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To manage their companies, successful business owners need the right tools, which often come in the form of software applications. According to an Intermedia report, the average small-to-midsize business uses 14.3 separate applications. These software systems address issues such as logistics, sales, marketing, accounting, human resource management and social media engagement.

But unless integrated, each individual application is an information silo, which limits businesses’ ability to access data and obtain a clear picture of their operations. Application-integration, also referred to as enterprise application integration, allows you, as business owner, to achieve the maximum impact from each of your systems because you’ve linked them into an interactive whole.

Here are the benefits:

1. You can boost productivity.

With integrated applications, employee productivity may be improved across the board. Data entry, in particular, will experience a major productivity boost.

Rather than enter the same data into each software program, integration will allow data to be entered once and then correlated across all of the other applications. This approach has the added benefit of reducing opportunities for human error during the data entry process.

Integration also improves productivity by eliminating wait times. An employee in one department can access needed information from another department, rather than waiting for a return email, phone call or report. The opportunities for increased productivity will depend on your company, but integration will almost certainly have a positive impact on your bottom line.

2. You can access real-time data.

Your company’s success depends on access to timely and accurate data. With application integration, every department will have access to real-time data regardless of its origin within your organization. This will allow production, finance, marketing and sales to have accurate information about what is happening in the company so that leaders can manage operational effectiveness and develop long-term strategic plans.

Timely data also maximizes your organization’s ability to respond to market changes, since you have an accurate picture of what is happening and how the market is evolving. With this information, you can identify ways to get ahead of the curve rather than following the pack. Knowledge truly is power and application integration puts that power into your hands.

3. You can increase efficiencies.

Software system integration can increase your organization’s efficiencies across nearly all aspects of your operations. The process improves communication, since everyone is on the same page, and meetings can now focus on applying data rather than presenting it.

Related: Top 10 Best Chatbot Platform Tools to Build Chatbots for Your Business

4. You can improve customer experience.

Without the integration of your applications, customer data has to be housed across several independent information silos, such as lead generation, marketing, sales and fulfillment. Even when these activities are consolidated within one application, not every employee has access and those that do may not fully be aware of the data content.

An integrated system, on the other hand, provides companywide access to every aspect of a consumer’s experience related to your organization. This process allows employees to access and share relevant information with the customer and easily address issues, such as the fact that an item is out of stock.

With an integrated system, you can also respond to unhappy customers before situations escalate. For example, if an employee in order fulfillment receives a cancelation due to an unsatisfactory customer experience, this information becomes immediately available to marketing, sales, finance and other departments, so appropriate corrective steps can be taken. This level of responsiveness is key to obtaining and retaining customers, managing your online reputation and supporting your brand.

So, what are your integration options?

There are two basic options for integrating your software applications: hiring someone to create a custom integration system or utilizing an existing platform.

The option of a custom-integration system makes sense for small companies that use only a few common applications. However, there are three challenges with this choice.

• First, it is expensive, since creating a customized process will take significant time.
• Second, it is difficult to maintain because only your developer knows how everything fits together.
• Third, it is difficult to scale as your business grows.

Regarding the third challenge: A custom program can’t plug in new applications or expanded versions of existing ones. If you are starting small and plan to stay that way, this may be a good choice, but it isn’t if you anticipate growth.

There are several integrated platforms to choose from, such as Workato, MuleSoft and Red Hat JBoss Fuse; these are specifically priced and scaled to serve small-to-midsize businesses. Each integrates internal and/or out-of-the-box third-party software systems to achieve the productivity, efficiency, data access and customer support services you need.

Related: This Navigation App is Banking on Augmented Reality to Take on Competitors

Bottom line

Integrating your company’s software applications will save time and money, which improves your bottom line. This system can also enhance customer engagement and help you manage our brand.

Article provided by PartnerOn and entrepreneur.com.

Don’t have meetings just to have them

This is never a good idea.

Dan Schawbel, an author and columnist, writes on QuickBase that when leading and working with teams, you should “hold effective meetings.”

“Most teams waste time during meetings catching up about personal things. Before you start a meeting, have a reason for it. Then, tell each individual team member what they need to bring to each meeting and set an agenda. This way, you can measure the success of a meeting,” he writes. “Don’t feel like the meeting has to be an hour or two hours – make it more about the tasks at hand because the more time people spend in the meeting, the less time they have to do work,” he writes.

Treat people well

Use the Golden Rule.

Author and entrepreneur Kevin Daum writes on Inc.com that people who collaborate well at work are people who “work with respect.”

“Few go into a collaborative project with intentions of being disrespectful; yet it often happens, verbally or non-verbally. Disrespect is shown by being late, missing deadlines, being unprepared, hogging the conversation, quiet politeness or distraction by irrelevant discussion. If everyone shows respect by focusing each minute of activity on the common objectives of the group, the required time will be short and the results will be plentiful.”

Give people room to breathe

It really pays to do this.

Susan M. Heathfield, an HR expert, writer, professional facilitator, management and organization development consultant, trainer and speaker, writes in The Balance about how team members should feel free to speak their minds.

“The team creates an environment in which people are comfortable taking reasonable risks in communicating, advocating positions, and taking action. Team members trust each other. Team members are not punished for disagreeing; disagreement is expected and appreciated.”

Make valuable contributions

Don’t just stand there.

Marty Brounstein, author of Managing Teams for Dummies, writes on the Dummies website that someone who collaborates well on the job “functions as an active participant.”

“Good team players are active participants. They come prepared for team meetings and listen and speak up in discussions. They’re fully engaged in the work of the team and do not sit passively on the sidelines,” he writes. “Team members who function as active participants take the initiative to help make things happen, and they volunteer for assignments. Their whole approach is can-do: ‘What contribution can I make to help the team achieve success?’”

Article provided by PartnerOn and theladders.com (Jane Burnett). 

