Due to the dominance of the Internet and advanced technologies like Tablets and Smart Phones, processing speeds have considerably changed the speed of communication in the world today.
The printing industry is in the middle of a rapid transformation where technology is empowering the growth in the number of online media channels that consumers are driven to engage with. Consumer Behaviors are changing the role of media and communication in civil society, and these preferences are forcing businesses to rethink the way they interact with customers and prospects.
The effectiveness and efficiency of the print media is at stake. Print channels are perceived as just one of many media channels that consumers are accessing; the value and role of print is changing. Organizations have begun labeling ‘Printing’ as just another cost activity associated with customer service. They have started moving to digital channels and optimizing their costs. They foresee digital channels as providing better value and experience to their customers.
Interactive Communication is the next buzzword being talked about and desired by organizations. Organizations can send customized & personalized Interactive communications with drill down capabilities, page navigations and sorting. Technology has enabled organizations to send emails with voice and video. Customers can be driven to a website by QR codes in personalized messages that point to product promotions and special customized offers. Systems can track customer behaviors and adapt their marketing strategies accordingly. Efficiency of the marketing campaigns can easily be monitored by tracking customers who are driven to a promotion of their interest. Online web-to-print portals are being deployed to help optimize the marketing supply chain. By doing this, organizations are transforming their cost activity into a revenue generation activity. This is also helping them in attaining their CSR goals of reducing Carbon Footprints – “Going Green”. A leading Analyst firm’s research has found that while the market for offset printing has remained flat, e-enabled digital communications & advertisement have been increasing.
To keep pace with the dynamic changes in this market, organizations need a comprehensive customer communication management solution. Newgen’s CCM solution is ideally suited to the current needs of customers, and easily adaptable to changes in future requirements. It is an integrated platform that supports both print and digital media channels. The idea is to help organizations better deliver customer experiences over multi-channel communication modes.
I posted a question (view the question on LinkedIn) regarding the safety of the ‘Cloud’ on LinkedIn and received some really helpful and interesting answers from experts in the area of ‘Cloud Computing’. This post features the question along with few of the most interesting answers received.
Question: With all the security measures in place (as Cloud advocates boast), how safe is the cloud for storing regulated content?
Answer by Iain Mars (view LinkedIn profile) : With data being accessible online, there’s always going to be a concern with how secure the data is but you could ask the same question with how secure is online banking? As long as you take the necessary precautions with your cloud storage or back up, you shouldn’t have any reason to be concerned about security.
Answer by Francesco Morini (view LinkedIn profile): As an entity outsourcing storage of “regulated” data, it is hard to understand how a cloud storage service provider (let’s abbreviate it to SP – after all, they must still be considered as traditional service providers) will protect the data being handed over to them.
From personal experience, I’m pretty sure that any SP will be happy to provide its potential customers with tons of paperwork describing the entirety of features and process implemented for ensuring their content’s security – the issue lies behind considering what they say trustworthy.
It was hard enough to verify security for traditional third party data storage services – the Cloud multiplies such complexities at an exponential rate!
Having said this, the cloud may be both as secure and insecure as any other storage option – either internal or outsourced. It all boils down to how it is managed.
Many regulatory standards allow outsourced storage of regulated data, providing that the SPs be selected using pondered and logical approaches.
In addition to this, it is advisable (and in some cases mandatory) that the company outsourcing data storage set forth the “rules of engagement” – meaning to define Service Level Agreements which specifically require the use of specific security processes and controls.
Whilst this does not automatically ensure the data’s protection, it does force the SP to do its best in delivering effective security.
Again, it is advisable (and in some cases mandatory) that SP processes and operations be periodically verified (or audited) by their clients to ensure that the service level agreements are being truly respected – due diligence and continuous monitoring of the SP’s performance is crucial in ensuring
the data’s protection
Answer by Vincent Maiello (view LinkedIn profile):The jury is still out on storing regulated content in the public cloud, although private cloud usage is on the rise. The key is to appropriately classify your data and develop a strategic storage plan that aligns perfectly with the business requirements and use cases along with the catalog of services offered by an IT department. Going to the cloud, particularly with regulated content, should be a highly managed transformational activity that takes this all into account. Many organizations are going to the cloud without a plan, which is a big mistake.
