Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC) is getting matured in the industry and gaining customer trust. So Oracle is adding more and more new and innovative features to make the product more usable and make more compatible in today's ever changing market.

There are number features has been added in the OAC DV version 4 and 5 which will provide whole new set functionalities that will enable OAC users to harvest features and functionality like OBIEE. We are going to discuss few of the new and exciting features in the below article with some live example:

·         Drill via Existing Column in Same Visulization

·         Drill to another Canvas or URL

·         Use one analysis as a filter for whole canvas

·         Pattern Brushing

·         Synchronized Visualization

·         Explain Feature

Continue reading " OAC Data Visualization (DVD/DVCS) New Features " »

Posted by Dhiman Deb at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Oracle Revenue Management Cloud Service (RMCS) - Introduction

Oracle Revenue Management Cloud Service (RMCS) is an automated and centralized revenue management product that empowers organizations to comply with the ASC 606 and the Accounting Standard IFRS 15 requirements of revenue from contracts with customers. RMCS helps organizations in automating the identification and creation of customer contracts and performance obligations, their valuations, and the accounting entries through a configurable framework.

RMCS is tailor made to meet the IFRS15 / ASC606 requirements including the transition requirements. Apart from this, RMCS also provides robust integration with third party applications including Oracle EBS (and other non-oracle systems) to fulfill the requirements of IFRS-15.

Standard RMCS features enable organizations to recognize revenue from contracts with customers as per IFRS-15. However, the product does not offer features to amortize the contract costs as per IFRS-15. At Infosys we have extended the usability of RMCS to recognize and amortize Contract Costs as per IFRS-15.

This document provides a solution overview on recognizing and amortizing Contract Costs in RMCS and the initial accounting setups which are required. The content included in this document is industry or organization agnostic.

Recognizing Revenue from Contracts with Customers in RMCS

The most striking change in recognition of Revenue has been the introduction of the new five- Step Model for recognition of revenue.

View image

The new standard impacts all the organizations requiring to report according to IFRS and US GAAP. Since, the change deals with revenue, and is expected to have organization wide impact.

Sample case showing how Revenue is recognized as per IFRS-15 in RMCS: -

Domain: Telecom

Contract Period: 6 months

Contract Start Date: 15.01.2018

Contract End Date: 15.07.2018

Plan: Telecom plan which include monthly fixed fee- $ 100 along with a handset at the start of the plan

Say, X Ltd sells separately Handset at $ 300 for 6 months and the monthly fee without handset at $ 80.

1.       As per IFRS-15, X Ltd needs to identify the contract (Step 1) which is a 6-month contract with the customer.

2.       Then, X Ltd needs to identify all the performance obligations (Step 2) from the contract with the customer which is:-

·         provide a handset

·         provide network services over 6 months

3.       Decide the transaction price (Step 3) which is $ 600

4.       Apportioning the transaction price (Step 4) of RS 600 to each performance obligation based on their relative stand-alone selling price: -

5.       Recognizing the revenue (Step 5) when X Ltd satisfies the performance obligations:

·         Recognizing the Revenue from Handset, when X Ltd gives Handset to customer -$ 230.76

·         Recognizing the Revenue from Network Services provided for $ 61.54 monthly during the period of the contract which is 6 months.

Expected Accounting entries generated in RMCS are as summarized below: -

Posted by Tarun Kassana at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Have you heard about blockchain? Even if you have not heard about blockchain, you would surely have heard about bitcoin.  Bitcoins are not blockchain but Bitcoins use the blockchain technology.

Why should a CFO concern about blockchain technology?

The blockchain technology is a big game changer.  It can be used to solve many business problems. While some industries are hugely impacted, others might have minor impact. Also, since the technology is evolving and maturing new impacts are getting discovered every day. Ignoring the technology could mean loss of competitive advantage, inefficient process impacting shareholder value. As the guardian of the shareholder value, it is of great importance to the CFO to understand the technology in general and impact on finance function in particular.

