The annual 11.11 sale is back on Lazada. This year the sale will include hundreds of exclusive brands with up to 70 million items. Sounds really tempting right? Bet you can’t wait for the big 11.11 sale to happen. Lazada is promising some of the lowest prices ever in Malaysia this 11 November 2020.
“Following LazMall’s upgrade in September, we are excited that hundreds of international and local brands have chosen Lazada as their exclusive e-commerce partner this 11.11, offering amazing discounts across a variety of categories and products to satisfy a wide spectrum of our consumers’ wants and desires. This signifies a growing trust in our platform, and we are excited that we can bring some of the lowest price deals, ‘guaranteed’ this year, backed by our 11 times money-back guarantee. This year, especially during this challenging period, we want to ensure that we help our shoppers maximise their ringgit and get the best value for their money,”
Leo Chow, CEO of Lazada Malaysia
Customers can have the ultimate shopping experience on Lazada as the LazMall provides a variety of brands and products at a claimed unbeatably low price. LazMall brings together some of their largest partners such as OPPO, Lancome, Samsung, Dyson and more are prepared to give shoppers an unforgettable 11.11 experience with some of the lowest deals yet. For those looking for deals on tech, Lazada and their partners are gearing up to offer up to 50% discount on items such as Huawei Mate 30 8GB RAM + 128 ROM smartphone, Edifier X3 True Wireless Stereo Earphone, SUUNTO 9 Baro Copper, Asus 23 Eye Care Gaming Monitor! The deals aren’t ending there – there will be more offers across a large spectrum of categories available.
You don’t even have to wait that long to get your orders as Lazada is offerings a guaranteed 24 hours delivery for the first 50 thousand customers. This is made possible by Lazada’s data-driven logistics team running on Alibaba’s backbone which has helped ensure 50% more efficiency for the delivery time nationwide and particularly in the Klang Valley.
In an effort to keep shopping entertaining, Lazada is continuing their “Shoppertainment” programs filled with special surprises for shoppers. Shoppers will be able to be entertained while getting the best deals with The Lazada 11.11 Super Show and Lazada’s CDO Show. If that’s not enough, there will be multiple other activities in the app such as the Lazada Heartbeat Wallet Contest and LazGames while users can also get even more rebates and rewards with LazCoins.
Lazada is also launching an initiative for CSR programs with one of their brand partners, Colgate-Palmolive, to send smiles and support to those in need via The Lost Food Project. Upon payment, consumers will receive a special thank you note from Colgate, along with a Lazada voucher that can be used for their next purchase on the platform.
When it comes to DSLRs and cameras one of the first names that you’d think of is Nikon. The company has become a staple name in the industry and there is nothing more iconic than their “I AM” campaign when it comes to photography and cameras. However, it seems like all good things must come to an end.
In a statement posted to their Facebook page, Nikon Malaysia revealed the sad announcement that the company has decided to cease its operations. Effective 1 January 2021, Nikon will no longer have an official presence in Malaysia with 31 December, 2020 being the last day of operations. Moving forward, their sales, marketing and after sales services will be handled by appointed third parties.
Official Statement on Nikon Malaysia’s Facebook
Their appointed third parties are: Futuromic Photo AV Sdn Bhd and QES (Asia-Pacific) Sdn Bhd. These companies will now take over the distribution and sales of Nikon branded cameras in the country. Operations for the company will continue as usual in the transition phase with the final day set on 31 December, 2020.
Huawei’s status as the world’s largest smartphone maker might be jeopardy soon, as the company scrambles to get key parts for its popular phones. Issues began slightly over two years ago with the U.S. trade ban which prevented Huawei from trading with U.S. companies. More recently, the trade ban was expanded to include every company in the supply chain. This led to further complications as it meant that not only couldn’t Huawei get access to Google services for it’s Android based smartphones, it couldn’t trade with any company including chip-makers Qualcomm and Broadcom and even non-U.S. companies intending to trade in the country.
However, things are taking a turn as Samsung Display has received a license from the U.S. government to supply its panels to Huawei Technologies. The company is the first company outside the U.S. known to have been given a license to trade with Huawei.
