Tushar, Author at anteelo

Improving meeting by integrating them & Collaboration Technology

Posted on 16/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Are your meetings like the weather? You know, everyone complains about them, but no one seems to be able to do anything about it. We’ve all endured long, boring meetings that feel endless. And we’ve all struggled through an exhausting, frantic week overfilled with back-to-back meetings. The higher your job title, the more time you likely spend in meetings. Some CEOs, for example, do little else.

Even worse, many meetings fail to achieve their goals. Nearly half the respondents to a recent survey of office workers called too many meetings their No. 1 time-waster. In another survey, respondents rated about 1 in 10 meetings as poor.

Despite these challenges, your organization can dramatically improve its meetings. The key, which I’ll explain in more detail below, is using collaboration products and services that are integrated. Rather than working individually, these integrated products and services can provide you with a true meeting solution that’s seamless from beginning to end.

Wrong-way down

If the solution is that simple, then why have past attempts to improve meetings failed so miserably? Two main reasons:

1. Process focus

Many past approaches at improving meetings focused too heavily on avoiding certain behaviors. For example, some business leaders forbade the use of PowerPoint. Others ruled that no meetings could run longer than 30 minutes. Still others — including celebrity execs Mark Cuban and Elon Musk — went as far as instituting policies of no meetings at all!

But few of us have the level of autonomy needed to completely forbid the use of PowerPoint or hour-long meetings. Even if we did, PowerPoint can be useful, and long meetings are sometimes necessary. As a result, these process approaches rarely work.

2. Standalone tech

Until recently, the marketplace was overwhelmed with far too many collaboration products. Most of these products were designed for standalone use, meaning they could not be easily integrated with other products. While some level of product integration was possible, that work had to be done by the user. Unfortunately, many users already had IT budgets and staff stretched thin, so they tended to put this integration work on the back burner, often permanently.

The integration solution

What’s new is the emergence of collaboration solutions that are truly integrated. Now you can deliver a seamless process from the minute a meeting is booked all the way to its post-meeting notes. Integration also means that all meeting participants can benefit from this seamless experience, regardless of their location and which devices (and operating systems) they use.

Here’s an example of how your meetings could be enhanced with an integrated solution:

Before the meeting: The meeting organizer tells their AI-powered voice assistant to review the participants’ smart calendars, select a date and time that works for all, review the meeting-room calendar to find an available room at a convenient location, and finally email invitations to all intended participants. Each participant can join via a common interface — and on any device from any location.
During the meeting: Meetings can be started automatically, either by recognizing the chairperson’s device or with a voice assistant. Remote workers participate via integrated video and chat solutions. The entire team collaborates using a smart whiteboard and document-sharing capabilities.
After the meeting: Videos, text-based notes, PowerPoint decks and other meeting materials are automatically shared with all participants, regardless of whether they use a PC, tablet or smartphone – and regardless of which operating system (Windows, iOS, Android, etc.) these devices run on.

In the near future, meetings could become even more productive with the help selected technologies now in the early stages of development. For example, AI transcribing services will provide written transcripts, accurately capturing and identifying the spoken contributions of all participants. Similarly, auto-summarization tools will automatically generate a short set of text notes after a meeting ends, informing participants of the project’s status, new tasks and more.

Get help here

While selecting an integrated meeting solution is easier than it’s ever been, that’s not to say it’s simple. Today’s solutions are not one-size-fits-all. You still need to consider your organization’s unique needs and requirements. Only then will you be able to select the best possible solution. A trusted partner like Anteelo can help you evaluate integrated meeting solutions and find the one that’s right for your needs.

Digital IT support gets smarter, transform employee experience

Posted on 15/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

When companies prioritize their digital transformation initiatives, modernizing IT support might not be at the top of the list. But there’s nothing that creates a bigger drain on employee productivity and ultimately impacts business outcomes more than a disruption in an employee’s critical work activities, compounded by an unsatisfactory interaction with IT support and service desks.

The traditional, non-standardized service desk is facing a variety of challenges. Digital solutions are increasing across the entire IT landscape, introducing extensive change and escalating requests for support. When service desks themselves move from manual to digital processes, they will need more skilled expertise (which many enterprises lack), along with a disciplined approach to understanding how to apply and introduce automation – tasks made more difficult by constrained budgets.

Meanwhile, the nature of workforce support is changing in today’s gig economy as companies rely more on contractors who expect an intuitive and agile experience when dealing with the service desk – and as expectations among all employees for superior customer service continue to rise. People want personalization. They want to connect on their own terms, whether that’s getting proactive guidance from a virtual agent, talking to a smart bot, choosing self-service from a system that anticipates their needs, connecting to a human agent, or receiving face-to-face support. And they want their problem resolved quickly and painlessly – ideally without even having to ask for help.

Forward-thinking companies are increasingly moving to digital service desks that take advantage of AI, machine learning and advanced data analytics to more efficiently and effectively respond to the expectations of today’s workers. Moving to a modern service desk also lays the groundwork for a future in which the service desk proactively detects and fixes problems before they occur, without the employee even knowing about it. And eventually, the service desk will become more like a personal digital assistant, anticipating employee actions and automating low-level functions through technologies like robotic process automation (RPA).

Of course, companies can’t accomplish these goals all at once. The preferred method of transforming the service desk is to take a phased approach that provides quick wins and builds a solid foundation for next steps.

Characteristics of a digital service desk

Here are the three phases of a good digital IT service desk journey:

Reactive: In this phase, companies take advantage of embedded analytics, AI and machine learning to provide a self-service experience that is intuitive and simple to use, while at the same time is contextually aware and adapts dynamically to the employee’s environment. On the backend, unified support is unified across IT, HR and facilities functions to provide an end-to-end channel that is engaging and fast. An always-on virtual agent or service bot offers an “on demand” dedicated support agent that can converse in natural language to help employees instantly. The agent is plugged into the company’s knowledge bases and ITSM system.
Proactive and predictive: Captured analytics from the employee device provides data that enables machine learning and AI tools to identify issues that are likely to crop up. The system then automatically takes action to resolve the issue. This smart support detects and proactively prevents disruptions before they occur, keeping employees productive and lightening the load on the service desk.
Digital assistant: The final step would be an advanced use of analytics, AI and RPA to understand an employee’s work routine and orchestrate actions on that employee’s behalf. Taking mundane tasks off an employee’s plate gives them more time to be amazing by focusing on what they do best to benefit the business.

There are many benefits associated with transforming the traditional service desk:

Providing exceptional customer service in a support desk context is a cornerstone to empowering workers, making employees feel more engaged and valued.
The use of automation, AI and self-service channels frees up support staff for higher level activities and helps the IT department control service desk costs.
Finally, business outcomes are improved because employees are operating at peak efficiency.

Digital support desks enable enterprises to deliver new levels of employee experience, optimize support and establish a competitive edge – everything today’s enterprises demand.

Firebase for Startups: Is it a Must-Have or a Bonus?

Posted on 15/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

There’s no secret to a mobile app that rules million hearts that goes beyond how well its Backend and Frontend is developed.

And the presence of well-structured frontend and backend, or their lack thereof, is what leads to a rise or a steep fall of any mobile app and ultimately the startup backing it.

While Frontend in itself a lot sorted in terms of it being a mere ‘the-step-ahead’ on the efforts put in by the Backend team, it is the Backend development process, particularly one involving Mobile app backend database, that needs some extra eagle-eye attention.

Backend Development, as we have already established in our Guide on Mobile App Backend Development is what powers the effortless experience that mobile app users swoon over and decides the future of a startup. And to achieve something so crucial the industry has offered a number of development tools and platforms.