Cybercriminals are always trying to take advantage of organizations and employees who are not staying alert and up to date with the latest types of attacks. Refresh yourself about the types of attacks to watch for and the red flags that may help you spot them.

Social Engineering

• Social engineering is the art of manipulating, influencing, or deceiving you into taking some action that isn’t in your own best interest or the best interest of your organization.
• The goal of social engineers is to obtain your trust, then exploit that relationship to coax you into either divulging sensitive information about yourself or your organization or giving them access to your network.

Digital Attacks—Phishing

• Phishing is the most common digital attack, which is when you receive an email that looks like it’s coming from a legitimate source, telling you that there’s a problem which requires you to click a link or take an action that is in an attacker’s interest.

Digital Attacks—Spear Phishing

• Spear phishing is a small, focused attack via email on a particular person or organization. In this attack, the criminals research a specific target using social media and other open sources of information.

In-Person Attacks—Tailgating

• A hacker scouts a location like the outside smoking area at your organization and then joins your group as a smoker, participating in your group conversation. When your group returns to work, he follows you in just like any other employee and then finds a workstation he can hack.
• A hacker may follow an employee to the building’s locked entrance and walk in behind the employee or ask to be let in, saying that he forgot his key or access card.

USB Attacks

• Attackers leave a USB stick that says “Payroll” where it can be easily found, like in your office parking lot, or sends it by mail disguised as a customer or vendor.

Phone Attacks

• Another name for phone-based social engineering is voice phishing or “vishing.” Like phishing, vishing is when the hacker calls you and tries to con you into surrendering confidential information.

Phone Attacks—Smishing

• “Smishing” stands for “SMS phishing” or phishing that occurs through text messaging. For example, they send a text message asking you to call a number or click on a link.

Red Flags

Please keep an eye out for these red flags to help prevent security breaches:

• Someone unknown hanging around the building, even in a uniform.
• Others looking over your shoulder. Always lock your workstation if left unattended.
• E-mails that have strange “From” or “Reply to” addresses. Also, look at the “To” line and see if the e-mail was sent to many people.
• E-mails that come at strange times of day, or with strange or shocking subject lines.
• E-mails that ask you to click links within or open an attachment especially with content that makes you uncomfortable such as a security breach warning.
• Hyperlinks that contain strange or spoofed addresses. Hover over the link and look at the URL it will redirect you to.

The one thing all of these attacks have in common is that they require a user to take action. Be alert and cautious to avoid these attacks.

Think before you click!

Webroot uses 67 million real-world sensors around the globe to predict emerging threats. In the 2019 Webroot Threat Report, they found that traditional attack approaches are still going strong, and new methods are tried and tested every day.

According to Webroot CTO Hal Lonas, “Agile isn’t just a watchword for software development. It has also found its way into the world of cybercrime. In 2018, we saw numerous instances of agility and innovation as cybercriminals evolved their approaches, combined attack methods and incorporated more artificial intelligence to wreak havoc.”

The findings and insights in the 2019 report bring further clarity to the threats we see today and offer guidance to help people better prepare for and address attacks in the coming year.

Here are some key takeaways:

• A massive 40 percent of malicious URLs were found on good domains. Those who use intermediary devices without SSL inspection capabilities should be aware of potential loopholes in their security policies due to this behavior.
• Phishing attacks increased 36 percent, with the number of phishing sites growing 220 percent throughout 2018.
• Nearly 54 percent of malware in 2018 hid in the %appdata% and %temp% folders. Although malware can hide almost anywhere, Webroot found several common locations, including %appdata% (29.4 percent), %temp% (24.5 percent), and %cache% (17.5 percent), among others.
• Devices that use Windows 10 are at least twice as secure as those running Windows 7. Over the last year, Webroot saw a relatively steady decline in malware on Windows 10 machines for both consumer and business.
• On average, consumer devices are infected more than twice as often as their business counterparts. However, the business landscape is not populated solely by corporate-owned PCs. Many companies allow their employees to connect their personal devices, including PCs, to the corporate network, which significantly increases the level of risk to the organization.

So how can you protect yourself and your business?

Webroot stresses the importance of timely security awareness training that is continuously updated to help users avoid the latest threats. They found that after 12 months of training, end users were 70% less likely to fall for a phishing attempt. Training, along with contextual analysis and advanced endpoint and network protection, can help any organization reduce its exposure to risk.

See the full 2019 Webroot Threat Report.

And how is composable infrastructure different from converged and hyperconverged infrastructure?

Composable infrastructure treats compute, storage, and network devices as pools of resources that can be provisioned as needed, depending on what different workloads require for optimum performance. It’s an emerging category of infrastructure that’s aimed at optimizing IT resources and improving business agility. 

The approach is like a public cloud in that resource capacity is requested and provisioned from shared capacity – except composable infrastructure sits on-premises in an enterprise data center.

IT resources are treated as services, and the composable aspect refers to the ability to make those resources available on the fly, depending on the needs of different physical, virtual and containerized applications. A management layer is designed to discover and access the pools of compute and storage, ensuring that the right resources are in the right place at the right time.

In a composable infrastructure world, resources can be reconfigured to compose the exact-sized infrastructure environment each workload needs. A developer could request a virtual machine with any combination of compute, network and storage capacity, for example, and when the workload is done running, those infrastructure resources are delivered back to the pool for other users to access. One workload could be a compute-heavy application requiring a lot of CPU power, while another could be memory-heavy.

“The application can grab whatever it needs at the time that it runs, and when it’s done, it returns it to the pool. It’s not just sitting there dedicated to running VMs, like a hyperconverged environment,” Lewis says. The result is that the on-premises infrastructure looks more like public-cloud infrastructure-as-a-service environments.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is among the first to make a composable infrastructure platform available.

Article provided by ParnerOn and NetworkWorld 2019.