While the news is definitely a turn of events in Huawei’s favour, it could be the least of the company’s concerns as it has still able to source displays from BOE, a new Chinese display manufacturer. That said, Samsung Display is definitely a welcomed supplier as the company is one of the largest manufacturers is renown for its display quality.
Unfortunately, Huawei’s outlook is still bleak as the company is running low on supply for its Kirin SoCs. The U.S. ban is still affecting the company’s supply chain when it comes to working with fabricators which are able to collaborate and create their chips.
Online learning has become the modus operandi for a majority of learning institutions amidst the current pandemic. However, the method of learning isn’t new. Companies such as Coursera have been pushing the boundaries of online learning as early as 2012. The company has established partnerships with leading universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the U.S. and even the National University of Singapore (NUS) closer to home. They even work with companies such as Google to develop up-to-date, industry relevant courses.
To help deal with the current educational climate, Coursera has been working closely with education institutions including Malaysian ones such as BAC Education Group who owns BAC College and IACT College. One of the many efforts that they have been undertaking is their ‘Coursera for Campus’ program which allows access to students from partner institutions. In light of the pandemic and the unfamiliar education circumstances, the company is introducing free access to students from partner institutions. The announcement comes as an extension of their global Campus Response Initiative announced in March.
The new Coursera for Campus will be offered in three Plans: Student, Basic and Institution. The first is catered to students offering unlimited access to guided projects for hands-on learning and one course on a yearly basis. The basic plan provides institutions with 20,000 free student licenses (student plan) while the Institution plan provides unlimited access to both guided projects and course enrollments. It also provides universities the capability to manage for-credit online learning programs.
Source: Coursera / Guided Projects
In addition to access to over 4,200 ready-made online courses, Coursera is also enabling faculties to build custom courses and assessments using its platform. The platform utilizes things like bite-sized videos, in-browser assignments and guided projects. It is also able to support online learning experiences when it comes to high stakes exams with online proctoring and also assignments with plagiarism prevention measures. It’s also optimised for low data consumption and offline learning.
This is the golden age of machine learning (ML). Once considered peripheral, ML technology is becoming a core part of businesses around the world, regardless of the industry. By 2021, the International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that spending on artificial intelligence (AI) and other cognitive technologies will exceed $50 billion.
Locally, 25% of organizations say they are setting aside at least 10% of their budget for technology, which includes investments in big data analytics (64%), cloud computing (57%), Machine Learning and artificial intelligence (33%), and robotic process automation (27%), based on the Malaysian Institute of Accountants’ “MIA-ACCA Business Outlook Report 2020″. [1] As more companies gain awareness of the importance of ML, they should work towards getting it in motion as quickly and effectively as possible.
At Amazon, we have been on our own ML journey for more than two decades – applying it to areas like personalization, supply chain management, and forecasting systems for our fulfillment process. Today, there is not a single business function at Amazon that is not made better through machine learning.
Whether your company is just getting started or in the middle of your first implementation, here are the four steps you should take to have a successful machine learning journey.
Get Your Data in Order
When it comes to adopting machine learning, data is often cited as the number one challenge. We found that more than 50% of time spent in building ML models can be spent in data wrangling, data cleanup, and pre-processing stages. Therefore, prioritize investing in the establishment of a strong data strategy to avoid spending excessive time and resources on data cleanup and management.
When starting out, the three most important questions to ask are:
What data is available today?
What data can be made available?
A year from now, what data will we wish we had started collecting today?
In order to determine what data is available today, you will need to overcome data hugging – the tendency for teams to gatekeep data they work with most closely. Breaking down silos between teams for a more expansive view of the data landscape while still maintaining data governance is crucial for long-term success.
Additionally, identify what data actually matters as part of your machine learning approach. Think about best ways to store data and invest early in the data processing tools for de-identification and/or anonymization, if needed.
Identify the Right Business Problems
When evaluating what and how to apply ML, focus on assessing the problem across three dimensions: data readiness, business impact, and machine learning applicability.
Balancing speed with business value is key. Instead of trying to embark on a three-year ML project, focus on a handful of critical business use cases that could be solved in the upcoming six to 10 months. Start by identifying places where you already have a lot of untapped data and evaluate if machine learning brings benefits. Avoid picking a problem that is flashy but has unclear business value, as it will end up becoming a one-off experiment.