One such tool that we are going to discuss here at great lengths is a powerpack offered by Google that goes by the name of Firebase Backend-as-a-Service – a platform that has over time created a lasting impression on both developers and startups, establishments around the globe.

Here’s an infographic showing the market of Firebase and enlisting the companies using Firebase in their processes…….

Now that we have seen the market that Firebase has captured, let us now look at what is Google Firebase and what does the term Firebase for Startups entail –

What is Google Firebase?

Firebase Backend-as-a-Service which started off as a YC11 Startup grew into a next-gen mobile app development platform for Google in no time.

The platform that gives developers two options – Realtime and Cloud Firestore – frees Firebase developers from the need to manage servers, write APIs or simply manage their datastore and focus on something that really matters – Curating amazing user experiences.

Let us look at everything that Firebase for web apps and mobile apps is –

List of Firebase Features

A. It is Real-Time

Most of the databases present in the industry today makes you do HTTP calls to gather and sync your data. But, when you connect to Firebase, you make a connection via WebSocket and not HTTP.

Now, the case with WebSocket is that they are very fast and you are not required to make specific WebSocket calls as only one connection is enough to sync all your data through the single WebSocket.

Firebase web app sends over new data instantly as it is updated. When the client saves a change in data, all the connected clients get the updated data in real-time.

B. It Stores Files

Firebase offers an easy way to save the binary files to Cloud storage straight from the client. The storage comes with its own security rules system for protection of your GCloud bucket from masses while giving detailed writing privileges to the authenticated clients.

C. It Authenticates

Firebase auth comes with built-in email and password authentication system. It supports OAuth2 for Twitter, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and GitHub.

Also, since Firebase OAuth2 is mainly copy/paste, developers can finally bid adieu to the difficulty that comes tagged with Custom authentication coding.

D. It Hosts

Firebase comes with easy-to-use hosting service used for all the static files and serves them via global CDN having HTTP/2.

And to make the whole development process completely painless, Firebase host makes use of Superstatic, which you can run locally for all the testing needs. The Superstatic + BrowserSync development environment that Firebase comes with is very neat. While BrowserSync handles all the reloading of development app across the connected devices, Superstatic copies Firebase mobile app hosting in a way that developers can deploy straight to the Firebase for production use.

E. It is Fully-Featured App Platform

Firebase developer team has made it possible to integrate a bunch of existing and new Google products with your Firebase mobile app. A number of these features can be applied to Android and iOS but not Web –

Remote Configuration
Crash
Test Lab
Dynamic Links
AdMob
Notifications

Now that we have looked at what Firebase is and what it stands for, it is time to look into the reasons that make Firebase for Startups ideal for those who are just starting with the mobile app development domain and are looking for a platform that would help them concentrate on creating real value for the users, instead of dealing with the time-taking backend tasks.

Why Should Your Startup Use Firebase for Apps?

For the Amazing Analytics

What is Google Firebase if not a product that offers a series of insights and analytics? One of the most preferred features that come tagged with a Firebase mobile app is its Analytics dashboard. The dashboard is free and comes with a capacity of reporting over 500 different event types with each of them carrying over 25 attributes.

The dashboard helps give a clear picture of the user behavior and in measuring the different users’ attributions. Lastly, it helps businesses in understanding how users interact with their app, giving them ways to optimize it better for the future.

For Sorted App Development Process

For the companies using Firebase, the platform takes ownership of a number of processes that are otherwise known to take away a major part of the developers’ time thus keeping them away from developing quality apps that offer unprecedented user experience. The features that Firebase web app comes with, make it possible for developers to focus on what is important –

Cloud Messaging
Hosting
Authentication
Test lab
Remote Configuration
Realtime Database
Crash Reporting
Storage

For Heightened User Engagement

No matter what category your mobile app belongs to, the ultimate aim that all businesses wish to achieve is high revenue and popularity – both that comes as a result of positive user experience.

Firebase web apps and native apps come with a number of in-built features that not just give you insights into the users – how they are interacting with the app, the stage where they are leaving the app, the part they are engaging with the most etc, but also give you measures to correct declining engagement.

For Increasing Your Revenue Count

Firebase is more than a mobile app backend database. Firebase prepares you to earn high revenues on your mobile app. The AdMob Firebase feature enables you to monetize the app even when you are at the stage of thinking about giving a pleasant experience to your users.

With Firebase, you can show your ads to millions of the Google Advertisers in the real-time, select the format that suits your mobile app, and work with over 40 ad networks with AdMob mediation.

For Knowing What Went Wrong

The feature that comes with Firebase for web apps and mobile apps helps in the creation of a detailed report of error which is categorized in groups having comparative stack flows chosen according to the seriousness of the impact that it has on the users. Other than that, it also gives businesses the ability to register to the custom events which helps in identifying crash before it even occurs.

For Becoming Searchable

The only direct route, besides advertisement, that will make your brand a known name in the world of millions of prospective users is through mobile app indexing – a process that will place your application on the top fold of the search engine when a user enters a query seeking solutions that your app offers. Firebase for apps come with an in-built App Indexing feature which makes it possible for you to place your app on the SERPs and thus in front of millions and billions of Google Search Engine users.

For Inviting New Users

Google Firebase with its ‘Invites’ feature makes it possible for you to motivate and compel prospects to become loyal users. It allows you to send customized emails, invitations, and messages to the potential clients directly on their device in a time that you choose.

For Firebase Dynamic Links

Firebase Dynamic Links is an example of deep linking done right and a silencing answer to ‘Is Firebase good?’. The links work as you want them to, on the platform of your chose and even when your mobile app is not installed on users’ devices.

With the Dynamic Links, users get just the right experience of the platform, which they open the link on. When users open your Dynamic Link on Android or iOS, they are taken to the linked content of your app. Likewise, when the link is opened on a desktop, the link takes them to an appropriate place which would get them the right experience.

Moreover, Dynamic Links operate across different app installs functions: when the user opens a dynamic link of Android and iOS when the app is not installed, they are given a prompt to install the app, and once it is installed, the first launch page of the app is one that users clicked the link for.

For Powering App with Machine Learning

Nowadays, with the upsurging demand of Machine Learning powered mobile apps which contains features like – text recognition, face detection, image labeling, barcode scanning, and landmark detections – has become one of the must-have element for every app that is to be termed as innovative.

Firebase, with its ML-Kit, offers you both – an on-device and Cloud-based API which works even when the network connection is missing.

So, you see how beneficial Firebase can be for your startup?

Now even though there are a lot of benefits that come attached with the incorporation of Firebase in a mobile app, there are some hard to ignore limitations as well that come attached to the platform.

Let us look at them before we head on to studying the instances where it makes sense to invest in Firebase and places where it doesn’t.

The Limitations of Firebase

The Console is Not Very Useful

Although the console lets you do multiple things but in the end, it is not very useful. A very limiting part about the console is that there is a massive lacking of detailed analytics and logs. While you get a graph showing the database usage, it is difficult to know the number of times a file was downloaded until you find a solution for yourself.

Defining the Security Rules

Firebase uses JSON file using Javascript code with strings for defining rules on the storage and database. Now, usually it is not that big of a challenge as one can use Bolt for making the process a lot less painful, but the fact that once get around the dozen simple rules, the file gets unmaintainable.

Restricted Javascript SDK

There are a number of Firebase features that are implemented only in the iOS and Android SDKs. The most prevailing limitation is the absence of offline persistence when working on JavaScript.

Although, all your hybrid, web, and React Native applications will work even when data is lost momentarily when you close the tab or application the data is completely gone. So, it then comes on you to implement a cache, which can be a pretty time-taking task on mobile.

