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THE10MOST
INNOVATIVE
SCMSOLUTION PROVIDERS
2018
Wendy Buxton
President
August 2018
www.insightssuccess.com
®
Expert’s Column
Challenges and Risks in
adopting Digital Disruption
Buzz- of- Drone
Drone Technology:
The Next Big Disruptor
Exhilarating Industry Giants
Redefining Supply
Chain with Digital
Trendsetters
t’s a glorifying age of technology and digital disruptions; redefining and rejuvenating every sphere of our
Ilives. With the help of technology, new paths towards a successful and easier life have been opened up. And
almost every business has adopted these disruptions, except for a few. Also, there are the ‘digital
trendsetters’, the top performers in terms of both profitability and revenue growth. These trendsetters stand unique
amongst all the digital followers in the way they approach the digital disruptions.
Digital trendsetters take different outlook in adopting and utilising the miracles of disruption. They use digital
marvels to own the customer experience, end-to-end, across the ecosystem. Rather than focusing mainly on
improved shopping and buying process like any other digital businesses, they prefer a more strategic approach of
using these disruptions to enhance the existing business models and develop new ones.
Eliminating the traditional objective of giving the customers a unified experience, trendsetters strive to deliver a
hyper-tailored customer experience which is highly individualized, focused products and completely customized
services providing buy-anywhere, collect-anywhere, return-anywhere capabilities via flexible channels.
Another secret of the trendsetters is expanding the ecosystem and leveraging technology to access and share data,
while managing cyber-security risk. Engaging proactively with strategic partners, including third-party partners
and digital start-ups will help you to jumpstart innovative, value-enhancing capabilities.
Thus, with a totally different approach, we can transform our supply chains into superfast, digitally disruptive,
hyper-flexible and highly collaborative enablers of superior customer service and profitable enterprise growth; this
is the secret behind the most successful Supply Chain.
To highlight some of such top performers, we’ve come up with this edition “The 10 Most Innovative Supply
Chain Providers 2018”.
Editor’s Note
On the cover of this issue, we’ve depicted LynnCo Supply Chain Solutions, one of the world’s premiere
consulting and operational partners for supply chain excellence. LynnCo’s pursuit of innovating supply chain
solutions is enlightened through study of the increasing relevance of supply chain in global economies. Its
resolve to innovate supply chain solutions that trigger 3-5x growth levers, leading to better operating margins,
with less inventory days, and increased working capital is strengthened by its heritage with Fritz Companies,
founded by Mr Lynn Fritz and one of the world’s largest freight forwarding firms spanning thirty years serving
more than 120 countries throughout the world before it became the backbone of UPS today.
Recognizing that the industry lagged technological adoption and global synergy, LynnCo was formed with the
vision of pioneering a new model in which worldwide service could be achieved more efficiently and effectively
through a centralized enterprise empowered by supply chain rigor and methodology.
Following the Cover Story, we’ve enlisted those companies which are providing innovative and digitized
solutions to rejuvenate supply chain. The companies we’ve featured are: Crowdz, a pioneering Silicon Valley
start-up, builds digitized, blockchain-based supply-chain networks designed to enhance the speed, efficiency,
and financial performance of global supply chains; Gravity, Offering End-to-End Seamless Supply Chain
Visibility and Execution; SurePromise, A Bridge Linking Business to Global Leagues; Bossard, a company
headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, which is among the market leaders in fastening technology in Europe, the
Americas and Asia-Pacific; Elite Transit Solutions, who provides highly competitive rates, while capitalizing
on pro-activity and attention to detail-- all while being as transparent as possible with our customers; GoFrugal
Technologies, a Digital first, Product first company whose sole purpose is of empowering traders, merchants &
business into higher levels of efficiency & profitability. Other companies in the list are, respectively, Stowga,
the on-demand marketplace for buying and selling warehousing and logistics services; Tive, who helps
companies take surprises out of their supply chain using cellular-connected trackers and cloud software to track
goods in transit; and Zencargo, who is a digital first freight forwarder & logistics provider. This platform
allows customers to book, manage and keep track of their international freight as well as use analytics to drive
intelligent supply chain decisions that help their businesses thrive.
We’ve also featured special articles Expert’s Insight: Challenges and Risks in adopting Digital Disruption and
Tech-talk: Top 5 Email Security Threats; and Maestro’s Perspective: Choosing the Right Translator for
Internationalization.
While leafing through the magazine, don’t miss out on articles from our Editor’s Desk: Chatbots: A Dynamic
digital gesture for Creative Entrepreneurs; Buzz-of-Drone: Drone Technology The next Big Disruptor
Exhilarating Industry Giants and Insights’ Perspective: Leadership Shadow.
Browse through and enjoy the read!
Upama Goswami
Upama Goswami
COVER STORY
16 26 36
CXO
Expert’s Column
Challenges and Risks in
adopting Digital Disruption
Tech-Talk
Top 5 Email Security Threats
Maestro’s Perspective
Choosing the Right Translator
for Internationalization
08
LYNNCO
SUPPLY CHAIN SOLUTIONS
ILLUMINATING THE SUCCESS OF SUPPLY CHAIN
Contents
ARTICLES
Crowdz:
Accelerating the
Supply Chain
Offering End-to
-End Seamless
Supply Chain
Visibility & Execution
Gravity:
SurePromise:
A Bridge Linking
Business to
Global Leagues
Buzz- of- Drone
Drone Technology:
The Next Big Disruptor
Exhilarating Industry Giants
30
40
20
22
32
42
Insights’ Perspective
Leadership Shadow:
Fading the dark
into light
Editor’s Desk
Chatbots: A Dynamic
Digital Gesture for
Creative Entrepreneurs
sales@insightssuccess.com
Corporate Ofces:
August, 2018
Database Management Stella Andrew
Technology Consultant David Stokes
Circulation Manager Robert, Tanaji
Research Analyst Chidiebere Moses
Sophie Smith, Jim Williams
Judy Kent
Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal
Anish MillerSenior Editor
Executive Editor Upama Goswami
Art & Design Director Amol Kamble
Associate Designer
Visualiser David King
Senior Sales Manager Passi D.
Business Development Executives
Marketing Manager John Matthew
Managing Editor Suhel Mashayak
Contributors Ashwini Deshmukh
Rahul Niraj
Art & Picture Editor BelinPaul
Co-designer
Asha Bange
KhannaJayant
Peter CollinsBusiness Development Manager
Sales Executives
David, Kevin, Mark, Vijay
SME-SMO Executives
Prashant Chevale, Uma Dhenge, Gemson, Irfan
Online Marketing Strategist
Alina Sege, Shubham Mahadik, Vaibhav K
Digital Marketing Manager Marry D’Souza
Technical Specialist Amar, Pratiksha
Technical Head Jacob Smile
Copyright © 2018 Insights Success, All rights reserved. The content and images used in this magazine should not be reproduced or transmitted in
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Reprint rights remain solely with Insights Success.
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Savita Pandav, Shweta Shinde
Wendy Buxton
President
LYNNCO
SUPPLY CHAIN SOLUTIONS
ILLUMINATING THE SUCCESS OF SUPPLY CHAIN
LynnCo has become recognized as
a marquee provider of profoundly
impactful global supply chain
solutions in niche markets
MOST INNOVATIVE
SCMSOLUTION PROVIDERS 2018
10T
H
E
S
upply chain performance is inextricably linked to the
success of business today. With intensifying
consumer demands in an era of rapid technological
advancements, diligence to supply chain management is
quickly becoming one of the most important business
disciplines to master.
Despite supply chain costs typically being the second
largest expense in organizations today, it is commonly
undiagnosed as a key success lever to scalable, profitable
business. Because it has tentacles in nearly every operative
function within a company, it frequently lacks a single
owner with centralized controls and visibility. And with no
one line item on a financial statement identifying it, the
supply chain’s quantifiable benefit is often buried in the
details.
Portraying the Visionary Leader
LynnCo is one of the world’s premiere consulting and
operational partners for supply chain excellence. LynnCo’s
pursuit of innovating supply chain solutions is enlightened
through study of the increasing relevance of supply chain in
global economies. It’s resolve to innovate supply chain
solutions that trigger 3-5x growth levers, leading to better
operating margins, with less inventory days, and increased
working capital is strengthened by its heritage with Fritz
Companies. Founded by Mr. Lynn Fritz and one of the
world’s largest freight forwarding firms, Fritz Companies
spanned thirty years serving more than 120 countries
throughout the world before it became the backbone of UPS
today.
Recognizing that the industry lagged technological adoption
and global synergy, LynnCo was formed with the vision of
pioneering a new model in which worldwide service could
be achieved more efficiently and effectively through a
centralized enterprise empowered by supply chain rigor and
methodology.
With more than twenty years innovating solutions and
applying best practices through technological
advancements, LynnCo helps clients transform legacy
supply chains to meet the evolutionary demands of
consumerism and growth investments. Its proven success
designing and operating highly impactful supply chain
strategies tailored to meet the unique needs of its clients
generates profound financial and operational efficiencies
that accelerate value.
LynnCo is
redefining the
category of
supply chain
with strategic
and custom
operating solutions
that radically
leapfrog
conventional
methods
A Supply Chain that Adds Value
According to Ms. Wendy Buxton, President of LynnCo, to
be a value-add supply chain partner today requires diligence
to four salient mantras:
1. Be Patiently and Politely Persistent – supply chain
demands are evolving faster than ever and
organizations are struggling to continually align their
strategies. Supply chain partners should be problem
solvers taking the time to identify the root of their
clients supply chain challenges and with the patience to
help them change practices that are often deep rooted
within their organization.
2. The Power of 3 – There is an incessant tug of war
between Price, Velocity, and Quality. The legacy adage
that you can achieve only 2 of the 3 at any one time is
no longer valid. Consumers today not just want, but
expect, all three. Strategizing around these three
imperatives to create a well-balanced supply chain
allows for a win-win between consumers and the
organizations servicing them.
3. Always Innovate – Innovation is not only about
creating the “cool factor”. For supply chains, it means
solving for specific challenges that have real impact
and leveraging technology to advance efficiencies and
cost benefits for their customers. Innovation is not an
episodic event but, instead, core to the methodology of
a robust supply chain management strategy and the
organizational ethos. In order to compete in the future
market, organization today must create time and space
within their organizations to ideate and innovate
around supply chain.
Beneficial Solutions for Client
Having served in the IT industry for moguls like TV Guide
and originally hired into LynnCo as the Chief Information
Officer, President Wendy Buxton, was given the charter of
forging LynnCo’s path of enabling small to mid-size clients
with a powerful, adaptive supply chain technology
platform. Within two years of beginning this journey,
LynnCo launched its first version of its proprietary
SuiteEdge® mini supply chain ERP platform, fully
web-hosted and adoption light. LynnCo is most impactful
helping companies connect the dots through supply chain
solutions designed to deliver collaborative methodologies,
intelligent analytics, laser metrics, and visual reporting
through its innovative technology application and
interwoven best practices. These innovative supply chain
solutions allow its clients to be responsive to market
volatility and fast changing consumer demands with agility
and scalability.
LynnCo’s success is driven by referral only growth and its
value is best demonstrated through its library of success
stories. One of LynnCo’s clients had issues with high-value
product being delivered damaged on a regular
basis - jeopardizing their brand reputation and quest to gain
market share. With the product having traversed the globe
through multiple handling points throughout the delivery
chain, it was imperative to capture when and how the
damage occurred. LynnCo deployed a pioneering IoT
device within each crated product that monitored shock
resistance and geo-tracking. This device was configured to
alert LynnCo’s Supply Chain Center of Excellence at the
precise moment and location of damage occurrence.
LynnCo then interceded recovering the product and
resolving the damage- greatly improving our clients
customer satisfaction.
4. Jump on the Digital Bandwagon – the need for
mobility and visibility continues to rise generating
momentum around digital transformation. Collaboration
and transparency between the many moving functions
within a supply chain is a necessity to delivering to today’s
consumers with a high rate of satisfaction at a competitive,
profitable price. Join the race or be left behind.
A Trusted Journey
Complex supply chains require a deep competency around
the practical application of supply chain best practices
versus shallow competency around many things. Many
companies are faced with the challenge of transforming
traditional brick and mortar distribution strategies to
e-commerce strategies that localize proximity to key
markets with direct purchase to consumer order to delivery
strategies. This requires an organization to look at many
facets of the supply chain including distribution network
re-design, purchasing policies, inventory optimization,
operational efficiencies, and logistics strategies.
LynnCo is unique in that it transforms supply chains
through innovative design and engineering strategies while
putting into operation the advised solutions. Its clients gain
clarity around supply chain optimization strategies and can
partner with a trusted advisor and operator that has a proven
history of delivering a high performing supply chain that is
scalable and resilient.
The Future Sketch
LynnCo’s evolutionary roadmap has always been
self-suggestive through the voice of their clients while
gauging market and economic trends.
“We will continue to invent solutions that apply best
practices through technological advancements. Our supply
chain solutions will solve specific clients’ needs that
ultimately align growth strategies and accelerate value.
Look for LynnCo to continue to heavily invest in data
governance, intelligence, and analytics to forge innovation
paths that achieve the profound results that have earned us
the reputation as a marquee supply chain management
provider within emerging growth markets.”, asserts Ms.
Buxton.
Some consult.
Others execute.
At LynnCo,
we do both.
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TODAY
CORPORATE OFFICE
ManagementCompany Name
Bossard
bossard.com
Steen Hansen
President & CEO
The company headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, is among the
market leaders in fastening technology in Europe, the Americas
and Asia-Pacific.
Crowdz
crowdz.io
Payson Johnston
President & CEO
The B-Commerce Company™, Crowdz is the creator of the
world’s first blockchain-based B2B ecommerce marketplace,
who automates product search & sourcing, accelerates
commercial transactions, and streamlines predictive-data
analytics in ways never before possible.
Elite Transit Solutions
elitetransit.com
Michael Johnson
President & CEO
GoFrugal Technologies
gofrugal.com
Kumar Vembu
CEO
GoFrugal is a Digital first, Product first company whose sole
purpose is of empowering traders, merchants & business into
higher levels of efficiency & profitability.
Lynnco
lynnco-scs.com
Wendy Buxton
President
LynnCo Supply Chain Solutions is a firm that enhances
performance of complex supply chains.
Stowga
stowga.com
Charlie Pool
CEO
Stowga is the on-demand marketplace for buying and selling
warehousing and logistics services.
Sure Promise
surepromise.com
Angus Chan
Founder & CEO
Manufacturers are seeking new growth opportunities presented by e-commerce, while
online retailers are constantly looking to grow their product offerings. SurePromise’s
user-friendly B2B marketplace bridges online retailers with manufacturers, automates
product photo and description listings, eliminates inventory risks, and oversees
delivery of the products to the end customers, thus enabling online retailers to realize
cost savings and focus on top-line revenue growth.
Tive
tive.co
Krenar Komoni
Founder & CEO
zencargo
zencargo.com
Alex Hersham
Co-founder & CEO
Zencargo is a digital first freight forwarder & logistics provider.
This platform allows customers to book, manage and keep track
of their international freight as well as use analytics to drive
intelligent supply chain decisions that help their businesses
thrive.