Microsoft’s Office 365 is an incredibly powerful and comprehensive suite on its own, but with add-ons you can supercharge your Office 365 productivity. Whether it’s saving you from opening another app or window, automating a process or making sure that report or email is grammatically flawless, there is an Office 365 add-in for the task. Here are eight Office 365 add-ons that will have you doing your best work in record time.

1. Translator

Even if translation isn’t a daily task, the ability to highlight text and automatically translate it to or from almost 50 languages is simply amazing and much simpler than cutting and pasting text into a separate app or online service. The Translator add-on relies on Microsoft’s robust Translator online service for its translations. Suggested translations can easily be edited before inserting them into the document and, in the case of multiple potential interpretations of a passage, all versions will be displayed.

2. Search the Web

Opening up an extra window to do a quick web search may not take that long, but it’s a distraction. Search the Web lets you perform a standard Google search or Google Image search within a pane in any Office 365 app. Get the answer or image you need and get back to work in moments.

3. FindTime

Trying to schedule meetings can be one of the most frustrating and time-consuming tasks in any office. FindTime can’t automate the process completely, but it will definitely save you from endless back and forth. It first locates open spaces in all participants’ schedules and provides you with those options at which point you select several times and put them to a vote among the attendees. Once sufficient votes have been tallied for a specific time, the meeting is automatically scheduled.

4. DocuSign for Outlook

DocuSign is one of the most popular e-signature solutions on the market and, with this add-on or its Word counterpart, you can securely sign a document yourself or have a recipient securely sign. You also have the option to save all signed documents automatically to Microsoft OneDrive. A 10-day free trial is available to test the service, and monthly subscriptions start at $10 per month.

5. Pexels

Looking to dress up that report or presentation with good-looking images without scouring Google for an hour? Pexels lets you easily search for professional stock photos and instantly drop them into your document. The images are all under a Creative Commons Zero license meaning that you can use them for any legal purpose without the need for attribution. Speed up the process even further by using the popular images gallery or save your favorites for future usage.

6. Grammarly

Grammarly is an unsurpassed proofreading tool that will help improve your writing, whether it’s a simple email or a full-blown report. The Grammarly add-on operates in Word and Outlook to make your writing cleaner and more direct with more than 250 grammar and spelling checks, vocabulary suggestions, writing style suggestions and even a plagiarism detector. Grammarly Premium costs $11.66 a month when paid annually.

7. Office Tabs

Thanks to every modern web browser, we have all grown accustomed to tabbed interfaces. Office Tabs brings that familiar paradigm to Word, PowerPoint and Excel. At a basic level the add-in allows you to open multiple files within the same window, but the functionality goes much deeper than that. Users can quickly close or save all documents with a single click or all but the currently active document. Some quick changes like renaming a document or saving to a new folder can be done by right-clicking on the documents tab in the taskbar. In a document you can easily hide the taskbar with a quick keyboard shortcut and then just as quickly bring it back.

8. StaffHub

For staff workers, Microsoft offers an app that can help them schedule their shifts. This is particularly helpful for service and factory workers who often lack an office or computer, but do have a smartphone. Workers will be able to swap shifts without relying on bulletin boards and paper schedules. IT admins can also add important documents to the app. For now it will only be available to companies with unlimited-user licenses.

© 2018

The end of support for SQL Server 2008 is coming. Are you prepared? With the end of support looming, your data and customers could be at risk. Now’s a great time to transition to the latest version of SQL Server. At Yeo & Yeo Technology, we know how to speed your transition and minimize downtime, it’s what we do. Contact us today to find out more.

View the infographic.

While function is the meat and potatoes of any good application, there’s something to be said for style. At Yeo & Yeo Technology, we want to make sure your business utilizes both.

View the infographic.

Businesses all over are adopting cloud via multiple combinations of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS services. It’s a trend that will only ramp up as more companies realize the benefits of reducing the datacenter footprint. A more agile work environment and faster transformation all lead to increased operational efficiencies. Yeo & Yeo Technology’s professionals can help you realize the benefits of the cloud and help you on your journey.

Read the entire article here.

Technology can help small business owners leverage limited capital in smarter and more effective ways. In some cases, using is a natural progression for processes you may already have in place in your business. In others, you may need to make some adjustments to reap the benefits of these tech-friendly alternatives. The good news is that the benefits will often outweigh the short-lived challenges of the transitional process, once your new systems are in place.

These ideas will help you use in your small business to do more with less and become more efficient and versatile.

Productivity

1. Use time tracking software to see where you are spending your time so you can become more productive.

2. Explore open source applications to replace some of the more costly “name brand” alternatives.

3. Streamline your work processes with digital dictation.

4. Use project management and task management tools to stay on top of your daily business responsibilities.

5. Create a digital filing system to make it easier to sort, save, share and find documents.

6. Develop an efficient email management process that makes it easier to stay on top of the flow of messages.

Money Matters

7. Use an online invoicing service to reduce the costs of collecting payment from customers.

8. Use online budget tracking to keep on top of — and reduce — your expenses.

9. File your taxes more efficiently online.

10. Create a new income stream by selling your products online.

11. Use a comprehensive accounting software to streamline your business finances.

12. Share digital files with your bookkeeper or accountant to improve your ongoing bookkeeping processes.

Marketing

13. Use software to create a marketing plan that you can edit, update and share with your team.

14. Use social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. to promote your business, products and services.

15. Start a blog related to your business and target audience.

16. Collect email addresses through an opt-in form and start utilizing the power of email marketing.

17. Use video marketing.

18. Promote your business with a website and/or online advertising.

Collaboration and Learning

19. Conduct teleconference calls to make sure team members in different locations are on the same page.

20. Hold a webinar or web conference for travel-free face-to-face time.

21. Expand your knowledge with online business training.

22. Share files and data with the Cloud.

23. Set up an Intranet for local file sharing.

24. Communicate quickly with your team through instant messaging.

Customer Service

25. Use social media to conduct customer service.

26. Set up an online help desk or ticket system to handle customer issues.

27. Allow clients to schedule appointments online at their convenience.

28. Use online surveys and questionnaires to get customer feedback.

Mobile Working and Telecommuting

29. Create a mobile office that allows you to work productively from anywhere.

30. Use remote desktop applications to access files on your office computer.

31. Go paperless to save money on supplies and storage in your office.

32. Get a virtual phone number and an electronic fax line that you can take anywhere.

33. Use your smartphone and select apps (that sync with the Cloud) to stay connected when you’re on the go.

© 2018

One more reason to love Office 365: Microsoft Word, everyone’s favorite word-processing program, is compatible with all your apps.

