools. The Speed Boosters, Battery Savers and versatile widgets helps optimize phone to its best conditions. Users can also share files with friends without costing a dime, using the ‘Files Sharing’ feature.(BW Online Bureau)
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CXOs know that cognitive computing is more than just a buzzword. It's the next step for artificial intelligence in the enterprise, writes Rohil SharmaCognitive computing presents a power like we have never seen before; it overtakes the potential that the world-wide-web promised in the nineties. In five years, computers will be much more aware of their surroundings with an ability to identify hear, touch, taste and smell. Machines will experience the world like a human would. The world we see in the movie 'Her' isn't far from reality today where the operating system - Samantha - is able to learn and grow psychologically.Cognitive computing is the simulation of human thought processes in a computerized model. It involves self-learning systems that uses data mining, pattern recognition and natural language processing to mimic the way a human brain works. This includes information systems and applications that can sense, comprehend and act. Today, organizations are using less than 20 per cent of all the data available with them. They end up missing out on insights from very valuable information which exist in the form of human voice and pictures. Cognitive computing systems can help to tap this hidden data by converting this information into digital form. Today, cognitive computing makes it possible to assist in the critical decision making process in industries like healthcare, BFSI, education, research and defense.The Added AdvantageThough Artificial Intelligence (AI) is very close to cognitive computing, it works differently. The main advantage is that a cognitive system will not just continue to give a wrong or unhelpful answer repeatedly. If it arrives at a wrong conclusion, cognitive computing systems have the power to change its approach and try again. Another differentiating factor is the human element - humans are not part of the equation in AI, but humans and machines work together in cognitive computing. Cognitive computing systems learn from image and speech recognition to understand the world and interact seamlessly with humans.Opportunities in Cognitive ComputingThe real advantage lies in their ability to learn on their own and turn into domain experts. The systems become intelligent over time as they build knowledge and learn a domain, including their language, terminology, processes and preferred methods of interacting. Cognitive computing systems do not require rules to be hard-coded by human experts, unlike in earlier technologies. It can process unstructured data and learn by experience - the same way we humans do learn and analyse what goes on around us.At the same time, CXOs need not feel threatened as it will not replace human experts. Cognitive computing is an assistive technology which responds to humans in an assistive manner. Humans have contextual insight that computers simply don't possess. As cognitive computing systems develop a deep domain expertise, it will act as a decision support system and help CXOs make better decisions based on the real time data cross domains- BFSI, government, healthcare, finance, retail, customer service and others.Deloitte estimated that cognitive computing is set to be a $50 billion market opportunity by 2018 in the US alone. According to Markets and Markets, the cognitive computing market is forecasted to grow from $2,510.4 million in 2014 to $12,550.2 million by 2019. This means a CAGR of 38.0 per cent from 2014 to 2019.Needless to say, cognitive computing can bring huge business value to an organization. There are two main areas where cognitive computing can play an important part in a CXO's role - automation of routine, predictable work to enable quick decision making based on data, and for augmentation activities which are unpredictable and require real-time human analysis and judgment; it can augment the work of human experts.Managing big data is one of the biggest issues that CXOs face across all organizations today. Cognitive systems provide a great advantage here - it can categorize, sort and deliver valuable information from huge masses of data. It can also display data in a visually compelling way that helps us make decisions based on data. The technology is still immature but its benefits are being evaluated and proven over a number of verticals, while being mindful of potential risks and potential regulatory issues.The author is CEO of Perpetuuiti
