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3/23/2023
Digital Transformation Guide for Mid-Sized Businesses
5 min read

The COVID-19 pandemic appeared as a once-in-a-century global public health crisis. COVID-19 lockdowns and containment measures have pushed this world towards catastrophic economic, health, and social crises.Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are more vulnerable to the catastrophic effects caused by COVID-19 as most mid-sized businesses face severe revenue loss and don't have enough cash reserves to meet their deadlines. Other containment measures like border control and social distancing have created a supply-demand gap due to limited consumer access to physical marketplaces.[lwptoc skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]The ongoing crisis is casting a furious impact on the global economy. Mid Sized businesses account for 90% of all business activities, making SMEs the incubators for innovation that can develop into larger enterprises and become a driver of GDP and productivity growth.Digital transformation fundamentally changes how businesses operate and adds value to customers' lives by integrating digital technology into all key business areas. The recent shift in world affairs amid COVID-19 has restricted businesses from adopting these changes and acting accordingly. We are now seeing famous brands changing their priorities and business process by improving customer experience (CX) and implementing digital transformation strategies.

Related: A Detailed Guide To Learn All About Digital Business Transformation

Mid Sized businesses have adapted to the contemporary crisis through innovations and advancements such as sharing ideas and ensuring support through a digital medium.As far as the contemporary scenario is concerned, the world is experiencing a rapid transition towards a digital transformation. It has the potential to increase innovation, enhance productivity and improve efficiency. The pandemic has catalyzed digital transformation because of the downfall of traditional business routines in many countries and pushing consumers to engage with companies on a digital medium.

Digital Transformation Strategy for Mid-Size Businesses

Digital transformation is crucial for businesses of any size to stay updated in a competitive market. One cannot simply ignore the benefits of integrating the right technologies in the business model. It helps improve efficiency, cost-cutting, increase productivity, better customer experience, and ultimately, more profit.According to research, 42% of SMBs are gearing up for digital transformation and integrating digital technology in their core business models. For now, almost 80% of SMBs have already deployed some digital transformation in their business model.Whether you're just gearing up or want to improve your existing digital transformation plan, a smart strategy and planning can always help you get the most out of the investment.

Keys Areas to Successfully Integrate Digital Tech In Midsize Businesses

People think that by making digital transformation complicated, they can make it work for them more efficiently, but that's not the case. You can break down the complex implementation structure into subunits and stay focused on simple initiatives to extract the highest Return on Investment (ROI). It's also important to ensure that employees and the upper hierarchy are aligned with the plan.Here are six key areas to focus on in your small business's digital transformation strategy:

  • Ensure Collaboration & Remove Barriers

Almost all digital transformation initiatives are put into action to improve operational efficiency across the entire business model and create a customer-centric facility. In business, organizational silos refer to business divisions that work independently and avoid sharing information or overlapping. By breaking silos and ensuring that all departments can collaborate effectively is the key to successful digital transformation.It's important to call all stakeholders on board to contribute collectively to the bigger cause and transformation initiatives. No doubt, digital transformation can't be dealt with as an isolated project.There are several ways to ensure collaboration and connectivity among all internal departments. For example, the budget for a digital transformation should not just come out of the IT budget. Instead, all Business departments and units that can enjoy the benefit from the project should contribute as well.Consider a digital eCommerce platform is responsible for a poor user experience that's damaging sales. Marketing and sales departments benefit directly from a better eCommerce experience. They should also take part in budget allocation and be involved with the development of the platform.

  • AI, Data Science and Machine Learning

Data is the main driver of precise and accurate business decisions. You need to focus on integrating such technologies in your business model that allow your team to extract valuable insights from various datasets. Employees can use these insights to enhance productivity which in turn improves growth.Valuable patterns and insights hidden in the vastness of data can help you better acknowledge what customers, partners, and employees want so that you can design the most relevant products, roadmaps, and processes to boost sales and unlock the full potential of your business.However, as datasets are getting more complex, it's becoming more difficult for small businesses to use them effectively. But due to the recent advancement in AI and machine learning algorithms, you can easily deal with huge and complex datasets using different processing tools. These modern algorithms and tools can extract valuable insights from data and improve the decision-making process.In addition, AI-based technologies, such as machine learning and deep learning, are specifically set up to process and analyze many complex and diverse datasets. Investing in these state-of-the-art technologies can assist you in making effective data-driven predictions models for a rational decision-making process.

  • Simultaneous Integration of Business Divisions

Some businesses want to adopt digital transformation to streamline their operations, automate workflows, connect, boost efficiency, and improve the CX. You must make all your business systems communicate with each other in real-time.When you bring your diverse business models such as finance, eCommerce, and customer care to the same platform, you turn them into interdependent platforms. It enables you to break down internal silos, improve collaboration and connectivity across departments.Cloud technology makes it much easier for small companies to integrate various software applications making it easier to automate workflow and manage different business functions simultaneously. For instance, the ability to synchronize data sharing among two or more business divisions eliminates the risk of data redundancy, letting you improve efficiency and eliminate errors.

  • Involve Everyone From Top To Bottom

A successful digital transformation demands a firm foundational basis of healthy corporate culture in the company. Getting everyone on board requires a coordinated effort at all levels, including synchronization at the top, agility in the middle, and adaptability at the bottom.It's also crucial to give attention to what your employees think of the upcoming technology, as many people feel that their job role is at risk due to the introduction of technology and automation. 27% of SMB owners face resistance from their frontline employees in digital transformation drive.To curb this issue, educate your employees on the perks of digital transformation. For instance, arrange a workshop session about how digital tools can assist them in increasing their productivity while saving time and energy. By arranging such training sessions for your employees, you can let them feel empowered and confident in the technologies effectively and achieve their goals.

  • Outsourcing

You probably don't have enough budget and time to hire an entire IT team as a small business. Outsourcing is the solution to this problem. To get your hands on desired technology, outsource your IT project to maximize your resources. It allows you to focus your budget on core business areas that have the greatest impact on your operations and productivity.Additionally, small businesses have to deal with unique challenges and need a box IT strategy compared to larger organizations. Search for technology outsourcing partners, vendors, and consultants that have expertise in working with small or midsize businesses. Choose a service provider who recommends budget-friendly solutions that are compatible with your existing IT infrastructure. They must be capable and collaborative enough to identify key areas that can produce the highest ROI. It should also provide the necessary onboarding and training so your employees can easily adapt to the new technology.The most effective technology doesn't need to be complex or expensive. Be aware of the outsourcing vendors who try to manipulate you to opt for costly solutions without explaining why you need such a solution and how it can help meet specific business goals.

  • Make A Right Choice

It demands dedication and a lot of energy to integrate every new technology that promises success with the parallel probability and harsh reality of making the wrong choice that can consume your IT budget without much to return for.Before opting from which digital initiative to implement, make your objectives and vision clear. Identify key areas that will produce the most fruitful outcomes, such as customer experience (CX), employee engagement, data analytics, automated workflow & business operation, and cloud computing.Many midsize or small businesses can produce the highest ROI by using simple technologies to automate time & energy-consuming repetitive manual tasks. In reality, complex technologies built for giant organizations could even push more confusion and negatively impact productivity.

Also Read: Digital Transformation – Possibly The Only Silver Lining Of Pandemic

For now, stay focused on how to implement digital transformation to make existing processes simpler and easier. Simple methodologies with high impact are ideal for small or mid-sized companies. For example, predictive analytics optimizes online ad spend and enables you to cut costs by limiting an impartial marketing budget and increasing your sales without changing all the existing key processes of your organization.

Conclusion

Launching a digital transformation drive is not that simple as most people think. Still, with smart planning, prioritization, collaboration, and employee training, you can unleash the power of technology for the greater good of your business. Workflow automation for small businesses can boost productivity, cut costs, improve the CX, and allow your business to grow cost-effectively.It's vital to design your digital transformation strategy following your company's objective by establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that showcase your business goal. You can then efficiently track metrics that matter and improve your strategies to boost ROI.

3/22/2023
Best Dropshipping Product Suggestions for 400% Increase in Sales
5 min read

Most dropshipping businesses fail because they can’t filter out the right dropshipping trends and trending products to sell online. With plenty of products already available in the market, finding one that sells easily with high-profit margins is difficult, especially in such a competitive environment.

You Might Want to Start here: How to Start Dropshipping Store [Complete Guide]

In such a scenario, the only way to make more money is to be unique, attentive, and experiment frequently.[lwptoc skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]

How to Find Products to Dropship

  • Brainstorm Dropshipping Trends

Refrain from starting your business blindly. Your first picks could be from the products you like or the things you see while scrolling down social media. Using platforms like Google Trends can unleash new possibilities and help you choose the right product to invest in. Write down the ideas, plan the strategy, and don’t hesitate to rethink. Please don’t skip this step, as it provides a foundation for the next steps.

  • Potential of Social Media

There are over 100 million products on social media platforms, and these products can easily be sorted by price, popularity, categories, etc. Pinterest and Instagram are often left untapped during research, but these platforms are valuable for extracting insights about the market and filtering out the currently in-demand and trending items.Sign Up on these websites. Subscribe to different hashtags and pages. Observe what people like the most and add those things to your dropshipping list.When you keep yourself up to date with the dynamic needs and hobbies of the world and people around, you’ll subconsciously get an idea about the products that can generate considerable profit margins.

  • Observation Is The Key

Observe your surroundings, your workspace, and the communities around you to explore what’s trending.Make a list of products that people can’t afford to live without. Categorize the needs and wants that can make life easier. Observe which products are hard to find in the supermarket. This is how you can make a difference by just observing smartly.