View the infographic

Is your organization doing everything it can to thwart cyberthreats? YYTECH is pleased to announce a new comprehensive cybersecurity monitoring service backed by dedicated personnel who will detect emerging threats and respond quickly when a cyberattack occurs.

What is YeoSecure?

YeoSecure is a comprehensive cybersecurity monitoring and compliance solution that provides 24/7/365 monitoring of networks and is designed to lower the cost of cybersecurity for our clients. By using continuous security monitoring, our team can provide real-time visibility into the condition of an organization’s security, constantly monitoring for cyber threats, gaps in security infrastructure, and other vulnerabilities.

Over 70 percent of cyberattacks target small and medium businesses. Most of these businesses lack the and personnel to protect themselves and fight back. Having strict guidelines and policies in place are not enough in today’s work environment. Continuous security monitoring is essential.

YeoSecure is designed to integrate with an organization’s infrastructure and eliminate threats as soon as they are detected. Reporting allows our team to understand the type of attack and how it works, all while keeping the network secure and identifying weaknesses.

This year’s Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL) Conference will be held at Cobo Center in Detroit, March 20-22.

This article is provided to Yeo & Yeo Technology by Entrepreneur.com.

Gradually yet steadily, has taken over all aspects of our lives. And the financial services sector is no exception. Financial Services spanning investments, lending and management of assets are a fundamental part of fund management for individuals as well as corporations. One of the nuances of this sector is the volatility associated with it owing to factors such as prevailing market conditions, political scenarios, performance of stocks, taxation norms, etc. Since this condition is a given, companies dealing with such financial instruments need to glean reams of data before counselling clients on the right investment choice or the right kind of loan to choose, for instance.

With the advent of technologies like Machine Learning and AI, it is easier for financial consultants to make sense and configure the mammoth amounts of data that are available. In all of this, the customer has also become smarter in the bargain with easy access to ready information and real-time updates. Online tools are available these days that assist investors in making the right choice. Financial institutions therefore have no choice in this scenario but to embrace and to integrate it into every core offering and communication.

Let us go through some of the key trends that are emerging in this sector in recent decades.

Personalizing Customer Service

With a burgeoning customer base demanding personalized and prompt responses, no surprise hence that companies are increasingly leveraging digital innovations such as big data analytics to deliver specific services relevant to their clients’ individual financial needs. Hyper-personalized experiences include virtual assistance and live chat as customized customer support options today. By using business intelligence and automation software, companies are also able to activate prompt troubleshooting for the smallest problems. Financial Institutions have also been actively employing Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to bring back the personal connection that is integral to customer experience. AI technologies use software that interact directly with consumers to deliver personalized and relevant communication.

Prioritizing Security and Transparency

Ensuring the highest levels of security and transparency is crucial to building a successful customer experience, and financial institutions are walking the extra mile to offer first-rate information security considering the sensitive nature of the services they provide. With customers demanding stringent security features around their investments amidst the looming threat of hacks and data breaches, data encryption and layered verification processes have become the norm.

While security comes foremost, there’s no alternative to transparency in dealings either. This has prompted most financial institutions to share their security data and related features publicly in an effort to build trust with their customer and to work towards a positive experience.

The Omnichannel Mix

Banks and financial institutions know that in this digital era, no customer can be taken for granted. They have to in fact model their strategies around what a customer is looking for from them. And success will be determined by companies adopting an omnichannel strategy that seamlessly connects across multiple platforms that a customer is comfortable with, without any lag.

What Does the Future Hold?

As is increasingly influencing behavioral patterns of individuals, companies on their part are working harder on simplifying and refining the customer experience to suit these trends. There is a clear preference for omnichannel transactions and experimenting with new interactive features towards providing a wholesome customer experience. In a fiercely competitive environment, banks and financial institutions are therefore heavily investing in digital technologies to expand their market share and to keep up with the times. Amidst these exciting times the writing on the wall is clear – The Customer is King.

© 2019 entrepreneur.com

This article is provided to Yeo & Yeo Technology by Inc.com.

Self-service BI is on the rise among forward-thinking organizations, enabling business users to obtain up-to-the-minute business information in graphical form on demand — with little to no IT intervention. Since the release of Microsoft Power BI, organizations around the world have been turning to the cloud-based service for self-service business intelligence tools that allow users to analyze, visualize and share data using the familiar Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Here are 12 success stories built on Microsoft Power BI.

Meijer boosts profitability with data insights

Supermarket chain Meijer, one of the U.S.’s largest private companies, had become dependent on its IT organization to extract insight from its data. To gain agility, it needed to create a more self-sufficient BI environment.

“No matter where I go, the demand for BI is always greater than the supply,” says Marilyn Richards, director of business intelligence and collaboration at Meijer. “And people don’t always have time to wait for IT to build every report. Plus, they were unable to do on-the-fly, ad hoc analysis easily. We have to empower the business customers with relevant and timely reporting to react quickly and appropriately.”

With the help of Microsoft BI partner obviEnce, Meijer connected Power BI to an on-premises SQL Server Analysis Services cube with 20 billion rows of data refreshed in near-real time.

“With Power BI and SQL Server Analysis Services, teams can pull in the data they need and ask their own questions, instead of my having to create a solution that answers every single question,” says Joseph Openshaw, Meijer’s IT manager of business intelligence.

