{"id":9757,"date":"2015-12-15T10:45:47","date_gmt":"2015-12-15T16:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/?p=9757"},"modified":"2015-12-15T10:45:42","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T16:45:42","slug":"5-enterprise-technology-resolutions-for-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/5-enterprise-technology-resolutions-for-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"5 enterprise technology resolutions for 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Education\"Summary: As we approach a new year, let’s explore the topic of new year’s resolutions from a new angle. What new year’s resolutions can your business make for 2016? What common challenges can you address with technology in the coming year? In this article, we explore 5 ways you can improve your business next year.<\/em><\/span>
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photo credit: WerbeFabrik<\/a> via pixabay<\/a> cc<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

With every new year, people around the globe make new year\u2019s resolutions. Lose weight. Eat better. Read more. The list could go on.<\/p>\n

Each resolution shares a common goal: Self-improvement. They are single changes that (if kept) deliver great rewards.<\/p>\n

That got me thinking: If people can set new resolutions, why can\u2019t your business have resolutions? What changes can you make in the coming year that will deliver great rewards for your business?<\/p>\n

Now, seeing as how this blog focuses on technology, let\u2019s explore the question from that angle: In what ways can your business save money, improve productivity, or boost the bottom line with technology in 2016? <\/strong><\/p>\n

How can your business use technology in the coming year to put itself in a better position at the end of 2016?<\/p>\n

Today, let\u2019s answer that question. Here are 5 resolutions your business can make that will create big rewards in the coming year:<\/p>\n

Resolution #1: Integrate your systems<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s a challenge facing many businesses. Over time, they adopt new software packages and systems. While each one may solve a business need, they create a problem: They don\u2019t always communicate with each other.<\/p>\n

The result: Manual processes eat up your employee\u2019s time. Moving data from one system to another requires exports to Excel. The reporting process suffers, as data isn\u2019t available when needed. As such, leaders can\u2019t get a clear view of the business. <\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe challenge in 2016 is to reduce data noise and Enterprise systems complexity,\u201d says Roman Gurinovich, Director, XPANSA Group<\/span><\/a>. \u201cBusinesses lose time moving data from one app to another and switching between interfaces. We observe these struggles with most of our customers who have dozens of un-integrated applications. Some have an accounting system on Sage and a separate project management system on Atlassian. But, how can they transfer hours for salary calculations to Sage? We advise them to build an Enterprise software ecosystem around a single core. It could be software for key business operations like warehouse management or a single environment like ERP.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The benefits of integrating your systems in 2016<\/h5>\n

If you connect your disparate systems, you can:
\nEliminate manual processes:<\/strong> How much time would your employees save if they didn\u2019t have to manually extract data out of each system?
\nDeliver a real-time view of your business: <\/strong>Imagine how happy business leaders would be if they could access real-time analytics that span all of their systems–whenever they need to.\n<\/div>\n

Resolution #2: Deliver self-service BI<\/h3>\n
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photo credit: Negativespace<\/a> via pixabay<\/a> cc<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Business Intelligence (BI) and reporting processes were traditionally owned by the IT department. Users requested reports from IT…and waited. Meanwhile, the IT department got overwhelmed with end user reporting requests and customizations.<\/p>\n

Over the the past few years, we\u2019ve seen a shift in the BI process. As Gartner explains in this press release<\/span><\/a>, the balance of power in the BI world is shifting from IT to the business.<\/p>\n

The data explosion combined with its growing importance is fueling the need for self-service BI. More and more, the ability to put real-time data in the hands of end users becomes a competitive advantage.<\/p>\n

\n“Self-service BI\/big data needs to take the front seat for enterprises in 2016 in order to boost productivity,\u201d says Ulrik Pederson, CTO, TARGIT<\/span><\/a>. \u201cEnterprises need to resolve to shake the sentiment that the type of data science needed to provide powerful analysis for big data has to be slow, complex, and difficult to implement. Enterprises should look for tools that allow all users to perform comprehensive self-service exploration with big data when they need it, without major hand holding from IT.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The benefits of implementing self-service BI in 2016<\/h5>\n

If you deliver self-service BI to your users, you can:
\nSave time for your IT department:<\/strong> Imagine how much more your IT department could accomplish if they weren\u2019t stuck creating reports for end users.
\nIncrease the speed of information delivery:<\/strong> What if your business users could access necessary information, or create their own reports on the fly? How much more efficient would they become?\n<\/div>\n

Resolution #3: Create a security culture<\/h3>\n

Does it feel like data breaches are becoming more frequent? It\u2019s true. A recent IBM report finds a 12% year-to-year increase in security incidents. What\u2019s worse: These breaches lead to reputation damage, lost productivity, and lost revenue.<\/p>\n

The problem is, there\u2019s no silver bullet for security. While security software helps, there isn\u2019t one option that will protect you from every risk. <\/p>\n