Champion a Culture of Machine Learning
In order to scale, you need to champion a culture of machine learning. At its core, ML is experimentation. Therefore, it is imperative that your organization embrace failures and take a long-term view of what is possible.
Businesses also need to combine a blend of technical and domain experts to work backward from the customer problem. Assembling the right group of people also helps eliminate the cultural barrier to adoption with a quicker buy-in from the business.
Similarly, leaders should constantly find ways to simplify the process of ML adoption for their developers. Since building ML infrastructures at scale is a time and labor-intensive process, leaders should encourage their teams to use tools that cover the entire ML workflow to build, train, and deploy these models efficiently.
For instance, 123RF, a homegrown stock photography portal, aims to make design smarter, faster, and easier for users. To do so, it relies on Amazon Athena, Amazon Kinesis, and AWS Lambda for data pipeline processing. Its newer products like Designs.ai Videomaker uses Amazon Polly to create voice-overs in more than 10 different languages. With AWS, 123RF has maintained flexibility in scaling its infrastructure and shortened product development cycles and is looking to incorporate other services to support its machine learning & AI research.
Develop Your Team
Developing your team is essential to foster a successful machine learning culture. Rather than spending resources to recruit new talent in a competitive market, hone in on developing your company’s internal talent through robust training programs.
Years ago, Amazon created an in-house Machine Learning University (MLU) to help its own developers sharpen their ML skills or equip neophytes with tools to get started. We made the same machine learning courses available to all developers through AWS’s Training and Certification offering.
DBS Bank, a Singaporean multinational bank, employed a different approach. It is collaborating with AWS to train its employees to program their own ML-powered AWS DeepRacer autonomous 1/18th scale car, and race among themselves at the DBS x AWS DeepRacer League. Through this initiative, it aims to train at least 3,000 employees to be conversant in AI and ML by year end.
[1] MIA (Malaysian Institute of Accountants) and ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), Business Outlook Report 2020, 2020
Malaysia’s largest pay TV operator, Astro Malaysia Holdings, is looking to start a streaming service to take on deep-pocketed, international rivals such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. According to a report by Nikkei Asia, Astro is planning to launch a new streaming service sometime in 2021. The service will mainly focus on the original content made by the pay-TV company. This includes their numerous productions spanning multiple genres such as movies, series, and variety shows. Naturally, the main audience Astro is looking at for now, is the Malaysian audience.
Source: Astro Malaysia
Astro’s ability to subsidize local content production and its understanding of the market gives it and added advantage over global competitors. The report by Nikkei also pointed out that Astro is relying on its knowledge on the Malaysian market as well as its extensive customer, marketing, and sales reach in order to attract other content providers. Astro will be a natural partner to welcome any companies that are seeking to enter the Malaysia market . Astro has so far partnered with HBO GO and China’s iQIYI which aligns with Astro’s efforts to position itself as a “super aggregator” of digital content.
As it enters the Streaming (known in the industry as over the top (OTT)) it will be looking at catering to different groups which have emerged. This can be seen from the pricing strategies adopted by its competition which caters to unique groups with different psychologies. However, it seems that one thing that may take anyone by surprise, the pay TV operator isn’t going to banking on its brand for the streaming service opting to go with a completely new brand.
VMWorld is happening now and coincidently, NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference is also happening. Both are happening online, obviously with the current pandemic situation. In NVIDIA’s most recent keynote, they made an announcement to tell the world that they have just formed a partnership with VMWare to enhance their virtualisation capabilities via NVIDIA’s new GPU based computing solutions.
Today’s start of the show though is not NVIDIA, although they have made some very interesting announcements and progress. Today sees VMWare embracing Kubernetes as a big part of their business. Today is the day of Tanzu.
Kubernetes
Source: Kubernetes
What is Kubernetes? First of all, no; this is not the first time we look into the technology. Secondly, the technology is nothing new, Google has been playing with Kubernetes for the longest time, and other solutions providers have hopped on to the technology for years now.
Kubernetes, in the words of Red Hat, is a container orchestration platform. The keyword, that I missed out on purpose, is Open Source. That also means that anyone has access to it, improve on it, and improvise it for their own use. It is a technology developed by Google engineers for Google’s own use at one point, but because Google is Google, they made it an open source platform.