  • Overthink Scenarios

Start using your life events as a data generator for your product ideas. Stay conscious and make the best use of opportunities. Many product ideas can come to mind while making a travel plan or planning a wedding event etc.Once you adopt this routine, you’ll start to list out hundreds of products with high margins each day.Stay active while filtering out the right products from your surroundings or thoughts; as you continuously think about the best dropshipping products, you can lose some of the ideas in-between. To counter this error, you should carry a notebook and don’t forget to write what you think.

  • Keywords & Google Trends

Do not ignore the potential of Keyword tools and Google if you’re using Google Ads as a marketing medium or trying to optimize your page or site to increase traffic and reach.Rethink your product and plan. Enter each product name and alternate names into the Google Keywords Analysis tool. The application will then automatically generate data about how competitive the keywords are. It will give you an idea about the overall competition in-between your product and profit.Visit trends.google.com and repeat the same step here. Input the name or alternate name/slang of your product into the search bar and discover the insights of the trends with the help of search volume.This practice will again help you to filter out which products or categories are currently trending. You can also check the demand for the ideas and products of your choice using these methodologies.

Trending Products To Sell In 2022

Below is the list of top trending products to sell in 2022.

  • Portable Blender
  • Spider Nail Gel
  • Wireless Phone Chargers
  • Face Shield
  • Phone Lenses
  • Inflatable Pet Collars
  • Eyeshadow Stamp
  • Strapless Backless Bra
  • Child Wrist Leash
  • Front Facing Baby Carrier
  • Car Phone Holder
  • Home Security IP Camera
  • Wifi Repeater
  • Drone Camera
  • Posture Corrector
  • Electric Soldering Iron Gun
  • Pump Wedge Locksmith
  • Bohemian Earrings
  • Manicure Milling Drill Bit
  • Flexible Garden Hose
  • One Piece Swimsuit
  • Fly Fishing Quick Knot Tool
  • Breathable Mesh Running Shoes
  • Waterproof Eyebrow Liner
  • Non-contact Infrared Thermometer
  • Cat Massage Comb
  • Portable Electric Ionic Hairbrush – Summer Product
  • PVC Inflatable Beer Pong Ball Table – Summer Product
  • Home Ice Cream Makers – Summer Product
  • Beach Towels – Summer Product
  • Baby Kids Water Play Mat – Summer Product
  • Pocket Scarves – Winter Product
  • Winter Coats – Winter Product
  • Shoe Dryer – Winter Product
  • Touchscreen Gloves – Winter Product
  • Waterproof Pants – Winter Product
  • Bear Claws – Spring Products
  • Hiking Backpacks – Spring Products
  • Minimalist Wallets – Spring Products
  • Waterproof Shoe Cover – Autumn (Fall) Product
  • Hooded Raincoats – Autumn (Fall) Product
  • Cable Chompers – Autumn (Fall) Product
  • Plush Blankets – Autumn (Fall) Product
  • Portable Car Vacuum
  • Baby Swings
  • Matcha Tea
  • Eyebrow Razor
  • Seat Cushions
  • Phone Tripod

Salient Features Of The Top Trending Products To Sell In 2022

Below are the top characteristics of the best trending products to sell in 2022:

  • Make sure that the product you have opted to sell is unique. It is difficult to find a similar clone of your product. Or it should not be readily available in the local market. If your product is unique and purposeful at the same time, people will show interest. It means the demand will go up.
  • Make sure that consumers won’t find the actual price or cost of the item you are selling. Most immature dropshippers buy products from AliExpress or Amazon and sell these products online in their stores. Customers nowadays are smart and aware. Make sure that consumers won’t find the actual price or cost of the item you are selling.
  • You have to cash the opportunity of unavailability and demand. Make sure the product is not available within the country or region where you are operating. If a certain item is available easily, then why will people consider shopping online?
  • On average, drop shipping items range between $10 & $40; keep this price range in your mind before setting up high prices. This is because people can refrain from spending a higher amount on online shopping due to the fear of scams. With high prices, you will be making people skeptical and pushing them away. Customers will end up comparing prices on other online stores and buy from where the price is cheaper.

Categories for Trending Products to Sell In 2022

Now you have an idea about the characteristics of trending products, here is a list of those products that can increase your margin up to 300-400 percent in 2022 and onwards.There are always some categories that can earn you more profit. People are always searching for these specific categories. Hence, some of these categories that promise the most sales are listed below.Since everyone knows about these trending items, some of these best-selling products online may not turn out to be a profit generator for you. The reason is everyone follows the same strategy. When everyone knows about top dropshipping trends and tends to sell trending dropshipping products, it increases the supply traffic, and people will have a lot of options to buy, and sellers have a lot of competition to break. That’s why the list of trending categories of 2021-2022 is important to decide about the right dimension and choose the right product of your choice from the trending categories, which you think you can sell easily in your target market.

  • Shapewear
  • Travel accessories
  • Healthy and beauty products
  • Smartwatches
  • Health Care
  • Skin Care
  • Hobbies and Craft
  • Lamps and Shades
  • Mobile Accessories
  • Pet products
  • Fine jewelry
  • Sleepwear

All the products can be sold easily on eCommerce stores like AliExpress, Amazon, and eBay. All these categories are rich in most sold products online and are currently trending everywhere. You can also profit from these categories with the right strategy, just as these eCommerce stores do.

Conclusion

As an eCommerce entrepreneur, you need to develop an efficient and transparent product selection process to filter out which items can profit your startup.People often start dropshipping with trending but easily available products, which makes them lose their competitive advantage. Filter out the trending products, search for availability and competition, and then decide accordingly what products to sell. A well-researched product and strategy can generate a high potential profit for your business, or you’ll end up getting frustrated and leaving the room as most entrepreneurs do.Keep in mind that there always exists a space to learn and improve. Keep testing and improving, and don’t be disappointed if you need to search for other ideas before finding success. This is where most of the people leave the room for dedicated ones.

Ecommerce
3/21/2023
How to Launch a Product in 2023 [Complete Guide]
5 min read

Statistically, around 90% of the products that are launched annually - Fail. People who run their small online businesses try to launch product after product; this is pretty much becoming a new normal. When you introduce something to the consumer market, it becomes a game of dart and arrow, and you tend to throw as many arrows as you can to see how many of them hit the bull eye. The victory is in your hands if you know how to map a successful product launch strategy that possesses the development, launch, and promotion phase.

How to Launch a Product in 2023

This blog post discusses the effective approach and product launch roadmap that every eCommerce store should adapt to increase the probability of success:

1. Meeting consumer’s needs

An effective product launch strategy should always consider consumers’ needs and demands as a priority and satisfy them in the most suitable way possible. A fruitful way is to evaluate the contemporary market and answer the questions: Why would someone buy your product? Determine how your product could fill any void and add value to someone’s life. These are all reasons that push consumers to buy any things. Acknowledging customers’ perspectives of buying your product is how you can initiate your promotion strategy more effectively.

2. Know your target audience and your competitors

To make rational decisions related to your brand or product, you need to grasp the insights of the contemporary market and trends, that is;

  • Who are your potential customers?
  • Who are your current competitors?

There are several ways to do so, such as:

  • Google your product or product category and outline the direct and indirect competitors that show up.
  • Connect with the people within the domain of your target market and ask them which product or brand they are most likely to buy from and why?
  • Observe the relevant social media accounts or pages your potential consumers follow and are responsive to.
  • Gain customers’ perspective by shopping online or offline to feel what it would feel like on customers’ behalf to browse and purchase products.

As you go about your research, make a note of:

  1. Who your potential and most likely customers are—the ones you can engage easily.
  2. Who your top rivals are— specifically the brands that are performing well and famous in the market.

It’s crucial to deal with this aspect before heading forward, as it will remove the curtains of doubt, making it obvious for you where you should keep your focus and gain a competitive edge over your rivals.

3. Making a prototype and Beta Testing

To refrain from making false investments in a wrong product or item, outsource beta testers to run a test mechanism so they can provide feedback on how to improve and what to change, if necessary. It will allow you to dodge undesirable customer reviews that may, in turn, damage your image in the market, causing your patrons and investors to perform damage control to justify their linkage with your brand or business.

Also Read: How to Launch a Successful eCommerce Business in 2022

4. Readjustment and Changes

Once you step into the testing phase and start getting feedback from testers, friends, family, colleagues, or anyone who can help eliminate the risks, it’s crucial to make necessary adjustments accordingly. It’s difficult to make changes after completing a product, but it can create a notable difference in its quality. Everyone has a different perspective; some of your patrons may outline a feature that you’ve never considered adding or point out something irrelevant that you can eliminate. Ultimately, your product would become an ideal entity that your consumers not just need but want.

5. Strong marketing campaign

A successful product launch strategy is directly linked with your marketing strategy. Try to build anticipation among your target consumers by running promotional campaigns before the product launch. This awareness approach will be more effective and drive more RoI s on a new product.A few effective ways to start a promotion campaign for your upcoming product involves:

  1. Build a dedicated page about the new products on your website
  2. Initiate an email campaign that encourages signups to learn more about the new product.
  3. Reach out to influencers that can promote your product through their content and tease the product
  4. As per your budget feasibility, try to advertise at as many appropriate channels or platforms as possible where you can receive enough traffic to trigger public interest.

Don’t underestimate the power of SEO. If you want to cut your budget short, use effective SEO methodologies and keywords.

Related: How to Start Dropshipping Store [Complete Guide]

6. Build a firm supply chain

Business owners need to manage the inventory record of their products and ensure they have enough supplies to meet demand (This headache can be dodged by white labeling, which will be discussed in the following piece of writing). The most effective way to do this is to set up a manageable supply chain framework. Maintain rich communication with your vendors and ask about the limit of their generation capacity and how many units they can assemble or provide in a specific time frame. Then, discuss the scenario of scale production in case your product launch yields more demand oversupply.