Bio: Garima is part of the Marketing team at Newgen Software.
Healthcare is an industry characterized by a labyrinth of compliance mandates. Participants within the industry are subject to a multitude of regulations and must ensure compliance with all relevant regulations – state or federal, to avoid potential penalties. However, among all the compliance requirements, transition to ICD-10 (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Version 10) is the current topmost concern for healthcare organizations. The transition-involving a massive restructuring of the United State’s medical coding system, has put immense pressure on payer as well as provider organizations to make enormous cost and time investments to completely overhaul their business processes.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid’s (CMS) recently announced decision to delay the ICD-10 implementation deadline (from Oct. 1, 2013 to Oct. 1, 2014), brought some temporary relief to the panic-stricken healthcare industry. Nonetheless, the challenge still remains for healthcare organizations to integrate ICD-10 into their business strategy.
For health plans, ICD-10 calls for a basal shift in their IT and business strategy. Some payers gauge ICD-10 as simply an IT systems upgrade. Such organizations might find themselves overwhelmed by the depth of impact that this new set of codes might have. Others look at ICD-10 as a huge financial burden and are seeking ways to leverage their existing IT and business framework, to lessen this burden. As they say, there’s always a positive side to everything, so is there to ICD-10. Taking into account the business value that ICD-10 would bring to payers in the form of more accurate payments, fewer rejected claims, reduced fraudulent claims, improved member satisfaction, etc., it can certainly be looked at as a potential differentiator for early adopters. An efficient Business Process Management (BPM) platform can catalyze ICD-10 transition, while reducing operational and implementation costs. As a continuous process improvement platform, BPM can prepare health plans to to align people, processes and systems to ensure a smooth conversion. So… isn’t ICD-10 just a decision away?
Bio: Garima is part of the Marketing team at Newgen Software.
Management of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) has assumed an increasingly important role in deciding the technological prospects of a developing country like ours. The World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) has laid down certain minimum standards for protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, requiring member countries to practice effective and adequate protection of intellectual property rights with a view to promoting fair international trade. However, it is the discretion of the member country to decide how to implement the provisions of the agreement within its own legal framework and practice.
IPR exploitation and IPR protection are crucial factors that have a direct impact on how well a country performs in a new economic environment. Moreover, technological self-reliance is of utmost importance to a developing country like India- seeking to harness technology for economic growth and development. Ownership of intellectual property also helps check free-riding on intellectual assets and provides innovators with an incentive to engage in inventive activities. India has realized this fact, and has therefore taken all the necessary measures to ensure a strong IPR regime. The country has made significant investments on the legislative as well as legal and institutional aspects towards meeting this end.
Newgen understands the importance of IPR protection, and this is evident from the fact that the Indian Patents Office, in its annual report for 2009-2010, has listed the company as one the top 5 Indian applicants for patents in the field of Information Technology. Further, the company has filed patents wherever applicable and secured IPR for other innovations, through Copyrights and Trademarks for its products.
Bio: Garima is part of the Marketing team at Newgen Software.
The exertion of managing a large team is the same in principle as the exertion of managing a few fellows: it is merely a question of dividing up their numbers. Working with a large team of professionals under your leadership is nowise different from working with a small one (irrespective of the competency level of the professionals involved) – it is merely a question of inducting signs and signals. These signals if not reflected with the phenomenon of ‘Total Internal Reflection’, can lead to wasted efforts.
In order to make sure your team withstands every thrust of the compelling situations and stands tall, using direct and indirect modes will be a good option. In management – direct methods may be used to join in the heat; indirect methods will be required to seal success. These indirect methods start from establishing relationships, giving favors etc. and conclude by using them in the ‘project situations’. This kind of relationship, concluded on a mutual complementary yet professional hold, survives long and leaves behind trust elements.