In simpler words, Kubernetes group processes and application databases into cubes (or containers). These cubes can be called upon whenever an application requires a certain data or run certain processes. That also means that you do not need to necessarily store your application database with your application. It can be kept and shifted around anywhere, even on cloud. It is even clever enough to stack and unstack itself depending on requirements and loads on your hardware. If something fails, you do not lose all your data, because containers. This is the magic of Kubernetes, and it could benefit plenty of enterprises.
The VMware Tanzu
Source: VMware
This is where VMware’s Tanzu comes in. The Tanzu portfolio is not exactly a pure Kubernetes workflow platform. It runs microservices, other sort of containers and Kubernetes as well. To put it plainly, it is an application breakdown tool. It breaks down a large application or database into smaller containers, run them as microservices or work with them as Kubernetes containers, and you get a service that is accessible not only in your office, but at the café down the road as well.
Yes, it sounds generally like what other container type application and tool does. Because it is exactly that but made native to VMWare’s tools. Tools like this allow companies to add capabilities to their applications and processes while keeping them running in tip top conditions. They call this DevOps.
The whole idea of running Tanzu on the VMware platform is to quickly deploy your applications on cloud. Because it is VMware as well, Tanzu is specifically built on Kubernetes to enhance their virtualisation solutions like vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation. That also means that Tanzu is a cloud solution more than anything. It is also technically a Kubernetes management tool to simplify Kubernetes for users. So, it helps you, as VMware’s clients (if you are, when you are, whichever it may be) get started with Kubernetes nearly on the get go.
They may be a little late to the game of deploying Kubernetes and even fully harnessing the power of Kubernetes. They are also not going to be the last adopters of Kubernetes. In some sense too, they are simplifying Kubernetes by a factor of 10 for their customers.
Source: IT Hollow
In this case as well, customers might already have their own Kubernetes and container management tools in their workflow at this point. VMware says that customers still can benefit from Tanzu even if they have a Kubernetes workflow already. According to VMware, Tanzu does not just stop at Kubernetes. It is a suite of tools designed to ease workloads and centralise management efforts for customers. In that sense, integrating Tanzu into an existing Kubernetes workload and process is just a matter of matching what is required via Tanzu’s Mission Control platform.
Why Tanzu and Kubernetes?
Here is the thing though, how does this change our lives? How does VMware with Kubernetes power change our lives? After all, we are all just end-users.
If you work in a corporate environment, at this time of Pandemic, you would most likely be spending more time working remotely more than anything else. Imagine yourself, multiplied by more than a few hundred. There are hundreds, or even thousands of you and your colleagues trying to access your company’s intranet systems. You and your colleagues are going to be accessing the company’s systems to simply key in new data, or pull a previous data, or even share some work information with your colleagues 20KM away.
Imagine if you need to access the whole chunk of applications to do any of that. Imagine if all your colleagues need to access a single application server for all their minor processes too. That could slow down your entire workflow. Kubernetes and container platforms help spread that workload to ease load on a single server and ensure that everyone gets to do what they need to do without overloading your PC and the cloud platform.
Essentially, this is also kind of how your smartphone app works. Your smartphone apps access what you ask it to access when you need it. That way, it saves plenty of storage space in your smartphone, and ensure that millions of others can also access the app and its services when there is demand.
So, why is Tanzu important? It allows your company to do exactly whatever that we have just explained and described. Except that your organisation’s IT department can do it faster, from a single management platform instead of accessing a completely different system. With vSphere, the management can be done across multiple server sites too, thanks to VMware’s know how in machine virtualisation. All this, just so that you will not notice any difference when you work from home, and in the office.
To know more about VMware, their services and solutions, and Tanzu, you can head over to their website.
COVID-19 poses a unique challenge to businesses, forcing them to adopt practices which many only saw further down the road when it came to their digitization plans. In fact, we’ve seen the effects of the pandemic on many businesses who have failed to adapt or adopt plans to build in resilience in these unprecedented times. That said, the big question remains, “How can businesses be more resilient with the COVID-19 reality?”.