Limited Data Modeling

Firebase database is simply one big JSON file. There’s not even a single way to show many to many or one to many relationships. When put into practice, it means that you will almost always end with duplication of data everywhere.

Now that we have seen the limitations that Firebase comes with, let us look into the time where it makes sense to employ the platform and place where it doesn’t.

Firebase For Startup: When does it make sense and when it doesn’t?

After all plus points and limitations are seen and adhered to, the deciding factor of when Firebase should be used and when Firebase for Startup is a bad option ultimately come down to the complexity of the mobile app project.

If the app belongs to simple to medium level complexity, Firebase should be incorporated in your mobile app but if your app belongs to high complexity and deals in a lot of data, you should choose some other option, one where the data is entirely in your control.

Also, when you consider the Firebase pricing into the picture, it will again make greater sense to use it for smaller projects as compared to complex ones.

After all said and done, the fact remains that we have worked on Firebase, a lot, and have been enjoying the experience to a huge extent. So for us, the only right answer to – is Firebase good? Is YES!

So, before we help you get direction to our Backend team who would help you get started with Firebase, let us look at how our experience has been so far.

Our Firebase Experience

We have worked around a number of Firebase offerings.

And using Firebase Analytics, we have created several project management tools and content management systems.

Overall, we have enjoyed working on Firebase. It is hands-down an exceptionally useful layer and flexible platform for building both mobile and web applications.

The platform has worked in our favor under a number of different projects that we applied it in – project management platform, a real-time chat, and a billing system.

The one thing that we loved about it is that Firebase grows as your development cycle grows – we first used Firebase editor for mocking up data and getting the idea of how the application works and then, later on, used the datastore, the same one, for serving up a huge amount of data per month.

Apart from this, there are three other factors that made us stick to Firebase for as many applications as possible –

Lets us Avail the Power of Realtime

It is almost surreal when the application you have developed works in a true real-time sense. It doesn’t ask people to wait as the page loads but give them the information as they get asked for it.

But realtime is an everything or nothing element. In case your data fails to broadcast updates, it becomes difficult to join with the realtime data again, making it very tempting to drop the idea to real-time altogether. However, with Firebase’s APIs and high applicability, we get to work realtime from the very beginning of the project.

Easy Firebase Scalability

We have moved from some test projects to hundreds of live design products without having to deal with the database servers. Firebase scalability, indeed, has been one of the most convenient elements for us when it comes to handling an infrastructure.

Build Crucial Data Structure in Firebase

All the apprehensions that we had when it came to trusting Firebase for development of fragile and critical data structures were solved with us locking and securing a number of areas of the database for allowing only our RPC methods to modify them.

Wish to incorporate Firebase in your mobile app? Get in touch with our team of Backend Experts, today!

Prepare your workforce for the future- 4 steps

Posted on 14/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

What’s the best way to prepare for the workforce of the future? With news of Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and others investing billions in training, you’d be forgiven for thinking the answer is simply “reskilling the workforce.”

And yet, reskilling is only one part of the solution. Creating the workforce of tomorrow requires a holistic approach to learning that enables the continuous development of new skills, a higher level of engagement, and an agile and thoughtful response to ongoing change. This, in turn, requires putting learning at the very core of the entire organization.

Vanguard organizations are already preparing the workforce by making learning foundational. Your organization can begin to do the same by taking these four action steps:

1. Make learning opportunities available to everyone in your complex demographic landscape.

Today’s workplace demographics are complex, composed of multiple generations with varying experience levels, specialization, tenure and learning preferences. HR practitioners must now determine how to leverage people, process, and technology around this workforce.

Globalization also affects employee learning and development. Workforces in different countries may need instruction that is sensitive to varied cultural and language preferences; remote employees need access to mobile learning and development tools. Similarly, the rise of part-time and gig employees requires organizations to think beyond traditional, synchronous, and on-location training.

Action: Increase engagement and productivity—and facilitate a valuable sense of community and collaboration—by providing training and career development opportunities to the entire workforce, including in-house, remote, global, part-time, and even gig workers.

2. Democratize talent with teams.

Today, an organization’s ability to pivot in the marketplace depends on agility—and agility requires a workforce that is networked and collaborative, i.e., team-based. Teams, unlike the traditional (and rigid) corporate hierarchy of the past, can form, dissolve and morph as needed to meet new and changing business needs.

Team-based structures also more effectively harness the expertise and wisdom of all employees, at all levels. In a team-based structure, someone may have only one year of experience, but they may also have the right expertise to contribute to a team’s success or even lead a team. And that’s the big “Aha!” moment, realizing that anyone can step up to contribute or lead.

Action: Democratizing talent means giving all employees an opportunity to contribute, regardless of tenure, assuming they have evidence-based knowledge and insights to share. Don’t dismiss employees’ perspectives or ideas based on age, tenure or role.

3. Understand and enable “learning while working.”

How can workers continue to be relevant amid the increased use of AI, cognitive technologies and other disruptors to traditional workflows? By engaging in continuous learning. For organizations, this requires making learning available within the flow of work, moving development from the periphery of the employee experience—day-long courses, five-minute videos, synchronous and asynchronous e-learning—to its core. You deliver learning opportunities directly to employees and make them conveniently accessible at all times. The right technology can make learning a natural part of everyday tasks and eliminate the time employees are physically or cognitively separate from work.

Action: Use tools designed to make learning integral to everyday work life. Consider technologies that not only ensure content is relevant for each individual but also integrate learning opportunities directly into daily work tools, e.g., Microsoft Office, Slack, and Salesforce.

4. Apply programs, solutions, and technologies designed to optimize collaborative learning.

Collaborative learning, when done right, accelerates the collective intelligence of an organization—a potentially powerful competitive differentiator in an era of constant change. When people come together to solve a business problem, you gain greater organizational intellectual property and intelligence than if you were to ask each person to solve the problem individually. It’s the same with learning. When people learn together, they become collectively something greater by hearing and responding to each other’s insights and informed observations.

Action: Better manage and distribute informal knowledge and employee insights. Employ collaborative learning technologies to make individual experience, wisdom, and insight available to a large, distributed learning population.

The steps to reskill your workforce for the Age of Automation

Posted on 14/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

The age of automation is radically disrupting work as we know it. By 2022, seventy-five million jobs in 20 economies are expected to disappear, just as 133 million new jobs are created. And by 2030, McKinsey predicts that 375 million workers will need to find new work, as automation increasingly takes over traditionally human tasks.

Coping with this unprecedented change will require both a new way of working and what the World Economic Forum (WEF) and others are calling a “reskilling revolution.” WEF research suggests that, at minimum, 54% of all workers will need either reskilling or upskilling by 2022.

Fortunately, some organizations are already aware of this urgent need. Research by McKinsey discovered that 66% of surveyed executives saw “‘addressing potential skills gaps related to automation/digitization’ within their workforces as at least a ‘top-ten priority.’” A few organizations are even ahead of the reskilling curve, already making investments in programs designed to prepare workers for new roles:

JPMorgan Chase invested $350 million in a five-year global initiative called New Skills at Work. The investment will create new training programs, bolster collaboration and communication, enable research, and build upskilling opportunities.
Amazon’s Upskilling 2025 will reskill 100,000 workers by 2025. An investment of $700 million is earmarked for reskilling employees across all areas of the organization, including corporate, warehouse, retail, and transportation.
AT&T has invested one billion dollars in Future Ready, an internal program designed to reskill more than 100,000 workers.

The risk of not reskilling

JPMorgan Chase, Amazon, and AT&T know that keeping pace with the age of automation will require employees who are agile, flexible, and adept at learning. But what will happen to organizations that don’t address the need to reskill the workforce?