Fort Worth Boys & Girls Clubs track program success

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Fort Worth, Texas, needed to track the success of its programs and participants. But legacy and siloed data sources and systems prevented the organization from gaining a comprehensive view of data related to each child. Most of this data sat in monthly PDF reports.

“We needed a more dynamic view, both to help our own decisions as well as to communicate back to our board and donors about how we’re doing,” says Daphne Barlow Stigliano, CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Fort Worth. 

“Being able to analyze patterns of participation is extremely important for us to be able to predict how well these kids will do in the future, and whether or not our programs are working,” she adds. “We needed to be able to ask bigger questions from our information and get more nuanced, compelling answers.”

Systems integrator Doyenne360 helped the non-profit build a system using Azure Event Hubs to recognize a new PDF file and convert it into a comma-separated values (CSV) format, which Azure Stream Analytics then feeds into dynamic dashboards built using Power BI. The non-profit can now cross-correlate data and individuals.

Dallas Zoo uses data to better care for elephants

Not so long ago, keeping detailed track of the behavior and location of the elephants in the five-acre Giants of the Savanna exhibit at the Dallas Zoo was no easy task. The zoo staff used a combination of video cameras and direct observation.

In 2013, the zoo introduced RFID-powered elephant “ankle bracelets” that provided data on where each elephant was located — down to one meter — and how far and fast each elephant traveled. The new data was useful, but managing it was still tricky. Much of the data was in spreadsheets, and the zoo’s software could handle only 15 days’ worth of data at a time. It was impossible to gain insights from long-term data — such as behavioral changes as elephants aged. Integrating external data, including weather changes and the zoo’s attendance fluctuations, was also difficult.

Then, in 2015, Microsoft solution provider US Medical IT helped the zoo enhance its RFID system with a Microsoft SQL Server 2016-based data warehouse hosted on Microsoft Azure. The data warehouse synchronizes the RFID daily data and links it to five other data sources, all of which in turn is made available to Power BI analysis and reporting services. Now the zoo can collect and analyze data across multiple years, and kiosks at the exhibit can show visitors the exact location of each elephant.

The zoo is now interested in how the can be adapted to other species, and other institutions are asking Nancy Scott, coordinator of Elephant Behavioral Science at the Dallas Zoo, how the could be adapted to their organizations.

“The RFID and Microsoft solution really has the potential to increase the quality of life and care we can provide to animals worldwide,” Scott says. “It’s also an incredible tool to help us tell the story of elephants in human care today.”

Real Madrid analyzes social media data to customize marketing campaigns

With 450 million global supporters, Real Madrid is the leading sports franchise in the world. The majority of the club’s fans live outside of Spain and can’t make it to the stadium. Real Madrid needed a solution that would support digital services and allow it to collect and analyze data on its fans.

“We wanted to connect with all the people who support Real Madrid in the world,” says José Ángel Sánchez, CEO of Real Madrid. “It is critical for us to understand and learn from them, because in the end, the club belongs to them.”

Working with Microsoft Services, Real Madrid built a platform-as-a-service solution based on Microsoft Cloud and Office 365. It includes a fan engagement platform, extended video platform, and consumer app, all of which provide telemetry data surfaced through Power BI.

“We can create a one-to-one relationship with fans around the planet with the Microsoft solution, connecting this huge community of people and making the experience of being a supporter of Real Madrid much better,” Sánchez says.

ABB Italy accelerates custom BI reporting

ABB Italy, a subsidiary of manufacturer ABB, needed a state-of-the-art BI application to provide deeper market analyses and visual reporting for the region’s manufacturing business. At first it built its own solution. Accessing available reports was easy, but generating new reports required going through an IT liaison to the company’s external IT supplier. That process could take up to four weeks.

“Our users are more tech-savvy than they were a few years ago,” says Massimiliano Cimnaghi, IS manager at ABB Italy. “They use mobile phones, shop on websites — and expect the tools they use at work, including BI, to be as easy to understand, and as fast and simple to use, as their personal technologies.”

ABB adopted Power BI and freed up IT resources, reduced reliance on outside suppliers, and empowered marketing managers and business users to query internal and external data sets and develop more insightful reporting. ABB Italy can now generate custom reports in just a few hours.

“Before, you really thought twice about ordering a custom report and sometimes you didn’t do it,” says Alessandra Gilberti, BI manager for ABB Italy. “Now, if you have a question, you can use Power BI to find the answer. There’s no barrier between you and the analysis you want to perform.”

Carnegie Mellon slashes energy consumption

Established in 1900, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a leading research institute with seven globally recognized schools and colleges. CMU sought to manage energy efficiently in large buildings and across multiple sites.

For example, the Robert L. Preger Intelligent Workplace at the CMU School of Architecture’s Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics is a 7,000-square-foot laboratory that includes more than 10 data collection and control systems, and hundreds of sensors and actuators that control functions like heating and cooling, lights, ventilation, plug load, and security. Data was collected separately from each system for analysis, a time-consuming process that produced limited insight into system performance.

CMU partner OSIsoft created a Power BI-based solution called PI System that allowed them to track energy usage over time, by category, by building, and so on. The solution uses Power Query, Q&A and Power Maps to ask questions of the data and get immediate answers and to display energy usage in a map-based format. CMU has provided access to the data to a range of employees throughout the university. By making the data more accessible, the university has been able to identify faulty equipment and cut energy consumption in its own laboratory by one-third.

Condé Nast reduces redundant reporting tasks

Condé Nast, a global media company, needed better insight into the performance of its 20 industry-leading print and digital media brands, but struggled with pulling data together from multiple sources. Additionally, it often fielded redundant requests from the sales and editorial teams.

“Because we have multiple brands, we get a lot of the same requests for data,” says Cara Weiss, senior director of marketing analytics at Condé Nast. “There’s also a lot of back and forth with one request, because there might be four or five iterations before they see the story they want to tell.”