7. Network and share your product

Once you’ve set a launch date, stick to it. It will reduce your efforts to continuously update your digital marketing mediums, customers, vendors, anyone involved in any changes or updates being made.When it’s time, promote the new product and trigger your email campaigns and social media channels, and encourage your friends and colleagues to spread the word as well. Your work is not over yet; ensure that you get the market’s attention on every marketing platform. And if necessary, repost and share reminder notices at regular intervals after the official launch.

8. Reach out to the press - post-launch

Once you’ve launched your product, and as soon as positive responses and feedback start to come, reach out to the PR firms and collaborate with influencers and ask them to share your story. People tend to buy from where they feel their emotions attached, so take your audience on a journey from inception, to development, to eCommerce. The public shows a keen interest in reading and listening to the content related to the origin of successful products, especially if they suddenly appear out of nowhere. Don’t hesitate to do so if you have an inspiring and catchy product story to reveal. Feel free to post your story on social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, or Instagram.

9. Consider public feedback - post-launch

Google and other relevant sites made for customer feedback are modern-day consumer reports. Notwithstanding how effectively you engaged the audience during your product launch, the public’s opinion of your brand can be ruthless if your business fails to deliver what it promised.If you receive negative feedback, hold patience, respond with a positive greeting, and provide a short-term way to solve the consumer’s immediate concerns and a long-term solution to ensure future customers won’t encounter the same issues. Responding to the reviews and feedback whenever possible reveals that you are dedicated to your product and care for what your customers think.

10. Go with White labeling - Manufacturing and Selling or Just Selling?

Manufacturing an entirely new product is often risky and costly. Here comes white labeling into play as a perfect solution to help an eCommerce business grow with a budget-friendly approach. The manufacturer provides the eCommerce business to acquire readily available goods to sell under its branding. The only task left for the eCommerce business is to run marketing campaigns and sell the products at a suitable markup rate; thus, both the eCommerce facility and vendor make money.Like a corporate practice, the manufacturer deals with the design and development of the product. At the same time, the eCommerce platform owner has to handle the marketing and sales of the product.Here are some of the primary reasons why you should opt for selling white label products.

  • Reduces manufacturing costs

One of the topmost reasons businesses consider selling white label products is the notable reduction in manufacturing costs, which provides space to invest more revenue back into selling more products.

  • Lean operations

By operating as a white label eCommerce platform, your business will run lean, as you aren’t bound with heavy manufacturing costs and HR-related issues (as discussed below).During the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses crashed because of high manufacturing costs.

  • Improved customer experience

Statistically, the businesses that prioritize customer experience generate around 5 to 6 times more revenue than businesses with average customer experience. One of the most effective ways a lean team can improve their customer experience is by offering white label products. As your resources are limited, collaborating with a manufacturer will expand your resources, and you can focus on core business goals such as improved customer experience and improved marketing strategy as well.

  • Instant access to knowledgeable staff

Private label or Direct sale companies that manufacture their goods and services have to deal with new employees’ hiring and training process for every new product assembly. Rather than recreating and running the whole lengthy process, white label partners allow you to benefit from the knowledge and experience of dedicated staff who already have a firm grip over the product’s inside and out.

  • Pivot quickly with consumer trends

Private label companies also have to tackle market pivot issues.Imagine you’re a fitness retailer, and you decide to create a line of trainer shoes with a currently trending design. With the traditional manufacturing approach, it may no longer remain popular among the masses when your product is finalized. In this scenario, you would be in a deadlock kind of situation due to the burden of high manufacturing costs, unsold inventory, zero demand, and nothing to offer your contemporary customer base.On the contrary, if you have a white label partner, you can choose to sell one of their existing and currently trending products to your consumers with suitable markup.

  • Ideal for rapid growth

As an immature business, you may not have enough capacity to manufacture multiple products at a given time but partnering with a white label manufacturer enables you to have sudden access to their entire supply line. Therefore, you can expand to a new market of consumers offer multiple products to your consumer base.Let’s say you are a private label company that only sells cricket bats. However, some of your potential customers may want to purchase a cricket bat and cricket ball together. It’s human nature; rather than buying a cricket bat from your store and a cricket ball from a different store, the customers will likely choose to purchase both items from another store, offering both products.By partnering with a white label manufacturer, you can enjoy instant access to the cricket ball and the cricket bats. Therefore, you would engage a broader consumer segment, those who want to buy only one of either item or both.

  • Test product lines risk-free

If you’re a budding company that ultimately plans to exercise private labeling or direct selling, white labeling is still a greater good as a first small step towards your destination. The process involving a white-label approach takes a few short weeks before you start selling. In contrast, private label selling may take several months to start selling as it bounds you to find a facility space, hire employees, create designs, purchase raw materials, and start manufacturing products on your own. On the contrary, you could start selling white label products to get some cash in the bank and then shift towards private label as the company grows further. In a nutshell, White labeling is the best option to start selling instantaneously while reducing your company’s costs and plausible risks. Creating a white label partnership medium is very simple, and you’ll be instantly enjoying a variety of product options at the tip of your finger.

Conclusion

Keep in mind; you will never have 100% control over how people perceive your brand. You can cut your extra expenditures to boost RoI, engage more customers in the effective way possible, make a great first impression and sustain your reputation. Still, you can’t control the individual opinions that exist in everyone’s mind.All you can do is remain honest, push your limits to the extreme and try to resonate with your core consumer base. With the right knowledge of how to handle things and rational decision-making, you can unleash the true potential of your business.

Software Development
3/20/2023
Top No-Code App Development Platforms
5 min read

Applications today are utilities to get stuff done just by making a few clicks. The commercial aspect of these applications is to meet the needs of today's businesses. Whether your company is a multinational enterprise or just a small-sized facility with a four to five-person crew operating in a basement or studio apartment of any building, there will be a time when you face a problem that can't be solved by using mainstream and third-party software applications. You'll be needed to build a customized application by setting up an in-house development project.

The easier you can build and deploy software applications to sustain your needs and solve problems, the more time you'll be able to counter any unforeseen problem or challenge. To make app development easier and simpler, you need to know what No-code development platforms can offer.

This revolutionary trend of app-building utilities gives businesses of any size—from small to midsized (SMBs) up to large enterprises the ability to quickly design, develop, customize, and activate business apps with no coding at all. Such tools' features and customization flexibility vary from platform to platform, but the fundamental function remains the same. Using a simple combination of drag-and-drop UI, form builders, and visual modeling, users can utilize the benefits of No-code development platforms and produce a customized and ready-to-deploy application.

No-code development platforms are changing the developers' and coders' world like never before. The post-pandemic world has opened new corridors for rapid adaptation of no-coding platforms. The speed at which businesses are gearing up to test and build new software is overwhelming. Business intelligence (BI) teams are taking full advantage of No-code and low-code development platforms. These No-code development platforms come with a simple user interface, state-of-the-art tool assembly, and data visualization tools.

What is a Need for No-code Development Platforms?

The notable driving force behind the trend of No-code development is the urge for Digital Supermacy within the IT sector.

According to stats, the no-code development platforms business will grow to $21.2 billion by 2022 globally.

Another reason to adapt No-code platforms is linked to data security and data management. The phenomenon's like Shadow IT and Managed data security have made companies vulnerable to new attacks and illegal activities. With no code at the core of application development, companies prone to such attacks can secure their data assets and intellectual property effectively, without losing their drive, thus becoming smarter, adaptable, flexible, and agile in a short time.

Benefits of No-Code Platforms

The perks of shifting towards No-code development platforms are as under:

  • Small and mid-sized businesses and startups can quickly enhance their application development skills using no-code development platforms.
  • The tools and utilities available on No-code development platforms turn every employee into a developer within the organization.
  • Both IT experts and non-expert employees can collaborate to rapidly develop apps that can be custom-built with dedicated functionalities to sustain the needs of any department like Sales, Marketing, Finance, and HR.
  • Users can opt for simple templates for workflow, libraries, and customization to develop No-code applications anywhere, anytime.
  • No-code apps can support and integrate with databases, web services, and APIs without losing any data.

Top No-Code App Development Platforms

List of the top-of-the-line no-code development platforms that you should know about in 2021.

Salesforce

Salesforce is the world's leading No-code development tool, and it acquires this status due to its state-of-the-art faster and simpler CRM, created using a no-code platform.Last year, Salesforce announced two new low-code features for its top application development platform, Lightning App Builder. These features include Dynamic Forms and Dynamic Actions, which allow Salesforce users to develop interactive and engaging forms with a no-code approach.

Nintex

Organizations all around the globe enjoy the perks of the Nintex Process Platform every day to instantaneously and easily manage, automate, and optimize their business processes. The Nintex Platform offers freedom of process mapping, workflow automation, robotic process automation, report generation, forms, mobile apps, process analytics, and more via a simple drag and drops layout. With few clicks and no code at all, Nintex makes it easier and quicker for small and mid-sized businesses to enterprise-level organizations to manage, automate, and optimize their business processes. With Nintex, businesses can design, develop, activate and manage the best solutions and services possible to sustain customer demands and boost productivity.