Before, we discuss how the blockchain impacts the finance function, let us understand what blockchain is, what its unique features are, what are its benefits.

What's the name?

The blockchain technology is also sometime referred to as DLT i.e. Distributed Ledger technology. While there are minor differences between the two, to keep things simple, we can assume both are the same.

What is blockchain / DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology)?

As the name indicates the technology uses blocks, chains, is distributed (i.e. decentralized) and ledgers (list of data). Basically DLT uses blocks to store data, the data is linked / chained to each other most likely using cryptology.  Apart from data storage / linkage, in DLT the complete data will be replicated (distributed). The data in the block chain is stored based on a 'consensus' rule and blockchain might also have smart contracts, which gets executed based on certain criteria.

Blockchain / DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) - How does it help?

Because of the above characteristics, a blockchain can help businesses

• Speed up business processes - transactions taking days can be done in seconds.

• Reduce costs - as it will enable direct peer-to-peer interaction without the need for intermediaries.

• Reduces risks - as the transactions are immutable and cannot be changed ones created

• Enforces and builds trust - all data is transparent and additions are through a consensus mechanism.

Maybe the above discussions are very technical, let me describe a finance use case for better understanding of the technology and the benefits. 

Trade Finance - Use Case - Using Oracle Cloud, Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service

Trade finance is one of the areas where the blockchain technology is already in use. Let us imagine a typical bill discounting scenario.  The scenario will have the following participants - buyer (say 'ABC Electronics'), seller (say 'LG Electronics'), and financing bank (say HSBC).  Assume we are the buyers, using Oracle Cloud applications.

ABC Electronics buys the goods from the LG, on receipt of the goods and the invoice from the LG, the details are sent (physical copies of invoice) to the HSBC bank. HSBC bank verifies the data and then releases funds to the LG based on the due date.

Note the above process

• Might take 3-5 days, probably more

• The participants to the process, do not have a visibility of the status - Are the goods received by the ABC Electronics, is the invoice received by the ABC Electronics, has HSBC bank got the document, has HSBC bank verified the documents.

• The invoices might get damaged, lost, tampered with - as they move between the different parties.

How can Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service help here-

With blockchain we can now build a solution whereby

• The business process of sending goods, receiving goods, receiving invoices, sending invoices to the buyer, verification of receipts and invoices by the buyer, sending the invoice to the bank can be captured / shared  on the blockchain

• The transactions on consensus gets added to the block chain and cannot be tampered with (immutable)

• Additions to the blockchain can be done by automatic process / manual process. Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service offers REST API's to automatically integrate the Oracle cloud applications with Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service.

• New data can be added based on an agreed consensus mechanism, which can be built using Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service.

• Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service also offers a front end application, which help the participants to view the status of the transactions (data transparency)

• The physical invoices need not be sent to the bank, the bank can directly connect via RESTAPI offered by Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service, to verify the invoices captured by the buyer. ( eases and speeds up the process)

• With Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service, a smart contracts can be built to automatic transfer amounts to the seller, on due verification of the invoices (process automation)

Below is the pictorial representation of how data (block) gets added to each node after each business event based on consensus between all participants and the same view is available to all participants.

With the above solution

• The data is visible to all participants and is consistent across all participants.

• Physical invoices need not be sent to the bank.

• The correct invoice details are confirmed by all parties and cannot be tampered with (immutable). The ability is only possible due to the use of blockchain technology.

• Smart contracts executed automatically to initiate supplier payments.

• The time to process the payment to the seller can be done in few minutes instead of days

Are there other Use cases - Impacts on finance function?

While there is a big impact on financial services industry, crypto-currencies, the focus of this note is to discuss the impact on the finance function perspective, at a more micro level.

There are many other use cases. As the technology matures, the way it is implemented is also evolving and new use cases are getting discovered.