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The Internet of Things (IoT) is a fast-emerging ecosystem of IP-connected devices with the potential to deliver significant business benefits valued at trillions of dollars in the coming decade across industries. Organizations can use IoT to drive considerable cost savings by improving asset utilization, enhancing process efficiency and boosting productivity. More importantly, IoT-driven innovations are expected to increase return on R&D investments, reduce time to market, and open up additional sources of revenue from new business models and opportunities. IoT is driven by a combination of forces, including the exponential growth of smart devices, a confluence of low-cost technologies (sensors, wireless networks, big data and computing power), pervasive connectivity and massive volumes of data. Even though IoT offers huge value potential, organisations must overcome key challenges, such as lack of interoperable technologies and standards, data and information management issues, privacy and security concerns, and the skills to manage IoT's growing complexity.The Internet of Things is all about connected life. We are witnessing that new age gadgets have integrated internet accessing capabilities by hooking them into wired or wireless internet connection. These gadgets are designed for machine 2 machine communication, and simultaneously also utilize the connectivity with Smartphone's, tablets and other devices for additional functionality. The data from such devices is shared over the telephonic network and accessed by Smartphone and tablet apps.Countries such as China, US, Germany, and European Union have the highest penetration in the IoT space with Malaysia, Korea, and Japan falling in the mid range. In India, the Prime Ministers vision of smart cities and digital India will leverage IoT to bring about the changes in addressing and solving problems that large cities are facing in becoming smart. Issues such as transportation system, parking, lighting, waste management, water management, women safety etc are areas which are of top priority. We will need sensors at strategic points to collect data, application to analyze data and analytics to ensure quick decision making. Digital infrastructure is expected to create huge opportunities for technological companies across the verticals and in key applications within smart cities, smart health systems, and smart transportation. In India, technology visionaries and several startups are flooding the market with smart devices with the intent of taking this to the next level. It is not only government but more so businesses which can reap many benefits by using the IoT ecosystem. For example manufacturers can remotely monitor the condition of equipment and look for indicators of imminent failures like vibration, temperature, or pressure outside normal limits. This means that the manufacturer has to make fewer site visits, employees can devote time on other critical issues thereby reducing fixed and variable costs. For the customer it means less disruption, increased uptime, and ultimately higher satisfaction. Taking this IoT to the next level, manufacturers can offer price-per-use, inclusive of all hardware, installation, and servicing.IoT is already heralding transformation across industries and it will bring about significant changes in the coming years. IoT can help organizations utilize their business infrastructure and assets in innovative ways to offer new services and deliver additional revenue. Moreover, deriving meaningful information from the huge volumes of data that IoT produces can improve decision-making and enable proactive, predictive insights. While the scope and potential of IoT is vast, four industries are best poised to reap the benefits. There are many advantages of incorporating IoT into our lives, which can help individuals, businesses, and society on a daily basis. For individuals this new concept can come in many forms including health, safety, financial and every day planning. The integration of IoT into the health care system could prove to be incredibly beneficial for both the individual and the society. A chip could be implanted into each individual, allowing for hospitals to monitor the vital signs of the patient. IoT can also function as a tool that can help people save money by making home appliances communicate in an energy efficient way.IoT has innumerable opportunities and provides innovative services that can be offered using smart devices, machines and products. Organizations can benefit from new revenue streams generated by new business models and services, as well as reduced time to market and increased returns from their R&D investments. Today's manufacturers face extraordinary challenges in the form of rigid specifications, tight timelines and even tighter budgets. This sector also includes asset tracking of large industrial equipment and the monitoring and control of factory assets. Analog sensors, for instance, are used to measure real-world conditions and process control systems measure performance analysis and control of manufacturingIndia has its own cultural, market and structural challenges those that need to be overcome for successful implementation of an IoT ecosystem. Policy guidelines need to be amended for the IoT eco system to be implemented. The IoT value chain in India is disconnected and fragmented which needs to be amended. There is also a shortage of component players which is a key hindrance for design, testing and development of IoT products in India. All these challenges are now being taken up by the government and new guidelines are being implemented to take IoT to the next level. For governments vision of "Smart Cities and Digital India" to be successful, it has no choice but to overcome the challenges of setting up an IoT eco system in a huge continent called India.The author, Ashish Gulati, is country head India at Telit
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