Nintex is a few DevOps platforms providing no-code software development with a Robotic Process Automation RPA utility. Nintex No-code services with RPA provide the perfect environment to train bots quickly and cost-effectively automate and streamline repetitive tasks with an agile approach. Apart from that, Nintex provides No-code utilities like:

  • Nintex Forms
  • Nintex K2 Cloud and Nintex K2 Five
  • Nintex DocGen [Document and Report Generation]
  • Nintex Sign [Digital Signature]

Nintex provides a solution for a multitude of business environments and departments such as:

  • Human Resources
  • Information Technology
  • Customer Service
  • Sales & Procurement
  • Finance
  • Legal
  • Marketing

Nintex shares a remarkable history of streamlining processes for SharePoint and Office 365, the latter of which recently crossed 50 million workflow tasks in 2017.Nintex platform has richly accompanied thousands of enterprises worldwide across industries, including the banking sector, insurance firms, pharmaceutical companies, government bodies, manufacturing firms, and healthcare.

Airtable

Airtable is a no-code development platform that encourages non-developers to innovate and design applications that increase agility within their workplace by handing over the power of a highly flexible database into the hands of creators. Airtable has raised $170M in funding and has over 170,000 businesses carrying out critical processes and workflows on Airtable. Airtable looks like a spreadsheet but has many powerful features. Building blocks provided by Airtable allow non-developers and developers to model their workflow, outline relationships between different variables, and create customized data views. Airtable provides adaptability and scalability if markets evolve or goals change. It provides an agile environment by enabling transparent and visible collaboration among team members and managers. It also allows developers and non-developers to solve a wide variety of use cases without writing any code.

Quickbase

Quickbase is a powerful, highly responsive no-code development platform that empowers businesses to quickly turn innovative ideas into efficient applications that make them more informed and productive. By using Quick Base, developers and non-developers can quickly develop business applications to flex and evolve by connecting people, information, and ideas safely.Quickbase has a rich history of assisting businesses to design, develop, regulate ?and improve ?their digital solutions by adapting a variety of tech utilities such as data mapping, data security, and remote user access. Using unified platform Quickbase, you can transform your entire business without hiring any software development team. Appy Pie has improved its market image due to its recent recognition by G2. It richly supplies no code support to non-developer teams and tools to build chatbots customized per business requirements. These apps and bots can easily build and harbor online data to provide content to the users offline and drive better interaction instantly.Most renowned utilities offered by Appy Pie include:

  • Appypie Appmakr
  • Appy Pie Website (to develop Websites)
  • Appy Pie Live Chat
  • Appy Pie Chatbot
  • Appy Pie Design (for Graphic designing)

Zoho Creator

Zoho Creator is used to build multiplatform applications for simple call logs and Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs). Zoho Creator provides an interactive environment for visual development, code editing, and integration of built-in templates. Zoho Creator currently enables developers and non-developers to create customized apps without any technical assistance. The interactive drag-and-drop interface encourages non-developer teams to develop web-based and mobile-based applications that sustain all their needs easily. Zoho provides support for analyzing data, generating reports, and integrating with 3rd party applications.

Alternate Options for No-Code App Development Platforms

If you are looking for an alternative to top no-code app development platforms software, there are plenty of options available in the market, such as:

  1. Quixy
  2. Jotform Tables
  3. Outgrow
  4. Ninox
  5. Zudy Vinyl
  6. Kintone
  7. Landbot
  8. Knack
  9. Bubble
  10. Lumavate
  11. Airslate
  12. Stackby
  13. Qalcwise
  14. Xpoda
  15. Stencyl

Conclusion

No-code app development platforms allow you to build apps fast & transform your business even faster without any prerequisite knowledge of programming and coding. You can outpace the market and the competition with the aforementioned intuitive tools that make app development simple.

Staff Augmentation
3/19/2023
Staff Augmentation Vs Managed Services Vs Project Outsourcing
5 min read

In a post-pandemic world, outsourcing is becoming a new norm as more and more companies are gearing up for IT outsourcing. Finding and hiring an in-house IT staff is a time-consuming and costly practice and is not a sane decision if you have a limited-time project.The two main outsourcing models are staff augmentation and managed services. Many outsourced services such as testing, coding, design, and development can be utilized for the project, or a project can be outsourced. On the Darkside, outsourcing may also possess risks and vulnerabilities due to the client’s low degree of control.

Most of the time, businesses struggle to choose between staff augmentation and managed services. IT departments that need to introduce innovation or updates will need to outsource them to attain their goal as per plan. This blog post will discuss what project outsourcing is and what it can offer in terms of its subordinates, like staff augmentation and managed services.

What is Project Outsourcing?

Challenging projects require support not only in back-end development but also in Front-end, User interface, project management, software quality assurance, pushing the need for the expansion of IT outsourcing and staff augmentation might not be sufficient enough. It usually happens when launching new products or startups and integrating some advanced features in existing systems or rebuilding systems. The outsourcing vendor then provides extensive services to meet the project’s specific requirements and manage it with great efficiency, mostly via the Agile approach to deliver the product on time and maintain high standards. This collaboration possesses a variety of possibilities and less attention from the client.

Advantages of Working with Project Outsourcing

The nature of this outsourcing model presents the following advantages:

  • Cost reduction
  • Faster project completion
  • High level of expertise
  • Flexibility

Let’s dive into details.

Cost reduction

Companies can enjoy the perks of competitive prices for contracted services, especially if the project or service can be outsourced from an offshore vendor. Furthermore, overhead costs are reduced to nil since the company no longer needs to handle the contracted services internally.

Faster project completion

Cost reduction also provides an opportunity for faster project completion as competitive pricing means more resources for the same investment amount. For instance, you can hire three Indian software developers for the price of one US or UK-based software developer. Furthermore, outsourcing can provide access to tools and methodologies that can accelerate the project life cycle process.

High level of expertise

State-of-the-art expertise can be imported to shape the project. A company no longer has to stay updated with the shift and arrival of technological advances. Instead, it can focus on improving and reshaping its core competencies and hire vendors with the necessary knowledge to work on relevant aspects of the project.

Flexibility

Organizations are no longer dependent upon their resources but can enjoy the perks of extensive projects by combining their resources with the skills of an outsourcing partner. Small or mid-sized organizations can instantly expand their limits by collaborating with foreign talent.

Project Outsourcing Vulnerabilities and Risks

Project outsourcing comes amidst some vulnerabilities and risks.

  • Coordination breakdowns
  • Loss of Control
  • Fear of Conflict
  • Security Concerns

Let’s discuss each in detail.

Coordination breakdowns

Coordination of experts from an outsourced company can be a headache, especially if the project demands rich communication and mutual compromise over certain aspects. Breakdowns are exacerbated due to a physical barrier in space and mental synchronization with people working in different offices or even different cities. Another barrier is the difference in time zones that remains instrumental in breaking coordinates in cross-continental outsourcing.

Also Read: IT Outsourcing for Healthcare Industry

Loss of control

There is a potential loss of control over the project as the core team depends on other organizations with a lack of direct authority over the employees and management of outsourcing service providers. While the long-term survival of involved entities is directly linked with the performance, a project always remains on the verge of failure if one side fails to deliver as per commitments and true expectations.

Fear of Conflict

Projects are more vulnerable to damage caused by interpersonal conflict since the different participants do not share the same ethical values, perspectives, and culture. The trust factor, which is crucial for the success of a project, can be difficult to maintain due to limited interactions and people from different organizations and cultural backgrounds.

Security Concerns

In today’s data-driven world, almost all projects involve a high degree of information sharing between the involved companies, which comes amidst the compromise over trade and business information confidentiality. It turns out to be disastrous if the contractor also works for your market rival. Confidentiality is the biggest ever concern, and companies have to be very careful while outsourcing systems involving payroll, medical transcriptions, and insurance data.

Managed Services

This Outsourcing model is based on similar principles as Project Outsourcing but with a notable difference - it demands a continuous delivery of services from the vendor. In this case, a client usually entrusts the outsourcing service provider with a whole process or system. Usually, it comprises a secondary aspect of its operation. The partner has control over it and its outcome so that the company choosing Managed Services can focus on the more crucial and core areas of the business. The service is well-determined and locked under the Service Level Agreement’s pact, an agreement between the service provider and the client. Managed IT services are more lengthy and long-term involvement as it is a continuous and mutual reinforcement for both client and service provider. The Brightside and downside are pretty much the same as in Project Outsourcing, including the advantages of long-lasting cooperation like stability and cost cuts. Managed services are the corporate model that is not always offered by software houses, so you need to consider the more limited domain of finding the right vendor.

Managed Services Perks and Benefits

The nature of this outsourcing model presents the following advantages:

  • Saving time
  • Access to the best talent
  • Focus on your core competencies
  • No recruitment headache
  • Lower operational & development costs

All of the said perks are not always present in every situation. Everything depends on your requirements, priorities, specifications, circumstances, and especially the outsourcing vendor you choose. So let’s analyze each of them in detail.

Saving Time

The most obvious reason to choose this model is the time factor. Since you don’t have to deal with the management of the developer’s team by yourself and the outsourcing partner deals with everything, you save a big chunk of time. After all, the only thing you need to do is provide crystal clear requirements and specifications and ensure rich communication with the company.

Access to the Best Talent

Software outsourcing companies are the biggest rivals in the HR market. They often mark the victory and win the best developers. It means they restrict the direct access to the best talent, and you cannot directly hire them. Therefore, in many cases, the only way to open access to the best talent worldwide is to work with an outsourcing firm having the best and right developers you need.

Focus on Core Areas

Outsourced team members allow you to focus on core business areas such as growing your business. The outsourcing company deals with the development area so that you can primarily focus on the stuff which best suits and demands your capabilities.

No Recruitment Challange

Like project outsourcing, Managed services free you from running any recruitment drive as the outsourcing firm already has full-time developers onboard. Your outsourcing service provider can further search for and recruit qualified developers based on your customized requirements.

Reduced Operational & Development Costs

Since you don’t need to hire an in-house work team, you cut operational costs as well. After all, you don’t have to provide office space, advanced equipment, payroll, insurance, allowances, and other employee benefits.

Managed IT Solutions Disadvantages & Risks

With some advantages above, there also come certain risks and disadvantages you must be aware of:

  • Possible higher costs compared to staff augmentation
  • Less control on your side
  • Reliability

Let’s discuss each of these in detail.

Higher Costs Compared to Staff Augmentation

Unlike staff augmentation (as we will discuss in the following content), managed services leave the space for the involvement of other stakeholders besides developers themselves. This adds up to the net cost of outsourcing. In some cases, this extra cost makes managing services more expensive than using staff augmentation, as you will see later.

Loss of Control

Control and responsibility on the developer’s side are both a curse and blessing simultaneously. Sometimes little control and utmost liberty are devastating. How much control you need ultimately depends on your specific circumstances, requirements and priorities. If you choose the wrong vendor, then full control on their side does not serve as a sweet dish; instead, it may ruin your project.

Reliability

Whether you find a reliable outsourcing partner or not is likely to determine the destiny of your project. Reliability is one of the major concerns while choosing managed services. The only way to curb risk here is to carefully and consciously run the partner selection drive.

What is Staff Augmentation?

Instead of absolute outsourcing (that was the case earlier), this solution is based on hiring several developers for a specific time scale or developing a particular project segment. It works like an extension of the existing human resource. The outsourced team members work with the in-house team, contributing their skills and knowledge and offering different perspectives and solutions. Upon opting for staff augmentation, the company focuses on contemporary requirements and hires software developers with the necessary skillset required in the ongoing project.

Also Read: How to Save 70% Revenue Using Staff Augmentation

Advantages of Working with IT Staff Augmentation Companies

Staff augmentation presents some unique advantages:

  • Less recruitment headache
  • Lower operational costs
  • Lower development costs
  • Less legal headache
  • Access to the rare and needed specialists
  • Control on your side

Let’s take a look at each in detail.

No Recruitment Headache

You can free your shoulders from the burden of searching and hiring the right talent. The staffing company does that for you. You provide detailed requirements, and they handle the rest.

Reduced Operational Costs

You don’t have to provide office space, transport facility, and employee benefits to your remote employees. The staffing company handles it for you as well.

Lower Development Costs

Your remote developers are most likely offshore, which in turn reduces the rates and total development costs.

Less Legal Headache

The staffing company deals with most of the legal liabilities for the developers as their official employers. Therefore, it only leaves room for very brief paperwork and legal formalities on your side.

Access to the Unique Talent

Staff augmentation expands your boundaries by providing you with direct access to state-of-the-art IT experts around the globe. You don’t always have direct access to them or communicate with them directly, but this model opens you a channel for direct access.

Control on Your Side

Finally, this model provides direct control on your side. Since you are the one who deals with the team directly and manages it, you are the one who has rich control and authority over it.

IT Staff Augmentation Disadvantages & Risks

Staff augmentation is not everyone’s cup of tea. There are certain downsides and risks which you must be aware of:

  • Management resources are necessary
  • Reliability
  • Staff deficit

Let’s break them down in detail.

Management Resources and Capability Needed

With notable benefits, staff augmentation also comes amidst some downsides in managing the remote development team on your own. This usually requires your company to have the right stakeholders who can handle this task effectively.

Reliability

Just like Managed Services, partner reliability is one of the primary concerns in Staff Augmentation. Getting the wrong staffing partner may ruin your project. For the said reason, it’s crucial to take every step with great caution by ensuring that your potential staff augmentation vendor is a reliable one with rich experience and a track record of dealing with similar projects like yours.

Staff Unavailability

Sometimes it’s not as easy as it sounds to find the right developers at the tip of a finger, or at least not as fast as you’d think. However, that doesn’t happen frequently. Such problems pop up sometimes in staff augmentation, depending upon your requirements and the place where you’re looking for developers.Why not own the R&D Team?Suppose you are gearing up to integrate 40 experts into your team. In that case, you can set up your Research and Development (R & R&D) team with a sustainable business environment and extended domain of tech talent pool. But handling your R&D team comes amidst the responsibilities related to the legal liabilities, learning and adapting cultural dogmas, and running all of the risks independently.

How to Outsource the Best Managed IT Services or IT Staff Augmentation Vendor

There are a few things you have to take into consideration while outsourcing.

Previous experience

This is the most crucial aspect to note when choosing a potential outsourcing partner. The outsourcing firm you are considering collaborating with must-have rich, relevant experience with projects like yours.

Pricing model

You need to ensure that the pricing model is transparent, fair, and free from hidden charges. It has to provide you with the best price possible.

Legal information

It’s recommended to check the company’s legal information. How long they have been serving, the key stakeholders, and if there have ever been any lawsuits, etc., tells a lot about a company’s reputation.

Portfolio/Past Experiences

Ask the outsourcing service provider to provide a detailed portfolio of their developers. Carefully review their expertise, academic qualifications, certifications, and experience.

Communication Medium

To eliminate the communication barrier and related problems, you must ensure that the management and development teams know your language or central medium like English. You can ask them to provide any relevant certifications which confirm their level of English fluency.

Testimonials and Reviews

Last but not the least, carefully go through the testimonials & reviews and ensure they are real. It is even better to talk to their past and contemporary clients and ask about their experience while outsourcing with the same company.Of course, there might be many other factors to consider depending upon your needs and specifications. But in general, ensuring these criteria is the most important for any company gearing up to outsource a team, project, or services.

Conclusion

All models have their advantages and disadvantages and, notably, show different efficiencies in different situations. Staff Augmentation is ideal for project scaling when a certain skill set is required, and your in-house employees cannot find all the solutions. In such a case, external developers will simply fill in the voids. This temporary and to-the-point engagement makes it cost-effective and flexible. On the other hand, Project Outsourcing would be a great alternate if you are looking for a reliable partner offering various services to complete a whole project independently.

The provider collaborates with you by sharing their expertise & knowledge and becomes responsible for the project’s outcome while focusing on core business areas. Last but not the least, when it comes to long-term engagement, you should opt for the Managed Services model. Every model offers different perks based on its nature and layout, but the final choice should be based on your ultimate business goal and the nature of the project. Each company has its definition of assistance and collaboration.

Therefore, it is vital to consider the benefits of all available options and then select the model that fulfills your requirements. Once you decide, you should also ponder other aspects of outsourcing, such as the differences between offshoring, onshoring, and nearshoring or preparing yourself to find a dedicated outsource vendor. By researching in advance between Staff Augmentation Vs Managed Services Vs Project Outsourcing, you can find the outsourcing solution that best suits your specifications and requirements and provide your company with some state-of-the-art and talented experts from the world.

3/17/2023
Artificial Intelligence Meet ERP Systems - Next-Gen Management
5 min read

It requires more than great products and services to maintain a dominant position in today’s highly competitive, globalized, and shaky market. The growth rate of economic and technological evolution reveals that agility and flexibility are the true saviors when it comes to a clear acknowledgment of your customers’ rapidly evolving priorities and requirements. As far as Next-gen ERP is concerned, it offers state-of-the-art capabilities in synchronization with your core ERP features to help you automate and optimize the overall functionality, giving you a competitive edge in operational excellence and agility.[lwptoc skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]

Key Benefits of ERPs for Businesses

Discussing the importance of ERP systems in assisting businesses to automate and optimize enterprise-related operations. They help sustain many business activities, assisting you to intelligently handle complex finance, production planning and execution, service and maintenance, stock management, sales and procurement, and HR.By centralizing and harmonizing your data, integrating all your operations, and eliminating siloes within your enterprise, next-gen ERP solutions amplify the impact and domain of your core ERP functions to help you not only survive but thrive in a highly dynamic world amid multiple challenges. Some of the notable benefits offered by next-gen ERP solutions are as under.

Advanced Strategy

To fulfill today’s customer demands regarding small order quantities, customized products, and diverse product mixes, the advanced planning utility offered by next-gen ERP can assist you in ensuring an efficient supply chain while keeping inventories scalable and low-maintenance.

Superior services

In Modern times’ highly competitive market, customers want much more than high-quality products or solutions. They expect superior services, too. The right processes and directed solutions can help you make your services streamlined to sustain customer delight, increase efficiency, reduce costs and even increase RoI or crack new business opportunities.

Global trade

The world has become a village, and the internet encourages every small to mid-sized business for cross-border trade. International trade, however, demands some SOPs. A growing stack of trade policies and taxes makes trading products a complex and costly process. ERP-driven Global trade management solutions can promise you compliance and eliminates most of the risk factors.

Finance and Account Management

Manual invoice processing is a slow process and comes amidst the risk of errors and mistakes, making it costly. You can help your accounts department automatically process invoices from recognition to approval, posting, and maintaining a record of it irrespective of whether you’re a large business or just a startup. The RoI will be instant and notable.

Lot size one Strategy

Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B) customers, nowadays, increasingly demand customized solutions and services. To meet their requirements criteria, manufacturing companies need to adopt a ‘lot size one’ approach.

Cloud-based ERP

In past practice, many businesses tend to keep themselves up for on-premise solutions or to the private cloud for security reasons, and the cloud services are now skyrocketing. Another utility you can enjoy for having a next-gen ERP solution.

Intelligent maintenance

Modern solutions are fueled by innovations like big data, the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and augmented reality, etc. With these AI-driven modules, maintenance is becoming increasingly intelligent. These smart solutions can increase productivity, reduce maintenance costs, extended equipment life and security compliance.

Intelligent Inventory

Warehouses equipped with robots and drones to pick, scan and move goods with accurate and precise handling are becoming a new norm. Companies are increasingly integrating modern technologies into their warehouses to improve supply chain and inventory management ‘always faster and promising deliveries. Next-gen ERP solutions are all about optimizing your warehouse that can help you boost productivity and reduce costs.

Strategic sourcing

The conventional procurement approach, which focuses merely on getting the most competitive price possible, is diminishing. Dynamic market requirements bound companies to look beyond this old-school Strategy. Next-gen ERP solutions can give you the right direction for strategic outsourcing as per market conditions.

Top 3 Reasons to Adopt Next Generation ERP to Engage Right Talent Pool

Adopting a scalable ERP that richly incorporates innovative technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) will not only give you a competitive edge over your rivals but will also help you engage the next-generation workforce that is crucial to direct your business towards a new summit.The future workforce does not hesitate and desires to interact with technology in more connected and interactive ways. It isn’t just about a tech-driven paradigm shift in manufacturing and distribution that encourages policy-makers to ponder over a new way of conducting business, and it’s also a fact that the Baby Boomer generation is on the verge of retirement. The future is in the hands of Millennials.According to the statistics published by the Bureau of Labor, around 75 million Baby Boomers are expected to retire in the coming years, and their current labor participation rate will fall from 80% to below 40% by 2022.

1. Social Collaboration AI-driven Smart Decisions

Social collaboration in ERP is becoming a new norm. Statistics reveal that organizations having social ERP are 145% more likely to experience real-time collaboration across departments and divisions and experienced a 22% boost in RoI over the past two years. This is rational as the millennial workforce and their customer counterparts like interacting through a familiar and personalized social media-type interface while performing business-related activities. Social ERP tools developed to engage the entire team on board deliver trend recognition, notifications, and real-time collaboration at everyone’s fingertips. This ensures timely response and real-time observation of customer sentiments, continuously evolving market and data trends, and core business functions.More and more Customers are establishing 90% of the relationship with a company without interacting with a human. Recent advancements in emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) allow businesses to engage with consumers everywhere with minimum or no real human interaction, whether entertainment, automobiles, shopping, etc.

Also Read: Data Science Project Management [Explained]

A potential customer-first approach requires your ERP system to acknowledge each customer’s requirements and have the capability to encourage them with self-service, anytime and anywhere in the globe. For now, more and more businesses are managing interaction with customers without human assistance, making it crucial for everyone to ensure that their facilities don’t leave behind. B2B eCommerce channels that can communicate and collaborate with the entire business supply chain are another live example of digital interaction. Customers and vendors on a digital portal enjoy real-time access to information to automate the process and enabling organizations to save time, money, and energy.

2. Scalability and Flexibility in the Workplace to Manage Top Talent

Amid growing and evolving challenges like global expansion, innovative technologies, and a cross-generational workforce shift, choice and flexibility require your business to deliver quality services to customers by utilizing the best employee talent. To engage, inspire, and acquire young and top talent, your ERP system must allow your employees to run the ERP their way and feel satisfied and fulfilled while driving your business to sustain your customers’ demands effectively. Meanwhile, individuals who wish to interact with the ERP system in an old-school client can also have their interactive interface.Other primary benefits to operating on an elastic ERP system are cloud deployment, on-premise, or both, and the payment plan that best fits your finances and requirements. Fundamentally, your ERP must be scalable enough to mold, compress and expand as per the challenges pushed by your dynamic needs and allow you to stay focused on core business functions.

3. Ensuring Personal and Valuable Business Insights to Boost RoI

The secret ingredient to acknowledge and, more importantly, improve how your manufacturing or distribution process operates daily is actionable business insights and valuable data patterns. By deploying AI and ML technology as part of the ERP, the plan is a perfect strategy to extract valuable insights from the ocean of gathered data volumes channeled through ERP. Further processing includes searching for anomalies, repetitive patterns, and risk factors and surfacing the interesting data points on the personal dashboard. This routine enables rational decision-making and also allows each individual to be more successful in their routine tasks. Employees’ success is the ultimate objective of interactive engagement.

Also Read: AI Trends and Future Insights for 2021 and Onwards

A next-generation ERP solution offers more than that of the conventional ERP reporting and analytics utilities. A futuristic ERP solution is undoubtedly a carrier that shapes Strategy and policymaking throughout the organization by allowing real-time data access. Considering insights extracted by a next-generation ERP system can help you build more rational decisions, improve RoI, reduce risk, boost responsiveness, and reshape the overall productivity that matters.

6 Notable Trends driving futuristic ERP designs

One can easily make a hypothesis about where Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is heading. The most obvious and notable six trends that will affect ERP in upcoming days include.

1. Real-Time Decision Making

Data is the new oil. If organizations capitalize on data intelligently to maintain contemporary awareness and develop valuable intelligence, it will become a norm to thrive in this domain. More than ever before, business leaders around the globe are exploring competitive benefits in making dynamic and contemporary decisions to boost their performance, supply chains, and financial operations. From utility vendors discovering latent benchmarks with Smart to mid-sized businesses to manufacturing giants observing sales inflows that cast contrasting shadows on their supply chains and overall output, both front-line hierarchies, as well as executive leadership, are busy in utilizing their systems to remain engaged, up to date, and profit-driven machines.

2. Age of Globalization

The world is changing, so do businesses. In the contemporary era of globalization, companies are quickly maneuvering to secure their leads in evolving markets. As companies make their debut in new markets, their back-end methodology needs to be capable enough to sustain the regulatory, trade, and financial demands of performing well in new geographies as well as a strange demographic environment. The upcoming upgrades to the existing ERP systems stress too much out-of-the-box functionality to fill the existing voids in a truly global economy. As companies hustle to reach all corners of the world, so too are their employees. The focus on mobility and app-enabled solutions has and will continue to evolve. This decade is likely to witness a focus on user experience as ERP enablers work hard to ensure their solutions are easily accessible and adaptable.

3. IT-driven Priorities

With many millennials entering and taking lead roles in today’s workforce, we observe a paradigm shift in their art and style. The workforce demands interfaces that are functional, interactive. A friendly user interface, ease of use, and flexibility are crucial in winning the users’ satisfaction.

4. Business Intelligence (BI) and Data Visualization

Many organizations know the worth of valuable intelligence. To make your data fruitful, you must be able to see through it. Alongside their front-line employees, upper hierarchy and executive leadership demand visibility. Effective visualization tools and dashboards enable the leaders to maintain 24-hour checks on all core areas of the business and acknowledge whether all departments are operating in synchronization or not. We’ve made our debut in an era where this is not merely a competitive advantage; it has become a mandatory task to keep operating boards and shareholders connected with high visibility. With business intelligence and modern visualization tools, businesses are trying hard to accomplish this crucial task. Decorated, well-visualized, customized dashboards for each hierarchy level with role-based views are becoming a new normal.

5. Integration, Scalability, and Cloud

While the big giants in the global ERP domain will continue to maintain their position, we will likely see a continued segmentation of ERP culture. As third-party and highly scalable solutions become increasingly normal, we will observe companies hustle to acquire a single-source, fully integrated system. ERP’s will continue to offer mechanisms and extensions for integration to leading third-party utilities. ERP providers quickly adapt to this new culture as they may lose their firm grip in the market if they hesitate to provide space for extensions and integrations.

6. The AI-driven Revolution

Artificial Intelligence is changing the world like never before. Utilizing AI and machine learning as part of an IoT-enabled organization are the battlefields. Almost every industry is opening its arms to welcome the adaptation of visually connected workplaces and smart AI-powered analytical engines. As we get conscious of our data, our systems will also get conscious and utilize the overall potential of data. Intelligent systems allow us to gain efficiency and eagle-eye perspective. The future machines will rely less on spreadsheets or 6th sense and instead will be more AI-driven controllers of their functionality. They will effectively manipulate their methodologies and technical structure to sustain vigilance, improve the efficacy of their automated processes and allow real-time decision making.

Conclusion

Access to this data and AI-driven ERP systems encourages your team to reach the new summits, fulfill targets, meet deadlines, improve collaboration between themselves and others, lead your business to new extremes, and boost RoI.

Artificial Intelligence
3/16/2023
A Basic Guide on Cross-Entropy in Machine Learning
5 min read

This blog post discusses the Entropy and Cross-Entropy functions and how to calculate them from our dataset and the predicted values. The more you know about your data matrix, the more effectively you can implement the discussed methodologies. While dealing with methodologies and algorithms of Machine Learning, Neural Networks, or Deep learning models, loss/cost functions are used to evaluate and improve the model’s accuracy during the training phase.

All this effort is centric around the minimization of the loss function. The lower the loss, the more accurate and precise the model. Cross-Entropy loss is a notable cost function used to optimize classification models. Consider a 4-class classification algorithm that recognizes an image as either a car, a bike, a plane, or a boat.

In the illustration above, a Softmax function is used to convert logits into probabilities. The Cross-Entropy takes the output probabilities (P) as input and calculates the distance from the true values.

For an aforementioned example the desired truth output is [1,0,0,0] for the class Car but the model generates probability distribution values as [0.775, 0.116, 0.039, 0.070] .To train the model so that it delivers the output with as much proximation as possible to the desired outcome, truth values. During the training phase, the model weights are adjusted several times to minimize the Cross-Entropy loss. This process of adjusting the weights is known as the training phase in Machine Learning, and as the model progresses with the training and the loss starts getting minimized, it is said that the machine is learning.

Entropy - In a Nutshell

Claude Shannon first gave the idea of cross-entropy as a theoretical and mathematical approach to computer science. Before discussing the Cross-Entropy cost function, let find out what entropy is. For function p(x) that denotes probability distribution concerning the random variable X, entropy h(x) is given by a relation:

Where log is calculated to base 2. Since log[p(x)]<0, for all p(x), it is taken as negative. p(x) is a probability distribution, and therefore the values range from 0 to 1.

A graph of log(x). For x values ranging from 0 to 1, such that log(x) <0.The entropy is given by h(x) impacts so that with a greater value of h(x), the greater the uncertainty regarding probability distribution, and vice versa.

Example

Consider the following three containers having spheres and cubes.

Container 1: The probability of picking a cube is 26 out of 30, and the probability of picking a sphere is 4 out of 30. Due to this, the probability of choosing the cube and not picking the sphere is considered as the more established condition.

Container 2: The probability of picking the sphere is 14 out of 30, and that of the cube is 16/ out of 30. There is almost a 50 percent chance of picking any specific object. Less certainty of picking anyone definite object than the 1st container.

Container 3: An object picked from container 3 is undoubtedly a sphere. The probability of picking a sphere is 1, whereas the probability of picking a triangle is 0. The fact is clear that the shape picked will be a circle.We can cross-check the conclusions above about the certainty of picking a given object by calculating the entropy.

For Container 1:

For Container 2:

For Container 3:

As we have discussed earlier, the entropy for the first container is less than the entropy of the second container. The reason is, the probability of picking a given object is more certain in the case of the 1st container as compared to the 2nd one. The entropy for the 3rd container is 0, which reveals the perfect certainty of the condition.

Cross-Entropy Loss Function - How it Adjusts Weights

For now, you have cracked the riddle about how entropy works. Now it’s time to discuss Cross-Entropy Function in detail. This mathematical representation of entropy is also known as the logarithmic loss or logistic loss. Each predicted class probability is compared against the actual class's desired output (0 or 1). A loss is calculated that is being used to penalize the probability based on its deviation from the actual desired value (truth values).

Also Read: 8 Applications of Data Clustering Algorithms

The penalty is assigned in terms of logarithmic value that provides enough range as large values for deviations nearest to 1 and smaller values for smaller deviations nearest to 0.Cross-entropy loss is used when adjusting model weights during training. The aim is to minimize the loss, i.e., the smaller the loss, the better the model. A perfect model has a cross-entropy loss of 0.

An equation gives Cross-entropy:

Where n shows the number of available classes, ti is the truth label, and pi is the softmax probability for available classes.

Binary Cross-Entropy Loss

For binary classification, we use binary cross-entropy that is given by a mathematical relation:

Binary cross-entropy is calculated as the average cross-entropy across all available data points.

Example

Recall the above classification problem of cars and other transport mediums with the Softmax probabilities (S) and the labels (T). The purpose of the Binary Cross Entropy scheme is to calculate cross-entropy loss provided such information.

The categorical cross-entropy is calculated as:

Softmax is a continuously differentiable function that makes it possible to compute the derivative of the loss function concerning every assigned weight in the neural model. This attribute enables the model to adjust the weights following the minimization of the loss function. By doing so, the model pushes the output values close to the true values. Assume that after the repetitive training of the model, the output showcases the following results.

0.095 is less than the previous loss (less difference in softmax value and truth-values that is 0.3677), given that the model is still learning with every cycle. The cycle of adjusting weights to bring output values close to desired or truth values continues until the training phase is completed.

Keras provides the utilities of the following cross-entropy loss functions:

  • Binary
  • Categorical
  • Sparse

Categorical Cross-Entropy and Sparse Categorical Cross-Entropy

Both categorical cross-entropy and sparse categorical cross-entropy loss functions have the same loss function as the aforementioned cross-entropy functions. The only difference between these functions depends on how truth labels are defined. In Categorical cross-entropy, truth labels are encoded as binary odds for instance the truth labels for 3 class problem are given as [1,0,0], [0,1,0] and [0,0,1]. Whereas, in sparse categorical cross-entropy, truth labels are expressed as integers, such as [1], [2], and [3] for the 3-class problems.

Conclusion

Mathematics is the backbone of machine learning algorithms. As we have discussed all the mathematical formulas related to cross-entropy, it reveals that a sound grip over mathematics supports understanding machine learning.

Software Development
3/15/2023
Top 5 Low-Code App Development Platforms
5 min read

The low-code development platforms provide the Graphical User Interface (GUI) for simple programming and thereby develop the application at a very fast pace & eliminates the conventional programming hurdles and challenges.

These platforms not only make coding easier but also enables quick setup and deployment.

Working Of Low-code App Development Platforms

These platforms don’t require you to write code line-by-line code. On the contrary, these platforms allow you to draw a flowchart, and the code will get ready accordingly. It makes the Code-development process faster than ever.

Benefits of Low-code App Development Tools

Low code development platforms possess many benefits and feasibilities, so more people get encouraged to participate in the application development process. In addition to that, these platforms enable organizations to improve their agility and reduce the complexity of the application development process. Low code platforms possess two primary benefits.

  • Increased productivity
  • Decreased cost

These benefits drive by the capability of low code development to develop more applications in a short period.

Also Read: What is No-Code Application Development?

The following visuals reveal the importance of low-code development platforms. Statistically, it accelerates the digital transformation by 69% and reduces the need for any prerequisite technical knowledge by 40%.

Top 5 Low-Code App Development Platforms in a Glance

Visual LANSA

Visual LANSA Pricing: Visual LANSA offers three variants in terms of pricing structure,

  • Entry Level - $16.66 user/month
  • Mid-tier - $13.34 user/month
  • Enterprise - $8.34 user/month

LANSA’s low-code development tool accelerates and eases the development process of enterprise-level apps while allowing your employees to be more productive. LANSA provides you control when it comes to creativity.

Features:

  • Provide a powerful low-code development environment to develop desktop, mobile, and web-based applications.
  • Allow you to develop apps faster, easier, and at a lower cost than mainstream development methods.
  • Enable you to perform scalable testing, deployment, and integration operations.
  • Several thousand companies around the globe actively use apps developed on Lansa.
  • Provide utility to write code inside the IDE.

Use Case:

ACBS is a division of Fidelity Information Services and a LANSA customer. The international leader provides state-of-the-art systems for initiating, servicing, trading, and regulating corporate loans, specifically large syndicated loans.“We use business analysts, not programmers, to develop our software, ” said the former Vice President, Sales at ACBS. “We have gone to great extremes to hire experienced bankers and business analysts for product design, development, and deployment. We assemble small teams of highly-trained professional developers which produce tightly-knit, controlled efforts and results.

Conclusion: Visual LANSA encourages professional developers to develop applications much faster than conventional coding practice while giving immense control rarely ever observed in low-code development platforms.

Appian

Price: A free trial is available for the Asian product, and it cost you around $90 per user per month for Standard Licensing. Appian’s enterprise-level automation tools help businesses develop smart applications that boost the growth process, customer engagement, and overall efficiency. It offers high scrutiny and security for your important applications.

Features

  • Simple Drag and Drop interface.
  • Provides AI utilities.
  • It also offers no-code integration to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) platforms via Google Cloud, Amazon Web Service, and Microsoft Azure Cloud.
  • Its code development interface allows you to integrate enterprise data, systems, and web services.

Use Case Ryder used Appian to create a smartphone’s first reservation system and reduced time-to-transaction to almost half. Bayer integrated different back-end modules for clinical trials and streamlines operations to reduce reporting time from hours to minutes.

Conclusion: Appian provides a low-code app development platform and an integrated development environment to sustain intelligent automation and low-code development.

Mendix

Price: Mendix’s community version is free of cost. It offers three paid variants.

  • Single App - Starts at $1875 per month
  • Pro - Starts at $5375 per month
  • Enterprise - Starts at $7825 per month

Mendix provides the perfect low-code development environment to build apps for any device. It provides utilities like private cloud, public cloud, and on-premises deployment, automated backups. Its Enterprise edition allows horizontal scaling.

Features

  • Agile project management
  • Visual modeling utilities
  • Integration of reusable components from existing models

Use Case: Rabobank improved its existing system by adding value to consumer-facing and digital customer experience using Mendix’s platform. This change was found to be revolutionary for the business as it reduced IT costs by 50%.

Conclusion: Mendix provides a rapid app development environment with offline working tools and quick adaptability for anyone.

OutSystems

Price: OutSystems offer a free version for a lifetime with basic tools and utilities. There are two more variants.

  • Enterprise plan - starts at $6250 per month
  • Universal plan - starts at $15000 per month

OutSystems enables you to create applications quickly. It can be used for developing Mobile Apps, Web-based Apps, and Enterprise-level applications.

Features:

  • Offers error-free deployment of apps on cloud or on-premises.
  • Interactive dashboard for real-time performance visuals and graphs
  • The perfect tool to develop highly scalable applications
  • Security for applications and app data
  • Allow development of apps that can be integrated with any system or device

Use Case: The city of Oakland used OutSystems to transform services for citizens with a single sign-in portal digitally. Humana developed a customer utility app to help citizens find COVID-19 test locations.

Conclusion: It has become easier for developers and non-developers to quickly create smart applications using OutSystems Rapid Application Development Platform.

GeneXus

GeneXus Pricing: Pricing charges for the number of end-users irrespective of the number of apps being created. A free trial is available for the product. Paid variants include:

  • For Entry-Level Users - starting $100/month
  • For Independent Software Houses - starting $250/month
  • For Enterprise-grade apps development - starting $900/month

Features:

  • AI-driven, highly automated software development
  • Multi-Experience apps can integrate with multiple platforms such as responsive and progressive web-based applications, Mobile-based and hybrid applications, chatbots & virtual assistants.
  • Offers high flexibility by allowing system integration with several database platforms available in the market.
  • Support evolutionary processes within the developed systems over long periods and switch between technologies automatically.
  • Business Process Management (BPM)  modeling that Supports Digital Process Automation
  • Freedom to deploy apps on cloud or on-premises.
  • High level of security for apps.