Oracle (in Oracle Open World 2017) while releasing the Blockchain Cloud Service solution, have listed a good set of questions which will help you determine the possible use cases for blockchain. Businesses need to check on below to discover potential use cases

• Is my business process pre-dominantly cross departmental / cross organizational? ( think of intercompany reconciliation, interparty reconciliations)

• Is there a trust issue among transacting parties? ( think of trade finance scenarios)

• Does it involve intermediaries, possibly corruptible?

• Does it require period reconciliations? ( think of intercompany reconciliation, interparty reconciliations)

• Is there a need to improve traceability or audit trails? (think of bank confirmation letters, third party balance confirmation letters needed by auditors)

• Do we need real time visibility of the current state of transactions? (think of publishing reports to various stakeholders)

• Can I improve the business process by automating certain steps in it? (think of automatic payment, based on inspections by a third party).

From above, we can see numerous opportunities for improving the finance functions. Let me try to list possible use cases by critical functions of finance.

Any pitfalls? What should you check?

There are many potential uses of this technology. As the technology matures and more Proof of concept projects get executed, new use cases are getting discovered and old use cases are also getting dropped.  As per Gartner Hype cycle, blockchain technology has passed the 'Peak of Inflated expectation' phase and is likely to enter in the 'Trough of Disillusionment' phase as POC's start failing before entering the 'Slope of entitlement' phase.

Considering the hype, there is a risk of trying to force-fit blockchain in scenarios, where simpler, cheaper, faster options might work better. While blockchain are immutable, highly secure, there are few exceptions and special attention is needed to ensure the exceptions are understood and managed. The government regulation to manage blockchain contracts also need to be evolve. There are also concerns with data transparency, which might not always be a good thing.

Conclusion

Blockchain is a big game changer.  Its impact on the finance function is inevitable. As the technology matures, the technology will help the CFO automate, speedup processes, build internal controls even with third parties outside the organization.  The CFO organization should start discussion on discovering use cases. It is likely that new ways of doing processes might be developed, in a way never imagined before.

The intention of the article is to give an introduction to blockchain, the impact on finance function and how Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service can help with build a block chain quickly.

Continue reading " Blockchain & Finance - An Introduction for the CFO " »

Posted by Pramod Kumar Rijhwani at 6:56 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Summary

The core intention of writing this blog is to describe features of legacy mainframe and the emerging era of Big Data. It also demonstrates the process of offloading data to Hadoop.  

Advantages of Mainframe:

Legacy systems used by many organizations are more secure, scalable and reliable machines which are capable of tackling huge workloads.

Mainframe handles even mission-critical applications with minimal resistance, like processing banking transactions, where both security and reliability and security are equally important.

Drawbacks of Mainframe:

They sustain Large hardware and software.

Processing Prices.

Many organizations, in the current era, take the urge to initiate a part of migration and continue the same in all the aspects of business applications to newer reliable platforms.

This process helps organizations to reduce costs incurred and meeting the evolving needs from the business 

Advantages of Big Data technology over Mainframe:

Cost Effective.

Scalable.

Fault Tolerant.

The cost in maintaining and to process the mainframe can further be reduces by the assimilating a layer of Hadoop or to completely off load the batch process to Hadoop

Similarities of mainframe and Hadoop are as below :

Distributed Frameworks

Handle massive volumes of data

Batch workloading

strong sorting

Business Benefits of adopting the Big Data Technologies along with Mainframe or over Mainframe

Using Hadoop ecosystems like PIG , HIVE or MapReduce the Batch processing can easily be done.

Jobs from the Mainframe systems can be taken and processed on the Hadoop the output of the same can be viewed at the mainframe end reducing million instructions per second (MIPS) costs.

(MIPS is a way to measure the cost of computing: the more MIPS delivered for the money)

Organizations look at return on investments at every corner during up-gradation or migration. similarly Migrating mainframe to Hadoop is this condition met due to minimal infrastructure , the batch process costs and flexible upgrade of applications.

Process of Offloading Data to Hadoop

Offloading approach is recommended in the following simple steps.

To create Active Archives and copies of limited mainframe datasets in the Hadoop distributed File system.