ELITE provides highly competitive rates, while capitalizing on
pro-activity and attention to detail...all while being as
transparent as possible with our customers.
Tive helps companies take surprises out of their supply chain
using cellular-connected trackers and cloud software to track
goods in transit
Gravity
gravitysupplychain.com
Graham Parker
Co-founder & CEO
Darren Palfrey
Co-founder & COO
Gravity Supply chain brings people and process together with
amazing connectivity, accessibility and easy to use features.
Brief
MOST INNOVATIVE
SCMSOLUTION PROVIDERS 2018
10T
H
E
David Cahn is
Global VP of
Marketing for Elemica,
the leading provider
of a Digital Supply
Network for process
manufacturers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Cahn
Global VP of Marketing
Elemica
|August 2018|16
Technological innovation is happening at a faster
rate than ever before, causing digital disruptions for
many businesses. A digital disruption is a
transformation that is caused by emerging digital
technologies and business models. These innovative new
technologies and models can impact the value of existing
products and services offered in the industry, actually
disrupting the current market and causing businesses to re-
evaluate their competitive advantage.
Ignoring digital disruptions can impact businesses.
Remember Polaroid? The company led the market with its
cameras that created instant pictures. Yet in 2001, the
Polaroid Corporation filed for federal bankruptcy protection
because the company failed to make the smooth transition
from analog to digital cameras. The corporation decided to
bet on their past innovations and, as a result, lost to
companies who jumped on the digital bandwagon. By
keeping abreast of changes in demand, businesses can
follow the trends and adjust their strategies to embrace
these changes, which will help them to thrive and grow
profits.
Today’s digital disruptors are companies like Amazon and
Uber, who use technologies to out maneuver the
competition and build growth. Disruptors can be startup
companies or long-established businesses. A wait-and-see
attitude will not give a business sufficient time to make a
comeback when the disruptor begins to dominate the
industry.
Companies must continuously reinvent their business using
digital disruptive technology or watch from the sidelines
while they lose market share. Yet, many businesses still
struggle with acceptance, and others don't know where to
start the journey.
Accepting Digital Disruption
Digital disruption is fueled by next generation technology,
such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, the Internet of
Things and software-enabled platforms that tie all these
technologies together. C-level executives understand that
any industry can be profoundly affected by digital
disruption and no one can afford to ignore the threat. In
other words, digital disruption rewrites the rules of
business.
Digital disruption begins with acceptance of digital
transformation using digital technologies within operations
and ecosystems. Today’s technology allows all business
stakeholders to share a single network, connecting and
collaborating on supply chain operations from one end of
the enterprise to the other. Each trading partner has access
to information generated through the network in order to
gain visibility to all aspects of production, procurement,
transportation and distribution. With the proper information,
executives can make qualified decisions that drive
improvements in the business.
Accepting digital disruptions within the enterprise means
the business is no longer worried by the disruption and
CHALLENGESCHALLENGES
& RISKS IN ADOPTING
DIGITAL DISRUPTIONDIGITAL DISRUPTION
|August 2018| 17
Expert’s Column
instead leverages strategic planning and technologies to
drive the business. Disruption is accepted into the culture of
the organization so innovation is a day-to-day experience.
Instead of concern, the business will be better able to sense
and respond to changes in demand and disruptions to
mitigate any risk.
Often a business has to decide whether to respond to the
digital disruption or not. While it is not conducive to ignore
the disruption, businesses may not always have to respond.
Instead, the business can complement the disruption by
adding value to it. An example would be to create
technologies that augment the disruption, such as software
(added value) for an iPhone (disruptor).
Beginning a Digital Transformation Journey
To start the journey, management needs to design a strategy
for digital transformation that involves people, processes
and partners. The strategy should be broken down into
process steps that contain material, information and people
flow. Each employee knows that the product moves from
process A to process B in a specific quantity, at a specific
time, to a specific location. Because of digital technologies,
people have visibility into what is happening with each
step, giving them the ability to uncover bottlenecks that can
cause delays or poor product quality.
Today’s technology allows all stakeholders to share a single
network, connecting and collaborating on supply chain
activities from one end of the enterprise to the other. Each
trading partner has access to information generated through
the network in order to gain visibility to all aspects of
production, procurement, transportation and distribution.
With the proper information, executives can make qualified
decisions that drive improvements in the business.
Digital Supply Networks (DSN) are part of a digital
transformation journey, providing a technology foundation
for improving inter-business processes, expanding supply
chain relationships, increasing revenues and reducing
operating costs. DSNs create greater opportunities by
integrating suppliers, customers, and logistics service
providers in various ways depending on the level of inter-
business processes that are performing.
One method is to connect via ERP-to-ERP integrations with
high-volume suppliers and customers to streamline and
automate sell-side and buy-side transactions. A second
technique is through some type of portal for order capture
and invoicing for inter-business automation. Finally, some
leading DSNs provide email as a simple onboarding method
to digitize an inter-business process without requiring
supply chain partners to have any integration software.
Benefits of Digital Disruptions
Digital transformation helps customers know where their
“stuff” is at all times, similar to the conveniences derived
from mobile apps, where a taxi is ordered and the route
visualized on the phone screen. Emerging next-gen end-to-
end visibility applications in concert with a network of
interconnected buyers, suppliers and logistics providers are
enabling companies to lower working capital and operating
expenses, mitigate risk and improve customer satisfaction
by breaking down silos within the organization. With digital
transformation, the supply chain is now a completely
integrated ecosystem accessible by all stakeholders.
With end-to-end visibility as the key driver for an effective
supply chain improvement strategy, businesses must rely on
building more collaborative relationships across their
network of trading partners. Gaining end-to-end visibility
across transportation processes can deliver 6% or more in
transportation savings, remove the equivalent of 15 people
from operating costs by improving productivity, and reduce
the Cash-to-Cash cycle by 4 days or more.
Digital systems gather data, which can be used for
predictive analytics and machine learning to continually
improve the organization. More informed decisions can be
made by management. Disruptions from digital
technologies can reshape markets and help with launching
new products or services for less cost.
With a digital transformation in the supply chain, silos
dissolve and every part of the ecosystem has full visibility
to what is happening from end-to-end. Supply and demand
signals can travel through the network uninhibited, alerting
the appropriate parties to low levels of raw materials or
inventory, or seasonal spikes in demand. Because trading
partners get this information in real time through the digital
supply network, they can react accordingly. Digital
disruptions from digital transformations will results into
huge gains in customer satisfaction, profits and efficiencies.
|August 2018|18
CROWDZ
Accelerating the Supply Chain
C
rowdz, a pioneering Silicon Valley startup, builds
digitized, blockchain-based supply-chain networks
designed to enhance the speed, efficiency, and
financial performance of global supply chains. In the
process, Crowdz also facilitates the selling of invoices and
purchase orders, allowing small & midsize enterprises
(SMEs)—which account for more than 70% of the
participants in global supply chains—to get paid earlier
than they otherwise would in order to keep the cash flowing
at the best rates possible.
The Supply Chain Challenge
From the start, Crowdz recognized that global supply
chains currently face three major challenges:
• Speed. More than two decades after the emergence of
the Internet and ecommerce, 77% of global
supply-chain transactions continue to be executed via
antiquated, highly manual means, such as paper
catalogs, paper forms, sales representatives, fax
transmissions, email, electronic data interchange (EDI),
and so on. The use of these methods can cause delays of
days, weeks, or even months in the processing of orders
and the settlement of financial transfers.
• Efficiency. The use of these same, highly manual
techniques imposes huge inefficiencies on global
supply-chain operations. Today, in the nearly $25
trillion global B2B commerce market, these
inefficiencies result in at least $4 trillion in lost sales and
added costs—each year.
• Financial performance. With supply chains, SMEs
typically must sell their products on a delayed-payment
basis via invoicing, which can result in delays in
payments to SMEs of up to 120 days or more. Without
steady, ongoing cashflow, many of these SMEs can't
survive, and up to half ultimately cease operating,
causing supply-chain interruptions, lost sales, and
frequent costly searches for alternative suppliers.
The Role of Supply Chain Financing
The last of these three challenges bears emphasis. The most
common answer to the financial difficulties just described is
supply-chain financing (SCF). With SCF, banks or other
investors purchase SMEs’ invoices, giving the SMEs cash
for their invoices almost immediately, less a discount on.
Later, the SMEs reimburse the funding entity when their
customers pay. The potential global market for SCF is
immense, estimated at $9 trillion.
Despite the potential, however, only a small minority of
SMEs now benefit from SCF because:
• Only a few of the enterprise-headed supply chains
that SMEs belong to provide SCF financing.
• Banks usually buy invoices only valued at $500K+,
which shuts out most lower-invoice-value SMEs.
• When SMEs do have access to SCF, the rates are
punishingly high (~4-6%/month, or 45%+ annually).
• Newer peer-to-peer networks are limited by the fact
that they must buy invoices on a one-off basis and then
need to individually match funders to invoice
sellers—practices that are not well-suited to enterprise
supply chains, which demand more consistency and
predictability.
The Crowdz Solution
Crowdz solves the supply chain’s operational and financing
challenges by creating automated, fully digitized supply
chains. The Crowdz solution is unique among
contemporary supply-chain financing (SCF) applications,
which consist largely of standalone financing vehicles.
Crowdz, by contrast, is an entire supply-chain ecosystem,
which brings product buyers and sellers as well as invoice
|August 2018|20
Sale more, sale faster,
with Crowdz
“ “buyers and sellers together onto the most efficient global
supply-chain platform ever created, as follows:
• Crowdz fully digitizes the B2B buy/sell process via
automated supply-chain product marketplaces that use
artificial intelligence and advanced search technologies
to accelerate the buying and selling of products,
matching buyers to the most suitable sellers, while
originating risk-rated invoices and purchase orders that
are pre-configured for investor financing.
• Crowdz digitizes the invoices and other paperwork
that flow from this buy/sell process, then places them on
the Ethereum blockchain, where they are consolidated,
transformed into digital smart contracts, and instantly
transported to and from all transacting parties.
• Crowdz then automatically posts fundable invoices
on the Crowdz invoice-auction exchange, where
banks and other investors can bid on risk-rated (and
ultimately packaged) invoices and purchase orders,
enabling suppliers to receive instant, discounted cash
payments for the value of their receivables.
Techstars and Barclays
Each year, Barclays—one of the world’s pre-eminent
financial institutions—works with a number of innovative
startups during its London-based Accelerator program
powered by Techstars. The 13-week journey that begins
each February gives some of the world’s most cutting-edge
financial-technology (fintech) firms access to Barclays’ 328
years of financial expertise. It’s a collaborative process in
which brilliant ideas can become problem-solving
innovations with mass-market appeal.
The company that Barclaycard Payment Solutions
sponsored during its most recent Accelerator is Crowdz.
First and foremost, Barclays points out, Crowdz’s online
product marketplaces connect businesses seamlessly and
digitally—moving the entire procurement process online.
The Crowdz solution also makes it much easier to find
suppliers and to sell to other businesses. And, as part of this
process, documents are digitized and placed on the
Ethereum blockchain, meaning that transactions that used to
take months can happen in milliseconds—the ultimate
acceleration of the supply chain.
Payson Johnston is the CEO and
Co-Founder of Crowdz. With 20 years’
senior-level supply-chain management experience,
he served most recently as Senior Manager for
Global Supplier Management for Cisco, the global
networking giant. Among other responsibilities in
this position, he developed and drove the
commodity strategies for five global supply chains.
He also designed one of the first-ever online
supply-chain management systems, which is still in
use today. More recently, he oversaw the creation
of the first-ever blockchain-based supply-chain
marketplace for processed raw materials.
Payson worked at the University of San Francisco
as an Adjunct Professor and, recently, as an
Instructor at the University of California, Berkeley
Extension on the topics of sustainability and ethics,
supply chains, risk management, and marketing
channels. Payson holds an MBA from the
University of San Francisco and an MA from the
University of Nottingham.
THE IDEAL LEADER FOR THIS CHALLENGE
Payson Johnston
CEO & Co-founder
MOST INNOVATIVE
SCMSOLUTION PROVIDERS 2018
10T
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|August 2018| 21
DRONE TECHNOLOGY
The Next Big Disruptor Exhilarating Industry Giants
Drone technology has become the latest buzz word
these days and has generated immense rapture in
the industry, especially among e-commerce
companies, the promise of efficient inventory management
and speedy delivery - fueling the growth of drone
technology in logistics and transportation sector. The
economic and process benefit of optimizing logistical
operations thus triggering giants of the industries like
Amazon, DHL, UPS among other to explore an alternative
way for delivering a product and managing inventory in
large warehouses without the direct use of trucks and
humans.
Drone for Warehouse Inventory Management
Cycle counting, stock counting, and inventory management
are an integral and vital part of warehouse management.
Inefficiency, inaccuracy in these operations can cause any
business a loss in terms of revenue. According to sources,
retailers lose $45Billion worth of inventory every year due
to returned goods, stolen merchandise, and misplaced
packages. In the past, Walmart lost close to $3Billion due to
inconsistencies between inventory data and actual stock.
Thus scanning and feeding precise information in the
databases is crucial for any businesses to sustain long. But
this is the area where warehouse managers find challenges.
To scan a commodity in a warehouse that is larger than 19
Football field is not an easy task for a human. And this is
only the size of Walmart’s one of the smallest warehouses.
Now you can imagine how cumbersome for a human to
keep track of the inventory records in one of the largest and
biggest warehouse in the world- Boeing Everett Factory in
Everett which comprises of 4.3 million square feet of total
area. For a human to scan the barcode of varied
commodities in such a gigantic area that also not only in
horizontal but many feet’s vertical space as well are
somehow tedious and cumbersome which lead to
inconsistencies and consume lot of time as well. Now
researchers have come up with a solution for inventory
management problem in the form of RFID readable Drone.
Identifying product location, stock counting, and inventory
management among other can be done much faster and with
negligible inconsistency with RFID readable drone as
compared with humans. The task which generally needs
three days to complete a stock counting job by a team of
eighty people with handheld scanners and forklift trucks
can be completed in just two days with the help of a single
drone. This scale of a consistent result in a time-saving
manner is the need of the hour as the number of
e-commerce products, websites, mobile users are growing
at a rapid pace and these only expand the size of future
warehouses on a positive curve.
The drones have been equipped to read RFID tags from tens
of meters away while identifying the tags' locations. The
equipped drone system has the capacity to be used in large
warehouses in order to prevent inventory mismatches and
locate individual items. Drones thus prove to a great boost
in terms of accuracy and speed. This RFID readable drone
technology invented in the labs of Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and it could save retailers billions lost
through faulty inventory records.
Challenges? Yes!! But Delivery based on Drones Seems
Inevitable in Future
‘Speed of delivery’ is a vital part in any supply chain
management process and depends upon the gravity of traffic
on road. Growing world population and rapid urbanization
of people will lead to more road congestion, more air
pollution and thus increase the average transportation time
required to reach a destination. Delay in the transportation
of products thus making service providers wary about the
future. This is the reason many e-commerce and other
|August 2018|22
service providers are looking for drone technology as a
viable option for delivery. In the future, Companies which
promises faster delivery of the same products tends to
attract more consumers over their competitors. This is the
reason many companies are investing heavily in drone
technology and even have tested successful trial run.