The company implemented a solution based on Power BI, providing cross-platform insights into data from multiple sources and partners. The self-service nature of Power BI has decreased Condé Nast’s “time-to-answer” by decentralizing the dissemination of centrally maintained information and increased the business’s agility. The company cut its redundant reporting tasks by 30 percent.

“Power BI is a solution for the ‘second question’ problem we’re increasingly seeing,” says Justin Glatz, director of business and corporate systems at Condé Nast. “Many other BI solutions work well for answering that first question, but it’s almost impossible to follow up. In contrast, Power BI seems designed from the start to quickly answer the chain of questions that arise after the first inquiry.”

Enlighten Designs helps customers unlock their data

New Zealand-based application developer and systems integrator Enlighten Designs wanted to ensure that all of its customers — including small businesses and schools — could benefit from BI tools.

“Our customers are not just looking at gaining insights from their data, but also want to make organizational decisions from it,” says Damon Kelly, CEO at Enlighten Designs. “Our customers want to unlock information in such a way that business users can ask questions and get answers themselves instead of waiting for IT to generate a report.”

To unlock data and provide customers with data discovery and analysis capabilities they can use with familiar tools, the company is helping customers implement Microsoft Power BI with Microsoft Excel 2013. This provides customers with a cloud-based solution that can be easily used by people at all levels of an organization.

One customer, Waikato Institute of (Wintec), is now using the tools to identify which students are struggling and in danger of dropping out. The allows it to track trends across the student population, but also drill down to find and support individual students.

Helse Vest collects, visualizes and shares medical data

Norwegian regional health authority Helse Vest operates 50 healthcare facilities (including 10 hospitals). As part of a recent national patient safety program, Helse Vest hospitals were asked to collect, visualize and share medical data to identify quality measures and reporting requirements across all care teams and hospitals. That required each of the 10 hospitals to combine data from all facilities in its region for analysis — a daunting task because none had an easy method of combining and visualizing the data.

By implementing Power BI to combine the data and build analytical reports, Helse Vest reduced the time to build reports from 14 days to less than one day. Employees can now use the solution to view and visualize data from multiple hospitals in the region.

“We can visualize our medical data much more quickly and easily than before. Our reports and more dynamic and more detailed than anything we’ve seen before,” says Anund Rannestad, head of innovation for Stavanger University Hospital, the second-largest hospital in the Helse Vest system.

For instance, Helse Vest can now view combined surgery data, providing the ability to compare operating checklist trends from the different hospitals in the region.

“We now have real-time data, which means we get updated data metrics for the staff at each hospital,” Rannestad says. “This will help us act on those metrics much sooner, while the metrics are still valid for the staff, and we believe this will have a significant positive impact on patient safety measures.”

MediaCom boosts productivity and optimizes ad campaigns

Global advertising agency MediaCom needed to measure the health of ad campaigns it created to optimize performance and spending. It needed to pull together the results into a single, composite score within hours. But it was faced with isolated systems, a variety of third-party data sources and expensive and complicated BI software.

With Microsoft and Power BI, MediaCom created a “health check” that quickly captured the many facets of a multi-platform media campaign, boosting productivity by 10 percent and gaining anywhere from thousands to millions of dollars per campaign.

“Power BI will fundamentally change the way we manage campaign performance,” says Lowell Simpson, CIO of MediaCom. “Digital moves much faster than traditional campaigns, so gaining the ability to optimize all channels on a daily basis is a real improvement.”

North Tees uses BI to boost clinical outcomes

For years, the North Tees and Hartlepool National Health Services Foundation Trust used an on-premises Ascribe clinical intelligence system to track the clinical use of drugs, the costs associated and efficacy of treatment. But the system did not allow North Tees to include external data sets or explore the data in real-time.

Then North Tees become a test site for a self-service BI toolset based on Power BI. Developers took an extract of North Tees data and imported it into a Power Pivot model built in a day; previously, it would’ve taken five days. Now North Tees can incorporate external data sets into its analyses, deliver more intuitive and persuasive reports and reduce costs.

“With Microsoft Power BI and Ascribe, we could understand which bacteria are resistant to which antibiotics in various areas at various times,” says Prof. Philip Dean, head of the Department of Pharmacy and Quality Control Laboratory Services at the North Tees and Hartlepool National Health Services Trust. “We could understand how socio-economic status affects the health of, and medicines used by, our population. There’s virtually nothing we can’t understand better with this .”

Oslo University analyzes healthcare data in hours rather than months

Oslo University Hospital is Scandinavia’s largest hospital, born from the merger of four smaller hospitals in 2010. The hospitals had separate databases that had to be merged for enterprise-wide analyses. For instance, the two radiology departments used various types of medical imaging at different frequencies, making it difficult to determine things like what type of test was more commonly used at one facility. Analysis often required programming skills that researchers and administrators lacked and reports had to be run by the IT department.

The hospital implemented a solution that used Power Query to collect radiology data from department systems. The data was loaded into a cloud-based database and then prepared and organized in a Power Query workbook in Excel, hosted on a Power BI website that can be used as a collaboration site for sharing queries among researchers. By implementing Power BI, radiology data that would have taken months to collect and analyze could now be analyzed and presented to executives and researchers within hours.

“This is a dream,” says Eli Marie Sager, MD, CEO of The Clinic for Diagnostics and Intervention at Oslo University Hospital. “With Power BI, we can understand what is happening in the departments in a few hours, rather than after months.”

© 2019 INC.com

If you have an account online, it’s highly likely that cybercriminals have your login, and quite possibly your personal information. Cybercrime, including data breaches, are occurring daily. One such data breach involved 772 million usernames and passwords, some of which were from older leaks, but new ones also were discovered. What this means is that the data, and likely yours, is being sold to criminals looking to use your information for cyberattacks and phishing scams.

What should you do to keep your information safe online? Our team at Yeo & Yeo Technology compiled these 10 tips that can help protect you against cyberattacks and phishing scams.