Conclusion: GeneXus provides a perfect platform to sustain the modern time requirements of users. It’s an all-in-one platform that can match the criteria of both present and near-future technologies without the need to acquire skills for different technologies for different tasks. GeneXus encourages non-developers to start creating and innovating and developers to learn, adapt and apply quickly in an agile way.

Conclusion

The mutual advantage of these low-code app development platforms is to help businesses and developers respond quickly to the evolving market trends amidst the increased need to develop internal workflow applications, customer care platforms, integration mechanisms, and automation. These platforms and tools are not intended to end the flavor of coding from the developers’ cuisine but to add value to developers’ life by boosting their ability to develop (not just code) and encouraging them to develop world-class applications.

Staff Augmentation
3/14/2023
IT Outsourcing for Healthcare Industry
5 min read

The healthcare sector has experienced several transformations in the past decade. After the revolutionary upsurge in digital technologies and innovations, all aspects of the healthcare industry have reshaped and improved. Patients’ data can now be stored to build case and knowledge bases to understand better and evaluate disease and plausible cure. This data can be shared with patients or other internal departments in the form of Electronic Health Records (EHRs). Patients based in remote and rural areas can be observed and treated via telemedicine. Online scheduling of appointments and medication refill requests can be made digitally through patient portals.[lwptoc skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]Over the past few years, outsourcing IT has appeared as one of the most successful business models. It eliminates the unnecessary headache and load of HR management, logistics, accounting, and other tasks by offering an efficient and cost-effective escape route of outsourcing in the form of staff augmentation, managed services, or project outsourcing. As far as the healthcare industry is concerned, it undoubtedly faces plenty of challenges related to affordable and effective patient care. There is a vital need to offer quality care in today’s global healthcare industry and cut costs. These are some of the primary drivers of modern-day’s IT outsourcing.

Also Read: A Complete Guide to Calculate Outsourcing Cost in 2021

Most certainly, no other sector or industry can better benefits from the perks of Digitalization than healthcare. As the healthcare industry produces a large amount of data, the healthcare providers are in constant need to access and digitally track the patient’s record.To avoid any misconceptions, it’s crucial to determine if and how your healthcare facility requires the services of an IT Outsourcing vendor.

Why Hospitals are Outsourcing IT Segments or Functions

1. Improved RoI

The top reason for opting outsourcing model is to reduce costs so as hospitals do. Statistically, around 90 percent of outsourcing hospitals have experienced a sound return on investment within a year.

2. Immediate access to trained staff and needed technology

The continuously accelerating technological advancement is a blessing and a curse for healthcare facilities, especially hospitals or clinics set up in rural settings that experience difficulty finding and dealing with qualified IT staff. Such limitations may require hiring third parties to provide one or more of a wide range of complex technology services, including managed services for digital and network infrastructure, project management, strategic CIO leadership, and full IT staff augmentation. Most capacity generation practices can be implemented either onsite or offsite, and sometimes a hybrid of the two.

3. Increased cybersecurity risks

Patient data is one of the most confidential records globally; that’s why it is not easily available for machine learning or other data science purposes. A fear of cyberattack is another primary driver for outsourcing network applications and staff as not-technical internal staff cannot deal with the rapidly evolving cyber world. Moreover, procurement of modern security solutions is very expensive, and enjoying the perks of a security firm’s leveraging of assets and protocols can be a smart decision.

4. Lack of critical IT leadership

As technology has summited to new heights, it has also become crucial patient care and hospital management segment. This IT-driven transformation has turned the role of IT leadership from just an IT technician to a significant strategic and policy-making role in healthcare facilities’ overall operations and management. Many hospitals face hurdles while finding this level of IT leadership. With every passing day, the demand for such experts exceeds the current supply, especially in smaller communities and rural hospitals. The best IT outsourcer vendors offer executive-level IT management with the appropriate leadership and strategic knowledge to collaborate intelligently with the hospital’s upper hierarchy.

5. Allows hospital IT staff to focus on more important projects

Another notable advantage of IT outsourcing is that it allows hospital IT staff to spend less time and effort on infrastructure and spare it to focus on core projects and objectives. With effective outsourcing services, the hospital’s executive leadership can focus more on primary functionalities and operations related to healthcare delivery and management.

6. Organizational crisis

While several different scenarios can show up as an operational crisis involving IT, a worst-case scenario needs an immediate solution in third-party IT vendors to keep the hospital open and operate properly for its patients. Some of the daunting issues that are likely to appear are like:

  • The IT staff shortfall and internal issues are preventing hospitals from a turnaround while costs keep increasing. There is so much that needs to be handled by IT support.
  • As a rural or community hospital, to attract and retain the state of the art leadership, network infrastructure, and security, it is desired to create a sustainable IT framework for that, so turnover is the main problem due to the presence of so many IT voids that need to be fulfilled.
  • Heavy IT expenditure for short-term projects is the main concern in adapting modern technology with evolving internal challenges. How can one save expenditure and have instant access to specialized resources whenever required?
  • Support for a 24/7 quality service desk is costly to acquire. It isn’t easy to sync call volume with a present staff of full-time employees.

How to Determine if you Need Healthcare IT Outsourcing

A well-managed outsourcing model can curb difficult internal issues in a minimum budget, but poorly-managed outsourcing can exacerbate those problems or create new ones. Healthcare facilities have proven to hire unqualified or irresponsible vendors, resulting in unsolved problems, financial damage, and even produced operational crises. Hiring an immature IT outsource vendor without any prior experience of working with a hospital can be disastrous.

Also Read: How to Save 70% Revenue Using Staff Augmentation

The problems come amidst the lack of knowledge these outsource service providers may have related to hospital workflow infrastructure and the uniquely urgent nature of healthcare dynamics, which are primary factors in hospital IT operations. Failure can teach us more than success can do. Similarly, hospitals’ poor experiences with outsourcing can offer a crucial lesson for that healthcare facility gearing up for outsourcing.Before opting outsourcing model, a healthcare facility is strictly advised to acknowledge the grassroots sources of its problems, needs, and needs outsourced demand solutions. The hospital must also acknowledge what it requires to pay for and develop a realistic roadmap to fulfill those specific requirements. Depending upon the degree of seriousness, every problem requires a solution is needed to evaluate, which is a time-consuming process but worth it. The general planning process should work as follows, as time allows:

  • Requirement Analysis

Before outsourcing any IT service or product, the hospital should perform requirement analysis lead by relevant participants and stakeholders. The CIO or IT Director is often the least objective leader for this process. His role can ensure a collaborative effort by significant stakeholders from relevant departments and the IT department. If necessary, an external hospital IT consultant can be called for interim guidance and gain a clear perspective of seemingly unimportant things.

  • Assessment of Objective Needs

The analysis approach, including conclusions, must be driven by an objective needs assessment. Such assessment is intended to outline the gaps between the IT department’s contemporary outcomes and the outcomes the healthcare facility is expecting. Compared to the plausible loss in not meeting them, the desired outcomes should be prioritized concerning organizational strategic priorities and the investment required to meet the objectives.

  • Rational and Independent Assessment

The requirement assessment drive should be purely objective, meaning that it doesn’t include individuals’ desires or favorites. Requirements must be defined only by performance data concerning the relationship of potential variables with organizational goals.

  • No Space for Prejudices and Toxic Influences

The assessment and analysis must be free from all kinds of prejudices for a particular solution, whether it be an internal or outsourcing vendor, irrespective of the past or present relationships with one. The project will likely fall if either who or how casts its shadow on the analytical criteria. Outcomes and recommendations will lose integrity and fail to add any value. It can make the decision-making process risky and costly. For instance, assessments can be compromised by organizational politics, individual influence, or dictatorship of the powerful or favorite. There are many examples where services or equipment are outsourced unnecessarily because an incoming CEO wanted to keep his strings tied with outsourcing vendors from his previous hospital. Some hospitals have outsourced services because without analyzing their real problems and doing what they were dictated.

  • Final Decision is Equally Important

Considering the heavy expenditure of IT outsourcing contracts in the long run, final decisions to acquire an outsource service provider should be weighed rationally. The overall reason and impact of incorporating IT outsourcing firms into the facility must be evaluated differently. Then turn your focus to the primary concern of acknowledging the particular problems that need outsourcing support. The functionalities that require support may range from a vulnerable server or an unsatisfactory service desk to saving costs by switching to the cloud server. The best outsourcer service providers can offer many solutions ranging from outsourcing all IT services to the partial outsourcing of discrete services.

Conclusion

The central idea here is that to make a rational decision and making outsource process hurdle free and successful, and stakeholders should collaborate to perform a SWOT Analysis to understand and weigh clearly:

  • The unique problems/requirements of their particular healthcare facility and their costs
  • The assets and liabilities that existing IT functionality offers
  • The closely linked strategic objectives of the hospital
  • The potential risks and threats

If the final decision is to collaborate with an IT outsourcing firm, various outsourcing vendors exist in the market. They all offer various services, some very specialized, such as cybersecurity firms and server hosting companies. Other firms offer a lengthy array of patronage, including almost every IT service. Most of the companies are usually authorized and experienced. Still, they must ensure that the vendor you will engage has prior experience providing IT-based solutions to any renowned healthcare facility and how it generates the desired outcomes.

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