In 2013, Deutsche Post AG subsidiary DHL successfully
delivered a sub-kilogram quantity of medicine via a
prototype Micro drones “Parcelcopter.” DHL Parcelcopter
already in use in Germany.
Amazon is working on a few drone prototypes, which could
fly at a speed of 50 miles per hour and could carry 5-pound
packages which account for 90% of the retailer's packages.
In February 2015, China-based e-commerce giant Ali Baba
started delivering products through drone services around
some prominent cities in China.
China-based JD.com has successfully tested seven different
types of drone’s delivery systems across four of their
prominent provinces-Beijing, Sichuan, Shaanxi, and
Jiangsu. Their drones can transport between 5 and 30Kg
and can fly up to the speed of 100Km/hr. The giant is now
working on a 1 metric ton (1000Kg) delivery drone.
Although the use of the drone is seeming inevitable but it
raises some genuine concerns as well. Concerns related to
public safety, air traffic congestion, drone pilot’s eligibility
and responsibilities, privacy of individuals (as drone can
capture images of individuals while flying over). Apart
from these, how far a drone can deliver? How much bulky
items could it be allowed? Which regulatory body will
govern the operations of drone? These are some of the
eminent questions and concerns that need to be addressed in
order to transform this dream of drone delivery into reality.
Thus, to make positive inroads in drone delivery, the US
has framed few guidelines that can be seen as a positive
signal towards this dream.
In the United States initial attempts at commercial use of
UAVs were blocked by FAA (Federal Aviation
Administration) but in 2016, FAA frames new guidelines
for the commercial use of a drone. FAA allowed the drone
to carry weight up to 25Kg, can fly up to the maximum of
400 feet with a max speed of 160Km/hr. It is allowed only
in daytime and that drone operator must also qualify for
flying certificates and be at least 16-years old.
With all these positive testing’s, trial runs, investments and
law framework, it seems, Drone will pass the test with time
and its commercial usage at large scale might get delayed
but its usage will be inevitable. It is expected that due to
increasing awareness and understanding of drone
technology, its market share will cross $9 Billion with over
15 Million unit shipments by 2024.
|August 2018| 23
Buzz- of- Drone
Top
5EmailSecurity Threats
Nearly 95 percent of all successful attacks on
enterprise networks targeted organization’s users
through email. With the industry of cybersecurity
evolving so rapidly, hackers are consistently changing their
tactics, keeping it almost impossible to keep up with.
With today’s growing security landscape, email threats are
one of the most common strategies utilized by cyber
criminals. What started off with spam emails sent to your
junk folder, has evolved to a more robust tactic to deliver
destructive content straight to your inbox. Here are the top
five email security threats that we’ve seen so far this year:
Emotet Banking Trojan
Emotet is an advanced, modular banking Trojan that
primarily focuses as a downloader or dropper of other
banking Trojans and continues to be among the most costly
and destructive malware affecting governments, private and
public sectors. Emotet can evade most signature-based
detections, and because it is Virtual Machine aware, it
generates false indicators when ran in a sandbox.
Additionally, Emotet has several methods for maintaining
persistence, including auto-start registry keys and services
as well as Dynamic Link Libraries to continuously update
and evolve its capabilities.
Initial infection of this malware occurs when a user opens
or clicks a malicious download link, PDF, or macro-enabled
Microsoft Word document included in the malspam. Once
downloaded, Emotet establishes persistence and attempts to
propagate local networks through one of its incorporated
spreader modules. The negative consequences from an
Emotet infection can be temporary or permanent loss of
sensitive proprietary information, disruption of regular
operations, financial losses incurred to restore systems and
files, and potential harm to an organizations reputation.
Ursnif Banking Malware
A new version of the infamous banking Trojan Ursnif made
its appearance again earlier this year in June. This malware
is well known in the cyber security community and was the
most active malware code in the financial sector from the
end of 2016 into early 2017. This malware is capable of
stealing users' credentials, credentials for local webmail,
cloud storage, cryptocurrency exchange platforms and e-
commerce sites.
Once Ursnif infects a new machine it will attempt to spread
to other users in the address book of the compromised email
accounts. It tricks the victim into opening the malicious
email because the message is presented as the reply to an
existing conversation conducted by the victim in the past.
For example, if you receive an email that was a replay to a
previous conversation from a while back, you can look at
the “To:” field in the email and see if it's replied to a large
number of unsuspecting users.
Another feature about this malware is its ability to keep
track of company names and title the malicious document
“VICTIM_COMPANY_.doc” in order to look legitimate.
Once the victim clicks enable macros, the second step of
the infection process begins, which launches a malicious
|August 2018|26
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shawn Pope is the Cyber
Security Engineer of
Nuspire Networks, a
state-of-the-science
managed network
security provider for some
of the largest and most
distinctive companies
around the world.
script that downloads and executes a payload from a server
controlled by the attackers. Once installed, Ursnif can
operate without being noticed by both the user and the
operating system.
Extortion Campaign
Extortion campaigns have been around for quite some time
but there was one that was in full swing across the globe
that used a clever twist to trick unsuspecting users into
paying a ransom. The attacker for this extortion campaign
claims to have installed malware on your system and has
also used your webcam to record you watching porn. The
attacker then goes on to threaten the release of this video to
everyone in your contacts unless you pay the Bitcoin
ransom.
The basic premise of this type of extortion attempt has been
around for quite some time, but the addition of the
Username/Password combination in the subject line has
unsuspecting users worried. While researching this
campaign, Nuspire’s Security Analytics Team (SAT) came
across multiple different counts of affected users claiming
the Username/Password combination was something they
had used eight years ago. In this case, the attacker has
somewhat automated the attack to create a script that pulls
directly from usernames and passwords of a given data
breach that happened eight years ago. Therefore, every
victim who had their password compromised as part of that
breach, is now getting this same email at the address they
used to sign up for the hacked website.
Hopefully, if you were affected by that data breach you
updated your username/password combination. Granted, the
people who didn't bother changing this information, this
attack directly affects them, but rest assured this attacker
doesn’t have a recording of you that they plan to send out to
your contacts. It is merely scare tactics to make some easy
money, and upon investigation of multiple Bitcoin
addresses associated with this campaign, the attacker was
indeed making easy money.
This attack could evolve in the future and use more up to
date data breaches which in turn could scare more users into
paying the ransom, so be on the lookout.
GandCrab Ransomware
GandCrab holds the top spot in ransomware, partly because
it’s used by the Magnitude botnet. Although GandCrab is
usually spread via spam email, it has recently been
distributed via compromised websites and is now
Shawn Pope
Cyber Security Engineer
|August 2018| 27
Tech-Talk
appending the .KRAB extension to the encrypted files.
Towards the end of April 2018 a campaign with the subject
line “Your Order #{Random Digits}” was circulating. There
is limited content in the body of the email and has an
attached ZIP file which includes a Word document that
contains malicious macros that download and execute
GandCrab ransomware.
GandCrab is under constant development where new
versions are consistently being released at an aggressive
pace. Its basic functionality is well document and does the
same typical things ransomware does, including encrypting
files with the. KRAB extension, changing the user’s
background, and leveraging Tor for communications. One
of the interesting elements of Gandcrab is its use of
namecoin domains for Command and Control (C2)
communication. These are easily identified by the .bit top
level domain (TLD). Since attackers rely heavily on Tor
and namecoin domains to help evade identification, it is a
no brainer for them to use a decentralized DNS service that
does not rely on central authority. This also increases the
difficulty of having domains shut down and identifying
those that are potentially behind them.
Phishing
By the end of Q2 2018 Microsoft had taken over the top
spot from Facebook for the number one target of corporate
phishing attacks. Reason being, it’s highly profitable for
hackers to compromise an Office 365 account. Hackers see
email-based attacks as an easy entry point into data, files,
and contacts from other Office 365 apps, including
SharePoint, OneDrive, Skype, Excel, and CRM.
We see all different types of Phishing attempts from quite
possibly the worst attempts to exact replicas of a legitimate
Office 365 login page. Unfortunately, Phishing will always
exist and can slip through the gaps in email filtering due to
the fact that new domains/URLs are popping up every day
to host fake login pages. This is where user awareness
training is extremely important. Educate your users, roll out
training exercises where employees with fake Phishing
emails and see who clicks on them and who doesn’t.
Because Phishing has become so popular, education will
pay off in the long run.
Solutions
Aside from training and educating employees on malware,
and ransomware that might come in through a user’s email,
there are a few other solutions to take into consideration
that can prevent these attacks from entering your network.
1. Use antivirus programs with behavior and heuristic
detection capabilities, with automatic updates of
signatures and software on clients and servers.
2. Implement a spam filter to filter out known malspam
indicators such as malicious subject lines, and block
suspicious and blacklisted Ips.
3. Mark external emails with a banner denoting it is from
an external source, this will assist users in detecting
spoofed emails.
4. Implement a block policy for file attachments that are
commonly associated with malware such as .dll, and
.exe, and attachments that cannot be scanned by
antivirus such a .zip files.
5. Implement Domain-Based Message Authentication,
Reporting & Conformance (DMARC), a validation
system that minimizes spam email by detecting email
spoofing using Domain Name System (DNS) records
and digital signatures.
6. Implement a solution that can send the
unknown/suspicious files to the sandbox for further
investigation and analysis.
7. And most importantly employee training on social
engineering and phishing. Urge employees not to open
suspicious emails, click links contained in such emails,
or post sensitive information online.
|August 2018|28
GRAVITY SUPPLY CHAIN
Aclear shift has become obvious in the way the
SCM Solution industry is looking at the value it
delivers. The focus is no longer on the technical
aspects of the solution (i.e. what it does), but instead on the
outcome the solution delivers for a business e.g. increased
speed, higher visibility, reduced costs, more informed
decision making.
Gravity Supply Chain is a Supply Chain management
technology provider which supports retail and
manufacturing organisations with their digital
transformation agendas by seamlessly connecting their
global end-to-end operations, supplier base and logistics
network on a single platform that provides easy
management and real time visibility. By leveraging modern
cloud, automation, machine learning, big data, IoT, mobility
and user experience capabilities, users of Gravity are seeing
their supply chain become a competitive advantage as the
world shifts to a fully digital economy era.
Offerings and Solutions from Gravity
Gravity’s product offering for retailers and manufacturers is
modular so they can pick and choose what solution works
best for their business. Not all companies are ready to
digitize their entire supply chain all at once. This modular
approach allows organizations to focus on one area of the
critical path and build out from there. The modular
solutions of Gravity include:
Source - a real-time collaborative product lifecycle
management software, which automates tedious manual
tasks, and enables buying and merchandising teams to
quickly find product and vendor data in one place, rather
than spread across multiple spread sheets or documents.
Purchase Order Management (POM) – real-time order
management, vendor management and logistics visibility.
The POM solution connects suppliers and logistics
providers through a single platform for a business wide
view of an organisation's operations from Purchase Order to
Destination.
End to End Supply Chain Management - combining
Source and POM enables businesses to achieve a real-time
view of their end to end operations, allowing them to make
faster decisions on product procurement and delivery.
Distinguishing Features
Gravity is very much led by the fact that its SCM
technology platform is actually not the solution, but is an
enabler to the end-result. This is often greater than just the
sum of the real-time visibility the company delivers, but is
centred on developing a supply chain solution that helps
organizations take advantage of the opportunities that exist
with a customer-centric approach.
This particular mind set leads the company to a couple of
approaches that make its solutions stand out in the market.
First, Gravity doesn’t follow the ‘one-size-fits-all’
philosophy. Supply chains are unique or they differ for
every customer, however customers should also not have to
pay for bespoke solutions. That is why baked into Gravity’s
technology is the ability to configure the solutions to match
the differences in their customers’ operations.
Second, data is available in huge quantities these days and
is easily accessible. Gravity’s solution comes with
out-of-the-box supply chain and logistics data sets powered
by its proprietary Magnet-T engine. This increases the value
Offering End-to-End Seamless Supply Chain Visibility and Execution
|August 2018|30
We provide a platform that
connects all the parties on
the Supply Chain
“ “Gravity’s customers gain from the platform, since it allows
them to make smarter data-driven decisions.
World-Class Customer Experience
The digital supply chain today is defined by speed, agility
and transparency— where the total end-to-end value
created trumps a low-cost focus. By providing real time
visibility and automation, Gravity paves the way for its
customers to make the most of the digital supply chain.
In fact, some of its manufacturing customers reduce manual
tasks, such as data keying, email updates and so on by 60%
by digitizing many of their processes. They have also at the
same time increased their value proposition to provide their
customers with visibility of their sales orders that they
didn’t previously have – one manufacturer likened it to
being able to deliver an ‘Amazon-like experience’ that they
previously did not possess.
Designing the Future
The future plans of Gravity include further investment and
development of the technology platform into a global trade
platform connecting all processes from product ideation
through to delivery to the consumer.
“This is a true end to end supply chain management
platform and we’ll develop it based around what we believe
are the four building blocks of a real-time supply chain
visibility solution – how does a supply chain watch,
analyse, respond and learn - and ultimately, how can a user
use this”, Graham Parker, Gravity CEO, states, “We firmly
believe by providing the combination of real-time, end to
end visibility, predictive insights, prescriptive actions and
intelligent, automated decision support across the network,
our customers’supply chain management teams will be able
to minimize risk and capitalize revenue opportunities,
whilst enhancing customer engagement”, concludes the
visionary CEO.
Graham Parker, the Co-founder and CEO of Gravity
has worked extensively within the SCM sector for
almost 30 years and experienced first-hand the
industry issues that stem from poor data, lack of
visibility and reactive partners. Along with Darren
Palfrey, Co-founder and COO, he has created a
platform that enables supply chain users access to
real-time data with a view to incorporate both
predictive and prescriptive technologies.
Parker also wanted the ability for users to execute
operations across the supply chain in one place,
regardless of whether those users are buying and
developing products, placing POs for
replenishment, making goods at a factory,
managing logistics at the port of origin or receiving
goods at destination. And his vision has come to
life with one platform connecting every player
within the critical path or value chain, so retail and
manufacturing executives can make real time
decisions with absolute certainty.
FEATURING THE DYNAMIC LEADER
Graham Parker
CEO & Co-founder
MOST INNOVATIVE
SCMSOLUTION PROVIDERS 2018
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|August 2018| 31
CHATBOTS
A Dynamic Digital Gesture for
Creative Entrepreneurs
|August 2018|32
The arrival of Chatbots is considered to be an
incredible breakthrough in the realm of business or
any kind of entrepreneurships. It is one of the
smartest innovations by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and
Natural Language Processing (NLP) that businesses can
count on. The Chatbot is a software that can be
programmed to carry out a certain set of actions all by
itself, like a wind-up toy, in text or spoken formats. The
capability of the bots to learn from the past interactions and
grow in itself, makes it more attractive and interesting.
Chatbots work in two different ways. Firstly, predefined
responses are given from an existing database, based on the
keywords searched by customers. The smart machine based
bots attract their knowledge from Artificial Intelligence and
Cognitive Computing and adapt their behavior based on the
customer interactions.