1. Always think before you click! Be sure where a link will take you before you click. Hover the cursor over a link to see a preview; this will allow you to check the link’s destination beforehand. If the destination looks suspicious, don’t click! 

2. Practice good password management. Do not use simple or commonly used passwords. Use a combination of letters, numbers and symbols, or a passphrase consisting of multiple words when possible. Change your passwords frequently, do not use the same password for all your logins, and do not use past passwords.

3. Track all of your online accounts. Don’t trust that you’re the only one accessing your sensitive accounts — review activity on a regular basis. If you find suspicious activity, report it quickly to prevent as much damage as possible, and immediately change your password.

4. Do not click on pop-ups. Phishing pop-ups try to trick users into believing that they’re a part of a legitimate site. Don’t click anything on such a pop-up. Close the window if possible, or use Task Manager to close the browser.

5. Install antivirus software. Antivirus programs scan incoming files for malicious data, while a firewall blocks access to your system. Consider using a Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) for additional protection.

6. Update applications and browsers. There’s a reason you are continually prompted to update applications, such as Adobe, and your web browser. Updates are pushed out to keep pace with new threats. Staying on top of these updates will help guard against vulnerabilities.

7. Use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). MFA requires the user to know their password, as well as approve that they are attempting to log in. Some forms of MFA include things you “know,” “have,” and “are.”

8. Judge everything. Cybercriminals use phishing traps to replicate real sites, but they are usually filled with small mistakes that give them away. Look for signs of a lack of attention to details like poor design, misspelled words or broken links.

9. Use skepticism. Phishing attacks want you to act quickly without thinking too hard about the request. Use caution and remember step 1 – think before you click!

10. Backup. Backup. Backup. Backups are a great, simple way to recover from a disaster, be it a natural disaster or ransomware. If you get hit by ransomware and you have a good backup of all your data, you don’t need to pay the ransom; you can restore data from a backup.

If you have any questions or need assistance against cybercrime, contact the professionals at Yeo & Yeo Technology.

Learn more about security awareness training. 

Digital transformation is affecting every industry, and education is no exception. Global investment in edtech companies is increasing rapidly, with some reports predicting a total of $252 billion in investments by 2020. Investors aren’t the only people recognizing the importance of for education. Educators and students are flocking to solutions that enhance their experience while reducing the high price associated with higher ed.

In fact, research shows that 70% of students want their universities to update their digital options, with 44% of the same group saying they’d be happier with their university experience if they could engage with more digital resources. With an obvious demand from students for better digital solutions, organizations that don’t engage with the latest in may struggle to engage with new students and grow.

The following are some of the top ways educators and institutions can make quick changes to improve their edtech strategy and better connect with a new generation of highly discerning digital natives.

Reinventing Publishing

While some people thought that eBooks would drive traditional textbooks out of universities, they are still the primary information resource for college classes. One reason digital has failed to overtake print is that early entrants failed to consider the needs of professors and teachers. “We see the educator continuing to be the catalyst or accelerant at the heart of that process. So, should focus on helping the instructor, leveraging their knowledge, skill, and dedication, rather than simply seeking to automate them away,” shared Alastair Adam, Co-CEO of digital textbook publisher FlatWorld. That’s why a number of innovative companies are working to bridge the gap between the publishing world and the classroom.

Despite the fact that textbooks are still prevalent in most classrooms, publishers have been offering fewer titles and regularly increasing the price of new editions. A new approach is necessary to help make textbooks affordable, especially when education costs are rising everywhere else. Adam explains, “Trying to solve the problem of high-priced textbooks by focusing only on new is the equivalent of trying to solve the problem of expensive airfares by putting all your resources into developing flying cars. We think the better approach is to break down the price barrier to make textbooks accessible to all students.” Cheaper and more digitally integrated textbooks will result in an increase in student success.

MOOCs Making Waves

The advent of massive open online courses, commonly known as MOOCs, represents a major shift in thinking for institutions. In the past, information regarding technical expertise and industry knowledge was treated as exclusive and proprietary to the institution.

More and more universities, however, are recognizing that access to information is no longer their main value proposition. Instead, they give away information freely and emphasize the importance of their expertise. The guidance they can provide in the learning process remains their main competitive advantage. That’s why the biggest and most popular MOOCs originate at traditional universities like Harvard and MIT. It is an indication that they are unlikely to replace these institutions, but rather become a part of their overall service offerings.

Learning Analytics

A study conducted by Hanover Research found that 87% of surveyed college students said analytics on their performance had a positive influence on their learning. Giving students access to real performance data that goes deeper than a grade can help them self-diagnose gaps in knowledge and seek out the right resources and support to close them.

Similarly, educators can recognize problems sooner, and partner students with learning tools that can help them avoid falling behind. Analytics like this are dependent on integrated systems that can compile data from varied sources like homework and tests. ‘Online grading’ solutions, while helpful for automating, fall short of providing helpful data insights for students. Institutions will need to take partners with organizations that offer full-service analytics to increase student performance.

Driving Change for Education

It should be noted that no education has demonstrated the ability to completely change the market. Though the industry has undergone a significant amount of change due to technology, it remains largely the same as it has been for decades. Companies wanting to drive real change in the industry should consider how to partner with educators to providing sensible solutions rather than attempting to reinvent existing norms.

When it comes to assessing return on investment, it’s important to look at student outcomes and benefits to the institution. For example, 45% of students who have access to good digital tools said they’d be more willing to recommend their university to others. Engaging with digital tools can help universities stay competitive, and they can also upgrade the performance of each student, which should be the ultimate goal of any edtech solution.

© 2018 Drew Hendricks — Inc.com

A recent article in eWeek features a number of cybersecurity-related trends enterprises can expect in 2019. 

Here are some key points, featured in the article, for business executives to know regarding the outlook for IT security in 2019. 