How can you protect your business in the coming year? As explained below, it all starts with a culture of security.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cCreate a culture of security across the organization by making everyone a security stakeholder, and ensure training to this point is targeted, repeatable and measurable,\u201d says Mike Davis, CTO, CounterTack<\/span><\/a>. \u201cSecond, its critical to understand the delineations between nation states targeting your organization vs. commodity malware processes running. From there, understanding an organization’s threat landscape more intimately allows you to make the right decisions around detection, prevention, analysis and remediation of threats.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The benefits of creating a security culture in 2016<\/h5>\n

If you create a security culture, you can:
\nProtect your business from internal security breaches:<\/strong> Most security breaches occur as a result of employees. A security culture reduces the risk of accidental security mishaps.
\nProtect you from financial losses of fixing a data breach: <\/strong>The average cost of a data breach is now $3.8 million. This includes all aspects of a breach, like hiring experts to fix it, offering help to your customers, repairing your damaged reputation, and more.\n<\/div>\n

Resolution #4: Adapt to the multi-screen world<\/h3>\n
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photo credit: geralt<\/a> via pixabay<\/a> cc<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a business, you\u2019re probably tired of hearing about mobile apps. Over the last few years, we\u2019ve been inundated with the mobile message that businesses need mobile apps.<\/p>\n

Does your business need native mobile apps? That\u2019s for you to decide. No one knows your business needs better than you.<\/p>\n

But, do you need to adapt to the mobile world? Consider the facts: Mobile usage has exploded. The web now gets more traffic from mobile devices than from PCs. Google recently changed their algorithm to penalize sites that aren\u2019t mobile-friendly. <\/p>\n

The fact is, we no longer know how prospects or customers will access our site\/applications. Those businesses who don\u2019t provide a mobile-friendly view of their site\/applications will lose web traffic, and customers as a result.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Internet is arguably already a mobile technology,\u201d says David Mercer, Founder of SME Pals<\/span><\/a>. \u201cMore and more people are accessing it via smartphones and tablets every day. Any business that doesn\u2019t update their site’s design to be responsive is going to start losing important organic search traffic, and provide an inferior user experience to the majority of their visitors.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The benefits of adapting to the multi-screened world in 2016<\/h5>\n

If you adapt to the multi-screened world, you can:
\nImprove employee productivity:<\/strong> Delivering mobile-friendly versions of business applications improves data access and employee productivity. For instance, salespeople can access order information while on the road. Executives can pull up reports and budget data from anywhere.
\nGain access to all of your reachable market:<\/strong> Over 50% of web traffic now occurs on mobile devices. Ignoring this reality is ignoring over half of your reachable market.\n<\/div>\n

Resolution #5: Position your business for big data<\/h3>\n

While big data has certainly generated buzz in the last few years, very few companies actually generate terabytes of data. They don\u2019t have need for Hadoop or \u2018big data\u2019 processing.<\/p>\n

Or do they?<\/p>\n

As it turns out, businesses generate (or have access to) more data than they realize. They\u2019re sitting on a gold mine of information that they never use.<\/p>\n

The fact is, businesses of all sizes can capitalize on Big Data<\/span><\/a>. The first step: Begin capturing this data.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAnyone can benefit from big data if they know where to find it,\u201d explains Tyler Wassell, Software Development Manager at mrc<\/span><\/a>. \u201cThe first step is setting up the framework to store this data. Once you begin capturing this data, the possibilities are endless. You can compare publicly available data against your business data and uncover new insights. Or, you can pull new ideas out of \u201cunusable\u201d data. For instance, when we put our server log files in Hadoop and created analytical applications over that data, we gained a lot of valuable information. It now helps me understand where my development efforts are best spent.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Business benefits of positioning your business for big data<\/h5>\n

If you position your business for big data, you can:
\nUncover new insights:<\/strong> As you begin capturing more and more data, you\u2019ll find trends and insights hidden in that data that you never imagined were there.
\nGain a competitive edge:<\/strong> In this data-driven world, your ability to analyze new data will improve your decision-making–giving your business a competitive edge.\n<\/div>\n

Summary<\/h3>\n

Now, these are just a few resolutions that can benefit your business in the coming year, but the list could go on. If you would like to add anything to this list, I\u2019d love to hear it. Feel free to share in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: As we approach a new year, let’s explore the topic of new year’s resolutions from a new angle. What new year’s resolutions can your business make for 2016? What common challenges can you address with technology in the coming year? In this article, we explore 5 ways you can improve your business next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","slim_seo":{"title":"5 enterprise technology resolutions for 2016 - mrc's Cup of Joe Blog","description":"Summary: As we approach a new year, let's explore the topic of new year's resolutions from a new angle. What new year's resolutions can your business make for 2"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9757"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9771,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9757\/revisions\/9771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}