Applicability of Chatbots in Business:
The applicability of these chatting bots is quite relevant in
this era of digital glory. As the new tech-savvy generation
of customers is always connected to the social platforms,
they definitely expect a seamless and less time consuming
customer experience with the brands they love.
Econsultancy found in a research that 57% of customers
prefer live chat to email or a phone call. There’s no surprise
that consumers today are appreciating chatting or texting
more than any other forms of communication. To address
this priority of the customers and outgrow in this
competitive business world, many business giants are
adopting these virtual agents.
It’s a Smart Trend for Entrepreneurial Venture:
With the widespread adoption of the artificial intelligence,
the human interaction and connectivity has taken a
fascinating turn. This extremely sophisticated and versatile
tool can be helpful in crafting any small or big business
plan. Apart from being awesome in resolving customer care
queries, Chatbots can be a part of an entrepreneurial
strategy in many ways. That’s where the appeal of Chatbots
lies. There are many different approaches to navigate this
connectivity tool throughout the business venture. Let’s
have a look at some of these approaches:
• As every organization has a unique set of customers, the
Chatbots must be programmed in accordance with
customer journey. Knowing the finer details of the
customer journey from A-Z, might be proved as the
foundation for success. As AI is enacting a larger role in
business reforms, having accurate foresight and
experience is the most needed prerequisite to program
the bot.
• After programming the bot, it should be designed in a
way that would enhance customer success by advancing
them down the sales funnel. A microscopic view of the
customer service and sales data always helps in this
regard. One should have a good grasp on:
• Which patterns and questions are asked the most?
• How the responses can be programmed to answer all of
them?
• And most importantly, in what way all the necessary
information can be provided to bring people from
awareness stage to a decision?
• In order to guide the customer seamlessly through the
sales funnel with the help of the intelligent bot, an
entrepreneur needs to put himself/herself in the shoes of
the average customer and develop the bot around their
path to success.
• To build strong relationships with customers, another
smarter way is to “humanize” the Chatbot. People
generally want to buy something from other people, not
from a robot. Therefore, programming responses needs
to be done in a way that reflects the character and
personality of the brand. The Chatbot need to be
designed with a tinge of human empathy with the
authentic brand voice.
• Lastly, with the changing digital landscape, customer
mindsets are also always in the verge of change. To stay
on the top of the game, one must have to consistently
analyze the data and evolve the bot accordingly.
Future of Chatbots:
Chatbots are currently being utilized as easy and fun ways
on websites, social platforms and smartphones to assist
customers in their interactions with a brand. Even if the
Chatbots are still in rudimentary stage, we can expect a lot
more progressions in this trend. With the gradual evolution
of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning, the Chatbots
will become more empowered to edify the conversational
interface of businesses. Chatbots are going to get a lot
|August 2018| 33
Editor’s Desk
smarter, more intelligent and indistinguishable from a human being with the advancement of AI. However, it will
definitely take some trials and errors before the chatting robots master and adopt the delicacies of polite conversation.
Also, it’s quite predictable that the cost of Chatbots will eventually get cheaper as the adoption of it increases across
multiple domains. An example is Facebook’s decision to let third-party applications build Chatbots in their platform has
drastically lowered the price.
Conclusion:
It really amazes us how far technology has come up in the last several years in the digital marketing arena. However,
some things will always remain the same. Even if everything gets automated in the future, nothing will minimize the
appeal of optimal user experience. The bots can be used to automate a huge chunk of the marketing process, but without
making the process dull and impersonal. Only then these marvels of technology will be able to make wonders.
|August 2018|34
www.samsung.com
In the 21st century, the main focus has been making the
world more connected, and entrepreneurs are no
exception. All entrepreneurs aim at increasing their
customer base, and going international is one way to do it.
To achieve this, the business world opted to merge with the
technological sphere to ensure the physical boundaries from
state to state are not a barrier to the exchange of goods and
services. The biggest barrier to business over the years has
been language. Most entrepreneurs use English on their
websites, which is a huge drawback especially to the native
language speaking clients. Changing the world can be an
impossible task to take up, instead the business world took
an adaptive approach through internationalization.
Internationalization is the process whereby the producers
strategize on products that are acceptable and appealing to
people in as many countries as possible. In case the
producers have a website, they design it in such a way that
people speaking different languages can translate the
content on the site to their own language. Transactions done
in one’s native language are as personal as it gets. This trail
of logic has been backed by studies that show 55% of
clients have a preference of online shopping in their local
dialect. Using their native language makes the process
easier and the producer/seller becomes more trustworthy.
That’s a good indication which lets us know that
localization helps with business growth, but there’s more to
it. Investing on an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
system that has the option of localizing language is of
benefit to both the entrepreneur and the customers
considering that 56% of clients confess to value the use of
their local languages more than the price of the product
itself!
Coming to translations on the website, all the critical
contents and documentation should be translated. To get the
most accurate and honest translations one has to vet the
CHOOSING the
RIGHT TRANSLATOR
for INTERNATIONALIZATION
Rilind Elezaj
Digital Marketing
Specialist
|August 2018|36
translator and ensure they are familiar with the native
language. Investing on the best translation services and
translators will help avoid poor translations which lower the
business’ level of professionalism. Even the marketing and
branding should be localized depending on the culture of
the setting. Some holidays and discounts may simply not
make sense to the locals. With the right local specialist or
translator you will know the kind of marketing and
branding that works for the specific community. The
specialist will come up with the best translation for the
slogan, the best colors and even give tips on the peak and
off-peak seasons of that particular community.
To get the best translations, ensure that you have the best
ERP providers who will make sure the localization details
are well taken care of. To achieve all these, one has to
ensure they have the best language service provider for
their organization. The organization has to consider whether
the translator is a native speaker or not, because it will be
advantageous if they are natives so that they translate
accurately. In case the materials to be translated have a
specific format or subject matter that can only be handled
by professionals in the area, then specialists must be hired.
All translators must provide proof of relevant education or
previously translated work to show they are well acquainted
with the task and most important they must be within the
budget.
Other than the hiring issue, the organization has also to
consider the number of languages the organization needs to
have translated. If the languages are few and the
translations minimal then they can get small language
service providers like freelancers, but in case the languages
are numerous, then it is advisable to use one language
service provider. One service provider is also an easy and
convenient contact person in doing follow ups unlike
dealing with various small service providers. To maintain
the brand, one translator is suitable, as all the documents
will be written in different languages but in one voice
unlike a variety of small service providers who will all be
speaking in their different voices and in different languages,
in which case the aspect of uniformity will be lost. It is
advisable to use one provider who will develop a deep
understanding of the business and can be a long-term
translator for the organization bringing about consistency
and uniformity.
To ensure consistency of the multilingual platform, the
organization has to ensure they choose the right web control
and management solution (WCMS). WCMS enables the
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rilind Elezaj is an
experienced a Digital
Marketing Specialist with a
demonstrated history of
working in the marketing and
advertising industry. Rilind
possesses a strong
entrepreneurial mindset and
has devoted his career to
enhancing the sphere of
digital marketing. In his
methodological approach,
Rilind integrates web
development and other
digital marketing solutions to
create hybrid strategies that
bring the best results.
organization to manage international websites and ensure
they have the capacity to modify the content on local sites.
It should also have an automated translation workflow, this
will help reduce time wasted when launching new sites
within the website. The minute new information is posted, it
is translated to all the languages through the service
providers. Pseudo-localization is another aspect to look at.
Language may have a specific font of writing, or direction
of writing. This is sorted out by the pseudo-localization
which presents language in its most original form. A
fallback location should also be put in place to go back to
the original language in case the client speaks a language
that is not available.
All these features have been brought together to ensure the
best localization experience in entrepreneurship wherever
one may be and grow the business sector to the highest
possible heights, internationally.
|August 2018| 37
Maestro’s Perspective
SUREPROMISE
In a competitive market such as e-commerce,
organizations aim to disrupt the traditional ideas of
commerce by introducing innovative models. These
models connect suppliers with the online sellers through
innovative supply chain platform. SurePromise Limited is
one such company which brings products globally through
its unique solutions.
With over ten years of experience, SurePromise's
marketplace specialists connect products with sellers in
major e-commerce sites. SurePromise powers its operations
in a real-time data analytics platform. It analyzes and
optimizes every aspect of its clients business from shipping
routes to product prices, that too with the surgical precision.
The firm’s flexible omni-channel retailing platform allows
selling of products across different marketplaces. The
state-of-the-art system of the company ensures customer
fulfilment and customers get their shipments on time at the
lowest cost. SurePromise’s extensive experience with a
variety of product categories informs its detailed quality
control and packaging procedures that maximize customers’
satisfaction.
Stellar Services
SurePromise’s full-stack e-commerce solution will
aggregate big data to provide precise sales and logistics
information that includes five main aspects:
Big Data and Cloud-Based Analytics Solution: Using big
data aggregating multiple types of data obtained from
multiple e-commerce platforms, the supplier will be able to
easily identify market trends and customer preferences
whether current or future.
Sales and Marketing Tool: The suppliers aim to utilize this
tool to recruit and manage a specialized sales team that is
experienced and able to design multiple sales strategies for
multiple audiences internationally. This tool would also
allow for the brand creation, able to connect specific
products with a specific audience based on both
psychographic and demographic information gleaned from
big data.
Electronic Inventory Management System: This system
would streamline the inventory management process and
allow increased precision concerning globally inventory
stocking.
Enterprise Performance Management System: EPMS would
also include a fully integrated CRM platform on which it
will be able to connect with multiple online sellers
worldwide.
Logistics Management System: This tool is aimed to have
the capabilities of automatically selecting the optimal
logistics solutions for each individual shipment of the
supplier’ products.
Success Mantra: Building Relationships
From the last decade, SurePromise has been amassing a
solid reputation in the e-commerce industry. The key to
success is the dedication towards the businesses that work
with the company. The firm considers them partners, rather
than simple clients. Company’s primary focus is to build a
relationship. This alliance has resulted in the development
of a strong and loyal partner base. It has allowed the firm to
expand beyond its original interests in traditional sourcing
and retailing. SurePromise now provides e-commerce
solutions designed to maximize revenue and minimize
wastage for its partners. This has provided the company
with a unique vantage point to reinvent itself, by
capitalizing on the new wave of businesses entering
e-commerce.
A Bridge Linking Business to Global Leagues
|August 2018|40
We transform e-commerce through
technology to craft a more efficient
global marketplace
“ “Keeping it Short and Simple
SurePromise simplifies the operations, by stating “Whatever
your needs are, as a supplier, or as an online seller,
SurePromise will be with you every step of the way, aligning
your key strengths and existing capabilities with our
powerful suite of services”.
The firm cuts unnecessary steps in the supply chain and
keeps inventory moving fast. Daily insights and
adjustments maximize sales while preventing overselling.
Consequently, both the suppliers and sellers can enjoy its
first-rate analytics regarding the products to develop. For
customer services that prefer localized attention, the firm’s
multilingual customer service centre delivers an up-to-date
and specialized help and advice in over eight major global
languages to every customer’s delight.
Harnessing the Disruption
The firm splendidly differentiates opportunities from
challenges. It aims to be adaptive to all the technological
and operational changes. It also acknowledges the
challenges related to the latest trends and opportunities.
SurePromise is more engaged in the industry innovations
that are on the rise. The corporation is flexible enough to
move to a better position during the high demand. It knows
storing and protecting data will aid in business running,
even in ever-changing technological climate.
Future Perspectives
While efficiency has always been a key priority of
businesses, the firm will improve its usual key of success. It
will build relationships and will keep its stickiness high
with user viscosity of suppliers and online sellers, which
will reassure its positive cash flow. In the future, as
standards, accuracy, and quality outputs are increasing, the
company perceives tremendous scalability with no
inventory constraints.
Angus Chan, the Founder and CEO, established
SurePromise as one of the first ever e-commerce
supply chain platform. He founded the company
when he was a college student in 2004. The notion
was to ease the relationship between the
manufacturer and online sellers. Since then, the
firm has grown into a multimillion-dollar venture.
He possesses a keen eye for future trends in
business opportunities that have given
SurePromise a distinct competitive advantage.
Foreseeing the shift towards online shopping and
position of China in the global supply chain, he has
developed strong partnerships with manufacturers
to build a solid B2B2C business model. Angus has
led the diverse and international team at Sure
Promise for over a decade now, inspiring
employees and achieving growth through an
open-minded yet results-driven management style.
THE VISIONARY WITH STYLISH
WORK ETHICS
MOST INNOVATIVE
SCMSOLUTION PROVIDERS 2018
10T
H
E
Angus Chan
Founder & CEO
|August 2018| 41
Leadership
ShadowShadowfading the dark into light
|August 2018|42
eadership is not about individuals, it’s about the
Lrelationship between a leader and his followers and
that’s why Warren Bennis has said: “A leader
doesn’t just get the message across; he is the message”. A
Shadow is defined as a dark area where light is blocked by
an opaque object. Shadow, in this case, is a metaphor and
relates to the leader’s character, relationship, integrity and
work ethic. Leadership is a concept that posits that leaders
affect those who they lead. Leadership shadow is not a new
concept, yet it has to secure its position in the world. A
leader’s action, messages, words, behavior, and attitude
flow into its followers directly and indirectly. A leader
sometime has the most subtle indirect shadow that has the
biggest impact even though it’s less visible. This shadow is
one such property required by an individual to be a front
runner in the corporate world. It is difficult to see, but its
shape and clarity will reach everyone who follows them. A
wise leader makes prudent decisions and travels the road
less taken thus leaving behind the legacy that is
unmatchable. Shadows, in-terms of psychology can be
defined as “those untamed emotions and behavior that lie,
largely unconsciously beneath the surface of our lives”.
These shadows have positive and negative attributes that
individuals possess but they are not aware of. Negative
attributes are those hostile wounds which can sabotage
someone’s success and relationship with others. Positive
attributes are the survival strategies that help in coping up
with negative attributes.
Blown-out overall image
A 2014 study found that 40% of workers would rate their
bosses a ‘B’ grade for overall management skills. In a 2012
survey, workers said that their bosses misbehaved even
saying that they displayed inappropriate behavior, bad
language, and bullying. Few other surveys suggest that their
managers are doing inadequate work. In the fast-paced,
interconnected and immensely competitive world, this
growing problem is increasing rapidly and causes rifts
between leader and followers. The tensions that these rifts
trigger are the negative shadows. Followers also ignore
program and services that their manager thinks invaluable.
This diminishes the possibilities of learning and
development.
Understanding the other side of the story
Individuals work hard; and push themselves every day
trying to reach the top tier of an organization. Sometimes,
in ascending the ladder of success, personal and business
catastrophes emerges among the co-workers. Executives
have such power influences overs the others, without their
own awareness. The demand and responsibilities of a job
often makes bosses hard to understand the impact of their
shadows. The higher they go, the responsibilities get bigger
and so does the shadows. They have to get the work done
which creates psychological demands. They get stuck into
antisocial, workaholic and sometimes depressing states.