1. Nation-state attacks will get worse
   
2. Phishing attacks will get worse
   
3. Ransomware is not going away
   
4. Cryptomining will move to your servers and cloud instances
   
5. Two-factor authentication will become a necessity
   
6. Start working on a way to eliminate user names and passwords
   
7. Your company will be attacked
   
8. You may need to revise your network architecture
   
9. All of your data needs to be inaccessible
   
10. Engage a third-party for a security audit
    

As attackers and their methods are becoming more sophisticated, Yeo & Yeo Technology will continue to be at the forefront of IT security’s evoluton in 2019 and beyond. Read the article in its entirety here. 

What do some of the world’s most popular and successful websites have in common? While Netflix, Amazon, Facebook and YouTube all have different business models, each one does one thing very well: personalization. If you’re a member of any one of these sites, the content that you personally see when you visit its homepage will be different from that other users see.

So, whether you’re perusing your newsfeed, product recommendations or suggestions as to what movie or video you should watch, you’ll have a personalized experience based on data the site has previously collected about you (or any user),to create a homepage unique to you that truly feels like your own.

For your business to remain competitive in today’s online business environment, it’s vital that your company do the same thing: embrace the power of personalization to deliver a unique customer experience.

Here are some reasons,why you should do that, along with practical advice on creating a personal customer experience.

Customers expect personalization.

Increasingly, consumers are expecting a personalized experience from the websites they do business with. A recent survey by Epsilon found that 90 percent of consumers surveyed found personalization to be either very or somewhat appealing. Yet, according to Adobe, “Sixty percent of marketers struggle to personalize content in real time, even though 77 percent believe real-time personalization is crucial.”

And, according to Salesforce, “70 percent of consumers say a company’s understanding of their individual needs influences their loyalty.”

Given those important findings, your failure to personalize the customer experience may very well negatively impact perceptions about your business as well as your conversion rate itself. According to Experian, even some of the most rudimentary forms of personalization — like marketing emails that address the recipient by name in the subject line — are being practiced by only 30 percent of businesses,

The message: If you’re looking for a way to differentiate your business from your competition — and what entrepreneur isn’t? –personalization can be a powerful weapon in your marketing arsenal.

Alex Allwood, author of Customer Experience Is the Brand, argues that customer experience is an even more crucial competitive differentiator than pricing or . As Allwood told The Guardian, “Today’s marketplace has become very competitive and commoditized. There is little differentiation between one brand and the next.

“And so if you are already competing on price, or innovation, what is going to differentiate you from your competitors? What is going to be your point of difference?”

The answer is how your customer experiences your brand,” Allwood said. It’s how your brand makes a customer feel.

Personalization is within reach.

Creating personalized content and delivering it to your customers across numerous channels has traditionally been a highly challenging process, requiring the use of multiple tools operating independently of one other and sophisticated coordination by marketers.

As Anita Brearton, CEO of the marketing firm CabinetM, has said, “A medium-size B2C company uses an average of 19 tools in its marketing organization; a larger company uses even more.” Creating a 360-degree view of a customer that takes into account every interaction the or she has with your brand — across multiple channels such as purchases, email and social media — is extremely difficult when that information is siloed in multiple independent applications.

This is a problem that many of the world’s biggest companies, such as Adobe, with Marketing Cloud and IBM, with Watson Campaign Automation, have tried to solve, but it’s the newer players in the field, like Exponea, that promise to put the power of personalization into the hands of entrepreneurs and small businesses through automated and AI.

Harnessing the power of machine-learning, Exponea seeks to be a consolidated platform for the acquisition, conversion and retention of customers. Business owners can use it to unify omni-channel customer communications, email marketing automation, product recommendations, content personalization, analytics and ad management — all in one platform.

Tools like this can help marketers develop omnichannel 1:1 personalized campaigns to target customers with pinpoint accuracy based on all of their previous interactions with your business.

Given the increased presence of machine-learning, AI and automated processes in the marketing strategy of businesses today, it’s important for business owners to make sure they remain relevant and competitive by putting smart tools to work for them. Exponea is one of the best solutions on the market, putting into the hands of much smaller companies the tools that giants like Amazon use, to drive sales and customer engagement

In fact, according to the SaaS 1000, Exponea is currently the sixth fastest-growing SaaS company in Europe, with a six-month growth rate of 58.7 percent.

You’ll build trust through transparency.

According to a Columbia Business School survey, 75 percent of consumers polled expressed a willingness to share their personal data with companies they trust. One of the best ways to build this trust with your own customers is to be fully transparent about the data you’re collecting from them, the uses that data will be put to and the benefits customers may derive from this use.

The European Union’s recently enforced General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)provides a road map to how business owners can provide greater transparency in how sensitive consumer data is collected and processed; GDPR also establishes a higher standard of consumer consent to its use than was previously used.

Microsoft recently garnered positive press coverage by committing to apply these protections to all of its customers worldwide.

Following Microsoft’s lead will is a good idea. First, it will ensure that your business is GDPR-compliant — offering your business protection from potentially crippling fines for improper handling of the data of EU citizens. And, second, being transparent with customers will give you the opportunity to demonstrate how seriously you take the safeguarding of their sensitive data.

What’s more, explaining the benefits customers may experience by providing your business with personal information may also give you the opportunity to collect additional information from them, perhaps through surveys and questionnaires. That opportunity will help you personalize the communications customers receive from your business far in to the future.

Final thoughts

For some time now, the world’s most successful and well-known websites have made extensive use of personalization through their own proprietary tools. But marketing platforms like Exponea are helping to level the playing field so that small businesses can also deliver personalized content to their customers. And that has the potential to significantly improve the customer experience and potentially growing those businesses’ bottom line.

Further, building trust with your customers by being transparent about the ways in which you will use their data can help them feel some clarity in their relationship with your business, making them more likely to become, and remain, loyal consumers.

© 2019 entrepreneur.com