Organizations slow to adapt won’t fall behind overnight. They’ll fall behind slowly until it’s too late to catch up. The problem is, with the age of automation, that if you get behind on something this big—reskilling— you can’t double or triple your pace to keep up. People can’t adapt that fast. And organizations probably don’t have enough money to buy all the talent they need.

Five action steps to take now to address reskilling for the age of automation:

Identify the risk areas for automation. Certain areas will be obvious—rote processes, tasks that can be done faster and more efficiently via automation. Other areas won’t be as obvious: Experts predict that jobs such as insurance underwriting, pharmaceutical discovery, and long-haul trucking will be automated by 2030.
Identify what skills the company needs to succeed long term. Look at what the organization needs to continue existing work, as well as expand into new areas of work. What challenges are showing up in the marketplace and what key skills will help overcome those challenges?
Examine existing employee skills. Can employees transition to different areas of the organization or will they need to be completely reskilled? If they need to be reskilled, do they currently lack hard or soft skills? Can new skills be learned on the job or will employees need formal training, and if so, for how long?
Determine the right training for the right skill. While videos and microlearning are useful for just-in-time learning, effective reskilling in the age of automation will require far more than a library of courses. Technology and self-paced courses have a role to play, just not the starring one. A mix of learning modalities—instructor-led, microlearning, coaching mentoring—will provide employees with the best opportunity to learn and retain complex skills.
Communicate with everyone. Every employee at every level needs to understand how critical reskilling is to the future of the organization, and by extension, their own futures. Informing all stakeholders on a regular basis about the organization’s plans for the future can alleviate the fear of change and job loss, thus keeping employees motivated and engaged.

Wait and see? Or act now?

For organizations that want to remain competitive in the age of automation, a “wait and see” approach isn’t a viable option. It’s death by a thousand cuts for companies that don’t start to change now.

But getting started doesn’t require a major investment. I recommend organizations begin today by making small adjustments in the right direction—adjustments that over time add up to successful and sustainable change. Figure out the skills you are going to need. Communicate with everyone about upcoming changes. And use the right training for the right skill. Create small course corrections now so that your organization is on the right track and employees are more adaptable and engaged.

Digital transformation on the basis of risk: From hype to reality

Posted on 13/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

The digital movement is real. Consumers now possess more content at their fingertips than ever before, and it has impacted how we do business. Companies like Airbnb, Uber, and Waze have disrupted typical business models, forcing established players in different industries to find ways to stay relevant in the ever-emerging digital age. This post is not about that. Well, not in the strictest sense.

There are countless articles explaining the value of being digital. On the other hand, there are very few articles about how to get there. Let’s explore how to get there together, through an approach that I have named Risk-Based Transformation. RBT’s strength is that it puts technology, application, information, and business into one equation.

An approach that fits your specific needs

I’m relocating very soon, and with that comes the joys of a cross-country journey. Being the planning type, I started plotting my journey. I didn’t really know how to start, so I went to various websites to calculate drive times. I even found one that would give you a suggested route based on a number of inputs. These were great tools but they were not able to account for some of my real struggles, like how far is too far to drive with a 5- and 3-year-old.

Where are the best rest stops where we can “burn” energy — ones that have a playground or a place to run? (After being cooped up in a car for hours, getting exercise is important!) How about family- and pet-friendly places to visit along the way to break up the trip? What about the zig-zag visits we need to make to see family?

The list goes on. So while I was able to use these tools to create a route, it wasn’t one that really addressed any of the questions that were on my mind. Organizations of all sizes and across all industries are on this digital journey but often the map to get there is too broad, too generic, and doesn’t provide a clear path based on your unique needs.

A different approach is needed, one in which you can benefit from the experience of others, whilst taking the uniqueness of your business into account. Like planning a trip, it’s good to use outside views in particular to give that wider industry view; however, that’s only a piece of the puzzle. Each business has its own culture, struggles, and goals that bring a unique perspective.

RBT framework

To help with this process, I have created a framework for RBT. At a high level, RBT takes into account your current technology (infrastructure), application footprint, the value of the information, and risk to the business. From left to right, the least weight to the highest. This framework gives a sense as to where to start and where the smart spend is. See flow below:

Following this left to right, you can add or remove evaluation factors based on your needs. Each chevron has a particular view, in a vacuum if you will, so the technology is rated based only on itself. It will gain its context as you move through each chevron. This will give you a final score. The higher the score, the higher the risk to the business.

Depending on your circumstances, you can approach it David Letterman style and take your top 10 list of transformation candidates and run it through the next logic flow (watch for a future blog on how to determine treatment methodology). Or, as we did with a client recently, you can start with your top 50 applications. The point is to get to a place that enables you to start making informed next steps that meet your needs and budget to get the most “bang” for your investment.

The idea behind this framework is to use data in the right context to present an informed view. For example, you can build your questionnaires on SharePoint or Slack, or another collaboration platform that also allows the creation of dashboard views. You can build dashboards in Excel, Access, MySQL, or whatever technology you’re comfortable with in order to build an informed data-driven view, evaluating risk against transformation objectives. The key is that you need to assign values to questions in order to calculate consistent measurements across the board.

A living framework

Many years ago, when you plotted your cross-country drive on your map it was based on information from a fixed time. This was the best route when I drew the line on the map. Now, personal navigation devices hooked into real-time data change that course based on current conditions. In the same way, the RBT model is a living framework; it should have regular iterations in order to have course corrections as you go forward.

The intent of this framework and thinking is to build a context that makes sense for your needs, and then present data in a context that allows for better planning. That better planning should lead to a more efficient digital journey as we all continue to stay with, or ahead of, the curve.

If you have enjoyed this, look forward to my next post. There I will detail how the RBT framework is applied and the treatment buckets methodology.

Learn to deploy the game-changing Windows Virtual Desktop

Posted on 13/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

The recent surge in ransomware and data breach incidents illustrates the vulnerability of IT workplace environments and the huge impact that these attacks can have on the entire organization. In response, companies are increasingly looking to desktop virtualization as a way to run the desktop OS in a remote data center where it can be better protected against such attacks. Historically, the implementation, operation, and management of a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) have been complex, and when done incorrectly, can create risk. In a typical VDI deployment, a significant amount of infrastructure has to be managed and maintained, including the servers/virtual machines, load-balancers, networking systems, and endpoints. VDI is costly in terms of IT staff time, hardware, and software licensing. On top of that, companies need to make sure there are high-availability and disaster recovery systems in place so that end users are still able to work in case of a system outage. And unfortunately, in many cases, real-world deployments have failed to deliver the consistent performance that end-users require. But all that is about to change thanks to Microsoft’s announcement of Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD). This disruptive new service enables companies to run Windows-based VDI in the Microsoft Azure cloud, with multiple Windows 10 users active simultaneously on the same virtual machines, and with each user’s data isolated from every other user.

Why Windows Virtual Desktop is a game-changer

Windows Virtual Desktop provides significant benefits over on-premises and competing for cloud-based deployments:

1. Reduces cost: Compelling new licensing models reduce complexity and provide significant cost savings. For one thing, companies don’t need to maintain separate Windows Server licensing agreements. For another, WVD includes Windows 7 extended support — without requiring added end-of-life support payments — so companies dealing with legacy applications that only run on Windows 7 can still benefit from moving to cloud-based VDI as part of a broader digital transformation effort.

2. Provides safe, secure access in a simplified environment: A free control plane – the software that orchestrates the creation and management of desktop and app session hosts — authenticates users and determines where to direct their desktop connections. This means companies no longer must set up separate virtual machines for functions like web access, diagnostics, application gateways and request brokers.