These states complicate and make difficulties in
understanding the dynamics and repercussions of the
impact that their shadow generates. Sometimes these
shadows go so much deep that it turns into a blind big black
spot. These powerful heads have to understand that the
employees not only mirror their boss but take cues after
them. Mirroring boss is a safe strategy to stay healthy in the
corporate world. A move, smart or dumb is accessed by
everyone around the whole company. Leaders should be
aware of what they say, what they prioritize and how they
get the work done. By doing deficient leadership, they fail
to find the inspiration and in inspiring others because of
they’re even bigger getting a negative shadow. A leader also
reaches the slippery point in career and starts to get
comfortable into the role. At this point, a leader ignores his
duties and depends upon their juniors to complete the work.
Attitude towards the role
Every leader should embrace his/her shadows. These
contain the positive and negative experiences of life. These
are the experiences that have empowered them to be
someone’s boss. Embracing these shadows will give them
huge relief, and more importantly, leaders should
acknowledge the dark side without being afraid. They
should be aware of their actions and messages both
internally and externally. Accessing these sides will help
them in creating their organization more humane, friendly,
approachable and connected. Acknowledging weakness will
surge more respect among the workers and the strengths in
inspiring. Relying on others in weakness will generate the
highest marks. The famous formula”E+R=O” i.e.
“Events+Response=outcome” is the perfect solution of
maintaining the engagements. Any leader must remember
that the culture of any organization is shaped by any type of
behavior if only a leader is willing to tolerate. It’s up to
individuals how they want to cast their shadow on their
followers and themselves on black-to-white colour
spectrum.
|August 2018| 43
Insights’ Perspective
Light your
Own way

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The 10 most innovative scm solution providers 2018

  • 1. THE10MOST INNOVATIVE SCMSOLUTION PROVIDERS 2018 Wendy Buxton President August 2018 www.insightssuccess.com ® Expert’s Column Challenges and Risks in adopting Digital Disruption Buzz- of- Drone Drone Technology: The Next Big Disruptor Exhilarating Industry Giants
  • 2.
  • 3.
  • 4. Redefining Supply Chain with Digital Trendsetters t’s a glorifying age of technology and digital disruptions; redefining and rejuvenating every sphere of our Ilives. With the help of technology, new paths towards a successful and easier life have been opened up. And almost every business has adopted these disruptions, except for a few. Also, there are the ‘digital trendsetters’, the top performers in terms of both profitability and revenue growth. These trendsetters stand unique amongst all the digital followers in the way they approach the digital disruptions. Digital trendsetters take different outlook in adopting and utilising the miracles of disruption. They use digital marvels to own the customer experience, end-to-end, across the ecosystem. Rather than focusing mainly on improved shopping and buying process like any other digital businesses, they prefer a more strategic approach of using these disruptions to enhance the existing business models and develop new ones. Eliminating the traditional objective of giving the customers a unified experience, trendsetters strive to deliver a hyper-tailored customer experience which is highly individualized, focused products and completely customized services providing buy-anywhere, collect-anywhere, return-anywhere capabilities via flexible channels. Another secret of the trendsetters is expanding the ecosystem and leveraging technology to access and share data, while managing cyber-security risk. Engaging proactively with strategic partners, including third-party partners and digital start-ups will help you to jumpstart innovative, value-enhancing capabilities. Thus, with a totally different approach, we can transform our supply chains into superfast, digitally disruptive, hyper-flexible and highly collaborative enablers of superior customer service and profitable enterprise growth; this is the secret behind the most successful Supply Chain. To highlight some of such top performers, we’ve come up with this edition “The 10 Most Innovative Supply Chain Providers 2018”. Editor’s Note
  • 5. On the cover of this issue, we’ve depicted LynnCo Supply Chain Solutions, one of the world’s premiere consulting and operational partners for supply chain excellence. LynnCo’s pursuit of innovating supply chain solutions is enlightened through study of the increasing relevance of supply chain in global economies. Its resolve to innovate supply chain solutions that trigger 3-5x growth levers, leading to better operating margins, with less inventory days, and increased working capital is strengthened by its heritage with Fritz Companies, founded by Mr Lynn Fritz and one of the world’s largest freight forwarding firms spanning thirty years serving more than 120 countries throughout the world before it became the backbone of UPS today. Recognizing that the industry lagged technological adoption and global synergy, LynnCo was formed with the vision of pioneering a new model in which worldwide service could be achieved more efficiently and effectively through a centralized enterprise empowered by supply chain rigor and methodology. Following the Cover Story, we’ve enlisted those companies which are providing innovative and digitized solutions to rejuvenate supply chain. The companies we’ve featured are: Crowdz, a pioneering Silicon Valley start-up, builds digitized, blockchain-based supply-chain networks designed to enhance the speed, efficiency, and financial performance of global supply chains; Gravity, Offering End-to-End Seamless Supply Chain Visibility and Execution; SurePromise, A Bridge Linking Business to Global Leagues; Bossard, a company headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, which is among the market leaders in fastening technology in Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific; Elite Transit Solutions, who provides highly competitive rates, while capitalizing on pro-activity and attention to detail-- all while being as transparent as possible with our customers; GoFrugal Technologies, a Digital first, Product first company whose sole purpose is of empowering traders, merchants & business into higher levels of efficiency & profitability. Other companies in the list are, respectively, Stowga, the on-demand marketplace for buying and selling warehousing and logistics services; Tive, who helps companies take surprises out of their supply chain using cellular-connected trackers and cloud software to track goods in transit; and Zencargo, who is a digital first freight forwarder & logistics provider. This platform allows customers to book, manage and keep track of their international freight as well as use analytics to drive intelligent supply chain decisions that help their businesses thrive. We’ve also featured special articles Expert’s Insight: Challenges and Risks in adopting Digital Disruption and Tech-talk: Top 5 Email Security Threats; and Maestro’s Perspective: Choosing the Right Translator for Internationalization. While leafing through the magazine, don’t miss out on articles from our Editor’s Desk: Chatbots: A Dynamic digital gesture for Creative Entrepreneurs; Buzz-of-Drone: Drone Technology The next Big Disruptor Exhilarating Industry Giants and Insights’ Perspective: Leadership Shadow. Browse through and enjoy the read! Upama Goswami Upama Goswami
  • 6. COVER STORY 16 26 36 CXO Expert’s Column Challenges and Risks in adopting Digital Disruption Tech-Talk Top 5 Email Security Threats Maestro’s Perspective Choosing the Right Translator for Internationalization 08 LYNNCO SUPPLY CHAIN SOLUTIONS ILLUMINATING THE SUCCESS OF SUPPLY CHAIN
  • 7. Contents ARTICLES Crowdz: Accelerating the Supply Chain Offering End-to -End Seamless Supply Chain Visibility & Execution Gravity: SurePromise: A Bridge Linking Business to Global Leagues Buzz- of- Drone Drone Technology: The Next Big Disruptor Exhilarating Industry Giants 30 40 20 22 32 42 Insights’ Perspective Leadership Shadow: Fading the dark into light Editor’s Desk Chatbots: A Dynamic Digital Gesture for Creative Entrepreneurs
  • 8.
  • 9. sales@insightssuccess.com Corporate Ofces: August, 2018 Database Management Stella Andrew Technology Consultant David Stokes Circulation Manager Robert, Tanaji Research Analyst Chidiebere Moses Sophie Smith, Jim Williams Judy Kent Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Anish MillerSenior Editor Executive Editor Upama Goswami Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Associate Designer Visualiser David King Senior Sales Manager Passi D. Business Development Executives Marketing Manager John Matthew Managing Editor Suhel Mashayak Contributors Ashwini Deshmukh Rahul Niraj Art & Picture Editor BelinPaul Co-designer Asha Bange KhannaJayant Peter CollinsBusiness Development Manager Sales Executives David, Kevin, Mark, Vijay SME-SMO Executives Prashant Chevale, Uma Dhenge, Gemson, Irfan Online Marketing Strategist Alina Sege, Shubham Mahadik, Vaibhav K Digital Marketing Manager Marry D’Souza Technical Specialist Amar, Pratiksha Technical Head Jacob Smile Copyright © 2018 Insights Success, All rights reserved. The content and images used in this magazine should not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Insights Success. Reprint rights remain solely with Insights Success. Follow us on : www.facebook.com/insightssuccess/ https://twitter.com/insightssuccess We are also available on : Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.com Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. Off. No. 513 & 510, 5th Flr., Rainbow Plaza, Shivar Chowk, Pimple Saudagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411017 Phone - India: +91 7410079881/ 82/ 83/ 84/ 85 Email: info@insightssuccess.in For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.in Savita Pandav, Shweta Shinde
  • 11. LYNNCO SUPPLY CHAIN SOLUTIONS ILLUMINATING THE SUCCESS OF SUPPLY CHAIN LynnCo has become recognized as a marquee provider of profoundly impactful global supply chain solutions in niche markets MOST INNOVATIVE SCMSOLUTION PROVIDERS 2018 10T H E
  • 12. S upply chain performance is inextricably linked to the success of business today. With intensifying consumer demands in an era of rapid technological advancements, diligence to supply chain management is quickly becoming one of the most important business disciplines to master. Despite supply chain costs typically being the second largest expense in organizations today, it is commonly undiagnosed as a key success lever to scalable, profitable business. Because it has tentacles in nearly every operative function within a company, it frequently lacks a single owner with centralized controls and visibility. And with no one line item on a financial statement identifying it, the supply chain’s quantifiable benefit is often buried in the details. Portraying the Visionary Leader LynnCo is one of the world’s premiere consulting and operational partners for supply chain excellence. LynnCo’s pursuit of innovating supply chain solutions is enlightened through study of the increasing relevance of supply chain in global economies. It’s resolve to innovate supply chain solutions that trigger 3-5x growth levers, leading to better operating margins, with less inventory days, and increased working capital is strengthened by its heritage with Fritz Companies. Founded by Mr. Lynn Fritz and one of the world’s largest freight forwarding firms, Fritz Companies spanned thirty years serving more than 120 countries throughout the world before it became the backbone of UPS today. Recognizing that the industry lagged technological adoption and global synergy, LynnCo was formed with the vision of pioneering a new model in which worldwide service could be achieved more efficiently and effectively through a centralized enterprise empowered by supply chain rigor and methodology. With more than twenty years innovating solutions and applying best practices through technological advancements, LynnCo helps clients transform legacy supply chains to meet the evolutionary demands of consumerism and growth investments. Its proven success designing and operating highly impactful supply chain strategies tailored to meet the unique needs of its clients generates profound financial and operational efficiencies that accelerate value. LynnCo is redefining the category of supply chain with strategic and custom operating solutions that radically leapfrog conventional methods
  • 13.
  • 14. A Supply Chain that Adds Value According to Ms. Wendy Buxton, President of LynnCo, to be a value-add supply chain partner today requires diligence to four salient mantras: 1. Be Patiently and Politely Persistent – supply chain demands are evolving faster than ever and organizations are struggling to continually align their strategies. Supply chain partners should be problem solvers taking the time to identify the root of their clients supply chain challenges and with the patience to help them change practices that are often deep rooted within their organization. 2. The Power of 3 – There is an incessant tug of war between Price, Velocity, and Quality. The legacy adage that you can achieve only 2 of the 3 at any one time is no longer valid. Consumers today not just want, but expect, all three. Strategizing around these three imperatives to create a well-balanced supply chain allows for a win-win between consumers and the organizations servicing them. 3. Always Innovate – Innovation is not only about creating the “cool factor”. For supply chains, it means solving for specific challenges that have real impact and leveraging technology to advance efficiencies and cost benefits for their customers. Innovation is not an episodic event but, instead, core to the methodology of a robust supply chain management strategy and the organizational ethos. In order to compete in the future market, organization today must create time and space within their organizations to ideate and innovate around supply chain. Beneficial Solutions for Client Having served in the IT industry for moguls like TV Guide and originally hired into LynnCo as the Chief Information Officer, President Wendy Buxton, was given the charter of forging LynnCo’s path of enabling small to mid-size clients with a powerful, adaptive supply chain technology platform. Within two years of beginning this journey, LynnCo launched its first version of its proprietary SuiteEdge® mini supply chain ERP platform, fully web-hosted and adoption light. LynnCo is most impactful helping companies connect the dots through supply chain solutions designed to deliver collaborative methodologies, intelligent analytics, laser metrics, and visual reporting through its innovative technology application and interwoven best practices. These innovative supply chain solutions allow its clients to be responsive to market volatility and fast changing consumer demands with agility and scalability. LynnCo’s success is driven by referral only growth and its value is best demonstrated through its library of success stories. One of LynnCo’s clients had issues with high-value product being delivered damaged on a regular basis - jeopardizing their brand reputation and quest to gain market share. With the product having traversed the globe through multiple handling points throughout the delivery chain, it was imperative to capture when and how the damage occurred. LynnCo deployed a pioneering IoT device within each crated product that monitored shock resistance and geo-tracking. This device was configured to alert LynnCo’s Supply Chain Center of Excellence at the precise moment and location of damage occurrence. LynnCo then interceded recovering the product and resolving the damage- greatly improving our clients customer satisfaction.
  • 15. 4. Jump on the Digital Bandwagon – the need for mobility and visibility continues to rise generating momentum around digital transformation. Collaboration and transparency between the many moving functions within a supply chain is a necessity to delivering to today’s consumers with a high rate of satisfaction at a competitive, profitable price. Join the race or be left behind. A Trusted Journey Complex supply chains require a deep competency around the practical application of supply chain best practices versus shallow competency around many things. Many companies are faced with the challenge of transforming traditional brick and mortar distribution strategies to e-commerce strategies that localize proximity to key markets with direct purchase to consumer order to delivery strategies. This requires an organization to look at many facets of the supply chain including distribution network re-design, purchasing policies, inventory optimization, operational efficiencies, and logistics strategies. LynnCo is unique in that it transforms supply chains through innovative design and engineering strategies while putting into operation the advised solutions. Its clients gain clarity around supply chain optimization strategies and can partner with a trusted advisor and operator that has a proven history of delivering a high performing supply chain that is scalable and resilient. The Future Sketch LynnCo’s evolutionary roadmap has always been self-suggestive through the voice of their clients while gauging market and economic trends. “We will continue to invent solutions that apply best practices through technological advancements. Our supply chain solutions will solve specific clients’ needs that ultimately align growth strategies and accelerate value. Look for LynnCo to continue to heavily invest in data governance, intelligence, and analytics to forge innovation paths that achieve the profound results that have earned us the reputation as a marquee supply chain management provider within emerging growth markets.”, asserts Ms. Buxton. Some consult. Others execute. At LynnCo, we do both.