Secondly to migrate larger amount of data from the source from sources like semistructured data sources or Relational DBs

Final iteration of moving the expensive mainframe batch workloads to the much-sophisticated Hadoop

Posted by Maruthy Ram at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

In the age where there are multiple applications involved in supply chain process, the knowledge about the customer orders is distributed. It has become a walk on the tight rope to keep the customer updated about the process of their order Vs cost to provide the information to the customer via customer service team or a complex BI solution. This blog opens a possibility of cost effective and light weight solution by introducing the 'Chatbot'.

The IT landscape involve multiple applications to fulfil every single order due to the nature of business, way the organization have evolved, number of business entities involved or due to the speciality of the applications. Below is the example of a manufacturing and retail organization

Pic 1 - Typical IT landscape

In this complex matrix, the traditional methods to keep the customer updated about the progress of their orders are as follows

• Send text message or email about the status
• Set up a customer service team to handle customer requests via call, text, email or chat

But the drawback of these conventional methods are that there is no single system which holds the moment of truth about every order. In order to avoid the customer service team juggling between applications, a complex BI reports are installed to oversee all applications resulting in even more complex IT landscape.

Alternative solution is that 'Chatbot'. According to Wikipedia, a chatbot is a computer program which conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods. Customers can chat with Chatbot to get the information about their orders. Let's see why the Chatbot solution is cool.

Implementing the Chatbot:

There are 2 main functionalities of Chatbots:

• Receive and understand what the customer is saying, and
• Retrieve the Customer information required

 In order to receive and understanding what customer is saying via chat, Chatbot uses Natural Language processing systems. Via artificial intelligence and machine learning, Chatbot is trained to understand the customer's request better. There are numerous cloud based chatbot development platforms can be leveraged to design, build and train the Chatbots. Oracle Cloud Platform or IBM Watson are examples of such Platform as a Service (PAAS)  solutions available.         

For retrieving the information required, the Chatbot uses web services to connect with each application. For example Order management Cloud has an Order Import Web service which can be involved by using the retail order number. Similar order information web service can be created. The Chatbot will have to invoke the web service and find out the best status of all the application and publish it to the customer.

Via these NLP and web services, implementing a Chatbot solution is easier than ever.

These Chatbots are not too bulky and intrusive like traditional BI solutions. They occupy less space in server or can be easily placed in Cloud as well.

Customer Experience:

Customer Experience, in short CX, is a major focus area for the organizations. With referral customers giving more business than new customers, the organization want the customer to be handled with care. The Chatbot will give the customers an unparalleled experience just like chatting with a human.

The Chatbot can chat in different language as preferred by the customer. In addition, Chatbot can be trained to reply on text or voice commends as well.

The Chatbot can be used on computer, tab or even mobile to give customer an excellent convenience.

Capex, What Capex?

 Setting up a multi-language enabled customer service team 24 x 7 or implementing a complex BI solution is far more costly for the organization. The cost and time to implement a Chatbot is far less when compared to the traditional methods. Readymade Chatbots are available which are already designed and built to a general extend. The implementation will be limited to involve the order information web services from various application and to train the Chatbots.

The Chatbots can also be used for expediting an order if customer requires. Chatbot can send mails to the Production team in manufacturing facility with the chat history to ensure that the order is expedited.

With the technical advancements, Chatbots are even helping patients who suffer from Alzheimer's disease and insomnia.

To summarize, Chatbots are easy, simple and light weight applications that solve the major problem of keeping the customer engaged. So if you are chatting on a web site to know the status of your order, you may be chatting with a robot already!!!