3. Drives efficiency with integrated Microsoft components: WVD, co-resident with Office 365 and your OneDrive data in Azure, drives fast response time and efficiencies. Microsoft will continue to optimize performance, as they own all the components.

4. Facilitates workforce flexibility: From a business perspective, WVD opens up new employee use cases, securely and cost-effectively embracing the gig economy movement of using independent, short-term contractors, for example. With WVD, contractors can bring their own devices to the office and establish secure connections to the Azure cloud in order to access the applications and data they need to do their jobs.

How to optimize your WVD deployment

WVD is an important addition to an enterprise VDI ecosystem, a true game changer that can help companies cut the costs and complexity associated with desktop lifecycle management, as well as deliver rock-solid security.

However, enterprise VDI ecosystems frequently are complex because they contain some workloads that still need to stay on-prem for various security, privacy, regulatory, or availability reasons. A modern desktop and application virtualization solution will need to manage all these delivery systems together as a whole.

Here are three ways to get the most out of your enterprise Windows Virtual Desktop deployment:

Accelerate adoption: Start your deployment using your existing control plane to allow easy adoption and easy workload balancing with your current delivery infrastructure. While this approach comes at an additional cost, it facilitates rapid adoption. For simple out-of-the-box WVD support, Citrix Virtual App and Desktop Services is ready for WVD from day 1.
Track and manage the user experience: Add end-to-end user experience monitoring across all delivery systems — optimizing both the network and the endpoints which is particularly important when rich collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams is in use. And as these new delivery models are introduced, you can use these monitoring tools to compare and contrast cost alongside performance.
Review your endpoint strategy: Use the change to revisit endpoint management and leverage new advancements in hardware and software thin-client systems. Harden endpoints to reduce the attack vector and simplify management at the device level through a next-generation edge device OS. Leverage management systems to gain an insightful, end-to-end view from endpoint systems.

In short, WVD is a major disruptor in the desktop virtualization space and an important component to consider including in your digital workplace transformation journey.

WVD offers a secure and cost-effective cloud-based digital workplace solution. However, given the complexity of deployment, you might also want to consider partnering with an experienced managed service provider that delivers an end-to-end solution with WVD and the relevant components – and makes sure WVD meets your specific business, IT and employee needs.

Proven Methods to Test Your Minimum Viable Product

Posted on 13/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Minimum Viable Product is a means to test the product that you are going to be launching in the market. It should be understood that MVP does not mean an unfinished product rather it is a way to get feedback for the final product. Let’s break down the term MVP for better understanding.

Minimum means a product that has simple features and usually, no users want to use or buy it. Viable is the product that a developer dreams of creating with the help of available resources to fulfill the needs of users. So the term MVP means a way to build such a product that has all the features and at the same time, has used fewer resources. It also should be able to get honest feedback which is how the final product will be developed.

The idea minimum viable test does not mean to see if the product can be technically improved or not. MVP shows whether a product should be built in the first place or should not be built at all.

Why does your product need Minimum Viable Product?

Who would have imagined that apps like Twitter, Instagram and Uber would blow up like this and would gain world popularity? We are guessing very few. In fact, Twitter gained its popularity through gradual growth. So, why do you need an Minimum Viable Product ?

Minimum development cost

When an app is developed with many features and attractive designs, it’s development cost is high. An MVP is developed with limited resources and is still a product. The cost of developing an MVP can range between $10,000 to $20,000. However, it can be less than that as well.

Getting paid customers becomes easy

As a startup attracting new users without spending a heavy amount on ads is quite difficult. MVP for startups is a way to bring in more users by spending less. If users find your product good enough, they will communicate it to their friends and that’s how things go viral. Also, when the final product is launched, getting paid customers from the existing user base become possible.

Feedbacks for your product

As stated already in our article, titled “What is Minimum Viable Product?“, considering Minimum Viable Product helps with gathering user feedback. These feedbacks further becomes a way to understand how certain features should be built. And this way, saves the developer the time and cost to go all in with the product while ensuring better market response.

Save your time and efforts

Other very important things that go into making an app are time and effort of the developer. Imagine having spent sleepless nights working on an app and when its launched, it gets very less traction. It will be the most disappointing thing for any developer. It’s better to use time and put the effort into building an MVP which will bring feedbacks.

Raise money

If you have saved a couple of million dollars for the projects then you probably may not need MVP to save money. But if you haven’t then MVP is a great way of attracting investors. It is easy to build an MVP that raises money for your app rather than getting no funding for your final product. There are platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, AppBackr, etc that provide funding for apps.

What is a good Minimum Viable Product ?

Now that we know MVP is important for your product, how do we define if an Minimum Viable Product is good or not? To answer that question, let’s look at the following five traits of a successful MVP:

MVP success criteria is achieved when the MVP is focused on one individual. This means that a buyer persona is used to target the audience and is as specific as defining one single person. As it is said that keeping in my one person and solving his problems with your product gives the best results. The biggest mistake usually made is building for multiple audiences.
Even though we are building for one person, we do have to listen to multiple feedbacks. Sometimes different opinions and views solve most of the problems. If people fit into the category of your product, take their feedback seriously.
MVP does not mean you have to do less and expect more. Your MVP should be able to showcase what problems your product can solve and how can it solve them. This is even more important if your product already has big competition.
MVP test is just as important as building an MVP. It is impossible to earn money from a failed MVP, no matter how much you try. So, make sure testing the MVP is an important part of your development process.
An MVP is supposed to find mistakes and gather feedback. Keeping the launch of the MVP limited to as less many people as possible is going to be a wise choice.

Some tools to test your product idea

Validation is not a one-time thing but a continuous process. In every stage, a certain type of validation is required to make sure the product is strong for the market. There are some tools which can be used to test the product ideas before building the actual product.

Research study

When the product is just an idea, try to find out as much as possible about it. Gathering significant information will help in improving the product which will stand out in the market. Tools like Google, Crunchbase, Angel.co, LinkedIn, Google Adwords, SEMrush, Alexa, Quora, etc. are some great sources to gather information. These platforms have vast information on the latest market needs and have a large number of active users.

PoC

In order to convince others that your product is great, you need to make sure you understand it well. Once you are through with it, use tools and platforms to tell others about your product. Use Quora, Google spreadsheets, Facebook ads,c etc to present your product in front of users. You can also use UXPin to bring the product sketches to life or create a landing page with Landingi to create a community.

Prototypes

When you see users interact with your product, that’s when you know where the improvements have to be made. Developing a prototype of your product not only ensures success or failure but also creates scope for improvements. Use prototype tools like HotJar, Survicate, SecurionPay, Google Analytics, Woodpecker, Growbots, Appoint.ly, UserEngage, AppSumo, etc. to reach out to a large audience with your prototype and track their behavior.

Mistakes to avoid while building your MVP

Even though MVP is built to reduce the risk, there are some gaps that are formed while building an MVP. Avoid these common mistakes made by most developers:

An improper market, product, customer needs, demographic research.

What most people forget to do is a thorough validation of the market, idea and the product. Building an MVP is quite easy in reality but building a success MVP is where the big difference lies. Without proper research about the market and the product, the chances of succeeding decreases.

Building for multiple platforms

Most startups think that building the MVP for all the platforms will increase the success of the actual product. But in reality, this is just going to make the process complicated. If an MVP fails then the developer may not have any money to start over since all the money was spent on developing for different platforms.

Features and updates

Bringing in users with one solid feature is a more effective approach rather than launching the MVP with all the features. Even if the other features are good, they can be brought in later in the updates. Prioritize the features to see the best results and reduce the chances of failure.