  • 16. Address : Country :City : State : Zip : Global Subscription Date : Check should be drawn in favor of : INSIGHTS SUCCESS MEDIA TECH LLC Never Miss an Issue Yes, I would like to subscribe to Insights Success Magazine. Name : 1 Year.......... $250.00(12 Issues) .... 6 Months ..... (06 Issues) ..... $130.00 3 Months ... (03 Issues) .... $70.00 1 Month ...... (01 Issue) ..... $25.00 Telephone : Email : Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754,(302)-319-9947 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription : www.insightssuccess.com SUBSCRIBE TODAY CORPORATE OFFICE
  • 17. ManagementCompany Name Bossard bossard.com Steen Hansen President & CEO The company headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, is among the market leaders in fastening technology in Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific. Crowdz crowdz.io Payson Johnston President & CEO The B-Commerce Company™, Crowdz is the creator of the world’s first blockchain-based B2B ecommerce marketplace, who automates product search & sourcing, accelerates commercial transactions, and streamlines predictive-data analytics in ways never before possible. Elite Transit Solutions elitetransit.com Michael Johnson President & CEO GoFrugal Technologies gofrugal.com Kumar Vembu CEO GoFrugal is a Digital first, Product first company whose sole purpose is of empowering traders, merchants & business into higher levels of efficiency & profitability. Lynnco lynnco-scs.com Wendy Buxton President LynnCo Supply Chain Solutions is a firm that enhances performance of complex supply chains. Stowga stowga.com Charlie Pool CEO Stowga is the on-demand marketplace for buying and selling warehousing and logistics services. Sure Promise surepromise.com Angus Chan Founder & CEO Manufacturers are seeking new growth opportunities presented by e-commerce, while online retailers are constantly looking to grow their product offerings. SurePromise’s user-friendly B2B marketplace bridges online retailers with manufacturers, automates product photo and description listings, eliminates inventory risks, and oversees delivery of the products to the end customers, thus enabling online retailers to realize cost savings and focus on top-line revenue growth. Tive tive.co Krenar Komoni Founder & CEO zencargo zencargo.com Alex Hersham Co-founder & CEO Zencargo is a digital first freight forwarder & logistics provider. This platform allows customers to book, manage and keep track of their international freight as well as use analytics to drive intelligent supply chain decisions that help their businesses thrive. ELITE provides highly competitive rates, while capitalizing on pro-activity and attention to detail...all while being as transparent as possible with our customers. Tive helps companies take surprises out of their supply chain using cellular-connected trackers and cloud software to track goods in transit Gravity gravitysupplychain.com Graham Parker Co-founder & CEO Darren Palfrey Co-founder & COO Gravity Supply chain brings people and process together with amazing connectivity, accessibility and easy to use features. Brief MOST INNOVATIVE SCMSOLUTION PROVIDERS 2018 10T H E
  • 18. David Cahn is Global VP of Marketing for Elemica, the leading provider of a Digital Supply Network for process manufacturers. ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Cahn Global VP of Marketing Elemica |August 2018|16
  • 19. Technological innovation is happening at a faster rate than ever before, causing digital disruptions for many businesses. A digital disruption is a transformation that is caused by emerging digital technologies and business models. These innovative new technologies and models can impact the value of existing products and services offered in the industry, actually disrupting the current market and causing businesses to re- evaluate their competitive advantage. Ignoring digital disruptions can impact businesses. Remember Polaroid? The company led the market with its cameras that created instant pictures. Yet in 2001, the Polaroid Corporation filed for federal bankruptcy protection because the company failed to make the smooth transition from analog to digital cameras. The corporation decided to bet on their past innovations and, as a result, lost to companies who jumped on the digital bandwagon. By keeping abreast of changes in demand, businesses can follow the trends and adjust their strategies to embrace these changes, which will help them to thrive and grow profits. Today’s digital disruptors are companies like Amazon and Uber, who use technologies to out maneuver the competition and build growth. Disruptors can be startup companies or long-established businesses. A wait-and-see attitude will not give a business sufficient time to make a comeback when the disruptor begins to dominate the industry. Companies must continuously reinvent their business using digital disruptive technology or watch from the sidelines while they lose market share. Yet, many businesses still struggle with acceptance, and others don't know where to start the journey. Accepting Digital Disruption Digital disruption is fueled by next generation technology, such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, the Internet of Things and software-enabled platforms that tie all these technologies together. C-level executives understand that any industry can be profoundly affected by digital disruption and no one can afford to ignore the threat. In other words, digital disruption rewrites the rules of business. Digital disruption begins with acceptance of digital transformation using digital technologies within operations and ecosystems. Today’s technology allows all business stakeholders to share a single network, connecting and collaborating on supply chain operations from one end of the enterprise to the other. Each trading partner has access to information generated through the network in order to gain visibility to all aspects of production, procurement, transportation and distribution. With the proper information, executives can make qualified decisions that drive improvements in the business. Accepting digital disruptions within the enterprise means the business is no longer worried by the disruption and CHALLENGESCHALLENGES & RISKS IN ADOPTING DIGITAL DISRUPTIONDIGITAL DISRUPTION |August 2018| 17 Expert’s Column
  • 20. instead leverages strategic planning and technologies to drive the business. Disruption is accepted into the culture of the organization so innovation is a day-to-day experience. Instead of concern, the business will be better able to sense and respond to changes in demand and disruptions to mitigate any risk. Often a business has to decide whether to respond to the digital disruption or not. While it is not conducive to ignore the disruption, businesses may not always have to respond. Instead, the business can complement the disruption by adding value to it. An example would be to create technologies that augment the disruption, such as software (added value) for an iPhone (disruptor). Beginning a Digital Transformation Journey To start the journey, management needs to design a strategy for digital transformation that involves people, processes and partners. The strategy should be broken down into process steps that contain material, information and people flow. Each employee knows that the product moves from process A to process B in a specific quantity, at a specific time, to a specific location. Because of digital technologies, people have visibility into what is happening with each step, giving them the ability to uncover bottlenecks that can cause delays or poor product quality. Today’s technology allows all stakeholders to share a single network, connecting and collaborating on supply chain activities from one end of the enterprise to the other. Each trading partner has access to information generated through the network in order to gain visibility to all aspects of production, procurement, transportation and distribution. With the proper information, executives can make qualified decisions that drive improvements in the business. Digital Supply Networks (DSN) are part of a digital transformation journey, providing a technology foundation for improving inter-business processes, expanding supply chain relationships, increasing revenues and reducing operating costs. DSNs create greater opportunities by integrating suppliers, customers, and logistics service providers in various ways depending on the level of inter- business processes that are performing. One method is to connect via ERP-to-ERP integrations with high-volume suppliers and customers to streamline and automate sell-side and buy-side transactions. A second technique is through some type of portal for order capture and invoicing for inter-business automation. Finally, some leading DSNs provide email as a simple onboarding method to digitize an inter-business process without requiring supply chain partners to have any integration software. Benefits of Digital Disruptions Digital transformation helps customers know where their “stuff” is at all times, similar to the conveniences derived from mobile apps, where a taxi is ordered and the route visualized on the phone screen. Emerging next-gen end-to- end visibility applications in concert with a network of interconnected buyers, suppliers and logistics providers are enabling companies to lower working capital and operating expenses, mitigate risk and improve customer satisfaction by breaking down silos within the organization. With digital transformation, the supply chain is now a completely integrated ecosystem accessible by all stakeholders. With end-to-end visibility as the key driver for an effective supply chain improvement strategy, businesses must rely on building more collaborative relationships across their network of trading partners. Gaining end-to-end visibility across transportation processes can deliver 6% or more in transportation savings, remove the equivalent of 15 people from operating costs by improving productivity, and reduce the Cash-to-Cash cycle by 4 days or more. Digital systems gather data, which can be used for predictive analytics and machine learning to continually improve the organization. More informed decisions can be made by management. Disruptions from digital technologies can reshape markets and help with launching new products or services for less cost. With a digital transformation in the supply chain, silos dissolve and every part of the ecosystem has full visibility to what is happening from end-to-end. Supply and demand signals can travel through the network uninhibited, alerting the appropriate parties to low levels of raw materials or inventory, or seasonal spikes in demand. Because trading partners get this information in real time through the digital supply network, they can react accordingly. Digital disruptions from digital transformations will results into huge gains in customer satisfaction, profits and efficiencies. |August 2018|18
  • 21.
  • 22. CROWDZ Accelerating the Supply Chain C rowdz, a pioneering Silicon Valley startup, builds digitized, blockchain-based supply-chain networks designed to enhance the speed, efficiency, and financial performance of global supply chains. In the process, Crowdz also facilitates the selling of invoices and purchase orders, allowing small & midsize enterprises (SMEs)—which account for more than 70% of the participants in global supply chains—to get paid earlier than they otherwise would in order to keep the cash flowing at the best rates possible. The Supply Chain Challenge From the start, Crowdz recognized that global supply chains currently face three major challenges: • Speed. More than two decades after the emergence of the Internet and ecommerce, 77% of global supply-chain transactions continue to be executed via antiquated, highly manual means, such as paper catalogs, paper forms, sales representatives, fax transmissions, email, electronic data interchange (EDI), and so on. The use of these methods can cause delays of days, weeks, or even months in the processing of orders and the settlement of financial transfers. • Efficiency. The use of these same, highly manual techniques imposes huge inefficiencies on global supply-chain operations. Today, in the nearly $25 trillion global B2B commerce market, these inefficiencies result in at least $4 trillion in lost sales and added costs—each year. • Financial performance. With supply chains, SMEs typically must sell their products on a delayed-payment basis via invoicing, which can result in delays in payments to SMEs of up to 120 days or more. Without steady, ongoing cashflow, many of these SMEs can't survive, and up to half ultimately cease operating, causing supply-chain interruptions, lost sales, and frequent costly searches for alternative suppliers. The Role of Supply Chain Financing The last of these three challenges bears emphasis. The most common answer to the financial difficulties just described is supply-chain financing (SCF). With SCF, banks or other investors purchase SMEs’ invoices, giving the SMEs cash for their invoices almost immediately, less a discount on. Later, the SMEs reimburse the funding entity when their customers pay. The potential global market for SCF is immense, estimated at $9 trillion. Despite the potential, however, only a small minority of SMEs now benefit from SCF because: • Only a few of the enterprise-headed supply chains that SMEs belong to provide SCF financing. • Banks usually buy invoices only valued at $500K+, which shuts out most lower-invoice-value SMEs. • When SMEs do have access to SCF, the rates are punishingly high (~4-6%/month, or 45%+ annually). • Newer peer-to-peer networks are limited by the fact that they must buy invoices on a one-off basis and then need to individually match funders to invoice sellers—practices that are not well-suited to enterprise supply chains, which demand more consistency and predictability. The Crowdz Solution Crowdz solves the supply chain’s operational and financing challenges by creating automated, fully digitized supply chains. The Crowdz solution is unique among contemporary supply-chain financing (SCF) applications, which consist largely of standalone financing vehicles. Crowdz, by contrast, is an entire supply-chain ecosystem, which brings product buyers and sellers as well as invoice |August 2018|20
  • 23. Sale more, sale faster, with Crowdz “ “buyers and sellers together onto the most efficient global supply-chain platform ever created, as follows: • Crowdz fully digitizes the B2B buy/sell process via automated supply-chain product marketplaces that use artificial intelligence and advanced search technologies to accelerate the buying and selling of products, matching buyers to the most suitable sellers, while originating risk-rated invoices and purchase orders that are pre-configured for investor financing. • Crowdz digitizes the invoices and other paperwork that flow from this buy/sell process, then places them on the Ethereum blockchain, where they are consolidated, transformed into digital smart contracts, and instantly transported to and from all transacting parties. • Crowdz then automatically posts fundable invoices on the Crowdz invoice-auction exchange, where banks and other investors can bid on risk-rated (and ultimately packaged) invoices and purchase orders, enabling suppliers to receive instant, discounted cash payments for the value of their receivables. Techstars and Barclays Each year, Barclays—one of the world’s pre-eminent financial institutions—works with a number of innovative startups during its London-based Accelerator program powered by Techstars. The 13-week journey that begins each February gives some of the world’s most cutting-edge financial-technology (fintech) firms access to Barclays’ 328 years of financial expertise. It’s a collaborative process in which brilliant ideas can become problem-solving innovations with mass-market appeal. The company that Barclaycard Payment Solutions sponsored during its most recent Accelerator is Crowdz. First and foremost, Barclays points out, Crowdz’s online product marketplaces connect businesses seamlessly and digitally—moving the entire procurement process online. The Crowdz solution also makes it much easier to find suppliers and to sell to other businesses. And, as part of this process, documents are digitized and placed on the Ethereum blockchain, meaning that transactions that used to take months can happen in milliseconds—the ultimate acceleration of the supply chain. Payson Johnston is the CEO and Co-Founder of Crowdz. With 20 years’ senior-level supply-chain management experience, he served most recently as Senior Manager for Global Supplier Management for Cisco, the global networking giant. Among other responsibilities in this position, he developed and drove the commodity strategies for five global supply chains. He also designed one of the first-ever online supply-chain management systems, which is still in use today. More recently, he oversaw the creation of the first-ever blockchain-based supply-chain marketplace for processed raw materials. Payson worked at the University of San Francisco as an Adjunct Professor and, recently, as an Instructor at the University of California, Berkeley Extension on the topics of sustainability and ethics, supply chains, risk management, and marketing channels. Payson holds an MBA from the University of San Francisco and an MA from the University of Nottingham. THE IDEAL LEADER FOR THIS CHALLENGE Payson Johnston CEO & Co-founder MOST INNOVATIVE SCMSOLUTION PROVIDERS 2018 10T H E |August 2018| 21
  • 24. DRONE TECHNOLOGY The Next Big Disruptor Exhilarating Industry Giants Drone technology has become the latest buzz word these days and has generated immense rapture in the industry, especially among e-commerce companies, the promise of efficient inventory management and speedy delivery - fueling the growth of drone technology in logistics and transportation sector. The economic and process benefit of optimizing logistical operations thus triggering giants of the industries like Amazon, DHL, UPS among other to explore an alternative way for delivering a product and managing inventory in large warehouses without the direct use of trucks and humans. Drone for Warehouse Inventory Management Cycle counting, stock counting, and inventory management are an integral and vital part of warehouse management. Inefficiency, inaccuracy in these operations can cause any business a loss in terms of revenue. According to sources, retailers lose $45Billion worth of inventory every year due to returned goods, stolen merchandise, and misplaced packages. In the past, Walmart lost close to $3Billion due to inconsistencies between inventory data and actual stock. Thus scanning and feeding precise information in the databases is crucial for any businesses to sustain long. But this is the area where warehouse managers find challenges. To scan a commodity in a warehouse that is larger than 19 Football field is not an easy task for a human. And this is only the size of Walmart’s one of the smallest warehouses. Now you can imagine how cumbersome for a human to keep track of the inventory records in one of the largest and biggest warehouse in the world- Boeing Everett Factory in Everett which comprises of 4.3 million square feet of total area. For a human to scan the barcode of varied commodities in such a gigantic area that also not only in horizontal but many feet’s vertical space as well are somehow tedious and cumbersome which lead to inconsistencies and consume lot of time as well. Now researchers have come up with a solution for inventory management problem in the form of RFID readable Drone. Identifying product location, stock counting, and inventory management among other can be done much faster and with negligible inconsistency with RFID readable drone as compared with humans. The task which generally needs three days to complete a stock counting job by a team of eighty people with handheld scanners and forklift trucks can be completed in just two days with the help of a single drone. This scale of a consistent result in a time-saving manner is the need of the hour as the number of e-commerce products, websites, mobile users are growing at a rapid pace and these only expand the size of future warehouses on a positive curve. The drones have been equipped to read RFID tags from tens of meters away while identifying the tags' locations. The equipped drone system has the capacity to be used in large warehouses in order to prevent inventory mismatches and locate individual items. Drones thus prove to a great boost in terms of accuracy and speed. This RFID readable drone technology invented in the labs of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and it could save retailers billions lost through faulty inventory records. Challenges? Yes!! But Delivery based on Drones Seems Inevitable in Future ‘Speed of delivery’ is a vital part in any supply chain management process and depends upon the gravity of traffic on road. Growing world population and rapid urbanization of people will lead to more road congestion, more air pollution and thus increase the average transportation time required to reach a destination. Delay in the transportation of products thus making service providers wary about the future. This is the reason many e-commerce and other |August 2018|22
  • 25. service providers are looking for drone technology as a viable option for delivery. In the future, Companies which promises faster delivery of the same products tends to attract more consumers over their competitors. This is the reason many companies are investing heavily in drone technology and even have tested successful trial run. In 2013, Deutsche Post AG subsidiary DHL successfully delivered a sub-kilogram quantity of medicine via a prototype Micro drones “Parcelcopter.” DHL Parcelcopter already in use in Germany. Amazon is working on a few drone prototypes, which could fly at a speed of 50 miles per hour and could carry 5-pound packages which account for 90% of the retailer's packages. In February 2015, China-based e-commerce giant Ali Baba started delivering products through drone services around some prominent cities in China. China-based JD.com has successfully tested seven different types of drone’s delivery systems across four of their prominent provinces-Beijing, Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Jiangsu. Their drones can transport between 5 and 30Kg and can fly up to the speed of 100Km/hr. The giant is now working on a 1 metric ton (1000Kg) delivery drone. Although the use of the drone is seeming inevitable but it raises some genuine concerns as well. Concerns related to public safety, air traffic congestion, drone pilot’s eligibility and responsibilities, privacy of individuals (as drone can capture images of individuals while flying over). Apart from these, how far a drone can deliver? How much bulky items could it be allowed? Which regulatory body will govern the operations of drone? These are some of the eminent questions and concerns that need to be addressed in order to transform this dream of drone delivery into reality. Thus, to make positive inroads in drone delivery, the US has framed few guidelines that can be seen as a positive signal towards this dream. In the United States initial attempts at commercial use of UAVs were blocked by FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) but in 2016, FAA frames new guidelines for the commercial use of a drone. FAA allowed the drone to carry weight up to 25Kg, can fly up to the maximum of 400 feet with a max speed of 160Km/hr. It is allowed only in daytime and that drone operator must also qualify for flying certificates and be at least 16-years old. With all these positive testing’s, trial runs, investments and law framework, it seems, Drone will pass the test with time and its commercial usage at large scale might get delayed but its usage will be inevitable. It is expected that due to increasing awareness and understanding of drone technology, its market share will cross $9 Billion with over 15 Million unit shipments by 2024. |August 2018| 23 Buzz- of- Drone
  • 26.