Posted by Sathya Subramanian at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 5 )

Overview on PeopleSoft Application

·         PeopleSoft is a comprehensive, multi-tasking ERP system

·         Various domains e.g. FSCM, HRMS, Campus solutions are integrated in the product

·         Flexibility in decision- making is enhanced due to integration of data in between different domains in PeopleSoft

·         Reporting can be in summarized and detailed analysis depending upon the requirement from single domain or consolidation of two or more domains

·         Robust facility for audit trail enables management to cater for user login transactions creating accountability across organizations

·         Reports and data can be synchronized for different accounting periods

Campus Solutions (CS 9.0, 9.1,9.2) Business Processes:

·         Student Management:

o   Recruit Prospects

o   Admin Students

o   Enroll in Classes

o   Advise & Transition Students

o   Manage Financial Services

o   Manage campus services

·         Academic Management

o   Schedule courses & Resources

o   Plan Academic Programs

o   Teach courses

·         Institutional Advancement

·         Campus Community

·         Personal Information Management

·         Maintaining Biography/Demographic/ Health Data

·         Maintaining Health Data

·         Maintaining Identification Data

·         Maintaining Participation Data

·         Organization Data Management

·         Maintaining Organization Data

·         Maintaining Event Data

·         Maintaining Committees

·         The 3Cs

o   Communications

o   Checklists

o   Comments

Continue reading " Getting Started with People soft Campus Solution " »

Posted by Dhiman Deb at 4:15 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

Automotive Industry has been largely ahead of the innovation curve bringing in more technology to the vehicle towards the needs of the market. But all this while, they were challenged working with their own archaic systems. Good customer experience does not just mean good client facing applications but also the entire supply chain has to be customer oriented. Each of the supply chain elements need to be integrated to the get the part/vehicle at the right place at the right time.

Writing in fear of being cliché, an Automotive supply chain has its own complexities which sometimes are not as intuitive to anyone who does not live and breathe this industry. This is where Infosys Automotive Solution has been crafted and perfected over the years, to cater to such specific supply chain challenges.

1.       Supersessions: This is where the rubber hits the road. Almost every leading ERP product in the market has functionality to define supersessions but is it integrated to the entire process?? The answer will be "No".  The complexity does not end with ensuring we are selling always the oldest part of the supply chain but we are also buying the latest part in the chain. Ensuring the End of life and forecasting processes for the product chain are tied together. Even from a pricing perspective, how is the solution going to align the prices along the chain or create incentives for driving buying behavior from dealers?

2.       Referrals: Referral is a concept beyond Promising. How does one ensure we refer to the next nearest warehouse to meet the demand to ensure customer experience does not take a hit? While doing this, how do we keep the logistics cost minimal? How do we ensure we follow the milk run routes or do rate shopping real time? How do we ensure routes are combined together? While traditionally these problems are solved through transport integrations but many have solved this problem too much downstream.

3.       Fair share: When we are in a back order situation in the entire network and there are continuing supply constraints, how do we ensure that the incoming supplies are transferred and is fair shared across all distribution centers. Should it be based on FIFO, or customer priority etc.? These are problems that applications have continued to ignore putting these as execution problems.

4.       Slotting: Warehouse space is real state, how do we ensure that the fastest goods are always picked fastest. Also will the fastest always remain fastest? Or will there be seasonality, trends which we have to cater to. Slotting is ensuring that a continuous proactive process.

5.       Dealer incentives: This is an important part of the supply chain, often ignored. Supply chains are like humans, unless we build in incentives, we won't be able to drive the required behavior from the supply chain constituents.  The big question would be what should we stock at dealer inventories which are client facing and what we stock at middle level warehouses vs central warehouses. At the end of the day, inventory budget and customer service levels will drive the decisions but a dealer would only be concerned about their own profitability.

While we covered some of the nuances of the automotive spare part supply chain, there are many more such niche challenges which are unique and have been built in Infosys Automotive Supply Chain Solution. The solution not only covers the spare part supply chain but also caters to vehicle business as well. Additionally, we have solution flavor catering to Tier1 suppliers as well. To know more, reach out to us at Oracle Modern Supply Chain event at San Jose.@ OracleMSCE @Infy from 29-31^st January 2018.