21 Solid ways to test your MVP

Now, that we know why your product needs an MVP, let’s move onto how to test MVP of your product. Building an MVP is not the only important task but testing its viability is just as important too. A company may think that the product can satisfy the needs of the customers but until and unless the MVP test is run, it can not be said for sure.

There are many tactics for testing minimum viable product. But we will discuss only the best ones on this blog. So, let’s begin!

1. Fundraising

Crowdfunding is a way you can test whether your app will do good in the market or not. Platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are a filled with MVPs that get funding from people who find the product interesting enough. This gives your product exposure to a group of interested and active users. The money raised from these platforms will help in building the final product to launch in the market.

2. Blogs

Having a blog is like having a platform for two-way communication with the prospect users of your product. Blogs are a way to discuss and gather feedback about a product. This will give you an honest opinion about the product by seeing how much keenness the users are showing.

3. Customer interviews

Talking face to face with customers provide the most honest reviews. People may lie or sugarcoat the opinions online but when it comes to face to face feedback, it’s as honest as it can get. Interviewing the customers is usually done in a casual manner but is rather descriptive. The interviewee states assumed problems to get feedback on the same.

4. Videos

It is quite obvious that if an image can speak a thousand words then a video can speak millions. Explainer videos can be used by developers to demonstrate the functionality of the product and answer questions like what, how and why. At the end of the video, the viewer must be clear about what the product is, how it works and why does he need it. Dropbox is an example in such a case. They used a video to gather subscriptions for a product that didn’t even exist.

5. Pre-order Pages

Pre-orders are quite popular with books, gadgets and other interesting products. When it comes to pre-ordering, the idea is to convince the users with your product enough to make them pay for it beforehand. However, there is a chance that users may not be willing to put their money at risk way before the product is even born. For this, the presentation of the product must look as appealing as possible.

6. Social-media surveys

Social-media surveys are quick, easy and most of the time gives honest feedback. Of course, this works when the focus is on the right questions. For instance, Facebook surveys have a feature that allows users to add their own options as an answer which gives interesting insights. Another good reason to use social-media surveys is that users don’t need to go out of their way to fill in the surveys.

7. Paper prototypes

Unlike digital prototypes, these are tangible. A paper prototype is build to understand a product’s user experience. Anyone in the team can use these prototypes can understand how the product works. This will be very useful in the case of physical products like mobile phones, tables, chairs, etc.

8. Emailing

Sending emails to see how many users click on the links or follow up with the email is another way of testing MVP. However, this works even better when you already have a list of emails. While the emails have been sent to the users, make sure to track the actions with the help of tools such as Yesware or use the built-in plugins.

9. Landing pages

Landing pages are the pages the prospective customers go to find out about your business. A landing page can show the interest of the customers with the way they behave and interact on the page. Building a landing page should always be followed by tracking analytics with the help of tools like Google Analytics, KISSmetrics, etc.

10. Competitive products in the market

There is a high chance that the product you are thinking about launching is already present in the market. This can make your new product suffer. To avoid that try analyzing the competitor’s product and see what they have that your product doesn’t. Also, your product’s unique feature can become the strongest feature.

11. A/B Testing

A/B testing is a way to test whether one version of a page is more effective than the other. This test can be done on a webpage where two different versions of the same page are shown randomly to the visitors. Then with the help of tools like Google Analytics, Unbounce, etc. information can be gathered about the interaction.

12. Piecemeal MVPs

Piecemeal MVPs means building a demo of your product using existing tools. For instance, Groupon is the best example of a piecemeal MVP. what Groupon did was built a WordPress website with Apple mail and a script that generated PDFs for the orders. This way the effort and cost of building an MVP become much less than anticipated.

13. PPC campaigns

You will be using PPC campaigns at least once for your actual product so testing out your MVP will be great. For starters, you can pitch in $100 and see the results. If your MVP does not get any leads, then either your ad is flawed or your idea is not good enough.

14. Micro-Surveys

The disadvantage of general surveys is that they are too long and at times becomes quite annoying for online users. Users either skip the survey or fill it in a hurry and that is why these fail to give the accurate results. In micro-surveys, you can ask a couple of MVP survey questions to which you will get honest answers. Micro-surveys have two to three questions which online users find easy to answer.

15. Ad campaigns

Platforms like Google and Facebook are the go-to when it comes to running ad campaigns. Before the product is even launched, you can put up ads and see how many users engage with it. There are even tools to analyze the clicks, engagement and other important behaviors.

16. Services and Platforms

Using SaaS and PaaS to build an MVP can help you in testing your MVP quite well. There are multiple choices to choose from and the building becomes easier and faster. These software and platforms also help in increasing reach of the product. Usually, developers face problems like compatibility of the app, mobile-friendly design and other code-based issues which can be eliminated as these tools already have taken care of those issues.

17. Manual-first MVP

A manual-first MVP (Wizard of Oz) is a way of interacting with actual customers rather than running an online survey. This MVP testing technique shows a picture of a fully completed product and when a user orders it, you deliver it manually. In this MVP testing, the users are getting what they see. Even though it takes much effort but it is worth it.

18. Concierge MVPs

The concierge MVP test is similar to the manual-first MVP test but instead of faking the products, the products are real. This MVP tests and answers whether the users are willing to use and pay for your products or not. An online dress rental business, Rent the Runway, tested their business model with this MVP testing technique. They were able to find the right answer to their questions.

19. Digital prototypes

Digital prototypes can be used to display the actual product in a digital way. Wireframes can showcase products such as apps, games, etc. These prototypes can be anything from screenshots to digital sketches to mockup apps which will validate the user experience.

20. Single feature MVP

Sometimes testing the one and an only strong feature of your product results in the best conversion. Getting feedback on that one feature can help the product immensely rather than focusing on multiple features all at once. It will also help in narrowing down the customer base and will allow better focus. This testing is considered one of the most advised MVP testing strategies.

21. Software testing

If nothing works then there are multiple softwares for MVP test. Software such as QuickMVP, OpenHallway, Five-second test, Justinmind, InVision, etc. are some great ones to get your MVP tested.

Twitter’s Beta App Is Now Available, and Here’s a First Look

Posted on 12/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Twitter is known for giving a strong voice to people from all corners of the world. The layout and smooth functioning have also made it easy for users to spend more time on the app.

Twitter survived in the world where Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook were ruling and the reason was having honest opinions of the users on the latest topics. However, there are still some issues that need attention for further growth of the platform.

In order to attract more audience, Twitter needs to make some serious changes. The company is going to make some changes by launching Twitter’s new app in beta mode.

How is Twitter’s new beta app going to work? Well, Twitter will have a selected group of people to test the new features in the beta app. These users will have a full-fledged discussion on various new features just like any user can have on any trending topic.

From the discussions, Twitter will pick up all the data and use that to make decisions. The decisions will be regarding the features and whether it should be launched for the entire user base in general.

The app is scheduled to be launched in this week and we will see Twitter’s first look quite soon. Twitter said, “only a few thousand users will be able to get the beta version and not everyone who applies for it”. The users that will be allowed to test the Twitter beta app will be allowed to have an open discussion about the features of the app.

This programme will not be supervised by the NDA unlike other experiment programmes conducted by Twitter. There is more to it than just a basic beta testing app.

Unlike other beta apps, the Twitter beta app will not have final features. The discussion panel will control which features to be built further or which features should not be.

Twitter’s director of product management, Sara Haider, told Techcrunch, “Unlike a traditional beta that is the last step before launch, we’re bringing people in super early,”. The first version of the beta app will have features that will improve the conversations on Twitter. There will be different colour schemes and visual cues to mark important discussions.

Haider believes that there are going to be a lot of significant changes and it should not be dropped on users all at once. This is why Twitter will be slowly launching new additions and making changes in a way that the entire user base can adapt to it easily.

