Category: Blog

Federal agencies face new regulations and contract management challenges for procurement and vendor-related issues. In addition, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) covers contract-related requests are an all-time high. Maintaining records of all the vendors and other business relationships can be exhausting. Agencies must manage these contracts efficiently; otherwise, it can open them up to several problems. Automation can be the right solution for contract management, as it can help agencies handle multiple contracts daily.

Contract lifecycle management (CLM) automation is the current industry standard to streamline contracting processes. However, with artificial intelligence in the picture, the next level is contract intelligence. Contract intelligence uses a combination of AI and machine learning (ML) to automate tasks and natural language processing (NLP) to understand the legal areas of any contract can reduce the time of the CLM lifecycle. This automation uses and provides higher contract performance while lowering the risk for the agency. This approach ensures that the intent of every contract is fully realized, from start to finish.

How is automation used in contract management?

The automation starts at the ingestion stage, where a large amount of contract information is ingested; it is compared with historical data for any correlations and patterns. These patterns help to make predictions and suggestions, making a given contract better for the organization.

Benefits of Contract Intelligence

1) Automation achieved with tools like AI and ML can help scale compliance across thousands or even millions of contracts across all agencies.

2) Contract intelligence reduces wastage and provides value by generating new insights with every transaction.

3) Quickly understand the risk and take measures to reduce the risks.

4) Fast turnaround of contract and shorter review processes of the contract.

5) Efficient maintenance of the clauses and terms across all the contracts

6) Advance search feature to analyze the terms and clauses across contracts

7) AI-based predictions based on historical data analysis

This more innovative and powerful technology will help agencies instantly analyze the contracts at one glance but also will help gain a comprehensive overview of the complete management. It acts as an initial quality check enabling legal operations to identify inconsistencies. It also helps the operations look for critical terms that might need re-negotiation before renewal and can help increase the agency’s reputation. To mitigate risk and uncover potential opportunities, now is the time for federal agencies to push the boundaries. Are you ready to improve your operations with new-age technologies that you never imagined?

Automation has existed for over a decade but has seen exponential growth with recent advances. The advances have seen significant change as there has been an increase in automation tools that replicate and automate transactional processes while improving process accuracy and speed. RPA offers the untapped potential of removing human bias and providing valuable insights that have further catapulted digital transformation. We can define automation maturity level as the extent of RPA used in the public sector, based on using data effectively to deliver citizen services while transforming and managing operational workflows. The public sector can increase this capacity and tackle its tactical priorities by using new innovative solutions such as AI, machine learning, and the Internet of Things.

Automation and Cognitive Technologies Aren’t Magic Bullets — But They Can Take You a Long Way.

The public sector has been growing, with organizations and service delivery adopting automation technologies to improve efficiency, respond to increased demands and maximize resources. However, before we jump on this bandwagon and start using automating agencies, there are a few things you need to know about automation. Artificial intelligence and RPA are essential in the public sector, how they can be used by small and large agencies alike, and why your federal agency won’t be left behind if you choose an adaptive approach.

Government Agencies Are on the Cusp of Major Transformation — Many Won’t Realize It.

We’re in a unique moment in time for public sector organizations. Government agencies are facing an aging workforce, budget reductions, new expectations from citizens, and new standards for efficiency and transparency. In recent times, technology has been touted as THE ANSWER. The popularity and use of digital tools rapidly find inroads into governments and governance worldwide. It develops operations with a series of “if/then” decision-making that handles tasks based on those guidelines, ultimately freeing up staff to focus on activities of higher value. The rapid growth of technology and AI will be a game changer and define the future of government agencies’ operations. It will also create incredible opportunities for people who work in these organizations. The good news is that there are plenty of examples where RPA has already transformed businesses and agencies; for example, The U.S. Postal Service automated 80 percent of the supplier request with RPA. The bots now run one hour daily, five days a week, processing 375 transactions with 100% accuracy.

Government and public sector organizations can leverage automation for the following activities:

1. Data digitization: By converting physical data into digital data, agencies can provide services that fulfill citizens’ expectations.
2. Data migration: Can help governments run crucial administrative processes across from a centralized locus, thereby enhancing data-driven processes and eliminating errors
3. Communication with the public: Enhanced communication channels can help in information dissemination to citizens, peer-to-peer sharing of data, and co-creation of solutions
4. Public opinion analysis: Automatically extract relevant information and help analysts derive actionable insights.
5. Healthcare management: Manage public records of healthcare and vaccination information, communicate with citizens about healthcare updates, and generate timely reports for Government action during health crises.
6. Public security: The security can enable the safe storage of citizens’ sensitive data, such as their Social security numbers, license numbers, tax IDs, and other sensitive information behind layers of security.

The Path Forward for Public Sector RPA and Intelligent Automation Is Governed by Rules, Processes, Data, and Analytics, All together!

Automation, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies, has opened up new possibilities. In the real world, people working with technology can deliver the most outstanding value if the automation aligns with their vision and purpose. A clear strategy and implementation plan can effectively manage digital transformation. Not to forget, this will bring datasets together and insights that would not previously have been possible. So rules, processes, data, analytics, and good governance can get relevant, significant, and proportionate changes.

We believe intelligent automation will change everything about the public sector, radically rethink how these agencies deliver services to the public and find newer ways to tackle national, regional, and local issues.

 

Source:

“RPA Streamlines Payments, Powers Efficiency.” Cognizant https://www.cognizant.com/us/en/case-studies/postal-service-robotic-process-automation

With the world embracing its new norm of vastly accepting flexibility at the workplace, businesses are spearheaded toward changing work dynamics. The pandemic taught us to attain maximum productivity within four walls, and organizations have continued to succeed in this remote culture. Public Sector is not far behind. Government employees embraced digital tools to facilitate remote work when their offices reopened.

As rightly said, ‘The future is remote,’ with digitalization conquering the world along with Intelligent Automation (IA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the workforce now focuses on flexibility. With the pandemic, many businesses had to ensure all employees had every resource to work efficiently from home; although it was tedious, we all adapted well for two long years. The information the federal workers deal with is crucial and needs no additional flub; instead, a structured approach. A survey conducted by Accenture in early 2021 shows that the fastest shift to the road of effectiveness is digitization; even then, some agencies have not been able to adapt to this fully. The remote working culture has been thrilling and challenging. Remote work accompanied by next-gen technologies like AI and IA has its positives and negatives. Here are a few points of discussion:

Time management – While working from the office involves time on the commute, remote work helps to stay away from these distractions and saves time. This flexible future for government work can improve employee morale as it gives time to deal with other things. If allowed to be in a hybrid system, most federal workers could complete jobs faster, as automation takes care of the daily tasks, allowing federal workers to be flexible and more productive in less time.

Work-life balance – No doubt remote work opportunities can offer work-life balance opportunities. For example, a federal worker could acquire different skills or pursue a hobby while doing his or their job remotely; this keeps up his or their morale. The Office of the Revenue Commissioners in Ireland (Revenue) is a use case. Receiving a vast three million customer service calls a year, John Barron, CIO at Revenue, took this as an opportunity to integrate AI into his workforce. In just the first six weeks of initiation, 50-60% of calls were handled entirely by a voice bot. Employees not only got a chance to focus their efforts on tasks that can help them grow in and outside the workplace, rather than answering calls all day.

Increased employee loyalty – Federal workers are bound to be loyal, and there can be a decline in resignations if the work environment is wholesome. Although working from home can dampen an employee’s creativity as there is less human engagement. With some simple programming, the monotonous, repetitive tasks can be fully autonomous and can make employees happier when their day-to-day projects are intriguing. Why use human intelligence on redundant tasks when automation can take up this role?

Effective decision-making – Imagine a specific decision that needs to follow a traditional method, especially in the age of zoom meetings and digitized collaboration. Wouldn’t it be time-consuming? Of course, it will. Imagine an automated system set to specific rules that links data to decision-making, equipped with a feedback process that continuously self-learns and self-corrects. This system is IA at work. Having an artificial assistant inform you when it needs human revision for difficult judgment calls rather than pouring over volumes of issues by hand sounds nice, right?

Save Resources– Automating data storage processes is moving towards a green system. According to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the transfer of widely used software applications to the cloud would reduce energy usage by 87%. With remote working culture, all organizations encourage and support reducing the carbon footprint. Intelligent automation in the small world can help the agencies’ sustainability efforts.

Although there are some issues like security as a growing number of remote workers means a vastly distributed network with numerous access points, fortunately, zero trust architecture is a way forward that will vet every digital interaction. 2-way or 3-way authentication, i.e., can further enhance security. To avoid the human error that primarily causes the security breach, if more efforts can be put into training and changing workforce management, this issue can be dealt with efficiently.

According to a report by CISCO, as of July 2022, 58% of federal employees are working from home five days a week, and 52% are satisfied with the current remote work arrangement. In this technology-driven world, getting ahead and staying ahead, the benefits mentioned above can help us weigh both sides of the coin of evolution in the workplace. Remote or hybrid work certainly brings a lot more to the platter and can be improved from time to time with newer technologies. All this brings us to the conclusion that ‘The future is hybrid’ With so many job opportunities, it doesn’t matter which part of the earth you may be all you need is a set of skills, secured systems, and proper remote working structure to embark on this journey.

“Artificial Intelligence: Paving an Easier Path for Remote Working.” AI Paving the Way for Remote Work | IEEE Computer Society, www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/trends/remote-working-easier-with-ai.

“Automated Decision Making.” Oliver Wyman – Impact-Driven Strategy Advisors, www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2016/aug/automated-decision-making.html.

A Real Conversation Starter – Accenture. www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/pdf-96/accenture-hps-ira-creds-d5-final.pdf.

Truly Human Automation – Accenture. www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/accenture/redesign-assets/dotcom/documents/local/1/accenture-truly-human-automation-manchester-metropolitan-university.pdf.

“Uncovering the Environmental Impact of Cloud Computing.” Earth.Org, 30 Sept. 2021, earth.org/environmental-impact-of-cloud-computing/.

Cisco_Hybrid_Work_in_Government_Survey_Report_FINAL, Cisco, July,2022

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/m/digital/elq-cmcglobal/OCA/Assets/Federal/Cisco_Hybrid_Work_in_Government_Survey_Report_FINAL.pdf

Benefits and Advantages of Cloud Computing

Local servers are a thing of past now. You may want to choose just one backup for emergency rather than having number of servers saving the same data. Cloud computing is the future these days undoubtedly and it is going to change how we do business. It can be compared to a powerhouse meant to run a business efficiently, hence the reason for its popularity.

1. Lesser Issues:

Cloud based computing services may appear complicated to a layman’s eye but in reality, it poses meager issues as compared to server based solutions. There are companies whose sole job is to make cloud functional at all times, therefore they run cloud service on its servers dedicated to just this cause.

It is much more trustworthy than a local server.

2. Saving money with Cloud:

If a bug is noticed in a system, be assured that the company maintaining cloud network is looking for its solution. But if it happens to be your remote server than you may like to file a complaint with technical support staff or have an engineer come down to your locale to fix it up.

A normal server owner may let a small issue let go by but these issues snowball into a major breakdown if not fixed in time costing time and money to the company.

In the longer run, cloud based IT solutions helps in saving huge money provided you don’t take services of tech support teams to fix issues from time to time.

3. Require Lesser Capital:
One of the most difficult parts to run a startup business is to create capital to run your business and have your employees paid at the end of the month. Servers will cost a fortune to buy, run and maintain and thus adds to the working cost of the company.

On the other hand, cloud computing is less expensive than running a server. You only pay for storage required by you per month. It is also less hassle to upgrade your systems with the latest software patches as is done automatically by a cloud running company. You save money on fancy hardware upgrades and extract purely what you desire.

4. Enhances Team Collaboration:
With help of cloud computing, team collaboration also increases. In a study, it was revealed that seventy-nine percent of companies get requests from potential clients to procure more cloud applications to encourage collaboration for want of file sharing. Cloud computing is carving a niche for itself in the business sphere. Cloud computing is meant for file sharing and connectivity. It helps one team to edit files and share them in real-time across the globe. The team can operate as one from anywhere in the world.

5. Decrease Carbon Footprinting:
Reducing carbon footprint with cloud computing is as easy as it gets. Cloud computing demands less physical space than installing servers allowing the companies to reduce their data centers or maybe remove them completely.

Fewer servers mean that fewer resources are utilized. Cloud computing offers enhanced ability to share files and fewer requirements of printouts between team members resulting in saving the planet.

6. It’s Always On:
With cloud computing, you don’t have to remember to save an important file on a pen drive as everything is on the cloud. Sometimes flash drives don’t work properly and emails don’t get sent timely but with oracle cloud applications, you don’t have to worry as your data is accessible all the time round the clock.

7. Perfect Work-Life Balance:
Cloud computing offers a reliable work-life balance. Cloud is always on and helps in collaboration. Cloud computing also assists in maintaining a great work-life balance among your employees.
Employees get the freedom to work from anywhere and anytime which allows them to run home to attend to their children or run errands for the house. It allows them to spend quality time with their children while enjoying a tropical locale yet do their job via cloud computing.

8. Enhanced Security:
Better security is being offered by the cloud. It provides better security than local servers. You don’t have to fret about losing data because of a natural disaster such as an earthquake destroying your server rooms. There is far greater flexibility in working via the cloud than with physical servers. Safety is one of the biggest advantages which cloud-based computing services offer.

You can let go of your worry of a breakdown at your physical server center if you have switched over to cloud-based computing. There are various cloud providers who also go a step ahead and create backup data adding redundancy to the remote servers. Such measures help prevent the loss of data at any stage.

Cloud providers offer more security protocols than anyone would probably do on his local server. Such stringent measures make the security airtight and foolproof.

9. Control Over Documents:
Easy control over documents via cloud computing: It is important to maintain document control when you want to run a successful business. You can never know what might just happen to the document if it falls in the wrong hands. Security is important and all employees are sensitized on the subject but with paperless documents which are being accessed centrally over the cloud, administrators can review the security in a simplified manner.

10. Easy Implementation:
It allows you to conveniently decide which document to choose and which to be edited, shared, or viewed by the selective users out of the lot. It offers real-time sharing preventing the floating of thousands of versions of the same file leading to confusion. One copy of the document is easy to manage, review and edit and there are cloud-based IT solutions doing just the job for you.
Easy implementation is the forte of ORACLE cloud applications.
It seems like a herculean task when you think of beginning to use a cloud-based service. But it is just a piece of cake.

11. Convenient M&A Activity:
M&A activity is also facilitated by them. Cloud computing promotes swift changes enabling two completely different companies to integrate as one much faster. Traditional computing methods will take ages while migrate applications or remove data centers before these two different companies begin to run on one single IT stack. Such convenience and ease of doing work have catapulted cloud computing to the center stage. It has become the backbone of the growing IT industry and a favorite method of doing business with start-ups mushrooming all over the world.

12. Reduces Environmental Impact:
Fewer data centers mean less impact on the environment. Collectively such actions will save the environment. Companies that are into sharing resources are also improving their green ratings.
It also enables the latest software applications easily available to every customer no sooner than they are launched in the open market. These upgrades fix new features directly into workers’ hands, hence enhancing their productivity. Software updates are launched very frequently and cloud running company incorporates them as soon as possible, to prevent any virus/malware attack.

13. Increased Speed to Market:
Many companies run their business model on the philosophy that their product should reach the market more quickly than their competitors, just to have an edge over them and reap profits. With the advent of cloud computing, the stakes have got much higher.
For instance, some cloud companies deliver custom-based IT solutions to their clients by manufacturing innovative products as well as services. This ultimately helps them in enhancing the production in a matter of weeks as compared to months earlier.

14. A Level Field:
For small business houses, cloud computing offers major benefits as it enables them to compete as equals with renowned business houses. It gives SMEs an added advantage by granting access to latest software and applications which otherwise would be exorbitantly expensive.

15. New Software:
Competition is critical much more today than it ever was. The companies are vying for the top slot and making advancements in innovation, market appeal, and security to attract business. It is about getting more facilities with less dollar investment. Software’s enhancements and immediate upgrades are released on a routine basis to cope up with the competition.

Conclusion:
Cloud computing is offering a greater advantage when compared to traditional physical servers. 85% of companies/enterprises have incorporated it in their business in the past few years. To migrate to a cloud-based system has become affordable and easy since last year. It is a sure-shot way to save time, resources, effort and money in this emerging business cloud world.

Role Played by Cloud Technology in Modern Finance Business

If you are thinking of building the finance organization for the future using the old tools of the past, then you are definitely doing something wrong.

There can be no better solution to the problem other than the cloud to transform your dreams into reality. Cloud-based computing services are gaining immense popularity in the IT sector due to their myriad advantages.

Read on to know about the benefits of cloud-based IT solutions:

Driven by Insight

It is important to have round-the-clock insight for everyone to make the right decisions at the right time. And with Cloud, you are able to achieve it:

1. Finance Analysts – The professionals are able to carry out analysis on a temporary basis without IT. This way they create live fiscal reports.
2. Business Managers – These experts obtain an insight with the help of built-in analytics and self-service reporting.
3. Finance Clerks – They obtain instant intelligence for accelerating decision-making in the context of transactions.
4. Finance Managers – The professionals recognize and determine exceptions with the help of the process of self-monitoring.

Secure in-context partnership with the help of an incorporated social network

1. Better visibility- Look into the details of “who did when and what” for improved issue resolution.
2. Collaborative- Speed up the close process with alliance directly tied to processes and transactions.
3. Constant Feedback- Set up a culture of consistent process improvement.

Premeditated

1. Scalable worldwide development with the help of convenient business modeling.
2. Suggest the effect of changes to the growth of your business with multidimensionality.
3. Regulate high transaction-based volumes with the help of unmatched speed of processing.
4. Get improved forecast correctness with prognostic preparation and rolling forecasts.

Ultra Competent: Enhanced employee experience with the help of design that is user-centered

• Adapt the experience of the user experience to be in sync with the business processes and the company’s identity.
• Give power to your on-the-go personnel via voice entry and mobile expense scanning.
• Finish tasks speedily with the help of role-based work areas and dashboards.

In Control and Acquiescent: To have faith in the numbers in accordance with this century’s accounting

1. Fulfill local regulations and varied requirements based on reporting with localizations that are country-specific.
2. Regulate taxes, accounting, payments, intercompany, banks, payments, currencies, suppliers, and customers with a central fiscal structural design built from established practices.
3. Hold up to the manifold representations concurrently, services offered across various entities, and goods movement with local reporting requirements.

Thus, with so many benefits of cloud-based IT solutions, why should your business lag behind? We can help you in building your company’s model based on the cloud so that you leverage the maximum benefits and attain your business goals. To understand our Cloud services in detail, contact us.

The Growing Importance of Business Talent Management Cloud

Developing and retaining talent is becoming a significant challenge for employers all around the globe. While many organizations are learning to adjust to changing demographics and diversified employee preferences, they need to enhance their HR and Talent Manager’s capabilities.

While these managers concentrate mainly on hiring and sustaining outstanding talent, their focus should be on engaging the top performers to accomplish the most favorable outcome of a business, its goal.

A business can only grow if it has a talented workforce. But these days, it is hard to find, build and retain ideal employees. However, with the right tools and robust methodologies, getting the best people for your organization is achievable. Managing the current workforce and giving them the required training can also help in improving the performance of the existing Human Capital.

Talent Management requires strategic Human Resources to elevate the growth of a business and achieve the set business objectives by enhancing its culture and values. Whether it is giving rewards or developing the workforce, recruiting or conserving, everything that is done to improve business standards is a part of strategic workforce planning and talent management.

Talent Management strategy should be relevant to business and align the business with all the processes. The recruitment process is the most crucial stage of Talent Management, after which the recruitment performance is carefully evaluated. Then innovative business strategies are designed to enhance the performance of the workforce, and the necessary pieces of training are given to promote their talent. Succession planning plays a vital role to fill critical positions. It is paramount to recognize the skill gaps through gap analysis to provide the necessary guidance for preparation to reach that level.

Talent management has great significance as a management practice. Earlier HR was limited to recruitment, but now it covers vast areas. When a company invests in hiring people and building talent, it is considered to be a long-term association ensuring that the talent stays even if top management has to face issues and challenges keeping up.

Facing Challenges and Adapting the Futuristic Approach

HR plays a strategic role in promoting the growth of any business or company. It offers orientation to the workforce, set goals, makes business strategies, and aligns all of them in one direction.

From time to time HR needs to fulfill the talent demand of an organization. And not only to cater to the current demand, it needs to be prepared for future strategies and also to capture more skills in its skill inventory. With the advancement in technology, many organizations have included robots, cloud, IoT, and Big Data in their processes. Because of these, the business scenarios are also changing. The skill sets that were enough for any job, nowadays one-third of these skills are not even considered competent in the present scenario. That is why HR needs to be more agile, innovative, and futuristic.

It is now crucial for the management to adopt mandatory agenda to recognize the new skills keep the future in mind and run the re-skilling program. The development of resources through these dedicated learning programs should be able to connect them to their key responsibility areas (KRAs), individual goals, and organizational goals. The selection of candidates for re-skilling can be based on employee aspirations, appraisals, and feedback. It is essential that the re-skilling is associated with rewards and career development to make sure that the selected candidates are eager to acquire these new skills.

Another approach to re-skilling is job enhancement and job rotation practices employed by many organizations these days. Job rotation ensures that the right employee is shifted to a suitable job as per his skill set and other pre-defined criteria. It is a precise movement and is given a lot of thought. And after proper planning and procedures; the employee is moved to the right job in the same organization.

Job enhancement, on the other side, includes additional responsibilities and tasks that are given to the employee at the same level. This practice provides an opportunity for the employees to enhance their skills in order to boost their motivation.

Systematic and Holistic Approach to Strategic Talent Management
Talent management needs a holistic and systematic approach. It is vital to keep your talent pool updated because if any of the top talent or leader leaves the organization at a crucial time, and there is no substitute to fill the position, then it might create a gap that will break the equilibrium.

Succession planning basically includes the development of employees of an organization to strengthen it for achieving success. While the development of its talent is critical, it cannot be accomplished solely. Here comes the role of a holistic talent management strategy.

With Business Talent Management Cloud, you can

• Fascinate, maintain and motivate the best talent by utilizing workflow-driven and adaptable talent management
• Set individual objectives and align them with corporate goals. Also, define the ways in which an employee can contribute to the growth of the organization.
• Propel a comprehensive talent management strategy with a system that integrates all talent-related processes and activities.
• Include social media to widen the reach for employment and help in generating referrals, and high-quality talent.
• Boost employee engagements.

Strategic Talent Management And Role of HR
It is the key responsibility of HR professionals to hire the right talent for the significant roles at the right time. However, if done skillfully and strategically, the talent management module may lead to better results for the organization’s growth in the long run.

Effective Recruitment Process
The recruitment cloud allows employers to assess, source, and hire the right kind of talent for their organization. With the help of Talent Acquisition Cloud, the recruitment process can be streamlined and automated. This enables HR to handle the most complex and demanding environments in even larger organizations, and they can efficiently deliver successful recruitments by strategizing and boosting the talent acquisition effectively and efficiently.

While with the recent increase in the unemployment rates, there are many job seekers in the market. But because of the talent scarcity, recruiters are facing numerous challenges. Recruiting cloud helps them design smart strategies to pull the top performers through multi-tiered assessments and screening. This process ascertains that the entirely suitable applications of the candidates reach the recruiter’s desk. That is the reason HR needs to be proactive as well as reactive to cope with the talent management needs and ever-changing industry.

Hiring managers and recruiters now streamline their processes with the help of tools like interview management, applicant tracking, and requisition management. At the same time, high-profile candidates are also given the positive impression of your organization as a most wanted employer through many career sites and social media ads, etc.

Sourcing through Social Networking
Talent Management Cloud utilizes social sourcing that helps HR to widen its reach and get higher referrals. While posting for a job offer on FaceBook and LinkedIn has become a common practice, it is not sufficient since the competitor may also use these sources to get to the best performers.
However, through social sourcing service, you can reach the network of your employees that can turn out to be the best recruiters through referral tools. You can manage your targeted campaigns through simple connections of employee networking. This way the employees provide you with the top profiles to contribute to the organization and in turn get credit for that.

Goal Alignment
The goal management module allows the corporate to set, manage and track the individual as well as organizational goals. It helps align these objectives with the entire talent management process. The talent management cloud provides the opportunities to create a culture where employee development is given importance. The high-level initiatives by the top management lead to collaboration between the workforce and the managers to set the objectives in the right direction.
Tangible task setting such as associating goals to competencies or designing goal-related duties also allows career development and monitors the individual growth of each employee. This does not only support employees to achieve their personal goals but also fosters their career growth. Work collaboration tools like wiki or forums enable the workforce to share goals as well as accomplish the shared objective, the success of the organization.

Performance Management
The performance management cloud is designed to track employee development and evaluate their work performance by the top management and immediate managers. This tool offers a template-driven and flexible system that allows the configuration of the performance process to match the corporate practices. The in-built analytics and user-friendly interface are advantageous for both leaders and the workforce.

Performance management tool offers supervision and decision support to accomplish the evaluation process effectively. The performance report consists of the analytical information along with worker ratings. This enables HR administrators and support managers to track the entire performance management process.

Building and Developing Talent
While acquiring the best talent has become a war for most companies, their HR managers are searching for the best sources to recruit the top talent. They can also nurture the talent and retain them within the organization by engaging them. This seems difficult but can be accomplished by using the capabilities of the Talent Management Cloud in the following ways:

• By developing an intelligent recruitment process to search, engage and handpick the best applicants and retain them via user-centric processes.
• By utilizing rich employee networks through Social media networking tools for referrals along with internal social networks through improved information sharing and employee engagements.
• By developing role-centric employee experience to increase the accessibility, productivity, and collaboration within the organization for all levels
• By employing the holistic approach to goal and performance management that provides flexibility
• By providing extensive solutions for the learning curve that deploys easy opportunities to get the necessary training and development plans fabricated to employees’ needs.
• By integrating embedded analytics into the system to promote the informed data-driven process of decision making
• By offering integration support in conjunction with the E-business suite, PeopleSoft and other core HR systems
• By providing diversified deployment with SaaS (Software as a Service)

Conclusion

Hiring the top talent and nurturing them to achieve corporate success can be attained with the help of Talent Management Cloud. Fostered talent is then moved up in the hierarchy. It improves their skill sets to deliver quality work, but at the same time, you need to increase the remunerations for handling additional roles and responsibilities.

Therefore, it is crucial to address the career development requirements of talented professionals. Along with this, a well-strategized communication system should be implemented to cover the gap between leaders and high performers to avoid personal as well as professional issues. It enables the HR professionals to understand the needs of the talented employees and create policies to support them.

Talent Management Cloud helps you to focus on workforce planning and strategic insights to develop talent and stay ahead of the competition. 6etech.com provides you with the successful implementation of Talent Management Cloud.

6e Technologies is a leading provider of Oracle solutions and Automation Solutions. The company has expertise in automating your IT processes and integrating them with other systems. Whether it is integrating ERP solution or migration, installations, or training, 6e Technologies offer best in the class services.

16 Steps Recommended Ascertaining the Success of ERP Implementation in your Organization

The implementation of the ERP in an organization is a massive step towards achieving the organizational objectives with a systematic and careful approach. It is a major change that ensures better success rate by involving various components of business and integrating them with the help of software.

These business components include human resource management, sales, and marketing management, production management, logistics, payroll, accounting, management control and many more.

Enterprise Resource planning helps all the organization across the globe irrespective of their size and line of business. It creates a global foundation and provides excellent outputs with increased productivity and reduced expenses.

If you want to implement Oracle ERP cloud in your business, then you need to consider about the several factors to ascertain that ERP implementation in your organization is successful and your business is benefited from it immensely.

Since ERP accelerates various business processes and streamlines them, it is critical to design effective ERP strategies for the constant delivery of positive business output.

Here, we are offering you 16 effective steps, and by incorporating them into your ERP strategies, you can ensure that the ERP implementation in your company is fruitful

1. Setting of Objectives
Before you start, it is imperative to identify your problem areas. Ask yourself questions to find the real goal of ERP implementation. It needs to be done keeping future endeavors also in mind rather than thinking about current projects only.

Now the important question is why ERP implementation in your organization? How good is it for your business and its operations? And what strategies need to be built for the successful implementation of ERP.

ERP implementation is crucial for any organization that wants to grow. ERP implementation offers better visibility and communication between different business processes and operations. It also ensures that the information is centralized for any respective department of the business to access. Various modules and their operations are managed over a unique database system.
However, it is also crucial to think about the software tools that are already in place and that migration to ERP might need strategizing and budgeting. In fact, time management and cost-effectiveness is the key to the success of implementation if every critical phase is handled by subsequent and well-planned steps.

So, before you plan to implement ERP in your system, do a self-assessment and come up with correct answers to ensure that this is the right decision for your business.

2. Anticipating Risks
There are innumerable risks involved in the implementation of ERP. Whether overhead costs or delivery delays, failure in infrastructure or vendor issues, it is critical to be prepared for these risks in advance. The management should be able to anticipate the major risks involved in the process. That is the reason it is important to define the objectives of the ERP implementation.
It is equally important to train the staff for the upcoming changes as ERP implementation is extremely influential and everyone should contribute towards achieving the favorable results.

3. Selecting the Suitable ERP System
The need for ERP varies from one industry to another in terms of performance. It is essential to look for an ERP package that is built as per your industry standards. For example, if you go for Oracle ERP Cloud, it offers an extensive array of applications that enable the management to get improved performance with better decision making and in reduced expenses.

Similarly, many ERP providers including Sage, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, etc. render their clients with segmented ERP solutions. Some of them even design ERP specific to business sectors and position them accordingly.

The ERP is packaged to minimize the cost of ERP development and deployment. And the features provided in every package fulfill the requirements of all the SMEs.
The standard features of every package offered by the ERP providers make sure that the commercial aspect of your business is managed well. It also controls your logistics, handles the administrative and financial part, monitors the production, manages accounts, etc.

If you want to add more sophisticated tools as per your industry standards, then implementation takes longer than expected. And training is involved in every package as essential part along with data and file transfers. Hence, if you find a suitable Oracle implementation partner, the procedure becomes much easier for you.

4. Finding the Suitable ERP Providers
You need a vendor that understands your business needs and processes and offers you a comprehensive solution for your system. It is best to establish specification so that you are clear about what kind of planning and provisioning is required.

Ascertain that your provider has an excellent reputation in the market and is known for timely deliveries. Ensure that the business suite offered by your provider consists of a portfolio of industry-focused solutions, integrated business processes, and rapid value solutions

5. Defining the Scope of ERP
All the businesses offer some unique products and services and run on specific rules. Likewise, every business faces problems while growing. With the boost in the growth of any company, the various metrics such as sales, procurement, etc. become difficult to manage. Hence, ERP implementation comes into account and help in maintaining data enterprise-wide, reducing the manual efforts.
Similarly, irrespective of the size of business, its workflow plays a vital role. ERP improves the workflow of any business. It mainly covers all the aspects of your business and fulfills every business demand.
ERP also ensures that the higher levels of security are implemented in your system, and all the business operations run smoothly. It makes the data centralized, and only authorized employees can access this data.

Therefore, keeping in mind the core business requirements and financial investments, the scope of ERP is defined for the smooth and obstacle-free ERP implementation.

6. Evaluating the Current System to come up with Ideal Project Plan
It is one of the most crucial steps to ensure the successful implementation of ERP in your system. As per some reports, numerous firms customize their ERP software to lower degrees of the considered utilization.

The management of the organization is required to invest time and energy in evaluating the options available for optimal utilization of ERP. Because, otherwise the complexities may increase, if the evaluation is not done properly beforehand, leading to the failure of ERP implementation.
Evaluating your system is a stepping stone to understand the present needs and future projections. It is crucial to differentiate the customization and ERP configuration before the implementation starts. ERP needs to be flexible to accommodate the requirements going to arise in future.

7. Transferring the Knowledge
Once you decide to go for ERP implementation, it is essential to designate some employees that will provide assistance during the implementation process. These people should have knowledge of company’s history and culture as these are the representatives of their respective departments and introduce the ERP service provider with various systems along with internal users.
Usually, business owner, chief financial officer, chief technical officers and other decision makers are included in stake-holders along with several other representatives. Additionally, your provider also renders your team with required assistance and pieces of training needed for the implementation process.

8. Selecting Implementation Phases
ERP implementation is different for every organization. Choosing the modules that your business requires is a difficult task. This is when mapping of your business processes comes into play. It is a crucial step to know that what are the processes in place and what is their importance.
For a successful ERP implementation, it is essential to have the workflow ready and make changes or customize according to these business workflows.

It is suggested that the implementation project should be divided into independent phases. You can either select complete service approach or guided approach, depending upon your organization’s size and business requirement.

9. Creating Achievable Schedules for Timely Delivery
If the delivery of the ERP implementation is not timely, even with one year delay, it will not be called a success irrespective of the quality of the project and cost savings. Most of ERP implementations take longer than the expected time of delivery.

Hence, it becomes necessary to schedule the primary processes deliveries to be achieved on the timely basis. Make these flexible to accommodate final adjustments. This can happen when you define the project in independent phases and give them the estimated time limit to finish.

10. Migrating to ERP
Once you have established which ERP solution you need, then the major and the most critical step is data migration. It should be a trouble-free transition for the future utilization of ERP.
ERP implementation can be a tremendous change for the company that has not used this software before. It is crucial to determine that which data to be migrated as the complete shifting of data may be a burdensome process.

Hence, it is recommended that only critical data should be transferred to the software and precautions should be taken to ascertain that the data is retrieved and can be accessed whenever required.

11. Customizing
ERP is developed as per the requirement of your business and its respective industry. The significant amount of thought and research goes into this process. Since ERP implementation includes an enormous investment of capital, large pool of resources, lot of time and efforts, the company should be able to manage the scheduled maintenance of the ERP software.

At the time of pilot testing also, the management should evaluate the understanding of the utility of the system rather than the desired utility of the organization. It is critical to keep an eye on the system to be adopted by the management from the onset.

So if you want the successful implementation of ERP with necessary customizations, it is critical to follow the best practices. If ERP is fitted the way it was bought, this will do no good to your business. You must un-follow the old methods of ERP implementation and get the customization done as per your business processes and operations in the company.

That is why it is very important to understand your system, your business requirement, the software and the modifications that need to be made, prior to the customization.

12. Changing the Management
While employees of any organization are habitual of specific routine they follow for performing their activities through already defined processes, any changes in the system are not welcomed easily. However, with the implementation of ERP, change management becomes necessary.
ERP implementation has a significant impact on the working environment of any company. It is responsible for all the modification in working styles and affects all the processes and ongoing operations in the organization.

It is the responsibility of the management to prepare their staff for the changes by giving them training and making them aware of the positive impacts and efficiency of the software.

13. Transferring the Knowledge
Management should make sure that the vendor renders the in-house IT team with all the technical know-how and detailing of the project. Proper technical training and effective transfer of knowledge are considered critical for the success of the project.

For operations to be smooth and simplified, the IT support staff should be well-trained. If the software utilization is not optimal, then the output of ERP implementation will not be effective.

14. Going Live
It is only after go-live that the actual operational obstructions come in picture. If there are gaps between evaluation, processes and implementation and the system is not flexible enough to handle them, it may backfire.

At this phase, the system needs to be improvised, and at the same time, the management should ensure that the primary objective of the implementation should not be diluted.

During go-live period, accurate data migration and proper hardware synchronization are evaluated.

15. System Testing
Testing is another crucial step that ensures that product is ready. Though it is a hectic task but it confirms that all the technical and functional aspects of the system are positive.
Below are the checklist points that are evaluated during testing:

• Business reports
• Access rights for individual users
• Both static as well as dynamic data
• Auto backup procedures
• User acceptance
• Accounting reports

16. Maintaining and Supporting
Once the ERP is live, it needs maintenance and support for the maximum output. If the implementation is successful, it does not ensure the optimal future utilization.

It is crucial to update the system on timely basis along with periodical maintenance and ongoing support. This will ensure the smooth and trouble-free functioning of the ERP solution to give you better ROI for your business.

Do you think your services-based company needs cloud accounting? Is your system ready to handle this new cloud-based software? There may be many such questions in your mind when you are thinking of implementing cloud accounting in your Oracle enterprise business suite. Let us see how to determine whether your system requires to cloud accounting along with its benefits.

While you store numerous documents or images in your cloud, your emails are also stored in the cloud most of all. In a way, the cloud offers us many advantages to store and manage resources. Similarly, the accounting cloud also renders the organizations with several amazing benefits such as:

1. Automation
Cloud-based accounting solutions automate routine jobs and save a lot of time by working in real-time.

2. Accessibility
You can store or manage your data and resources from any place through any device connected to the internet. It can also be accessed by mobile devices as these solutions are mobile-friendly also.

3. Integration with Multiple Apps
The cloud-based solution can be integrated seamlessly to make the tasks more manageable for you. These complementary jobs can easily correspond with the cloud.

4. Less Manual Interference
Since the functions are automated, so with the help of seamless integration, you can move data around conveniently and restore it. Only a small extent of manual assistance is required in this process.

5. Security
Regardless of hardware, your data is stored safely. Easy mitigation of data, even in case of hardware malfunctioning or system crash, is possible when you use a cloud. In addition to it, your provider ensures that all your data is secured and infrastructure is monitored to safeguard your assets.

6. Cost-Effective Solution
Cloud-based solutions are cost-effective. You pay only as per your plan or subscription. Besides, there is no need to install costly hardware on your system. The provider does it all for you.

7. User-driven Innovations
Applications based on the cloud are developed as per the user’s specifications and are updated on a regular basis as per the user’s demand and insight.

8. Energy-efficient Technology
Your data is stored in data centers at offshore locations rather than onsite. This way you can make sure that the cloud service provider is using the latest and most advanced technology.

More About Cloud Accounting
Cloud accounting is the modern way of accessing the accounting software through your browser without even installing it on your system. You can access your cloud-based application anytime anywhere through any device that has an internet connection. This is also known as online accounting and is very much similar to the “Software as a Service” business model. Online accounting makes it easy for employees of a company to stay in touch with their accountants and data whenever they want.
Now when you know about cloud Accounting and all the advantages related to cloud-based solutions, you should also be aware of the questions like “why are you not accounting or invoicing on the cloud?” or “when do you think you will be ready for cloud accounting before it is too late?”

Let us find the answer to the above-asked questions through an assessment test:

Question 1. How do you manage your account processing?
By using excel or word for reports and invoicing
Have installed an accounting software on my computer
An accountant does it for me

Question 2. How do you collaborate?
Through email interactions
Call my staff in my office to share the insights

Question 3. How do you ensure that your business particulars are safe and secure?
I trust my guys
By backing up the data in my drive
By saving the important emails

Are you aware of the market standards and where your business stands? Is your site mobile-friendly?

Or you are least bothered about the latest developments in your business area.
Well, there are innumerable questions that can help you assess your business and where it is positioned in the industry. After answering all these questions, you will know what is lacking and what needs to be done for the progress of your business and to improve your business revenues.

While adding various software and tools to your business might help you in some of the operations of your company, in the long race, managing numerous tools might be a time-consuming task and need more resources than required.

Incorporating enterprise resource planning (ERP) in your business simplifies the operations and manages your business processes automating all the operations and back-office functions.

ERP Accounting Software
More and more firms are implementing cloud ERP in their businesses as it processes the information in real-time from anywhere, anytime. We all know that ERP is the ideal option for storing and processing data, especially when it comes to accounting tools.

Oracle ERP Cloud helps you increase the productivity of every core business process such as financial, accounting, procurement, and much more. This cloud also offers inbuilt features that are specific to a country’s regulations, which means it provides Global adoption. For example, it provides new compliance with GST or Goods and Service tax regulations and facilitates native support for such kind of network in India as many multinational companies operating in India and this country renders offshore data centers to numerous organizations across the globe. So, this is an excellent feature for MNCs whose processing of various operations takes place in this country.

Therefore, accounting software for an Oracle ERP Cloud is an advanced, modern, and sophisticated financial platform that delivers seamlessly through the Oracle Cloud. An Oracle implementation partner can help you implement ERP cloud in your system as per your business needs and market criteria.

It gives you effortless access to the data over the internet. And the best part is that it is easily customizable as per your business demands and incorporates your business-specific functionalities in your system. For example, you can add inventory control capability along with payroll function in case you are a manufacturing firm.

Besides, Oracle cloud helps you power intelligent business operations, enable growth, reduce the complexity of operations, reduced costs, differentiate your business from the competitors and boost your ROI through proven ERP practices.

To Sum Up…
Financial data is critical information for any business, and if you want to move it to a cloud, the service provider should be well-known and trustworthy. So, once you decide that you need to move your accounting to the cloud, you are required to find a cloud service provider that has great infrastructure, platform, storage, and application services. It is crucial to check the capability, security measures, and reliability of the provider before you subscribe. Hire the provider with the best performance, quality, and timely delivery.

Successful Cloud ERP Implementation- Points to Consider

Are you planning to migrate your existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to the cloud? If you have never done this before, you might face a few issues while moving your ERP. There are uncertainties and complexities involved in this kind of software implementation. Since it involves enormous investments and of capital and other resources and can affect any aspect of business drastically, Cloud ERP implementation is considered quite a challenging task.

For ERP implementation to be successful, you need to be very careful with your planning and provisioning. Since we have years of experience in implementation, consultation, and customization of Oracle ERP cloud, we have come to know about the nitty-gritty of these ERP projects. We are offering you several factors to ensure that your ERP project is booming from the onset.

1. Include Expert Implementation Professionals
It is the most crucial decision to involve the right kind of professionals in your implementation team. Whether you have your internal team or have hired Oracle implementation partners, you need to make sure that you are contented with the methodologies that the implementation staff is using and these people are helpful.

2. ERP Implementation Methodologies
Defining the implementation approach in advance is critical. The team should acknowledge your current business processes and offer a tailored solution as per your business requirements. If you are hiring a third-party for ERP implementation, then the methodologies followed can be

Complete Service Implementation Approach
Here your Oracle implementation partners work full-time and provide hands-on services to the customers. They do all kinds of designs, application configuration, and other heavy liftings. Mostly larger organizations with complex processes go for the full-service approach.

Guided Approach
This is a short-term approach followed by companies with straight-forward and well-defined business processes. Additionally, the organizations that have resources and expertise for ERP implementation themselves take this guided approach. Here, the implementation partner is hired to render their clients with standard project flows and project management while customer conducts the system configuration.

3. Outline Your Fundamental Business Requirements
When you define your business requirements, these lay the foundation of resources and time needed for the application design as well as configuration strategies. They also help to determine the project scope and timeline.

Below are some suggestions to make sure that your requirement collection process is fruitful:

Recognize your Unique Business Requirements

• Identify your business rules, logic, and hence, needs along with applications that are to be configured on the ERP to ascertain that the new software implementation support all your business processes.
• Develop the consistent and comprehensive understanding of how your Oracle enterprise business suite is going to manage the standard flow of any business process and special use cases.
• If the business requirements are not adequately defined, they can cause significant financial and timeline complications.

Modifications in Project Scope
During the implementation process, there are chances that the project scope might need changes. This happens mainly because of unidentified business undertakings that may occur during new business acquisitions, product line expansion, sales process or numerous other reasons. Hence, it becomes necessary to establish new strategies to handle the alterations in the scope of the project.

While analyzing the modifications in scope, budget, timeline, and quality are the three factors that are taken into account and considered most critical factors. Therefore, effective and well-defined strategies are designed to achieve the project goal efficiently.

Phased Approach to ERP Implementation
If your organization is large and areas of improvements are vast, then EPR implementation process might take a long time to cover your implementation goals. In such case, you may consider adopting the phased approach to accomplish gradual implementation.

This way you can prioritize your areas of requirement, and critical functionalities can be delivered based on their importance. It also helps you communicate your business requirements along with pending design decisions based on embraced business processes after the completion of one or more phases during implementation.

At the End to Sum Up..
Implementation of ERP cloud may be an arduous task, but by incorporating the above actions in your in your ERP implementation strategies, you can save a lot of money and efforts. An ERP consultation firm may assist you in ensuring that your ERP project is on track and migration to ERP cloud is successful and timely.