AFON and the Cloud
Alythea of AFON Pte Ltd, a Cloud/ERP management company, recently requested me to write up a long form blog post on the benefits of using technology (particularly Cloud) to help companies build business resilience. In today's globalized world, it is even more important for companies to catch up with the times in the use of technology. Info-systems are now centralized via Cloud, and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is all the rage nowadays. Small and Medium Enterprises (SME)s are still somewhat lagging in their embrace of these technologies. Keeping this in mind, I wrote this article with the following three sub-points:
Title: Technology Trends That Help You Build Business Resilience
In his Singapore Budget 2017 speech, Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat spoke of changing tides around the world. This has resulted in an uncertain environment for businesses, particularly Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
One reason for this turbulence is that technology is advancing rapidly, throwing up obstacles while making the traditional business models obsolete.
The main anxiety for SMEs, is whether they have equipped themselves to seize the opportunities that technological change brings and weather the storm head on.
It is important that you keep abreast of technological trends and advancements, and understand the business value of adapting technology into your business operations and processes.
By doing so, you are investing in building business resilience through digital transformation.
In building business resilience, we will look at three trends that form the core of digital change. Your firm then may ride on the opportunities presented by these trends, and find growth amid uncertainty.
Trend: The Coming of Age for AI and Advanced Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around for decades. AI and Machine Learning (ML) encompass advanced systems that understand, learn, predict, adapt and operate autonomously. Systems learn and change future behaviour; this leads to the creation of more intelligent devices and programs.
One of the new directions AI will expand into is data analytics. Over the last decade, the amount of data that businesses need to digest has drastically increased. Traditional data models have become obsolete, and humans have outgrown their capacity to handle such enormous amounts of data. Thus, AI has stepped in to merge and analyze these mountains of data.
In the next decade, AI will be infused into almost every device around us. These devices will gain the “brains” necessary to make intelligent decisions for us. Enterprise applications such as marketing or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) will be infused with AI-enabled capabilities – advanced analytics; AI-powered autonomous business processes; and AI-powered conversational, interactive interface. (Siri, the voice-talking app, is one good example of an AI-powered app).
Think of your daily invoicing matching process. An intelligent ERP system not only reconciles the invoice, purchase order and receipts; it also takes the process further and can pay for a discount factor. In this process you skip the need to consult your Finance department for that discount factor.
Introducing intelligence into your business applications also reduces sales cycle times. The software takes all the data sets about your products, markets and sales areas and analyzes them in real time together with your company’s sales and marketing processes. An interactive interface lets you retrieve sales figures with ease by speaking with the system, instead of manually searching for relevant files.
Giants like Microsoft and SAP are moving their ERP software to become more intelligent. Take Microsoft 365 for instance, or its Power BI – two intelligent cloud ERP software infused with the latest technology in cloud computing and AI interactive interfaces.
Click here to read more about Power BI.
As the Internet becomes more widespread, cloud services have become more affordable for SMEs. By using cloud ERP services, or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), you can be sure of bringing your firm up to razor edge in the ever-changing business world.
Trend: Making Big Data Friendly for SMEs
Traditionally, only the big companies had access or leverage to big data. Now, thanks to the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) revolution, smaller companies can get a share of their data pie.
What are the benefits of embracing big data? For one, the important insights are there in the detailed analytics, the troves of numbers. These are the amazing opportunities for growth; the assistants that will help you make good decisions for your business.
Having big data on hand means competitive advantage for your business. As companies focus more on business-driven applications, they will combine big data with operational systems to tailor personalized solutions for their clients. Today’s world requires analytics and integrated processes to address customers at an individual level. Data agility, thus, sieves out the winners from the losers.
Then, the world has moved into pre-emptive analytics, from post-event and real-time analytics. This means that you can now predict processes and fine-tune them for future transactions. For your firm to succeed with data, an integrated framework is necessary. This allows you to combine your company processes into one seamless platform. In future, data itself will become a product to be marketed for profit.