There are many factors that lend itself to a business’s resilience but one of the biggest factors is the company’s progress in their plans for digitization. Conor McNamara, Managing Director of ASEAN at Amazon Web Services (AWS), highlights that a company’s progress towards digitization, particularly in their adoption of cloud technologies, has been one of the determining factors of resilience during these times. He has also highlighted that the transition to the cloud isn’t simply a technological one, it’s a multifaceted one that builds in capacity, increases agility, changes mindsets, and transforms the culture of an organisation.
Thriving Businesses Have Used COVID-19 as an Impetus for Digitization
No one can deny it. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way that companies and businesses need to operate. Research has shown that the new realities of the pandemic have led to an increase in demand for resources such as the internet. This is inevitably spurred by the increased adoption of work from home policies necessitated by lockdowns the world over – a clear indication that our business realities have changed. This is corroborated by AWS, which reported an increased uptake of services such as Amazon Chime, their web-conferencing platform, Amazon Workspaces and other productivity related services.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of digital transformation across all industries. So far indications are that organizations, including those in ASEAN, have already adopted DX plans and/or accelerated their transformation plans have been known to have coped better with the crisis.”
Daphne Chung, Research Director, IDC Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) cloud services, and software research group
That said, digitization doesn’t happen overnight. Companies have to create an environment that allows and empowers staff and decision makers to adopt technologies such as AWS. The adoption of public and private cloud technologies have allowed many AWS customers to adapt to the new realities more seamlessly. In fact, Globe Telecom was able to spin up virtual call centers with Amazon Connect which allowed them to adapt to the new realities with ease and even increase staff productivity since the pandemic hit. What’s more, the company was able to affect this transition in 24 hours. Of course, the reality is that not many companies will be able to do this.
“Many businesses and organizations have now understood the importance of the cloud and are committed more than ever to get their business on the cloud. At AWS, we keep many organizations functioning, and allow them to adapt when a crisis such as the pandemic occurs.”
Conor McNamara, Managing Director of ASEAN at Amazon Web Services
The new realities of the pandemic have allowed companies to expedite their plans for digitization and cloud adoption. Those who have been successful in taking advantage of the new realities as an impetus for plans already in the pipeline are the ones who have most demonstrated the most resilience with the current situation.
It’s always been said that digitization is a journey. Yet, we never think to ask who would be the best to guide and determine the course the company takes. Conor McNamara stresses that the business resilience of any given orgranisation is very dependent on the company’s executives. Decisions and policies made by CXOs are what will enable companies to maximize the opportunity that COVID-19 has presented to accelerate a company’s digital trajectory.
It’s pretty simple; when the decision to adopt cloud technologies and further advance the company’s digital journey comes from the level of CXOs, it naturally sets off a cascade which will allow companies to think differently. The CEO’s acceptance that the future of business is in the cloud sets off a cascade of events that start with the search for and upskilling of staff to meet the new needs of the business. The demand for skills that enable the company to be competitive and prepared for further advancements in their journey. It also creates a new mindset mired in the need to be agile and proactive to meet customer needs.
IDC sees an opportunity to manage the downturn better by using technology to minimize the impact of the current crisis and emerge on the other side of the curve resilient, more digitally fit and agile, and ultimately, better equipped to capture their share of the new opportunities as part of the “next normal”.
Daphne Chung, Research Director, IDC Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) cloud services, and software research group
This impetus prepares businesses to handle situations like the current pandemic. The skills, demands and needs of businesses literally changed overnight as countries began to lockdown. Brick and mortar businesses were forced to consider adopting digital and cloud technologies to keep their businesses viable. Businesses which were already making the shift to cloud and digital technologies with CXO driven policies have so far been the most resilient and adaptable.
In fact, the current realities have been used as an opportunity to upskill workforces. AWS shares that since the beginning of the lockdowns, there has been a sharp uptick in the demand for certification courses and trainings in their AWS Education platform.
It’s a People Related Change
Perhaps the most important quote we can share from Conor McNamara is this: “[Digital Transformation] is a People related change”. He said this while he was explaining some of the new realities AWS’s customers have been facing – and when it comes to it, it seems like the statement rings true in every aspect of a business’ digital transformation; every step of the way involves dealing with people.