Posted by Abhishek Sabharwal at 1:40 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Back ground:

Business evolves in rapidly changing environments, often driven by the pace of technological advancements, new regulations, increased competition and demanding customers. These drivers have fundamentally shaped organizations' emphasis on objectives based on time, quality and compliance. Some of these could present opportunities to organizations, whilst others could seriously damage their performance if they are inadequately managed.

Business continuity management system (BCMS) is a proactive approach that can maximize business opportunities. It enables organizations to optimize the continuity of operations, thereby safeguarding their corporate performance. It is a versatile discipline that encapsulates the multidisciplinary characteristics of management and technical subjects. The discipline is about the management of threats and their impacts to critical operations. Predominantly, it improves the organization's capacity to withstand the impact of an incident that may otherwise jeopardize its ability to achieve its objectives

Continue reading " BCMS PHASE 1 " »

Posted by Sridhar Babu Gaddam at 7:11 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Has HFM not moved to cloud?

As the name indicates, FCCS - Financial Close & Consolidation Cloud Service, but still after reading through multiple blogs, what I interpreted is that FCCS is not HFM in cloud or a replacement of HFM. However, the list of features included in FCCS does support the fact that it seems to be a distant if not closer relative of HFM, if not a complete package altogether.

Let's first have a look in detail on all the features, which I found to be similar to HFM. And then I would go on covering the variances as well.

FCCS is primarily built from the customer's base point of view. The intent of this application is to reduce the manual effort or limited need for customization, since there is no concept of rule file here, & all the functionalities mentioned above have been provided out of the box.

Hence, FCCS would be of greater benefit to those customers who do not require complex calculations & plain vanilla implementation / consolidation is the requirement.

The foremost advantage of FCCS would be the database size for each application which is 150GB & that would mean the application is capable of holding around 1K entities & 5K accounts. However, this DB size is extendible, for a higher price though.

Lesser user roles exist in the shared services which would indirectly mean easier maintenance from security perspective.

Now let us discuss the differences in both the solutions, or rather I must say, the shortfalls in FCCS, which project the fact that FCCS is surely not a replacement of HFM or HFM in the cloud.

Posted by Shreya Raj at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Why BI in Oil & Gas Industry?

• How and where am I spending my dollars in OPEX across the wells in same location?
• What is the impact on overall CAPEX spending if there is drastic increase in any of the well drilling phase (Planning, drilling, completions, etc.)?
• What is the growth trends of Oil, Gas and natural gas production across well, fields, etc. with current, Month on Month and Year on Year comparisons?
• Not able reconcile actual and budget on various tasks while drilling the well?
• How to avoid duplicate/mismatch in the production / financial data for a well?
• Can I get the cockpit view of production and non-production time?

Continue reading " Business Intelligence in Oil & Gas Industry " »

Posted by Mohamed Ameen Amirjan at 1:54 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

The other day I was watching Sundar Pichai's keynote during the I/O 2017, where he introduced Google Lens, an intelligent image computing product from Google. The first thought that came to my mind was Arnold Schwarzenegger from Terminator 2- Judgement Day, were the T-800, a cybernetic organism from the future looks at an object and the details of the object pops up in its vision. I imagine a day, when this technology gets more mature and the VR head gears become lighter and cooler perhaps like eye glasses, and we can all be like the T-800, where we look at people and their online profile pops up. Maybe it could tell me that the tall guy in front me in the queue is my 5^th grade classmate...

Then I started thinking about what this could mean in the ERP world. We already see benefits of OCR in processing invoices with zero touch, etc. Some image processors are able to automatically process applications and detect photos where the applicant's eyes are closed or identify that the photo is not as per specification. But what Google is talking about is altogether at a different level, with machine learning capabilities. Having used some of the Google API's to generate QR code and to find geocode, I expect relatively easy to learn & use APIs from them, that would abstract the underlying complexities and return the most appropriate result for our request. My thoughts on few of its applications in the near future...

·         Inventory Counting - Cameras can be kept along the warehouse so all items are visible. We should be able to count each item and their location in a blink.

·         Login - May be this will give us a robust facial authentication mechanism to login!