  • 27.
  • 28. Top 5EmailSecurity Threats Nearly 95 percent of all successful attacks on enterprise networks targeted organization’s users through email. With the industry of cybersecurity evolving so rapidly, hackers are consistently changing their tactics, keeping it almost impossible to keep up with. With today’s growing security landscape, email threats are one of the most common strategies utilized by cyber criminals. What started off with spam emails sent to your junk folder, has evolved to a more robust tactic to deliver destructive content straight to your inbox. Here are the top five email security threats that we’ve seen so far this year: Emotet Banking Trojan Emotet is an advanced, modular banking Trojan that primarily focuses as a downloader or dropper of other banking Trojans and continues to be among the most costly and destructive malware affecting governments, private and public sectors. Emotet can evade most signature-based detections, and because it is Virtual Machine aware, it generates false indicators when ran in a sandbox. Additionally, Emotet has several methods for maintaining persistence, including auto-start registry keys and services as well as Dynamic Link Libraries to continuously update and evolve its capabilities. Initial infection of this malware occurs when a user opens or clicks a malicious download link, PDF, or macro-enabled Microsoft Word document included in the malspam. Once downloaded, Emotet establishes persistence and attempts to propagate local networks through one of its incorporated spreader modules. The negative consequences from an Emotet infection can be temporary or permanent loss of sensitive proprietary information, disruption of regular operations, financial losses incurred to restore systems and files, and potential harm to an organizations reputation. Ursnif Banking Malware A new version of the infamous banking Trojan Ursnif made its appearance again earlier this year in June. This malware is well known in the cyber security community and was the most active malware code in the financial sector from the end of 2016 into early 2017. This malware is capable of stealing users' credentials, credentials for local webmail, cloud storage, cryptocurrency exchange platforms and e- commerce sites. Once Ursnif infects a new machine it will attempt to spread to other users in the address book of the compromised email accounts. It tricks the victim into opening the malicious email because the message is presented as the reply to an existing conversation conducted by the victim in the past. For example, if you receive an email that was a replay to a previous conversation from a while back, you can look at the “To:” field in the email and see if it's replied to a large number of unsuspecting users. Another feature about this malware is its ability to keep track of company names and title the malicious document “VICTIM_COMPANY_.doc” in order to look legitimate. Once the victim clicks enable macros, the second step of the infection process begins, which launches a malicious |August 2018|26
  • 29. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Shawn Pope is the Cyber Security Engineer of Nuspire Networks, a state-of-the-science managed network security provider for some of the largest and most distinctive companies around the world. script that downloads and executes a payload from a server controlled by the attackers. Once installed, Ursnif can operate without being noticed by both the user and the operating system. Extortion Campaign Extortion campaigns have been around for quite some time but there was one that was in full swing across the globe that used a clever twist to trick unsuspecting users into paying a ransom. The attacker for this extortion campaign claims to have installed malware on your system and has also used your webcam to record you watching porn. The attacker then goes on to threaten the release of this video to everyone in your contacts unless you pay the Bitcoin ransom. The basic premise of this type of extortion attempt has been around for quite some time, but the addition of the Username/Password combination in the subject line has unsuspecting users worried. While researching this campaign, Nuspire’s Security Analytics Team (SAT) came across multiple different counts of affected users claiming the Username/Password combination was something they had used eight years ago. In this case, the attacker has somewhat automated the attack to create a script that pulls directly from usernames and passwords of a given data breach that happened eight years ago. Therefore, every victim who had their password compromised as part of that breach, is now getting this same email at the address they used to sign up for the hacked website. Hopefully, if you were affected by that data breach you updated your username/password combination. Granted, the people who didn't bother changing this information, this attack directly affects them, but rest assured this attacker doesn’t have a recording of you that they plan to send out to your contacts. It is merely scare tactics to make some easy money, and upon investigation of multiple Bitcoin addresses associated with this campaign, the attacker was indeed making easy money. This attack could evolve in the future and use more up to date data breaches which in turn could scare more users into paying the ransom, so be on the lookout. GandCrab Ransomware GandCrab holds the top spot in ransomware, partly because it’s used by the Magnitude botnet. Although GandCrab is usually spread via spam email, it has recently been distributed via compromised websites and is now Shawn Pope Cyber Security Engineer |August 2018| 27 Tech-Talk
  • 30. appending the .KRAB extension to the encrypted files. Towards the end of April 2018 a campaign with the subject line “Your Order #{Random Digits}” was circulating. There is limited content in the body of the email and has an attached ZIP file which includes a Word document that contains malicious macros that download and execute GandCrab ransomware. GandCrab is under constant development where new versions are consistently being released at an aggressive pace. Its basic functionality is well document and does the same typical things ransomware does, including encrypting files with the. KRAB extension, changing the user’s background, and leveraging Tor for communications. One of the interesting elements of Gandcrab is its use of namecoin domains for Command and Control (C2) communication. These are easily identified by the .bit top level domain (TLD). Since attackers rely heavily on Tor and namecoin domains to help evade identification, it is a no brainer for them to use a decentralized DNS service that does not rely on central authority. This also increases the difficulty of having domains shut down and identifying those that are potentially behind them. Phishing By the end of Q2 2018 Microsoft had taken over the top spot from Facebook for the number one target of corporate phishing attacks. Reason being, it’s highly profitable for hackers to compromise an Office 365 account. Hackers see email-based attacks as an easy entry point into data, files, and contacts from other Office 365 apps, including SharePoint, OneDrive, Skype, Excel, and CRM. We see all different types of Phishing attempts from quite possibly the worst attempts to exact replicas of a legitimate Office 365 login page. Unfortunately, Phishing will always exist and can slip through the gaps in email filtering due to the fact that new domains/URLs are popping up every day to host fake login pages. This is where user awareness training is extremely important. Educate your users, roll out training exercises where employees with fake Phishing emails and see who clicks on them and who doesn’t. Because Phishing has become so popular, education will pay off in the long run. Solutions Aside from training and educating employees on malware, and ransomware that might come in through a user’s email, there are a few other solutions to take into consideration that can prevent these attacks from entering your network. 1. Use antivirus programs with behavior and heuristic detection capabilities, with automatic updates of signatures and software on clients and servers. 2. Implement a spam filter to filter out known malspam indicators such as malicious subject lines, and block suspicious and blacklisted Ips. 3. Mark external emails with a banner denoting it is from an external source, this will assist users in detecting spoofed emails. 4. Implement a block policy for file attachments that are commonly associated with malware such as .dll, and .exe, and attachments that cannot be scanned by antivirus such a .zip files. 5. Implement Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC), a validation system that minimizes spam email by detecting email spoofing using Domain Name System (DNS) records and digital signatures. 6. Implement a solution that can send the unknown/suspicious files to the sandbox for further investigation and analysis. 7. And most importantly employee training on social engineering and phishing. Urge employees not to open suspicious emails, click links contained in such emails, or post sensitive information online. |August 2018|28
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  • 32. GRAVITY SUPPLY CHAIN Aclear shift has become obvious in the way the SCM Solution industry is looking at the value it delivers. The focus is no longer on the technical aspects of the solution (i.e. what it does), but instead on the outcome the solution delivers for a business e.g. increased speed, higher visibility, reduced costs, more informed decision making. Gravity Supply Chain is a Supply Chain management technology provider which supports retail and manufacturing organisations with their digital transformation agendas by seamlessly connecting their global end-to-end operations, supplier base and logistics network on a single platform that provides easy management and real time visibility. By leveraging modern cloud, automation, machine learning, big data, IoT, mobility and user experience capabilities, users of Gravity are seeing their supply chain become a competitive advantage as the world shifts to a fully digital economy era. Offerings and Solutions from Gravity Gravity’s product offering for retailers and manufacturers is modular so they can pick and choose what solution works best for their business. Not all companies are ready to digitize their entire supply chain all at once. This modular approach allows organizations to focus on one area of the critical path and build out from there. The modular solutions of Gravity include: Source - a real-time collaborative product lifecycle management software, which automates tedious manual tasks, and enables buying and merchandising teams to quickly find product and vendor data in one place, rather than spread across multiple spread sheets or documents. Purchase Order Management (POM) – real-time order management, vendor management and logistics visibility. The POM solution connects suppliers and logistics providers through a single platform for a business wide view of an organisation's operations from Purchase Order to Destination. End to End Supply Chain Management - combining Source and POM enables businesses to achieve a real-time view of their end to end operations, allowing them to make faster decisions on product procurement and delivery. Distinguishing Features Gravity is very much led by the fact that its SCM technology platform is actually not the solution, but is an enabler to the end-result. This is often greater than just the sum of the real-time visibility the company delivers, but is centred on developing a supply chain solution that helps organizations take advantage of the opportunities that exist with a customer-centric approach. This particular mind set leads the company to a couple of approaches that make its solutions stand out in the market. First, Gravity doesn’t follow the ‘one-size-fits-all’ philosophy. Supply chains are unique or they differ for every customer, however customers should also not have to pay for bespoke solutions. That is why baked into Gravity’s technology is the ability to configure the solutions to match the differences in their customers’ operations. Second, data is available in huge quantities these days and is easily accessible. Gravity’s solution comes with out-of-the-box supply chain and logistics data sets powered by its proprietary Magnet-T engine. This increases the value Offering End-to-End Seamless Supply Chain Visibility and Execution |August 2018|30
  • 33. We provide a platform that connects all the parties on the Supply Chain “ “Gravity’s customers gain from the platform, since it allows them to make smarter data-driven decisions. World-Class Customer Experience The digital supply chain today is defined by speed, agility and transparency— where the total end-to-end value created trumps a low-cost focus. By providing real time visibility and automation, Gravity paves the way for its customers to make the most of the digital supply chain. In fact, some of its manufacturing customers reduce manual tasks, such as data keying, email updates and so on by 60% by digitizing many of their processes. They have also at the same time increased their value proposition to provide their customers with visibility of their sales orders that they didn’t previously have – one manufacturer likened it to being able to deliver an ‘Amazon-like experience’ that they previously did not possess. Designing the Future The future plans of Gravity include further investment and development of the technology platform into a global trade platform connecting all processes from product ideation through to delivery to the consumer. “This is a true end to end supply chain management platform and we’ll develop it based around what we believe are the four building blocks of a real-time supply chain visibility solution – how does a supply chain watch, analyse, respond and learn - and ultimately, how can a user use this”, Graham Parker, Gravity CEO, states, “We firmly believe by providing the combination of real-time, end to end visibility, predictive insights, prescriptive actions and intelligent, automated decision support across the network, our customers’supply chain management teams will be able to minimize risk and capitalize revenue opportunities, whilst enhancing customer engagement”, concludes the visionary CEO. Graham Parker, the Co-founder and CEO of Gravity has worked extensively within the SCM sector for almost 30 years and experienced first-hand the industry issues that stem from poor data, lack of visibility and reactive partners. Along with Darren Palfrey, Co-founder and COO, he has created a platform that enables supply chain users access to real-time data with a view to incorporate both predictive and prescriptive technologies. Parker also wanted the ability for users to execute operations across the supply chain in one place, regardless of whether those users are buying and developing products, placing POs for replenishment, making goods at a factory, managing logistics at the port of origin or receiving goods at destination. And his vision has come to life with one platform connecting every player within the critical path or value chain, so retail and manufacturing executives can make real time decisions with absolute certainty. FEATURING THE DYNAMIC LEADER Graham Parker CEO & Co-founder MOST INNOVATIVE SCMSOLUTION PROVIDERS 2018 10T H E |August 2018| 31
  • 34. CHATBOTS A Dynamic Digital Gesture for Creative Entrepreneurs |August 2018|32
  • 35. The arrival of Chatbots is considered to be an incredible breakthrough in the realm of business or any kind of entrepreneurships. It is one of the smartest innovations by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) that businesses can count on. The Chatbot is a software that can be programmed to carry out a certain set of actions all by itself, like a wind-up toy, in text or spoken formats. The capability of the bots to learn from the past interactions and grow in itself, makes it more attractive and interesting. Chatbots work in two different ways. Firstly, predefined responses are given from an existing database, based on the keywords searched by customers. The smart machine based bots attract their knowledge from Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Computing and adapt their behavior based on the customer interactions. Applicability of Chatbots in Business: The applicability of these chatting bots is quite relevant in this era of digital glory. As the new tech-savvy generation of customers is always connected to the social platforms, they definitely expect a seamless and less time consuming customer experience with the brands they love. Econsultancy found in a research that 57% of customers prefer live chat to email or a phone call. There’s no surprise that consumers today are appreciating chatting or texting more than any other forms of communication. To address this priority of the customers and outgrow in this competitive business world, many business giants are adopting these virtual agents. It’s a Smart Trend for Entrepreneurial Venture: With the widespread adoption of the artificial intelligence, the human interaction and connectivity has taken a fascinating turn. This extremely sophisticated and versatile tool can be helpful in crafting any small or big business plan. Apart from being awesome in resolving customer care queries, Chatbots can be a part of an entrepreneurial strategy in many ways. That’s where the appeal of Chatbots lies. There are many different approaches to navigate this connectivity tool throughout the business venture. Let’s have a look at some of these approaches: • As every organization has a unique set of customers, the Chatbots must be programmed in accordance with customer journey. Knowing the finer details of the customer journey from A-Z, might be proved as the foundation for success. As AI is enacting a larger role in business reforms, having accurate foresight and experience is the most needed prerequisite to program the bot. • After programming the bot, it should be designed in a way that would enhance customer success by advancing them down the sales funnel. A microscopic view of the customer service and sales data always helps in this regard. One should have a good grasp on: • Which patterns and questions are asked the most? • How the responses can be programmed to answer all of them? • And most importantly, in what way all the necessary information can be provided to bring people from awareness stage to a decision? • In order to guide the customer seamlessly through the sales funnel with the help of the intelligent bot, an entrepreneur needs to put himself/herself in the shoes of the average customer and develop the bot around their path to success. • To build strong relationships with customers, another smarter way is to “humanize” the Chatbot. People generally want to buy something from other people, not from a robot. Therefore, programming responses needs to be done in a way that reflects the character and personality of the brand. The Chatbot need to be designed with a tinge of human empathy with the authentic brand voice. • Lastly, with the changing digital landscape, customer mindsets are also always in the verge of change. To stay on the top of the game, one must have to consistently analyze the data and evolve the bot accordingly. Future of Chatbots: Chatbots are currently being utilized as easy and fun ways on websites, social platforms and smartphones to assist customers in their interactions with a brand. Even if the Chatbots are still in rudimentary stage, we can expect a lot more progressions in this trend. With the gradual evolution of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning, the Chatbots will become more empowered to edify the conversational interface of businesses. Chatbots are going to get a lot |August 2018| 33 Editor’s Desk