According to Rita Sallam, VP of Research at Gartner, there are “approximately 70 percent of users in organizations that currently do not use Business Intelligence (BI) tools or have statistical backgrounds.” Therefore, “New approaches have the potential to transform how and which users can derive insights from data discovery tools.”
To help you tap onto insights in data, there are a number of BI visualization tools you can use. These tools are now available to SMEs through affordable Cloud BI options like Microsoft’s Power BI.
To know more about Power BI, kindly click on this link from our AFON blog.
Trend: The Future is Increasingly Cloudy
In 2017, SMEs are increasingly replacing their on-premises software with integrated, cloud-based solutions. This move is happening as Cloud solutions become more secure, and big data and integrated services become more affordable for SMEs. One main benefit of shifting to Cloud is the vast wealth of apps and integrated services available for your company, regardless of its size.
Cloud technology offers you a single, consolidated, real-time view of your business. It also enables you to plan ahead for multiple scenarios, engage your employees and most importantly, find opportunity in uncertainty.
Currently, more than two-thirds of businesses are investing in some form of digital transformation. These SMEs have an advantage over larger companies as their nimble structures allow them to implement technology quickly and cost-effectively.
With rapid spread of the Internet, even enterprise software like the ERP has seen its shift onto Cloud. The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) will continue to grow as more companies realize the importance of big data – how crucial data integration is to their businesses.
Some companies opt for hybrid cloud models, which are a combination of on-site and public or private cloud network. This leads to the issue of cyber security: it is a crucial issue which must be high priority on your agenda if you are to build business resilience.
Riding the Waves of Change
These trends mentioned above are of paramount importance to help your business stay competitive through building resilience. As Minister Heng puts it, “The overarching theme of this year's Budget focuses on adaptability, rather than achievements; to build resilience, rather than to hit targets.”
Embracing digital transformation is key to building business resilience. Through the use of Power BI and Cloud ERP services, you are all geared and ready to tackle the game of change in 2017 onwards.
So, if you’re considering how to use Cloud services to complement your business, do drop us an email here. We’ll be in touch as soon as the cloud permits.
---------------------------------------------end of AFON's-------------------------------------------------------
Title: Technology Trends That Help You Build Business Resilience
In his Singapore Budget 2017 speech, Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat spoke of changing tides around the world. This has resulted in an uncertain environment for businesses, particularly Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
One reason for this turbulence is that technology is advancing rapidly, throwing up obstacles while making the traditional business models obsolete.
The main anxiety for SMEs, is whether they have equipped themselves to seize the opportunities that technological change brings and weather the storm head on.
It is important that you keep abreast of technological trends and advancements, and understand the business value of adapting technology into your business operations and processes.
By doing so, you are investing in building business resilience through digital transformation.
In building business resilience, we will look at three trends that form the core of digital change. Your firm then may ride on the opportunities presented by these trends, and find growth amid uncertainty.
Trend: The Coming of Age for AI and Advanced Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around for decades. AI and Machine Learning (ML) encompass advanced systems that understand, learn, predict, adapt and operate autonomously. Systems learn and change future behaviour; this leads to the creation of more intelligent devices and programs.
One of the new directions AI will expand into is data analytics. Over the last decade, the amount of data that businesses need to digest has drastically increased. Traditional data models have become obsolete, and humans have outgrown their capacity to handle such enormous amounts of data. Thus, AI has stepped in to merge and analyze these mountains of data.
In the next decade, AI will be infused into almost every device around us. These devices will gain the “brains” necessary to make intelligent decisions for us. Enterprise applications such as marketing or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) will be infused with AI-enabled capabilities – advanced analytics; AI-powered autonomous business processes; and AI-powered conversational, interactive interface. (Siri, the voice-talking app, is one good example of an AI-powered app).