·         Attendance - Place cameras at vantage points and the in-time and out-time of employees can automatically be recorded. I don't need to keep wiping my hands because it is wet and the biometric readers think I am an alien!

·         Field Service - Camera could watch the field service technician fixing let us say an electronic equipment and replacing a circuit board. The parts used can be re-ordered and debriefing recorded automatically.

·          Expense - System already has the field service technician's task and schedule. Let us say the technician is on a two-day visit to perform a planned preventive maintenance of a rig. On showing the lunch receipt to the mobile camera, it understands it is a food receipt, it picks the date in the receipt and understands it is within the visit's date range, gets the amount and records the expenses against the task.

·         Inspection - As part of inspection during material receiving, determine if the product meets the color specifications, if there are any scratches, cracks, defects etc. and automatically receive or reject material and record it in the application.

·         Enterprise asset preventive maintenance - Today we have sensors monitoring enterprise assets and raising preventive maintenance service requests. This can become better for e.g we can have photos taken of the asset at intervals and understand changes like color of a tube, bulging of the pump, rusting of the bend and raise preventive maintenance service requests.

Being an Ironman fan, I love the image processor part of Jarvis and the glasses Tony Stark wears in Iron Man 3 that does image computing and also projects images. I expect that in the next few years something similar will be so commonplace that not just Mr. Stark but all of us can experience it! 

Posted by Saravana Thonral Thiagarajan at 9:11 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Nowadays, with all the buzz around the word 'CLOUD', enterprises are progressively looking at possibilities of cloud adoption which principally has become an acronym for key trends like - Digitization, Modernization and Automation. While for enterprises, looking for green field implementations, it is easier to look at cloud options, embrace them and bring forth the much needed change, the real challenge is with organizations with large scale investment into existing applications which are STILL working. So, in this blog, will provide some insight into one of the most commonly used 'co- existence' approach of embracing cloud.

Continue reading " Co- existence - A Step Towards Cloud Adoption " »

Posted by Bijayita Mohapatra at 8:13 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Continue reading " Reverse Logistics For A Forward Thrust To Sustainment Quotient " »

Posted by Amit Sinha at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Welcome to last part of the series. In the first part we have discussed about availability of various HCM products under cloud technology and in this part we will discuss about a brief over customer expectation in terms of automation from HCM products.

HCM Products: - Automations & Mobility solutions

There are various HCM products available within cloud and each one has its pros & cons. Each product has its automation tool which makes them different from each other.

But, today's world has understood the importance of HR products and their solutions. Now, the organization's focus has shifted from budget to Automation. Their first and foremost priority is automated solutions which will reduce the future cost to the company.

Customer Expectations:-Automated HCM solutions

• Integration with multiple applications:-While purchasing any HCM solutions among the various options available within cloud, clients now a days expect that it should support or that it can be integrated with the already existing software platforms, so as to create a bidirectional flow of necessary data from one application to another, without any additional cost of middleware or third party softwares. Automation/Integration tools should be available or can be developed within HCM application which can reduce further cost of integration.

For example -

1. In the banking industry, there are multiple softwares used for various applications like Core banking solutions, Internet banking, lending solutions etc. There is always requirement for new user-id creation in each software where the employee's minimum basic information is required. HCM products once developed, contains all the user's personal as well as job information. So through automated batch solutions, these basic information can be shared with other applications so as to create bi-directional data flow which can automatically create user accounts in multiple applications as per the company policies.

2. Similarly in many companies, there is a requirement that if the user is on pre-approved leave, the user account in highly confidential software's like CBS solution in banking should be blocked so that nobody can login with that person credentials who is on pre-approved leave. So as and when future dated leaves gets approved in HCM solutions, automated integration solutions with other software's can support accordingly.

    

• Tools for Bulk upload & extracts: - These kind of tools are already available in various HCM solutions, but testing after upload takes times. Expectation is that- this time taken can be reduced with automated solutions other than query tools. These tools should verify at their end that the bulk data is uploaded and extracted as per the requirements.

