COVID has changed how businesses used to work. From unpredictable demand to change in work culture, the pandemic is responsible for several disruptions. These are certainly unpredictable times, and businesses need to be prepared to adapt.
In this respect, organizations need to prioritize right. The most important among them is a better utilization of data and systems to keep the business running optimally.
Here are a few pointers that will help you make the most of your infrastructure and data.
Pause, Analyze, and Proceed
Take a moment to step back and analyze the situation. Consider yourself a hitter facing a pitcher in the field. The bat needs to align with where the ball pitches.
Now, think of your bat as your business, and the ball as changing market conditions due to COVID. Take a broader perspective and observe things from above to get a clearer picture.
Here are some questions that you need to ask-
● What is most important for your business right now?
● What is lacking to achieve business objectives?
● What could we change that might bring returns later?
The answers will help you replace reactionary decisions with insight-driven and information-based strategies.
Make Data Accessible
Data is best utilized when it can flow freely like a river, with its tributaries and branches. However, most organizations suffer from data silos, where stakeholders can't find or access the required data. COVID has brought increased needs to make data easy to find. Departments and teams now need to work together to keep businesses thriving more than ever.
Breaking data silos is challenging if you are still stuck in legacy. The process needs careful considerations, and well-thought plan, and incremental implementations. NeuSwyft can help you make the move towards data accessibility by migrating to cloud or fostering integration.
We can even do API-based integrations with databases for fostering business intelligence. For instance, we helped Brooks to integrate ICS POS software for inventory management & cataloguing. This helped the company to reflect real-time changes in inventory standardize over a million SKUs.
Naturally, Brooks was able to boost productivity and improve customer satisfaction. When data becomes more accessible, your employees can find the right data at the right time without any hassle.
Get In More People
COVID has created the need to get out of traditional hierarchal organizational structures. To better utilize data and systems, you need feedback from people who manage them. Forget the closed doors and involve more people in the decision-making process. Give voice to key personnel, while retaining the power to vote for the management.
This process helps you get familiar with all points of view, know what's missing, and make better decisions.
Tips:
● Let the agenda for discussion known to all
● Select a few key decision-makers
● Clarify who is allowed to speak
● Encourage everyone to contribute
Be Agile
A key principle of business success is flexibility. The need to be adaptable is more important than ever. Businesses with agile practices are turning out to be more successful in batting the disruptions than those with traditional approaches.
Agility is the capability to meet market changes by refining your products or services quickly. For example, Uber may decide to show COVID zone alerts in their maps while selecting destinations. To do this, businesses won't need to shut down or disrupt the operations if they are agile. The new feature or function can be added by writing just a line of code with independent deployment.
The DevOps experts at NeuSwyft can help you bring your devs and ops together for seamless development and delivery. Agility is what drives DevOps and makes your business resilient to changes.
Automate When Possible
Businesses around the world are getting used to working with lower staff due to COVID restrictions. The dipping demand and rising costs have also made it necessary to conserve resources. In these trying times, businesses need a solution to save labour, costs, and effort.
Automation can be the answer for reducing inefficiencies, improving productivity, lowering costs, and instilling accuracy. Automating repetitive tasks will save precious employee hours that can be spent for productive purposes.
Apart from processes, NeuSwyft can even help you automate infrastructure management. From configuration to testing, everything is done via coding techniques for uncompromised efficiency. Businesses will even be hard-pressed to discern between their environments and applications.
In the case of Finning Cat, the company was struggling to manage real-time demand and product stock in their inventory. Our team developed a custom backend workflow to source data from storefronts and distribute it to the right dealership.
Needless to say, the whole process was automated and needed no human involvement. This helped Finning Cat improve inventory management according to market demand.
Become an Intelligent Enterprise
Accenture suggests businesses become intelligent enterprises to sail past COVID. The key considerations for doing so are-
● Transforming from a top-down decision-making structure
● Being driven by data for everything
● Empowering teams with right data
● Making a move to cloud
Thankfully, NeuSwyft can guide you through the process of transforming your business into a plug-and-play module. We can help you walk the path of continuous adaptation supported by agile and DevOps practices.
In an intelligent enterprise, even integrations can be smart. For instance, our team can use AI sub-technologies like RPA and ML to integrate middleware with ERP and CRMs. AI can learn and grow to take over human processes to reduce labour demand. You can even bring together disparate systems through your middleware and connect them to your ERP using intelligent technologies.
Make Small Yet Crucial Changes
The present business disruptions call for making incremental yet crucial changes. The decisions you make today can have a lasting effect on your organizational performance. You need to look deep into your business before making predictions, even if they may not be fail-proof.
Think of decisions that could have long-term strategic implications. For instance, YouTube has moved back to SD streaming to counter the increased use of internet infrastructure. More people are working from home, and YouTube decided to switch off HD for the time being.
See Professional Guidance
Leaders and entrepreneurs may find the changes of COVID too challenging to handle. Transforming your technology and processes is not an easy task. NeuSwyft can help your business take a step towards resilience with full agility to meet market disruptions. Get in touch with us to know how we can help.
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