The last few years have seen tremendous changes in the business world; particularly the way customers, employees and partners are interacting and collaborating to conduct their business. Customers are making decisions to buy or discontinue a service with a click of a button. The “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) trend involves employees bringing their own smart phones and tablets to work, which is significantly impacting both IT and business. Brokers and agents are leveraging smart gadgets to speed up the business cycle by educating, building relationships and doing business with customers.  For example, using a tablet, an insurance agent can instantly run illustrations and compare premium quotes for insurance products simultaneously, making it easier for clients to see the various options. The “consumerization of IT” trend is having an enormous impact on businesses and is something they must take steps to embrace. In other words, the “empowered consumer” has arrived and is here to stay! (more…)

How about a data Web that understands not only the meaning of data but also the relationships between them like humans do?  Something that ensures targeted and personalized content delivery to the user, delivering intelligent data in its true sense. A Web that anticipates and answers your questions even before you come up with them! Semantic Web or Web 3.0 does it all through use of hyper-structures leading to entities of hypertext.

Semantic Web and Enterprises

To remain competitive in the marketplace, enterprises need to effectively use information to make better decisions. Enterprises in general collect and analyze large amounts of ever changing information from multiple sources, available in multiple formats. However, for the enterprises, the need is for actionable information which can help them build competitive advantage. This is where Semantic Web technology comes into play for an organization. (more…)

With the world getting more ‘social’, individuals are transforming the way they go about their daily lives. Businesses have recognized the need to rethink their strategies and reevaluate their operating models and have commenced to align them with customer expectations and customers’ perception of value. From focusing only on optimization of supply chains, penetration of new markets and scaled bottom lines, companies are now opening their eyes to the new world – a world which is moving towards a greater impetus on having a more social identity. Today, people across the globe rely on social networks for finding lost friends, making new ones, buying new furniture and selling antiques — interacting with technology for almost every activity in their everyday life. You no longer get a wedding invite delivered by post to your doorstep; you get an event invite via Facebook delivered to your inbox!

BPM has taken cue from this world-wide phenomenon and has been quick to embrace ‘social’ and embed it into its very design. (more…)

It’s rare for any major application or website to go live without going through performance testing. It’s an extremely important activity that requires effective planning and execution.  Based on our experience in implementing web applications including websites for global clients, we believe a well-planned approach to testing new web applications goes a long way in ensuring enhanced user experience. Below are 10 tips for planning and preparing for performance testing of a new website or a web application. (more…)

In my earlier post, I outlined the key reasons behind many organizations’ poor quality of product line content. The reasons, varying from unstructured content to proliferation of different media channels to operational issues, are resulting in marketing message dilution and inconsistencies.  It is important for organizations to get their content act together and come up with a uniform approach to product line content management.

Let’s see how companies can improve the quality of their product line content for enhanced marketing effectiveness and results. Listed below are a few steps, to be implemented in the order listed, that can play a key role in ensuring higher content quality (more…)

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a webinar with Jeffrey Hammond, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research and Rohit Sharma, Global Head of Mobility at Virtusa.  The topic was “Overcoming Challenges in Early Stage Enterprise Mobility Programs”.  This post is a short synopsis of the webinar.  For those who were not able to attend the session, you can view it here.

The webinar started with Jeffrey Hammond reflecting back to the early 1980’s with the introduction of the personal computer.  He offered his observation that many IT organizations are reacting to mobile devices and smartphones today in the same way IT organizations greeted the PC; with skepticism and doubt.  Today, the personal computer is a dominant platform for computing power, a major productivity tool and a huge segment of the technical market.  Hammond predicted that mobile computing will exceed the personal computer many times over. (more…)

Depending on who you read, we are in the fourth or fifth wave of computer technology development.  In 2005, Om Malik and Michael Copeland published The Fifth Wave in Business 2.0 Magazine.  They defined their waves as the eras of mainframe, mid-range, PC, Internet and networked computing. Written six years ago, their premonition preceded smartphones by many years.

In 2009, Forrester Research VP Andrew Bartels cited US Department of Commerce data showing that we are in the fourth wave of technology investment.  Specifically, the four waves are:

• 1951 – 1976: Mainframe computing
• 1976 – 1992: PC computing
• 1992 – 2008: Network computing
• 2008 – 2016: Accelerated innovation

Each of the waves experiences two phases – innovation and growth followed by refinement and digestion.  The current phase of accelerated innovation is in the innovation and growth phase, coinciding with the global economic recovery cycle.  Bartels substantiates his position by analyzing the US IT investment to GDP ratio CAGR for each phase.  The average ratio for the growth eras is 4% while the average for the refinement eras is -1.13%. (more…)