Expected Features in The New Twitter Beta App

1. Colour Coded Replies

The new app will have colour-coded replies. The colours will be different for the poster of the tweet, people you follow and people whom you don’t follow. This will make a clear distinction in a long Twitter conversation. These conversations will also have visual cues to help users find the best and most relevant tweet in the thread.

2. New Algorithms

Twitter is going to have a new algorithm for all the tweet replies. Earlier, the problem was that users couldn’t find the tweets that they wanted to keep updated about. To do so they had to either ‘heart’ it or had to use the ‘Tweets & Replies’ section to find the tweets. With the new update, all the replies will be arranged as per a user’s interest.

In the future, Twitter may also have a ‘highlight’ feature for the tweet replies.

3. Removing Engagement Icons

Twitter users ‘heart’ and ‘retweet’ as a way of engagement. In the new update, there is no heart or retweet icon under every reply. The reason behind this is a simplified view for users who do not wish to engage with the thread. However, this does not mean others can’t engage with the tweets in a thread. By clicking on the particular tweet, the icons will appear just like in the current version.

Twitter was not originally built the way it is today. The platform was updated depending on how the users were using it. The features such as retweet, hashtags, @mentions, and many more were not originally in the app but were added later on seeing the users behavior. The same is being followed with the beta app and we shall see some changes in Twitter soon.

Stay tuned for what’s coming next!

Is Blockchain the Key to High Efficiency for Startups?

Posted on 12/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Blockchain – the concept/technology as powerful as the Internet itself has moved from the time when it was deemed to be overhyped to now when it has become an important part of a number of industries, banks, and government.

While the technology has made a prominent place in a number of processes on a very high-level and have found associations among a number of big brands like –

A general assumption has been formed that the disruptive technology is only practical for big names of the world and has, as a result, made itself very unapproachable for mass usage, unintentionally.

Our intent today is to remove the assumption and make Blockchain Startups a technology occurence that can be implemented on mass scales by businesses and industries of all size and across all categories. While, there have already been several use cases of Blockchain in Enterprise setup, it is the startups that need to reform with the power of Blockchain at the back of them.

Something we are going to attend to in this article.

This article is for you to get acquainted with the abilities of Blockchain for startups and how it can be used to not just make your business efficient but also mark it as a brand that is highly innovative. We will help you identify the ways Blockchain Startup can impact and make your processes a lot easier. And in case you wish to dive deep in the technology’s ABC, head on to our handbook on Entrepreneur’s Guide to Blockchain.

Now without further delay, let us get on to what can Blockchain do for YOU.

What can Blockchain do For Your Startups?

Can make you early adopters

Just like the starting days of the Internet, the Blockchain world is underdeveloped to a huge extent. There are a number of critical elements that will have to be addressed before Blockchain becomes a mass phenomenon.

For startups that are willing to act as fast movers and follow the plant the flag strategy, there is a golden opportunity to conceive and grow a community before space becomes too overly crowded with Blockchain business applications.

By investing time and resources to develop a business model with Blockchain at the center of the processes or even a major part of the working mechanism, will automatically give startups an edge over others working in the same domain – something that all startups need in a time where there are thousands of businesses working in the same category, fighting for the same piece of market.

Can Replace Antiquated Processes With Digital Systems

A number of startups operate on some or the other form of the legacy software or outdated infrastructure, which not just increases the cost of conducting business but also make them inefficient and inconsistent to a great extent. Plus, a great number of vital processes are manual in nature, meaning they are subject to the risk of human error to a massive extent.

With Blockchain for small businesses, startups will be able to solve a great amount of these issues. The technology is known to decentralize the pool of data segregated among a great number of different processes – something that solves the startups’ needs to rely on manual labor to collect and process data.

Can Secure Their Data

Cybersecurity is a point of concern for companies of all sizes across industries. The global spending on cybersecurity based services and products like automation and IoT is estimated to increase by $1 Trillion by the coming five years.

Noting the incredible security proof that Blockchain systems come with, they are poised to soon become the de-facto mode of gathering and organizing the enterprise data – and a primary answer behind the question on why do companies use Blockchain.

All the data gathered in the ledger gets automatically encrypted with the newest and greatest of the cryptographic methods, the warehouses are only accessible through a key-value mechanism which validates and authorizes the identification before granting access.

Moreover, the decentralized mechanism of Blockchain for small business reduces the security risk to a great extent. As the distributed system cannot get manipulated by any single entity, it is impossible for hackers to change the data without notifying everyone in the network – something that protects against corruption and give the control back to the actual users.

Now that you have seen how Blockchain can make your startup more efficient, let us look at the ways you can employ the technology in your startup to make your business more efficient, transparent, and decentralized. The answer which is same as one to Why do Companies use Blockchain.

Ways Blockchain for Startups Business can be Employed for Better Processes

Here are some of the top-most applications for Blockchain in your business –

1. Payment and money transfer

One of the most common applications of Blockchain in a startup is seen in use of technology in the payment and money transfer domain.

The present day story is that Blockchain is ready to transform transactions and startups are known to deal with a number of vendors across the world, for availing low-cost, high quality services. Blockchain with its cryptocurrency element comes in handy for making cross-border payments easier and a lot more cost effective than the traditional mode of payments, which are crippled by high transfer charges.

2. Contracts Creation and Abiding

As you are just starting, there are a number of contracts that you will have to get binded into – with your interior designers, your food and beverage vendor, your offshore software development company and a number of other third-party stakeholders.

With so many contracts to be made and ensured to be followed, use of Blockchain in business can come in very handy, through the Smart Contract route. Since we have already talked about the concept in our Smart Contract guide before, we won’t get too much into the depth into the mechanism here, but what we can tell you with respect to Contracts and Blockchain is that it is impossible for any of the involved party to break the Smart Contract.

3. Distributed cloud storage

A distributed cloud-storage comprises solutions around peer-to-peer decentralized cloud storage. By using the combination of cryptography and Blockchain to protect the files on both – transmission and in nodes – decentralized cloud storage makes your files unhackable and Blockchain a useful element of your startup.

In layman terms, distributed cloud storage system comes into existence when every element of the cloud storage, like processing, transport, and storage of data is put into the blockchain ecosystem. Once that happens, every data – how it moved, who accessed it, and how it was governed can be seen by everyone who has the access to the Blockchain. A system of this type help in offering full accountability, traceability, and transparency for cloud, and entities which are either using or managing the cloud.

4. Protection of Digital Identity

Another crucial application of Blockchain in businesses is Identity Management.

Identity management is something that the world suffers from. No matter what business or team size you belong to, you are never truly safe from your identity being leaked on the internet and in worst case scenario, in the hands of the hackers.

In the case of startups, what happens is that they – in an ode to seek growth and efficient performance – sign up and subscribe to a number of websites that in some cases can be malicious.

Blockchain, in this case, can be used as a platform to protect identities from fraudulent activities. The technology can help businesses handle the problems of reconciliation and authentication faced by a number of industries. Moreover, it allows businesses the freedom to develop encrypted digital identities that replace usernames and pin codes with comprehensive security elements that are capable of saving the institutions and their customers’ valuable resources and time.

5. Supply Chain Management

There are a number of different ways Blockchain can be used in business when it comes to the Supply Chain Management process, to make it more real-time, accessible, transparent, and efficient. Here are the different applications of Blockchain in SCM –

Provenance Tracking

In the blockchain-powered supply chain management process, provenance tracking and record keeping become very easy for the product information can be easily accessed through RFID tags and embedded sensors. Everything about the product, straight from origination to its present status can be tracked via Blockchain. Along with this, the provenance tracking can also be used for detection of frauds in any part of supply chain.