   

• Automatized solutions for various modules: - Here, automated tools can be used to identify issues before they arise.

1.  Payroll & Other Modules:-Payroll is the most tedious and crucial domain of HCM applications. Automation can identify the issues which could come across once the payroll is run and processed, according to requirements and it can be sorted out without any manual intervention. Less time will be consumed for checking complete payroll. HCM automated solutions should itself authenticate the payroll results. Since all modules are, in some or another, connected to payroll, automation should be proactive in case of Core HR, absence, succession planning, talent management & all other modules. All kind of issues should be found out before any process is run and should be cleared by itself without any manual intervention.

2. Automated solutions for Interfaces\reports:-Now a days, various BI tools and interfaces (inbound\outbound) are available with almost all HCM products which is really commendable, but these BI tools should be integrated with other existing applications within the organization .There should be two way flow which can create even financial figures\marketing charts\supply chain management etc. using HR tools. Admin can create reports without intervention of developers even at implementation stage & Automation should make it possible that these reports are flexible and can be created in any form such as presentations, RFPs etc. The dependency on vendors should reduce once implemented and front end solutions should make user's life easier & time effective which will reduce the cost for organizations as well.

• App based HCM solution: - Since almost all applications are web based and they have the flexibility to be available on mobile, App based HCM solutions should be available at least for ESS & MSS. Notification & alerts should come once the application is downloaded on mobile/ iPad. Any reports which need to be delivered to top management can also be created at any location/time. Approvals based on mails & telephonic conversation (Concall decisions across global clients) can be stored. Any kind of rewards /re-cognition through telephone /mail can be uploaded by associate in his self-service options using the application.

• Version upgrades & Application Migration: - Version upgrade is a tedious process. If we need to migrate from one HCM solution to another, automation should be such that it should support version upgrade in a few days instead of few months and therefore, the cost will be reduced on time & on resources. Migration between applications would not be tedious task using automation tools.

Conclusion:-HCM solutions have created a buzz for all organizations who believe that Human resources are human capital which can transform the company growth. Since, multiple applications are available within the cloud market, it will be really difficult to choose the best for all organization HR needs. Above all, organizations expect a lot more from HCM solutions which should be highly automated and compatible for all platforms including mobility solutions and there is far more to go to make any HCM application to be highly automated as per the client's needs.

Posted by Gaurav Arora at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

THE PROMISE OF EINSTEIN AI

Dreamforce event last year was almost all about Salesforce AI "Einstein" and its promise. The promise of AI solution that will:

• Will Reside inside the SFDC platform
• Will be able to analyze the huge quantities of data generated like, sales, emails, activity data, e-commerce, calendars, social strings, and connected devices (IoT) and
• Will Implement logics through machine learning and predictive analytics algorithms and
• Will offer crisp insights after analyzing huge data and provide recommendations and perform business functions across the SFDC platform.

For example Sales Cloud Einstein's feature of "Predictive Lead Scoring" will help sales folks to focus on the most promising leads. "Opportunity Insights" feature will suggest sales folks to set next priorities. This will also take into account the inputs of another Einstein feature "Automated Activity Capture".

Service Cloud Einstein will help optimize how calls are routed through the new feature called "Einstein Case Management". Machine Learning will enable cases  to be automatically assigned, escalated and classified once they are raised, and also automatically recommend the resolution based on historic data. It will also ensure that high priority cases are serviced quicker and assigned to the best equipped and available agent. The platform will automate much of the initial information gathering, mostly via chatbots, so that service agents are equipped with background information before the eventual customer interaction. Another value add feature of Service Cloud Einstein will be Case Closure Date Prediction. 

Similarly, Commerce Cloud Einstein promises Product Recommendations and Commerce Insights and Predicitive Sort for the best and next best product to be offered . Marketing Cloud Einstein will provide Predictive Scores and Audience Predictions to enable marketers for campaigns to be focussed and successful and deliver the best content available. Other Einstein features are summarily depicted below: