Category: Productivity

Addressing Employee burnout

Addressing Employee Burnout And Retention Challenges In A Post-Pandemic World

July 12, 2024

COVID-19 has completely reshaped the dynamics of modern workplaces and the rules of employee engagement, as most leading companies or enterprises will testify to. Even though the pandemic may be officially done and dusted (at least we hope so), it is still crucial for companies and employers to understand that its effects are yet to fade. The new normal has completely transformed employee expectations from their employers and hastened employee burnout simultaneously. Let us look closely at these symptoms in the post-pandemic world and how companies can address them. Key Aspects Worth Noting about Employee Burnout Here are some important facts/figures that you’ll find interesting when it comes to unraveling employee burnout and how it has manifested after the pandemic. A Little More about Burnout Here are some other aspects that deserve to be highlighted in relation to employee burnout. Some Must-Watch Signs of Burnout Here are some signs of employee burnout that workplace managers and leaders should learn to identify. What Employers Can Do to Address These Challenges Here are some things that employers can consider in order to address these challenges of employee burnout and lower retention as a result. Some other aspects that companies need to consider include smarter scheduling and workload management and also ensuring fair and equitable opportunities for growth/progression within the organisation. Leadership has a crucial role to play in negating the harmful effects of employee burnout while continually striving to build a healthier and happier workplace. This will not only boost overall employee retention and productivity, but ultimately help the company witness steady growth over a sustained duration. Employers/companies should perceive these high burnout rates as strong warning signs and take meaningful steps accordingly to tackle these issues. Leaders should take the initiative in addressing mental wellbeing challenges of their teams, while adapting to post-pandemic circumstances and the new normal swiftly. Job expectations, workloads, schedules, and processes should be redesigned accordingly. FAQs 1. What is employee burnout, and why has it become a significant concern in the post-pandemic world? Employee burnout is a particular type of stress at the workplace, where employees feel a sense of dissatisfaction with their tasks and exhaustion at multiple levels, including physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion. 2. How has the pandemic changed employee expectations of work? Employees now expect companies/leaders to acknowledge their higher workloads and help them achieve better work-life balance through flexible scheduling and deadlines, remote work, more social support, and so on. 3. How can companies create a work environment that fosters loyalty? Companies can foster loyalty at the workplace by creating a transparent and fair environment. If there is fair treatment and transparency in growth, progression, and available opportunities, then employee motivation levels will naturally be high. At the same time, initiatives to improve employee morale should also be taken up by companies. 4. What role can training and development programs play in empowering employees to manage stress, build resilience, and prevent burnout? Organisations may consider investing in training and development programs to empower their employees to tackle burnout and stress more effectively. These may help employees equip themselves with the necessary techniques, skill-sets, and knowledge to ensure proper self-care and motivation. 5. How has the shift to remote work during the pandemic impacted employee burnout and retention? The shift to remote work has scaled up employee burnout to an extent, with professionals struggling to manage higher workloads, always being on call, higher family and personal responsibilities, and juggling so many duties simultaneously. This has often led to higher employee attrition across organisations, with many professionals seeking alternative employment opportunities with better work-life balance and lower stress levels alongside.

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Who Are Digital Nomads?

March 14, 2019

Transformation is the thumb rule of nature and so is the new millennial workplace arrangement. If you are aware (or not) of the trend of the hour ‘Digital Nomad’, then we would simplify it more! The term refers to a person whose physical proximity to their workplace is not dependent on their work. They are remotely connected over telecommunications and are technology-dependants. That means, if you are a talented globe trotter, your talent can be of use across the world and not concentrate only on your location! This drove around 50% of the young U.S workforce to ditch the traditional format of working while making it the new modus operandi. Though it originated mainly out of the freelance community, today, it is no more restricted to the start-ups or SMEs but established brands are digesting it well! BUT, how effective is it? Lucile Foroni, Growth Manager at Doist, a complete remote workforce organization states “Remote work’s biggest advantage is the ability to focus. You can focus when you want to do deep work, and check messages or plan a meeting when you need to communicate. No one taps on your shoulder, constantly DMs you because your online indicator is green or calls you at whichever time of the day or night. You’re in control of your attention. Moreover, it adds to the managerial flair as I do not need to micro-manage the team.” Having said so, a dispersed team globally helps you in time management. For example, when one teammate residing in the USA completes a certain work and post which can pass it on to his Canadian teammate who then completes his part of the job. This ‘round the clock and around the world’ approach sets one completely free from unnecessary professional stress. The list doesn’t stop here! According to Forbes Financial Council, around 43% of employers are switching to employing remote workers owing to the cost omission of their office spaces. This allows even a start-up to recruit a diverse talent pool without paying bulk from their raised funds. This is an enabler to improve their productivity and ensure effective cost-cutting. This culture erases the need of renting an official space or even a co-working space allowing effective implementation of their funds in other projects or services. ‘Been there, done that’ If you thought that remote working is not your cup of tea, owing to a much larger workforce management, trust Zapier’s co-founders, Wade Foster and Mike Knoop who feels remote working culture leads to a refined and fast-paced work. “Non-remote work defaults to the highest distraction communication first, which is in-person. Remote work defaults to the lowest, which is no communication and is more on point,” they share. However, fostering trust is one eminent task, mutual responsibility for both the employers and the employees. So, before your boss rings up a bell, you should be more self-disciplined and should be managing your and your teams’ regardless of the locations and time zones. Foster adds, “To match the deadline, one should be ahead of it because emergencies are ought to happen owing to the diverse location and time zones.” Therefore, hiring self-managers could be a winning stroke for your company. However, a distributed team faces time differences, internet connectivity issues to conflicting cross-cultural behaviours to start a spontaneous communication, so how would you increase trust among your teammates? To overcome this barrier of productivity, David Horowitz, Chief Executive Officer, Retrium shares his experience, “Be an intentional communicator because there are no break rooms to break off the work monotony. So, take out time to strike off a genuine conversation and build a healthy bond with your digital nomads.” Zoho, created another success story in creating Zoho Connect, its remote working wing suggesting how to intentionally communicate and what if you fall short of content! First thing first, homogeneity would never let you fall short of communication so one could simply exchange information on their weather, national holidays, swap their music playlist or simply gossip about movies to keep it genuine and smooth. This way, one can find a mental connection to talk beyond work, building trust and loyalty among the multi-cultural workforce. But, what if miscommunication strikes off an important delivery? Being video first avoids a lot of unexpected friction owing to cross-cultural blend. Therefore, sticking to video calls over voice calls would help you to analyse body language and instill a sense of connectivity. On this line, Ricardo Fernandez, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer, Prodigy Finance shares his hard learnt experience, “Once, I had congratulated one of my colleague on a voice note stating ‘you’re killing it out there’. To my amazement, he reverts asking what went wrong on his part! Had I relied on a video call, my intention would have been clear.” To sum up, if you are intending to bring in diversity in your organisation in terms of talent acquisition in minimal cost, then think but to re-structure your go-to strategies in hiring and retaining remote workers across the globe. Around the globe in 80 days, err, 80 seconds! According to fresh data from LinkedIn, web design, social media management are amongst the highest growing digital trends. Today, employers are trying to address mental health issues pretty seriously. Accordingly, 21% of remote workers stated loneliness as their primary concern to their shift. If you are an SME, then bridging the cybersecurity concern is an important concern. Approximately, 18% of remote workers reviewed the lack of cybersecurity when working in an SME. Ernst & Young reveals that more than 50% of the global professionals trust their employees; however, this calculation is pretty low for remote workers. Therefore, addressing the trust issue and building a mental connection is an important mandate for all remote employers. With the rapid digitization and Gen-Z coming over the workplace, 2019 would be the perfect year for creating a perfect remote workplace!

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Here Is How to Set the Right KPI and Targets For Your Digital Journey?

September 19, 2018

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) help you understand whether you are achieving your target goals or not. KPIs also tell you how close you are towards achieving them. KPIs can help you track progress related to expenses, customer insight, revenue, etc. There are KPIs for every business function within an organization. Important sales related KPIs include number of wins, deals, and opportunities, sales qualified leads, etc. Return on marketing investment, customer retention, customer acquisition cost, etc. are examples of marketing KPIs. Measuring customer service KPIs is important too, as it tells you how happy or satisfied your customers are with your brand. Key performance indicators of customer service include Customer Satisfaction Score, first response time, customer retention rate, SERVQUAL developed by Valerie Zeithaml, which measures service + quality, etc. In this article, let us take a look at how you can choose the right KPIs and set targets so that you are always on track. Choosing the right KPIs to improve performance KPIs can be grouped under lagging and leading indicators, and you will need to monitor both. Lagging indicators are those which can be easily measured but hard to influence. Leading indicators, on the other hand, are easy to influence but hard to measure. An example of a lagging KPI is the number of orders placed on a certain day, while an example of a leading indicator would be return on marketing investments. Begin with choosing a KPI Key performance indicators should be SMART, i.e., specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Specific KPIs are easy to track and monitor than vague ones. For instance, a specific KPI would be “exact number of orders placed every week”. A vague KPI would be “Satisfactory order processing”. In other words, it should be reduced to a number in order for it to be tracked. KPIs should also be measurable. If we take the number of orders per week as a KPI, it can be averaged over months and years. KPIs should be realistic so that if employees work hard, they are attainable. If they are unrealistic and unattainable, you stand the risk of demotivating employees. KPIs need to be tracked over a period of time and measured against time too. Make sure you can evaluate your chosen KPI across time phases. An example of KPIs : Image Source: Flickr Monitor and measure KPIs and metrics However, you might wonder what a “metric” is. Metric is a quantifiable measure or that which can be reduced to a number. The number of orders placed on a given day is a metric. However, only when it is studied over a period of time (number of sales per week, observed over many weeks) does the metrics become a KPI. While a KPI helps you measure performance and success, a metric is simply a number that needs to be assessed within a KPI. Reward employees who achieve KPI targets Recent research reveals that setting realistic KPI targets help employees to perform better. Not just that, rewarding employees when they achieve or surpass KPI targets will incentivize their performance. This IBM white paper explores how the right employee behavior can be rewarded and motivated by using KPIs. An interesting observation of the paper is to reward teams instead of choosing individual employees for rewards. This motivates entire teams to work harder to achieve set KPI targets. Key Performance Indicators (KPI): The 75 measures every manager needs to know by Bernard Marr is an important book that can help you familiarize with using the right KPIs to evaluate employee performance and encouraging them to achieve KPIs set for other areas. Review and make changes to your KPI strategy Conduct regular audits of the KPI targets and assess the metrics associated with each KPI. If they are under-performing, you might want to set a more realistic goal. If you have been consistently performing high, set yourself a higher target that is tied around time phases. Choose a different KPI is the one you have chosen is not getting you the result you need. You may also need to vary your targets consistently depending on your business success. A neutral observer will help you take an objective look at your KPI performance, and provide you with a more realistic picture of your situation. Speaking to a consultant that specializes in KPI metric analysis helps. KPIs help businesses to get back on track KPI is a measurable value that helps businesses achieve targets. KPIs help businesses to understand and evaluate their performance so that they can be further improved over time. Choose the right KPIs carefully and make sure that they are specific in what they measure, quantifiable so that what you measure can be reduced to numbers, and that they can realistically be attained. They must also be relevant to your goals and success, and must always be measured against time. Once you choose your KPIs and set targets, you should continuously monitor and measure your chosen KPI metrics. Make sure to reward employees (preferably teams) who enthusiastically work towards attaining KPIs. Finally, always review your KPI strategy and make changes to it if need be.

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Five Ways to Transform Your Business through Right Digital Infrastructure

September 4, 2018

While most businesses have adopted digital infrastructure to some extent, many still do not have a holistic plan to transform their business using the right digital infrastructure. Studies show that most businesses tend to retain legacy tools while implementing the digital strategy, and what really happens is, there is a complete mismatch between digital and non-digital, leading to subpar organizational performance. In result, companies see results that are satisfying in some areas, while creating new risks and liabilities in others. Businesses need to have a 5-pronged approach towards digital infrastructure. This will help look at their entire business infrastructure as a single entity and build a strategy around it. In fact, the right strategy will help your business to transform itself into a lean and uber-efficient machine that can give your competitors a run for their money. Most importantly, having a digital strategy will help you to focus better on your business and enter new avenues. In this article, we describe our 5-pronged approach to make use of digital infrastructure in the right way and optimize your business to achieve new heights. Evaluate existing hardware and go for a major upgrade One of the first things you need to do in order to assess your hardware situation is to examine how your network infrastructure is. Network infrastructure includes both software and hardware components and is an integral part of IT infrastructure. For your software components to work efficiently, your enterprise network needs to be top notch. Evaluate existing routers, operating systems, network security applications, network operations, IP addressing, wireless protocols, etc. At the same time, evaluate data centers as well, as most businesses use subpar services which are often exorbitant. Consider seeking an external vendor’s help in choosing the right data center for your business requirements. To transform your business using the right data center, begin with creating a strategy. Implementing agile IT organization is crucial to this process, as is virtualization and cloud. Intel’s whitepaper recommends evaluating aging infrastructure by computing various metrics and KPIs. Please bear in mind that agile infrastructure can either be virtualized or nonvirtualized, and this solely depends on your organizational requirements. Nevertheless, virtualization is key to having a successful cloud strategy, which we shall discuss next. Move to the cloud whenever possible Today, you can practically move every legacy technology to the cloud and reap the benefits of reduced costs, increased efficiency, and access to technology which you previously didn’t have. Software as a Service (SaaS) helps you to access and use software programs which were probably out of reach for you if you are a small business. If you are a large business, SaaS is equally important to reduce dependency on physical infrastructure and keep your business agile and scalable. SaaS models offer pay-as-you-go schemes, which allow businesses of all sizes to scale or downscale depending on their situation. In addition, the cloud can also help you to access infrastructure via the cloud. Storage, data centers, and even networks can be used on an infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model. Cloud computing helps businesses to eliminate organizational flab and grow lean and agile. If you are a service provider yourself, consider using PaaS (platform as a Service), which helps you to develop new applications and tools on cloud-based platforms, instead of having to invest in expensive platforms. In short, cloud computing provides the technological impetus required to make your business grow quickly. Integrate what you can With more businesses using tools to automate processes, ERP, CRM, and HRMS tools are almost an integral part of every successful business. However, they create unique problems of duplicate entries, repetitive manual exchange of information, and a continued lack of coordination between departments. Integrating these tools using available APIs is a popular method to reduce duplicate entries and increase automation. Most importantly, data can be shared between integrated tools, leading to richer insight and more accurate predictions. If you have an eCommerce business, for instance, you can integrate your ERP with your CRM, so that purchases made by customers online is immediately reflected the inventory department, which can replenish stocks automatically. The possibilities are endless, and such a heightened level of coordination is only possible when you integrate software tools. Before you decide to integrate, make sure that you have an integration strategy, and that you have spoken to vendors who will be able to do it for you efficiently. Integration strategy also involves training your staff so that they use the new interface effectively. In addition, you will also have to account in for security-related ramifications. Implement Internet of Things, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence These may seem like disparate terms often used by IT honchos, but they are very important for businesses of all sizes. IoT, or Internet of Things, uses sensors embedded in devices to intelligently communicate with servers and perform functions that ordinary devices cannot. These can further be connected to smartphones so that device-users have more control over how they interact with it. In a business perspective, sales and marketing teams can use IoT-enabled devices during promotional events, while logistics and product-handlers can use IoT enabled product tracking. Blockchain is another digital technology which can help businesses immensely. You can use smart contracts to ensure security, and distributed ledgers allow you to process transactions in a safe and secure manner. Blockchain has a number of applications for businesses, right from identity verification to automated approvals. Artificial intelligence is another emerging technology that has now become mainstream for business use. Regardless of the size of your company, you can use AI-enabled chatbots for customer service, social media management, and certain marketing tasks. These technologies are accessible, affordable, and easy to implement. Businesses only need to decide to embrace them before their competitor does. Focus on digital governance and security To ensure business success, it is not enough to have the best infrastructure in place. Digital infrastructure’s success depends on how secure it is against various kinds of threats, and how wisely you are

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The Accelerator of Growth – Sales Automation

August 24, 2018

Globally, the sales team is crucial in helping businesses succeed and it is often the duty of top-level executives to breathe life into sales teams. Sales teams are often pressurized to identify and gather leads, make contact, manage opportunities and leads, convert them to sales, and prepare sales reports. In between these dreary-sounding tasks, they also need to make calls, write emails, answer queries and engage in a lot of repetitive manual tasks. In fact, across North America and Europe, manual and repetitive tasks take up sales teams’ time much more than actual core sales activities, which leads to reduced sales and conversion rates. Sales automation helps fix this problem and gives your sales team their mojo back. It helps them to get back on track and plan strategies and implement them, instead of writing repetitive reports. In this article, let us take a look at what sales automation is, and how it accelerates your business growth. What is the sales automation? Sales automation is a software tool that helps your business to automate repetitive tasks such as documentation, sending emails, controlling inventory, pricing, and contract management. It often comes as a part of your CRM or can also be purchased separately, if you want a specialized tool. It helps to reduce the burden on your sales team by automating repetitive and manual tasks so that they can focus on core sales activities. In result, your sales team finds it easier to nurture leads, to interact with them, and to help convert them into customers. The reduced time and effort leads to increased productivity at work, and of course, sales automation has a number of other advantages too. Here are its basic features: Close deals easily: Sales automation helps you to close more deals quickly. You can automate content management, collaboration, and use marketing tools that will help you to find leads as well. It is not a surprise that most businesses use sales automation to manage contacts and accounts and to manage sales opportunities. Find more leads: Sales automation also helps you to find more leads. you can track how well your marketing campaigns are doing, and access sales data on demand. This helps you to send out reports to decision makers quickly so that territories can be planned and campaigns can be launched instantly. Enhance productivity: Most sales automation tools are available on mobile devices, and you can perform sales activities while on the go. You can close deals while on the train or while waiting for your business lunch at a cafe. In other words, sales automation helps you to accelerate productivity. You can easily share files, sync data, and access visual workflows. All business processes can be automated using drag and drop features within a mobile app. Make informed decisions: Most importantly, sales automation tools help you to make informed decisions at the right time. You gain access to reports and dashboards from wherever you are, and accessing sales forecasting gets just as easy as well. With real-time access to your team’s forecasts, mailing to and fro and intra-departmental squabbles are a thing of the past. How sales automation accelerates growth In this section of the article, let us take a look at how sales automation accelerates growth and quickly improves your teams’ productivity as well. Identify your customers Sales departments spend a lot of time trying to identify who could be potential leads and customers. The more time they spend on identifying customers, the less time they can actually use to make contact with them. Sales automation helps identify customers and leads quickly using various metrics. This helps sales teams to quickly make contact and engage in actual sales activity to urge the customer to make a purchase. Businesses often waste considerable temporal and financial resources on customer identification and with a good CRM, that can simply be automated. Access customer information There is little wisdom in developing a sales strategy if we do not understand what the customers want. Knowing how the customers think, where they come from, and what their demographic tends to do are more important than blindly developing sales campaigns. Sales automation provides deep and rich insights about target audience so that intricate sales campaigns can be designed and developed. Targeted campaigns help drive up conversion rates and assist in company growth. Create and edit content Writing reports and documenting sales activities are crucial duties a sales team does. However, these activities can take a lot of time, and result in unnecessary delays in performing other core activities. A good sales automation tool readily creates reports and helps you to focus on more important activities that cannot be automated. Why not generate reports and then make a presentation in person, which has a better impact than just mailing the marketing department cold reports? With sales automation, there will be more time for your sales team to engage in such activities that enhance inter-team communication and collaboration. Follow-up with customers and leads Whether it is writing emails or calling customers over the phone, if you do not do it at the right time, you will not be able to keep a lead warm. To make sure that customers are followed and tracked continuously, and to ensure that leads are kept warm, automate the process of follow-ups. Sales automation can automate communication and help you to remain in touch with them. However, do not automate all communication with your leads and customers as that can have unintended effects. Analyze calls, emails and other communication platforms Call analysis provides valuable information about what customers want, and analyzing email texts can be equally important. CRM tools provide exquisite features that help you to track how email newsletters are read, by whom, and when. They also provide information related to how you can improve your email communication to enhances sales growth. Manual analysis is simply too tedious and sometimes not even accurate. Let us not forget about how important analyzing social media communication is for sales. A

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Creating Better User Experiences and Better Products with Data

February 19, 2018

In 2018, it almost sounds repetitive to say that user experience trumps features, and designing a better product depends on understanding what it feels like to use it, and best to design a product that can be used intuitively. Intuitive user experience and a great product depend on a number of things including great design. However, there is something far more important and basic than design, which is data. Data in the form of customer feedback, customer expectation and motivations, system performance and errors, and the ability to make sense of data is collected over weeks, months, and years in the right context is what helps develop great products and superior UX. Yet, data is often ignored or given just lip service simply because product designers and developers do not have the resources or interest to process complex datasets concerning customer feedback and expectations. Let us admit it. Customer feedback, surveys, and reviews build up over a period of time, and most companies simply toss the accumulated data to the side, quite literally. Yet, it is this very data that is needed to create better experiences and better products. Why the reluctance to use data when it is so freely available? Every business gathers data, even if they do not realize that they are. However, most companies are reluctant to use the data that is already available on their systems. This data may stem from customer feedback forms, web traffic figures, purchase trends, social media conversations, and just about anything that results due to the intersection of business, customer, and the product. The reluctance stems from distrusting data and feeling overloaded by data that is continuously collected by systems. With many products being “intelligent”, data overload has led to data daze, as a Forbes article puts it. The same article describes data daze resulting in analysis paralysis. The answer is simple. Most companies hesitate using data or downrightly avoid anything remotely related to data because they feel paralyzed by it. How can a business avoid this state of data paralysis, and confront it to make it something useful? 84% of CEOs do not trust the quality of data they have on hand It is psychologically proven that too much information reduces cognitive ability process it. This means, too much data leads to data daze. Overanalyzing data can lead to analysis paralysis, similar to what happens to an individual with psychological difficulties. While distrusting the quality of data and feeling overwhelmed by data that is available is natural, so is feeling paralyzed by over-analysis of data. The truth is, no company can process all the data that it collects. It needs to know what it wants to know with data that is already available, and how it is going to process it. This brings us to the question of processing and placing data in meaningful contexts. How to place data in meaningful contexts When it comes to understanding and using data, context matters more than anything else. Cognitive overload of information results in inefficient use of that information. For example, a boy that is given a dozen books on his birthday may not value them, or even feel intimidated by them, even if those books are classics. However, if he learns to categories those books in a shelf, or is helped to do so by someone who understands those books, he will not only pick up those books, by also put to use what he learns from them. Similarly, every business must put the data that they collect into context. Without placing data in context and simply processing it using analytical tools will result in an analysis that may not be relevant at all, resulting in analysis paralysis. With the Internet of Things, location-based applications, wearable tech, and sensors contributing to the data deluge, one must really know how to place all that data in context. While this may seem difficult, it is not impossible. Ask yourself these questions: What am I trying to improve? What might my customers want? How can make it easier for customers to use my product? Which variables could help me understand what customers want? How can reduce the amount of data that is analyzed? As you can see, asking yourself or other C-level executives in your company will help you to develop a frame of reference with which you can handle data. Once you know what you are looking for, it is easier to find it. Usually, you can find all these answers with the assistance of your customers plus with a little help from your friends (IT department and technology). 3 important sources of data to develop better products and UX As you might have learned to question yourself in the previous section, the answer to your data quandary lies with your customers and your IT department. Collect customer feedback: To make sure that you understand your customers better so that you can design a product that is inherently more intuitive to use, you should start collecting customer feedback. Customer feedback can be collected in umpteen numbers of ways, both online and offline. Customer feedback, opinions, and reviews can be processed using linguistic and data crunching tools so that you understand the prevailing opinion about your product, and how it can be improved. This axiom holds true whether you have designed an application as a product, or an actual physical table as your product of choice. The fewer customers you have, the more opportunities you have to seek detailed and intimate feedback from them. If you have a large number of customers, feedback forms can be statistically analyzed. While this may sound time-consuming, which it inherently is, improving user experience and creating better products are ongoing processes too. Customer expectations, and what motivates them: Next, make sure that the features that you offer alongside your product meet customer expectations and motivations. This is the part that answers “why does my customer want to use my product” question. Knock the door of your IT department:

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Handheld POS and IoT are set to revolutionize India’s retail industry. Is your ERP ready?