  • 36. smarter, more intelligent and indistinguishable from a human being with the advancement of AI. However, it will definitely take some trials and errors before the chatting robots master and adopt the delicacies of polite conversation. Also, it’s quite predictable that the cost of Chatbots will eventually get cheaper as the adoption of it increases across multiple domains. An example is Facebook’s decision to let third-party applications build Chatbots in their platform has drastically lowered the price. Conclusion: It really amazes us how far technology has come up in the last several years in the digital marketing arena. However, some things will always remain the same. Even if everything gets automated in the future, nothing will minimize the appeal of optimal user experience. The bots can be used to automate a huge chunk of the marketing process, but without making the process dull and impersonal. Only then these marvels of technology will be able to make wonders. |August 2018|34
  • 38. In the 21st century, the main focus has been making the world more connected, and entrepreneurs are no exception. All entrepreneurs aim at increasing their customer base, and going international is one way to do it. To achieve this, the business world opted to merge with the technological sphere to ensure the physical boundaries from state to state are not a barrier to the exchange of goods and services. The biggest barrier to business over the years has been language. Most entrepreneurs use English on their websites, which is a huge drawback especially to the native language speaking clients. Changing the world can be an impossible task to take up, instead the business world took an adaptive approach through internationalization. Internationalization is the process whereby the producers strategize on products that are acceptable and appealing to people in as many countries as possible. In case the producers have a website, they design it in such a way that people speaking different languages can translate the content on the site to their own language. Transactions done in one’s native language are as personal as it gets. This trail of logic has been backed by studies that show 55% of clients have a preference of online shopping in their local dialect. Using their native language makes the process easier and the producer/seller becomes more trustworthy. That’s a good indication which lets us know that localization helps with business growth, but there’s more to it. Investing on an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that has the option of localizing language is of benefit to both the entrepreneur and the customers considering that 56% of clients confess to value the use of their local languages more than the price of the product itself! Coming to translations on the website, all the critical contents and documentation should be translated. To get the most accurate and honest translations one has to vet the CHOOSING the RIGHT TRANSLATOR for INTERNATIONALIZATION Rilind Elezaj Digital Marketing Specialist |August 2018|36
  • 39. translator and ensure they are familiar with the native language. Investing on the best translation services and translators will help avoid poor translations which lower the business’ level of professionalism. Even the marketing and branding should be localized depending on the culture of the setting. Some holidays and discounts may simply not make sense to the locals. With the right local specialist or translator you will know the kind of marketing and branding that works for the specific community. The specialist will come up with the best translation for the slogan, the best colors and even give tips on the peak and off-peak seasons of that particular community. To get the best translations, ensure that you have the best ERP providers who will make sure the localization details are well taken care of. To achieve all these, one has to ensure they have the best language service provider for their organization. The organization has to consider whether the translator is a native speaker or not, because it will be advantageous if they are natives so that they translate accurately. In case the materials to be translated have a specific format or subject matter that can only be handled by professionals in the area, then specialists must be hired. All translators must provide proof of relevant education or previously translated work to show they are well acquainted with the task and most important they must be within the budget. Other than the hiring issue, the organization has also to consider the number of languages the organization needs to have translated. If the languages are few and the translations minimal then they can get small language service providers like freelancers, but in case the languages are numerous, then it is advisable to use one language service provider. One service provider is also an easy and convenient contact person in doing follow ups unlike dealing with various small service providers. To maintain the brand, one translator is suitable, as all the documents will be written in different languages but in one voice unlike a variety of small service providers who will all be speaking in their different voices and in different languages, in which case the aspect of uniformity will be lost. It is advisable to use one provider who will develop a deep understanding of the business and can be a long-term translator for the organization bringing about consistency and uniformity. To ensure consistency of the multilingual platform, the organization has to ensure they choose the right web control and management solution (WCMS). WCMS enables the ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rilind Elezaj is an experienced a Digital Marketing Specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the marketing and advertising industry. Rilind possesses a strong entrepreneurial mindset and has devoted his career to enhancing the sphere of digital marketing. In his methodological approach, Rilind integrates web development and other digital marketing solutions to create hybrid strategies that bring the best results. organization to manage international websites and ensure they have the capacity to modify the content on local sites. It should also have an automated translation workflow, this will help reduce time wasted when launching new sites within the website. The minute new information is posted, it is translated to all the languages through the service providers. Pseudo-localization is another aspect to look at. Language may have a specific font of writing, or direction of writing. This is sorted out by the pseudo-localization which presents language in its most original form. A fallback location should also be put in place to go back to the original language in case the client speaks a language that is not available. All these features have been brought together to ensure the best localization experience in entrepreneurship wherever one may be and grow the business sector to the highest possible heights, internationally. |August 2018| 37 Maestro’s Perspective
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  • 42. SUREPROMISE In a competitive market such as e-commerce, organizations aim to disrupt the traditional ideas of commerce by introducing innovative models. These models connect suppliers with the online sellers through innovative supply chain platform. SurePromise Limited is one such company which brings products globally through its unique solutions. With over ten years of experience, SurePromise's marketplace specialists connect products with sellers in major e-commerce sites. SurePromise powers its operations in a real-time data analytics platform. It analyzes and optimizes every aspect of its clients business from shipping routes to product prices, that too with the surgical precision. The firm’s flexible omni-channel retailing platform allows selling of products across different marketplaces. The state-of-the-art system of the company ensures customer fulfilment and customers get their shipments on time at the lowest cost. SurePromise’s extensive experience with a variety of product categories informs its detailed quality control and packaging procedures that maximize customers’ satisfaction. Stellar Services SurePromise’s full-stack e-commerce solution will aggregate big data to provide precise sales and logistics information that includes five main aspects: Big Data and Cloud-Based Analytics Solution: Using big data aggregating multiple types of data obtained from multiple e-commerce platforms, the supplier will be able to easily identify market trends and customer preferences whether current or future. Sales and Marketing Tool: The suppliers aim to utilize this tool to recruit and manage a specialized sales team that is experienced and able to design multiple sales strategies for multiple audiences internationally. This tool would also allow for the brand creation, able to connect specific products with a specific audience based on both psychographic and demographic information gleaned from big data. Electronic Inventory Management System: This system would streamline the inventory management process and allow increased precision concerning globally inventory stocking. Enterprise Performance Management System: EPMS would also include a fully integrated CRM platform on which it will be able to connect with multiple online sellers worldwide. Logistics Management System: This tool is aimed to have the capabilities of automatically selecting the optimal logistics solutions for each individual shipment of the supplier’ products. Success Mantra: Building Relationships From the last decade, SurePromise has been amassing a solid reputation in the e-commerce industry. The key to success is the dedication towards the businesses that work with the company. The firm considers them partners, rather than simple clients. Company’s primary focus is to build a relationship. This alliance has resulted in the development of a strong and loyal partner base. It has allowed the firm to expand beyond its original interests in traditional sourcing and retailing. SurePromise now provides e-commerce solutions designed to maximize revenue and minimize wastage for its partners. This has provided the company with a unique vantage point to reinvent itself, by capitalizing on the new wave of businesses entering e-commerce. A Bridge Linking Business to Global Leagues |August 2018|40
  • 43. We transform e-commerce through technology to craft a more efficient global marketplace “ “Keeping it Short and Simple SurePromise simplifies the operations, by stating “Whatever your needs are, as a supplier, or as an online seller, SurePromise will be with you every step of the way, aligning your key strengths and existing capabilities with our powerful suite of services”. The firm cuts unnecessary steps in the supply chain and keeps inventory moving fast. Daily insights and adjustments maximize sales while preventing overselling. Consequently, both the suppliers and sellers can enjoy its first-rate analytics regarding the products to develop. For customer services that prefer localized attention, the firm’s multilingual customer service centre delivers an up-to-date and specialized help and advice in over eight major global languages to every customer’s delight. Harnessing the Disruption The firm splendidly differentiates opportunities from challenges. It aims to be adaptive to all the technological and operational changes. It also acknowledges the challenges related to the latest trends and opportunities. SurePromise is more engaged in the industry innovations that are on the rise. The corporation is flexible enough to move to a better position during the high demand. It knows storing and protecting data will aid in business running, even in ever-changing technological climate. Future Perspectives While efficiency has always been a key priority of businesses, the firm will improve its usual key of success. It will build relationships and will keep its stickiness high with user viscosity of suppliers and online sellers, which will reassure its positive cash flow. In the future, as standards, accuracy, and quality outputs are increasing, the company perceives tremendous scalability with no inventory constraints. Angus Chan, the Founder and CEO, established SurePromise as one of the first ever e-commerce supply chain platform. He founded the company when he was a college student in 2004. The notion was to ease the relationship between the manufacturer and online sellers. Since then, the firm has grown into a multimillion-dollar venture. He possesses a keen eye for future trends in business opportunities that have given SurePromise a distinct competitive advantage. Foreseeing the shift towards online shopping and position of China in the global supply chain, he has developed strong partnerships with manufacturers to build a solid B2B2C business model. Angus has led the diverse and international team at Sure Promise for over a decade now, inspiring employees and achieving growth through an open-minded yet results-driven management style. THE VISIONARY WITH STYLISH WORK ETHICS MOST INNOVATIVE SCMSOLUTION PROVIDERS 2018 10T H E Angus Chan Founder & CEO |August 2018| 41
  • 44. Leadership ShadowShadowfading the dark into light |August 2018|42
  • 45. eadership is not about individuals, it’s about the Lrelationship between a leader and his followers and that’s why Warren Bennis has said: “A leader doesn’t just get the message across; he is the message”. A Shadow is defined as a dark area where light is blocked by an opaque object. Shadow, in this case, is a metaphor and relates to the leader’s character, relationship, integrity and work ethic. Leadership is a concept that posits that leaders affect those who they lead. Leadership shadow is not a new concept, yet it has to secure its position in the world. A leader’s action, messages, words, behavior, and attitude flow into its followers directly and indirectly. A leader sometime has the most subtle indirect shadow that has the biggest impact even though it’s less visible. This shadow is one such property required by an individual to be a front runner in the corporate world. It is difficult to see, but its shape and clarity will reach everyone who follows them. A wise leader makes prudent decisions and travels the road less taken thus leaving behind the legacy that is unmatchable. Shadows, in-terms of psychology can be defined as “those untamed emotions and behavior that lie, largely unconsciously beneath the surface of our lives”. These shadows have positive and negative attributes that individuals possess but they are not aware of. Negative attributes are those hostile wounds which can sabotage someone’s success and relationship with others. Positive attributes are the survival strategies that help in coping up with negative attributes. Blown-out overall image A 2014 study found that 40% of workers would rate their bosses a ‘B’ grade for overall management skills. In a 2012 survey, workers said that their bosses misbehaved even saying that they displayed inappropriate behavior, bad language, and bullying. Few other surveys suggest that their managers are doing inadequate work. In the fast-paced, interconnected and immensely competitive world, this growing problem is increasing rapidly and causes rifts between leader and followers. The tensions that these rifts trigger are the negative shadows. Followers also ignore program and services that their manager thinks invaluable. This diminishes the possibilities of learning and development. Understanding the other side of the story Individuals work hard; and push themselves every day trying to reach the top tier of an organization. Sometimes, in ascending the ladder of success, personal and business catastrophes emerges among the co-workers. Executives have such power influences overs the others, without their own awareness. The demand and responsibilities of a job often makes bosses hard to understand the impact of their shadows. The higher they go, the responsibilities get bigger and so does the shadows. They have to get the work done which creates psychological demands. They get stuck into antisocial, workaholic and sometimes depressing states. These states complicate and make difficulties in understanding the dynamics and repercussions of the impact that their shadow generates. Sometimes these shadows go so much deep that it turns into a blind big black spot. These powerful heads have to understand that the employees not only mirror their boss but take cues after them. Mirroring boss is a safe strategy to stay healthy in the corporate world. A move, smart or dumb is accessed by everyone around the whole company. Leaders should be aware of what they say, what they prioritize and how they get the work done. By doing deficient leadership, they fail to find the inspiration and in inspiring others because of they’re even bigger getting a negative shadow. A leader also reaches the slippery point in career and starts to get comfortable into the role. At this point, a leader ignores his duties and depends upon their juniors to complete the work. Attitude towards the role Every leader should embrace his/her shadows. These contain the positive and negative experiences of life. These are the experiences that have empowered them to be someone’s boss. Embracing these shadows will give them huge relief, and more importantly, leaders should acknowledge the dark side without being afraid. They should be aware of their actions and messages both internally and externally. Accessing these sides will help them in creating their organization more humane, friendly, approachable and connected. Acknowledging weakness will surge more respect among the workers and the strengths in inspiring. Relying on others in weakness will generate the highest marks. The famous formula”E+R=O” i.e. “Events+Response=outcome” is the perfect solution of maintaining the engagements. Any leader must remember that the culture of any organization is shaped by any type of behavior if only a leader is willing to tolerate. It’s up to individuals how they want to cast their shadow on their followers and themselves on black-to-white colour spectrum. |August 2018| 43 Insights’ Perspective
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