Cost Reduction

When Blockchain is used in supply chain for speeding up the administrative processes, the additional costs occurring in the system gets automatically reduced with the transactions’ security guaranteed. Secondly, elimination of intermediaries and middlemen in the supply chain lowers the chances of product duplicacy, frauds, while saving them a lot of money. The payments made can even be processed by the suppliers and customers in supply chain with cryptocurrencies rather than them relying on the EDI.

Establishing Trust

Having trust in complex supply chains with many participants is necessary for smooth operations. For example, when a manufacturer shares his products with suppliers, he/she should be able to depend on them for following factory safety standards. Also, when it comes to regulatory compliances such as custom enforcers, trust plays a vital role. The immutable nature of blockchain in the supply chain is well-designed to prevent tampering and establishing trust, marking trust as the primal application of Blockchain in business.

6. Quality Customer Support

There are two ways through which Blockchain is used in Business for increasing the quality of customer support.

Data Cleansing Whether it’s due to inept data import tools or human negligence, CRM users all over the world have to deal with inaccurate or duplicate data at some level. With blockchain in place, a customer can have their very own personal block that presents companies with a unified and accurate picture of their personal information, past transactions, subscriptions, etc. Hence, blockchain helps these companies circumvent the issue of inaccurate, obsolete and duplicate data records altogether. This consequently yields better insights into customers and helps businesses engage them more effectively.
Loyalty Programs Loyalty programs aim to drive profits by adding value to the customer experience. However, due to their variable mileage, volatile value and associated privacy concerns, they prove to be cumbersome for customers and yield a low ROI. However, in a manner very similar to cryptocurrencies, brands can make use of blockchain to reimagine and reinvigorate their loyalty programs. With blockchain, consumers would have a single decentralized wallet that is compatible with all brands. They would not be bound by the rules and limitations of individual brands and point redemption would be greatly simplified. The consumer will have far greater control over the whole experience and brands will complete for their wallet by offering them better deals.

7. Advertisement and Promotion

The need for promotion while necessary for businesses of all size is something that is unignorable for startups who are just starting up and are in need of awareness in the market. Even after being one of the most important elements of a business, advertisement industry is filled with a number of loopholes that makes it unnecessarily expensive and opaque for the startups.

When Blockchain is introduced to the mix, there are a number of things that get sorted and streamlined on the promotion front.

Let us look at the benefits of using Blockchain in your business in terms of decentralized advertising.

Better Audience Targeting

Earlier, as marketers, we used to rely on more than one sources to get information on users’ buying habits. But now with blockchain, advertisers will get the freedom of creating buyers’ demographics by getting the necessary information straight from the buyer themselves. The technology will gather all the information that the users wish to share their buying pattern and get them to the advertisers.

Reliable Ad Buys

The problem with online advertising is the lack of knowledge related to the fact that it is absolutely difficult to know whether the people who clicked on the ads were genuine buyers or paid clickers. However, since blockchain is transparent, advertisers can easily make out if the clicks that they are getting, even coming from the population they are targeting or not. This way, the ad buys would prove itself to be of value to money.

Ad Verification

Many times, it so happens that you see a banner advertisement on Facebook listing price of the product as N, but when you visit the site, the number is shown as X. The identification and rectification of issues such as these are the tasks done by the Ad verifiers, whom the networks pay heavily to. However, blockchain helps ensure that the actual information is exactly same as what shown in an advertisement. It reduces the heavy cost that is associated with the ad auditing process.

Management of Advertisement Inventory

Ad inventory, as we all know is the space that advertisers have for ad selling. It can be calculated on the monthly basis. The information that goes into the whole ad inventory management cycle – number of space, length of the advertisement, maintaining records of which day is assigned to which brand, the amount that has to be charged space placement wise etc. – are way too much to handle manually. By using smart contracts and blockchain, brands can not just manage the inventory better but also get payments from advertisers on time.

8. To Generate Funds

One of the biggest sign of success for any startup and also the one which helps them grow to their maximum ability is the amount of investments that they receive. The moment your startup gets backed by investors, you don’t just become an establishment to look out for but also get sufficient funds to support your growth and expansion needs.

Now, when we talk about generating funds or raising investments, there are quite a few options available to the startups and entrepreneurs – Crowdfunding, Angel Investments, Venture Capitalist, Bank Loans, Small Business Administration Loans, etc. While out of all of these modes of generating funds, Venture Capitalist has established itself as the most preferred form of raising fund as entrepreneurs get not just funds but also the experience of VC investors, ICO (a Blockchain powered mode of raising fund) is soon replacing the VC model.

There are a number of reasons that have not just brought the demand for VC and ICO at an equal stage but have also increased the fund investment count for ICO fund model. But, the ones that make ICO ideal for you are:

Easier:

Compared to the VC fund model that asks for entrepreneurs to come prepared with validating market and financial response that proves how your startup or idea is a success, ICOs have a lot fewer benchmarks to follow, making it easier for entrepreneurs to raise funds through the ICO route.

Global:

While VC funding operates within a set geographical boundary, ICO can be raised from investors in the UAE while you are in Australia.

Speedy:

As opposed to the VC funding timeline to raise funds, ICO lasts for around 30 days, only. Making it a lot speedy for entrepreneurs to raise money.

So, here were the several benefits that come tagged with the integration of Blockchain in a startup. But, these benefits like all the genuine, validated benefits, don’t come without their set of challenges.

Specially when the technology is as disruptive and less explored as Blockchain, the instances of businesses facing a challenge in its implementation is very obvious.

Let us look at what challenges Startups face and the probable solutions there can be to overcome and adopt the technology in the business process.

Challenges Startups have to overcome

Complexity in Regulations

The biggest obstacle facing enterprise blockchain adoption is the lack of regulations safeguarding entrepreneurs if something goes wrong. While, there are a number of regulations coming up aimed at bettering the Blockchain adoption rate, the time when you will have a legal regulation in place is still far away.

Presence of Legacy Systems

Startups that wish to actually benefit from Blockchain will have to have a DLT based infrastructure, something that requires technical know-how and capital. The solution to this is investing in skilled Blockchain developers who know how to integrate the technology in the existing system and then integrate on a small scale rather than going all in.

High Hack Incidents

For something anointed to be highly secure, Blockchain doesn’t come sans hack and security breach instances. The internet is filled with Blockchain hack events causing people a loss of millions and millions of money, making safety the biggest factor keeping Blockchain receive full Enterprise adoption.

The solution to this challenge is employing Private or Permissioned Blockchain ecosystem instead of Permissionless or Open Blockchain. By making Blockchain permissioned, you add another security level to the mechanism, making it completely unhackable. Also, since the number of stakeholders, in this case, lowers, the throughput time increases by manifold, making it easier to handle multiple transactions at one time.

Now that we have seen how Blockchain can make Startups more efficient and the probable challenges along with the ways you can conquer them, it is time to look into the Blockchain platforms that you will have to work around to employ the technology in your startup.

Enterprise Blockchain System Platforms

Here are the platforms that we have been trusting for the development of enterprise grade Blockchain system for your Startups –

Hyperledger Fabric
Quorum
VechainThor
R3 Corda
Hedera Hashgraph

As you could see, the enterprise blockchain systems usually have a lot more throughput, lesser latency, and a lot less complex consensus protocols compared to the standard public blockchains such as Ethereum or Bitcoin.

With this, you not just know why to invest in Blockchain for bettering your startup efficiency and the various applications of Blockchain in your business but also how to establish yourself as an innovative company but also what platforms to use to make it possible. What is left now is to get in touch with our Blockchain app developers and get started with the bettering of your startup.