Think of your daily invoicing matching process. An intelligent ERP system not only reconciles the invoice, purchase order and receipts; it also takes the process further and can pay for a discount factor. In this process you skip the need to consult your Finance department for that discount factor.
Introducing intelligence into your business applications also reduces sales cycle times. The software takes all the data sets about your products, markets and sales areas and analyzes them in real time together with your company’s sales and marketing processes. An interactive interface lets you retrieve sales figures with ease by speaking with the system, instead of manually searching for relevant files.
Giants like Microsoft and SAP are moving their ERP software to become more intelligent. Take Microsoft 365 for instance, or its Power BI – two intelligent cloud ERP software infused with the latest technology in cloud computing and AI interactive interfaces.
Click here to read more about Power BI.
As the Internet becomes more widespread, cloud services have become more affordable for SMEs. By using cloud ERP services, or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), you can be sure of bringing your firm up to razor edge in the ever-changing business world.
Trend: Making Big Data Friendly for SMEs
Traditionally, only the big companies had access or leverage to big data. Now, thanks to the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) revolution, smaller companies can get a share of their data pie.
What are the benefits of embracing big data? For one, the important insights are there in the detailed analytics, the troves of numbers. These are the amazing opportunities for growth; the assistants that will help you make good decisions for your business.
Having big data on hand means competitive advantage for your business. As companies focus more on business-driven applications, they will combine big data with operational systems to tailor personalized solutions for their clients. Today’s world requires analytics and integrated processes to address customers at an individual level. Data agility, thus, sieves out the winners from the losers.
Then, the world has moved into pre-emptive analytics, from post-event and real-time analytics. This means that you can now predict processes and fine-tune them for future transactions. For your firm to succeed with data, an integrated framework is necessary. This allows you to combine your company processes into one seamless platform. In future, data itself will become a product to be marketed for profit.
According to Rita Sallam, VP of Research at Gartner, there are “approximately 70 percent of users in organizations that currently do not use Business Intelligence (BI) tools or have statistical backgrounds.” Therefore, “New approaches have the potential to transform how and which users can derive insights from data discovery tools.”
To help you tap onto insights in data, there are a number of BI visualization tools you can use. These tools are now available to SMEs through affordable Cloud BI options like Microsoft’s Power BI.
To know more about Power BI, kindly click on this link from our AFON blog.
Trend: The Future is Increasingly Cloudy
In 2017, SMEs are increasingly replacing their on-premises software with integrated, cloud-based solutions. This move is happening as Cloud solutions become more secure, and big data and integrated services become more affordable for SMEs. One main benefit of shifting to Cloud is the vast wealth of apps and integrated services available for your company, regardless of its size.
Cloud technology offers you a single, consolidated, real-time view of your business. It also enables you to plan ahead for multiple scenarios, engage your employees and most importantly, find opportunity in uncertainty.
Currently, more than two-thirds of businesses are investing in some form of digital transformation. These SMEs have an advantage over larger companies as their nimble structures allow them to implement technology quickly and cost-effectively.
With rapid spread of the Internet, even enterprise software like the ERP has seen its shift onto Cloud. The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) will continue to grow as more companies realize the importance of big data – how crucial data integration is to their businesses.
Some companies opt for hybrid cloud models, which are a combination of on-site and public or private cloud network. This leads to the issue of cyber security: it is a crucial issue which must be high priority on your agenda if you are to build business resilience.
Riding the Waves of Change
These trends mentioned above are of paramount importance to help your business stay competitive through building resilience. As Minister Heng puts it, “The overarching theme of this year's Budget focuses on adaptability, rather than achievements; to build resilience, rather than to hit targets.”
Embracing digital transformation is key to building business resilience. Through the use of Power BI and Cloud ERP services, you are all geared and ready to tackle the game of change in 2017 onwards.
So, if you’re considering how to use Cloud services to complement your business, do drop us an email here. We’ll be in touch as soon as the cloud permits.
---------------------------------------------end of AFON's-------------------------------------------------------
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