The digital transformation journey is one that involves a major cultural change. A change that shifts the mindset of preparedness to deal with any given situation. Creating a culture of work which prepares staff for ambiguity and change. In some cases, these businesses have made failure a norm. They adopt providers such as AWS to minimise the cost of failure and continue to innovate. This is one of the hallmarks of a business which has been able to deal with the realities of the pandemic. These companies are ready or have already adopted cloud and are prepared for the new work from home norm; it wouldn’t be too farfetched to say that they may be the ones best prepared for the next norm post COVID.
Adopting cloud and shifting to digital usually has the connotation of being cold and impersonal. However, one take away from businesses that are showing resilience is that it couldn’t be further from the truth. These businesses have shifted their focus to their clients and customers building solutions catered to their needs. Perhaps more importantly, their digital transformation and shift to the cloud has made them more cognizant to the needs of their clients and customers.
Business Resilience is Built from the Top Down and Empowered by the right technologies
Essentially, business resilience is built from the top down with policies spearheaded by CXOs and CEOs that drive a cultural change in the company; one which prepares them for sudden and constant change, allowing businesses to be agile and adaptable. That said, these changes are empowered by companies such as AWS who provide the cost optimizations and technologies that allow this shift to happen. This has been tried and tested with the harsh realities of the pandemic.
‘Samsung AI Forum 2020’ Explores the Future of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)! This is an interesting forum that highlights the future of AI and a platform to exchange ideas, researches and insights . It will be held via its Youtube channel for two days from the 2nd November 2020 to 3rd November 2020. The most exciting part is that the forum gathers industry experts from various industries in a discussion on the future of A.I.
As you know, Samsung is one of the largest technology company in the world and delivers the world with transformative ideas. They make some of the best selling and highly acclaimed electronics in the world too. Samsung technically makes nearly all sort of electronics; including televisions, smartphones, tablets, digital appliances, network systems, LED solutions, memory, and even network systems.
The forum on the first day of the conference, on the 2nd of November, will be hosted by Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT). Dr. Kinam Kim, Vice Chairman and CEO of Device solutions at Samsung Electronics will deliver opening remarks in the forum. There will be no shortage of presentations by the world’s most renowned A.I. Experts on “AI Technologies for Changes in the Real World.”
Many of the professionals will have sharing sessions on day 1 especially the winner of the 2018 Turing Award (it is like the “Nobel Price” in computing), Professor Yoshua Bengio will be co-chairing for the forum in this event. On the first day of the event, the “researcher of the year” award will be presented to the winner as well as a US$ 30,000 prize.
Day 2, themed “Human-Centered AI”, will see Dr. Sebastian Seung the president and head of Samsung Research engage with A.I. experts to deliver a speech and share their different insights. Professor Christopher Manning, a conspicuous expert will also deliver the current status and future of Natural Language Processing (NLP) that required for Human-Centered AI. He has been working with Samsung on Q&A and dialogue modelling on the overall of NLP technologies development.
Samsung’s AI forum, as mentioned earlier, will be held on the 2nd November 2020 onward. It will be held exclusively on their YouTube page, which also means that it will be absolutely free to watch and ‘attend. You might want to register and look for more information on the Forum in their website too.
In this COVID-19 global pandemic era, there is not a single CFO out there who isn’t scrutinizing their company’s spend. It has been very challenging for Malaysian businesses as well – with a weakening economy, supply chain disruptions, knock-on effects from troubled sectors and loss of jobs.
Fortunately, data’s role has exploded in the business world and is favourably impacting the situation. To properly assess a company’s financial position, a CFO needs to be able to effectively access data. The key is to take a large amount of information and narrow it down to action items. Effectively harnessing important data can be an issue.
IT has evolved from being a background cost centre generating reports used to close the books, to a place where data is housed, manipulated and made available, which is key to running a successful business. IT is no longer in the background, carrying out mundane operations; it is capturing vital data and is now a strategic voice in running a business. When a CFO can effectively capture and analyse data, he or she can improve specific strategic areas. As a result, there is an increasing collaboration between CFOs and CIOs as IT formats data and provides insight into what might be most helpful to Finance.