January 3, 2018

The world of retail is all about invisible players. In the current economic scenario, whenever a sector shows promising trends, powerful and unseen forces rush towards it and accelerate its growth. Similarly, the exponential boom in the retail sector today would not have been possible without the parallel technological advancement, especially in the field of management technology like ERP systems. For those who are unfamiliar with the role of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems in global and local retail today, ERP is essentially an extremely effective tool that integrates diverse functions of the enterprise and corporate responsibilities by incorporating the most successful practices, to improve research and development, facilitate rapid decision-making, encourage cost reduction, monitor fleet and dispatch management, track revenues, and sustain better customer relationship management (CRM): in short, it provides a greater managerial insight and control on the entire process. ERP Trends to look out for in 2018 IoT is the future and it’s high time we acknowledge how integrally everything else is linked to it. According to Forbes, “The analytics revolution, edge computing, and 5G cell processing—are all driven by the IoT at their core….up to 40% of all compute will happen at the edge in just the next couple of years.”  Trends that are already in place abroad and will eventually make their way into the retail sector in India, all focus on greater automation. ERP is set to bring about an increase in outsourcing and global partnerships by integrating key business operations into one system so that you can conduct your business from anywhere with anyone in the world. According to an article published in Solutions Review, “With improved technology and streamlined global logistics, supply chains have released manufacturing from the limitations of geography. Moving information, data and products from one location to another has never been easier, faster or cheaper than it is today.” With the advent of Cloud computing and SaaS making its foray into the domestic ERP market, further operational and infrastructural costs are likely to reduce, because the mainframe server and company database can now be uploaded and accessed online. This eliminates logistical and administrative factors too, now that the mediator is replaced by a bot. Recently launched Breeze ERP  is also uploadable on the cloud and encapsulates standards that ERP systems around the world will be expected to meet in the coming year. Moving towards a handheld POS system When it comes to purchasing and transaction, ERP’s today offer a handheld POS system which enables automated registration of responses and details from the consumer’s end, and quick secure payments without any third person intervention. Such ERP’s are becoming increasingly common at restaurants, departmental shops, and online delivery transactions. Besides the handheld point of sale functions, this feature also provides an organized and consolidated database for gathering customer information, registers shifting trends, and managerial functions based on these trends.  Recently launched with state-of-the-art upgrades and features, Breeze ERP’s highly functional interface is set to make monitoring and managing sales on the seller’s end simpler. Besides reducing workload and managerial responsibilities by a considerable extent, Breeze ERP is extremely efficient in multitasking and simultaneously overseeing various modules involved in the life of a product from the warehouse to customer’s doorstep: manufacture, distribution, inventory, invoicing, financial accounting, customer relationship and servicing. It is this 360° approach that elevates Breeze ERP to the level of a self-sufficient support system for the modern retailer. The role played by technology in retail is thus indisputable at this point. The fullest extent of its potential needs to be grasped at both ends of the demand and supply spectrum. Only then can we transcend rote modes of trade and manufacture, and transform retail into a space for vision and innovation. With Breeze ERP, this is finally a reality well within your grasp. In case, you want to see it in action, request for a demo. Do you agree that ERP can be the next game changer in the world of retail? Tell us what you think in the comments below.  

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How to overcome the challenges of Managing Time: One Question, Many Approaches

December 27, 2017

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” —Albert Einstein While the struggle against time has existed since the beginning of time, tackling it requires a new approach today. We are all so well-connected now that we often disregard the notion and value of productive hours, which varies from person to person. This timeless conundrum has intrigued economists and sociologists alike. So we as an organization, which harps on productivity, tried to understand how people around the world manage their time. In a small social media poll conducted by us, an open call for suggestions from experts yielded a number of valuable insights and solutions. CEO Abhishek Rungta’s question—What’s your best time management and/or productivity tip?—was met with voluble replies across social media forums like Twitter and Facebook with the hashtag #mytip. Here’s a compilation of what the savants have had to say about the matter. The importance of spacing your work out Serial entrepreneur Mr. Prashant Pansare’s take on the issue involves compartmentalizing chores and prioritizing while planning in order to achieve the immediate goals you’ve set for yourself. He suggests : Slice the workload into smaller tasks based on different focus/methods Keep two uninterrupted hours for the most important work that you can do by yourself Keep an hour aside for unplanned activities that can’t be rescheduled, like important phone calls In case of business meetings, define the outcome expected along with agenda. It is best to avoid email clutter, for eg. asking to be CC’ed Pansare (@PrashantPansare) addresses the unfortunate customer/client trend in India, where the outcome is generally demanded immediately; he adds that expediency must sometimes be sacrificed for priority and time management. Besides maintaining a weekly planner, he also advocates making a note of the amount of work done, work left, time spent, and time wasted over the last week to get a clear idea on the aspect of time management that needs to be worked upon. UNmultitask: Delegating is the key to perfection Nirupam Chaudhuri of NASSCOM and Srish Agrawal of A1 Future share the same opinion about multitasking and urge everyone to pick and focus on one thing at a time. Agrawal (@srishagrawal) says, “Multitasking sounds great but not a great idea for most serious jobs. Delegate, and delegate more as you grow.” He also advises against ad-hoc meetings, encouraging young professionals to have a fixed time and agenda for every meeting. Regional Director at NASSCOM, Chaudhuri rightly adjudges, “Smart working is the need of the time. Rather than finishing all jobs at hand perfectly and thus perhaps not doing justice to all which require parallel processing, it’s perhaps more important to optimise and stick to timelines for jobs at hand.” Give yourself credit for small targets Andy Vale sends pearls of wisdom and motivation all the way from Spain, asking beginners to face each day and each task at a time: “Just pick one thing every day that you will definitely get done. Doesn’t have to be massive, but it makes sure you’ve done something.” (@AndyVale)  Keep your work hours free of social media Kuntal Chandra, Senior Software Engineer at Stockopedia (@kuntalchandra) gives voice to the problems of distraction and lack of sustained focus that internet and technology have brought in its wake. Offering a valuable hack from his personal experience, he has found that turning the mobile internet off while coding has helped him prevent distractions and thus “become more productive”. Students who often face this problem especially before examinations have also fallen back on methods like keeping a particular time of day aside exclusively for social media networking and other internet-driven distractions like games and films. For professionals who need complete silence and isolation to get their creative juices flowing, don’t think twice before turning the WiFi off. It will cut the flow of excess information which at times can be a major deterrent. Conquering time as an economical construct comes with great patience and perseverance, as is evident from these pro-tips brought to you, straight from the horses’ mouths. It takes active willingness and effort on your part to make the ticking hands work in your favour. Each person has their own way of dealing with inertia at work and means to fuel one’s productivity. “We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more.” —Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO Today, the productivity industry is faced with overcoming new challenges and assisting students, young professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs in this brave, new world. Large organizations have pulled up their socks, geared to help achieve new heights and set new standards in terms of time manageability. App and office suite developers are harnessing this demand for structured and strategic means to use productive hours based on individual needs. In order to track, analyze and manage time more effectively, iPhone has recently launched a productivity tool called Time which claims to help you “stay focused and crush procrastination”. Most timers like this use the Pomodoro technique (which enables users to break their work hours into intervals of 25 minutes separated by short breaks). Apps like Slack, WeTransfer, and Germ make working from different parts of the world a piece of cake. Task management tools like Journmail are easily accessible for teaching yourself consistency by writing every day. There are also apps like Slite to help you take down notes on the go faster; Feather is a daily management goal tracker that helps maintain a to-do list. There are customised music apps with ambient playlists like Noisli and ASoftMurmur which cause a visible jump in the concentration level. An endless number of apps are available to designers and illustrators with pitch decks, icon templates, UI kits and layouts in place, thus saving a lot of time. Popular among these are Crello, Sans Francisco, SpeedFont, Emblem, Animista. There are plenty of similar applications and patches that could prove effective for young professionals. Can

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