“Indirect methods, efficiently applied are as inexhaustible as `Avogadro’s number`, unending as molecules in the air, they end but to start afresh like every season – it passes away but to return once again.”
There are in total 8 musical notes, yet the combinations of these notes give rise to a great resonance. There are only 7 colors constituting VIBGYOR, yet in combination they blossom unseen shades — yet the combination has produced world’s best discoveries and innovations. Thus, in management the combinations of these direct and indirect methods give rise to endless series of maneuvers. The direct and indirect lead to each other in turn till the task is accomplished. The possibilities of their combinations are inexhaustible in context to the success of the task. It preaches the phenomenon of “At least one door is open all the times”.
Simulated confusion postulates perfect concepts, simulated fear of being unable to complete a task postulates courage to take it on and simulated need/requirement postulates relationships.
Hiding a concept beneath the mask of confusion is simply a question of subdivision; theories increase in entropy and masking relationships with need is to be effected by tactical characters. The efficient manager looks to the effect of combined energy and does not demand too much from individuals. He takes every individual in account and uses each individual according to his abilities without the need of unnecessary pressures. He does not demand perfection from the untalented, rather gears him up. He understands the importance of keeping ‘DORKS’ in the team and use them as baits for indirect situations. He must not lose anybody. When he utilizes the mix of these combined energies, his team becomes as it were a river flowing down the mountains.
It reminds me of using Newton’s First Law for managing a Team:
Your team will continue to remain in the state of not producing results or state of producing not so impactful outcomes, unless acted upon by a motivating maneuvering force. For it, is the Nature.
Thus the power of the energy developed by a good fighter team is as the “p=mv” (momentum) of a flowing river through the mountains. So much on the subject of energy – “VIM”…
Name: Sumit Sahdev
Email:
Bio: Sumit is Associate Manager-Products & Solutions at Newgen Software. He has over 5 years of experience in consultancy and driving achievements of delivering projects related to Banking and Financial Services vertical with expertise in Retail & Corporate banking, Derivatives and CRM domains.
Creating software from business requirements or walking on the water is very easy if both are frozen. No doubt one of the major challenges software companies face is to manage change during the coding phase. A good number of linear and iterative software development model concepts are available in the market. Even though these orthodox Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) models have good success rates of providing satisfactory software solutions, most of them fail to provide the solution in time.
More often than not, this happens because of the unforeseen changes or the new requirements which were not included in the requirement documents. Also, this kind of change requests make the entire project susceptible to potential risks as the partially built software may decline the newly suggested changes which are technically infeasible.
Unlike any other software, a BPM software solution always expects to have a lot of change requests during the coding phase. In fact, it will not be an exaggeration to say that the change requests during the implementation phase, best capture all the non-functional requirements for any BPM solution. A BPM solution never works in silos and on the contrary it gets all the individual business systems together on a single platform so that they can work collaboratively. Extensive integrations, rich GUI, user-friendly look and feel, adherence to branding guidelines on the screen (fonts, logos etc.) are some of the requirements which usually come up during the implementation phase. Now this is a challenge for all the BPM vendors and implementers to welcome all those changes and incorporate them in the solution without extending the project delivery time.
All the top notch BPM tools, available in the market are already over saturated with functionalities and features.
So, the discriminating factor between any two leading BPM vendors is not the BPM tool kit any more but their capability to implement the BPM solution in lesser time by addressing all the last minute changes.
All the BPM vendors use their own techniques and procedures for implementation. Newgen Software is not an exception. We have started using the Prototyping model for the BPM solution development which is by the way the most praised and the least followed method across the globe. Prototyping is highly praised because it ensures faster project delivery than any other methods and is least followed because it demands incorporating the continuously evolving solution requirements while developing the solution. The solution developed with available requirements is shown to the client for feedback. The client usually gets an early idea of how the solution will look like in real. Client feedback forms the basis for the requirements for the second version of the solution. After a number of iterations between the client and the development team, the solution becomes ready to be deployed. However, the process is not as easy as it sounds. It requires extensive domain knowledge of developing same kind of business solutions which bring the efforts to perfection in quick time.
Newgen has its ingenious methods and approaches for the prototyping model. Very recently, we have used this technique successfully for a leading European bank. We have fully automated 7 processes in 18 months and the solution has been deployed across 3 countries with 3 separate document management system implementation. So, the Newgen’s Prototyping model speaks for itself. Below is a generic overview of the model:
By using the Prototyping model, allows Newgen to design and release the 1st level of BPM solution without doing any custom coding. The entire deployment is completed in 3 levels.
Level 1- In the first level, the processes are designed as per the Function Specification Diagram (FSD) prepared for the project. Designing process does not include any kind of coding and is built upon the core functionality available within the product. Level -1 includes the following tasks:
First level usually takes 2 weeks time to implement the solution.
Level 2- In the second level, the validation check is provided. Level -2 includes the following tasks:
The 2nd level usually takes 2-4 weeks of time
Level 3- In the last level, all the integrations with external business systems are done. Depending upon the complexity, the last level takes 3-5 weeks of time.
The level-1 implementation is done by using the extensive domain knowledge that Newgen has on different verticals like Banking, Insurances, Financial Institutions, BPOs, SSCs, Telecom, and Government with the wide range of features available in the BPM suite. So, as soon as the level-1 implementation is over, it can be moved to the production site and the client can start using the BPM solution instantly. That happened with the European bank. The users’ feedback on the level-1 system was used to make improvements for the 2nd level. This innovative implementation approach results into the following benefits:
Bio: Sandipan Chakraborty is part of the Marketing Team at Newgen.
Today is November 18, 2011. I am there in Mauritius meeting partners and potential customers of Newgen. Mauritius with a population of 1.2 million people, is a 80 million US Dollar market growing at less then 9% per annum from IT perspective. Next year around 18 million USD will be spent by the government on IT. Around 70% of the IT buying in the country is for buying of hardware.
With 52% of the population as Hindu Population having their roots in India, there are lots of them who speak Hindi. French seems to be more popular then English in the day to day interaction of the people. French newspapers are more commonly found. Even though it is a popular tourist destination, I some how did not get much impressed by that. People are soft spoken, have driving sense, start their day early. Most offices start by 8 AM in the morning. The streets are deserted by 6 PM. You need to know the joints to go or else it might be quite a boring place to be around.
What impressed me the most was a beer bar in Port Louis where more then 100 types of beer were available. Most of them imported from different parts of the world. Our Kingfisher was also there in the list. More then 30 types of tea were served. The collection was simply too good.
Bagatelle is the new joint coming up in Mauritius. You have a shopping mall, a wonderful eating joint with all kinds of food available in different restaurants which have come up in that area. Indian food is also available along with the Thai, Chinese and Italian Pizza’s of the world. More development is happening. The Hindi songs and the compering in Hindi on FM can make you forget at times that you are in a foreign land. So if you ever come to Mauritius do not forget to negotiate the rate with the taxi driver, every time you hop in.
The Eurozone slowdown is effecting the country. Mauritius is dependent on export revenue from Europe. They also make lot of money from tourists. The inflow of tourists from Europe has reduced due to the slowdown and all this is effecting the country. By the way nine government offices do have successful installation of OmniDocs and OmniScan.
Bio: Manojit Majumdar is Vice President Channel Sales at Newgen Software Technologies Limited. Has spent 25 years in IT industry. Was working as Country Manager - Small Deals - Software in IBM, before joining Newgen. In his first stint in Newgen in the year 1999-2000 he was operating out of East Coast , USA.
To select between Microfilming and Digitization is a tough call and holding the decision for too long certainly impacts business motives. Although there are different views for both technologies, here I will try to highlight the differences between the scope of the two technologies, to enable you to understand these technologies better and select the appropriate one.
Definitions:
Microfilming: A film on which materials are photographed at greatly reduced size; useful for storage; a magnification system is used to read the material.
Digitization: The process for translating photographs/documents into a digital form that can be recognized by a computer.
As there is a huge difference between the costs incurred and the process adopted for each of the two technologies, explaining each one separately will result in huge documentation, so I will limit this post to the decision making points for selection of appropriate technology as mentioned below:
(a) The first and foremost step is to find out the retention schedule of the document
(b) Second is to find how frequently these documents would need to be accessed
Answers to the above mentioned points and below mentioned guidelines will help you decide the appropriate technology to go for.
Technology Selection Criteria:
(a) If retention is permanent and access is frequent then we suggest Microfilm and Digitization both. As Microfilming will help to archive the document permanently, and damage due to frequent access of the microfilms rolls can be avoided by digitization.
(b) If Retention is permanent and access is rare then we suggest Microfilming as it is a one time process. (this case is rare)
(c) If retention is temporary and access is frequent then Digitization
(d) If retention is temporary and access is rare then Digitization
In today’s scenario many of us may always recommend Digitization and may challenge Microfilming because of following justification:
(1) Cost of microfilming is always higher than scanning as scanners are available for as low as $50 and scanning cost is almost nil, whereas microfilm scanner is much costlier than document scanner, the cost of rolls and processing also adds up to the total cost for every document microfilmed.
(2) Even if documents are classified as Permanent and there is no access, then also we can scan and store it on offline media just like microfilm rolls.
(3) There are formats available such as PDF/A which take care of long term archival and migration of scanned images.
(4) At any time scanned images can be converted to Microfilm easily by Microfilm writer if required.
I also believe that the above mentioned points are valid but the only challenge is the life of media used for digitization which is constantly changing- like today how many of us have floppy drives and zip drives in our PC? Moreover specific software is also required for viewing these images, whereas microfilms are eye readable and can be magnified using light source & lens and the LE rating of microfilm is 500 years.
In spite of the technical challenge mentioned above, I prefer digitization over microfilming, as now a days storage media are cheap (w.r.t number of images it can save), and transferring data from one media to another is also not a challenge. We should also understand that in today’s fast moving business scenario, access of digitized document is more important than simply archiving it. As the information which is not easily accessible is of no use.
Name: Hemant
Web Site: http://www.newgensoft.com
Bio: Hemant is Senior Manager - Processing Services with Newgen Software Technologies Limited
Transformation in Financial Institutions such as Banks is a big topic to cover. The situation gets even more complex when we are talking about a diverse territory as EMEA. Diverse in culture, thinking, mindset, color, languages, Sio-economic background etc.
Banks in the region, today are faced with one common challenge- How to reduce Costs of Operations. This can only be achieved by transforming the way these entities function and strive to achieve operational excellence.
This solution is Easier Said than Done…
At a recent banking summit, it was interesting to note that global banks are focusing eastwards to draw business and this is where they are faced with the challenges of Operational excellence. Some of the banks in some of these countries may not have even their Standard Operating Procedures defined, leave alone the automation. Challenges such as “ Loan being approved from one branch of a bank, even though it was rejected by another branch of the same bank” are not unheard of.
To address these issues, banks are focusing on having a global strategy towards transformation and localizing it to meet the end objective of Operation Excellence.
What would ultimately drive the real transformation in banks is their willingness to adopt a continuous improvement cycle approach, rather than the big bang approach. The Mantra that is likely to work is “ Achieving Business results in One Business Quarter” and embarking on a continuous improvement cycle.
Newgen to feature as a Bronze Sponsor in The Financial COO Event of the Year OPEX 2011 to be held from 21st and 22nd November 2011 in Dubai, UAE
Ever since its inception in 2005, OPEX formerly addressed as Achieving Operational Excellence in Banking and Financial Services has successfullypositioned itself as a premier event dedicated to operational excellence in the region’s financial sector. OPEX 2011 brings CEOs and COOs to highlight the importance of continuous improvement in every day operations to sustain business growth.
With series of successful operational excellence events, Fleming Gulf Conferences is back with the SEVENTH Edition of the annually successfulconference on achieving operational excellence in banking and finance in the name of “OPEX 2011 – The Financial COO Event ofthe Year”. OPEX is a platform where COOs, CIOs and CEOs will determine the importance of operational excellence across all banking processes.
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