The COVID-19 Challenges
While financial scrutiny is applicable to all areas, IT is different because most CFOs do not know all the specific technological nuances for his or her company. As the pandemic forces businesses to deal with unprecedented financial challenges and pressures, the CIO needs to help provide perspective to the CFO for necessary actions and what items might be able to be temporarily suspended without harming the business.
Buying IT equipment requires cash, and all companies are looking at actions to maximize cash flow and minimize expenses as COVID-19 impacts the global economy. Some expenditures are going to have to be delayed as cash is prioritized away from capital expenses. Most CFOs will not know what IT department costs to reduce without a collaborative conversation with the CIO.
One strategy I consistently employ with our CIO, which has been extremely helpful during this crisis, is a regularly scheduled, detailed review of all ad-hoc expenses across the company, looking for technology items that should be aggregated or are not compliant with standards. This is an area that requires CIO input and experience.
Relying on Each Other
It is very difficult for CFOs to keep up with IT. It evolves so rapidly and requires specialty knowledge; generalists are left in the dust when it comes to technological progress. A CFO can measure costs but determining capabilities and staying ahead of what is on the horizon requires a specialist, a CIO. At the same time, technology often offers glitzy, fancy new toys, and it is imperative that IT professionals stay focused on what type of capital is available, what they want to spend it on, and how their values are aligned with the business.
Communication and collaboration with our CIO to work on business cases for development projects helps validate the financials of the project. A working knowledge of the ever-changing standards in technology protects financial projections and budgets.
CFOs are focused on maintaining normal business activity without increasing expenses. Industry analyst Gartner has reported for many years that third party maintenance is less expensive than what OEMs offer. And the service is just as good if not better. If anybody came to you and demonstrated, “You’re paying $100,000 for this service; I can do it for $50,000-$60,000 and I’m going to do it better,” there’s not a CFO who wouldn’t take that deal, but it would require CIO scrutiny and knowledge.
I.T.’s Unique Contributions
In my collaborations with I.T. leaders, I have learned that I.T. is uniquely positioned to scan the entire company for technology-enabled improvements: revenue opportunities, productivity increases and cost savings. When the CIO and the CFO collaborate to find and implement these improvements, the company becomes more effective than if a siloed approach is taken on a per-department basis.
While COVID-19 is a challenge, it also presents an opportunity to identify improvements. As people are suddenly forced into working in a different model, the traditional ways of doing business can be challenged more quickly. A collaboration between the CIO and the CFO in looking at the results of the workforce being sent home may present opportunities in office utilization, software purchases, hardware deployment and other areas.
While hardware and software expenses are relatively easy to monitor and measure against the company’s metrics, the implementation of IT projects is a key collaboration area for CFOs and CIOs. Every project brought forward to IT can have cost structures that include outside purchases as well as internal labour. Projects need to bring value to the company; and the calculation of that value, perhaps in the form of ROI, requires CIO and CFO collaboration to accurately calculate the value and measure the results after the project is in place.
With our CIO, I consult with an ongoing process analysis team that looks for cost reduction opportunities that won’t impact customer satisfaction. This input is key to make sure a potential financial decision that may benefit the company does not negatively impact customer service.
The Park Place Difference
CFOs will not know that value without CIOs sharing the information. For example, CFOs and CIOs together can protect their business revenues and their business-critical IT by “sweating” their IT assets longer through value-added life-cycle support services. Maximizing payback and ROI on hardware infrastructure can yield financial benefits for the longer term.
There is a new category to look out for: Discover, Monitor, Support and Optimize (DMSO), that Park Place Technologies is uniquely positioned to deliver for its customers. It is a fully integrated approach to managing critical infrastructure that can help businesses manage data centre remotely, optimise network performance with analytics, and simplify the management of complex hybrid environments while realising cost-saving.
As businesses continue their digital transformations, they depend on data that resides on-premises, in public and private clouds, devices at the edge and networks, and operation centers that span the globe. Managing these complex environments is increasingly becoming more difficult. Exponential increases in time, labor and cost, as well as the complexity of navigating a maze of service providers to establish clear accountability and support, requires a more intelligent and flexible approach as DMSO. We are all hoping the COVID-19 era passes quickly. But the long-term necessity and benefits of CFOs and CIOs collaborating will continue well beyond the current crisis and will remain an ongoing part of any business’s evolution, strategy and long-term health
